Author's Note: Big thanks to Elise and Marlou for their help with this chapter. I'm sorry it took so long, I was struck with a serious case of writer's block and I've attempted to work through it here.
An Exercise in Futility: Chapter three
The desert was not the place for a city of two million people.
It was Sara's only thought as she stared out the side window, watching the heatwaves coil off the barren, yellow earth with menacing promise. She distantly wondered if she was one of those destined not to dwell within its city limits. She then considered if she even believed in something as undefinable and illogical as destiny.
Glancing at the man beside her, staring mutely at the road ahead, she decided that she definitely didn't.
The silence in the car was stifling, and Sara sighed. She had thought they were past that somewhat tumultuous stage in their relationship. Obviously they weren't.
The desert remained the same limitless stretch of oblivion from her tiny window into its infinite domain, like they were the only two in the centre of a vast, uninhabitable earth, and it was never-ending.
Grissom remained focused on the road ahead, seemingly lost in thought. She glanced at him, finding herself trying to read his thoughts, and failing miserably.
She sighed deeply, throwing caution to the wind. She had nothing to loose anyway.
"Did you get Myles' statement from Nick?"
His hands clenched unconsciously on the steering wheel as her voice drifted over him, and he took a moment to slowly nod his head. "He claims he saw Veronique in an argument with a man two night's ago. They were standing outside his car, and he hit her before speeding off. One of her nighttime callers, I'm sure". He pursed his lips, considering something briefly. "I'm… not sure if its wise I'm telling you this".
Sara concentrated on her fingers as they thrummed idly on the armrest.
"Why?" she asked quietly.
His expression was silently disgruntled, and he obviously didn't want to have to spell it out to her. "Because of your… relationship with him".
Sara glanced at him in the corner of her eye, gauging the difficulty with which he delivered that last statement, and attempting to keep her tone neutral. "Is that going to be a problem?"
Grissom kept his gaze firmly forward. "No".
For some reason, Sara felt the need to push the issue, and went on when caution demanded otherwise. "Because unless he's a suspect, I don't see why it would be." She eyed him pointedly. "Is he a suspect?"
"No", he repeated slowly.
Satisfied, she turned her gaze back to the passing desert, admiring the intensity of the austere yellow through the protection of the tinted glass. "Okay then".
Silence encompassed the air between them again, and Grissom tapped his thumbs almost absently over the steering wheel. "So who is he?"
Sara felt an eyebrow quirk upwards, finding it difficult to imagine how much it would have cost Grissom to ask such a question. "We dated when I was in high school", she answered after a while, staring vaguely out the side window. "We broke up when I left for college".
He nodded, obviously sensing that there was much more significance to the relationship than that.
"Have you seen him since then?" he asked after a stretch of silence between them.
She licked her lips, keeping her gaze focused on the road ahead. "No", she said softly. "I haven't".
This time, when Grissom was silent, she was glad. She didn't think she could answer his questions, if they were merely to appease his own curiosity. After all, it wasn't as if he would care for any remotely personal reason. It was all about the case.
They passed a sign indicating their nearing proximity to Vegas, and she was focused so intently on the cool air circulating from the air conditioner that she missed his question the first time he asked it.
Blinking, she turned to him indolently. "I'm sorry, what?"
Grissom glanced at her, infinitely patient, and she knew that they had reverted to the standard comfort-zone of their relationship; he the teacher, she the student-- though professionally, they had passed that stage a long time ago. She knew it allowed him to feel more secure when he reminded himself he was her boss and he knew what was best for her, and she let him have that delusion. She didn't think Grissom was even aware that he did it.
"I said, do you have a theory on the case?" he repeated calmly. "You seemed to be pretty quiet back there".
She frowned slightly, though she was relieved to be back on safe territory. She managed to switch to a professional tone with an ease born from years of habit. "I thought you didn't like it when we spouted off theories without all the evidence?"
He shrugged, looking at something in his side mirror as he navigated a turn. "I'm feeling tolerant today. Besides, I have a feeling you're going to tell me anyway. Enlighten me".
She resisted a smirk, wondering if he even realised how well he knew her.
