Chapter Two – Deep and Meaningless

Catherine needed to escape and when she had finished her shift she didn't go directly home. She knew Warrick was worried about her, knew that when she got home he would be wanting to talk to her about the situation. She loved Warrick, she really did, with all her heart but it didn't make admitting her vulnerability any easier. She hated it when this affected her to the point when others saw it so clearly. She found the old strip of road she had used many times before when she had needed to blow off steam. It was an abandoned strip of road that was full of curves and turns. It was perfect and it always made her feel better. Catherine slammed her foot on the accelerator and swung the wheel back and forth, following the road with practised ease, dust getting into her hair and face, the hard sting making her feel a little better, more human. She let the tears fall down her face, let them burn her already stinging cheeks, trying to gulp in air. She slammed on the brakes as she came to rest at the end of the road, her heart pounding hard in her chest.

When Catherine walked in the door, a good two hours later then she had told Warrick, she found him asleep on the sofa, a magazine open on his chest. He had tried to wait up for her, just as she knew he would. Catherine gave a loud sigh and removed her shoes, wriggling her toes in the deep carpet that she had had installed a soon as Lindsey was old enough to not ruin it, the rough fabric caressing between her toes. She needed a long hot shower, something to eat and with a bit of luck, sleep. Catherine stripped off as she headed to the bathroom and turned on the shower before wondering naked into her and Warrick's bedroom as she took Warrick's old shirt that she wore to bed and some clean towels before wondering back into the steamed up bathroom. She didn't care that the shower was searing her skin, didn't care that her breath was coming in short gasps from her body's shock from the heat. She scrubbed herself raw, washed her hair and turned off the shower, remaining in the tub as she watched the water drip off her hair. She could see their faces in her mind's eyes. Little Ruby with her high cheekbones and pretty mouth and little Pearl with her round innocent face. Then there was Eden. Catherine felt so fake in her bravery when she saw little Eden's. She had lived through so much in her short twelve years and in no way was she bitter. She just kept on trucking, managing to escape from a vicious killer and still maintain her dignity. Catherine felt her anger returning and fill her from the souls of her feet to the roots of her hair. It would be the only thing that would ever keep her going. She dried herself off and slipped into the shirt, Warrick's smell wrapping itself around her, making her feel a little calmer. She quickly cleaned up the bathroom and headed back into the kitchen, the cool air on her bare legs covering them in goose bumps as it hit the still damp skin.

"You're home. When did you get in?"

Warrick's voice was thick with sleep as he stood and stretched, his face concerned.

"About twenty minutes ago. I was about to grab something to eat before I headed to bed. Want anything?"

Warrick shook his head as he came to stand beside her.

"We need to talk Cath."

Catherine smiled a little.

"Last time I heard that, Eddie told me about his affair. Are you having an affair?"

Warrick stayed serious, something Catherine was hoping would not happen. She had been side stepping this up and coming talk for the last month and it looked like D-day was finally here.

"Seriously Cath, sit down."

Catherine abandoned her search for food, her hunger gone. She sat on the sofa, not quite able to make herself comfortable. It took her more then a few minutes before she could face Warrick's hard, concerned gaze.

"I was going to ask Grissom to take you off the case today."

Catherine opened her mouth to protest but Warrick silenced her with a hand in the air.

"But Sara pointed out that that would do no good and I unwillingly agreed. I know how deep you are in this case Cath, and I understand that. What I don't understand is that we've been together for months now and you still can't open that part of yourself to me."

Catherine played with the ends of the shirt.

"It's because that's the dark part of me I don't want anyone to see. Unfortunately, I seemed to have fallen into it and now I'm having trouble getting out."

Warrick came to sit beside her.

"What do you mean?"

Catherine shrugged.

"I want to kill him. I want to hurt him so badly for what he has done to those girls. I'm scared of that part of me."

Warrick nodded.

"I understand that but what else? There's something else I can feel it."

Catherine took a deep breath.

"When I sleep, I see the girl's faces, their bodies and I can picture what he has done to them. I can see how they died, see their last breaths, could hear them begging for their life. I can hear them Warrick, every single one. I can't take it anymore, I really can't. Make it stop Warrick, please make it stop!"

Catherine started to sob hard, the tears rushing down her cheeks and she collapsed on Warrick's chest, what little strength she had now gone completely. All she had was the tears and the pain. The never ending burning black pain.

