A/N: I spent part of the long holiday weekend writing and part editing, and realized some of my chapters were reeeeally long, so I split them up and now have more of a buffer than I realized and I only have a couple of chapters to go before I finish. So that means more frequent updates! I don't have an exact schedule planned, but at least weekly, probably 2-3 times a week once I finish writing and am sure I won't run out of buffer. So be sure to subscribe if you want alerts for the new chapters as they roll out. Thanks again for all the wonderful review and feedback. It really means a lot to me.
Sara arrived fifteen minutes early for her shift, and decided to make a detour between the locker room and break room. She smiled when she saw him working at his desk, happy to have a moment alone with him, even if she wouldn't be able to touch him. They had both had a busy few days, and she was beginning to feel like they were ships passing in the night. It had only been three days since he'd followed her home after their team breakfast and spent the day with her, but it felt like so much longer. She couldn't help but wonder if he ached for her the same way, or if he was comfortable with a few days of distance.
She paused in his open doorway and rapped one knuckle against the metal door jam. "Knock knock," she said softly.
The gentle smile that spread quickly across his face warmed her instantly, melting her insecurities.
"Come in," he said quietly.
She crossed the room quickly and dropped into one of the chairs that faced his desk. She said nothing, waiting for him to lead the conversation.
"I got your report on the hit and run. Good work."
"Thanks," she said, trying to quiet the butterflies in her stomach. "How was your night off?"
He shrugged. "Productive. I finished that journal article."
"You want me to proofread it for you before you submit it?"
"That would be great. Thanks," he said. Then he paused and shrugged. "Quiet."
She shook her head, not following. "Quiet?"
"My night off. It was quiet without you."
She inhaled sharply, caught off guard by his tender confession. She glanced over her shoulder, checking automatically for coworkers within earshot and lowered her voice to a whisper. "I missed you, too."
"My place tonight?" he asked.
She nodded, then stood. "I should go. I'll see you at assignments."
He nodded, and she turned and made her way out of his office and down the hallway, her heart still racing.
In the breakroom, she poured a cup of coffee and then sniffed it suspiciously.
"It's fresh, but that's about all it has going for it," Greg said, raising his own cup in salute from his seat at the table.
She added sugar and cream and sat down across from Greg just as Nick entered. He slid into the chair beside Greg and shot her a smile. "What's up, Sar? You look happy."
She shook her head and shrugged. "Just ready to get to work, I guess."
"Okay, Ms. Workaholic," he said as Grissom walked in the room, eyes focused on the assignment slips in his hand.
Catherine slunk into the room next, a travel mug of coffee in her hand, and glanced at the clock to make sure she wasn't late before sitting at the end of the table. Grissom looked up, his eyes darting around to each of them before going back to the slips, obviously still contemplating assignments.
"Okay, people," he said finally, removing his glasses. "Warrick's off tonight. Catherine, you and I have a double 4-19 at the Mirage. Sara and Nick…Lucy Wong, twenty-five, was reported missing last week by her roommate. Her car was just found out in the desert. Cops are doing a sweep of the surrounding area looking for a body. Nothing yet. Could just be a dump site for the vehicle. Process the car and anything else the cops find. Sara, you're lead."
She pointed at Nick with both hands and grinned, and he rolled his eyes at her but laughed. Grissom handed her the assignment slip with a disapproving frown that didn't extend to his eyes.
"What about me?" Greg asked.
"Did you finish the paperwork on the McMillan case?" Grissom asked pointedly.
"On your desk!" Greg replied immediately.
Grissom nodded. "Okay, go with Nick and Sara."
"Yes!" Greg said, extending his fist for a fistbump that Sara and Nick both ignored. "Road trip!"
Greg's enthusiasm did not wane during the hour-long drive into the desert. Sara drove, and Nick sat in the passenger seat. Greg sat in the back, scooting forward repeatedly to poke his head between them and insert himself into the conversation until Sara threatened to pull the car over and leave him on the side of the road if he didn't sit back and buckle his seat belt.
About fifteen minutes from their crime scene, Sara's phone rang, vibrating against the console between her and Nick.
"It's Cath," Nick said.
"Put it on speaker," Sara replied.
Nick answered the call and put it in speaker mode. "You're on speaker, Cath," he said in greeting.
