Thank you to those who took the time to read and review this story so far. Beaujolais, thank you for letting me know that Brass's eyes are actually blue. I always thought they were brown. I know that one of the CSI trading cards that is Brass's ID lists them as brown. I hope that it won't bother anyone too much if I leave them as brown. In the CSI world that lives in my head, 'my' Brass has brown eyes. :-)

Thank you for your continued interest and I hope that this next chapter is as well received.

The sun had only just started it's ascent over the horizon. The undersides of the low lying clouds that drifted lazily down out of the mountains, were brushed with swaths of subdued gold and pastel pink which deepened in some places to a darker rose. The air still retained the fresh crispness of the desert night. Borne on unseen currents of air, a lone hawk circled high overhead in a sky of retreating indigo, giving a raucous cry as it floated effortlessly, surveying it's domain.

Gil Grissom stood in the bottom of the gully, staring thoughtfully at the burned out shell of the vehicle. A trucker who had stopped to relieve himself, had noticed it and called it in. There was a high probability that this was what remained of the SUV that had killed Denny Martens two days ago. Gil knew that technically he should have alerted Ecklie, since the hit and run was his case. But the call had come in on his shift, and since there was not yet any proof that this was the same vehicle, he had responded.

"Ditched and torched," Nick Stokes observed unnecessarily. "Any evidence that was inside, that would help us find the driver, has been obliterated." The younger, dark-haired man shook his head.

"Any evidence that was on the inside is gone," Grissom re-iterated. "But that doesn't mean that we won't find something on the outside." He turned his head to the other investigator. "Someone had to drive this vehicle here. And then whoever it was had to walk back up to the road."

Nick kicked the toe of his shoe into the gravelly ground. "Little farther in, we might have gotten prints off of the sand. But this is too coarse." He titled back his head to assess the embankment. They would have the same limitation there. All they could hope for was some other kind of physical evidence. A dropped cigarette butt that they could extract DNA from. A hair sample maybe...the average person lost between seventy to one hundred and fifty strands a day. He swept his flashlight over the ground around his feet forcing back the last of the night's shadow.

"Let's give it another half hour," Grissom instructed the other man. "Wait til there's enough light to do this properly." Above them came the sound of a vehicle grinding to a crunching halt on the pebbled shoulder. It would either be Brass or the tow truck. "It's isolated so we don't have to worry about any further contamination of the scene."

"I hear Ecklie's treating this case as a possible homicide," Nick commented.

Gil shrugged his shoulders. "We don't know what our case is til we identify this vehicle. It might not have anything to do with Ecklie's case," he said elusively.

Nick crossed his arms over his chest. "Come on, Gris, abandoned vehicle in the desert and CSIs are the first on the scene? Everybody's thinkin' this is the SUV that killed Denny Martens."

"Hey!"

Grissom turned to the familiar voice and watched Jim Brass pick his way down the steep slope, ten yards or so beyond where the vehicle sat. Brass had known enough not to take the shortest route from the interstate above, to the gully below. Which, in all probability was the path the driver of the SUV would have taken. Grissom and Nick had descended a similar distance away from the centre point, but in the other direction. It was important to preserve as much of the original dump site as possible.

The detective walked towards them with his customary rolling gait. "I was with Warrick on a floater," Brass commented, "when I got the page. I got here as soon as I could. Is this our Durango?" Brass drew up beside Nick Stokes and surveyed the wreckage stoically. He was aware that even if it was, in it's current condition it was pretty much a dead end. The detective had been counting on finding it intact, clues to the driver's identity secreted within until the skilled CSI investigators extracted them.

Just after noon on the day that Denny Martens was killed, a car rental agency working out of the airport had called in the report of a stolen vehicle. The vehicle had been rented by a vacationing couple from Iowa who were staying at the Rampart on the main strip. They had checked into the hotel the previous evening, slept late, and woken to discover that the black Durango they had rented had been stolen from the hotel's side lot. They had contacted the rental agency, who in turn had notified police.

Brass had been frustrated to realize that if the couple had parked in the underground lot, the surveillance cameras would have captured the theft. The camera at the exit, especially, might had snapped a good shot of the thief's face. But there was no surveillance in the outdoor parking lot. No gates to pass through. And no one had noticed anything suspicious between the time the SUV had been parked, and the time the couple had come out the next day to find the spot empty.