Greg was on babysitting duty and he didn't mind at all. Social services had been in and had tried to take Eden away but she had freaked out and clung to Greg and so they decided to leave her with them for the moment. So while he did his work, Eden sat beside him watching every move he made, asking him questions on what he was doing and was surprisingly smart and funny.

"How are you going to catch him?"

Greg popped up from behind his microscope.

"Who?"

"The man in the mask. How are you going to catch him?"

Greg swivelled his chair around to face Eden's dark enquiring eyes.

"You know that mask he was wearing?"

Eden nodded.

"Well, there are only two hundred of those in America and so we go through a process of elimination. You know what that means?"

Eden nodded, giving Greg a bright smile.

"Ok. Will I be meeting anymore of your friends?"

She had met Catherine and Nick but none of the others. Grissom didn't want to overwhelm her with too many people. Greg liked that Grissom trusted him with this precious little person. She was the only one that could help them crack this case. The only one that could save the other little girls from the same fate as Alexis and Ivy.

"Maybe later. Do you want to help me with this?"

Greg moved aside and let Eden examine the DNA sample he had under the microscope, wondering not for the first time, where this girl got her courage from.

Sara rubbed her eyes hard with the balls of her hands, blinking a few times to refocus her eyes on the computer screen. It was getting later and later, and every minute her eyes got heavier, her fingers felt like lead as they moved over the keyboard. Out of the two hundred masks she had only eliminated three in the last six hours. Not only were they not willing to reveal their identities online, the owners obviously thought that she was interested in buying and when she explained she wasn't, they left. She would have to track each one down and that would take days, maybe even weeks with the rate that the police force was going. By the time there was anything to go on, the man could have killed again. It did narrow it down that they were looking for someone with a tattoo but they were out of luck with getting a warrant for that.

"How's it going?"

Grissom was at her side, a large coffee and cheese scone in his hands.

"Sucky. If you say those are for me, I'll love you forever."

Grissom laughed as he gave them to Sara, watching a she wolfed down the scone and attacked the coffee with vigour.

"So as it stands, there's not much to go on. I can't seem to track any of these guys down. I can't even pretend that I'm a buyer because they would just ship it and at the prices these guys are charging, it would blow our entire budget for gadgets."

Grissom watched as Sara clicked a few keys and pictures of men flew onto the screen.

"These men all live local but I have no idea of the addresses. They just happened to mention it is all. What now Griss? Where should I go with this?"

Grissom narrowed his eyes.

"Try and get names then we can track them down through Brass. We need to find this guy before we find another body."

The man kept his hands around the girl's slim throat, watching the life leave her body. He left her hands tied and put her into the back of his car, the shower curtain tucking neatly behind her. He would take her somewhere else this time. Maybe he wouldn't bury her at all. Maybe he would just dump her like the garbage she was. He worked himself up till he was totally convinced that that would be the best thing to do. He drove behind a diner and quickly threw her into one of the large bins, pulling the shower curtain free at the same time. He knew that someone would find her but he was not overly worried. How could he be when his plans were always perfect, including this one. He had yet to find a flaw and in his job he had to be good at finding them or his clients would lose out. He had to think ahead. He had to make more money then anyone else or he would be out on his ass and that would be the end to his trips and to his girls.

Grissom watched as Catherine bent over another body. This one had been found by some school kids in a dumpster behind a local diner. Watched as she gave a little sigh, her latex hand gently touching the little girl's cheek.

"I wonder how long he's been doing this."

Grissom didn't answer the quite musing, choosing instead to jump into the dumpster, to search for an allusive clue that they so desperately needed. He found some small fibres and a piece of what looked like plastic. He put a 911 on it before coming to stand next to Catherine, who was watching the small body being carefully loaded into the coroners van.

"We'll have to get Eden to ID her. Warrick told me what happened and how he asked for me to be removed."

Catherine kept her eyes on the van as it drove away, her voice cold. Grissom nodded.

"He's a good guy Cath, he was concerned."

Catherine nodded, her eyes now on the horizon where the van had faded from sight.

"I know and I appreciate the concern but I can't pull away from this Grissom. You know that."

Grissom nodded.

"I know but Warrick's different from you. He sees how much this is hurting you and it kills him. He loves you so much."

"And I love him but he can't understand why I need to do this. Sara gets it you get it and even Nick gets it but Warrick is another thing entirely."

