Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or any of its characters.

Chapter 3

He dialed another number on his cell phone, Jim Brass.

"Brass," the man said, answering the call.

"I need help out here, Jim…"

"What happened?" Brass cut him off.

"Sara's missing and there's blood by her car's open trunk. Get some CSI's out here."

"Of course. Stay there, I'll be right over." He hung up the phone and dialed Catherine.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Yeah, Cath? It's Brass. I need two of you to head over to the West 9th Street Diner. We've got a fresh crime scene. Gil's over there now."

"I thought he had a trial to be at."

"He does, but I don't think he'll be going."

"Why? What happened? You aren't telling me something, Jim…"

"Well, either I can give you the bad news, or Grissom can…"

"Just tell me. What's going on?" She demanded.

"Okay. Sara's disappeared. There's blood and tire tracks, but Grissom isn't sure what happened. I don't even know what happened exactly. He just said to send over someone. I'm contacting the PD and then heading over there. I think you should go over there and make sure he's okay."

"Oh my god. Yeah, sure. I'll get Greg and Warrick and we'll be over there as soon as we can."

"Alright, see you soon, then." He said, sighing and hanging up the phone.

Grissom was back in the diner, watching the parking lot he'd roped off with a sheet he'd gotten from the owner of the diner. It didn't look very professional, but it worked. He needed some way to keep people from walking all over the evidence. Now he was sipping on a cup of coffee and talking to the owner and other workers.

One of the waitresses was talking to him now. "About ten minutes ago I heard tired screeching, but that's not really uncommon around here. There's a vacant lot down the street where older kids like to hang out. I didn't hear any scream though, just the tires."

"Thanks," Grissom replied; the waitress nodded and got up to bring out drinks to a table across the room.

Now he just sat there, his head in his hands; his head was killing him. Deep in thought, he didn't even notice Catherine sit down beside him.

"We'll find her," she said.

"I can't work this case," he said, "And you can't either."

"No, you're going home to rest and I'm working this case with Warrick and Greg." I'm not putting this in anybody else's hands. I'm not going to sit on the sidelines and just wait and see what happens. Me and Sara aren't on the best of terms right now. We both apologized for our argument, but things aren't the same. I don't think I'd be able to live knowing she probably hates me."

He sighed; he knew there was nothing he could say to keep her from working the case.

"Come on, Brass is here, along with Greg and Warrick. I'll get one of them to take you home."

They went outside and Grissom explained to everyone what was going on.

"Don't worry, we'll find her," Warrick tried to assure Grissom before they got to work.

He knew he shouldn't get involved with this; none of them should, but he had to. Catherine was right, there was no way that they could just sit back and do nothing. Instead of going home, he went over to talk to Brass again.

"I have to be at court, Jim," he explained.

"Woah, you're telling me that you'd rather go to court than stay here and try to figure out what happened to Sara?"

"No, but it's my job to be there to present the evidence."

"Look, let me go over there and explain that you can't be there. You help out here. I know you care about her, Gil. You've hurt her more times than you know, don't you think she would care if she knew you didn't even help try and find her?"

"I'm sorry."

"I'll talk to the judge and get them to post-pone the hearing until further notice. You get to work here."

"Thank-you."

Grissom changed out of his regular clothes and pulled on some latex gloves to start collecting evidence.

"I'll take care of the blood and tire tracks, Warrick and Greg- you go and talk to anyone who works here or is eating here, see if they can tell us anything we don't know. Cath, you see if there's anything in or on Sara's car."

He took a camera and went out to the street. He snapped a few pictures of the black tire tracks and then bent down to examine them. They were narrow and dark, probably belonging to a smaller vehicle. He followed them, walking along the side walk. It was then that he noticed a slight curve in the tracks and a scrape of metallic blue paint on the cement curb. He snapped a picture and then carefully scraped the evidence into the bag.

In his mind, he pictured a blue car; it was more likely that a car had hit the curb than a truck because of the wheel size and lowness of the paint scrape. He watched the car creep up and then a person shove Sara into the back seat. The person gets into the drivers seat and begins to drive away. Sara, a fighter, tries to get up and escape. She distracts her attacker, causing him or her to take their hand off the wheel and leading to the car hitting the curb and leaving behind the blue paint.

He stood up again and moved over to the blood. Carefully, he swabbed the drops of blood and decided to go drop the evidence off with Mia. He figured he should see if Ecklie had heard about his return and Sara's disappearance.

Lucky for Grissom, Ecklie was at trace, speaking with Mia and Hodges.

"I know something was bound to happen. We're in the middle of one of the biggest cases of the year and Grissom's CSI goes A-wall?" Ecklie said to Hodges, "Stokes located another body, a bit further out from the others. When we need all hands on deck, something like this has to happen. This can't make the lab look very good."

Grissom walked up to him, "I'm glad to hear how much you care about your colleague."

"Gil?" Ecklie said, turning around, a bit surprised that Grissom had heard what he'd just said.

"Yes, I'm back from the seminar and have already begun working on this case."

"Woah, wait. You have to be at court," Ecklie stated.

"Jim's down there, explaining the situation. Don't worry, Judge Patterson will understand; we're close acquaintances."

"Gil, if you screw up…."

"I'm aware of the consequences if things don't get done right, but my CSI's are top priority." He said and then turned to Mia. "I have a blood sample from the crime scene. I need you to tell me if the DNA is a match to Sara's."

Well, I'll end this chapter here. Thanks to everyone for their lovely reviews. I really appreciated it! D Pleas keep on reading. Next chapter should be up soon, well not too soon. Maybe a week. Well, hope everyone had a Happy Easter… or Spring Break…or just a happy Spring, which ever applies to you! )