Author's Notes: Thanks for all the terrific feedback! I appreciate it so much. I hope you keep reading and enjoying.
Giving Up
by Kristen Elizabeth
I wish we never, I wish we never, I wish we never met
'Cause now I've got my heart set on you.
- Kathleen Wilhoite
Her cast came off on a Tuesday. On Wednesday, she walked into the lab with a renewed sense of purpose. She was almost thirty-five, single, attractive, intelligent, with a challenging, but rewarding job that she happened to love. Sure, she'd had her share of bad times; her childhood alone would have been enough to garner her anyone's sympathy and pathos. But Sara Sidle wasn't weak. She was a fighter. She'd worked her way up from the depths of foster care hell to attend the most prestigious university in the country. There wasn't anything she couldn't do if she put her entire mind towards it.
She could be happy. She really could.
Swing shift was still on duty; Sara stowed her purse and jacket in the locker room and set to work. Grissom had declined to switch her with Sophia, so they were still working together on the Jane Doe from the desert. Truth be told, she was still mad at him for it. Her request had been reasonable, not to mention logical, but he had blown it off like she was a petulant child trying to get out of her household chores. He was so goddamn stubborn.
Sara settled herself in front of a computer and logged on to the missing persons database. Someone out there had to be looking for Jane. A parent or a close friend…someone had to have reported her disappearance. It was just a matter of finding the right report.
An hour passed by as though it were no more than a minute. Sara wouldn't have even noticed if someone hadn't come up behind her, breaking her focus.
"You know what they say about staring at these screens too long."
She glared at the man peering over her shoulder. "That you find what you're looking for? Do you have work of your own, Nicky?"
"Don't be cruel to the guy who comes bearing coffee." He set a cup down next to the keyboard and pulled up a rolling chair next to hers. "Any luck?"
"I've flagged a half-dozen reports," she shrugged, taking a sip. A look of bliss momentarily overcame her stress. "How come you always know just how strong I need my coffee at any particular time?"
Nick smiled. "Sisters. I wouldn't say I understand women, but I think I've got a better handle on them than most guys. You look like you're having a five-scoop day, and yours hasn't even really started yet."
"Someday soon, some woman's gonna snap you up, Nick Stokes. I just hope she'll realize what a prize she's got."
"You need to break your arm more often. It makes you all…"
"If you say girly, I'll have to hurt you."
He laughed and slung an arm around her shoulders. "Welcome back, Sara."
That was how Grissom saw them as he passed through the hall on the way to his office. Sitting close, laughing, with Nick's arm circling her like it belonged there. He paused for a second, then moved on.
"Hey, Nick." Sara began her question tentatively. "Remember a few years ago? After I broke up with Hank, you mentioned that you had a friend?"
"I have a couple of them," he said. "And most of them are still single."
She let out a pent up breath. "Think any of them might be interested in going out with a workaholic who packs a gun?"
He turned his head to look at her. "Are you sure, Sara? I thought you and Greg…"
"Just friends. Like you and me." Her natural tendency towards insecurity had her continuing, "We are, right? Friends?"
"Can I call you girly now?" Nick asked. She arched one eyebrow. "Kidding. And of course we are. Ecklie can't undo that." He thought for a second. "You know...I think I have just the guy for you."
Grissom avoided her for most of the shift. He realized it wasn't fair to Sara, but it was less of a conscious decision and more of a necessity on his part. He'd seen how comfortable she was with Nick and he knew that she was dating Greg. She seemed to be on good terms with everyone but him. And while he acknowledged that it was his fault, he wasn't ready to put himself alone in a room with her. His self-control was only almost limitless.
"I found her!" An hour before the end of the longest shift of his life, Sara burst into his office. "Jane Doe is really Julia Sommers, freshman at UNLV. Her roommate made the report. Brass is on his way to her dorm."
Grissom took the paper she held out to him. Enthusiasm he hadn't seen in her for a long time shone through her eyes. "Great work, Sara. Let's go."
