Chapter 10 – Where is she?
Disclaimer – Thanks to my idiot lawyer and Mr. Bruckheimer's crack team of attorneys, I don't in fact, own CSI. Though it might not yet be too late for me to acquire Without a Trace…It is? Ah, sonuvabitch! PS: I don't own Lake Mead or any of the surrounding terrain, or the Carson Wandering Skipper. Sorry for any mistakes.
Notes – I'm pretty sure you already know what's going to happen in this chapter, but rest assured, it isn't the last one…Spoilers are coming in from the first season right through to the fifth season, so be advised (Look out for early 1st season…hint, hint…).
PS – To wdbydglvr, Beaujolais, and Emerald 124. Thank you so much for your quick reviews! I had no IDEA that I would get a response so quickly! I only hope the story ending is good enough for everybody. You've given me a hell of a confidence boost! Thank you!
"Hey, uh, Sara?"
"Yeah, Greg?"
"Now that we've, err, got a moment alone…the other night…"
Sara didn't know whether to laugh or cry. They were in the middle of processing a crime scene, with Brass' daughter as the stakes, and a man who taught both Grissom and Ecklie (more Grissom than Ecklie) everything they knew pulling the strings, and Greg wanted to talk about that night! Never underestimate the insecurity of a man in lust, thought Sara.
"On a scale of one to ten…"
"You're an eleven, okay?" Sara was literally smiling with irritation.
A slow, happy smile spread across Greg's face. "Okay. While that is probably the best thing I have heard in my entire life, that's not what I meant."
Sara turned around to face him, frowning slightly. "Why? What did you mean?"
"I just meant that…on a scale of one to ten, with ten being 'scream it from the rooftops', and one being 'carry it to my grave', how secret do you want it?" Greg waited patiently for Sara's answer, the crime scene temporarily forgotten.
Sara was slightly taken aback. He hadn't been asking about what she thought of him, but what she thought of this. She was once again surprised, as she had been on that night, with the younger man's sensitivity. "Um, how's a seven sound?" She hoped that had sounded cooler out loud than it had in her head.
Greg smiled. "Say no more." He returned to his work, now entirely professional.
Sara sighed tiredly. She hoped Grissom would have better luck wherever he was going. They were getting nothing from Melanie's apartment or the hallway, other than an angry, coked up landlord whom Greg nearly had to drag out of the crime scene. Apparently, this Melanie had nothing to do with what was happening, if she even still lived here, that was…
Regardless of the obvious lack of evidence, collected or to come, Sara kept working…
And found something!
Catherine strode purposefully down to the cells, two uniformed officers in tow. She was on her way to interrogate Kyle Andrews. She would have laughed at the thought if it didn't carry such dire implications. The last time they'd tried that, Kyle had damn near interrogated them! She could only hope for better luck this time, Cath thought, as she approached Andrews' cell…
"Ah, Catherine, I see your taste in companions has improved, even if your common sense hasn't." Kyle's voice was calm, relaxed, almost inviting.
Catherine was once again struck by the sheer size of the man, even as she realised that the dimensions of the tiny cell seemed to contribute to that effect. She steeled her nerves and stopped in front of the cell, trying to remember that despite Kyle's massive build, not even he could bend steel with his bare hands.
"Hey, Kyle. Let's talk." Cath decided to take the obvious approach. He clearly wasn't stupid…
"Direct. I like that." Kyle smiled easily. "I'm guessing since you're the only one present that the others are still searching for Ellie. But you, perhaps, have realised that the only way to find her is through me. Very good. You'd better get me to the phone, Catherine. I don't think there's much time left."
Catherine broke in unsmilingly. "Actually, Mr. Andrews, there's no time left. It's 6.55 pm."
Kyle's grin vanished. He looked confused...and worried. "But…that can't be, I mean, if she's dead…then…"
"Then you and Ecklie and Gerard have lost your last bargaining chip." Cath's voice was flat and unemotional, even though her pulse was racing. She might just be getting to this bastard! She had to play it carefully now…
But no. Kyle's eyes lit up as a slow, creepy grin bloomed on his lips. "I don't believe it. Brass has done a lot of things, but he'd never abandon his daughter. He would have come to me before the hour was up if he…hadn't…" Kyle once again stopped smiling.
