Chapter Three
Welcome to Vegas
Liz pulled the rental car into the crimelab parking lot and parked near the entrance. Jason was dozing in the passenger seat of their rented red Ferrari, snoring quietly. Matches was in his lap, chewing at another belt loop.
"Jason, wake up." Liz said briskly, grabbing her purse, pulling out a piece of gum, sticking it into her mouth, next pulling out a brush and brushing her hair into place.
"Uggh…" Jason turned to his side and began to giggle softly, his eyes closed.
"Get up and stop pretending to be dreaming." Liz snapped, throwing the brush back into her purse and narrowing her eyes at Jason.
One of Jason's eyes popped open, and then the next one.
"How do you always know?"
"Female intuition. Plus you never giggle in your sleep."
Jason rolled his eyes and sat up in his seat.
"Thanks for getting the Ferrari like I wanted. It was just so hot looking!"
"Now remember what you promised," Liz diverted the conversation from the headache-inducing amount of money she had spent to keep Jason happy with the bright red Ferrari. "No starting any fires in anything other than:" She left the sentence open-ended for Jason to finish.
"Nothing but a fireplace, got it. And Matches promises not to cough up any fireballs."
Liz raised an eyebrow. "Jason, Matches is a mouse, not a dragon."
Jason shrugged. "I'm sure he could breathe fire if he wanted to."
Liz stared, trying to scrounge up something to say, but before anything came to mind, her cellphone rang.
"What the…" She fumbled in her purse again and pulled out her cellphone. She flipped it open and looked at the caller. "What! Already?" She hit the button and put it to her ear, "Molly! What could have possibly happened already? It hasn't even been a whole day yet!"
Molly's British voice blared through the cell, "Melinda is being absolutely impossible! I tell her to go process a case by the lake this morning and what does she do? She throws a fit because she hasn't had her morning candy! And she's trying to get it out of the soda machine; I mean it's absolutely ridiculous! She's going to break something!"
"Molly, I'm sure you can handle this. Just try something like…tell her that they have a candy stand on the way or something."
Liz could almost see Molly rolling her eyes on the other end. "Whatever you say Elizabeth." And she hung up.
Liz closed the phone and threw it back into her purse. "Let's go inside so we can accomplish something before she calls again."
Jason nodded as Liz opened her door and stepped out with purse in hand. Jason exited the vehicle as well; Matches safely back in his pocket. Liz strode briskly towards the entrance to the building, Jason at her side, but suddenly coming around the corner was a very anxious looking Brass.
"Oh, hey Brass! Looks like they got you off of that mountain, huh?" Liz said brightly, ambling up to him.
His face shot to hers, seeming very nervous. He quickly turned and shoved something into the pocket of his sports jacket.
"Oh…yeah…yeah they did. It's…Liz, right? I think?"
Liz nodded, with a small smile.
"Well, do you think you could show us which way Grissom's office is?"
"Er…"
"You don't have to if you're busy. We can find it ourselves if it's too much trouble." Liz offered.
"Uh…yeah, you know, I'm really, really busy…so, uh. You might be better off finding it yourself."
"Oh, okay." Liz raised an eyebrow, but pushed open the front door of the building and herded Jason inside.
Once indoors, Liz took the authoritative lead, Jason glancing around at the glass and metal institutional walls of the hallways. People bustled in and out, in and out, through the hallways, like ants rushing through the tunnels of their dirt fortress, knowing exactly what they're bodies were meant to be doing at that exact moment.
And Liz and Jason were two foreign ants, one of which carrying a pet mouse.
"Which way do we go?" Jason asked Liz, taking Matches out of his pocket and cradling him in one hand, turning to the side as two officers brushed past him.
"Let's ask that secre—"
"Liz!"
Liz and Jason turned to see Greg, jogging towards them, twisting his way through the crowd of busy-bodied people.
"Hey Liz!" Greg panted, "Glad you're here. Very glad you're here. This place hasn't been the same. Sara's just…gone…"
"No kidding. Where's Grissom's office?"
"He's not in there. He's in the breakroom with Nick. Come on."
Greg jogged off, dodging people once more as he headed down the hallways of the Las Vegas crimelab.
"Grissom! Liz is here! And—dude, why are you stalking us?"
Greg turned to face Jason as Liz entered the breakroom. Jason was taller than him, but looked slightly less intimidating with the small white mouse in his hand.
"What are you talking about?" Jason said, trying to step past Greg, who moved in front of him.
"You're following us. You were in the entry and then you followed us down the hallway and now you're here. Why?"
"He's with me Greg." Liz said, greeting Grissom as he stood up with a hug and then shaking Nick's hand, who also stood out of politeness. She then sat down between the two and set her purse on the tabletop.
