the characters from CSI would I waste my time writing fan fictions (George
Eads. Drool.)! Second of all if I owned CSI, Grissom would have gotten his head out of his ass already and confessed his undying love to Sara. Last but not least,
Ecklie and Sofia would either die, get fired, or get their butts beaten down
by the swing and the night shift. All three work for me. But we don't live
an alternate universe now do we (Ok I might sometimes but don't you DARE rub
it in).
Chapter Two – Bubbling Emotions
After a talk with Ecklie, Nick headed out to find Sofia. The lab tech that was supposed to be working with the fingerprints for this case apparently came down with the flu and did not know when she would be back. Ecklie suggested that Sofia work on the case since Grissom and Sara had Greg to process the evidence from their missing persons case.
"Sofia!" yelled Nick as he saw the blonde turning the corner as she talked to Grissom. She looked up at him, her eyebrow twitched in annoyance.
"Yes Nick? How can I help you?" she asked with a sharp tone in her voice. Nick gave Grissom a 'what did I do' face and Grissom shrugged. Sensing that he was not needed, Grissom told Sofia he was going to head to his office and proceeded to walk away.
"You're not working with Griss on this case." Sofia looked at him as if she had already known.
"Oh, okay. Let me guess, I'm helping you with your case?" Nick was taken aback at how she knew, and it showed on his face. "Ecklie already told me," she told him.
"Oh, that makes sense." Nick scratched his head in embarrassment. "Well, um, we have some fingerprints that we need you to run through the files."
"Is that all?"
"Well, that's it for now. We still have to wait for her tox screen to come back but I'll let you know as soon as I do." She smiled and turned to walk away. Nick caught her rolling her eyes as she turned and made a choking motion while she wasn't looking.
Nick walked back to the lab where Warrick was looking over a print they had gotten from the two shoes. He had determined that one pair was a size 10 men's dress shoe but he was having difficulties with the other print.
"I just don't get it. The men's shoe was easy, just an Armani size 10, but this one…I just can't tell." Warrick slammed his palms on the desk in anger.
"When Catherine gets back tomorrow we'll ask her. She knows about shoes, trust me." Warrick chuckled a little.
"Hey, where is she anyway?" Warrick tried to sound as casual as possible.
Nick looked though the paperwork sitting on the desk as nonchalantly answered him. "She took the day off. Said she had some personal business to take care of with Lyndsay. I think it had something to do with her mom questioning her parenting abilities."
"How do you know all this?" Warrick's voice was becoming louder than he wanted.
"Dude, are you trying to accuse me of something? Look, Cat and I are just friends, okay?" Warrick looked down and shook his head.
"I'm sorry man. It's just…you and Cath have been spending a lot of time together and she hasn't been talking to me that much. I don't know, I guess I jut thought she wasn't comfortable talking to me anymore." Nick playfully socked his friend in the shoulder.
"Dude, you're like her best friend. You have nothing to worry about." Warrick gave a slow nod.
"Yah, I guess you're right."
"Sara, can you come here for a minute?" Grissom called from the living room where he was inspecting some blood traces that had shown up with luminol (not sure if it's spelt right). Sara walked out of the blue kitchen and into the burgundy living area.
"Yah, what'd you get?" Grissom pointed to the shoe prints that were clearly visible on the beige rug.
"I looked at James shoes after finding foot prints in Melissa's room. He's a size 9. Look at these; you can see a visible size mark, size 10. And over here," he pointed to another print with a much different sole, "this one is a size 9." Sara's eyes opened a little and she looked Grissom straight in the eye.
"There were two people involved in this." Grissom nodded.
"I compared my shoe to the size 10 because I'm the same size, no match. This is a woman's shoe." Sara took a photo of the print and marked the shape and size on a piece of paper as he talked.
"Do you think he was having an affair?"
"Well, it can't be ruled out and it's certainly imaginable. This guy did so much to his wife that cheating on her isn't to far fetched."