"Found her?" Catherine added nonchalantly. God, she was enjoying this! She had this guy on a fishing line!
Sadly, it was a short-lived triumph. Kyle's face cleared as he coldly reasoned his way through this next trick. "If you'd found her, you wouldn't be wasting your time with this. You'd simply charge me and end this game."
"And therefore…?" Cath didn't back down. She was the lady on a mission.
"Therefore she isn't dead, and she isn't found. The only way that could happen is if the hour wasn't up yet!" Kyle's voice rose slightly. This was perfect, thought Cath. He'd found the answer and gone in completely the wrong direction.
"Like I said, Mr. Andrews, it's 6.55. The hour is up."
Kyle faltered, then stepped right up to the bars. "You're bluffing!"
Catherine forced herself not to step back, even as the other officers did so. She spoke in a cool, superior voice designed to erode patience, especially male patience. "It's a pity they don't put clocks in jail cells, isn't it? But there was something in the manual about convicts using the spring mechanisms to pick the locks, and we just couldn't live with that, so…"
Kyle was openly snarling now, composure fast disappearing. "You're walking a tightrope now, you old cunt!"
Catherine's eyes flashed as the insult bit deep. Of all the four-letter words in the vast human vocabulary, she hated that one the most! And tacking on 'old' at the start didn't make it any nicer. Cath visibly gritted her teeth and tried to calm down.
"You are the one on a tightrope, Mr. Andrews! If you don't pull your head out of your ass and start talking, all the appeals in the world won't save you from the needle!"
Kyle's face broke into a vicious smile. "So, THAT'S why you're here! You haven't found her, and you think you can trick me into helping you. Forget it, bitch. You know the terms. Take it or leave it."
Catherine felt like kicking herself across the room. Telling herself to stay calm and stick to the plan, she ran through the good and bad of this situation. The bad part was that now Kyle Andrews knew that she was here for answers, not a deal. He also knew that they hadn't found Ellie yet, but, here was the good part, he didn't know that the hour was up, and that they had tricked Gerard into giving them more time.
This meant that with every passing second Kyle Andrews was getting more and more anxious and fearful for his own safety. Maybe she could still get something other than insults out of him, if she paced herself and stayed cool. Time wasn't on anyone's side anymore.
"Let's try again, shall we Mr. Andrews. How about doing what you wanted to do in the first place, and talk about our histories. You asked about Lindsey earlier. Well, she's doing fine. A-B student, though for a while she started acting out." Catherine said this slowly and calmly, trying to get the behemoth behind the bars to open up, even though it went against every maternal instinct she had to tell him anything about her little girl.
Kyle paused, thrown for a moment by this strange change of topic. Why was she taking her time? By now she should be frantic for information. Careful Kyle, this one's a clever girl, he thought to himself…
"Oh?" He decided to match her tone of voice, to see if he could find out what she was up to. "Has little Lindsey found out what Mommy used to do for a living yet?"
"That's why she acted out." Cath answered honestly. "But I think we're past it now."
Kyle cocked his head. She wouldn't be rushed or baited. Not yet…
Grissom killed the Tahoe's engine about a mile from Calville Bay. Brass had traced the phone call to somewhere near Lake Mead, and Grissom knew something that no one else did. No surprises there.
Sara had found something back at Melanie's apartment, and that something had just happened to be something that Grissom specialised in. A bug. Specifically, it was a Carson Wandering Skipper. The significance of this find was not lost on Grissom, who was well aware that this species of insect was almost extinct, and shouldn't have been found anywhere near the city of Las Vegas. Their preferred habitat was on the barks of conifer trees, many of which were found in plantations and nature preserves near Lake Mead. Hence the arrival at one of those sanctuaries of Grissom, Nick, Warrick, and two entire SWAT teams. It was decided, however, that helicopters would put Ellie's kidnapper/s on alert, so they were left off the list.
