Chapter Seven
II
It was the sun that first caught her eye. It was late as their plane landed, yet a pale sun hung in the sky. It didn't burn quite like the Nevada sun and she could look at it without shades. The air felt warm, but not hot, as if it was a different shade of summer here. It reminded her slightly of San Francisco, the same smell and presence of the sea lingering over the land. She had forgotten how much she missed the sea.
She had forgotten a lot of things.
Sometimes, she wondered if she'd forgotten how to be happy. Sometimes, she wondered if she had ever truly known it in the first place.
Greg seemed happy, explaining to her how the real, twenty-four hour midnight sun only really occurred above the Arctic circle, but how the sun linger late in the southern parts of Norway as well. She listened to his tone more than his words and borrowed his happiness.
Grissom felt distant, but he smiled at her more than once and she wondered. She could not help but notice the sun became him, the light gentler than the burning of daytime Las Vegas.
The casket housing Anna's body was transported away to be prepared for rest in Norwegian soil. Or perhaps cremation, Sara had forgotten to ask. She felt a twinge of guilt at that, but knew it was irrational. She could not always live the victim's death, for all she wanted.
They were greeted by representatives of 'Ny Kripos', what seemed to be the national murder investigation unit. Greg's stuttered Norwegian broke the ice soon enough, but she felt slightly detached from it all herself. Jet lag, perhaps. A part of her still felt sleeping in Las Vegas. She only half listened to the polite greetings and exchanges of 'honoured to work with you'. A blond officer gave her a bright, bright smile and she returned it, feeling Grissom's eyes on her as she did.
She felt a strange joy at that all the drive into Oslo. Green trees and wooden houses rolled past her, all bathed in the strange midnight sun that seemed almost alien. Greg would sometimes point something out to her and she would nod. Grissom would sometimes look at her and she would close her eyes to the stillness and the heat.
At some point, she leaned against the cool of the car window and the light became dark. A moment later, she felt Grissom's hand on her shoulder and she realised she had fallen asleep.
"We're here," he said gently and she smelt mint of his breath. Groggily, she followed him and Greg into a cool hotel lobby. The hairs on her arm rose in protest to the sudden bereft of warmth and she shivered her feet seemed to move her along without thought. She vaguely felt Grissom's arm around her waist, leading her along. She must have been shown a room, for the next she remembered was bed sheets against her skin and the sun through the almost white curtains.
She closed her eyes and slept in light.
II
She awoke to a light knock on the door. She could not remember having dreamt and her body still felt heavy, her mind slightly foggy. Stumbling to answer, she opened the door to Grissom.
"Sara, we're..." he paused and she realised she was in white pyjamas. For a moment, he seemed to drink her in and she felt a strange joy at that, too. "We're... Eh, breakfast?"
"I'm coming," she assured him and remembered his look as she dressed. Somewhere in her mind, a devil was stirring and making plans for seduction. She had not heard the devil in months and she wondered what it meant.
Greg was still beaming as she joined them for breakfast and she almost cursed him his energy. But perhaps she would have shared it if it had been her home she had returned to. Of course, she had never truly had a home. She had been born into a war zone and then... Foster home were merely places to stay. She had created a home of sorts in San Francisco, but she had left that.
Norway wasn't Greg's home either, but she wondered if it still felt like it in his blood, the blood of his mothers and fathers far back. The call of the blood was hard to drown out. Her own blood whispered of murder sometimes and she tried to freeze it away.
"Mrs Jensen has asked to see us," Grissom told her as she sipped cool orange juice and listened to his knife scratch against a piece of toast.
"I thought the mother was dead."
"This is the grandmother," Greg said perkily. "Mother never married and kept her maiden name, as did Anna. Very common here in Norway."
"Thank you, Greg," Grissom said dryly. He handed her the buttered toast and her mood seemed to brighten as the day did. She always loved Grissom the most for his little gestures. A smile at a discovery. A light touch of elbow to keep her from a car. His hand taking hers in the darkest hour. The simple things.
'He's seducing me all over again in the quiet moments,' she thought and the toast was warm in her mouth.
"Our vic's apartment will be accessible for us later," Greg went on, smiling at her. She gave him a raised eyebrow and he winked.
"Are you always this cheerful in the morning?" Grissom asked. She bit back a smile.
"No, this is just for your pleasure," Greg shot back and for a moment, they were all smiles and the morning was bright, bright and the smell of coffee filled her senses. For a moment, it was almost happiness. Almost family.
