The streetlights made the sidewalk an awful green colour. Moths and bugs stupidly hovered around the intoxicating glow. Marijuana hung in the air thickly. Nobody was there, but there was evidence of a former congregation not long ago. A shadow ran across the brick walls of a building.

Rounding a corner into a dark alley, Lindsey Willows hugged her jacket tight around her and coughed at the stench of the drug. Trying to hold her breath while walking through the lane, she started to run when she spotted the lights of the street again. It was 8 o'clock. She looked at her watch twice, first for the time and then to think. If she were home by ten, nobody would know. And she'd already made the call anyways; it wasn't her fault she wasn't there. So technically she wouldn't get in trouble. She felt compelled to intervene after seeing it on the news.

Sara sat on her bed reading a thick book. The pages were brittle and yellowed, and made a crackly noise when they turned, instead of the swoopy sound they make when they are new. She was wrapped up in whatever the book was about, because she didn't hear the doorbell ring the first time.

She looked through the spyhole. It was Grissom. She really didn't want to open the door. She wasn't in the mood to talk, she wasn't in the mood to think, and she wasn't in the mood to work. She didn't want to associate herself with the shooting of an officer. She silently crept into the kitchen and sat down on the floor. There, she was surrounded by cabinets and the wall of the living room so Grissom wouldn't see her if he looked in the window. The phone rang. She didn't want to answer it, that would be stupid. The machine got it. Sara listened to hear who it was and to make a note to call them back.

"Sara…" Grissom's voice echoed from outside and from the answering machine. Sara just rolled her eyes. Picking up the receiver, she calmly said:

"Grissom, I really REALLY don't want to talk. I'm okay, I just need… some me time…" Outside, Grissom paced.

"I don't want you to quit, Sara. You're a good CSI." He assured her. Memories of the shooting shot themselves through Sara's mind. She shuddered.

"What you want and what I want are two very different things, Grissom. I want to quit and I did. Right now, I care about Officer Jensen and I don't want to be associated with what happened… yet." Sara said angrily. Grissom started to say something, but she cut him off. "Please, just leave me alone," She said sternly. "Or I will move and have my phone number changed and I will have you introduced to a TRO I'm serious, Grissom, LEAVE ME ALONE!" Sara shouted into the phone. She threw the receiver into the phone bed and sat on the kitchen floor, crying. Grissom stalled outside, feeling rather hurt and glum. But, he realised, he was acting kind of stalkerish. He turned into the night and walked to his car. He had more business to settle.

Lindsey sat on the curb outside an ugly brick building, across the park from the lot where the officer was shot. The scene she'd seen on the news. It might've been then she'd realised how dangerous her mother's work was. She saw her on the news running to an ambulance.

8:23.

She was getting a little scared now. The part of town wasn't exactly a nice one, and a homeless man was wheeling his shopping cart over to her and she didn't want him to smell her fear so she avoided eye contact. He passed by, eyeing her, and she shifted uncomfortably. It was definitely getting colder. The wind picked up and blew strands of blonde out of her messy ponytail. She wished she'd brought more than just a sweatshirt. The homeless man started singing and he still looked at her menacingly. He and his shopping cart clattered on. Headlight beams lit up a tree across from Lindsey. Finally! She thought. The dark blue truck pulled up and she ran over.

Sara wandered aimlessly through her kitchen, waiting for water to boil for her tea. She'd forgotten about her book. Now, because of Grissom's feeble attempt at convincing her to come back, she could only think of the shooting. The moment she saw the figure run out from the alley by that old, ugly brick building into the lights of the street was running through her head. Over and over. Like when CD's skip and one cannot find the stop button. She paced. She became profoundly angry, then scared. Then angry again. Cold rushed over her, even though it was warm in her house. Then she started sweating cold sweat. She clenched her teeth and her fists. Blood trickled from her palms as her nails dug into them. She started to cry again. Sitting down was doing nothing, so she stood up. But then, feeling vulnerable, she sat down again. This time on her couch. She fell into an uneasy sleep.

As Lindsey climbed into the passenger seat, Grissom pulled a blanket from the back and wrapped her up in it. He started driving. Lindsey looked like she wanted to say something, but couldn't quite choose the words.

"Lindsey? When you called, your mom was in the field. Do you want me to take you to her?" Grissom asked, although it would have been just as easy for the girl to have phoned her mom on her cell phone, so the question seemed redundant. Lindsey shook her head.

"No," she paused, "Um, Sir? Mr. Grissom… I want to tell you… or someone. Not my mom, but someone… about something I saw today at school," Lindsey said.

"You can tell me," Grissom said, curious.

"And I think I know who got shot…" She added, like she'd just remembered. Grissom frowned in confusion. He knew the time Lindsey had been caught hitchhiking, it was around here somewhere, and this place was known for drugs. Was that cute kid in his passenger seat old enough to even know what drugs were? He wondered.

"Is it someone you know?" Grissom asked, like he already knew the answer. Lindsey looked at him with horror. Kind of exactly like Catherine did when he asked her if Lindsey was doing drugs.

"NO!" She said, like he was another kid who called her a boy. "I just heard something, that's all. At school. This kid, his name is Vince Starr," She said, making sure he was listening, "Like the Beatle!" she added. Grissom smiled.

"Was he the one who said something?" Grissom asked her, thankful it didn't have to do with her and drugs at least.

"Yep," Lindsey said. "He said the creepiest thing. See, I was in the bathroom and there is a gap from the wall to the ceiling in between the girl's and boy's bathrooms, so he was in the boy's bathroom and I heard him. He was talking to another kid, and he said he was going to kill his brother, who is a drug dealer. He's like into GHB and stuff like that. I know this, because I hear things, Mister, people talk, okay? I don't do any of that…" She said, seeing Grissom's scandalous look of reaction to her knowledge of date-rape drugs. "But," she continued, "it was shockingly detailed, how he explained this to this other kid. I mean, he said where his gun was, that he could lift it from his brother's car, and how he would shoot him right between the eyes, and that his brother killed this guy when he was high and he deserved to die…" Lindsey explained.

Grissom found it shocking to hear such barbaric things coming from the mouth of such a sweet and innocent-looking kid. It was also shocking to hear her describe with such precision how the young man was shot. But Grissom still needed this story confirmed by evidence and as he pulled up in front of Catherine's house, he thought it terrifying that Lindsey didn't seem that disturbed.