Chapter XIII
Facing the Music
Sara sat there in the booth, her coffee cold, her companion silent. Her dark eyes were distant, unfocused and filled with tears that the stoic woman still refused to spill. Her hands constantly moved, folding and refolding her napkin, tapping along with an unheard beat, swirling the dredges of coffee around in her cup. Catherine reached out and stilled those hyper hands. "Please tell me that this bastard got what he deserved, Sara." Sara sighed and looked at Catherine. She'd come this far, she might as well finish the story properly.
She was called to the Principals Office. She wasn't sure exactly why. She hadn't missed any days of school and she always brushed her teeth very well before heading off to school every morning. She sat there, and Principal Torres stared her down. "Sara...you've lost weight, your work has taken a dive and it looks like you haven't slept for weeks. Is there something you'd like to tell me?" She instantly stiffened. "No." Gina Torres sighed, "Sara, you're a bright young lady, please tell me if something is wrong." Sara's eyes darted around wildly. "I'm fine." Torres sighed, "Fine. Sara, I hate to do this...but..." She hit a button on her phone. "Send them in." Two people, a man and a woman came into the room. Sara looked them over and truly began to panic, they were cops.
The woman crouched down in front of her. "Hi Sara, my name is Detective Janet Burgundy and this is my partner, Detective Alexander Harvey. We're here to ask you a few questions." Sara crossed her arms over her chest. "What about?" A look of sadness crossed over Detective Burgundy's face. "About 'Barely Legal' Magazine, Sara." She felt the blood drain from her face...her eyes fluttered and the room went gray. She felt a pair of hands on her shoulders, "Breathe, Sara. Take deep breathes."
"YOU LITTLE SLUT!" Anna Rogers's perfectly manicured hand cracked against Sara's cheek, leaving a scarlet print against pale skin. Detective Burgundy stepped up and put Sara behind her almost immediately. "Ma'am, you hit her again and I will arrest you for child abuse and aggravated assault." The usually calm and collected Mrs. Rogers let out what was almost a growl. " You're arresting MY son on the word of this white trash whore! This is ridiculous!" Detective Harvey, a large bear of a man, put his hand on Anna's shoulder. "Ma'am, I know this is a lot to take in, but it appears that your son has raped at least three of your former foster daughters and has taken pictures of at least two others." Anna jerked away from his hand, "It was consensual!" Detective Burgundy shook her head, "Sara is sixteen and she's been the oldest of them, none of them were of the age of consent. At best he's looking at statutory rape." Robert Rogers, who'd been quiet up until then, stepped forward, "You're telling us that Ethan...Ethan raped these girls? Our Ethan?"
Moments later, the man himself was drug down the stairs by two uniformed officers. "YOU FUCKING WHORE!" He fought agianst the officers, "I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! THIS IS BULL SHIT!" Anna gasped and looked at the two detectives. Detective Harvey stepped over to the still struggling frat boy. "Ethan Rogers you are under arrest for the rape of the minor Sara Sidle, the production and distribution of child pornography..." When a right hook flew free and hit the detective in the gut, an almost predatory grin spread across the detective's face, "Resisting arrest and assaulting an officer." He pulled out his handcuffs and the ratcheting echoed in the now silent room. They pulled Ethan out of the door. He was yelling at his parents to help him, at Sara, promising to kill her, and he still proclaimed his innocence. The second the door shut behind them, Anna whirled once more on Sara. "Don't think that whore is staying under this roof a minute more!" She turned and stalked out of the room." Robert stood there, still pale and shocky. He gave one forlorn look at Sara. "I'm very sorry about all of this, Sara." His apology sounded almost sincere. He sighed and followed his wife, leaving Sara and Detective Burgundy standing there, alone in the foyer.
Sara stood there, silently, she'd not said a word the entire time. Detective Burgundy, Janet, moved around and looked at her. "You okay, kiddo?" Sara nodded. Janet sighed, "Lets get you out of here." Sara nodded and was, for the second time in her short life, lead out of what was supposed to be her home by a detective.
Sara sighed, "Ethan wouldn't plead, maintained his innocence the whole time, even appealed his sentence. They went back and found the other girls. He was found guilty of three counts of statutory rape, two counts of rape, five counts of kiddie porn production...the judge and jury came down hard on him, twenty-five years with no hope of early parole." She sighed, "The Feds came in and followed the trail up to the big guys, shut down 'Barely Legal' and arrested some photographers, they went to jail too. Sara looked out of the window. "Ethan would be forty-one now, I guess...one of the other girls was only fourteen...someone called 'short eyes' and well, he went from being someone's bitch to being shivved in the shower one day...Anna Rogers sent me a nice little letter when that happened, though how she found me at Harvard I still don't know. Janet, Detective Burgundy, just about flipped when I told her about it... You know I think I still have a restraining order standing against Anna..." Sara pushed her dark hair back behind her ears again and leaned back against the vinyl booth. "And that's it, more or less. I went to Harvard, did a little Grad work, went back to Frisco, went to work in the Morgue, became a CSI, came to Vegas, you know the rest."
She knew the rest? The way Catherine figured it, she'd just learned more about her younger college in the last hour then she had in five years. The dark revelations about Sara's adolescence echoed around in her mind, repeating and reverberating. She pulled Sara into a tight hug. "Sara, forgive me, but I can't bring myself to mourn that bastard." Sara let out a chuckle, "Janet said the same thing." Catherine looked at her, "So you kept in touch with the Detective?" Sara smiled, the first true smile Catheinre had seen all night, in many nights. "We keep in touch, we exchange emails all the time, her influence was one of the reasons I became a CSI." Catherine nodded and wondered just what kind of woman Janet Burgundy had to be to make such an impression on Sara Sidle.
Sara shrugged, "So that's it...I guess." She sighed, "The whole filthy tale."
Catherine saw through the false bravado, through the tough stoic face.
"Sara. Sara, look at me. Knowing about this...it doesn't change anything. You're still the same hard headed, talented CSI you were yesterday and the day before. Your past makes you who you are today. No one is going to hold it against you. Do you think less of me because I used to strip?" Sara shook her head, "No." "Then why on Earth would anyone think less of you for...this?" Sara shrugged, "I'm sure Ecklie is just itching to say something." Catherine's crystal blue eyes went dark. "You leave Ecklie to me." There was a flash in Catherine's blue eyes...that made Sara cringe on the inside...she hoped Ecklie was smart enough to know that that twinkle was bad news...then again it was Ecklie and Sara wouldn't really mind seeing Catherine level a Willows glare at the sniveling weasel of a man.
Sara let out a laugh, despite herself. "Catherine..I...well...thanks." Catherine smiled, "No problem. Now, let's go do some damage control." "You think it's that bad? Who all saw it?" Catherine shrugged, "I'm just thinking about getting Greg's passed out body down to the hospital, all things aside, Sara, those pictures were damn sexy and Greg probably blew a fuse or two. I hope you can use all those brains of yours to fix him. None of us want to go back to grunt work, that's why we let the rat out of the lab, remember."
The two women shared a laugh, paid the tab and headed back to CSI headquarters. Things had changed between them, both women knew it and both women were happy to know that they had, through the most bizarre of circumstances to be sure, made a new friend that night.