They ate up and left the hotel, giving her the first real glimpse of Oslo awake and not sleepwalking. The streets were smaller, the houses not as tall and a few obviously old buildings gave it a sense of history. She could see doves and ducks and sea gulls and it smelled of sea and trees and heat. The sun was warmer now, but still seemed gentler.
Caroline Jensen, Anna's grandmother, turned out to live in a great house of 'Holmenkollen', a hill area over the city, crowned by what Greg told her was a ski jump. She tried to imagine it in winter, cold and frozen and quiet, but it was hard in the stillness of summer. It seemed a higher class neighbourhood, though she reminded herself that Norwegian living standards differed some from Americans.
It was Caroline Jensen herself who opened the door. Sara knew right away, without words spoken. Grief seemed to radiate from the older woman, even if she held herself proudly and the eyes were dry. Vegard Bjørnvik, their liaison, introduced them, but Mrs Jensen only waved him off impatiently and led them inside.
A clock was ticking somewhere inside, a strangely soothing sound. It felt an old house, with all the black and white photographs on walls and smell of dust on the furniture.
"How did my granddaughter die?" Mrs Jensen asked abruptly as soon as they had been seated, words slow and drawn out and accented. She fixed her glance on Grissom and even Sara could feel the edges in it.
Grissom seemed to choose his words carefully. "We believe she ingested a lethal dose of a drug, Mrs. Jensen, but we don't know how yet. We're very sorry for your loss."
"They all say so. Words are easy, Mr. Grissom. You are here to give me more than words, yes?"
"I hope to. Could you tell us why your granddaughter was going to Las Vegas?"
"Yes. You have to understand, her mother was very... I raised Anna. Cecilie was not a mother. I loved my daughter, but I also knew my daughter."
She halted, lines of suffering drawn on her face. They all waited until she was composed again, sorrow locked behind determination.
"Cecilie had an affair with an American visiting. She did not tell me who. And from the moment I saw Anna, I did not care. She was innocent and I loved her. I raised her. Of course, as she grew, she asked about her father. I used to tell her she would find her father east of the sun, west of the moon. From the fairytale, you understand. I used to read those to her before bed. That was her favourite. The princess who met the prince in the shape of a bear. He would turn human at night, but he told her she could not look, for then she would doom him. Yet she did look. She made the mistake and he had to leave her. But for love... She sought the winds and they helped her find him again, east of the sun, west of the moon. Anna - Anna believed."
"And she thought she had found her father in Las Vegas?" Grissom asked.
"She had. Perhaps Cecilie told her something before passing away last year. I do not know, but a letter came for her. From her father."
"Did you see it?" Sara asked gently.
"No. She would not show me. She only told me so I would understand why she went," Mrs Jensen said quietly and looked out the window at the burning sun. "You want to see her room, yes?"
"Yeah," Grissom confirmed, standing up. "We did not find any letter among your granddaughter's packed belongings. Perhaps she left it here."
Mrs. Jensen merely nodded and led them up wooden stairs to a dark hallway, and finally, a pale blue room, still bearing the marks of someone living there. Some clothes were casually thrown about.
"She had her own flat, but she liked to stay here at weekends," Mrs. Jensen explained to the unasked question.
"Thank you. Could you stay with... Mr. Bjørnvik..." Grissom tripped slightly over the name, but managed to remain composed, "downstairs while we look around?"
"Yes." The older woman gave the room a look, touching the blue wall with a look of intense longing. "Det vi gjør av kjærlighet..."
"I'm sorry?" Grissom leaned forward, brow slightly furrowed.
"Nothing." And with that she slowly walked away, the Norwegian police officer following her. Sara felt the shadow of grief walk with her and felt bile in her throat.
"What did she say, Greg?" Grissom asked and they both looked at Greg, who fidgeted slightly.
"I think... 'What we do out of love'... I could be wrong."
"What we do out of love..." Grissom said thoughtfully and for a moment, Sara felt his gaze burn into her and reduce her to ashes. Then he looked away, his attention on the room and work.
'What we do out of love...' she thought, her heart still burning. Grissom rarely initiated physical contact, but his gaze could be more intimate than any touch of skin on skin and leave her more breathless. Her demon whispered of touches and gazes and kisses under midnight sun, but she pushed it away. Time to work now.
Outside, the eastern wind lifted as a summer breeze and sang to the land and her blood.
