Chapter Sixteen: Prayers Amongst Sirens
12:05a.m. Las Vegas Crime Lab
It was an hour into shift and Grissom was, not at the scene of one heinous crime or another, but tucked behind his desk working his way through some forms Ecklie had been after him about. As he removed a form from the top of a pile that wasn't depleting nearly fast enough for his tastes, he wondered sardonically if his job was really to catch criminals or to cut through red tape.
A knock sounded from the doorway as Mozart's Marriage of Figaro reached a crescendo in the background. Grissom looked up; the first interruption of the evening causing only a slight knit of his brow.
Any irritation Grissom may have felt faded quickly at the expression on Detective Brass' face. The man's drawn features got a raised eyebrow and a look of intrigue out of Grissom. He obviously had news that was distinctly unpleasant.
Intrigued or no, Grissom held up a halting hand, pen poised between his index and middle fingers and resting against his thumb. "Whatever it is Jim, make it quick. I'm in quarantine," he said, using the same hand to make a sweeping gesture over the papers that littered his desk.
Brass' head was shaking before Grissom had finished speaking. "You'll have time for this," he began quietly. "About fifteen minutes ago there was an accident out on 215-"
"Jim, I'm swamped. Get one of the others to-"
"Hey, Gil, listen," he said, his words terse. "Catherine was in that accident. They're taking her to Desert Palm."
Grissom froze. The color drained from his face, his pallor now a ghostly gray.
"All I could get for now was that she was stable but unconscious." There was a momentary lapse as neither man spoke nor moved. "So, you coming or what?" Brass asked, gesturing to the door.
Grissom rose from his seat, and knowing that the question had been posed purely to spur him to action, didn't answer. He grabbed his coat from the rack near the door and pulled it on, grabbing his cell phone from its belt clip simultaneously.
"Who're you calling?" Brass asked as the two men made their way into the corridor.
Grissom glanced at him and pressed the device to his ear
-x-
12:13 a.m. Willows Residence
Sofia Curtis was not prepared for this type of situation. An astonishing fact considering that, as a detective, and former CSI, she'd consistently dealt with people on the worst days of their lives. She was the bearer of life-shattering news on an almost daily basis and interacting with the scum of society was her job description. And she was expected to do all this with a calm, professionally caring demeanor. Which she did, quite well, without losing her human compassion like a lot of the people who did her job. Dealing with addicts and murderers everyday had a way of desensitizing people.
Calm and professionally caring were the last things on her mind when her phone rang at 12:07 a.m. Wednesday morning.
"Sofia?"
There was a pause as she struggled to place the voice, "Gil?" Confusion. "Uh, hey…"
"I woke you, I'm sorry."
Rustling sounds as she shifts beneath the covers. "No. No, it's fine. What's wrong?"
"You got along with Lindsey, right?"
"Wha-who? Oh…Yes. I suppose…" She ran a hand across her face, forcing her sleep-clouded brain to work. She squinted at the clock on her nightstand. He'd called her in the middle of the night to see how she got along with a colleagues' daughter? Why would he…
"Listen, they're not answering their phone-"
His distress evident, she calmly asked, "Gil, who? Who's not answering their phone? You're not making sense."
The sound of a deep breath came over the line. "Catherine's been in an accident…"
Such news usually would have brought on the mental mask that made doing her job possible, but tonight it had sent her springing from her bed and speeding to a house she'd only visited a handful of times.
As she repeated the words 6 minutes later, she still found them hard to believe herself; the gravity of the situation finally setting in only as she watched Lindsey's face collapse. She had to consciously stop herself from reaching for the sobbing teen, watching as she turned toward her grandmother's side.
Lily's own eyes were glistening with tears Sofia knew were held at bay only by willpower and only for Lindsey's benefit.
"I-I'll drive you to the hospital," Sofia hear the catch in her throat and swallowed hard, grappling with her own emotions.
Lily nodded, her hand rubbing consoling circles on the teen's trembling back. "Lindsey, sweetie, get your shoes on…"
Two minutes later they were hurtling through the darkened streets of Vegas toward the hospital, the only sounds the wail of the siren and Lindsey's sniffles. Scenery flashed by the windows, as repetitive as the light flashing on the dash, red then white.
Sofia was sure no one noticed any of it.
-x-
12:11a.m. Summerlin: McComber Kidnapping Scene
Warrick's cell phone beeped, the insistent polyphonic chime telling him he had a voicemail. He'd felt the phone vibrate two minutes earlier, but a missing six-year-old girl took precedent and he was interviewing a neighbor who may be the only witness. She'd been the one to find the unconscious babysitter and confirmed the girl missing.
He'd just concluded that interview, taken prints for elimination purposes and, after lifting fibers and other trace from her clothes, had sent the frazzled neighbor home with a female officer so that he could take the actual garments. She'd been "acting on autopilot" and had checked the babysitter for a pulse, effectively getting blood on her cotton pajamas.
He pulled the Motorola flip phone from the clip on his belt and quickly accessed his voicemail, pressing the phone to his ear.
The message was a simple, edgy command. "Call me."
He pulled it from his ear and looked at it with lifted brow, as though his questioning stare would lead it to tell him what was up. He pressed in Grissom's speed dial number, hit TALK, and waited for the call to go through.
"Grissom."
"Hey. You called. What's up?"
"Warrick, there's been an accident," Grissom began and Warrick initially thought he was giving him a case. Catherine's name, followed by "unconscious" and "Desert Palms" dispelled the notion and superseded everything else in his mind; Warrick was on his way to the front door before he'd hung up the phone.
