Again I am sorry for not posting sooner, but it seems that I have quite a few family obligations right now, so I'm visiting my parents a lot. I can't say that I will post the next chapter sooner, but I will try. Thank you all for the reviews, and I hope you will like this chapter as well and review that too.

Lady J, you are as always the best! Thank you so much for betaing this for me.

Enjoy…

Chapter Twenty Eight

Going Through The Motions

"Hey Brass." Warrick greeted the captain as he walked up to him.

"Warrick." Brass looked over at Nick who walked behind Warrick, looking up at the impressive mansion. "Nick."

"Hi Brass." Nick stepped up next to the two other men and looked into the house, not seeing anyone in the hall.

"Girl's room is upstairs." Brass explained. "Parents, brother and sister are in the living room, guards in the kitchen."

"You get their statements yet?" The Texan asked.

"The guards make their rounds every 30 minutes. They didn't see anything." Brass sighed. "I haven't gotten to the parents yet, but I'll get those while you do your thing." He said, walking back into the house.

"You want inside or outside?" Warrick asked.

"Doesn't matter to me." Nick replied.

"Hey guys." Greg walked up to them.

"Greg?" Nick turned around surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Gris sent me. He wants you…" He pointed at Nick. "To go process Burns' apartment."

"'Kay," Nick picked up his kit and turned back towards his car, "I'll see you guys later."

"Guess it's just you and me then." Greg said, looking expectantly at Warrick.

"Yeah." Warrick looked up at the house. "You take the outside and I'll take the girl's room."

"Sure." Greg picked up his kit and went to work.

"And Greg…" Warrick waited until Greg had turned around to look at him. "This isn't just a high profile case, it's also close to Sara - make sure everything you do is according to protocol."

"Yeah." Greg wasn't offended, he knew that he was still new and learning. He was just happy that he could help.

"And you just call if you need help with anything, better safe than sorry, alright?"

"Yeah, man." Greg turned and started walking towards the garden again. "I know where to find you."

"Good." Warrick smiled and went into the house. He knew that Greg was good, but he was still new to the job. He himself knew what it was like to have evidence thrown out of court because of some small technicality; he didn't want Greg to learn that the hard way. Definitely not on a case that involved Sara, who was unofficially in charge of the young man's training.

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Sara stayed where she was as Catherine left, waiting to hear the door close behind the blonde before she broke down crying. Dunne had gotten to Veronica and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. She hadn't been able to protect Veronica from him and now she wasn't allowed to work the case.

She knew Catherine was right; that if she collected any of the evidence it was a great opportunity for a defence attorney to claim that the evidence had been tampered with. She knew that, but she still wanted - needed - to do something other than stay at home alone crying. She was happy that Catherine hadn't tried to comfort her; she couldn't deal with the physical contact right now. The only touch she was used to when crying was of one of her parents' fists. The fact that she had allowed Catherine to hold her at the prison was surprising to her, it had been a welcome surprise, but this time she couldn't allow to take up any of Catherine's time – she needed the blonde to work the case and solve it. Now she knew how Catherine had felt when she worked on Eddie's case - helpless, hopeless and weak.

As her crying subsided she sat down on the couch, staring into thin air. She tried hard to think of anything that could help to locate Dunne and his victims, but knew it was useless. She knew how much forensics helped in situations like these, but also how much luck played a part as well.

She looked at her watch. She had called Veronica at 8.30 and it was now 9.15 – they had been gone for about an hour. The first 48 hours were always critical in a kidnapping. She started her own countdown: 47 hours and counting. She began crying silently again. This kidnapping was different - the kidnapper had been obsessed with his victim for 12 years. The odds that Veronica was alive were good, the odds of her not being hurt were not, the odds of them finding her were… She stopped herself from finishing the thought. They would find them, they had to. They were the best lab in the country, if anyone could find them it would be her friends. She was shook out of her thoughts as her phone rang.

"Sidle." Her voice was raspy from the crying.

"It's me. How are you holding up?" Catherine asked worriedly.

"I'm ok." Sara answered flatly. She didn't want the other woman worrying about anything other than the case.

"Ok." She could tell that Catherine didn't buy it, and was happy when the blonde let it slide. "I'm on my way back from Veronica's. Where are you?"

"I'm still at home."

"Are you coming by the lab?"

"I don't know." What could she do at the lab other than sit in a corner not touching anything, not doing anything actually helpful regarding the case?

