PART EIGHT

"We can't hold him." Brass told Grissom and looked back into the conference room as another detective tried to shake McKinnon's story. "He never fired a weapon, and there's no indication that he was in the diner except as a witness to what we already know. The district attorney's office says the shooters are dead and we should drop the case and move on."

"What do you think happened?" Grissom peered through the two-window at McKinnon.

"Well," Brass scratched his ear and mugged a bit disappointed. "I'd say Vasquez and buddies did shoot out the diner and were electrocuted after riddling the electrical system with bullets. McKinnon may actually believe he saw what he saw, but I'm not ready to believe that Marshall Reason was once Ares, god of war to the Ancient Greeks."

"I'm not ready to believe it either." Grissom mugged a bit himself. "The evidence tells us what it has to tell us. What we choose to believe is arbitrary."

"Mrs. Willows?" Monica Uchtman appeared in another part of the CSI building. With her appearance, Warrick Brown found himself checking her out and Nick Stokes thought he was looking at a ghost. Catherine looked to them and then back toward the good clone of the late Tammy Felton.

"Mrs. Uchtman." Catherine hoped she was pronouncing the young woman's name right. "Can I help you?"

"I encountered Melissa's mother yesterday." The young beauty confessed.

"That must have been interesting." Nick mumbled to Warrick.

"It was." Monica continued. "We got to talking and she told me about Melissa and then…." She lightly swayed her head trying to explain her thoughts. "You see, my mother died when I was little and she lost her daughter because of an abduction. She knows I'm not her real daughter, but she's so willing to be the mother I never had. Am I letting her do the right thing? I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Is this right?"

"I think it's the best thing for both of you." Catherine answered liking the way this was turning out. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"Then…." Melissa searched her feelings again. "Why does it feel so weird?"

"Maybe because you've never had a mother before." Grissom had slipped up silently to meet this young lady and see her for himself. He looked upon Monica and wished that Tammy Felton had done this soul-searching years ago before engaging into a degrading life of crime. She may not have had a future, but this Monica had a healthy future if she was willing to allow it.

"I got a mom." Monica lightly chuckled at the thought. "I got a mom."

"Don't trying an allowance out of her." Warrick chuckled a bit.

"I got a mom." Monica lightly chuckled again. She lightly pulled her hair back and turned backward to stride past the forensics lab. Sara Sidle mentioned a bit of the facts to Greg Sanders wondering what he was seeing and Al Robbins looked up to see the beauty drifting out for himself. Not ready to believe in ghosts, he just continued another autopsy from the day shift. In the wake of the clone's visit, Nick Stokes chuckled under breath.

"All these years I thought there was no way for two people to look alike, but now," He paused for effect. "I have to believe it."

"I'd hate to bust your doppelganger theory." Grissom loved busting myths. "But while getting a history on Monica Uchtman, I discovered she'd been in a motorcycle accident ten years ago. Her face had been run into a tree and a total of a hundred pins were used to reconstruct it. She wasn't born looking like Tammy Felton; she just ended up looking like her."

"What a bust…" Nick sounded depressingly disappointed. "I thought there was a hope for another Nick Stokes out there."

"God perish the thought…" Warrick was around to bust his bubble. "What about Reason? What happened to him?"

"Don't know…" Grissom confessed. "But I'm sure the FBI is keeping track of him…."

"You fixed it!" The former war god was in Los Angeles County in Californiaon the old abandoned airfield where his younger brother, Hermes raced and played with the high-intake vehicles that mortals raced here on earth in the role of a stuntman named Marcus Reason. In over two thousand years, mortals had caught up with the deities they once worshipped and the retired gods played with the toys of their descendants. Now calling himself Hef Reason, Hephaestus had gone from crafting enchanted swords and shields to high-intake engines and electrical wonders on par with the inventions of mortal beings. Restoring his brother's 1956 BSA chopper to exist another hundred years was just a modest trick.

"I may never say this again, and I'll deny it if you repeat it, but…" Ares looked the oil-covered face of his brother. "If I had to pick any brother I liked, you'd be him."

"Oh, I feel warm and fuzzy all over……" The former blacksmith-god responded coldly sarcastic.

"On the other hand," Ares turned out to the tarmac as Hermes pushed his racecar to a hundred and fifty miles an hour. As he raced by in his over-modified Mercury, the former messenger-god looked out to him laughing his head off with his face contorted into an obnoxious grin.

"That little speed demon has always gotten on my nerves…" He fired a minor burst of lightning and gave his race car-obsessed brother a spinout he'd never forget.

END