Chapter III

Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice

If little girls were made of sugar and spice, Sara was pretty sure that Catherine Willows had more then her fair share of spice...Chinese mustard, to be exact. The good stuff, the kind that could only be found in Frisco's China Town. The kind that made you physically hurt when you ate it...that was what Catherine Willows was made of. The Sidle-Willows relationship went in a cycle, which had not altered in the almost-seven years Sara had been in Vegas. Viscous verbal battles that rattled the lab walls, cold silence, luke-warm co-existence, lather-rinse repeat. In the first two months after Warrick's brush with death, they had evened out...tolerating each other. They had been almost friendly.

Then, like a full moon rising, the Montoya case had destroyed the momentary cease-fire they'd come to. The details of the case were, sadly enough, like a thousand others that Sara had seen. A young woman taken advantage of and raped. When she had reported it, the rapist, who was also her boss, had killed her. It was the ultimate form of being fired.

Grissom, in all of his misplaced wisdom, had paired them together. All it had taken was a small disagreement about blood spatter and everything had blown up. Not even Warrick had been able to diffuse the situation. That had been a month ago. Sara was almost glad that they'd arrived at the cold stage. She'd take hypothermia over flesh-eating acid any day of the week. If it hadn't been for Sofia...

Sofia, Detective Sofia Curtis. The oh-so-sexy detective had firmly planted herself at a place that was damn close to the center of Sara's universe. A slow smile crossed her face, and all thoughts of Catherine were chased away by much brighter thoughts.

Sara's not so kind musings and observations kept her quiet, which was fine with her companion. Catherine was in a foul mood, to say the least. Lindsey had decided to play the part of 'spoiled brat' again. Catherine just didn't know what to do with the girl. She loved her daughter to death...but she was so...difficult these days. Fights punctuated by 'Whatever' and 'Fine' made Catherine wish her little girl was still little.

She glanced over at Sara. The woman was staring into the distance, smiling. A slight pang of annoyance passed through Catherine. Everything was just perfect for Grissom's little pet. She had a boyfriend. The moody CSI had said nothing but Catherine could see the signs. Plus she had become the darling of the lab when she'd performed emergency CPR on Warrick. Not that she wasn't grateful that Sara had been able to save him...but it had been two months ago. It was time for the fanfare to end and the Sara Sidle fan-club to disperse.

They arrived at the house that the call had come from. It was another missing child, an AMBER alert. These cases always tore at her the most. Every time she saw a child roll into the morgue, she couldn't help but think of losing Linds. Sara, cool as ever, hopped out of the SUV and was already talking to the uniforms. Catherine trailed behind her, intent on comforting the mother as much as possible while still doing her job.

Two women made their way to the Winters home. To an onlooker, they were, with the exception of their careers, nothing alike.

A tall brunette with wary eyes and an ever present tenseness. She was dressed in the dark, subdued tones of the night.

A blonde who was fire contained in a well-presented female package. Unlike her colleague, she was dressed to impress, in an outfit that danced the line between professional and provocative.

Sara used cool logic, intuition and hard-headed determination to solve crimes, throwing everything in until she had nothing more to give.

Catherine worked the puzzle of the case, methodically. She used her experiences as a mother and a woman to come up with her answers.

They balanced each other out. That was why they worked so well together. Their different approaches brought the best of two worlds to the table...it was also why they were constantly at each other's throats; their best quality was also their worst.

Never the less, Carrol Winters had the best team in Vegas working on her daughter's case.

The house was cookie-cutter home in an upper middle class neighborhood. Uniforms had swarmed it. An AMBER alert was serious business in Vegas. Sara and Catherine made their way to the door.

The inside of the home was tastefully decorated, though Sara had seen thousands of homes just like it. There was nothing strange or out of place. If someone were to photograph it, the picture's name would be, simply, mediocrity. Not that being normal and a little on the bland side was bad. Sara would have traded an arm to have what would have been considered a "normal" childhood.

Speaking of which, photos of the child in question adorned the walls. Her name was Nadine Renee Winters, and she was thirteen years old. Sara studied the picture of her. She had blonde hair, blue eyes and, if this particular picture was recent, braces. They made their way to the den, where the mother was. Along the way, Sara continued to look at the pictures that documented the life of Nadine Winters. She was a soccer player, and was in something called 'Scribes' which, from the quill on the tee-shirt the kids wore, was some kind of a writing club. There were pictures of the girl at birthday parties with friends, Christmases with family. She was a perfectly normal little girl. A little girl who was missing.

Catherine had already honed in on the mother, which was good. Catherine was a mother herself and would be able to understand the victim better.

Sara inclined her head in sympathy. "Ma'am, I'd like to take a look at your daughter's room."

Nadine's mother, Carrol nodded and pointed to the hallway, "It's the third door on the right." Sara nodded.

Catherine sat across from Carrol Winters. The woman was ragged, which was understandable. She was living Catherine's own worst nightmare, every mother's worst nightmare.

Catherine gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder. "I know this is very hard for you, but can you tell me what your daughter's schedule for the day was?" Detective Vega, when he'd heard that she'd been assigned the case, had held off from questioning Ms. Winters.

The woman drew in a shaky breathe. "I dropped her off at school, Greenspun Middle, and then I went to work. I'm a teller down at the Henderson branch of Las Vegas Banking Inc. I came home and found the house empty. I called Nadine's friends, her coach, even her favorite teacher, nothing." She looked up, her green eyes incredibly weary. "She wouldn't run away...Nadine's just not like that. She's a happy normal little girl...my little girl." Catherine felt a tear stream down her cheek, her heart broke for Carrol Winters.

It was, Sara decided, definitely the room of a thirteen year old girl. There were still stuffed animals on the bed, but there were also posters of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom and that guy who played the teenage Superman all over the walls. Sara looked around, nothing was out of the ordinary. The DSL was online and the girl's email was open. Sara glanced at it, but it consisted of a mailing list for something called 'Degrassi' and an email from another friend who apparently thought fifty percent of the English language consisted of words like 'so' and 'omg' and 'squee'. It was all Greek to Sara. The general feeling got through though: Nadine had been happy. She didn't appear to be a candidate for running away. It looked like, unfortunately, a foul play.

Carrol Winters shook her head. "Her father, Jerry, lives in Carson City. She only sees him once a month. He didn't do this."

Catherine nodded and inwardly sighed. The more she learned about young Nadine Winters, the more she feared that the girl really had been kidnapped. She had not been seen since three o' clock that afternoon and it was edging towards midnight. She'd been missing for nine hours and counting.