"What do you want from me?" She yelled in exasperation, her Irish accent prominent.
"We just want to help." Sara answered calmly.
"I already told you want happened to me and a detailed description of the bastard. What the fuck else do you want?"
"We need your information incase we need to contact you." Sophia sighed, trying her hardest to hide her growing irritation with the snarky teen but failing.
Without releasing her gentle, understanding gaze from the stubborn blue eyes of the teen across from her, Sara asked, "Sophia, could you and Officer Davis give us a couple minutes?"
Sophia hesitated but nodded and left, Officer Davis following close behind her, closing the door and manning his new post just outside the interrogation room.
The teen sat starring at Sara, unmoving.
Sensing the young girls need to get away, Sara went straight to the point but let the girl know, by the tone of her voice, that she understood. "You don't have any contact information do you?"
After a brief shock, the teen narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "You don't know shit so don't try to reach out to me with your pity party." She spat.
Sara nodded, knowing that would be her answer. "I don't pretend to understand what people go through, but in this case, I do understand." She said softly.
The teen harrumphed.
"How old are you?"
Silence.
"Where are you from?"
Silence.
"Could you tell me your name?" Sara asked, hiding her slight irritation successfully.
The teen leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms defensively. "Shelly." At Sara's expectant look, Shelly sighed. "Fine, Shelly Gillian O'Brien and I'm 18."
Sara gave a sharp nod. "There, that wasn't so bad." She smiled sarcastically.
Shelly looked down at the table, hoping her hat would hide her smirk. "So, how do you think you understand me?" Shelly asked as she lifted her head again.
"How about you answer my questions first then I'll answer yours." Replied Sara.
"Do you think I'm stupid?" Asked Shelly seriously.
"Well, no I don't believe you are." Sara answered perplexed.
"Then why would you honestly think I would believe that offer?"
Sara smirked mercilessly. She sat back in her chair, much the way Shelly did earlier, with her arms crossed. "You like being a smart-ass?"
"You know it." Shelly replied with flare. "It's the only way to survive."
Sara quickly saddened and leaned forward with her elbows on the table. "Where do you live?" She asked seriously.
Shelly sighed deeply. "Nowhere."
"Where did you live?"
"East endof Chicago."
"Where did you stay when you lived there?"
"Depends how old I was. I've lived in many different houses with many different assholes."
"Foster care." Sara stated accusatorily.
Shelly sat shocked for the second time that day, starring at Sara with befuddlement. The puzzle piece feel and she nodded knowingly. "You do understand then." Sara looked up from her hands with narrowed eyes. "I felt that vibe when you first said you understood but now I know, you were a system child as well."
Sara shook herself out of her daze. "I told you before, I ask the questions right now." She said a little more forceful then she meant to.
"Fine, be ashamed. I hated the fuckin' system and the dirty-as-the-desert houses I stayed in too but they shaped me. I am as hard as I am now because of the bastards I had to, and still have to, deal with. Not to mention, they gave me my greatest gift ever." She finished in a blissful tone.
"What gift is that?"
Shelly shut down.
Sara noticed the touchy subject and changed direction of the conversation. She lowered her voice to a comforting tone. "Where are your parents?" Shelly shrugged her shoulders in an 'I don't care' motion but her first show of weakness was seen; her eyes became glassy with unshed tears.
"My… my mother was uhh… she was killed when I was six." She cleared her throat, successfully swallowing the lump of emotion that showed up unwanted.
"Where was your dad?" Sara asked softly.
"Why the hell you asking 'bout him for?" Shelly growled.
"Because we need all the information about you that we can incase there is another victim and we need to compare victim profiles." Sara answered calmly, which was the opposite of the girl across from her.
"I am not a victim! Not again!"
"Okay. But we still need your info." Sara stayed calm, willing Shelly did the same.
Shelly shot up out of her chair as she yelled, "Fine!" Sara held up a hand towards the one-way mirror to make sure they stayed out as Shelly began to pace and yell. "You want to know all about me? Fine!"
She took a deep breath and started again. "I don't have a dad, I have a sperm donor. WhenI was born, my mother went from smart, wanna-be science geek to a single mother with no money and a new mouth to feed. Her parents disowned her because they were high and mighty Catholics and she wasn't the Virgin Mary if you get what I mean. She got into drugs to support me and soon she got hooked with a fuckin' sewer rat boyfriend who made me his toy and mom, his punching bag." She took another deep breath.
"December 21st, 1994, while I hid in the kitchen, my mom's brain matter was sent shading the cupboards gray." She swallowed hard and sank into her chair dejectedly. She slowly continued in an emotional whisper. "It's like she knew it was going to happen or something."
Sara sat enthralled. She was rocked to the core by this young girls story. When she realized Shelly stopped talking, she asked, "Why do you think she knew it was going to happen?"
Shelly shook her head sadly. "A couple days before that day, she gave me a picture of my father. He was 30 in the picture. She said that it was taken at the seminar she attended. They were wonderful together for two years. He would fly back and forth from where he worked to Chicago. That's what she told me; that much I remember anyway." She sighed heavily and leaned her elbows on the table, placing her head in her hands.
"On the back of that picture she wrote quite a bit of shit about him and me. But I lost the picture when I came here two weeks ago."
