Chapter Twenty-Six
II
He had felt the desert even before they landed and now it was filling his sense, as if washing the smell of Norwegian sea from him. The heat was licking at his skin, the sun blazing on his eyelids and a wind was grinding at his shape. Home turf, but still not home feeling. He felt strangely disorientated, as if stuck in the threshold between awake and dream where one never knew quite was what real. A part of his mind felt distant, still in Norway, still on Norwegian time.
Jet lag. The scientific explanation, but the experience of it was something else. And oddly, he felt it stronger now then when he'd travelled the other way. He seemed to recall there was a scientific explanation for that too, but his mind resisted dredging it up. His mind wanted sleep, wanted patterns it was used to.
Sara looked a bit downcast, but perhaps she was merely tired and feeling the same as he was. He resisted the urge to caress the lines on her face and ease them away. He almost felt as if he hadn't earned that familiarity, even if he now knew the lines of her body and the feel of her lashes as she closed her eyes to his worship by touches. She had invited that. He didn't know if she'd invite it now, here and surrounded by others.
Greg looked merrier, smiling and joking, but with an occasional sober look. Perhaps Greg missed the country of 'his people', as he'd declared it once. And perhaps this then was Grissom's country, this desert, this heat. This lab that they had finally come back to, after long plane rides and a little drive.
He stepped in and the air conditioning hissed its welcome, just as Catherine came barrelling from the hall and engulfed him in a hug. For a moment, he felt invaded, bothered, uncomfortable, but her body was soft against his and this was Catherine, as close to a friend as he'd had sometimes.
"Glad you're home, Gil," she whispered, voice thick before she freed herself and gave Sara and Greg enthusiastic hugs as well. Sara looked slightly taken aback at the enthusiasm, or perhaps her body was merely tired and sore after the long trip.
"Hey," Warrick's voice called and Grissom looked up to see both Warrick and Nick come walking over, both smiling. "Our travelling band returns."
"Heard you had a bit of an adventure yourself," Sara replied, and Grissom wondered if he was the only one who noticed her smile was slightly strained. "Gave us a bit of a scare there."
"Not as much as we gave ourselves," Warrick replied, giving Catherine a quick look she returned. It seemed a strangely intimate look and Grissom did wonder. Travellers always expected things to be the same when returning, as if time had been frozen while being gone, but things always changed, whether you were there to observe it or not.
"So this guy has killed three, we think?" he interrupted, trying to think of what was the same rather than what was changed.
"Four," Nick corrected. "The three women we told you about and John Keyes. Found his body while you guys were in the air. We had his identity confirmed today."
"There's something else too," Catherine said hesitantly. "We better discuss it inside."
He just nodded and followed her deeper inside, deeper into his home. He could feel Sara by his side, hear Warrick, Nick and Greg discussing Greg's Norwegian lab tech amore behind him. He had to smile slightly at the familiar sounds, the familiar feels. This was home, and so was Sara.
He gave her a smile and she looked up at him, giving him a slight one back, taking the lines and hurt off her face. He wondered if it was normal to desire so strongly that she could always be so, always just be Sara, smiling at his side.
They entered the layout room and he noticed at once the pictures of the victims. Not violent deaths, but almost like a funeral arrangement. Alike and different, for while the victims might change, he knew the murder did not. Evolving his M.O, yes, but the desire and obsession was the same, and so was the thought that killed.
"They look as peaceful as when we found Anna," he said absentmindedly, thoughts already flying.
"We think that's the point," Warrick said calmly, but it seemed a forced calm, a calm hiding a roar.
"We think John Keyes was killed before any of these women," Nick picked up, flipping up a picture of what had once been a man. Hard to see now, with only ravaged and beaten flesh. "Rage kill. Maybe John got the brunt of Alan's anger over Anna's death."
"While these women got the brunt of his obsession," Grissom said thoughtfully. "He's recreating. The rage is not at them, but at the world. They die relatively painless."
"Yes," Catherine confirmed. "He drugs them first. We think he pretends to deliver food. The last one, we found traces of valium in white wine at the scene. And..."
She hesitated and he glanced at her, seeing discomfort and fear across her features. What would Catherine fear, he idly wondered. She didn't much share her fears with him. Perhaps that was why they had always and ever been friends. He hadn't pushed to know her fears and she had not pushed to share them.