She shouldn't have been flattered when he noticed her minor quirks; she really shouldn't. He was an investigator after all; he was trained to notice. But it always felt more personal when he commented on those things. The more minute detail, the more intimate his knowledge.
"Okay". She tapped the armrest absently, rising to the challenge. She fingered her sunglasses absently as she slid them off her head. "There's something up with their family that I don't like. These death threats, for example".
"What about them?"
"Well, if they were really a political manoeuvre from some rival, where's the set of demands? Once Veronique's dead, she has no use to their agenda, and it won't make the Senator drop out of his campaign. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense".
He nodded cautiously. "Okay. So what other suspects do we have?"
"I'm thinking Veronique has a lot of secrets, maybe some the Senator and his wife don't want making themselves known to the public eye. Maybe it was one of her lovers. Or maybe it was a family member".
Grissom lifted an eyebrow, looking grim. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves yet, Sara."
She shot him a look. "You just told me to tell you what I was thinking."
He offered her a small apologetic smile, and the softening in his eyes made her unsuspecting heart thunk in response. "Sorry".
She shrugged, shifting uncomfortably. "I know this is going to be a political case, Grissom, and that's the last thing the lab wants-- but when have you ever cared about office politics?"
He shot her a pointed look. "I don't. If the evidence supports it, I'm willing to explore that theory. But until we have any, I'd prefer not to speculate on it. We don't need Ecklie to hear that we're considering the Senator, or his family".
She scoffed, concealing a scowl. If the lab always followed Ecklie, the victims would never receive any justice.
Grissom seemed to sense her mood, and glanced at her as they neared the outer limits of Vegas, passing several old warehouses in the industrial district. "I know it's frustrating, Sara. But if it weren't Conrad… well, it would just be somebody else, wouldn't it?"
She lifted an eyebrow. "Like Catherine, you mean?"
He shot her a warning look, and she took that as her cue for silence. She knew he didn't want to discuss the latest conflict with Catherine, and she didn't particularly want to talk about it either. Catherine had done a lot of unethical things in the past she didn't agree with; she just didn't understand why he was giving her the cold shoulder this time.
Her thoughts switched to Myles again, and she almost unconsciously brushed her hand over her cell phone where it pressed against her side in her pocket. He would be calling soon, and this time she would have a chance to rehearse her reaction. The more his presence weighed on her mind, the more she realised how difficult things were going to be the next time she saw him. He had been everything to her once, but that was a different time, a different her. The Sara that was still young and relatively innocent, who knew only a fraction of the evils in the world.
The Sara before Grissom.
Almost as if he sensed what she was thinking, Grissom's gaze slid over to her briefly.
Neither of them said anything.
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San Francisco, California
1988
Blood rivulets trickled down her arm where the belt had lashed into her flesh, and Sara swallowed back tears. She wouldn't cry. If she cried he would hear her, and he would be back.
She huddled into the warmth of her closet, inhaling the musty fragrance of coats long hung in the stifling heat of summer, squeezing her eyes shut. Silently, she began to recite a rhyme they had learnt in school that day, whispers barely brushing through her small, chapped lips.
"Hush-a-bye, don't you cry;
Go to sleep my little baby.
When you awake, you will have cake
And all the pretty little horses.
Black and bay, dapple and grey,
Coach and six-a little horses.
Hush-a-bye, don't you cry;
Go to sleep my little babyWay down yonder, down in the meadow,
There's a poor wee little lamby.
The bees and the butterflies peckin' out its eyes;
The poor wee thing cried for her mammy…"
Sara woke up with a sharp intake of breath, as the haunting cacophony of her childhood came to an abrupt halt in her ears, and all sound rushed to a stop. She drew in deep, shallow breaths, running her hands shakily through her disarray of brown curls.
Almost unconsciously, her eyes drifted over to the crisp white letter sitting on the edge of her bedside table, illuminated in the silvery moonlight. Even from here, she could glimpse its neatly printed postmark, mocking her with its temptation.