"Do you remember what was written?" Sara asked softly.
Shelly nodded with her head still in her hands. "It had a list of things I had in common with him. I have his eyes, hair colour, and lips. It also said that my middle name was a mixture of his and his mom's first names. The last thing she told me was that," She sighed and looked up at Sara, "The last placeshe heard he was living was Las Vegas."
"Is that why you're here?"
Shelly nodded and looked back down at the table. "I turned 18 on August 6th last year and was 'sent on my way' from the latest house I was in. I stayed with a friend for about six months and saved up as much money as I could so I could come here and search for my father. I got mugged though my third day here."
"Where have you been staying since?" Sara asked incredulously.
She shrugged. "Whichever alley wasn't being occupied at the time." Shelly turned sad yet determined eyes to Sara. "I want to find my father but I haven't had much luck on my own." She shrugged.
Sara was so caught by her piercing blue eyes that she hadn't realized she whispered, "I wish I still had a chance to know my dad," until Shelly replied.
"You didn't know your dad either?"
"Yeah, a little." Sara shrugged then sighed. "I'll help you."
"What?" Shelly asked shocked.
"I'll help you … to find your father. I want to help."
"How are you going to help me? Why would you?" She asked suspiciously.
"Because you want to find your dad so… I want to help." Sara shrugged as if it was obvious.
Shelly stared at Sara for a minute, dissecting what she could from her body language. When she found the answer to her silent question, she nodded.
Sophia re-entered the room. "If we have a sketch artist talk to you, could you re-tell them what your attacker looked like?" She asked, her voice much softer and sympathetic then before.
"Don't pity me, Miss Curtis, just because you heard my story." If looks could kill, Sophia would have been laid to rest right then.
"It's not pity Miss O'Brien. I'm just trying to help get justice…"
"Oh please!" Shelly threw her hand up to stop Sophia. "Save the practiced speech for someone who gives two shits what you're trying to do. All I want is to find my father, tell him he's an asshole for cheating on my mother then leaving her, then I'm going back to Chicago to raise my last remaining family, okay? I'm sure you can find the rapist bastard on your own."
Sara stood from her chair, effectively halting Sophia's retort. "How about we go to CSI and I'll do the paperwork for your case while you talk to a sketch artist. Then when you're done I'll take you across to the Deli? Sound good?"
Shelly shrugged. "Sure, I guess."
Sara looked apologetically at Sophia as they walked out and down the hall to her CSI issued Denali that was parked outside.
While awaiting Shelly and the sketch artist, Sara sat at her workstation, first finishing up her paperwork then doing research on the internet. She typed in the keywords - 'December 1994, O'Brien, Chicago, Murder' then sat back and waited for Google to fork over results.
The first headline she read was from the Chicago Tribune. 'Young Girl Witnesses Mothers Be-heading.'
The next was from the Chicago Star. '6 Year Old Watches Mother Shot'
Sara was about to scroll further down the screen until she felt his presence. When she did, she quickly minimized the window and brought up her paperwork.
"How is your case going?" Asked Gil Grissom, nightshift supervisor of the Crime Lab.
"It's going." She answered cryptically.
Grissom nodded and moved to lean against the edge of the desk, his arms folded across his chest in a gesture that showed how uncomfortable he was with the upcoming conversation. He was never one to confront personal problems with his personnel but with Sara, it seemed that work mixed with personal often, which made it his business. "I heard that you had a pretty stubborn victim today. How did everything go?" He asked softly.
Sara looked up at him for the first time, clearly confused. "Where did you hear that?"
He shrugged. "Sophia."
'Figures.' She thought.
"So, how did it go?" He asked again.
"It went fine, Grissom. Just fine. You don't need to keep worrying about me, you know." She said with the tiniest hint of agitation. Ever since the near DUI and her suspension-nudged child-hood confession, she felt he had been coddling her. 'He has been getting better.' She thought. 'But it's still annoying at times.'
Grissom nodded, knowing that the tone of her voice was his cue to drop it. "I just don't want you to get too personally involved." Before she could retort to his statement, he rested his right arm against the back of her chair and leaned in to her personal space, just enough for his shoulder to nudge the back of hershoulder lightly.
'Whoa.' She thought as she felt the heat resonating from his body. 'I know we've been working on getting back the friendship but we haven't been this close in years. Why is he doing this?' Although she was confused by his move, she still felt a jolt of happiness.
"Shift ended ten minutes ago. What are you working on?" He questioned lightly.
She shrugged. "Just finishing off a bit of paperwork."
"Okay, but you have two days off so why don't you go get started on that. This paperwork isn't going to get up and leave, you know." He teased. When Sara turned her head in his direction, he was so close to her that she could smell the shampoo that he used. She laughed inwardly at that thought.
"I'm just waiting on something from DNA then I'm out. I promise." She teased back.
He gave her a slightly disbelieving smirk then backed off. "Night Sara." He said as he walked toward the door.
"Technically it's morning Griss." He just shook his head and continued to leave, his gentle smile spreading slowly across his lips.
Once he was out the door, Sara shook her own head. "That was weird. But a good weird." She smiled. Her smile was quickly washed away when she closed down her paperwork and reopened the internet window. She printed off the two articles and closed that down too then went off in search of the DNA profile she asked for and then Shelly.