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Chapter 5
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"Positive for two sets of epithelials. One is the victim's, but the other has no match in CODIS."
Sara stared back and forth between the printed results and the DNA lab tech's face as if the results would change.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing that makes sense." The tech held out a series of printouts and sighed. "The hairs you sent, one of them belonged to the vic, which was no surprise since you found it in her bed. But the other belonged to a toddler who drowned in Lake Michigan three years ago near Chicago. The third set of epithelials you sent in belonged to a 78-year-old homebound patient in the care of Brunswick, Maine's Memorial Hospital who died of a heart attack last month. The print on the footboard of the last vic's bed was that of a felon with a life sentence in a female correctional facility in New Mexico... Your suspect has been planting evidence everywhere."
Sara's shoulders slumped. "I should've known. Serials get smarter with every attack...Okay, thanks Tanya." She turned to leave.
"Don't you turn your back on me, Agent Sidle! I never said that I was finished!"
Sara looked back with a raised eyebrow and a smile. "Really? Well, enlighten me."
Smiling back, Tanya pulled out one last results page. "Your suspect may have been planting evidence, but the ones who think that they're smart always forget something. In this case, the semen stain on the wall outside the last victim's window."
"He left love gaffitti!"
"Yeah, stupid prick. The DNA didn't match anything in CODIS, but lucky for you it's a match to the stain found at another victim's home."
Sara smiled. "Lucky for me and all the other girls in Virginia. Tanya, you're a genious!"
"I know... Now get outta here and catch the bastard!"
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"What do you mean you can't do anything!"
Warrick stared at Brass unbelieveingly. Standing next to him, Catherine wore much the same look.
"I told you: it goes over my head-"
"I wore the mic and planted the spy camera in his office. You heard him threaten me and my job. Tell me again why you can't do anything?" Catherine was pissed, and her face showed it. More than that, her voice was just below a dull roar.
Brass walked past her to close the door. "Look, Catherine, I want to do something, I really do, but it's over my head. Now you know I can't discuss and ongoing investigation, but-"
"Wait, 'ongoing investigation'?" Warrick cried as his deep green eyes opened wider than thought possible.
"Yes," Brass sighed, "an ongoing investigation. The recordings are being sent to... a higher power."
By now, Catherine was shaking with anger. "Blackmail needs to be sent to a higher power?"
"No, blackmail we could've handled, but we decided to keep the tapes rolling after you left the office, and what he did when he thought that no one was watching calls for a higher power to step in. If I could do any more myself I would, really, but it's out of my hands now."
Catherine walked out of the office feeling empty and betrayed. Once again, it seemed that justice had forsaken the Willows family.
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Walking out of the interrogation room, Sara felt triumphant. This was the guy, she could feel it in her gut, and the DNA would prove it. He didn't know that they'd found the semen stains. He thought that the DNA sample was just for comparison purposes, and to his knowledge, he'd left nothing for them to compare it to anyways. Sara smiled. That had to be her favorite part of being in the interrogation room: she could legally lie ot suspects.
The only part of this entire process that bothered her was the fact that since the DNA sample was voluntary and technically they couldn't charge Rory McNabb with anything yet, he was free to go rape, torture and kill more innocent women, or worse, move on to another state all together if he thought that they were on to him.
Looking at her watch, Sara yawned. Shift was over, and she could do with a good night's sleep. Chuckling, she realized just how odd that sounded. She still wasn't quite used to sleeping in the dark, but she told herself that over time, that would change. Over time, she'd adjust to the normal world. She grabbed her coat and purse, hung up her lab coat, and headed out to her car. As she had done several times before, she climbed in, closed the door, and stared at the case files for a few moments.
But suddenly, something bothered her... Hadn't she locked the doors earlier? The unsettling feeling in her stomach increased as she set the files aside and made ready to leave. Adjusting the seat and side mirrors, she finally fixed the rear view mirror, only to reveal a dark and deadly familiar face. He covered her face to stifle her screams.
"You made a mistake, Agent Sidle," said the sinister voice of Rory McNabb. "You shouldn't have brought me into this. Now you're going to wish you'd left it alone."
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"Hey Cath, some guy in an Armani was just tearing me a new one with questions, and-"
"SHHH!" Pulling him into her office and shutting the door, Catherine eyed Nick wearily. "Don't shout. Who was asking questions?"
"Some guy who flashed a badge too quick for me to read. It was bizarre," he said, his brows furowed in thought. "All his questions were about you and Ecklie."
She sat down in her desk chair and rubbed her temples in an effort to ease the throbbing behind her eyes. "That's because he's a Fed."
His eyes went wide. "A Fed! As in the FBI! What's goin-"
"Whatdid you tell him, Nick?"
"Nothing, just that it's no secret around here that Ecklie's a kissass to everyone above himand a pain in the ass to everyone else."
That gave Catherine a small smile. "Good... that's good, Nicky. I like that." She sighed. "Look, Ecklie's a tricky situation right now. He's under investigation, but we can't let him know that. He has to think that he's completely safe so they can catch him redhanded."
"Doing what?"
"I'm not exactly sure. They won't let me in on that part, but it's above and beyond Brass... Right now, I have to focus on getting Grissom back. It's been a week since anyone has seen him and I'm really starting to get worried."
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Grissom lay still on the couch, listening to the seemingly neverending "beep... beep... beep..." of his answering machine, canstantly alternating between not caring and wanting to smash it against a wall. Of course, that would require getting up off the couch on which he had been living for a week straight, and so he sat wallowing in his guilt and grief, simply staring at his broken butterfly cse and the shattered glass which he hadn't the heart to clean up.
The sudden ring of his telephone no longer startled him. Glancing briefly at the caller id and recognizing the number as Catherine's cell, he ignored the inecessant noise and let the answering machine pick up again.
"Grissom," her voice squaked over the speaker, "I know you're there. Please pick up... (sigh) Please? ... Grissom, come on, we need you over here. It's getting crazy! We're incredibly short-staffed, and Ecklie's gone haywire! Not that you care about Ecklie... We got Feds everywhere, asking questions and digging through records and case files. It's a madhouse! Please pick up. We need you... Alright, just give me a call, okay? At least let me know that you're alive... Bye." Beep... Beep... Beep...
'Well,' he thought, 'at least I'm not imagining the world going to Hell.' He rolled over and was completely content to go back to sleep when the phone rang again. Giving an exasperated sigh, he turned back to check the caller id.
Suddenly, he sat straight up and whirled around. If he remembered correctly, that was the same area code as the number Sara had called from. With any luck, she was calling from a different phone. He got up and started searching for his cordless phone. He knew it was around here somewhere... He remembered throwing it across the room one day.
By the time he found the dent it had made in the wall, the answering machine picked up.
"Hello, Mr. Grissom. My name is Susan Barnes, and I'm a nurse at the Mercy Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. We have you down as the only next of kin for a Miss Sara Sidle. If you could..."
'Oh God, please no,' he thought, now searching even more fervently. Finally, he found the phone behind the entertainment center's left speaker.
"Hello?" he called out to the nurse.
"Yes, Mr. Grissom, are you still the next of-"
"Yes, I am," he interrupted. He hesitated, not knowing quite how to describe his relationship with Sara. "I'm a ... friend of hers. Is she okay?"
"That, Mr. Grissom, I would prefer to discuss when you get here."
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... TBC ...
A/N: please review! even i don't know how the story will end yet...