Disclaimer: I don't own CSI or any of its characters.
Summary: While swing shift has to work on several killings of a serial murderer, everybody starts to wonder if Greg and Sara are not telling them something. (Sara/Greg)
A/N: Thanks to FongSaiYuk319 for beta-reading! Remaining mistakes are mine : )
Thank you for your reviews!
Chapter 2: Now it gets silent
Warrick saw Nick coming out of the ballistics lab and he quickened his pace to catch up with his team mate who was walking in the other direction.
"Hey," he called.
Nick stopped and turned around. Warrick came to a halt in front of him.
"We haven't found DNA traces of other people on the body."
Pointing in direction of the ballistic lab, Nick said, "But I've just learned that the victim has been killed with the same gun like the other victim."
Warrick nodded, taking in the not unexpected information. "Anything else?"
"The police has interviewed several people who eye-witnessed the killing. They asked for a description of the assailant. Unsurprisingly, the statements differed widely, but you can filter out some facts: male, white, between 25 and 35, average height. He wore a cap, so his hair wasn't visible," Nick explained earnestly.
"This description probably fits to thousands of men in this city," Warrick remarked calmly.
They both headed in the direction of the break room. On the way they met Catherine who looked slightly badgered.
"Sorry, guys, but it's time for a double."
On Warrick's and Nick's questioning expressions she continued, "Another shooting. Same order of events."
She handed Nick a piece of paper with the concrete dates and then hurried off to her office, while Nick and Warrick made their way out of the lab. When they were passing the break room they saw Greg hurrying into it, obviously a bit late to the pre-shift meeting of graveyard shift. The two swing shift CSIs caught a glimpse of Grissom, who gave Greg a sign to settle down, cutting off his excuses for being late.
When they approached the SUV, Nick glanced meaningful at Warrick, who returned the expression. They both hold out one hand, counted silently until three, only moving their lips without s sound. At three Nick hold out his flat hand while Warrick had his hand clenched to a fist.
Nick grinned, "I'll drive."
Greg switched on his flashlight. He lifted his hand in which he held the flashlight, waving the beam along the ground of the narrow alleyway until it met the wall at the far end. There the alley made a turn into the backyard of the currently uninhabited, nevertheless comfortable looking, house at the left side of the alley. Where the alley met the pavement, the all too well known yellow-black tape marked the crime scene.
Greg and Sara had just arrived there and while she was speaking to Brass, Greg waited and got a first impression of the scene.
"It's not pretty," Greg heard Brass just saying.
"We're used to that," was Sara's reply.
In this moment David, the coroner, was coming around the corner at the far end of the alley and walked into the shine of Greg's flashlight.
Sara saw him and she crouched under the tape to enter the crime scene. Greg followed her. The shine of his flashlight was growing with every step he made towards the wall, Sara and David casting dim shadows in it.
Sara reached the end of the alley and talked to the coroner while both were turning around the corner into the backyard.
Some seconds later Greg did the same and while he was approaching the coroner and Sara, who had come to a stop next to the dead body of a woman, Greg heard David saying, "She hasn't been killed here." He pointed at the body and continued, "She bled to death, but here is only a small amount of blood."
Sara nodded and Greg saw what the coroner meant. Next to the body were only small puddles of blood which definitely did not fit to bleeding to death and to the amount of injuries the woman had.
Greg let his flashlight wander from the body to the point where he stood and then away from him until the corner of the alley. What stroke him was that there were no blood drops to be seen at all.
"There's no blood," he announced, letting the light wander from him to the body.
Sara, who had been staring at the body of the woman, looked up. "What?"
"There are no blood drops that lead to the body along the whole way from the alley to the body," Greg stated.
Sara nodded. "Yeah, you're right."
She opened her kit, put on gloves and started to examine the body. Greg walked along the full length of the backyard. He did not find any blood. To avoid missing anything that could lead to the murderer he bagged every tiny piece, mostly garbage, he found.
Sara examined, seemingly mechanically, the body and its direct surrounding. She seemed very silent this night.
Greg returned to her and got his first right look at the dead woman. She had obviously been beaten badly and she had deep cuts all over her body.
Greg wondered how many of them had been made before death and how many posthumously. The coroner would tell them. Altogether, it was as ugly was Brass had hinted.
Greg swallowed and wondered if he ever would get used to it. Sara was obviously used to it. She was working without any sign of emotion, just concentrating on her work. Now she was bagging some stuff she had detected on the body.