"Hey guys," she said. "I hope you're ready to do some spelunking. Cops found a body down an abandoned mineshaft. David got the call while he was here. He's on his way to drop off our DBs, then he's headed your way."
Sara cut her eyes quickly to Nick, and then back to the road. "Thanks, Catherine! Tell Grissom we'll keep him posted once we get out there and see what's going on."
"Will do! Good luck."
Catherine hung up, and Nick ended the call and put the phone back on the console.
"Do we have climbing gear? Are we really going down the mineshaft?" Greg asked eagerly from the backseat.
"Search and Rescue will handle the equipment. We'll need to look for trace on the edges of the shaft in case the killer scratched themself dumping the body. And once the body is gone, we need to look around for anything else that might have been dumped or any evidence that might have fallen from the body as it was being lifted. So, yes I am going down the shaft," Sara said.
Greg huffed out his disappointment at that, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nick relax a little.
She tossed Greg a grin via the rearview mirror. "Sorry, those are the perks of being lead on the case. Keep paying your dues. Eventually you'll have somebody to boss around."
A few minutes later, the blue lights came into view, and they were able fairly quickly to assess the scene. A blue Camry was half hidden behind some scrub bushes, a hundred yards or so from the winding two lane road they had been traveling for the last forty minutes. Sara was honestly surprised it hadn't taken longer for a passerby to notice the car and call it in.
Two hundred yards beyond that, a cluster of police officers gathered in a tight knot with their flashlights, and Sara assumed that was where they would find the mineshaft.
She parked beside the cop cars and they all climbed out, retrieving their kits from the back. The victim's car had been cordoned off, and there was no rush to begin processing it, so they walked first to the cluster of officers. As they approached, she could see Brass in the middle. He jerked his head in greeting, and strode over to meet them as they approached.
"Dogs alerted to the mine," he said, shining his flashlight on a tiny opening in the ground beside an outcropping of boulders. Some broken remnants of wood surrounded the opening — the only sign that the hole led to a man-made mine and not an animal's burrow. "We can see the body, but it's a good thirty feet down. David should have fun getting it out."
"She's been missing a week?" Sara asked, eager for more background information.
Brass nodded. "Roommate reported it. Said they aren't close, and she wasn't sure exactly when she went missing. Last time she saw her was Friday night when they were both getting ready to go out on dates. The roommate wound up spending the weekend at her boyfriend's house. Got home late Sunday and assumed Lucy was already in bed. Their condo doesn't have assigned parking, so she didn't notice if her car was missing. Didn't see her again on Monday after work, but said that wasn't entirely unusual because Lucy works long hours. She's a pharmacy tech at a 24-hour pharmacy. Tuesday the roommate comes home from work, checks the answering machine, and there are a bunch of messages from Lucy's boss threatening to fire her if she no call no shows again. That was when she realized Lucy was missing and called the cops."
Sara felt a twinge of pity for this girl, who had been missing for days before anyone noticed, and only then because it was an inconvenience for them.
"Did the roommate know anything about Lucy's date?"
Brass rolled his eyes. "Just that he was 'some guy she met on a dating site'."
"Has her apartment been processed?"
Brass nodded. "Dayshift did it when the missing person report was filed. They took the computer, but I don't know if they got anything."
Sara nodded, making a mental note to give Archie a call and ask him to pull the evidence boxes and work his magic on the laptop. Finished with his update, Brass wandered back to the cluster of uniformed officers.
"All right," Sara said, turning to Nick and Greg. "Let's do what we can before David gets here. Nick, help me process the entrance to the shaft and the surrounding area. Greg, go ahead and get started on the car. Start outside. Look for footprints, dust the doors — handles and windows. Take photos first."
"Aye aye, Captain," Greg said with a grin, before picking up his kit and camera and heading toward the car.
"You want to photograph or collect?" Sara asked, turning her attention to Nick.
"Oh, I get to choose? You don't want to pull rank and boss me around?" he asked, his eyes twinkling with mischief. She felt herself relax a little. She had been worried about the memories and feelings that a body underground might trigger for him. It was reassuring to see him so relaxed and joking.
She laughed and offered up the camera. "Hey, I was the new kid for years. It's his turn."
