Chapter Thirteen

II

If there was one truth to a cop's life, it was that loss was inevitable. It had to happen, much like a summer would always faded to winter. And Jim had certainly felt winter's cold touch. Lockwood. Holly. A marriage. Ellie, his daughter in all but blood. Jacobs. And Mark, whose blood he still sometimes could smell. For his work, he'd suffered it all. He wasn't sure if he was still here because he still believed all the illusions that had drawn him to the job in the first place or simply because he didn't know how to do anything else anymore.

Perhaps it didn't even matter. History could not be undone. You took your scrapes, learned your lessons and moved on. Or tried to. Sometimes you moved back. He certainly had. Back to homicide, back to the front lines. Back to the losses.

The sun burned in his eyes and the smell of desert seemed to be everywhere, dry and dust and warmth. There were days he found himself thinking back to Jersey, almost missing it. Almost.

The phone gave an angry ring and he picked it up with a sigh, wondering if it was the Sheriff giving him grief or Ecklie.

"Brass. Oh, hi Gil. No, no news. Nick is in the lab. Yeah, I'll call. Yeah." He hung up, feeling the worry in Grissom's voice creep into him. Too long without any news and large desert to hide graves in.

"Captain?" Officer Dixon walked over, dust clinging to his uniform. "We've searched the area. Nothing."

"Thanks," Jim replied. The car had been towed back to the lab and with no bodies found, there was nothing more for him to supervise here. Yet he stood still, gravity pulling him down.

Some days, he felt too tired for this job. Some days, he felt too tired for anything else. But life offered only paths forward, the mind only the paths back, retracing them, reliving them, remembering them.

Failures, mistakes and losses. Same old story, new faces. Warrick, who'd been young and brash and head-butting, but who had become something of a friend. And Catherine, who was Catherine, passionate, flirting and a whirlwind.

He slipped his shades on and headed for the car, the air conditioning and shade not enough to chase away the heat that had seeped into his body. Listless, burning Las Vegas, last stop for so many.

He missed the rain.

The drive was a relief, letting his mind linger on lanes and traffic and driving and leaving everything else by the side of the road for a while. Road and sky and Vegas, forever for a moment that ended too soon.

His colleagues avoided his eyes as he walked into the police station and he wondered if it was for the grief in his eyes or theirs. If they felt grief. He knew to some the CSIs were just the geeks that fiddled around with experiments and only sometimes came face to face with crime. Brass knew better, but he couldn't teach that to young hotshots with guns and illusions of heroic police work and solving it all alone.

They would learn soon enough.

Vega came towards him as he entered, looking grimly satisfied.

"Captain, I was just about to call you. The judge finally gave us the warrant for John Keyes's financial records."

"Get on it," Brass instructed, trying to put more energy into it than he felt. It had been a long, sleepless night and was going to be a long, unforgiving day.

He found Nick peering into a microscope, books and evidence bags spread over the table.

"Got any prints of the car?"

"All the prints are Warrick's," Nick replied, not even looking up.

"So what else have we got?"

"Goat hairs."

"Goat hairs?" Brass echoed.

"Yeah, I found them in the driver's seat. At first I thought maybe from a goat sweater, but the hair wasn't treated, as it would be for wool use. So I looked it up. I even identified the breed. It's from a Boer goat, not native to the US, but several ranches in Nevada have breeding stocks for meat production."

"So someone who drove that car was near goats recently?"

"Yes. I got Archie to find a list of ranches in Nevada to carry that breed."

"I'll get on John Keyes's property list. Maybe he owns one."

Nick nodded, returning his attention to the microscope and Brass left, feeling a new surge of energy. A lead. He'd long since stopped feeling surprised at the little things CSIs would get leads from. Life was in the details. Life was in the chases. And it was time to chase the details to find Warrick and Catherine or if not, Warrick and Catherine's killer.

The coffee was ash in his mouth as he drank it, summoning some strength before getting on the phone to do what he could. Piece together traces of a life - records, rap sheets, listings, information. Deal with the humans while CSI dealt with all the things humans left behind.

Time to work.

Ecklie came by his office, looking suitably concerned and rambling about helping any way he could. Horatio Caine gave a call, promising his lab was on tracking down John Keyes. Grissom called again, sounding worried and tired. Lindsey called, whispering, presumably to hide that she was calling from her babysitter. Too much of a child yet for him to tell her the truth and too much of an adult to keep lying to. He mumbled reassurances as best he could, feeling how empty they were.

The financial records came in and he poured over them, looking for goats. He didn't even feel strange about it anymore. You worked with CSI, you got used to weird.

As he read, a sense of triumph so great it swept away all exhaustion came over him and he bolted up, instructing Vartann to secure a warrant as he found Nick's number on his cell.

"Nick, get your ass in a car. We got a goat call to make."

II

The desert was burning with the sun, an odd wind stirring dust now and then. The heat wavered across the land, almost like a wave of warmth. Nevada desert, stretching ever towards the horizon, a lone house completing the illusion of isolation.

"This was part of Adam Keyes's Boer goat ranch?" Nick asked, shading his eyes against the sun.

"Yes. His sons inherited it, disagreed on what to do with and most of the goats were sold," Brass explained. "There's a few other buildings left on the property, my officers are checking it out."

"Good place to have privacy," Nick remarked and there was anger in his voice. "This one has recently left tyre tracks by it. Someone was here."

"Captain?" One of officers - Jimmy, was it? - called over from the small cabin cops were swarming over and securing. "We found something in the cellar."

For a moment, a sense of dread so strong he even felt cold in the sunlight overcame Brass, but it faded away as he noticed the officer's face didn't hold the composure of condolences. No dead bodies then. Not Warrick and Catherine to be wheeled away by the coroner. Still hope.

The cellar was cooler than the day outside and dark, torches only chasing away parts of the darkness. Missing boards in the ceiling allowed a beam from above to make patterns on the dusty floor. A few potatoes were scattered about, as was the broken floorboards.

And in a circle of light, some rope circled together.

"There's blood on this rope," Nick said calmly, too calmly. as he peered down. "We should get this back to the lab, it could be Catherine or Warrick's."

"Think he had them here and later moved them?"

"Maybe." Nick paused and lifted his glance to the broken floorboards. "A human could squeeze through there. Maybe they escaped."

"If they're in the area, we'll find them."

"Yeah. I'll process the scene."

Brass left him to it, going outside to the desert dust and the waiting. Always the waiting. Waiting for evidence, waiting for Ellie, waiting for second chances. Las Vegas had offered one, but no second chance came without a price.

Life didn't come without a price. You paid for it in pain, tears and blood.

'Ellie,' he thought and his blood felt dry.

The desert whispered in the wind, almost mournfully, perhaps longing for the rain and the life it would bring. But the sky was empty, only the faintest hints of clouds. Another day of heat and dust only.

The phone ring was loud in his ears and he answered it with a steady hand even as his mind seemed to waver as he listed to the voice on the other end.

The chase was over.

And he could feel nothing, merely stood under the sky and watched it stretch across, bluer than the sea and still no rain.