Abruptly, she threw aside the covers, padding across the dusty carpet and snatching up the letter, crumpling it her palm as she strode down the narrow hall. Soft voices drifted from the kitchen, a sharp contrast to the normal steely undertone of the household, and Sara uncertainly slowed her step, pausing with her palm pressed to the wall.
"… Look, I just don't think it's going to work. If you have to do this, at least plan things out a little better—"
"I'm not going to wait, man. I've wasted too much time in this dump already. I don't care if you help me or not… This is the big one, Myles. I'm not letting this pass because you feel bad about it".
Sara frowned, struggling to decipher their voices more clearly. They softened to gravely whispers, and after a few minutes, she heard the screen door slam and the unmistakable revving of an engine as it came to life.
The bleak thirst from her dream made itself known again, and she licked her lips, slowly emerging from the shadowy hall. She stopped short on her trek to the kitchen, when she realised Myles still stood in the darkened room, hunched against the cupboards.
She swallowed, struggling to school her features into a look of surprise after she got over her initial fright.
"Myles?"
He glanced up, looking equally surprised to see her. "Hey, Sunshine", he drawled slowly, folding his arms as he leant against the kitchen counter. His soft brown eyes pierced into hers intently, and she wondered if he knew how long she had been there.
She shrugged off her unease, stuffing the letter subtly in her pocket as she looked away, continuing on her quest for water. "What are you doing here?" she asked, keeping her back turned to him as she reached for a glass from the upper cupboard.
She heard him turn to watch her as his feet shuffled over the tiles. "Ryan. He needed some advice."
She sometimes wondered exactly what Ryan and Myles' previous relationship was. On the surface it appeared that they were good friends, almost brother-like in their behaviour and bond of trust, but she sensed a certain level of animosity fizzling under the surface.
"Where is he?"
Myles sounded tired, resigned. "I don't know."
Sara turned, cradling the cold glass of water between her slender fingers. She was aware of her rumpled appearance, and the fact that she was still in her unflattering, flannel pyjamas, and reminded herself that it was dark. "Is he in some kind of trouble, Myles?"
He narrowed his eyes at her slightly, and she forced herself to maintain eye contact. "What makes you think that?"
"You're not the only one who notices things around here", she responded sharply, dumping the remaining contents of the glass into the sink. She started to stalk past him, and he stopped her with a hand on her arm. His touch was gentle and warm, and she frowned at the sudden flutter in her stomach.
"Hey, look, it's nothing to worry about, I swear. You know what he's like." He glanced down at her, brow crinkling slightly as he released her arm. "What's up, anyway, Sunshine? Why are you up so late?"
Sara took a step away, wondering once again how he managed to remain so utterly perceptive. "Nothing. I couldn't sleep".
He tilted his head, a tinge of doubt behind his eyes. "Sure?"
She shrugged. "Yeah, I um… yeah. I'm fine."
He continued to stare at her. She sighed heavily, sliding into a seat at the chipped wood grain table. "I just had a bad dream".
"What about?"
She narrowed her eyes slightly. Did he get some kind of kick out of analysing her? "My mother", she said, more snappishly than she intended.
Myles lifted an eyebrow, sensing her sensitivity on the subject. "Is she the reason you're here?"
Sara looked away, unwillingly reliving the resonant echo of aches past. "One of them", she muttered. She didn't like to talk about her past. She had never confided in anybody about it. People had asked, once, when she was young and innocent and they wanted to be her friend. They didn't ask anymore.
There was something instantly trustworthy about Myles. She didn't know what it was, exactly. She hadn't known him long, and she didn't make it a habit to willingly trust other people. Yet she found it easier to talk to him than any of the other pseudo-siblings she had encountered in the past. She felt like he would understand.
Mutely, she reached into her pocket and withdrew the now crumpled envelope, sliding it across the rough table with reluctant listlessness.
Myles slowly left his perch against the counter, and casually dropped into the chair opposite her, belying his awareness of the situation and its gravity. He took in the prison postmark and official stamp with nary a reaction.
"She wants me to visit her", she responded, looking down.
Myles lifted an eyebrow in sympathy. "You feel like you have to?"