"Fair enough," Nick said with a laugh, waving away her offer of the camera and reaching for his kit again. They worked together steadily for an hour, then went to help Greg process the car. Finally, another set of headlights turned off the quiet desert road and bumped along until it reached them.
David cut off the engine and slid out of the van.
"Hey, Sara. Nick."
"Hey, David. Busy night?" Sara asked.
"It certainly is looking that way. Any idea how we're going to get this body out?"
"Search and rescue is here," Sara said, waving a hand in the direction of the team. "They've set up a pulley system with a gurney."
"How far down is the body?"
"About thirty feet. But you'll be able to declare from up top. Body's in pretty bad shape. There's a lot of insect activity."
David made his way to the mineshaft and released the body, freeing the Search and Rescue team to do their thing. In short order, one member of their team, a kid who looked too young to be out of high school and had called Sara "ma'am" when they were introduced, was lowered into the shaft to retrieve the body.
Once the body had been lifted carefully out, Sara rushed to collect a sample of the insects from the body, popping them into specimen jars along with some chunks of beef jerky she had started carrying in her kit for just this purpose.
"I swear, you are more like Grissom by the day," Nick said as she held up a specimen jar and eyed the larvae inside. Sara's stomach twisted at his casual observation, reassuring herself that it was nothing. She was Grissom's protege, handpicked for the team. For years, people had drawn parallels between them with their workaholic natures and single-minded focus. This was no different. Nick hadn't noticed anything.
Once David was on his way back to the coroner's office, Sara strapped a headlamp on and turned to the team with a grin. "My turn! Hook me up!" she said, infusing her voice with more enthusiasm than she felt in an effort to keep the tone light and playful, and keep Nick's mind off his own time underground.
"All right, daredevil," Nick said as she stood passively, allowing herself to be clipped into the harness. "Let's see what you got."
"Oh, I got this. It's just too bad we're not racing," she said, thinking of the time she and Nick had jumped out of a helicopter years ago. "I kicked your butt then, and I'd do it again."
"You want to flirt over this dead body, too?" he teased.
"No thanks," she said immediately, laughing harder. "That didn't work out so well for me last time."
"All right, ma'am. We've got you secured. We're ready when you are."
"Go ahead, ma'am. They're ready for you," Nick needled.
There wasn't much to find in the shaft. She collected blood and tissue samples from the walls, almost certainly from the victim. And from the floor below the shaft opening she collected some loose change, a button, and some unidentified shards of plastic.
They loaded their evidence into the back of the Denali and said their goodbyes, before climbing back in the vehicle. Greg drove this time, and Sara claimed the passenger seat.
"Hey," Nick said, as they pulled back onto the road. "I'm sorry if that was awkward back there. The flirting comment. I didn't mean to dredge up bad memories."
"Bad memories?" she asked, realizing belatedly what he meant. "Oh, Hank? Whatever." She waved a hand dismissively.
"I didn't mean to…"
"Seriously, Nick. That was a lifetime ago. I haven't thought about him in ages. I don't care about that."
"Good. I always thought you could do better anyway."
"That's just because you were jealous," Greg said with a smirk. "He had a huge crush on you back then."
"I did not," Nick said quickly. "And…even if I did…isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?"
"Oh, I made no secret of my crush," Greg said. "You can't embarrass me. Besides, I always knew I never had a chance. You totally thought you did until the paramedic showed up."
Sara turned in her seat to face Nick, who was cringing, his blush evident even in the shadows of the backseat.
"I might have had a little crush. For a very brief period of time," Nick admitted with a shrug.
Sara laughed, surprised by his admission, but not surprised by his feelings. If things had been different – if she had been different – she could imagine having felt the same way. But, of course, it wasn't the philandering paramedic who had been the real obstacle between any sort of romance between them. By the time Sara had come to Vegas, her heart had already been so thoroughly ensnared by the man who had brought her there, that no one else had a chance. Hank had been nothing more than a distraction, a pleasant way to pass the time and help her ease her loneliness for a while. When she discovered his duplicity, she was angry and embarrassed but not heartbroken. It was a blow to her ego, but not to her heart.
"Come on," Nick said, misinterpreting her silence for skepticism. "You have to admit, we used to have a lot of fun working together. Tonight kind of felt like back then."
