This story is dedicated to Unlikely-to-bear-it, well done.
"I thought a test of the epithelial cells on the axe handle." Greg said, walking beside Catherine as she walked to the meeting room.
"Thanks Greg." She said, suddenly surprised as he headed off to cover their other cases.
"You can pick it up from Mia in an hour or so." He shouted over his shoulder as he disappeared into another meeting room to review the evidence of his latest case.
"We all sorted?" Sofia asked as she met Catherine in the doorway.
"Yeah." Catherine answered coldly.
"You're not still all mad at each other." Grissom said from across the room. Getting no answer he shook his head and was about to say something else when Brass and Dr Robbins stepped into the room.
"What's wrong?" Nick asked, pulling a chair out for a very shaken Dr.
"We found another body." Brass explained.
"David Phillips." Dr Robbins said, shaking his head.
"So its not just lab techs." Sara sighed.
"Are you going to be okay?" Catherine asked Dr Robbins, shifting beside him and taking his hand.
"Yes. I've left the…body with day shift coroner." He said.
"Thank you." Sara said.
"Nick, Sofia? Will you two take this case?" Grissom asked.
"Sure." Nick answered, leading the way.
"Al? Take the day off." Grissom ordered.
"I'll take him home." Warrick said, standing up and waited for the man at the door.
"Take care." Grissom said to his friend as he watched him hobble out.
"This is getting to be too much." Brass said.
"Yeah." Grissom agreed. "Sara, Catherine and I'll go to the scene, see what we can find."
"I'll come with you." Brass said, leading the way.
"This is getting ridiculous." Greg muttered to Mia as he left her lab.
"Yeah." She agreed, shaking her head at the glum team that passed her.
"Anything?" Nick asked the cover coroner.
"Well he was tortured for a long time." The man explained. "There are numerous burns to his torso and arms. "He was finally bled out." The coroner pointed to David's wrists that had been slit.
"Shit." Nick muttered, shaking his head.
"Anything to tell us who did this?" Sofia asked, grasping for a clue.
"Nothing. This guy is thorough."
"Thanks." Nick sighed leaving the morgue.
"This place is a mess." Brass muttered, gazing around the stretch of bloody desert.
"Mind, they're getting sloppy." Grissom said, pointing to some footprints in the sand.
"Or they could be playing with us." Sara said, holding up a knife.
"Is that…?" Brass asked.
"Standard Issue CSI Case knife." Sara said. "Even has the CSI crime lab written on the side."
"So it was purchased from the CSI storage." Grissom summed up.
"You can't very well go asking everyone to show them their knives." Brass said.
"But we can check resent purchases." Grissom explained.
"Isn't that toeing the line a bit?" Brass questioned.
"We can still manage it." Catherine said defiantly.
"You going to be okay." Warrick asked Al Robbins as he dropped the older man off at his home. His wife had come out to help him.
"Yes. Thank you. And good luck with the case." He said, shaking Warrick's hand.
"Thanks." He said before he drove off.
He quickly dialled Grissom. "Anything?" he asked.
"We found a weapon and some prints." Grissom explained, driving himself and the team back to the lab.
"I'm on my way back. Anything you need me to do?"
"Check on this footprint when you get back. We're going to review over the evidence so far." Grissom explained.
"Okay, see you then." And Warrick hung up. "How are we going to find you?" he asked the open air.
"If you want to check on Mia and see what she can tell us so far, I'm going to collect the evidence from Hodges case." Nick said, walking into one of the storage rooms beside the morgue.
"Okay, meet you up stairs." Sofia said, stepping into the lift. One floor up another person stepped in, who she greeted simply before the lift continued up.
"Sofia about that case you worked on before the night shift were split." She turned to listen to the man.
"Yeah?"
"Bad work." He growled, grabbing her hair and slamming her face first into the wall, knocking her out. "Very bad work." He muttered, over and over again as he moved the lift to the second to top floor and stopped it with a gloved hand and climbed out of the lift from the top with a small set of stepladders. He left the steps where they were in the lift and opened the door to the top floor. He carefully glanced up and down the corridor to make sure no one was watching and then started hacking away at the lift cable.
"Night night." He whispered as he cut through and stepped off as the lift dropped a few inches. With a final kick it plummeted down several floors and he closed the door, pocketed the gloves and walked slowly down the stairs, picking up the pace as people started shouting about a lift falling. Wiping the grin off his face he followed.
well, is it going good or not. I'm planning one more death, possibly two. I think that this chapter should have given a good clue as to who it is