They arrived at Julia Sommers' dorm a half hour later, armed with the tools of their trade. As they entered, they saw Brass with the girl's roommate. She was sitting down with a cup of water as he asked her a barrage of questions.
"Tell me about the last time you saw Julia."
"Um…almost a month ago. She said she needed some time to think. You know, before the quarter got started. She was supposed to drive to her parents' place in Carson City." The roommate's hands shook around the paper cup. "When she wasn't back by that first weekend, I didn't think much of it. But then classes started...and she still wasn't back. That's when I got scared."
Sara gave the room a quick once-over. Take it in, she thought. Don't interpret.
It was a typical dorm room. Two of everything, down to the identical plastic shower baskets spilling over with shampoos and body scrubs. There was such hope in the room. A girl with one foot still in her youth, but with the other courageously stepping into adulthood had been brutally wiped out of existence long before her time. She would never get to outgrow the Orlando Bloom poster that hung over her bed. She would never have a place of her own or a life beyond grades and parental guidance. And she might, Sara grudgingly acknowledged, never have justice for her cruel murder.
But she was damn sure going to try to find it for her. Pulling on a pair of gloves, Sara started with Julia's dresser.
Twenty minutes later, she smelled Grissom's clean soap scent coming up from behind her. It overpowered her from out of nowhere, throwing off her concentration. What was it with men sneaking up on her? Did she have some sort of sign on her back that assured them she wouldn't startle easily?
"What have you got?" he asked.
"Everything's folded," she said, pawing through a stack of neat T-shirts. "She put potpourri sachets in her underwear drawer. Her lipsticks are arranged according to color, and none of them are red. This is not a girl living a high-risk lifestyle."
"Her desk says the same thing. She's got separate folders for her tax and insurance information." Grissom smiled wryly. "She's somewhat how I picture you at eighteen."
Sara turned away from him; his breath was warm against her neck as he leaned in to avoid being heard by the roommate. "Maybe I was a little...anal retentive. But even I had my secrets." Even as she spoke, her fingers landed on something hard between two stacked sweaters. Frowning, Sara slid out a flat notebook that was armed with a small, silver padlock. "Looks like we might have found one of Julia Sommers'."
Grissom took it from her. "Her diary." He spotted something on the spine of the book. "Is that blood?"
Sara performed the test. Wetting down the sterile cotton swab, running it over the spot in question and applying the phenolphthalein kept her busy enough to not even think about how close he was standing to her. Arm to arm, leg to leg…did he stand like this with Sophia?
The swab turned bright pink. "Yes," she answered his question. "But is it Julia's?"
"And what secrets did have locked up inside?" Grissom ruminated. "There's only one way to..."
Her cell phone rang just then, cutting him off with a rendition of "I'm Too Sexy." Sara blushed. "Greg," she explained when he gave her a strange look. "My cell phone is his new toy."
Whipping it out of the holder at her hip, she answered, "Sidle. Yeah, I'm kinda busy; I'm at a scene…really?" She paused. "Please tell me he's not an old frat buddy...Nick! You know that's not my type...yeah, well, you've transcended your beer bong days." Sara laughed at his unheard response; it was like music, her laugh. "Okay, okay, I'll trust you. But if he tries to enter me in a wet T-shirt contest...sure, tomorrow night's good for me. Eight o' clock at Il Fornaio...that's in New York/New York, isn't it? Got it...great. Tell him...tell him I'm looking forward to it. Bye, Nick."
Grissom cleared his throat as Sara put away her phone. "Find her hairbrush and grab a sample, just in case," he ordered her.
"Already done. I also got one from the roommate, to rule her out."
"Take what we've got to the lab and start running the tests."
Sara frowned. "Um, Grissom? We only took one car."
"I'll get a ride with Brass. You make sure our Jane is really a Julia before we go to any further."
He turned his back on her, effectively dismissing her. But Sara wasn't so easily dismissed.
