"What are you doing here?" she asked, not angrily, merely curious; conversationally, even.
"Chasing a lead," he replied, cocking his head annoyingly to the side in a half-shrug.
"Why are you here, specifically, I thought you dropped this case?" she questioned. If there was a legitimate reason to force her to take over his case with one member unaccounted for, she wanted to know it.
"I dropped your case. I'm here on my case." Grissom said patronizingly.
Catherine stepped closer to Grissom, who stood stock-still. "What," she asked in a low voice, "is your case?"
Grissom pondered how to phrase his next bombshell, then decided point-blank was best; Catherine could take it.
"Sara and Nick were kidnapped this morning at the diner. The owner of the car they were kidnapped in happens to be Peter Humber, the vic's sister. May I ask why you're here?"
Catherine stared at Grissom in shock. How could he say this all so easily, without a hint of emotion? Catherine's mouth hung slightly agape, and she put her hand to her head, leaning on Grissom's Tahoe. She looked up at Grissom.
"Oh... my... God... but you're at the wrong house. No... no, this is Peter Ryerson... and he can't have... he couldn't have... Oh my God, the construction workers!"
"The what?" Grissom asked, cocking his head inquisitively.
But Catherine was already running back up the driveway, tapping Warrick's window as she passed it, urging him to join her. He did, and Brass was soon after, with Grissom leaving the Tahoe and Greg jumping out once he saw everyone running toward the house.
Catherine reached the porch and rapped on the door violently.
"Peter! Open up, we need to ask more questions!"
Nobody answered. Catherine tried once more. Brass pulled out his gun and Warrick did the same, and each man ran to cover the sides of the house incase of flight. Greg pulled out his gun as well and shifted into Warrick's position to the left of the house, urging him to cover the backyard. Greg was sweating nervously, the gun feeling like a heavy poisonous snake that he could use to protect himself but could easily be turned against him. He shuddered and waited, straining to hear a noise other than Catherine knocking on the front door.
Grissom spoke quietly while Catherine continued to pound.
"He's got a record for gang related crimes, but no record of a sister. He's lying about the vic's relation to him. His car was used to kidnap Sara and Nick, but it was abandoned. We think he drove another car back to Vegas with Nick and Sara inside. You mentioned workers, but they may be newbie gang members posing undercover for you guys. My hypothesis is that the robbery where they took Nick and Sara was their initiation, and if we let them get away it'd be an in for them. How..."
But Grissom was cut off as the door swung open. Catherine glared at Peter.
"Where were you, could you not hear the door pounding?" she asked angrily.
"Sorry, man, I was on the john," Peter replied, nonchalance his specialty.
Grissom held out his badge.
"Remember me?" he asked, grinning. "Remember my phone call in the middle of our conversation?"
"Oh, yeah, so, you ever find those guys?"
"No," Grissom smiled, "But we will."
He began to move into the house, but Peter held his hand up and stepped backwards, deeper into the house.
"Woah, woah, woah, you're searching MY house for your CSIs? Don't you think that's a little farfetched? What the hell connects me to this case, the fact that you got the call in my house?"
"Actually, no, your car connects you to this case. Where are your workers?"
"They left by the back door..."
"Wrong answer," Catherine snapped. "We've an officer out back who hasn't called to announce them. Where," she continued, "are your workers? Or, more accurately, your gang's fresh meat?"
Peter's eyes widened, but he covered the motion of shock with a fake sneeze. Catherine rolled her eyes, not buying it for a minute. Catherine forced her way past Peter and marched back to the basement door, turning the handle thinking 'fingerprints be damned,' and threw open the door. She looked back at Grissom, who shrugged almost apologetically at Peter and followed after her.
Catherine descended the steps rapidly, almost glad to be wearing her 'sensible' shoes, and stood on the cement floor gazing across the basement. It was completely clear of any living being. Grissom called on his walkie-talkie for the three stationed outside to come in and look around the house for four suspicious, possibly armed men. As Catherine and Grissom began to walk the perimeter of the basement for any entrances to other rooms they may have missed in a visual check, their walkie-talkies reported one by one that the entirety of the upper levels of the house were clear. This confirmed Catherine's gut fear: that Warrick had been on to something, maybe a hidden room, with his observation of the difference in area between the main floor and the basement. If this theory was true, the four supposed gang members were probably hiding inside, possibly with Nick and Sara, unless... Catherine didn't want to think of the grim alternative.
Sara woke up whimpering, shaking as a result of the codeine borderline overdose. She felt the cold floor beneath her and slapped her palm around blindly in the dank darkness, trying to find Nick, who had been her safety net for the last few terror-filled hours. The sound of her hand slapping changed from sharp and staccato to dull and muffled and her hand felt warm; she had found Nick. She tried to call him but her throat was constricting, and she realized how very thirsty she had become. She tried again.
"Nick?" she managed to croak out weakly. She was suddenly aware of the feeling of being watched, and she sat up in the darkness, straining to find the source of her discomfort. It became very apparant to her once a set of blinding white fluorescent lights were switched on and the dark, contrasting silhouettes of four very large people loomed over her prone form on the ground. Nick lay nearby, not moving, but the rise and fall of his chest reassured Sara that he was still alive. The four men moved closer, boxing her in and blocking her view of the tiny crawlspace that the six people were crammed into. Sara tried to stand up, but her legs had pins and needles, and she merely moved herself backwards. One of the silhouettes bent down closer to her, and she backed up out of the ring of shadows until she hit Nick and lost the balance of her arms. She fell down on top of Nick and yelped loudly, scrambling over his body as the four shadows came closer.
Catherine heard a yelp from somewhere in the basement.