Grissom let out a heavy sigh as Catherine finally tore her gaze from the sky line and turned back to the truck, putting her gear in the back.

"It's different when the someone who's falling is someone you love. You just need to be careful with this ok?"

Catherine nodded as she took her seat beside Grissom in the truck as they headed back to the lab. She knew that she needed to be careful. She already could feel herself slipping away with this case.

Sara was still trying to process the large list of names that were still left, but today she had used her logic and brought her CD player in with her, the music was loud and booming, making sure she stayed awake. She kept her eyes trained on the computer screen, her head bopping slightly to The Smashing Pumpkins track that was playing, her fingers dancing lightly over the keyboard. She jumped when she felt a tap on her shoulder, turned to see a very tired looking Warrick standing behind her. She took off her headphones, offering him a small smile.

"Hey warrick. Did you talk to Cath?"

Warrick nodded as he took a seat beside her, his eyes on the screen.

"Yeah I did. And it's exactly as I suspected, she's in too deep. Worse still is that there is nothing I can do for her."

Sara put a hand on Warrick's knee.

"Be there for her that's all you can do. I guess that means you didn't pop the question?"

Warrick shook his head.

"Nah I think I'll wait till this case is over before I do that. I do however need you to do something for me."

Sara nodded with a smile.

"Anything for my favourite CSI guy."

Warrick smiled back.

"And here I am thinking that was Grissom."

Sara punched him in the arm, a small laugh finding its way out of her chest. Warrick handed her a CD case, the CD catching the light sending rainbows of colour on the walls.

"I need you to listen to this and tell me what you think. Be honest ok? I'll bring you back a coffee in an hour."

Sara nodded as Warrick left the room, and feeling a little in the dark, Sara put the CD in the player and slipped on her headphones.

Catherine could see that Doc was talking, watched as his lips moved, forming and pushing words out of his mouth. She could see Grissom talking beside her; see his hands gesture to the body and to the x-rays on the wall next to them. But for the life of her, Catherine could not hear them. She didn't know what was happening and for some reason she didn't care. She was spacing out as she looked at the little body, knowing that she too had been raped, beaten and strangled. Dumped like a piece of trash, not a little girl that had been taken from her parents. That's why she didn't hear him call her name the first time, didn't hear it the second, only coming to when he shook her slightly, the sounds and smalls wrapping themselves around her again.

"Catherine, are you ok?"

Catherine nodded, not trusting herself to speak the lie. She was far from ok. She didn't know if she would ever be ok again. She turned away from the little girl.

"I'll go and get Greg Eden up for the ID."

Catherine turned on her heel before either man could comment, and walked briskly down the hall to the lab where she knew she would find both Greg and Eden. Neither of them was far from each others side lately, Greg always being found with Eden clutching at his hand or talking animatedly to him about her life before this. About her parents and her friends in Manila. It was fascinating to watch the pair of them together and Catherine could not help the new budding respect she felt for Greg. He had won over the little girl who had had so much mistrust in her life with nothing but the offer of friendship and honestly. Something that Greg had in spades.

"Hey Cath. What can we do you for?"

Greg looked up from the microscope that he was hidden behind, his pen poised over some paper. Eden looked over at Catherine with a shy smile and a little wave.

"Don't tell me you're making her into a scientist Greg."

Eden smiled as she nodded.

"Greg was teaching me about DNA. I want to be just like you guys when I grow up, putting all the bad guys behind bars."

Catherine smiled back at Eden's bright eyed hopefulness. She wanted to tell her not to do, to choose something that wouldn't kill a little more of her each day, tell her about how she would both love and hate the job and about how their will be days that you didn't want to be a CSI and that she could have a boring office job. A nice boring job. But Catherine just nodded.

"Good for you Eden. Eden do you remember Greg telling you about how we found another girl?"

The smile fell from the little girl's face as it became more serious.

"Yes and you want me to tell you who it is don't you?"

Catherine nodded.

"Can Greg come as well?"

Catherine nodded again.

"Of course. Greg do you want to take her?"
Greg nodded as he passed Catherine, leaving her alone in the lab. Catherine settled herself on the closest seat, her thoughts running through her head again. It was almost as if there was no way to calm them, no one to stop the flow of awful images anymore. She could distract herself but it was always a short fix of peace before her thoughts came pounding again. She had never done this before, fallen so far into a case, fallen so hard that she was losing herself.