"Any thoughts you feel like sharing with me?" she asked. "If Jane is Julia and this is Julia's blood, what are you thinking happened?"
"I don't formulate theories until I have far more evidence than what we currently possess." Grissom's voice snapped with unfamiliar emotion. "Even first day trainees know that about me."
Sara looked up at the ceiling and counted to ten. "I think you assume too much to think that anyone knows anything about you, Grissom. Least of all me."
Grissom said nothing. He only bagged the journal and handed it to her. Sara took it, but her eyes never shifted from his face. "Nick's setting me up on a date with one of his old college friends."
"Sara, this isn't the time or place to discuss your active love life. Save it for the water cooler."
She very nearly took a step back from him, but at the last second forced herself to stay strong. It took a lot more than words to hurt her; she had emotional calluses built up since she was old enough to talk.
"A few months ago, I would have hoped that meant you were jealous. Now…it doesn't matter what you think." She gathered up their meager pile of evidence. "See you back at the lab."
Brass approached him after Sara was gone, shaking his head sadly. "Gil...get a clue."
"Sara...get a grip."
Standing in the lobby of the New York/New York Hotel and Casino two days later, Sara forced herself to take a deep breath. She had made it this far; it wouldn't be much more of a stretch to actually go inside and meet Nick's friend.
A blind date. Had she really sunk that low? Blind dates never went well. True, she'd never actually been on one herself, but she'd heard enough horror stories from the girls in her dorm at Harvard. Blind dates meant awkward introductions and inevitable mindless chit-chat. Blind dates meant putting yourself on a cold exam table and having your looks scrutinized and your personality summed up, to be either accepted or dismissed within a matter of minutes. Really, the blind date had lingering commonalties with Victorian debutante balls and the Roman sex-slave trade.
So why hadn't she turned and fled yet? Sara wasn't entirely sure. Maybe because there was a sliver of hope left in the blind date. Or maybe it was the little voice in the back of her head that kept telling her the evening might not be so terrible. Nick was a good guy; he wouldn't set her up with a Neanderthal. And she'd gotten dressed up and dragged herself all the way to the Strip on her one day off. She might as well at least meet the guy.
Straightening her shoulders, Sara walked into the restaurant.
"Tell me about the blood on the spine of Julia Sommers' journal."
Mia cleared her throat and pulled out a sheet of paper from the stack on her lab table. Usually she enjoyed working with the graveyard shift's supervisor. Grissom was a living legend in the field; she'd even studied some of his cases in the elective forensics classes she'd taken in college. It was a privilege to work with him.
Most of the time.
That night, it was holy hell. There wasn't a tech in the entire lab who hadn't been snapped at for something that usually wouldn't even earn them a mild reprimand. The word around the microscopes was that Grissom was on the warpath. Just as widespread was the rumor that it had something to do with a certain colleague. Apparently Sara Sidle's absence had pushed him overboard. That was, if gossip was to be believed. Mia wasn't one to stick her nose into other people's business. Especially if those people controlled her career.
"The blood doesn't match the DNA we recovered from her hairbrush," Mia informed the older man. "It's not Julia's." She took a breath.
"But?" he prompted.
"It does match the hair Sara took from the roommate's brush."
The mere mention of her name turned Grissom's glower into a full-out glare. Fortunately he directed the look at the DNA results and not at Mia. "The roommate's blood is on Julia's diary…which was found in her drawer, undisturbed."
"Well, they did live together. There could be an innocent explanation." Mia volunteered. Wincing, she waited for some kind of sharp retort.
"Maybe," Grissom mused. "I'll have Brass re-interview her. We still don't know anything more about her killer, though."
Braver, Mia let herself go on hypothesizing. "Maybe there's something in the diary itself?"
He turned his dark frown onto her. "Yes, that thought did occur to me, only quite awhile ago."