Vehicles were stolen all of the time, however, and there were no guarantees that the reported Durango was the SUV used in the hit and run. Or even if this wreckage was the same Durango. The department had put the word out on the street that any chop shop found helping to dispose of a damaged SUV that turned out to be related to the hit and run, would be looking at a felony accessory after the fact charge. While patrols had kept an eye out for the Dodge, Brass had continued to follow his hunch. He had discovered that the other vehicle registered to the Martens was a Volvo sedan. Carina Horwath drove an older Cavalier.

The morning after Denny Marten's death, Jim Brass had called on Carina Horwath at her apartment. She was over her initial shock...the young were pretty resilient...though she still appeared pale and drawn. She had invited him in without hesitation, uncomplaining about having to answer additional questions. She had curled up on a love seat, tucking her lovely legs underneath her, while Jim had settled onto a wicker chair.

After a few unrelated queries, he had asked her straight out if she and Denny Martens had been having an affair. None of his discreet poking around had turned up anything to substantiate that Martens was being unfaithful. There had been no records of phone calls between Denny's home phone number, his cell or his office and either Carina's cell or Cup A Joe. But he couldn't shake the gut feeling he'd had that Horwath was hiding something...and that her interest in the other cop had extended beyond an acquaintanceship with a regular customer.

Brass had been surprised by how taken aback she had been by the question, and the hurt in her eyes had looked genuine. Her gaze hadn't waivered from his as she had responded to the question.

"I was crazy about Denny, Captain Brass," she had told him with a wan smile. "I had a huge crush on him." Her cheeks had flushed with embarassment at the admission. "But we were just friends. I'm sure people lie to you all of the time...but I'm not that kind of girl. And Denny wasn't that kind of guy."

She had paused for a moment, caught in her own recollections of Denny Martens. Her brown eyes went out of focus fleetingly, before her attention fixed again on Brass. "If he had been that kind of guy...then I wouldn't have cared about him so much. Do you understand what I mean?" Her open expression had been guileless.

"Denny never had a clue," she told him, her full lower lip trembling. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. "And he was never going to know. And even if he had, he would never have acted on it. He was a sweet, decent guy who was devoted to his family. There aren't many like him, Detective."

Carina Horwath had given a smile so full of admiration and affection for the deceased man, that it had caused an empty pang somewhere inside him. And then she spoke with a gentle maturity that made Brass acutely aware of just how jaded he had become.

"Sometimes, a girl still likes to dream about Prince Charming or her Knight in Shining Armour. Even after she grows up and realizes that life isn't about castles in the sky. Denny's wife...she really found hers. And every day, just chatting with Denny, just having the pleasure of knowing him...each day I was reminded that maybe...one day...I might find mine too."

The tears had spilled onto her cheeks then, and delicately, unashamedly, Carina had reached to brush them away. "Do you really think that I would do anything to spoil that dream?"

Brass had apologized then for asking, explaining it was part of his job, as uncharacteristic guilt and remorse enveloped him. He felt as though he had purposely stomped all over something beautiful and delicate, with big, dirty boots on. But even though he would now stake his badge that there had not been any sort of romantic relationship between Denny Martens and Carina Horwath, Jim Brass knew that it was plausible that someone else might have suspected the very thing that he had. And acted on that suspicion, even if it was erroneous.

He had shown Carina Horwath a photograph of Amy Martens, to determine if the young woman had ever seen Amy around the coffee shop before. Carina recognized Denny's wife immediately, and stated that she had seen photos of both Mrs. Martens and the couple's son Christian, numerous times. Denny was often bringing in snapshots of his family. But the blonde had never met Amy Martens in person.

Brass had asked Carina whether or not she was dating...she wasn't at the moment...and for the names of any prior boyfriends, or men whose advances she had declined. Especially any who frequented the coffee shop, or had approached her there. The list was a good place to start, and he had begun to systematically eliminate the men as suspects.

Always at the edge of his mind though, was the knowledge that someone who was capable of doing this, might also be someone who only had a fantasy relationship with Carina Horwath. Who had never even expressed his interest to the blonde, but could feel as though he'd been spurned. And who might then focus on someone like Denny as having stolen the affections of 'his' girl.

"Morning, Brass," Nick Stokes' perpetually cheery voice brought him back to the present. "I was just telling Grissom that for an abandoned vehicle, this one sure is getting a lot of high priority interest. Word has it that Ecklie's processing the Martens case as murder?"

