An Unfair Act of Vengeance
Notes: This one took me longer than I planned... Hope you enjoy it, and I always appreciate the reviews. Thanks a ton for all the ones so far, and I hope you keep 'em coming! Enjoy...
Summary: Nick's guilt is slightly lifted when he gets one last chance to speak to Grissom, but he is finding it harder and harder to handle as his pain increases. Sara accidentally finds herself alone with Nick's family, and can hardly bear seeing them. Warrick and Brass begin to follow new clues at the abandoned building where the whole mess started…
Trust is such a funny thing isn't it? It can be comforting, but eventually it betrays everyone, especially your CSI, Pancho… I can hardly understand how he managed to put so much trust into the members of your team… It seems hard to believe that he could ever trust a stranger after his babysitter 'mistreated' him when he was only nine years old. And, after the unfair treatment from your entire team, it amazes me that he still trusts any of you. That trust is already gone now; how could his friends let this to happen? He was only buried alive for twelve hours before you found him, not for this long… and now he knows that he is being punished not only by me, but by your team. Griss, I know you were reading his lips as he whispered how sorry he was. That's why I added the sound; your entire team deserves to hear him beg for forgiveness… Now, with those beautiful ligature furrows in his neck it ought to make his screams even more meaningful…
You can only watch…
Archie pushed the button once more, and none of them liked the sight that popped up on the screen. Nick was still restrained on the table, and the camera had once more been moved so they were now looking at Nick from above… They could clearly see where the vice grip had been used to break multiple bones in his wrist, causing his hand to lie at an awkward angle, and a few inches lower they could see the blood flowing, slower now, from his palms…
The supervisor was more concerned with what the man's eyes would show them, and through all the anguish and guilt in his still vivid brown eyes he could now see a look of hopelessness, of final defeat… Grissom's frown grew even more when he noticed that the Texan had stopped struggling against the restraints, that he had given up. It shocked the older man; in all the years he had worked with the CSI he had never seen such a look of despair on his usually defiant face when it came to such situations…
His thoughts were interrupted when he saw the shears enter the screen from the side being held by those dark ominous gloves. The hands that had caused Nick so much pain…
The Texan was breathing faster and faster as he watched the shears hover over him. He could feel his heart begin to speed up, and he found it impossible to even try to fight back…
"This isn't good Grissom, if this guy keeps this up much longer Nick could go into cardiac arrhythmia and…" Sara found the sentence impossible to finish as they watched their friend's breathing continually become faster…
Dr. Alberts smiled as he watched the man's breathing increase, and he easily began to cut away at the man's shirt so his friends could see not only his bruises, but also his heart as it beat even faster… With a gentle motion he laid the shears down, roughly ripped what remained of the shirt off from around Nick's body.
Grissom flinched as the bruises and cuts on Nick's body were suddenly visible. He couldn't even to make himself imagine what the other man was thinking, and he wasn't sure if he wanted it too… I-I'm s-s-so s-sorry… the words uttered by his CSI haunted him… How did I let this happen?
"Something has to give Gil… there's no way he can take much more, it's been what? Twenty-two hours since he took Nick? And Nick has been undergoing severe levels of stress for at least the past twelve hours…"
"I know that Catherine, but we don't exactly have anything to help us find him now do we!"
She sat back, stunned by how ferociously the older man had snapped at her. Before she could reply more screams echoed through the room over the speakers… Her eyes watched hopelessly as she saw Nick's captor use the shears to create deep, parallel gashes along nick's arms…
Nick screamed… he could hardly imagine how his parched throat managed to do so, and though he couldn't see the dark blue marks around his neck he could feel them… He found it impossible to cry, his blood red eyes were now completely dry… It had too have been at least a day since he had been drugged and thrown into a trunk… but it didn't matter. It's too late… I can't take much more, and they've already given up on me…
They all jumped as the cell phone that Grissom had dropped on the floor began to ring once more. In a frantic motion the supervisor answered the call, unaware that he was holding his breath in anticipation…
"Ah, Gil…" Dr. Alberts paused, to let the fact that he was becoming more casual sink in, "I'm sure you've been watching, and I've decided to give you the chance to say one last thingto Pancho before I finally make him lose his mind…"
There were a few choice words he wanted to spew out at the man, but he froze when the cruel, harsh voice was replaced with another voice. He could tell Nick was barely able to speak, and tears came into his eyes once more as he listened.
"G-Griss… I-I'm s-so s-s-s-sorry. Y-you've g-g-g-got to b-believe me… I-I t-tried t-to b-b-be s-stronger… t-t-to b-b-be g-g-good enough… I'm s-s-sorry t-that I l-let you d-d-down s-s-so much… p-p-please… y-y-you've gotta f-forgive me…"
There was no mistaking the anguish, the despair, and the guilt in the voice… He had to find the words that would somehow alleviate the other's guilt, some words that could help him through this…
Warrick and Brass began to search for clues as they searched through the wrecked mass of wood that had once made up the conference table, and the chairs. It looked as if someone had gone on a rampage with something.
"What do you think did all this damage?" Brass inquired as they shifted more wood.
"My gut tells me that it was that sledge hammer we saw on the tape earlier. That big dent in the wall over there looks about the right size and shape…" He stopped as he took a look around the room. That was the only place where the hammer had met the wall…
He knelt by the hole and began to study it more closely.
"You find something Warrick?"
"I'm not sure… there is just this one dent in the wall, and it doesn't appear to have been caused by accident…"
"Why not?"