"Hey Babe. How are you?"

Warrick's arms came around her waist, his face finding her neck.

"I could do with a hug."

Warrick pulled her up from her seat and pulled her tightly against him. Catherine breathed deeply, trying to take some of the Warrick like calm into herself, trying to steady her pounding heart.

"Jeez Cath, you're shaking. Are you ok?"

Catherine said nothing, just continued to clutch at Warrick, trying to anchor herself with him, next to him. He didn't question her any further, just held her tightly against his chest, his hand stroking her hair gently. He wanted to take her away from all of this, take her to someplace where she would be happy again. Catherine was a waif of her formal self and not only could he see it he could feel it. Catherine was never a very dependant woman, more then happy to take care of herself, and Warrick loved that about her. He liked just how much she had worked for that independence. But since this case started, she had become more clingy. Not in the bad I'm-crazy-and-I'm-stalking-you kind of way but more her need for physical affection. She had also started to neglect herself physically, not eating when she should, not caring if she had the same clothes on for three days at a time and her perfectly done hair and manicured nails were gone, replaced by chipped polish and her hair pulled into a tight ponytail. He missed the Catherine that he had fallen in love with.

"You need to go home and get some sleep."

Catherine shook her head against his chest but stayed where she was. Warrick continued to stroke her hair and waited for her overly tense body to relax against his.

When Warrick came back into the computer room to see Sara, he had to laugh. Despite the loud music and the large cups of coffee she had been supplied, Sara had fallen asleep. Her head was slumped over her arms, which were rested on the desk to the side of the computer. He had to take his hat off to her because as he got closer he saw that she had gone from a list of two hundred and narrowed it down to just ten names. Her head phones had fallen off of her head and Warrick leaned forward a little.

"Sara."

She didn't stir, and Warrick combined his voice with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Sara."

This time she let out a little moan and opened her eyes.

"Hey Warrick. I must have dozed off."

Sara sat up a little straighter and stretched her arms above her head.

"I narrowed it down to ten."

Warrick put a hand on her shoulder.

"Good work, Grissom will be pleased. You need to get some rest."

Sara shook her head as she hit print and waited for the printer to spit out the paper.

"Nope. Cath needs this case to be over and so does Eden and any other little girls he has."

Warrick sat down beside her.

"Did anyone tell you that they found another body?"

Sara froze before cursing under her breath. She slumped back into her seat, her hand pushing her hair from her face.

"Is Cath ok?"

Warrick shook his head.

"She's getting worse. We really need to find this prick before I lose her forever."

Sara waved the list of names in front of him.

"He's somewhere on this list and we'll find him, I promise. I listened to that CD you gave me. Did you write that music?"

Warrick nodded.

"Yeah. I wrote those songs for Cath. I finally got a friend of mine to let me into his studio to record them properly. What do you think?"

Sara smiled at him.

"Put it this way. If she says no to marrying you after listening to that CD, then she's not as smart as I gave her credit for. Now are you coming with me to give Grissom the good news or not?"

And the two friends left the computer lab with slightly lighter steps, hoping that they could solve this tragedy before any other girls died. Three bodies were more then enough as far as they were concerned.

Grissom saw them coming, he wasn't doing the paperwork he should have been, his thoughts on something else entirely. He knew the news had to be good, because both of them had a bit of kick to their steps, and Sara was just about running down the corridor.

"We got it down to ten names Grissom."

Grissom broke into a small smile of praise for Sara.

"Well done. Did you want to go with Brass to check them all out?"

Sara nodded as she left the office, her cell phone already open to dial for Brass. Warrick took a seat across from Grissom, his body slightly more relaxed.

"We're making movement on this case finally. Sara worked hard to get those names."

Grissom nodded.

"I know, she did great. How's Cath?"

"She'll be better if this guy was off the street."

Grissom smiled a little.

"Well thanks to Sara's hard work, we might have him sooner then we think. Now it's up to Brass."

"Did you ID the other girl?"

Grissom nodded.

"Her name was Anna Cole. She died approximately twenty four hours ago and she was the same as the other girls. She was so badly bettered that her jaw was dislocated and five of her ten fingers broken. He's getting much more aggressive and confident. This one wasn't buried it was in a dumpster."

Warrick said nothing, the sadness heavy in his chest. Too many children were dying just so this man could get his rocks off. He had to remind himself to wait. Soon was never soon enough.