Brass gave a short sigh. "I just don't want to miss anything. The SUV that hit Denny Martens accelerated before it hit him. Whether that was an accident, or whether it was deliberate...I dunno. I'm following up on a couple of angles."

Other detectives were interviewing officers at the precinct where Denny had worked, looking into his active investigations, and also checking recent releases of offenders that Martens had assisted in putting away. There was a caculated deliberation about the incident that bothered Brass. It had the feel of being personal.

"We just standing around, admiring the sunrise?" the police captain inquired conversationally, glancing over at Gil Grissom, crossing his hands in front of him at the wrists. He was glad that Grissom was on the scene, although he knew that Ecklie would be all over the supervisor for a perceived breach of etiquette.

Grissom raised his head and regarded the detective enigmatically. "All shy things, breathless, watch the thin white skirts of dawn..." He quoted effortlessly.

Nick gave a short laugh. "We're waiting for a bit more light."

Brass winked at Stokes. "Gee, but it sounds so much prettier the way Gil puts it."

Grissom ignored them, staring instead at the blackened metal form. Whoever had left the vehicle here, had walked back up the embankment, and then either gotten into a waiting car, or hitched a ride somewhere. They were too far out for anyone to have continued on foot. A waiting car would indicate an accomplice. Which could mean that whoever had killed Martens had a partner, or that someone was helping him or her to cover up after the fact.

The funeral was tomorrow afternoon. Conrad Ecklie was attending as the CSI unit's official representative. Last night, before shift, Catherine Willows had paused in the doorframe of Gil's office. "Are you going to Denny Martens' funeral?" she had asked, her blue eyes weary, her voice an octave lower than usual.

"Ecklie's representing CSI," Gil had informed her.

Catherine had looked at him then, her classically beautiful features inscrutable. "I know it's been a while, but we used to work real close with Denny," she had stated, an edge in her tone. "I'm going...unofficially...as a former co-worker and someone who thought highly of him, and who's sorry that he's gone. To say good bye and pay my respects."

Grissom had caught the condemnation in the last remarks. He knew that he had disappointed Catherine somehow. Surely she didn't think that he didn't care? Gil had been stunned when he'd heard what had happened. It honestly hadn't occured to him to attend the funeral though. Just the thought of being in the midst of all those people, part of that communal sorrow, made his chest feel tight. But it was obvious that being there was something that was important to Catherine. He recognized that she might need his support.

"I could pick you up at your place," Grissom suggested. "We can go together."

Catherine had agreed to the arrangement. As she had begun to move from the doorway, she had given Grissom one last look, her vivid blue eyes projecting sympathetic sorrow. Somehow, Gil thought that that particular emotion wasn't for Denny Martens though...but for him.

Nick Stokes was crouched, balancing on the balls of his feet, scrutinizing the desert ground that radiated out around the vehicle. He had found nothing yet. Not even a discarded match that might have been used to start the fire. Grissom had been able to determine, from occasional disturbed pebbles and scuffed earth, where the driver had tried to get a foothold ascending the gully, the path that he or she had taken back to the top. While Grissom worked above, walking the shoulders of the highway, looking for anything that might be linked to the vehicle or it's driver, Nick laboured below. Brass stood in the background, interjecting a question or comment now and then, but primarily deep in his own thoughts.

Nick's dark eyes were feeling the strain. He'd been in the lab for most of the shift, working on a rape case. A thirty-year old supermarket cashier had been on her way to the bus stop after closing, when she'd been attacked and dragged into an alley by two men. She had been severely beaten by both, and brutally raped by one of the attackers while his companion helped to hold her down. While Greg Sanders worked on determining the DNA of the rapist from the semen that had been recovered, Nick had taken the woman's clothing, to try to isolate the identity of her other attacker.

The CSI had gone over the garments in studious detail with a magnifying glass. Then, he had sat hunched over a microscope, trying to eliminate which of the tiny bits of trace that he removed were tied to the vic, and which might be from one of the animals who had hurt her. It had been difficult work, and he hadn't take much of a break.

Nick paused in his current task, rubbing his left thumb and forefinger over his closed lids. After a moment, he resumed his methodical search. Dawn had progressed into early morning. Shift change would have taken place. Nick Stokes wondered idly when Conrad Ecklie would be showing up. As if on cue, there was a screech of rubber from the interstate, then the forceful slamming of a door.

Ecklie's incensed voice cut through the morning air. "Just what do you think you're doing, Gil!"