"I don't care what you think, anything you've been told, you forget. If you talk to anyone, even each other, I'll fire you myself." Ecklie spun in his chair and stuffed a file into the cabinet behind him. "This is not up for discussion."

"This is crap," Sara said. "This was our investigation."

Her hands were on her hips, a look of disbelief on her features.

"Look, I know you're upset," Ecklie said, uncharacteristically understanding even though a lick of reprimand was on his lips when he looked at Sara. "But it's out of my hands. We're done with this one."

They stood, stunned and seething.

"Can you at least tell us why?" Warrick asked. "Some of us put a lot of effort into this one."

"No," Ecklie said simply. "This is not up for discussion. This is a flagged file. It's been picked up by higher ups. We're done with it now. When you walk out of this office, the slate is clean."

"Feds," Catherine said. "I knew this one was too interesting to stay in our laps."

"So she leaves… then what? The next time we're called we're processing her murder," Nick was frustrated.

"No, there won't be a next time. And if there's a call, they'll be processing her murder," Eckie's words were cold.

Nick's eyes closed for a split second, almost as if he couldn't bear the thought. Grissom's expression softened as he looked at Nick.

"She's going into witness protection and Nick, you of all people should know to keep your nose away from damsels in distress," Ecklie said sarcastically. "You need to be in my office first thing tomorrow."

Catherine winced.

Nick left harshly, Ecklie already knew.

"Gil, you need to be waiting at my door too. You have your orders," Ecklie said, annoyed. "Get back to work, you're crowding my office."

The thick silence hung in the air a moment before Grissom finally moved. He pursed his lips, nodding to the rest of them and they shuffled out.

"Back to work then, another case, another day," Catherine said, sliding her hands into her back pockets after closing Ecklie's office door behind them. "Ecklie will cool off. Some stuff is just out of our league. I'll go talk to Nick."

Grissom rested his fingertips on her shoulder to keep her from doing so, "I'll get him."

Nick was stoically quiet at the end of the hall, his eyes resting on the hallway to the infirmary into the precinct a moment before deciding against it. He looked up at the others, saying nothing as he turned and moved out the door to his truck.

"Where is he going?" Warrick said.

"Print out anything you just found and get it on my desk right now," Grissom said.

"It's not much"

"It's all we got."

Warrick nodded silently.

Grissom followed Nick outside, watching his breath linger in the chilly air. "Nick."

Nick kept moving.

"Nicky!"

Nick clutched his keys; they crunched together in his hand.

"You need to leave this one alone," Grissom said.

"I know what I saw Grissom,"

Grissom couldn't tell if he'd been holding back tears, the light suddenly caught in the whites of his eyes. There were tears there.

"I can't believe we just have to let this go. She's going to die."

"You have to leave this one alone like Ecklie said and let it go," Grissom said gently.

Nick's lips pressed tightly together as he swiped the back of hand across his nose, hands on his hips as he stared off into the street.

"He's still going to fire me, even though I have no idea what I was protecting. Catherine told me you went in to talk to her."

He nodded.

"What did she tell you?" Nick pressed.

"Riddles," Grissom said.

A half smile lit Nick's face for a moment, as if he wasn't surprised. "You ever get the feeling she's trying to tell us something, but she can't?"

"I know exactly what you mean. Go home Nick," Grissom said. "Let me handle this. I don't need you getting fired. Or dead."

"I'm already fired," Nick said, getting into his truck. "He just hasn't told me yet. He's been gunning for me for a while, and this is the last chance I had. I should have listened to you, followed protocol."

Grissom looked hurt. "We can't help being human Nick."

Nick sighed deeply.

"I'm doing what I can," Grissom's hand stopped the door. "You won't get fired."

Nick shook his head, closing the truck door.

"Don't get dead," Grissom said particularly to himself, lost in the roar of Nick's engine.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Nick sat in his truck in front of the DeMonte house for a full five minutes before going up to the door. He had already lied, and Ecklie knew. Clipping his ID to his collar, he might as well go the full yard.

Yellow tape was still attached to the steps up to the house as he approached the door, pulling out his flashlight.

