A/N Great to hear from all of you! Hope you like the next installment.

Chapter 2

A doctor wearing green scrubs stepped through the doors of the ER, "Crime lab?" Nick and Greg rose from their seats. "She's unconscious but come in and I'll tell you what I can."

The men followed him into the treatment alcove where Sara was lying, unconscious, on a hospital bed. An IV drip was hooked up to her left arm. The bruises on the right side of her badly swollen face had deepened to dark purple and black. Gauze bandages covered her misshapen nose.

"So, what are her injuries?" Nick asked, trying hard to remain professional as his eyes lingered on Sara. This was the first time he'd seen her as the victim. Greg hung in the background, equally disturbed by Sara's appearance.

The doctor explained, "Best we can guess is that she was hit in the face. Hard. Most likely a pretty solid object rather than a fist or bottle. A fist alone wouldn't have caused that much damage and a bottle most likely would've shattered producing multiple lacerations."

He went on to discuss her injuries, "Her nose is broken. That probably accounts for the majority of the blood on her upper body. Fortunately, her skull wasn't fractured. She lost a tooth and she also has some badly bruised ribs."

Nick hated considering the possibility but he had to follow procedure. "Did you do a rape kit?"

"Yes, only a few minutes ago, we sent it down to your lab for analysis."

Although he dreaded the results, Nick faced the doctor squarely. "Is there…is there any indication that she was raped?"

The doctor was able to confidently respond. "No. Her pants were bloody but intact. We believe she recently had intercourse due to slight bruising on her vagina, but it was consensual contact. There's no sign of any damage or trauma."

Nick was relieved but confused. "What about all the blood?" Warrick had relayed that information to him with a heavy heart; he'd mentioned significant bleeding.

The doctor seemed a bit uncomfortable. "She had her period."

"Yeah?" Nick wasn't following.

Re-adopting his clinical demeanor, the doctor explained. "Apparently she has a pretty heavy flow during her menstrual cycle. The tampon we removed from her was completely saturated. The rest of the blood had to go somewhere so it simply seeped around the blockage. Over several hours, there was significant accumulation."

Not a pretty picture.

Nick continued, "I presume you sent samples to the lab to analyze for semen."

"Of course, although with such a heavy flow of blood, a significant quantity may've been flushed out of her system," the doctor added.

"Oh." More details than he really wanted to know, but it was a satisfactory answer to the question. Nick was somewhat relieved; at least Sara may've been spared that indignity.

Quickly trying to change the subject, Greg asked, "How long will she be unconscious?"

The doctor cleared his throat uncomfortably, "It's hard to say. She could just have a concussion. Or there could be some trauma. It's promising that her basic bodily systems are functioning normally. I don't know about her speech or memory. It's too early to say. We'll know more when she comes to, which could be in five minutes or five days."

"Notify us the minute she does. We need to examine her personal effects and clothing," Nick stated. The doctor handed them a bag. "We'll have them back after we check them out in the lab." He turned to Greg, "Let's get to the scene, Warrick and Catherine are going to need help."

XXXXXXXX

"Can you do this case?" Detective Jim Brass asked Catherine.

At midmorning, as Catherine suspected, they were still at the convenience store processing the crime scene. She and Warrick had discovered and swabbed blood flecks near the bathroom leading to the alley. An empty roll of duct tape was found in one of the parking spaces. A scouting of the perimeter had yielded nothing else of significance thus far. They'd also scanned the store and the bathrooms. Since then, they'd been tackling the overflowing dumpster, trying to scour it for evidence before the sun got any higher.

Catherine and Detective Brass stepped downwind from the odor.

She replied, "Of course. I have to admit that it's disturbing to investigate a crime when one of our own is involved. But, " she hesitated a moment then continued with determination, "we want to do this."

Brass seemed satisfied. "Ok. Any idea when this happened?"

"Nick saw Sara leaving the lab around six a.m. yesterday at the end of her shift. She was scheduled for a week of vacation time, though she didn't mention to anyone at the lab whether she was actually going to be in town or away. If she was going away, it had to have been close since she only left her pager and cell phone number as contacts. That's all we have for now," Catherine explained.

Come to think of it, that was kinda weird, both Sara and Grissom taking vacation time. They typically worked on their days off. Between the two of them, they probably had enough vacation time accrued to take off from Halloween to New Year's Day. If only that could be me, I'd sure know what to do with that kind of vacation time.

He tried to get a feeling about the crime. "Do you think she actually entered the store then got caught in the middle of a bad situation as she was leaving?"

Catherine shook her head. "No, there was no report of anything unusual happening in the store last night. We're analyzing some blood spots that we found just outside of the ladies's room. That may be where the assault took place. Perhaps she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, she saw something she wasn't supposed to in the parking lot and they were in a hurry to get rid of the witness."

Brass wondered, "Or maybe it was personal. Maybe she was assaulted somewhere else and then the perp brought her here to dump her body."

"Well, the evidence will tell us. We're working on it. Nick is speaking with the store manager about locating the clerks that worked at the store yesterday and obtaining the video surveillance tapes for us." Catherine added, "Her SUV wasn't on the scene so your boys are locating it for us."

Taking a break, Warrick joined the conversation, "We'd like to check out Sara's apartment to see if it can give us any clues. But hopefully, we can get more information from Sara herself first."

"I agree, let's hold off on that, for a little while anyway." Brass wanted to extend professional courtesy to his people as much as he could. He didn't want to violate their privacy unless it was warranted. "Is she still unconscious?" he asked.

"Yeah, they'll notify us when she comes to," Warrick explained.

"Sounds good." Brass stepped closer to examine the over flowing dumpster. "This thing hasn't been dumped in ages. Why today? Why did the garbage men finally come today?"

Catherine explained, "Big surprise, the owner of the store hadn't kept up with his trash fees. Guess he finally paid up after the neighbors started complaining."

Brass looked thoughtful, "Looks like Sara got lucky. A few more hours of exposure could've been fatal. Keep me posted." He started to leave then turned back to ask Catherine. "By the way, where's Gil? I'm sure he'll want to know about this."

"He's on vacation. I've tried his cell and pager a few times but I haven't gotten any answers." Catherine was concerned. This wasn't like Grissom. And if Sara was involved, she knew he'd want to know.

"Give the guy a break Catherine, he is on vacation," Warrick chided. "Maybe he got lucky and doesn't want to be disturbed?" he joked. He'd occasionally turned off his cell phone when he was involved with a special lady.

Catherine raised her eyebrows at the inappropriateness of the comment then mumbled, "It's just not like him to be out of touch."

"Try him later," Brass replied. "He'll want to know."

TBC