A Breaking Point
By Jess aka willowaus
Disclaimer: I do not own CSI and I am in no way making any money from writing this, alas.
A/N: Thanks to AussiRayne for the beta and to all those who deal with my insane questions, you know who you are. :) And a big thank you to everyone who read and reviewed. I'm glad I listened to the nagging voice in my ear telling me to post this.
Part Two
"There's no blood," Sara said, scanning the ground with her flashlight over the area the child's body had been laying. "This isn't our primary crime scene."
"No," Grissom replied, looking down at the hard desert ground. "She was dumped here."
He scanned the ground with his own light, attempting to find anything that would help them. "Shoe prints," he remarked, settling the light on the faint impression.
Sara squatted down beside him, focused the camera that had been hanging at her side on the print, and took a series of pictures. She removed the materials needed to make a cast of the footprints and began mixing the dental stone and then poured the mixture onto the indentations made by someone's shoe. They would need to wait at least thirty minutes for the cast to harden and it to be safe for removal. 'All we have is a few shoe prints.'
"We have nothing," she said, her voice resigned.
Grissom said nothing, his eyes still focused on the ground where the girl's body had been moments before. She strained her eyes to try and make out his expression, but the light from their flashlights and the police vehicles only helped enhance the shadows dancing across his face.
She looked back at the casting, shining her light along the ground in an attempt to find anything they might have missed. Her eyes moved back to the spot the little girl had been in and she frowned, millions of thoughts running through her mind. She pushed them aside, needing something to occupy her.
"I'm going to get all of their shoe prints," she told him as she stood.
There was no movement from him and she sighed, turning away and walking towards Brass and the other officers. 'I'll need to get the coroner, EMTs, and our prints as well, to help rule out who's shoes made those indentations,' she thought and smiled at the officers, removing some adhesive paper from her kit.
Looking back at Grissom one more time, her lips twisted in silent concern as she watched him scour the desert floor for anything else they might find. Something was going on in his head and a nagging feeling in the back of her mind was pressuring her to find out what it was. She shook her head, forcing herself to focus on collecting evidence, she would need to deal with him later.
xxx
A frown settled on Grissom's face as he stared at the child on the steel slab. His eyes were playing tricks on him. Her face kept changing in front of him, blending into that of the little girl from the wedding, the one who had danced with himself and Sara. Slowly, it morphed again, becoming the face of a child he did not know, but longed to see. A little girl with curly brown hair and a gap tooth smile he would know anywhere staring back at him with his own blue eyes.
"She's been dead approximately four hours, Gil," Doctor Robbins said, walking towards the night shift supervisor and interrupting his friend's thoughts.
"Cause of death?" Grissom asked, emotion void from his face as looked back at the small child laid on the hard steel table.
"Exsanguination," Robbins replied and moved his hand to her throat. "The cut began at the right carotid, transecting the jugular, and ended just before the left carotid. It was deep and precise, not a single hesitation mark."
The CSI nodded and the coroner continued, motioning to the various smaller cuts scattered along the child's arms, "These cuts, though not fatal, would have been painful to endure."
His hand moved, pointing to different cuts along the right arm. "Some of the cuts had begun to scab over, though I would say none are more than a day old," Robbins said. "These burns were made by something small and circular, probably a cigarette. There are eighteen burn marks and twenty-one cuts, not counting the one to her throat."
Robbins paused and took a deep breath before continuing, "She was raped. We sent the kit to Mia. I also sent her fingerprints to the lab, maybe you'll be able to identify her by them."
He watched his friend nod and his lips twisted in concern. "She looks a lot like Leila," Robbins commented looking back at the little girl, before pulling the sheet to completely cover her body.
Grissom nodded. "She does," he said, finally lifting his eyes from her body. "Let me know if you find anything else."
Robbins sighed as he watched the CSI leave the autopsy room, before moving to place her body into one of the freezer doors.
xxx
Sara shook her head and placed down the last shoe print she had collected. None of them matched the one found at the crime scene. 'I don't know if I should be elated or disappointed,' she mused, looking at the casting on the table.
Her mind wandered back to the little girl and the burn marks on her arms. She looked down at her legs and sighed, images of the scars of cigarette burns from long ago filling her head. A ghostly child's cry of pain enveloped her and she shut her eyes. She knew how painful they were, searing away flesh and leaving behind a reminder of the pain you had endured. Opening her eyes, she frowned. 'Some wounds never heal,' she thought.
Looking up, she watched Grissom walk down the hallway, heading in the direction of his office. Something was off with him. She stood and began the trek towards his office. Standing in the threshold, she watched as he absentmindedly moved about it, dumping a handful of crickets into his tarantula's terrarium before moving towards his desk.
"Uh, Grissom," she said, watching as he turned to look at her, startled at her presence. She pointed to the terrarium. "You forgot to put the lid back on."
She frowned and watched him put the lid on, 'He never forgets to do that.'
"Was there something you needed?" he asked, his eyes never looking at her as he made his way back to the desk.
"The shoe prints at the crime scene didn't match any of our people," she told him, leaning against the doorframe.