He'd pushed Sara.
"Alan approached Lindsey," Warrick said, obviously noting Catherine's hesitance.
"What!" Sara broke in, looking stunned and more than a little worried. "She's all right, isn't she?"
"Yeah, she's fine, she didn't go with him," Catherine reassured, giving Sara a faint smile. "He gave her a white rose. We had some tests run on it and it seems to be from the same bouquet as the flowers we found at the scene of the third victim, Jocelyn Creer."
"Do we have anything forensic evidence to tie him to these victims?" Grissom asked, watching the pictures of a sleeping Jocelyn Creer, skin pale and hair almost paler. Almost like Anna, even the head tilted the same way. He felt a faint chill at the thought.
"We got some trace evidence - a few hairs from the first scene and the third," Warrick explained, holding up a tagged plastic bag. "They match. We found strands of hair at the scene of John Keyes' murder as well, and they had been yanked up by the root. Signs of struggle and DNA. We ran it against John Keyes' DNA this morning. Not him, but has markers in common. First degree relative."
"And I got epithelials off the rope used during Catherine and Warrick's abduction," Nick went on, looking grimly satisfied. "DNA profile is a match to the hair. Nothing in CODIS, so our guy doesn't have a prior, but once we get him, we got all we need to nail him. We got blood and fingerprints the lab's still working at as well."
"Good work, all of you," Grissom declared. Both Warrick and Nick looked pleased, Catherine uncomfortable. Was there yet more she was hesitant to tell him? "How's Lindsey?"
"Oh, she's fine. We got her staying with Warrick's grandma for the time being," Catherine replied, looking down on the bagged bloodied rope. Was she envisioning it around Lindsey, thinking what could have been? Always deadly, the what ifs, delivering their poison to the mind. What if Catherine had died? What if Warrick had died? What if it had been Sara?
And suddenly he could only see it around Sara, see Sara being touched by a murderer, being killed, her blood seeping into her hair and his mind seemed to go numb. His breath felt like a hiss and his hands like claws, ready to fear into flesh and protect his mate.
'A savage animal, man,' he thought faintly and stared at the pictures of death and obsession.
Alan Keyes. He remembered the Keyes family. Johanna Keyes, found dead out in the desert, her body battered by elements and bugs. He'd been called in for the bugs, determining a time of death. Two weeks, hadn't it been? Two weeks where her family had not reported her missing. He'd always suspected the father had been involved, but no evidence to the contrary and faint traces of pills she could very well had taken herself.
He still wondered who would kill themselves in the desert. But that was not evidence, that was merely a gut feeling. Johanna Keyes had been buried quietly and he had moved on to other cases. The father must have died and now the older brother, leaving the younger. He didn't much remember the two sons. Perhaps they had not been there, or in the background. Or perhaps he was growing old and forgetting.
Mortality crept up on all. Perhaps that was the source of Alan's real anger. No daughter, no immortality for his genes. No living on, only living old. No one to grieve your death. No one to grieve Alan.
No one to grieve Gil Grissom.
He dared a look at Sara, bent over the evidence, back arched. He'd traced that line with his palm, feeling her skin-covered spine, the hardness of her strength. Perhaps she would grieve him. Perhaps they all would. There was odd comfort in that thought, a sense of humanity in its selfishness. Wanting others to hurt because it confirmed they had been loved. Selfish, but a bond between all humans nevertheless.
And Alan had perhaps lost the only one who would. A daughter. Your genes and yet not you. Your own flaws magnified before you and sometimes the same mistakes as well. Perhaps that was why no one could hurt you quite like a child. You still loved them, as Mrs. Jensen had, as Catherine did. As he would, if he ever were to father one.
He tore his gaze away from Sara before the thought had time to root itself and spark desires, longing, obsessions. Another obsession to deal with now. Death and blood and murderers.
Alan.
He stared at the pictures again, feeling the team's eyes on him and he realised they were waiting for him, waiting for him to lead. Even Catherine. His team, his family, his lab. It was a dark, possessive thought, but he was too tired to beat it and part of the savage animal still lived in him. They'd been hurt, could still be hurt and the savage animal knew only one defence.
Time to hunt now.
