CHAPTER TWO: Catherine Willows' POV

UNTITLED

Grissom and I arrived shortly after noon only to discover the immobilized body of a twenty year old woman. Her name was Ashlee Swanson; I recognized her from a billboard advertising a show she was starring in. I pulled my camera out and took pictures of the body. Fifteen minutes later, Sara and Nick appeared.

We divided her house up; Nick and Sara went upstairs, Grissom and I remained downstairs. While I looked over the body, he dusted both the front and back doors for prints, and found a few partials. He walked into the kitchen searching for a possible murder weapon, but everything seemed untouched. Soon, he joined me in investigating her death.

"Looks like she put up a fight," I stated pointing to her right hand.

"Defense wounds… looks like a few broken fingernails, possibly a broken middle and ring finger," Grissom declared, as I snapped a few pictures.

"Hmm… ecchymosis maybe?"

He nodded, "Perimortem bruising…"

"What do you think could have caused this kind of bruises? They're huge Grissom…"

"Definitely not from fists… a bat maybe?"

"Or maybe," I glanced around the room that appeared to be struck by a tornado. My eyes were fixed on a lamp that was lying on the floor nearby, "Maybe a lamp?" I reached for the lamp and compared it to the shape and size of the bruises.

"Well it my not have been that lamp, but that seems to be what caused the bruises," Grissom said squatting on the carpet.

"Should I dust for prints anyway?"

"Yeah, maybe you can find who caused this destruction…" I dug into my pocket and found a small brush. As I dusted for prints, Grissom continued to look for other clues.

"Cath… Cath come here a minute…"

"What's wrong Gil?"

"Ms. Swanson was stabbed in the back…"

"That doesn't make sense…"

"She was definitely stabbed… check out the Hilt marks…"

"Gil if she was murdered here, there would be evidence of exsanguation…"

"Exactly… she would have bled out…"

"So where's all the blood?"

"Cath… she wasn't killed here… someone moved her…"

"Well that was a waste of time," Sara and Nick emerged in the doorway, empty handed.

"We found something interesting…" I stated pulling off my rubber gloves.

"And that is…?" Nick asked.

"She was stabbed in the back…" Grissom started.

"So she would have bled out… so where's all the blood?" Sara interjected.

"Exactly… Ashlee wasn't killed in her own home," Grissom finished, ready to leave and get the prints over to Warrick and Greg.

"We think that someone dumped her body and staged a robbery," I added, picking up the lamp that was carefully placed inside an evidence bag.

"Shall we go?" Grissom questioned anxiously.

"Right behind you," Nick answered leading Sara and me out the front door.

"Cath and I are going to go back to the lab… if you two would stay and question our witnesses that would be great…" Grissom ordered.

"Witnesses?" Sara asked, looking around, but only seeing officers.

"Over there… across the street. Mr. and Mrs. Drake… they were the last to see her," Grissom answered before walking back to our car.

"Ok…" Nick replied, "we'll do it…"

"Bye guys… have fun…" I smiled, then followed Grissom back to the car.

"Yeah… you too…" Sara whispered, barely audible as I left the scene and went back to the car. Grissom opened the door for me, something he never had done before. I eyed him suspiciously, but he just smiled.

I slid into the passenger seat, as he walked around to the driver's side. "What was that about?" I asked, while he turned the key and started the engine. During the twenty minute drive back to the lab, the two of us sat silently, saying a word to each other every now and then. He turned the radio on and switched it to a station playing country music.

"What is this?" I asked, sticking my tongue out in disgust. He laughed and allowed me to change the channel. Within seconds, a loud upbeat song filled the speakers.

"What's that?" Grissom inquired, turning down the street towards the lab.

I shrugged, "We listen to it all the time…"

"Teenagers…"

I laughed, as the song changed and one of Lindsay's favorite songs came on. I began moving to the music, unaware that Grissom was watching me. Moments later, one of his hands lightly touched my leg, sending me back into reality.

"Cath…"

"Yes…"

"What were you doing?"

"I think Lindsay calls it head banging," I laughed, slapping him in the arm and making him smile.

"Who can explain teenage behavior?" he chuckled, parking the car next to a black Ford Explorer.

"I sure can't… but if you can, more power to ya…"

The two of us walked into the lab side by side, holding evidence bags and cards covered with tape lifts. Grissom's eyes were focused straight down the door in which Greg was working. He was so ready to jump on a new case that he completely ignored Sara and Nick's "hellos" from across the hall. I waved and lifted up the evidence bags signaling that we were still processing the evidence from the Swanson case. Sara smiled knowingly and leaned over a long table covered with photos from their case. When Grissom opened the door, Greg was already waiting for DNA samples from Sara and Nick's case to be processed.

"We have some prints for you to run through AFIS and skin samples we collected from underneath the victim's fingernails, it's important that we get this back ASAP because the blood spatter suggests that she was moved." He plopped down the bags and headed out to his office.

"Nice to see you too Grissom…"

"Don't worry about it Greg… he's starting a new case… you know what that feels like…"

"Yeah it's like… how did you say it? Oh yes, it's like King Kong on cocaine."

"Thanks Greg," I smiled leaving to join Grissom in the office.

"Anytime Cat…"

"I'll pretend you didn't say that…" I shut the door behind me and walked down the hallway, passing by Nick and Sara once again.

"How are you guys doing with that jogger's death?" I asked cheerfully, but for some reason I felt like I was intruding. Sara and Nick had always seemed close… maybe they were closer than I thought.