When she had finished that, she packed her things, including her camera, and asked Greg if he was ready. After his positive answer she allowed the coroner to remove the body. Then she made her way back to their car silently, followed by Greg.
He sat down on the passenger's seat and looked at Sara who was just starting the engine. "Is everything okay?" he asked her, trying to hide the worry in his voice. It was her silentness and her behaving like automatically that worried him. He had seen this before and then Sara had not been okay.
But Sara, watching the traffic to find a gap, said only, "Sure."
Greg sighed silently. He did not want to press it. She knew that she could talk to him if she wanted.
Warrick leaned over the dead body of a young man who had been shot in the back of his head. He picked up a white fiber carefully, hoping against all odds that it was not only a simple everyday fiber that would give them no lead at all.
It was already well after midnight, Nick and Warrick being in their second shift. They were processing the scene of the third shooting in a row where obviously random people – so far men in all three cases – had been shot from behind.
What differentiated this case from the other two was that they had only one eye-witness this time who had confirmed the description of the assailant that they had received from the other cases.
Warrick bagged the fiber, finishing his examination of the body with this and allowing the coroner to remove the body.
Warrick got up and walked over to Nick who was just closing his kit. "Nothing really useful. Just like the other times."
"Only thing is he didn't murder in a crowd this time. Maybe he's becoming cautious," Nick shrugged.
Warrick nodded calmly. "It's crazy to shot somebody in a crowd."
"Shooting people is crazy in the first place. We don't know how this guy's brain works."
Sara closed her locker and leaned against it. Her forehead rested on the door of her locker. The metal felt cold on her skin. What felt warm were the tears that slid slowly down her cheeks.
She closed her eyes, hoping the tears would stop. What she felt next was the soft touch of a hand on her shoulder. She started and turned around abruptly.
Greg stood in front of her. Sara turned from him and looked at a spot on the floor. "What are you doing here?" she asked, trying to compose her voice.
"I work here," Greg answered quietly.
There was silence.
"What is it, Sara?" Greg asked softly, trying to catch her gaze, but she avoided his.
"What is what?" Sara opened her locker again and crammed in it. She did not even know what she was searching for, probably for nothing, but she did not want to face Greg.
"You know, if you want to talk, you can call me, or come along, or whatever you want."
Again nobody said anything. The only sound was Sara's cramming in her locker what finally stopped.
"We are friends, remember?"
Sara said nothing and did not turn around. She still looked into the depths of her locker. She did not turn around and she did not answer either, but a small smile had crept on her face. She heard Greg leave.
She covered her eyes with her hand and sighed. She slammed her locker close, picked up her jacket that was still lying on the bench, put it on and wrapped her arms around her upper body and left.
Sara closed the door of her apartment behind her and the silence of the room was filling in her like so often. She laid her purse on the small wardrobe next to the door.
Then she went into her kitchen and headed for the fridge. She opened it and what she saw was only what she had expected. Not much. Also like so often. She just did not care to buy lots of food regularly, only for herself.
She made herself a small meal from the little food that was available. She carried it to her small kitchen table and sat down. She picked a little in her meal, eating one or two bits.
Finally she sighed, stood up, emptied the rest, or, more precisely, almost all of her meal into the trash can and made a mental note to get at least a bit of food during the day.
After washing up, she let herself sink on her couch, again realizing the silence and furthermore, the twilight, as not much sunlight was coming into her apartment, although the sun had already gone up one or two hours ago.
Sara leaned back and placed her hands on her forehead. Her thoughts went to the case of the night again and she sighed. It would probably haunt her until the merciful work flow of human brain allowed her to slowly forget. It generally did.
When her gaze fell on her cell phone, which she had laid onto the tiny table next to the couch, she also remembered Greg's offer.
She hesitated to accept it. For starters she did not know how serious he had been with it. People often offered easily to come along and reacted surprised when you really did so. At least Sara had heard that. Not to forget her feeling of awkwardness considering crying herself out in front of Greg, of all people.
Although, it also came to her mind that she probably was not fair to him concerning that.
She turned around and laid herself flat on the couch, her arms stretched out over her head. She shut her eyes and just when she closed them she heard her phone ringing.
She jumped up and rushed to pick it up. She said hello, but disappointment washed over her when she learned that somebody had misdialed.
She slammed the phone down and turned to return to the couch, but then she muttered, "Damn it."
She picked up the phone again and dialed Greg's number.
TBC