"Yah, but why would he want to take Melissa? I mean, if he was beating her you would think he would just take off rather and take her with him." Both sat in silence for a minute pondering the thought. Sara found herself staring at Grissom as he sketched one of the other prints. She noticed how his lips were slightly parted as he focused and how his eyes were squinted to see details, causing crows feet to show up in the corners of his eyes. She even took time to study his beard, something that was not only unusual, but not something to be done on the job.
Sara jumped as she heard her cell phone ringing in her pocket. Grissom broke his focus and looked at her as she answered, taking a mental photograph of her in his mind. His mind was his sanctuary, the one place he could trust with his feelings, but even sometimes his sanctuary would betray him and he would slip up.
"Sidle." It was a simple answer but one that she felt was wearing out.
"Sara," Greg said on the other line, "I checked those blood swabs you got for me and…this is weird."
"Greg, stop beating around the bush and just tell me."
"Okay," he said very strained. "I checked the blood of the mother and daughter and…the DNA doesn't match." Sara floundered for a moment.
"What are you talking about Greg?" Grissom noticed her face and her change in tone and suddenly became interested.
"What I'm saying is Heather is not Melissa's mother."
"Well that's great," Sara said in unmistakable sarcasm. "Now we have a missing child with a mother that we never knew was missing." Sara could almost feel Greg smiling on the other line of the phone.
"That's where you're wrong. I tested all the swabs of blood that you found at the scene and one matched Melissa's. So that means, Melissa's real mother was there." Sara's eyes nearly bulged out of her sockets and her mouth hung open. She mumbled something that sounded like goodbye and hung up. Grissom stood up and walked over to her.
"Heather isn't her mother?" he asked.
"Yah. But apparently her mother was here. Greg matched Melissa's DNA with that of a sample we picked up here. Melissa's mother helped in the kidnapping."
"That would explain the shoe print," he replied, a little taken aback. Sara decided she would talk to Heather about it later since she was currently staying with a sister an hour away.
Sara noticed a blood drop on the wall near a closet to the right of the cough where Heather had sat just the day before in tears. She took out her fingerprinting dust and tested the doorknob, visible prints showed up. After taking down the prints she tried opening the door but it wouldn't budge.
"Grissom, can you help me with this?" she asked, obviously having difficulties with the stubborn door. Sara watched intently as he stood up from his kneeling position and walked over to her.
She stepped aside and let him take hold of the door. After a few moments of pulling and grunting the door swung open. With it's sudden fling it scraped the side of Grissom's forehead. A piece of loose metal fell from the doorframe and as Sara tried to stop it from hitting Grissom she wound up getting a large, but not deep, cut on her cheek and a deep gash on her palm where she caught the metal, forcing it into her skin.
"Oh God, Sara." Grissom frantically searched for a towel. He finally found one in the kitchen and ran back to where she was standing, whimpering in pain.
As the towel touched her hand she let out a weak scream, the cut was deep and went from in between her thumb and index finger all the way across her hand. She looked up to Grissom and saw that he was watching her also. Their eyes met and for a moment she saw fear in his blue eyes.
"Griss, you're cut." Sara used her left hand to wipe away the blood that was trickling from just above his left temple. Her fingers tingled at the touch of his skin.
"It's nothing, really. Yours is worse, you need stitches. Why did you do that anyways?" he asked after a brief moment of silence.
"I didn't want it to hit you." Her reply was calm and cool. There was no trace of the fear that had been running through her mind as she saw the metal flying towards him.
Grissom tied the towel around her hand and used it as a makeshift band-aid. Even though the cut was extremely painful, Sara couldn't help but love the attention Grissom was giving her. They had spent the past few months ignoring each other but ever since that night at her apartment when she told him about her past, things had just gone back to normal.
Once she was bandaged they looked in the closet. Sara let out a small gasp and Grissom's mouth fell open just a little.
"I think we need to have a talk with Heather." Sara shook her head, agreeing with Grissom's comment.