Chapter 6 – What a Monster can do...

Disclaimer – Don't own it, never will. Except for Kyle Andrews.

Notes – Spoilers for 'The Accused is Entitled', 'Spark of Life' and 'Hollywood Brass', now and for later chapters. Warning for harsh language later on.

Greg squirmed uncomfortably. Once again, his hair was deprived of its natural spikiness, and smoothed down into the geeky straightedge style that the courts seemed to love so much. And, of course, he wasn't permitted to wear a casual, loose- fitting shirt, or one of his lucky pairs of Levi jeans. Hell, even a Forensics personnel jumpsuit would have done!

No, instead, he was stuck in an over-starched, itching-like-crazy formal suit, with crotch-biting, wedgie-inflicting black pants. And why did they have to be black? He was in Nevada, for crying out loud! The temperature was a constant 120 degrees, with blazing sunlight every single day, and he was stuck in black formal clothes, in a courthouse corridor with a busted air conditioner.

Greg thought longingly of the water-filled carafe at the stand. He knew if he drank now, he wouldn't stop until it was empty. He would have to wait a little longer, at least until Ms. Carmichael was in her stride, until he could quench his thirst. He tried to stop fidgeting as he remembered Sara's advice about maintaining his posture as much as he could, and keeping a cool head when being questioned.

Oh, he was looking forward to that, no question! He knew that, however uncomfortable he was here, it would be a dozen times worse on the stand being cross-examined by Ecklie's obnoxious lawyer, the insufferable Ms. Margaret Finn.

With an effort, Greg pushed these thoughts from his mind, and focused on his situation. The court was now in session, and he had been called to testify on the evidence he had gathered regarding Ecklie's corruption, and also to inform the court of what had happened in those last few desperate seconds in Ecklie's office; how the former assistant director had tried to kill him. He, Brass and Carmichael had compared notes, painstakingly practiced the answers to questions that the opposition might pose, and reviewed what evidence was admissible and which subjects could be introduced and explained to the grand jury. In short, it was more or less 'Go' time!

The doors at the back of the courthouse opened, and as Greg entered, his mouth dropped open.

Ecklie had fired Margaret Finn at the last minute and had hired Marjorie 'Sound bite' Wescott to defend him! Greg remembered the last time the CSI's had come across Wescott; the trial of Tom Haviland, the movie star with a bad temper. The ferocious and unscrupulous defence attorney had almost torn their entire case apart, and it had taken a timely intervention by Grissom to pull off a conviction.

This was going to be harder than he thought...

About sixteen miles away, near Lake Mead, Catherine Willows was thinking the exact same thing. She and her colleagues, Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown, had followed the lead from Lennie and Earl at their Uber gym, and had found the current residence of their prime suspect, Kyle Andrews. The house, out of context, would have been inviting enough, a quaint little cabin by the lakeside, half a mile from Calville Bay, tastefully decorated with vividly coloured art and potted plants.

This place, however, was in context. The front door of the house was much taller and broader than most front doors were, at least those that were built for human beings. Inside the house they were finding disturbing evidence of what the current owner was all about. Most of the reading material was either gratuitously pornographic or eerily highbrow: magazines with titles such as 'Chains N' Pains' and 'Dark Side' were mixed in with Dante, Emerson and Tolstoy.

Catherine was working the outside of the house, while Nick checked upstairs and Warrick processed the ground floor. Securing the search warrant had been surprisingly easy. Apparently, Judge Anderson wanted this guy caught, and he wanted him caught now. It was only a matter of time before the murder of Angela Ecklie hit the papers, so he would have signed a warrant for them to search the Area 51 if it would lead to an arrest. It was as Nick and Warrick walked outside, respectively carrying a pistol and a twelve-gauge shotgun, that they heard it.

"Who the hell are you?"

The CSI swing shift, as one, spun around to face the owner of that voice. When Catherine saw who it was, she felt her adrenaline spiking as her heart pounded in her chest. They had been wrong. This guy wasn't big. He wasn't huge.

He was gigantic. Kyle Andrews stood before them in all his titanic glory, a living mountain of muscle and bone with a red hillbilly beard and arms the size of oak trunks.