Mia's shoulders didn't relax until he had stalked away. Bracing herself on the table, she blew out a breath, reminding herself that the next time Greg Sanders told her to avoid someone at all costs, she really ought to listen to him.
Halfway through her mushroom risotto, Sara realized she was having a really good time.
His name was Kevin Butler. He was single, and had never been married. He had a Masters in business from Texas AM. He'd only recently relocated to Las Vegas, having been promoted by the insurance company for which he worked. He looked like a young George Clooney and spoke like Matthew McConaughey. He ordered expensive wine without blinking an eye. He had all the charm of a Southern gentleman. And he seemed genuinely interested in her.
There had to be a catch somewhere.
"Tell me more about your job," Kevin said, forking up a bite of his ziti. "Nick's only ever said it's tough."
Sara set down her glass. The catch. People who wanted to know details were either morbidly fascinated by death or weren't aware of just how horrific her job could be. She wasn't sure which was harder to deal with, but they were both bothersome.
"How did a woman as beautiful as you get into such a gruesome profession?" he continued.
Her knee-jerk wariness melted under the warmth of the compliment. She smiled, but the expression quickly faded. "I had...have...had a very inspiring mentor."
"Have? Had?" Kevin chuckled. "Sounds like you're not sure."
"I'm not," she agreed. "It's complicated. Suffice it to say, he helped me find this career."
"So you didn't get into it for yourself?"
Sara frowned. "No, I did. I just meant that he showed me a path I might not have considered on my own. But he didn't push me down it. I chose to become a criminalist."
"I wish I could say the same for myself, but my family's always been in the insurance business." Kevin drained his wine glass and refilled it, pausing to top off Sara's, as well. "If you could go back and take away that one element...your mentor...do you think you'd be where you are today?"
Momentarily floored by the question, Sara attempted a chuckle of her own. "Is it normal for blind dates to get this philosophical?"
"Probably not." He leaned in closer and suddenly the two-person table was far too small. "But you're not the kind of woman who would care about my stock portfolio. So I've gotta say something to impress you."
Sara thought for a moment. "Actually…I don't know where I'd be without him." A cold shiver ran down her spine. "And that's incredibly frightening."
Kevin nodded. "I know. Take away my father's influence and I have no idea where I'd be either." He took her hand with a boldness she wasn't used to; she very nearly pulled away, but his palm closed around her fingers before she could. "We have a lot in common, Sara Sidle. We like our lives, but we never stop wondering what might've been. What could've been. Whether we want to wonder or not."
"Yeah," Sara whispered.
"You know what we should do to stop wondering?"
She swallowed. "What's that?"
Grinning, Kevin lifted her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across her knuckles.
In retrospect, Sara realized she should have snapped herself out of the strange trance that had come over her the minute she learned he'd had the audacity to rent a room in the hotel at the same time he'd made their dinner reservations. If not then, she should have come to her senses when he'd asked her if she wanted to come upstairs with him. And if not then, at least when he ordered up a bottle of champagne. Then a second. But by the time he poured the last of that bottle into her glass, she was too far gone to stop the rollercoaster.
She let him undress her, let him urge her into the luxurious bed, let him touch her in places long neglected. It might have been the alcohol, her fickle, fickle friend, but it was good. Great. He knew what he was doing, and for the first time since she'd cut Hank out of her life, Sara allowed herself to let go of everything...her past, her job, her responsibilities, her feelings for a man who could never let himself do the same. The rollercoaster plunged over the hill, taking her with it.
Waking up alone the next morning brought the ride to a crashing halt. At least he'd left a note thanking her for the night and instructing her to order whatever she wanted for breakfast. On him, no less. Did prostitutes get fed, too? A more vindictive woman might have ordered every single thing on the room service menu, eaten two bites and left.
Sara merely took a shower to wash him away, put the dress he'd slipped off with such finesse back on, and left the hotel, walking out into the scorching Vegas dawn.
Blind dates were a bad idea, she decided, but one-night stands were even worse.
To Be Continued