"Well, the dent is at a downward angle, which isn't really conclusive," Warrick replied quietly, "but this Alberts guy doesn't seem to do anything by accident. Maybe it's some sort of clue… let's go check out the room on the other side of this wall…"
Sara couldn't stand it any longer… she burst out of the room before listening to her supervisor's response. It couldn't be very helpful. The man never knew what to say, and she didn't want to see Nick suffer any more because of the team's incompetence. Without thinking she stormed into the break room, and it wasn't until after she had poured a cup of coffee that she realized who else was in the room…
Grissom desperately wracked his brain in an attempt to find anything that could help his friend out, but he could only remember how stupid he had been all those times before in how he treated and responded to the Texan…
"I-it's ok… I-I u-understand… y-y-you c-c-can't f-forgive m-me… I-I'm s-s-so s-s-sorry Grissom…"
"Nick…" he was stalling, but anything was better than hearing the dejection that had found its way into the Texan's voice… "Y-you've done nothing wrong… There isn't a single thing that's happened that you should be sorry for… W-we need you… the other night… you said I was like a mourning dove, but I'm not Nick… it's you. You're the one who has always been there for us… always been there to give us hope and to help us… and, now, when you need us most we can't get to you… we can't be there to help you. We're doing our best, man… and…"
His eyes snapped back up to the monitor as he could see the phone that Nick had somehow managed to clench to finally come free into the gloved hands that had easily pried the weakened fingers open. He frowned, as the last thing he heard from the phone was Nick cry out, before all that was left was a cold, distant dial tone…
"No… no… Grissom…" he listened quietly as the cry played out through the speakers.
It had almost been unreal, and he could never remember being so relieved to hear anyone's voice… They haven't given up… I can trust him; I know I can trust him… Something in the back of his mind was running rampant though. It was creating doubt, and it was quickly taking away his hopes of ever seeing his family or friends again…
Sara looked uncomfortably at the older couple sitting on the couch holding each other tightly, with tears still running down their eyes. She found it even harder to look up at Nick's brother, who was starring blankly at a worn picture that, from several glimpses, she could tell was definitely of Nick and his siblings with their parents when they were still little kids. She figured Nick was probably about nine or ten in the photo… It shouldn't be him… He should've been out in California… He should've been with his family, with people that cared so profoundly about him…
It was too much for her too handle… She quickly finished her coffee and dropped her cup into the sink before racing into the hallway. Her hands had just reached for the door to the restroom when she heard the break room door open and close. What was meant to be a quick glance over her shoulder turned into a long deep stare into the older man's dark brown eyes… eyes that only served to remind her of Nick.
"You care so much about him… I can tell…"
"He's my friend…" Sara replied, fighting back several tears that were forming rapidly in her eyes…
"I don't know how many nights I've sat staring at this picture… It was taken when he was only nine. He never said anything… but I figured out what happened to him… what that creep did to him. I was in high school. I knew her…" he was struggling now, and he wasn't entirely sure why he was talking to his brother's coworker about his deepest fears…
Sara wasn't sure either, but she had been shocked to first learn it from the evaluation report that Alberts had filed on Nick… "That must've been hard for you. To keep it quiet…"
"I didn't. I couldn't. I told the lead CSI at the time; he was a friend of my father. He swore he wouldn't tell anyone, and that he'd find some way to keep it quiet from anyone he could, especially my parents… and Nicky. She was arrested a few days later, and not even the principal of the school got a very direct answer. From that time on I put this picture in my locker… I took it everywhere with me. I'd sit and stare at it for hours; wishing he hadn't been changed. He grew up fast, and always kept his problems to himself."
"He isn't exactly an open book."
"Sure he is." The older man sighed, "He may not talk about it, but I could see his emotions, his troubles, he could never hide anything from me. I could just look at his eyes, and I'd know.A few months later he started to talk again, and I'd sit in his room with him every night doing my homework until he'd fall asleep. A few months after that he started talking to me again as if he was completely normal again. Ever since he's shared almost everything with me. He even tried to keep the whole stalker incident from our parents…"
"Hmm, that doesn't surprise me… he hates it when people worry about him."
"Yeah. He also tells me how great you all are, and I know it means the world to him right now that you're doing your best to find him."
Warrick and Brass hadn't let the locked door stop them, but Warrick was begging to regret his decision to kick it down as he felt his foot beginning to hurt. It's nothing. You stupid moron… Your friend is having the living daylights beat out of him, and you're thinking of complaining about your stupid foot? He shook his head, bit his lip, and forced himself to ignore the slight pain in his foot as they made their way over to the wall.
"There's a dent here too…" Warrick announced, and immediately went to pull out a few tools from his kit.
"What exactly are you doing?" Brass asked as Warrick quickly pulled on a white mask, and brought a chisel and hammer up to the wall.
"I'm seeing if there is anything in this wall. Someone went through a lot of trouble to mark both sides of this wall in essentially the same spot…" Warrick replied as he began to chisel away near the dent in the wall.
Neither man moved as they watched a large chunk of the wall fall to the floor immediately after Warrick's chisel had broken through the drywall… He quickly swung his flashlight into the hole, and immediately saw it…
To Be Continued…
Next Chapter: Warrick may have found the clue that'll lead them to Nick, but when he gets an update from Grissom it becomes a race against time… Meanwhile, the media finally gets word of what has happened despite the LVPD's attempts to keep it secret, and the lab is soon swarming with reporters in an attempt to get some sort of information...