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Chapter One--So-Called Chaos
After her daily jog around the block, Sara unlocks her apartment door and heads to her refrigerator out of breath. She pushes her way through the newly bought groceries, all organized by food group and calorie count, to a bottle of water at the very back. She twists the top off and proceeds to the bathroom. She pulls her hair out from the tie previously keeping it out of her face and begins running water in the tub. Then she goes back to her room to rummage through her closet for something to wear after when her cell phone rings.
"Sidle...oh, hey Gil." She says after picking up the phone she keeps on her nightstand for emergencies at work.
"Sara, we've got a double homicide over on Highland Drive." She listens closely over the line holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder. She grabs the neatly folded pile of clothes at her bedside for early rollout calls, being that's what it would have been if she had been able to sleep.
"I'll be right over." She quickly dresses, grabs her kit, a quick bite to eat and is on her way in record time.
After a quick drive to the address Gil had given her, she finds herself at an expensive two story house in suburbia, a very unlikely place for a crime scene. She opens the trunk to get her shiny metal kit, all freshly stocked and sterilized after her last case, and slips on her black forensics vest before meeting her supervisor and the coroner inside.
"Sara?" Grissom calls hearing Sara open the door into the crystal chandelier lit foyer.
"I got here as fast as I can. Where's the body?"
"I've got the father in the kitchen...you can help Greg upstairs with the daughter."
"You mean he got here before I did?" She just shakes her head and walks up the staircase, noticing the one wall covered with framed family portraits.
They looked like the perfect family, the lawyer husband, the trophy wife, and the golden child, a curly haired ten year old girl without any other brothers or sisters. It never ceased to amaze her that it was always the least likely people to have something like this happen, but more importantly…where did mommy go?
"Yo...Sar! In the bathroom!" She hears the eager rookie yell. "You're slipping up Sidle. What took you so long?"
"I left my house five minutes ago, right after I got the 419 call from Grissom. So don't say--" Her words stop coming out as she steps in the room to see the scene. The little girl with the dark brown curls just lying lifeless in the middle of the tiled floor. "Oh God!"
"Cause of death was asphyxiation…petechial hemorrhaging around the eyes." The coroner explains as Greg continues to snap pictures from various angles.
"Dark blue fibers…terry cloth perhaps." They both simultaneously turn their focus towards the towel rack beside the shower, one dark blue towel missing.
"Hold on…we have some blonde hairs here. Our vic is clearly a brunette. Skin cells still attached…she was a fighter."
"Who could ever do something like this? The father's downstairs. Where's the mother?" She hears a distinct dripping sound coming from somewhere in the room. She looks around to find from where the noise is coming.
"The tub faucet. It wasn't turned all the way off. I don't want to mess with it until we're finished possessing the room, but it's driving me crazy. It just keeps dripping and dripping..."
Sara's eyes widen as she looks back at Greg. "Look, I've got to go!" She heads to the doorway.
"Whoa, Sara! You just got here. We aren't done in here yet. We still have the outside perimeter. I am going to get this case Sara, so I'm new, but I've spent five years in the lab. How many times have I helped you guys out?" He argues with a child-like whine to his voice.
"Enough about you! I just left my house without turning the water off in the tub!"
"What…see, I told you." He tries not to laugh. "Sara's not as perfect as she all once made us think. I mean, you all think I'm the stupid one. So I used the bathroom in a club which just happened to be a crime scene, but I've never flooded out my own apartment."
"What should I do? I can't just leave."
"Sure you can. You took five minutes to get here...and I can handle things by myself for a while. Gil will be preoccupied in the kitchen for that long, and if he's got some bugs down there, he wouldn't even notice if the mom came back and torched the place."
"I'm sure he's not going to find any bugs in a house like this."
"That's not the point Sara, just get out of here. I'll cover for you."
"I should tell him before I leave."
"Now!" He stands in the middle of the room pointing toward the door.