Again, she felt the piano in her head, the somber and slow chords reverberating through her skull like a deep lullaby. Police lights danced in the room, echoing off the chandelier in the foyer, mixing with the flash of cameras at the crime scene that was now taped off. It was hypnotic, pulling her attention out of her brain long enough to realize someone had been speaking to her for several moments, the name she now knew not making a connection to her at first.

"Mrs. DeMonte?" a voice asked quietly.

It took a moment for her eyes to focus as she stared at the coffee table, seated in a leather chair.

"Mrs. DeMonte?"

"I heard you the first time Mr. Grissom," her eyes suddenly flicked to him, the green catching the light. She studied his face for a moment.

"Um, hello?" he set down his equipment case, the sudden intensity of her eyes unnerving. "Have we met before?"

"No," she said quietly, smoothing her outfit as she rose to shake his hand.

"Observant," a soft voice chimed from behind him. Sara was looking over the room with a fine flashlight. "Were you paying attention the whole time?"

"One requirement to being a mogul's wife, you learn to listen," she smiled slightly, her eyes flicking nervously to the dead body in her husband's foyer.

"Let's hope your memory is as good as your hearing," he finished. He gestured warmly toward his partners for the evening. "This is Sara, and the gentleman taking the pictures is Nick. We understand you may be having difficulty with all of this but we need to ask you some questions."

"Absolutely," she said softly, crossing and uncrossing her arms. There was blood on her face, she took out a handkerchief from the inside of her suit coat and reached to wipe it off. "Whatever you need."

"…is for you not to compromise evidence," Grissom said gently, reaching to stop her hand.

She flinched slightly. Grissom's brow rose visibly.

"My husband is outside talking with the police?" she asked.

"Yes, as well as trying to fend off the media. And your name is…"

"Kara."

"Kara… that's Greek for pure isn't it?"

"I've never looked it up," she hugged her arms slowly, flinching slightly at the tightness of the band-aids beneath. Her eyes wandered around the room as if she was trying to pull herself together, waiting for her husband, almost as if waiting for him to come in and rescue her from the questions.

"Is this the senator's blood?" Sara asked quietly, looking at her face.

Nick was focused on the Senator slumped in a pool of his own blood in the foyer. Sara was slowly examining the side of her suit, but focusing on her face.

"Could be, I would guess it's wine from the glass I was holding."

"Your husband tells me you were standing right there," Sara said.

"She was." Cologne and shoe polish. "Mr. Grissom, if you'd excuse us for a moment, I need to speak with my wife."

"We haven't had the opportunity to process evidence," he said.

"We just need a moment," he insisted.

Grissom opened his mouth to protest as Mr. DeMonte touched her elbow and led her toward the kitchen.

"That was weird," Sara said.

Brass had followed DeMonte in.

"Did you see the body language?" Sara chimed.

"Yah. Husband shoots senator, tells wife to shut-up. Not so uncommon," Brass thought out loud. "He's been very, uncooperative so far."

"Nick, can you come here for a second?" Grissom asked.

He finished a picture, walking over.

"I want you to process Mrs. DeMonte," Grissom continued.

"We got another db? I'm a little busy," he started. "I'm covering for Warrick too, Catherine's not pleased."

"No, Mrs. Demonte, our prime witness is covered in the Senator. Sara can finish for you, I need you to do it."

"Alpha male theory?" Sara asked quickly.

"Battered wife syndrome," Grissom finished. "I want a 'competitive' male to push his buttons."

"You think even if she knows something, hubby is telling her right now to shut up?" Sara inquired.

"I doubt there's a lot of telling in this relationship," Brass finished. "More like showing… we need to get her into the precinct. She won't give us a clean statement with him coaching her."

"Great, you're setting me up to get decked," Nick pursed his lips, handing off the camera to Sara. "I'm getting overtime for this right?"

Sara handed off her swabs. "Just be the knight in shining armor we all know you are. Besides, Gil can take 'em." She winked and went to work.

As if on cue, the two of them moved back from the kitchen. He was leading her by the elbow quite reluctantly. Her body had changed. She seem introverted, distracted.

"Splatter central, you weren't kidding," Nick said under his breath. "Hi Mrs. DeMonte, I'm a little better with the swabs, and there's a lot of stains to sort out on, my name is Nick," Nick coerced, the husband's proximity strictly watched from his peripheral vision.

She glanced slightly to her husband and then nodded softly to him, "Kara."

DeMonte's jaw clenched slightly as Nick set to work on her face, swabbing the splatters slowly. She watched him as he worked, her face softening to almost a relaxed comfort. They were the same height, his dark features playing directly off of her intensely colored ones.

Brass continued to ask DeMonte questions, and it was starting to annoy the mogul.

"How are you doing?" Nick asked gently, glancing at her.

"I'm all right," she said softly, her cheeks flushing as she turned her head to let him work on her neck. "It's… overwhelming at the moment." She smiled tenderly to him.

His in return was warm.

DeMonte noticed. His proximity changed, moving closer as Nick reached to remove her earring.

"What are you doing?" she asked quietly.

"Your earrings are covered in splatter, we need to process them," he said quietly, noticing the flinch when the back of his glove touched her cheek. After dropping it into a bindle, he tucked her hair behind her ear to swab the rest of her neck.

His eyes narrowed. There were scratches on her neck, fresh, disappearing beneath her collar.

"Mrs. DeMonte, you weren't injured in the shooting were you?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head errantly, casting a glance to her husband under his scathing stare.

"You think it might be easier to take the whole shirt?" Grissom asked as he was watching the reactions with interest and concern.