Warrick felt his blood freezing in his veins as his bowels turned to water. This guy was seven feet if he was an inch, and he towered over the, until recently, large CSI. Nick, meanwhile, was trying to focus on Detectives Vega, Cavaliere, and O'Riley. Trying to focus on the fact that they all had guns, and were all decent shots. He was NOT trying to focus on how easily this guy could snap him in two like a dry twig, how he could grab Nick's head and twist it off his neck like he was opening a water bottle.

The human colossus smiled through his beard. "I can tell what you're all thinking. Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, right?"

Visibly gathering her courage, Catherine spoke up. "Mr. Kyle Andrews? We're from the crime lab. My name is..."

"I know what your name is." Though Kyle's voice had decreased in volume, the menace and venom it carried was loud and clear. "It's Catherine Willows, isn't it? And these two scrawny little shits must be Stokes and Brownie."

Catherine's shock must have shown on her face, because Kyle grinned wickedly, revealing a perfect set of gleaming white teeth, and elaborated. "Your surprise is charming to see. I remember you, Willows. You're Eddie's scrap of flesh, aren't you? Only you're too old now. And you've been passed around once too often."

Scrap of Flesh? What in the hell did THAT mean? Despite her fear, Catherine felt anger rising in her gut, and not without effort, suppressed it. Warrick rumbled low in his throat, and despite his advantage in size, Kyle looked sufficiently impressed.

"So, you have a knight in shining armour, my pretty little princess? I never figured you for a boy scout, Brownie. I always thought it would be the Redneck over there who sprang into action to save the day."

But Nick was staring oddly at Kyle Andrews' pickup truck. He didn't seem to react to the big man's words towards himself or his colleagues. Nick reached for his forensics kit on the ground.

"Hey! Texas! I'm talking to you, boy!" Kyle stepped towards him, and the earth seemed to groan under his weight.

The instant Kyle Andrews moved, all three detectives had their guns up and trained on him. Kyle fell back, laughing to himself. "Jumpy, are we? Well, fatboy" (he directed this at O'Riley) "I hope your aim's improved over the years."

"Just keep 'em where we can see, 'em, Andrews." Vega hissed between clenched teeth. Nick advanced past the giant figure towards his truck, kit in hand. He opened the driver's side door and smelled it instantly. Bleach. Mr. Andrews had just cleaned his car. No prizes for guessing why.

Nick reached for the Luminol...

Sophia Curtis arrived back at the lab to find Grissom hunched over a desk, one hand pressed to his face. She walked over to him, concerned. "Hey. You okay?"

Grissom turned to her with a tired smile. "Are you?"

Sophia's expression clouded at the memory of that horrific crime scene. She would have trouble sleeping tonight, that was for damn sure. She thought back to a few weeks ago, when Greg had gone to the hospital to process the burn victim. She had been charred, paralysed, crippled forever, but alive. If you could call that alive...

Greg had carried the weight of that case around with him for a long time. He had asked Sophia how you could get over an image like that. Back then the advice she had given had seemed so simple, so easy to follow. She had enjoyed being the shoulder for Greg to lean on, even if it was just for a little while.

Now she had some idea of how Greg had felt. And how useless her advice must have sounded. Shaking away the memory, she focused on Grissom. "Not really. How in the hell somebody could do that...just...rip another person to pieces...What about our mystery print? Any luck yet?"

Grissom sighed. "Yeah. The bad kind. I studied the case files of retired CSI's and cops for hours and hours and hours, and I suddenly realised whose print it was, or might be..."

Sophia's eyes widened, her own problems forgotten. "Who?"

"I don't...I can't just throw out an accusation. I don't have any proof. I'm...I'm following a hunch."

Sophia's eyes widened some more. "You? A hunch? Someone call Guinness."

Grissom didn't smile. "If it is who I think it is...I don't know what to think..."

Sophia bit her lip. She'd wanted to talk about something else as well, but this clearly wasn't the time. Grissom was really bothered by this, and she needed to sleep anyway. That crime scene had exhausted her, emotionally if not physically.

She left Grissom's office and headed for the break room...