"Do we know what type of shoe it is?" he asked, reaching for a stack of papers.
"No," she replied. "I was just about to--"
"Get on that," he interrupted, removing the paper from the top.
Sara opened her mouth to reply, but thought better of it, an exasperated sigh leaving her mouth as she exited the room. She shook her head as she walked down the hallway, not noticing the way his eyes watched her as she moved away, nor seeing the haunted look that was present in them.
xxx
The words were beginning to blur forcing him to look away from the paper work in front of him. Looking at the clock, he silently cursed. He had been looking at the same paper for an hour. A knock on the door frame caused him to look up and he watched as Brass walked into the room. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news," the detective said, sitting in one of the chairs.
Grissom raised an eyebrow as his friend picked up a ladybug paperweight before placing it down, an amused expression on his face. "No luck with the girl's fingerprints," Brass said. "And no one matching the girl's description has been reported missing."
"Do you have anything helpful to tell me?" Grissom asked, turning his attention back to the papers in front of him, trying to force back the headache that was forming.
"Are you being this cheerful to everyone?" the detective asked.
Grissom looked up at his friend and glared before looking back down. "No wonder all the lab techs have their heads down low and Sara is gloomily poring over a large stack of shoeprint books," Brass continued.
The CSI didn't answer, instead picking up his pen and focusing his attention on the report in front of him. "Want to talk about it?" Brass asked.
A snort was his only reply and Brass shook his head, a sad smile on his face. "Of course not," he said.
He waited a few seconds before rising and leaving his friend to the diversion the paperwork allowed.
xxx
She closed another book, blinking her eyes to try and get them to act normal. Casting a look at the pile of books she had already looked through she groaned, not wanting to think about the other seven she still had to go. Her only solace was that eventually she would find the shoe. 'That's if it's not brand new and hasn't been placed in a book yet,' she thought and silently berated herself.
Standing, she stretched her limbs and looked towards the break room, wondering if the coffee was fresh, before deciding that she really didn't care and walking towards the room. Entering the room, she was surprised to see Catherine sitting at one of the tables, quietly drinking a cup of coffee. "Didn't swing shift end three hours ago?" she asked, removing a mug from one of the cupboards.
"Triple homicide at the Tangiers," Catherine said, sounding as tired as she looked. "A whole family murdered."
Sara poured herself a cup and sat down. "I wanted to drink some coffee to help me stay awake before I drive home and hug Lindsey," the swing shift supervisor continued.
"Warrick working it with you?" Sara asked.
"Yeah," Catherine replied. "I sent him home a half hour ago. We need to look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow."
Sara nodded and sniffed the coffee. "Greg's secret stash?" she asked, looking curiously at the mixture.
"I snuck some from his locker," Catherine said, smiling as she drank some more. She looked up, raising an eyebrow at Sara. "Why are you wearing a jumpsuit?"
"I was at David's wedding reception and got called in," Sara replied. "I rode with Nick so I used one of the suits in Grissom's car."
"And you didn't change when you came in?" Catherine teased.
"My change of clothes is in the wash," the younger CSI replied. "I'm not supposed to be on tonight. I was planning on bringing it in with me tomorrow."
Catherine nodded and silence fell between the two women, each of them thinking of their case. Sara looked down at the mug, watching the tendrils of steam rise from it, a haunted look coming over her as memories of her childhood threatened to overtake her. She shook her head and took a drink, pushing them away, grasping onto her professional self and trying not to fall.
"Do you know what's bothering Grissom?" Catherine asked, causing Sara to look up, and nodded in the general direction of Grissom's office.
"Little girl was tortured, raped, murdered and dumped on the side of the road," Sara replied, images of the little girl flashing in her mind, her resolve melting.
Catherine opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it, instead nodding and then rising from her seat. "Have a good night," she said.
"Try and sleep," Sara replied, knowing that the supervisor's sleep would be anything but peaceful as she watched her leave. Her eyes roamed towards the direction of Grissom's office and she fought back the urge to see him, opting to take another sip. 'There are some things you need to handle on your own,' she told herself harshly and rose, bringing her coffee with her as she headed back to look through the shoeprint books.
xxx
Looking up at the clock, Sara sighed. Shift was over, had been for almost an hour, and they had nothing to help them identify the little girl or her killer. Semen had been found, but it wasn't a match to anyone in the database. The shoeprint wasn't in any of the books. 'I'll have to call for prints of some of the newer brands and styles,' she thought, rubbing her eyes.
Collecting her purse and the dress she had worn to the wedding from her locker, she bit her lip, closing the metal door. She walked quietly through the hallway, ignoring the looks from dayshift personnel about the jumpsuit she was still wearing. She stopped outside of Grissom's office, watching him for a few seconds. He was still attempting to do paperwork, but she wondered if it was the same page he had been on when he had first sat down.
His forehead was scrunched in thought and he looked up at her, his face void of emotion, his eyes fixing onto hers. "No luck with the shoeprint," she told him and frowned as he nodded and looked back at the papers on his desk.
"Night, Gris," she said, leaving the man to his own demons as she exited with her own.
TBC