He walked through the house, room after room with his flashlight. For the first time he had a distinct idea what he was looking for.

Motive. Why would anyone want to kill her?

There was nothing of her here; nothing personal, no pictures. Grissom had been right, her things were pristine, but nothing was personal, sentimental. What he had overheard Sara say was right; it was like she was a ghost. She existed in a world that held no evidence of her.

He opened the door to her walk-in closet, suits and shoes. Everything was pristine, nothing casual or dressed down. Even her sleepwear was meticulous. It seemed staged, posed, perfect, like nobody lived here and it was all for show. He sifted through the suits, sliding one after another along the rack.

He ended up standing near the patio door, looking out into the darkness.

Gardening chore. It had been cold out that night. A lie definitely, but she had been down on this patio. Coming back in or going out, she still was here.

Thinking a moment, he turned and looked behind him, the only reason to be in this hall was to either be entering from the patio or leaving out the patio. Had she been fleeing to the patio or been caught in the hall coming back in from the patio?

Either way, what he wanted was outside. He reached and slid the door open, walking around the ornate bricks. He could see the point of impact, the bricks scratched where the glass had been broken.

It was cold, his breath already curling into the air as he knelt, flashing the light around at the lowered angle.

Silk shirt. She had only been wearing a silk shirt. It was cold. If she was fleeing it wouldn't matter what she was wearing, if she had been purposely going out or coming in, it would have been extremely significant.

Why no coat?

He walked past the patio, sweeping his light over another pathway into the sprawling back lawn and gardens, ending up at what looked like a greenhouse.

A generator attached to the structure roared to life above his head, making him jump, his flashlight bobbed to it. Some kind of temperature control system.

He turned the knob and stepped in.

It was hot inside.

She was going out here, or coming back in from here.

Before an important party.

Was that what had set the husband off? She was doing something other than tending to him and his party? Snorting cocaine. A secret drug habit?

They could have fought in the hallway upon her re-entry or exit, and he sent her through the door as an exclamation point.

He swept the inside of the greenhouse with his light, zeroing in on a potter's table at the far end. It looked out of place. Sweeping the light above his head as he walked, he noticed the air was circulating itself from the inside. It was humid; not drawing air from the outside, but drawing air from the inside, heating it, and pumping it back in. He looked across the plants. Nothing unusual.

Arriving at the immaculately clean metal cabinet table, he set down his case and opened it, taking out several supplies and sliding on a pair of gloves.

A grin lit his features as the top of the table tested positive for drugs. He looked it over, lifting drawers and looking behind it, noticing a small scratch on the concrete floor in front of it. There was fresh concrete dust in the scratch. Kneeling, he reached underneath, feeling a smooth bottom. He pulled out the bottom drawer; nothing but small tools and supplies.

He tried tilting the drawer to the ground; it wasn't long enough to hit the ground. It looked like the corner of a drawer had hit the concrete, but he couldn't get it to reach, and the corners weren't nicked.

Shining the light on the tool rack mounted on the wall, he went over each tool one by one. It was really hard to tell if they had been dropped, they were all used and abused.

He went back to the table, shining the light over the joint construction and following each individual seam. In the seams underneath the bottom drawer there was a scratched corner; a drawer without a handle? Pushing on it, it wouldn't budge. He tried to get his fingers to grip and pull it out. It wouldn't budge.

Another dead end.

Frowning, he pulled the drawer above it all the way out of the table. Reaching into the slot, he put his other hand on the bottom. There was at least an eight-inch width between his two hands. He put his fingers along the seam again and pulled, his teeth gritting together. One of his nails bent back suddenly under his glove.

"Ouch," he let go, shaking his hand.

The drawer slid out suddenly as he let go and slipped off the track, tilting forward and smacking the concrete on its corner with a short high-pitched screech.

He lifted it, the mark identical to the one it must have made previously.

"After purchase modification," he said under his breath.

There was a small latch on the lid and he turned it, lifting the metal lid.

A whistle escaped his lips.

"Kara, I didn't know you were in love with another woman," he said.