Nick looked up as Warrick entered the living room, obviously on the verge of saying something, whatever it was instantly forgotten upon seeing the expression on Warrick's face.
"What's wrong, Rick?"
Sara, hearing the question, appeared in the doorway of the living room and study, her expression concerned.
Warrick didn't break stride. "Catherine was in an accident. They're taking her to Desert Palms." He paused, a hand on the knob of the front door. "Gris is sending somebody to replace us. You mind waiting for them?" he asked, though it wasn't really a question.
Sara nodded, as did Nick who added, "Of course."
Warrick was gone as soon as the words left Nick's lips.
Sara's expression was anxious as she stared numbly at the door. A thought struck her and her jaw went slack. "Oh my god," she murmured. The baby.
She didn't realize she had spoken aloud until Nick looked at her, dumbfounded. "What baby?"
-x-
12: 27a.m. Desert Palms Hospital & Medical Center
The waiting room for the Desert Palms Emergency Room was far from a calm, comforting environment, as was the case with most emergency rooms across the country.
A woman keened in a corner chair, voicing her distress over the fate of a loved one, her despondent wails joining the whimpers of a small child, perched on his mothers lap, his head on her chest. She spoke soothingly in Spanish as she rocked him back and forth, periodically testing his forehead with her palm.
A few chairs away from the mother and child sat an older couple, probably in their sixties, and a young woman who looked about twenty. They spoke in low tones, the fatigue etched on their faces testifying to a long stint in the ER waiting room. Other people of varying races and states of distress dotted the large room, each in their own world of worry. Despite only a third of the seats being occupied, the room felt full.
The stagnant air of the already stuffy room conflicted with the manufactured cool of the air conditioner. A vile combination of blood, vomit, disinfectant, sweat and a cocktail of other unidentifiable odors adding nothing to the environment; an overall feeling of misery and despair topping off the atmosphere in this purgatorial hell hole.
Warrick noticed none of it though, as he strode quickly to the receptionist's desk at the back wall.
The woman, a Clairol-special blonde, gave him the smile she'd become accustomed to giving when dealing with the panicked, the despondent, the bereaved. A slight upturn of her lips that didn't quite reach her eyes and said 'I care, just not too much.'
"How can I help you, sir?" she asked her tone only a little less detached than her smile.
"A woman was brought in, from an accident on 215. Catherine Willows." He spelled both names, more from training than actual thought. "I need to know where she is."
The blonde had begun typing as he spoke and raised her gaze to meet his. "There's no one here by that name. None of the accident victims have been brought in yet, sir. They should be arriving shortly."
Her tone was beginning to grate his nerves, though it was much like the one he himself used when dealing with the hysterical and duly stressed. Managing to keep his cool, he'd opened his mouth to ask when, exactly, would they get there when the automatic doors of the ambulance bay slid open.
He turned reflexively and was met with the sight of two male EMT's, a doctor and a female nurse guiding a stretcher hastily through the door calling stats as they went.
"Female Caucasian. Early to mid-forties."
"BP 80/50."
"Pulse at 55bpm…"
The rest of the information escaped Warrick as he caught sight of the reddish blonde hair spilling from the brace that immobilized her head and neck.
Oh, God. "Catherine?"
He was alongside the stretcher in a few strides, the sight before him dropping the bottom out of his stomach.
It was Catherine. He knew it, but his brain wouldn't process the information. She looked so…broken.
Blood caked an open wound on her forehead and more oozed from a gash on her cheek. Both eyes, closed lightly, bore deep purple bruises and her bottom lip was split and swollen. A barely perceptible periodic rising of her chest the only visible sign that she was still alive.
Her body was strapped rigidly to the stretcher, but her right arm was turned at a horribly unnatural angle despite the restraints. The right leg of her black dress pants had been cut away, revealing a blood soaked bandage midway up her thigh; the amount of blood on the dressing indicating an undoubtedly deep cut.
Warrick took it all in during the few seconds it took the nurse to circle the stretcher. "Sir, you need to step back," she said, taking his arm and pulling him back slightly.
He pulled his arm away but didn't move back towards the stretcher. He wouldn't get in the way of them helping Catherine.
His gaze remained fixed on the hurried procession until a familiar voice caught his attention.
"Mom?"
He turned, finding Lindsey hurrying through the patient entrance, Lily right behind her, a hand on her shoulder.
"Mom? Mommy?" her voice quavered and she broke free of her grandmother's grasp and rushed towards the stretcher.
Warrick grabbed her, pinning her wrists with his hand to keep her from hurting him or herself in her struggles to break free and get to her mother.
"Linds! Lindsey, it's me," he stressed, subconsciously wondering how a thirteen year old could put up such a fight.
"Where are they going with my mom?" she cried, her voice cracking.
"Lindsey…." A calm voice from Warrick's right and he looked up, surprised to find Grissom standing there. Gil repeated her name and gently pressed a hand to her shoulder to get her attention. "Lindsey, they're taking her to make sure everything is okay. It's all right, honey. It's okay."
She looked up at the older man, the fear on her face making her look like a little girl again. She knew Gil would never lie to her, and whether it was Grissom's soothing tone or the realization that Warrick wasn't letting go, the fight went right out of her. She buried her face in Warrick's shirt, shoulders shaking as she cried.
Warrick hugged her, unconsciously rocking back and forth, the movement slight. "It's okay, sweetie. It's okay. She's gonna be fine," Warrick soothed, his voice sounding rough to his own ears.
He felt Lindsey nod and prayed to God that he was telling the truth.