Nick pursed his lips a moment, "If that would be all right?" he looked her in the eye.

She caught his for a moment, looking to her husband, then back to him. "I'll go upstairs and change," she said quietly, moving toward the stairs as Nick followed.

At that moment, Brass caught the cue and moved toward them. He had been listening intently to the interplay, waiting. "I have a couple more questions for you," he said calmly to DeMonte.

"Can't you see she can't handle any of this?"

"She seems to be handling this just fine. Nick's the biggest gentleman in Nevada. Unless you don't want her talking to us," Brass continued.

"You think I have something to hide?"

"I think you killed the senator, told your wife to shut-up," Brass said quietly.

DeMonte's protest was incredulous.

Grissom's grin was immaculate as he leaned over to bindle evidence.

She closed the door to the master bath, unbuttoning the coat slowly, the camisole underneath spattered with red as well. She took that off, putting some water onto a cloth and wiping her arm off, then her face carefully. She pulled off several soaked band-aids that had bled through, and replaced them. She dried, putting on a satin blouse.

Nick was looking around the house carefully as he followed. The money that went into this place almost made him sick. The bedroom door was wide open as he approached it. Waiting several moments he tapped his fingers on the doorframe, impatient, and almost suspicious at the amount of time it was taking for her to emerge.

He peered into the room.

"Mrs. DeMonte?"

Nothing.

Would she have taken off? Had she shot the senator?

He stepped in, spying bloodied clothes in the hamper, he rifled through them softly; towels and a woman's pants.

Had the crime scene been posed?

A shirt was in the trash, shredded and bloodied at the shoulder. He looked closer at the shirt in the trash, tipping the trashcan to hear something that sounded like glass slide across the bottom. He had to get Sara up here.

She sensed another presence beyond the door. Folding the items neatly she moved toward the door, turning the handle slowly, green eyes flashing up at Nick's fist that was ready to knock on the bathroom door. She flinched, her jaw clenching as she realized who it was. Catching her breath, the look of Nick's face was imprinted in her brain as he realized what had happened.

It was a tense silence, the square of his jaw twitching slightly. He realized she was flinching from habit, necessity. She had been abused. The scratches were from the husband.

"That's a lot of blood on the clothes in the hamper," he started. "You didn't change before we arrived did you?"

She shook her head. "An accident, earlier, in the garden, I cut my arm."

"You garden in silk shirts, then throw them away?"

She was silent, pressing her lips together.

"How long has your husband beat you, Mrs. DeMonte?" he asked quietly, his face stoic.

"My husband doesn't beat me," she said definitively. "You're here to investigate a murder, now do your job." She took his hand and placed her folded clothing into it.

He just wanted to scream. His muscles jumped against his skin, angry at the ignorance.

"If your husband is impeding the investigation by encouraging you not to tell us what you saw, then I am doing my job by questioning you."

She tried to pass, he wouldn't move. Her eyes flew to his, suddenly scorching.

He blinked, intrigued. There was something going on here he couldn't place. A woman so obviously in distress now angry with him.

"We can help you," he said softly.

Her eyes looked like they would break for a moment, but then her lip began to quiver as she sucked it in, feeling the steely taste of blood. "I need a lot more help than you can give me," she brushed past him and moved toward the stairs.

"Mrs. DeMonte," he started.

She kept moving.

"Kara…"

She stopped at the top of the stairs, looking over her shoulder to meet his eyes before she descended.

"Leave me alone," she whispered.

DeMonte was pacing like a tiger before they came down. Brass was still pressing his questions, Sara was wrapping up. The coroner had arrived and was removing the body.

"We are just about finished, the only statement we still need is your wife's," Grissom said as he watched Nick bag the rest of her clothing.

"I found blood and glass upstairs in the bedroom. I think this crime scene has been compromised," Nick said.

Sara nodded and moved upstairs with her equipment to cover the room.

Kara looked back and forth to the two men, ignoring Nick who was standing behind her.

Nick knew if they left them together, she would be in danger.

"I've told you everything you need to know," DeMonte said. "We were standing in the same place. Nothing was staged, nothing was moved! My wife had blood on her face for god's sake!"

"This is protocol. We need to speak with your wife. If you refuse to let us, it makes us wonder if you're protecting your wife," Brass said. "Or covering for her. Which means you're both taking a ride."

"There were bloody clothes in the trash upstairs. She said it was from a gardening accident," Nick said.

The glare from DeMonte was scathing, but it was directed at Kara.

"I didn't know gardening was a contact sport Mrs. Demonte," Grissom said.

"Last time I checked it wasn't," Nick said decisively.

She shot him a pleading glance. He wasn't going to leave it alone.

"We need your statement Mrs. DeMonte," Brass said calmly.

"She has nothing to say," DeMonte commanded.

"I need to hear that from her," Brass interrupted.

Kara's eyes were becoming flustered, confused. DeMonte's proximity had moved closer to her, Nick stepped between them quietly.

"Mrs. DeMonte, none of the other guests claimed to see the senator because you allegedly were standing in front of him, and your husband seems to be coaching you, and now is keeping us from talking to you," he said.

He silently stared down his wife. She swallowed quietly.

"I think you both need to come with us to the station," Brass said.

"Why?" she asked, her face horrified.

"My wife is not going to the station,"

"Ma'am," Brass gestured toward the door. "Both of you are going to the station."

"You're going to hear from my lawyer," DeMonte hissed. "Kara, say nothing!"

Brass looked unfazed. "You're the one with a dead Senator in your foyer, you might not want to draw attention to yourself for a while."