They knew that for a Carson Wandering Skipper (even a dead one, for so it was) to have ended up in an inner city apartment, it would have to have been transported there by an outside source, namely a human being. This left six possible sites near Lake Mead for the call to have come from. Sadly, Kyle Andrews' log cabin was nowhere near any of them. At least, not that log cabin…
"Grissom, can I ask a…"
"What, Nick?" Grissom was uncharacteristically irritable. He knew that Gerard wouldn't wait forever for Kyle's call. They had an hour, two at most, to figure out where they were before Grissom's old mentor lost his patience.
"How in the hell are we gonna find one tiny little log cabin in almost twenty square miles of conifer forest inside an hour?" Nick was feeling pretty irritable himself. He didn't see how they were going to make this, and he'd seen more than one search end badly.
"I don't know, Nick!" Grissom almost shouted. "But we have to try. This is my God-daughter we're looking for!"
"WHAT!" Warrick was brought up short. "God-daughter?"
Grissom turned to face him. "Yes. Brass asked me to be a godfather. I said yes. I watched Ellie grow up. She could never mean as much to me as she does to Brass, not after the way she treated him, but I don't want her to die!" Grissom took a breath. "I'm sorry, guys, but I'm running out of ideas, and we're all running out of time."
Just then, Grissom's cell went off. He flipped it open. "Grissom."
"Grissom! Warrick! Nick! Anybody who's listening, I've got it! I know where Ellie is! Repeat: I know where she is!"
Grissom knew that there had been moments in his life when he'd been more pleased to hear Catherine's voice, but right then, he couldn't think of any.
Catherine's head was pounding. She and the monster in the cage in front of her had discussed Lindsey, Eddie, whether or not Kyle had any children himself (naturally, he didn't) and whether or not he and Melanie had ever had a relationship. Throughout all of it, Andrews had been calm and controlled. Catherine wanted that control to snap, before her own did.
"Melanie and I weren't an item for very long. This was before I introduced her to Eddie. However, after they broke up, she came back to me, and I felt I owed her a little moral support." Kyle grinned in sweet remembrance.
Cath suppressed her fury with some effort, not only because this man had been at least partly responsible for her and Eddie's divorce, but also because she could imagine the kind of 'moral support' this man would have offered Melanie. She put her thoughts into words.
"You killed her, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I could."
Catherine felt revulsion at the calm, matter-of-fact tone of Kyle's voice. She reflected that he probably got more pleasure from killing than sex. She managed to make her own voice equally cold. "Is that what happened with Angela Ecklie? You raped her and tore her apart."
Kyle's grin didn't waver. "Rape isn't my style, mostly because I don't need to. Besides, why would I want intimate physical contact with Angela Ecklie? She wasn't exactly what you could call beautiful, or even pretty."
Cath leaned forward. "A real Romeo, then? I bet you even took your girlfriends on little midnight boat rides…probably to dump their bodies, right?" She kept her face neutral, even though she knew she was inches from the answer.
Kyle's eyes narrowed. "Why are you asking me this?"
Catherine's eyes lit up. This was it! Time for all or nothing…"If you took your girls on boat rides, that must mean you have a little place on the shore of Lake Mead."
"You know I do. It's where I found you snooping around." Kyle looked confused now.
"But is there another one? Somewhere quiet and secluded that no one knows about. Say…a conifer plantation?" Catherine couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice now.
The big man hesitated. His facial muscles tightened, his fists clenched slightly. "No." he said almost sullenly.
"It would have to be on the edge of a plantation, because you'd never be able to get in and out of a wildlife sanctuary unnoticed. Whereas in a plantation you could come and go as if you were one of the staff and no-one would be any the wiser." Catherine's voice was getting louder and faster.
"You're on the wrong…" Kyle was visibly sweating now. Everything was going to hell at once.
"McAllen's Thinleaf Alder Plantation, right on the edge of Lake Mead! That's where Ellie is!" Cath shouted in triumph as Kyle snarled in fury.