Greg eyed Jason suspiciously, but let him pass.
"Anyway…" Liz began, "Fill me in completely here. What exactly happened?"
Greg informed her of the incident at the diner and how Sara had mouthed off to the waiter who had then called the cops.
"Uh-huh…so…remind me why I'm here?"
"We need your help bailing her out of jail, Liz." Grissom said in his calm collected way.
"What am I supposed to do? I'm not exactly a millionaire!"
"Well-I—What about that Ferrari?" Grissom stuttered.
"It's a rental."
He paused to stroke his bearded chin, buried in thought.
"I don't know what I'm going to be able to do about the bail," Liz murmured, also thinking. "But…so they said she was convicted in Nowhere county?"
"Yes." Greg affirmed.
"Where the heck is that?" Jason cried, setting Matches on the table and bouncing him back and forth between his hands.
"My guess is in the middle of nowhere." Greg responded cynically.
"Liz, we also need you to take Sara's place. We needed a female forensic scientist to avoid even more imbalance between the two sexes and you, Mindy, and Molly were the first to come to mind. And we picked the obvious choice." Nick said, speaking up for the first time in his pleasant accent.
"Molly's not that bad." Greg defended. "She's got a cool accent."
"But she's also butt-ugly and wear's too much black." Nick retorted.
"Yeah, but she has a cool accent."
"But—"
"Enough!" Liz snapped, raising her hands to quiet them. "Okay, I'll stay here and replace Sara while she's away. In the meantime somebody has to talk to her and somebody has to find out where Nowhere county is. Wherever that may be. Jason…somebody will have to help keep an eye on Jason. He has issues."
"Stalker related?" Greg inquired.
"He's a pyromaniac."
"I am not!" Jason defended, putting Matches onto his shoulder.
"The last time he went out of the lab, to some seminar, he set the teacher on fire."
"That was an accident! It could have happened to anybody!"
"Yes, but it happened to you!" Liz retorted.
Jason then stuck his fingers in his ears. "La-la-la-la-la! I can't hear you! La-la-la!"
"You are so immature."
"I have to go use the facilities!" Jason suddenly declared, standing up with his fingers still in his ears. "Don't bother trying to stop me! I'm a man on a whim! And that whim is—"
"We don't need to know!" Liz cried. "Just go! Go on!"
And Jason left.
They talked for a few more minutes about random things, when Liz's cellphone rang for a second time.
Liz irritably thrust her hand into her purse and pulled out the phone, flipped it open and said, "Hello?" in a breathless manner.
"Elizabeth!"
"What Molly?"
"Melinda is being insufferable again."
"What now?"
"She drove back from that crime scene, angry about there not being any candy. It's ridiculous. She hasn't processed anything."
Liz put her fingers to her temples and rubbed. "Okay…Molly…try this. Go to the scene with her this time. And make sure that you drive"
"What? You want me to drive one of those American vehicles? I can't do that! You all drive on the wrong side of the road!"
"No, Mindy…we drive on the right side."
"No! The wrong!"
"No, you don't get it. Left, right. We drive on the right, right?"
"Wrong!"
"Uggh. Molly, I have to go."
"Do something!"
Liz hung up, and then noticed that she had gathered the stares of everybody in the room.
"It's just Molly. She's not used to being in charge."
Grissom opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly Jason veered around a corner and dashed for the door of the breakroom.
"Jason, what's wrong?" Liz asked, standing up as Jason stood doubled over, panting.
"F-fire…in-in th-the Trace l-lab…"
"Oh my God…i-is anybody hurt?" Liz asked, as everybody got to their feet and began to dash out into the hallway, the sounds of alarms growing near.
"I don't know!" Jason looked panicked.
"Wait a minute…Jason…did you—"
"There's no time to start berating me for something I didn't do!" Jason cried, skidding to a halt before the entrance to the trace lab, the back of which shrouded in flames.
"Somebody get a fire-extinguisher!" Liz cried.
Grissom barged forward, snatching one off the wall beside the entrance and attacking the wall of fire.
"There." The counter stood smoldering, remnants of the fire including nothing more than the scorched countertop, several burst test tubes and beakers, and the large v-shadow of smoke on the wall where the fire had burned.
"Hey, why is everybody—oh boy."
Hodges appeared next to them, staring at the remnants of the back end of his trace lab. "What the—what the heck happened?"
"Hodges, hi there." Liz said, in a falsely bright voice.
"What happened?"
"We don't know. There was a fire."
"With a pyro in the building." Greg added.
"Well I can see there was a fire! All I did was come out of the lab for a minute to come find you guys and say…and say…"
"What?" Liz prompted, examining the wreckage.
"Welcome to Las Vegas…"
Liz smirked.
"Pretty strange welcoming, huh?"
"Yup."