"Did you hear that?" she asked, hushed incase it happened again.
"Hear what?" Grissom asked, alerted to stay quiet from Catherine's strained whispers.
There was a muffled yelling from somewhere nearby...
Catherine spotted some condensation dripping slowly down a cement wall to her right.
"Condensation!"
She rushed over to the wall, Grissom joining her.
"Condensation on a wall means that there's a cavity of lower temperature behind it..." Grissom muttered, "...only, how do we get in?"
Catherine radioed Brass, who told her he had Peter in custody. Catherine explained their situation and less than three seconds later, Brass was marching Peter down the stairs in cuffs to explain how to get behind the wall, with Greg and Warrick following.
Peter stood adamantly, jaw set and clenched, refusing to talk.
"Hey Pete, tell us how to open up your hideaway here," Catherine prompted, aggressive. There was a voice at the back of her mind screaming for her to do something fast, before something happened to Sara and Nick.
"There's nothin' there," Peter said through tight lips.
Grissom stepped in. "See, that's where you're wrong. We have followed evidence regarding two cases to your home, which is actually the home of Grace Vanderton, who is actually not your sister. And here, we found condensation which is still running down your walls, indicating a closed room behind them. Judging by the fact that nobody has left your house, where there were four young men here not fifteen minutes ago who cannot be found, we're making an educated guess that they are behind this wall. We want to know why they're hiding, that's all," Grissom explained, patiently. "It's not you we're going to uncover here... is it?"
The two men stood locked in a tense standstill for a moment.
"If you don't tell us how to open up we're gonna have a backhoe here in fifteen minutes, tearing away at the ground outside until it hits the outside of the room behind this wall," Catherine warned. "Don't think we won't call 'em. Would you really want this house torn down because you finally shut up?"
Peter shifted uncomfortably, and Brass shook him by the handcuffs he was now sporting. "How 'bout we just arrest you for obstruction of justice?" Peter's only reply was a roll of his eyes.
A low-pitched yell permeated the damp air of the basement. Peter cringed.
"That's it, last chance to talk," Brass warned. Peter remained adamant in his silence. Catherine pulled out her walkie-talkie and radioed for a backhoe, while Grissom searched the dewy wall for a way in. Suddenly, he recalled the first time he was in this house, staring at the patch of sunlight across the tiles of the anteroom. In his mind's eye, he saw through the picture window casting the light into the backyard, a lush green like the front yard. There was a shed...
Grissom leapt suddenly up the stairs and into the house. He dashed through the kitchen, the dining room and the sitting room before finally finding the sliding glass doors that led to the backyard. He pulled it open, gloves on so as not to add his prints to the collection that was sure to be there, and walked briskly across the grass to the wooden shed on the right hand side of the yard near the tall hedges that served as a fence. He turned the handle, but it was locked. Not having time to try anything else, he aimed a kick at the door and hit it just the right way; the doorknob came loose and he pulled the door open. Inside, instead of finding the interior of a regular shed, Grissom discovered a staircase that disappeared into darkness about seven feet down. He descended the steps quickly, gun out against his will, and was met at the bottom of the stairs by a frenzied and bloodied Nick, carrying Sara in his arms.
"Run!" Nick shouted as he hurried to get up the steps. Sara was unconscious.
Grissom needed no further prompting and turned immediately, taking the steps in twos, ready to slam the door to gain time after Nick and Sara had escaped. Nick sprinted up and out of the shed decoy onto the lawn, and rushed around the side of the house out to the front, where he stopped running and nearly collapsed, the wind knocked out of his lungs. He sat on the grass and set Sara down in his lap, brushing her hair out of her face. He looked down at her.
"Don't worry, it's over," he said to her unconscious form. "It's over... we're safe. We're safe..."
Grissom held himself against the door, bracing himself for the four men to come charging up the stairs, while he called Brass on the walkie-talkie to cancel the backhoe and call backup. Brass soon appeared at the sliding doors and crossed the yard, arriving beside Grissom as the door began to thump violently with the weight and force of the men trying to get out.
"We have to hold 'em there 'till backup comes," Brass said to Grissom, who nodded, straining to keep his full weight against the door. Brass joined him, both men with backs holding the feeble wooden structure against the vicious blows the door was receiving from the other side.
Catherine rushed upstairs soon after Brass had taken off, leaving Warrick and Greg holding Peter in custody. Warrick restrained himself from beating the pompousness right off of this twisted guy's face for doing what he did to Nick and Sara. Soon, they could hear sirens cutting through the night air as backup arrived to cuff the four that Grissom found, and ambulences came with them to attend to Nick and Sara. Greg pushed Peter towards the stairs as two officers descended them, checking the building. They spotted Peter in cuffs and read him his rights as they walked him back up the stairs. Warrick and Greg jogged up after them, anxious to see how Nick and Sara were doing.
Catherine trained her gun on the shed door that Brass and Grissom were preparing to release. On the count of three, they nodded and each ducked and rolled in opposite directions as four bloodied men stumbled onto the cool grass of the spacious backyard. They rose to their feet, miserably putting their hands behind their heads as they lined up for the officers to arrest them for kidnapping and malice. Relieved, Catherine turned and ran along the side of the house to the front, where Grissom had told her Nick had fled to with Sara.
Catherine, Greg and Warrick arrived in the front yard at the same time to see Nick, barely standing, trying to escape the paramedics to make sure Sara was okay. In the end, after several reassurances, Nick allowed himself to be placed onto a stretcher and strapped in for the ride to the hospital. The three gathered CSIs looked at each other and shook their heads, sombre; they were all glad the terror was over.
A/N: Almost the end! Review, please.
