Chapter Twelve
II
There was calm in the centre of the storm. Around him raged and roared fear, stress, clues, but Nick found that somewhere in his mind, everything was as clear and cold as ice. Catherine and Warrick were missing. He had to find them. Everything else was just noise the rest of his mind had gone deaf from listening to.
So much roar. Everyone in the lab buzzing about possibilities, Brass with calm on his face and anger in his voice, worried calls from Greg, from Sara, from Grissom, from the Sheriff... All roar, all silence, whipping around him, touching him and yet not. He could feel the despair and worry and anger, but it was almost as if it didn't belong to him, didn't belong to the part of Nick Stokes that currently was in control.
The dawning sun was colouring the sky and for a moment he watched it, leaning against Brass's car and letting himself feel tired. Over a day they had been missing now. No sign of a ransom note, no sign of bodies. No good news, no bad. A limbo, a calm.
They did have a few things to go on. Hundreds of prints from a house rented out to short-time tenants, a few matches in CODIS that the PD were following up on. Could be nothing, could be what broke the case. The owner, John Keyes, had apparently taken a holiday to Florida and was incommunicado. A possible suspect still. They didn't have that many others yet. Catherine's car had still been in front of the house when the PD had arrived, but had yielded only Catherine's prints and Catherine's blood.
Not enough blood to signify a lethal injury, Nick kept telling himself. But beyond the calm, the blood still seemed to cling to him. She had been injured. Possibly Warrick too, whose car was still missing and had yet to be found.
They had found another set of tyre tracks as well, coming from a Ford Escape Hybrid, a fairly new SUV. Many owners in Las Vegas and each a possible suspect, though it could just as well come from outside the city, maybe even outside the state.
"Mr Coulter does not know how Mr Keyes may be reached," Brass said and Nick looked up to see Brass had finished talking to the gardner. "Not even in the case of a gardening emercency."
The tone was light and slightly sarcastic, but underneath swirled anger and frustration. Nick found himself wondering just how many colleagues Brass had lost during his long career. Too many. But then, even one was too many.
Holly. Lockwood. Catherine. Warrick.
'No,' he thought firmly. They were not lost until he saw their bodies and even then he wouldn't let go.
"John Keyes goes incommunicado the day his house becomes a crime scene," Brass went on, shaking his head slightly. "I don't trust conincidences that work against us."
"Neither do I."
The phone was shrill and for a moment, tore through even the calm and the ice. Brass answered it without hesitation, but the seconds felt like grains of eternity.
'Pleaseletitnotbetheirbodiesfoundpleaseplease,' he thought and the shattered calm tore at his flesh.
"We'll be right there," Brass almost barked and hung up. "Warrick's car. Highway patrol found it off highway 93. Get your kit."
"They're not...?"
"No sign of them."
Not bad news. Still the limbo, still the hope. And more evidence to be found, traces that could help find them.
The drive was silent. Sounds would be speculation would be distracting roar. Neither said how the Nevada desert stretched out from highway 93 nor how it was the perfect place to bury bodies that were intended to be found late or never. The fact still loomed in the air unspoken, dark as the clouds heralding a storm.
The silence filled him and he watched houses slide past his window, little grains of life at display.
Once, long, long ago, he had become a CSI and he'd been young and full of passion and steering and ideas of speaking for the victims, easing the troubled waters for the victim's family and friends. Bringing justice, bringing closure. He knew others saw in him brightness. The sunny Texas boy, smiles and ease and tease. He still knew darkness. Buried in his mind was the memories of a boy abused who hadn't dared speak for himself and with no one else to. And in silence the boy had become a man and set out to speak for those with no voice.
But even the man couldn't save all, solve all, undo the pains. Once you were touched by darkness and trauma, it clung to you. Like blood, you could hide it, cover it, but it was still always there.
Catherine knew. He'd told her that one time, made her understand. He'd felt her pity and even if they had never spoken of it again, he sometimes felt understanding in her gaze. And Warrick... Warrick was his friend, despite disagreements, despite rivalries. And he could lose them both.
The sun played against the window, finally risen fully to flame down on Las Vegas. A beautiful morning, still not too hot, but the cold of the desert night faded, almost as if it had never been. The sky went from pale blue to deep blue and it was so bright he had to avert his eyes.
He wondered if this was how the families of the murdered felt - this desire to look away from beauty and be angry the world could move on.
Las Vegas had pushed itself against the horizon when they arrived at the scene, cop cars framing the bright yellow of crime tape. It was a dusty side road, but the roar of the highway could be heard, if not seen. And there was Warrick's car, carelessly parked to the side, reflecting the sun at him.
The kit felt heavy in his hand and the gloves seemed to snap on very loud. But the calm inside him was already thinking of all the things he had to look for and listing the best order to do it in.
It took him a moment to realise it was Grissom's voice echoing in his head. Grissom, who wasn't here. Grissom, who would expect him to manage.
"You with me, Nicky?" Brass asked, a touch of understanding beneath the strain and anger in his voice.
"Yeah. Yeah, let's do this thing."
The car was empty, as he knew it would be, but it still felt like a relief. No bodies. The relief lasted only until he found the blood. Whose Mia would have to tell him, but he still felt the ice in his stomach turn spiked and cut through him.
Hairs, fingerprints, dust and a few strange fibres. Something to work with. Something to keep him occupied, keep him feeling like he was doing something.
Brass walked over some time later, the sun making the dark circles under his eyes seem even darker.
"Find anything?"
"Maybe. They could both have been transported in this vehicle."
Brass nodded. "The area is being searched."
"There are plenty of tyre tracks going to and fro here. Maybe the perp changed cars."
"Maybe. The highway patrol only found the car this morning, it could have been abandoned yesterday."
"And our guy has a headstart," Nick said absentmindedly and watched the desert. Where would a kidnapper - he dared not think murderer - go from here? Somewhere deserted? Somewhere actually in the desert, trying to avoid being found? Either the guy was fleeing and more concerned where he was going - or he was heading somewhere and had a place in mind.
Had it been planned? Or merely an act of impulse and if so, why? Was it connected to Catherine and Warrick's case at all? After all, Warrick's last lifesign had been the phonecall near Georgina James's place. Too many seemingly coincidences.
"Brass, did anyone connected to Georgina James own land outside of Vegas? Maybe somewhere near highway 93?"
A speculative glint appeared in Brass's eye as he pulled up his phone. "Let's find out."
Nick nodded, but his mind was still racing. The tyre tracks they had found at the first scene indicated a Ford Escape Hybrid had been there, yet he had not found any of those here. They could be unrelated to this alltogether, but was it possible there were two perps? One who dumped the car perhaps and one driver of a Hybrid taking Warrick and Catherine somewhere? Where and why? Was it about Catherine in particular or CSI in general?
So many questions, but his calm told him the answers might be somewhere in the evidence he had collected. Only way to find out was to do his job as he would any other case. Calm, professional, Grissom.
A part of him hated the calm inside and raged on, more burning than the sun. Ice and fire within him, roar and silence around. Dust, blood and two friends missing. Life and death in the desert.
"The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends, and the other begins?" Grissom had once quoted to him. Poe. Nick had once wondered just why Grissom had quoted it. He didn't anymore.
The dead haunted in life and the living were touched by death. And Catherine and Warrick were missing, lost somewhere in that shadow between life and death. And if they were truly lost, they'd all die a little. Him, Sara, Grissom, Greg, Brass...
'I will find them,' he vowed quietly and the wind rose, lifting dust against the blue, blue sky and he watched it rise, rise, rise... Fall.
It was going to be a beautiful day.
