As soon as the coroner began his preliminary examination, two things became abundantly clear. First of all, the caliber of bullet that killed all three victims was different than the casing that Warrick had found, and secondly, the evidence suggested that the judge and his wife had been shot from directly behind and their son had been shot in the side of his head suggesting that the killer had been in the car with the victims when they'd been killed, making the processing of the car that much more critical.
Nick and Sara had spent the last three hours pouring over the car looking for any clue that might tell them who the shooter had been and whether he knew the judge and his family or if it had just been a car jacking gone bad. Their regular shift was long since over and it appeared that date number two wasn't going to happen as scheduled since sleep was going to take priority. Nick glanced over at Sara who at that moment was looking at something intently through a magnifying glass with a pair of tweezers poised to pluck it from the upholstery of the vehicle. He quirked an eyebrow her direction. "You got something?"
"Hair." Sara didn't even look up as she expertly pulled it away from the seat where the shooter had presumably been sitting and tucked it into a bindle. With it safely stowed away, she looked up at him and smiled. "Skin tag attached."
He grinned. "Maybe we'll get lucky and get our perp's DNA." He didn't think that he could ever grow tired of working with Sara. His feelings for her aside, her ability to focus on solving the cases helped him work all that much harder; he was always glad when he got to work with her.
"I guess we'll have to wait and see." Sara was hopeful; the hair she'd pulled off the seat was a longer blondish hair that was easily distinguished from the dark brown hair from all of their victims.
As Nick continued his search of the front seats, he cleared his throat. "So I talked to my sister Natalie."
Sara felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach at the thought of meeting Nick's sister.
"It's possible that you might get to meet more than just her and Fiona." Nick glanced up at her to gauge her reaction.
"Oh." Sara felt her stomach sink even further as she hoped that there wasn't going to be some sort of impromptu Stokes family reunion in Vegas with her headlining the marquee.
"Yeah, she told me that Chelsea and Kevin and the boys might swing through here after they hit Disneyland." Nick furrowed his brow as he realized that there was what appeared to be a smudge of blood on the headrest of the passenger seat and if they were lucky, they just might get a decent print.
"Chelsea and Kevin?" Sara's head was swimming as she tried to remember what Nick had told her about his family.
"Yeah, Kevin was in LA on business and they decided to take Aiden and Conner with as for some sort of NFL charity event. Chels didn't want Fiona to miss her ballet lessons and since Natalie was coming out to LA for something else a few days after they were leaving, she offered to bring Fiona with." Nick continued.
Sara wasn't really following. "Oh."
Nick glanced up at her as he began to dust the seat headrest for a distinguishable print. "Fiona is Chelsea and Kevin's daughter and she really isn't into football. Kevin works for the Dallas Cowboys and he's married to my sister. They might swing through Vegas before they go back to Dallas if they have enough time."
Sara smiled as she glanced up from where she was still pouring over the backseat. "Do I need to diagram them out to keep track?" Having only had one brother, the idea of multiple siblings was a bit overwhelming; but she'd always been envious of how Nick talked about his family.
Nick let out a loud chuckle. "Maybe." Despite the fact that they weren't going to get another date in before Natalie arrived with Fiona, he was enjoying being with Sara. At some point they were going to have to clue their coworkers in on their newfound relationship and they were also going to have to figure out how to balance it out with work. Nick knew it could work; he'd seen a couple on the dayshift do it quite well.
They both turned their attention back to the car, eager to get it processed so they could make some sort of headway on their case and maybe sneak in a little time alone outside of work before sleep became an absolute necessity. They'd nearly finished the car when the sound of footsteps approached.
"Grissom wants everyone in the break room in five minutes for a briefing." Warrick sounded tired. Normally he would have taken the time to give Nick a hard time about working alone with Sara and looking too excited to be processing a car, but right now all he wanted was to go home and sleep; he was fairly certain that Tina probably had already left for work herself and so unless he stopped by the hospital, he wasn't going to get to see her until later anyway.
"We got something?" Nick's interest was piqued as he glanced up at Warrick.
Warrick shook his head. "Not much. I think Grissom just wants to see what everyone has." He smirked a little as he noticed how close Sara was standing to Nick, her cheeks a little flushed as a smile tugged at her lips. "What about you two? Anything new here?" His tone clearly implied that he wasn't just talking about the car.
Nick opted to play dumb. "Sara found a hair. I think I might have a print." He grinned knowing full well what Warrick was asking, but finding this far more fun.
Sara cleared her throat. "And I found another bullet casing." She hadn't had time to show Nick before Warrick had walked in, but she held up the casing in her latex gloved fingers. "Looks to be about the same caliber as our vics' wounds suggest." They'd all been briefed throughout the shift about what little progress they had made as a team, and finding that bullet casing was definitely something progress.
Nick glanced over, his eyebrow arched in curiosity. "Way to go, Sar." He could have just kissed her just then, but under the circumstances didn't think she'd appreciate it; well at least until the evidence was stowed properly.
"Yeah, girl, good job." He studied the pair for a moment letting out a soft chuckle at the way Nick just couldn't seem to stop himself from touching Sara's arm while he offered her an affectionate glance. He decided to quiz them a little before heading to the briefing. "You two have that second date yet?"
Sara blushed, but smiled anyway as she glanced at Nick before looking at Warrick. "Not yet." She was going to hold Nick to that date; dating her wasn't going to get him out of going on actual dates.
"So you actually want to go out with this guy again?" Warrick wanted to make sure that he offered a voice of reason in the middle of whatever was transpiring between his two coworkers. If things didn't turn out well; he wanted to be able to still be friends with both of them.
Sara smiled a bit wider. "Yeah, I do." She was considering how to tell Warrick that she and Nick were actually dating each other, but Nick beat her to it.
"In fact, we're going to be going on a lot of dates, aren't we, Sar?" He grinned at her, wishing that at that moment that they both had normal jobs so they could clock out and spend some time alone without worrying about someone getting away with murder unless they worked extra hours.
"Yeah, we are." While she was relieved that Warrick seemed pleased with the news by the look on his face, she didn't really like to be the focus of attention when it came to her personal life and she quickly deflected it by nudging Nick in the ribs. "Uh, guys, we should get to the briefing."
