Chapter Ten – Capture

Catherine, Warrick, and Nick casually strolled into the interrogation room where Sofia was sitting. Her blue eyes were beady and ran over every inch of the room. Her face was somewhat calm but her eyes gave away a sense of fear.

"We got you. It's all over." Catherine didn't have a note of empathy for her co-worker.

"What are you talking about? And why am I here?" Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight ponytail, pulling her skin back in a makeshift face-lift. Her make up was soft, as were her clothes. Her soft pink cotton blouse and a wavy black knee-length skirt gave her a look of professionalism.

"You helped kill Brittany Coulson. You and Conrad Ecklie that is."

"That's absurd!" Sofia stood bolt upright and slammed her hands on the table. Her knuckles turned white as her face turned red. "I did nothing of the sort!"

"Prada say's you did. As did the bullets retrieved from Brittany's body."

"How could you possibly pin the bullets on me? And what about my shoes?" Catherine explained to Sofia what Bobby had explained to her just days before.

"And those shoes, their the only size 81/2 sold from the Paris casino in the past three months. You bought the last pair of that size that they had in stock and they decided not to get any more. And, what looks to be ketchup on your shoes should easily prove to be blood." Sofia's face turned pale and her mouth parted a little. "Oh, and Greg matched the prints found at the scene to you and Ecklie. That's why they prints were 'smudged;' you were smearing them."

"H-how did y-you k-k-know that?" Her stutter was heavy and heard to understand.

"Simple; the evidence told us. Now all we need to know is why. Remember, the first person to talk gets a deal." Sofia's eyes roamed the room looking for something, anything, which would help her. When she found none she let out a deep sigh and shook her head in disgust at herself.

"It's not like we planned it or anything. Look, Ecklie started dating me after he was already seeing Brittany. She got pregnant and told him she would have an abortion, no questions asked. That was about two months ago. In that time he also got me pregnant also. I did as he asked and got the abortion. Well, the night that Brittany was killed she saw he and I hanging out in the Luxor. She went flipping psycho and started saying how she was carrying his baby and asking how he could do this to her. He calmed her down and got her into his car and drove out to the spot. I followed in my car." She paused, her expression blank.

"That's when we did it. She flipped out; started cursing and saying she was going to get him fired for tampering with evidence. You know Ecklie; he's in love with his job more than Grissom is. He couldn't let that happen so…he shot her in the back. He spun around and grabbed my gun and shot her in the head, his ran out of bullets. That's what happened, I swear." Catherine, Warrick, and Nick exchanged looks. Catherine focused back on Sofia and bent over the table, firmly planting her hands on the table.

"Well that sucks because…Brittany wasn't pregnant. She did have the abortion." Sofia looked back and forth at all of them before breaking down into a shudder of tears. Sob's raked her body as she was cuffed for being an accomplice and taken away.

… … … … … … … … … … … … …

Sara's eyes groggily opened to the sight of white. Pure, torturing, white. As her eyes adjusted she saw that she was lying in a hospital bed, the sheet next to her was pulled, separating the room. She let out a moan as pain flooded to her shoulder. From the next curtain over Catherine and Warrick, followed by Lindsay, rushed over to her.

"Sara, it's okay, just don't move. God, we're so happy you're awake." Catherine had tears in her eyes. They were red, but not from crying, it looked to be from lack of sleep.

"How long have I been here?" Her voice was hoarse and Catherine had to strain to understand her.

"About a week. You were shot in the shoulder. But Brass got Heather and she's going away. They found Missy; she was with her father in Reno. He had tried calling in to the police to tell them that Missy was with him but somewhere the paperwork got lost. Typical."

Catherine chuckled and Sara tried to but wound up coughing. Sara looked to Warrick and saw something unsettling in his eyes, what thought she couldn't determine. Suddenly a thought struck her and she looked with wide eyes back and forth from them to the curtain next to her. Catherine and Warrick noticed this and gave each other nervous looks.

"Sara…"

"What happened to Grissom?" Her voice was demanding rather than questioning. Catherine and Warrick shared another uneasy glance. Lindsay, who had been quiet the whole time, left the room in search of the restroom.

"Sara, maybe we should wait."

"No! I want to know now!" She cringed at the pain that filled her throat.

"It's okay, I'll tell her Cath. Sara, after you got shot Grissom was trying to protect you when Heather came after him. He was holding her off until Jim got there. Heather freaked and…shot him twice. Once in the shoulder, just below the collarbone, and once in the stomach. He's labeled in critical condition. He's what's on the other side of the curtain." Sara's eyes were blank and unblinking for several moments. Her throat closed and her eyes glassed over. She looked at the curtain and then to the ceiling to avoid the gaze of her co-workers.

"Sara' it's okay…shh, it's okay," Catherine whispered to her crying friend while holding her trembling body in her arms.

"I should have been there to protect him. If I hadn't lunged at Heather she never would have shot me and I would have been there to protect him. How could I be so stupid!"

"Sara, it wasn't stupid. You did what you felt was right. He's doing fine. Even got a bouquet of flowers from some secret admirer. Really weird. And Nick and his girlfriends came to visit. That Rachael is something else. Totally sarcastic and defiantly tomboy with a slight girly side. Plus, you know Griss, a small thing like this wont stop his from coming back to…"

Catherine was cut off when a loud beeping noise came from over the curtain and loud thuds filled the room. Doctors rushed into the room and over to Grissom's bed. Sara froze and just stared. She knew what was happening. His heart stopped and they were trying to revive him. Sara sat bolt upright and tried to get out of bed but both Warrick and Catherine had to hold her down as a nurse came over and put some sleeping medication into her IV.

The last words Sara said before drifting off to sleep were, "If he goes, I go…"