"You want me to come by your place?" She could tell by the tone of Catherine's voice that she was worried about her.

"You should work the case."

"I wish there was something I could do for you." Catherine said softly, almost making the brunette cry again.

"Get them back." She managed to get out.

"I'll do my best."

"I should let you get back to work." She needed to get of the phone.

"Sara…" Catherine started, but Sara cut her off.

"I'll talk to you later." She said, and hung up the phone.

She held her head in her hands, taking slow calming breaths to stop herself from crying again, when there was a knock on the door. Picking up her gun from the counter she looked though the peephole in the door and saw two uniformed cops she didn't recognise.

"Who is it?" She asked, not opening the door.

"Officer Chase and Jenkins." One of the police officers answered. "Captain Brass sent us."

"Just a sec." Sara told them, walking back to the couch and picking up her phone to dial Brass' number. "I need to check you guys are legit."

"Sure, Ma'am." The other officer answered, waiting patiently outside the door.

"Brass."

"Brass, it's Sara. Did you send two uniforms to my place?"

"Yeah," Brass confirmed. "Better safe than sorry."

"I guess." Sara said, opening the door and gesturing for the cops to come inside.

"I'd like you to go either to the lab or the precinct, just to make absolutely sure that you're ok." Brass told her.

"Why?" Sara asked dejectedly. "There's nothing I can do on this case."

"Look kid, you know Dunne better than any of us." Brass told her. "You can help prove or disprove our theories. Every little thing helps – you know that better than anyone."

"Ok." Sara glanced at the two officers as they looked around her apartment. "I'll see you at the lab then."

"Be careful." Brass told her sternly.

"I will." Sara hung up the phone and turned towards the cop who had stayed in the living room with her. "We're going to the crime lab." She informed him and started gathering her things.

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Walking into the lab, Catherine quickly delivered all her evidence to the appropriate technicians. After having done this she went to her office to get the files she needed for the meeting they were having as soon as the rest of the team returned to the lab. Just as she was ready to go, a police officer knocked on her door.

"Yes?" She looked up at her.

"CSI Brown had us check up on some people." The woman said. "I have the file here, but since he's not there they told me to give it to you."

"Yes, thank you." Catherine got up and took the folder the officer handed her. "Anything useful on Stanley Burns?"

"Just some background information, ma'am. Nothing that stands out." The female cop told her. "No parking or speeding tickets, no arrests – nothing like that."

"Ok." Catherine sighed. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." The cop left her alone.

The blonde went through the file but found nothing useful. The PD had checked Burns' apartment right after the escape to see if he and Dunne had gone there, but found nothing. There were no other addresses in his file, so they had nowhere else to check. All they could hope for was for the evidence they had collected to lead them somewhere and that Nick had found anything in the apartment that could lead them to the two and their victims. She left her office and went towards the conference room that they had made their main gathering place for this case. On the way there she ran into Brass.

"Brass." She called out to him.

"Catherine."

"Did you get anything from the Lavisham residence? Please tell me you got something." She asked, catching up with him.

"Nothing solid yet." Brass told her. "We're still canvassing both neighbourhoods hoping to find anyone who might have noticed strange cars or something like that around."

"Let's hope someone has. We need all the luck we can get right now." She went towards the conference room but realized the captain didn't follow her. "Aren't you coming for the meeting, Jim?"

"Yeah," He looked back at her. "I'll just go get Sara first."

"Sara?" Catherine stepped up next to him again. "Sara is here?"

"Yes." He nodded. "She agreed to come in when I asked her to."

"She did?" Catherine walked along with him. "She told me she probably wasn't going to stop by."

"I think she changed her mind when I sent over two uniforms to protect her." Brass said with a grin.

"She does like her privacy." Catherine mused. 'I just didn't think she'd want that from me anymore.' "Would you mind if I go get her?" She asked the man.

"No, be my guest." Brass turned and started walking back towards the conference room. "She should be in the break room."

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Driving down the highway towards the desert, Dunne turned towards his companion.

"Switching to this van was good planning, Stanley." He smiled and patted the other man on the shoulder.

"Thank you, Sir." Stanley replied with a wide smile, feeling very proud of himself.

"It has enough room for our entire family." Dunne looked back at Veronica, Bridget and Julie who were tied up on the floor in the back of the van. He laughed a little at Veronica's attempts at keeping Julie from falling around too much. "Good planning indeed, Stanley." He repeated as he turned forward again, looking out at the night sky.