Nick had finished spraying the back seat with Luminol, and was not at all surprised at the result. Blood. Lots and lots of blood. More blood than had any right to be anywhere other than inside a human body. For the blood was indeed human.

The lantern-jawed criminalist turned with some trepidation to the nearby vast form of Kyle Andrews, who was still under the guns of the trio of homicide detectives. "You wanna explain how this much blood ended up inside your car, sir?"

"Sir! Always Sir!" Kyle chuckled good-naturedly. "Why don't you just do as you'd obviously like to and call me 'Asshole'? And no, I don't want to explain it. You don't look like it, but you've got brains. Use them."

Warrick joined the conversation. "You can tell us here or at the station. Your choice."

Kyle turned to Warrick, and spoke with just as much good humour as he had to Nick. "And how are you going to do that without getting your skull crushed?"

From the tone of his voice he might well have been telling a nonchalant joke. Vega, apparently deciding to take offence at this last remark, stepped up with handcuffs. And stopped. He looked at size of the handcuffs. Looked at the width of Kyle Andrews' wrists. And came to the logical conclusion.

"Now you can see the problem, can't you?" Kyle's face was the picture of mirth. "How are you going to arrest me without handcuffs?"

In answer, O'Riley hoisted his gun "With this, maybe?"

Kyle snorted. "You're going to hold a gun to my head throughout the entire trip?"

O'Riley didn't move. "Well, look at it this way, even I am not going to miss from inside a car." Then with a small grin, "Like you said, my aim's improved."

Kyle's expression didn't change as far as his mouth went, but something unpleasant glittered in his eyes. "You're only looking at one part of the puzzle, detective. Do you think I'm going to fit inside that?" he gestured to the squad car they'd arrived in. "Even if I could get inside, it would never support my weight."

Cavaliere threw his oar in. "Your car would."

"And you can't drive it." Kyle declared. "Your feet wouldn't reach the pedals. Only I can drive my car. So," and here his eyes gleamed evilly "Who am I going to chauffeur back to the station?"

At that moment, Warrick's fear of the man before him almost doubled. He knew that the pickup truck was a two-seater, so only one of them could ride with this behemoth. It didn't take Gil Grissom or any of his philosopher pals to work out that if one of the cops or CSI's took a ride with Kyle Andrews, even with a gun constantly to his head, that person would not leave the vehicle alive.

Warrick's blood ran cold. It was one of the worst kinds of suspect. Someone who was both enormously strong and fundamentally cunning. Kyle's eyes swept the group before him. "Who wants to take a ride, then? How about you, Cowboy? Feel like riding off into the sunset with me?" Nick took a step backwards, his thoughts obviously running parallel to Warrick's.

"What about you, redhead? Plenty of room for you if you sit on my lap." He shot a feral grin at Catherine, who didn't flinch. She just reached for her cell phone, and dialled.

"Hey, Jimmy? Yeah, it's Catherine. Look, I know it's been a while, but I need a favour...Great! I'm a half-mile west of Calville Bay. How long...? You're almost here now? Perfect! Okay, see you in a minute." She hung up.

Kyle looked bemused. "What did you just do?"

Catherine smiled. "Wait and see, Mr. Andrews."

They waited for about a minute, during which time Warrick had the presence of mind to ask, or rather, demand, to be able to take Kyle's fingerprints. Warrick compared them to the giant ones taken from Ecklie's house, and got a visual match. This guy was in on it.

After a minute, their wait was over. A huge car-transporter, looking vastly out of place on such a tiny access road, crested the hill in front of them. Catherine gestured to the massive lorry. "Mr. Andrews. Your limousine awaits."

Kyle wasn't smiling when he turned to Cath. "So, my car gets transported while I'm inside it? The rest of you do the same, and if I move, they open fire?" He nodded to the three detectives, who were now grinning in relief. "Very clever."

Cath nodded. "Shall we?"

Kyle complied, ignoring the look of sheer horror that passed across Jimmy the driver's face. "What a procession we are going to make..."

Author's Note: I mean to make Kyle Andrews one of the story's main badasses, so if I'm not making him menacing or vicious, let me know. I welcome positive or negative input.