Quick as a bolt of lighting, Catherine whipped out her cell phone and dialled Grissom's number. She'd done it! They'd find Ellie!
"Grissom! Warrick! Nick! Anybody who's listening, I've got it! I know where Ellie is! Repeat: I know where she is! McAllen's Thinleaf Alder Plantation, right on the edge of the lake!"
As Catherine listened to Grissom's heartfelt congratulations, she noticed that Kyle Andrews was staring at her, a look of dawning comprehension on his face. "It was you!"
Catherine said her goodbyes to Grissom, and snapped her phone closed. "What?"
But Kyle ignored her question, staring instead at her face as if he had truly seen her for the first time. "All this time…" A slow, wicked smile began to trail across his face. "the voice on the scanner…it was you…"
"What are you talking about?" Cath's good mood was beginning to ebb.
For Kyle was now grinning insanely. "I can still remember it. That call on the scanner, just like the one you made now…"
" 'For anyone who's listening," Kyle's voice began to rise. "We got him, we got HOLLY GRIBBS' KILLER!' " Kyle's laughter rebounded off the walls terrifyingly.
Catherine felt her blood turn to ice as the world crashed to a halt around her. She felt herself lose control of her face as an expression of pure horror slid across it.
"You…you…?"
"Me." The giant leered hideously through the bars. "I killed your little girlfriend, stripper!"
"But…that-that's not possible! We…matched the DNA to our killer! You're lying!"
"Did I say I acted alone?" Andrews was growling the words out, but a furious smile of triumph was bolted on his face. "The little brat you busted was one of my less reliable customers. He brought more drugs than he could pay for, and robbed houses to cover his expenses. However, when I found out that a woman named Holly Gribbs had been sent to investigate his latest hit, I knew I had to see for myself."
"I knew her father." Andrews was snarling. "He's the reason I had to leave Los Angeles. He's the reason my cousin is dead! He's the reason," Kyle lifted his shirt. "For this."
A third degree burn snaked its way viciously across Kyle Andrews' back, tapering up his spine and ending near his left armpit. "Frank Gribbs, the detective who led a whole DEA team into my crystal meth lab at Long Beach. Who started a firefight with me and my little cousin in the middle of it!" The big man's voice was steadily rising "Who caused a fire with all that damn shooting, and just let little Tommy burn to death inside his own home! WHO NEARLY KILLED ME" Kyle roared.
"When I saw his little girl all grown up, it was blood for blood. I would have ripped her to pieces over weeks and weeks if that little junkie bastard hadn't shot her first!" Kyle's voice turned mellow, almost introspective.
"I never did find out whether or not he was just clumsy, or if he did it out of some strange form of mercy…"
Catherine, meanwhile, was sick with rage. Her face was contorted into a look of apoplectic fury. For a moment, even the cops standing next to her looked worried.
She went for her gun, meaning to turn Kyle's cell into a shooting gallery.
"Cath, no!" It was Sara and Greg who appeared seemingly from nowhere, grabbed her hands, struggled with her for a long, horrible moment, then finally forced her to look at them. "He's not worth it, Cath! The guy's a dead man anyway! He's not worth going to prison for yourself!"
She couldn't tell who was saying what. It didn't matter. They were both right. Tears sparking in her eyes, she turned to face Kyle Andrews one more time.
"I'm going to make sure I am there when they stick a needle in you! When you see my face, you'll know I'm hoping you enjoy hell!"
With that, she wheeled around and left the cells. Not without trepidation, Sara and Greg followed…
AN: Yes, you're right. I've taken a lot of geographical liberties in this chapter, and probably quite a few biological ones too. I hope those of you out there who are entomologists, and those of you who live near Lake Mead and know the area better than I, will forgive me.
Just for the record, my knowledge of the Carson Wandering Skipper is next to zero, and my knowledge of the terrain surrounding Lake Mead is equally limited. If there are any particularly grievous errors I have made that really bug you, flame away.
Once again, I am very grateful for the fast reviews, and very sorry for keeping everyone waiting for so long. From now on I'm posting chapters very quickly. It's the least I can do.