Again, she nodded. He shrugged. "You know, I want to give some helpful advice here, but I don't think I could even pretend to understand", he said thoughtfully. "I don't know what she did, but if you're thinking about it, I'm guessing it wasn't something she did to you. Don't go because you have to. Go if you want. It's your choice".
Sara pursed her lips, nodding slowly. He made it sound so simple. Maybe it was. Maybe she was making things more complicated than they had to be.
"Thanks", she said, slowly, surprised by how easy it had been to share with him.
He nodded kindly. "No problem".
00000000
Las Vegas, Nevada
2005
Sara felt eyes penetrating her inner solitude as she poured her third mug of coffee in the empty breakroom, and she slowly lifted her head.
Catherine glided through the doorway with a feigned ease, presenting a convincing front that she had not been staring. Sara stepped to the side as she too reached for the lukewarm coffee pot.
"How's your evidence cataloguing going?" she asked politely, feeling like she should break the silence.
Catherine glanced at her, flicking a strand of blonde hair over her shoulder as she poured herself a generous amount of the tepid liquid. "It's going. Can't say we have much to go on at this point. Mia's looking for DNA on some of Veronique's sex toys, and from the semen on the bed sheets. Did you give the death threats to Ronnie?"
Sara felt a distinct frown pull at her brow, and sipped her coffee in an attempt to hide her sudden annoyance, wincing at the bitter taste. It was such an obvious dig at her competence that Sara had difficulty restraining her notorious quick temper. "Yes. He's examining them now".
Catherine tilted an eyebrow. "Where's Grissom?"
"He's in the morgue with Nick attending Veronique's autopsy".
"And you?" the blonde asked pointedly, eyed flickering over her relaxed stance against the counter.
Sara drew in a calming breath, shifting abruptly to rinse her empty mug in the sink. "You know what, Catherine-- if you have something to say, why don't you just say it?"
Catherine lifted an eyebrow, surprised by the younger woman's frankness, before shrugging idly. "Okay. Nick told me you know one of the Hollander's employees".
Sara blinked, stopping the running water with more force than necessary, blistering her skin in the process. She maintained an appearance of outward composure, turning to regard Catherine. She knew if she blew up at the blonde again, Ecklie was sure to be right around the corner, eager to reprimand her for her misdemeanour. She wouldn't be getting a slap on the wrist a second time. Not even Grissom could protect her again.
"Is that relevant?" she managed at last, keeping her voice low and even.
Catherine pursed her lips. "Look, Sara, this is a political case, whether Grissom wants to acknowledge it or not. You have to admit, this has the potential to make things complicated…"
Sara rolled her eyes. She was saved from making a career-sacrificing blunder as her pager beeped shrilly into the charged silence.
She consulted the flat screen. '911- Print Lab'.
Frowning, she tucked it back against her jeans, glancing at Catherine briefly. "Jacqui has my results".
Catherine nodded mutely. "I'll come with you".
Sara sighed, starting down the blue-lit lab corridor, passing Greg and Warrick working intently in the layout room before reaching the print tech's domain.
Both women were surprised to find Jacqui not alone, but with Grissom standing behind her with his arms folded grimly.
"I thought you were in the autopsy?" Catherine asked, frowning slightly at his unexpected appearance.
The nightshift supervisor's expression didn't flicker. "I was."
"Find anything interesting?" Sara asked. Grissom's expression was filling her with an irrational sense of apprehension.
"Cause of death was blunt force trauma, like we thought. Doc sent her stomach content over to Tox, but its possible she was intoxicated at the time of her death".
One of Catherine's perfectly plucked eyebrows lifted impatiently. "So what's with the grim face, Gil?"
He indicated his head towards Jacqui, who looked uncomfortable to be caught in the middle of their seemingly permanent mutual cold front. Sighing, she cleared her throat. "I got a hit on some prints Warrick pulled off the victim's bed post."
Mutely, Catherine and Sara rounded the desk to see the results displayed on the computer monitor in front of her.
1 MATCH: MYLES DAVIES
Sara swallowed hoarsely, and Catherine pointedly coughed.
"Well", the blonde said darkly, gaze zeroing in on Sara. "That's certainly interesting".
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