"Well we've pretty much got everything the D.A. needs except for those DNA samples, but we should be good once Greg's done processing them," Sara stated confidentially collecting the photos and stacking them in a neat little pile.

"Lucky you…" I sighed wondering what in the world Grissom could possibly be doing in the office.

"Oh yeah, sorry about dumping that Swanson case on you two, but we really needed to close this one," Nick answered, looking up from his work.

"Nick it's no problem… really the only thing we can do is search her background and wait for the evidence to be processed. That's a two man job, not a four man job."

"Yeah I guess you're right…"

"Don't worry about it Nick…" I turned to leave, but I still heard Sara say, "Have fun working with Grissom… scientific methods… gross…"

I stood in the doorway for at least fifteen minutes watching Grissom type, click and scrible down notes without stopping. Interruptedly, I cleared my throat several times, but I was of no avail; he still wouldn't look at me.

"Hey Loser… you could at least say 'hi' to me…" I smiled daintily taking a seat across him.

Finally, I had captured his attention and he looked away from his computer, taking my eyes hostage. He gave me that look librarians give you when you're being too loud, but at the same time, something about that I'm-gonna-make-you-pay look made me squirm in my seat.

Whoa… did I just say the about Grissom?

"What you say never ceases to amaze me…" he stared me down, knowing that I was not comfortable in our current position. His sly smile that flashed briefly across his face surely meant that he was enjoying my deer-in-the-headlight expression.

I let out a "pfft" and stood once again, walking around the desk to begin working on the mountain of papers he had already printed out. We stayed like that for several minutes, surrounded by an awkward silence and not sure what to say. Thoughts raced through my head.

Why is he doing this to me? Why is he acting so strange all the sudden?

Evidently, there was something funny on his computer screen because he burst out laughing.

"Gil? What the hell?" were the only words I could manage to say without breaking in half like a cookie.

"You should see your face! Wow Cath! Usually you're as cool as a cucumber! But a few seconds ago you were as pink as a pumpkin!" his laughter was so different than the professor-like noises he usually made. The strength of the new laugh made him bounce up and down in his seat and I couldn't help but smile.

A wave of red hot embarrassment, however, did end up finding its way up to my cheeks. I couldn't believe this. I, Catherine Willows, the one that guys looked up and down and made all the guys in the lab melt, was actually falling to the ground with such force that it really felt like quicksand sucking me in. Gil Grissom, a man in his late forty's who women in the lab wouldn't give a second glance, (except Sara, but that was years ago) was making me blush. I never in my entire life blushed in front of a man before, even Eddie.

Drifting away from my thoughts I realized that Gil had stopped laughing and was now staring at me. His gaze made me blush even more, turning my face from I-just-ran-the-mile to I-just-ran-the-marathon. He smiled at me once again and I had to force myself to swallow my anxiety and say something.

"Pumpkins are orange hun," was all that I dared to say. The pumpkin thing was something we had started to say when he started blushing whenever I mentioned Sara, but he never said that to me.

Wait a minute, I thought, nervously glancing around the room like I was trying to find something. Did I just call him hun? I shuddered once I realized that I had indeed called him hun. What was going on with me? Could I seriously be flirting with Gil Grissom?

"I… I… um… we…" I stammered attempting to collect my thoughts and trying to think of something casual and nonflirty to say.

"I, um, we what Cath?" his eyes changed from a look of playfulness to worry and concern.

"We should… uh… get started… any leads in this pile of junk?" Swiftly, I heaved the stack over to the other side of the desk and plunked down into the chair.

To prove that I was once again back in my "cool cucumber" stature, I flipped my hair from side to side and placed my glasses back into their comfortable position on my head. Sighing boredly, I grabbed the first few papers and began sifting through them. It was the basics; information on her, her education, her family, her career, the medical examiner's report, phone records, medical records, credit card records, and taxes.

Wow, I said silently, isn't this fun…

"Cath…" I raised my eyes to meet his and gripped the chair slightly, proving that I wouldn't get sucked in again.

"Yeah?" I tilted my head to the side like a confused puppy would and silently battled his gaze.

"You look really nice today…" now that was something Gil didn't tell me everyday. I was wearing a V-neck tank top, which was a light shade of pink and a tiny sliver of my tanned skin could be seen above my black pin-striped pants. It wasn't anything impressive looking, so why was he making a big deal about it?

"Uh… thanks?" personally, I wasn't sure whether or not he was complimenting me or just joking around.

"What? I'm not allowed to compliment you or what?" he didn't look at me as he spoke his comment or when he grabbed a pile of papers from what seemed to be a never-ending stack.

"Right… um… can we get back to the case now?"

"Sure… find anything interesting?"

"The person who reported the crime was her boyfriend Houston… what a name… anyway the last place she was seen alive was at some party for her neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Drake. Maybe we should start there… ok?"

"With the boyfriend?"

"No… is something making you lose your mind? 'Cause now I'm really afraid… I meant that we should start with the neighbors Genius, after all the were the last ones to see her alive… but if you want to go to the boyfriend, I'll get Warrick to go with me… if he's not busy…"

"No! I mean… uh… this is our case Cath… we should work together. Besides, Warrick's in court today."

"Ok…"

"Well what are we waiting for?" as I turned to find my black leather jacket, I found two folders lying on Grissom's desk. The one was marked Alicia Stone, the other Alexia Schiel.

"Gil…" I said picking up the files and opening the first one, "what are these?"

He looked at me in complete silence, his eyes telling me that it wasn't something good.