His fingers ran over the long barrel of a sniper rifle, mounted meticulously in the hidden drawer. It screwed together in pieces, a laundry list of attachments each in their own slots.

His chest ached. This couldn't be happening,

Flicking his cell open, he dialed Grissom. It went straight to voice mail.

"Hey Gris, I'm out at the mansion. I got something here you're not going to believe, I got a Kate here. Call me."

He flicked it closed, paging him as well.

There was another latch on the side and he undid that, lifting it. Underneath, there was a small caliber pistol, several knives and a large clip of cash. Next to that, lay a vial of white powder.

He didn't bother dusting. He knew he wasn't going to find anything. Kara had no fingerprints for a reason.

His hand rested on it for a long time, the darkness now descending into his thoughts foreboding. Was there ever a time he misread something, misread his instincts? He wanted to protect her, get her away from the abuse and violence. She had brought it onto herself, willingly turned herself into a human victim for god knows what. She didn't need him to protect her.

Because she was already a killer.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed again.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Grissom was looking up at a set of X-Rays, squinting at a dark spot in one.

"What is that?" he asked Dr. Robbins.

"It's a surgical pin."

"For?" Grissom asked curiously.

"It's holding part of the bone together. Highly skilled implant, not many can afford something like this. It's quite a wound, a couple years old I would guess. The scar tissue is even visible in the X-Ray," he traced the line with a pencil. "I'm not sure after the injury why the elbow wasn't fused. You can see evidence of a shattered ulna, the injury probably separated the elbow completely. Probably a bullet, or a puncture object at high velocity."

Grissom looked thoughtful.

"I'm not really sure why they bothered rebuilding it, the physical rehabilitation alone must have been excruciating. Fusing the elbow would take the pain away, but it severely limits mobility. Unbelievable job though, but it's got to be painful beyond belief on a daily basis," Robbins surmised.

"What kind of person needs mobility that badly?" Grissom asked thoughtfully.

"I have no idea," he said, putting up another view. "I can't think of anyone who would choose mobility over daily pain of that magnitude. It would drive a person mad, or kill them with the pain medication. You're looking at a person with a severe dependency to pain pills."

"Or narcotics…?" Grissom's brow rose.

"If you don't mind me asking, who are these of?" Dr. Robbins asked. "They're not focused on the elbow, they're focused on the shoulder. I wish I could get a full set on the elbow, just to see the workmanship up close."

"I'd rather not say, since I shouldn't have these anyway," Grissom's phone vibrated slightly.

He frowned, the battery signal blipping.

"Problems?" Dr. Robbins asked.

"I dropped this the other day, it's been irritating me ever since." He flipped it open, frowning as he checked a voice mail. "It's Nick, I can't tell what he's saying. Kate? Who's Kate?"

"Kate?"

"He said something about Kate. A Kate? At the DeMonte's?" Grissom looked confused, dialing the number and getting nothing. Nick was at the mansion. Damn him.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that name, or the fact that Nick might be over there. I got the tersely worded memo from Ecklie about a half hour ago."

"Thanks," he mouthed, sliding the transparencies from the lightboard and slid them back into the envelope. "Thank goodness other people didn't get the tersely worded memo before I got these."

"I thought you didn't find anything over there?"

Grissom blinked. "We didn't."

"A Kate. That's a nickname for a military issue sniper rifle."

Grissom stared at him.

"When you spend most of your life practicing medicine on the east coast in military central, you pick up things. This is Kara DeMonte's elbow isn't it?"

Grissom blinked again; dread creeping into his chest. The phone flipped out again, his fingers dialing quickly as he pushed through the doors and down the hall toward Ecklie's office.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Nick dialed again. He glanced over his shoulder slightly as he pursed his lips.

It picked up.

Before he opened his mouth he heard Grissom's voice on the other end of the phone. "Nick get out of there, now!" Grissom got off before Nick could speak.

Nick sucked in a breath, the back of his skull screaming as everything went black.

"Nick… Nick?" came through the green glow where the cell phone had clattered to the floor. "Nick!"