She smiled at him sweetly, her impish grin at his embarrassment gone now. He was right, tonight had felt like the early days of their friendship, back when they bantered and competed and had so much fun. Before things with her and Grissom had gotten so complicated, and before she had spiraled into a dark place, burning out on the job, her fight or flight reflex triggered by every case that reminded her of her childhood.
She was doing so much better these days, finding balance between work and home. Nick too seemed to be finding his equilibrium after a rough few years. He had been through his share of trauma too, not just the terrible kidnapping but also a delusional stalker who had attempted to take over his life. And of course, he too couldn't help but be ground down by the daily horrors they faced, seeing humanity at its most depraved on a daily basis.
"We have always had fun when we were teamed up," she agreed, pushing away thoughts of darker times. "Jumping from a helicopter would be hard to beat though."
"Better than the bathtub?" Greg asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Man, I'm never telling you anything ever again," Nick muttered.
Sara looked back and forth between them, lost.
Nick sighed. "The case with the guy who killed his wife in the bathtub? He claimed she slipped and fell, pulling out the towel bar."
It was starting to come back to her. "He had remodeled the whole bathroom. We had to reenact it in the model home."
Nick nodded.
"What about it?" she asked. She remembered the case — it was a fun one, even if they hadn't been able to find enough evidence to put together a criminal case. Watching the look on the husband's face when the insurance company repossessed his sports car had been nearly as rewarding.
"Nothing," Nick said. "I just…. We had a lot of fun that day. You hanging off that towel rack like a monkey, bound and determined to pull it off. I thought maybe…. I was thinking about asking you out. But then I decided we were better off friends. Besides, dating someone at work seems awfully messy."
"Yeah, good call," Sara said. She held her face very still, trying to look and sound far more casual than she felt, forcing a note of levity into her voice. "Besides, I think it's against policy for two members of the same team to date. Someone would have to change shifts. Wouldn't want to break up the team."
She shifted back in her seat and caught Greg watching her out of the corner of his eye, brow furrowed.
"You know, I've got plenty of single friends…" Nick said.
Sara laughed and waved him off. "I'm good, thanks."
He laughed too, and Sara was thankful to have dodged that bullet. The rest of the way back to the lab, they alternated between talking about the case and fighting over the radio dial.
By the time they made it back, the sun was beginning to rise, and Archie was deep in the victim's browsing history. "Dayshift guy hadn't gotten anywhere. Case was pretty low priority, apparently. I found a list of passwords in the day planner they collected." He shook his head disapprovingly. "Terrible for security, but makes my job easy."
"Anything probative?"
Archie nodded. "Check out her messaging history on this dating site. She's not just hooking up indiscriminately. There are a few messages that fizzle out almost immediately, a few guys she never even responded to. And then there's this guy…."
Archie pulled up a profile labeled "Ben C.". A single photo showed an Asian man in his thirties, good looking and clean cut with a wide, friendly smile. According to his profile, he was a 32 year old dentist living in Summerlin who enjoyed hiking and fine dining.
Sara raised an eyebrow as she skimmed the profile. "Is it just me, or does this guy sound a little too good to be true?"
Archie snorted. "I take it you aren't on any of these dating sites?"
Sara shook her head and cringed.
"Too good to be true might as well be the tagline for these sites. Check out the message history though."
Unlike the other chat logs Archie had pulled up for her, most of them just a few lines, this one was pages and pages and long. Sara's eyebrows shot up. "Can you get me a print out of that?"
"Done. Check the printer."
"Thanks, Archie. You're the best."
"I know," he said with a grin. "I put in a request with the company for Ben C.'s user data and payment info. I haven't heard back, but I can tell you now, you're going to need a warrant. No way are they going to hand it over just because we asked."
Sara nodded. "I'll get Brass on it. Thanks. Anything else?"
"Nothing yet. I'll keep you posted."
Sara thanked him again and retrieved the stack of print outs from the laser printer near the door before heading out. A quick trip to the morgue told her the body had arrived, but was fourth in line for autopsy and not likely to be touched until the following night.
Back upstairs, she poked her head in the layout room where Nick and Greg were cataloging the evidence they had collected at the scene, and then made her way to the break room, nodding a greeting to a few stragglers from day shift, who were just heading out to their assignments.
She pulled open the door of the fridge and contemplated the salad she had packed, but decided to make another cup of coffee instead, resolving to get through the chat logs before leaving for the day.