Title: Stalked - Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I have been informed that they stillain't mine. Thanks for pointing that out.

Authors' Note: Sol, you still rock. Thanks for the Beta! To my readers - you all rock too...even if for some reason, SOME of you refuse to leave a review. -pouts- Thanks to all of you that do review, I really appreciate it. The rest of you? I still like you. Just try leaving a review, it's fun, easy, and free. And I really enjoy it. :o) Hope YOU enjoy this chapter. And if you don't -I hope you tell me!

Catherine had taken five steps and was still trying to explain to Grissom why they hadn't printed the box of Sara's things, when she noticed he wasn't beside her anymore. Turning around, she saw him standing there with a look of shock on his face, staring down at his phone like it was a two-headed dog.

She realized she'd been rambling and making excuses for herself and the rest of the team, and she hadn't stopped doing so when the soft sound of the phone vibrating against his hip had filled the air. When he'd answered it, she'd kept walking and continued talking. If there was one person in this lab that could listen to two people talking at the same time, it would be Grissom. Besides, the excuses she had been making had been lame and she was really just trying to cover up the fact that they'd messed up.

She sighed as the seconds ticked by, and Grissom didn't move. "Grissom?" She walked up and stood in front of him. "Hey. You all right?" She waved a hand between his eyes and the phone, causing him to blink.

His eyes met hers and for reasons she couldn't explain, her heart jumped into her throat. His eyes had darkened and his mouth was just slightly agape. When he finally spoke, his tone was softer then usual; the pitch deeper than possible. "Sara…"

She reached a hand out and touched his arm and he flinched. He quickly folded the phone and reattached it to his hip. Then he cleared his throat. "She's not dead."

"Huh?" Catherine didn't know who had been on the other end of the line, but she was afraid it had been someone reporting that her body had been found.

He sent her a look that could either mean he was angry, or that he was repressing something. "Sara. She's not dead." There was a child-like quality to his voice now, and subconsciously Catherine wondered whether or not he was in denial.

"Gil, who was on the phone?" She was amazed that her voice wasn't shaking. Instead it held the same comforting, calm, and collected tone she used when Lindsey was upset or scared. She was using her mothering voice with Grissom, for crying out loud.

He met her eyes again and shrugged. "I don't know." He looked down at it still sitting silently against his hip. "Whoever has Sara, I imagine."

"What?"

He took a deep breath. "All he said was 'She wants me to tell you she's still alive. For now.'" His expression deepened. "No real reason to think he was talking about Sara. But who else would want me to know they're still alive?"

Catherine was too stunned to say anything. She again placed her hand on his arm, as much to steady herself as to try and stop Grissom's hopes from lifting so high that he'd break when they were pulled out from under him. When she found her voice again, she couldn't stop the doubt spilling from her lips. "Why would he call you? Why now? It doesn't make any sense… Unless…" She frowned. "Unless he doesn't want us to stop looking? But why?"

"So let's not. Quit, I mean. If he wants us to find her, then let's not let him down ok? Perhaps he's tiring of her, of the work it takes to care for and control another person – a person who is angry and scared. "

They reached Grissom's office and he walked behind the desk and sat down heavily before picking up his phone. "This is Gil Grissom. Listen, I had an incoming call to my cell about four minutes ago. I need all the information you can get me on it. Ok?" He rattled off his phone number and hung up.

He leaned back in his chair with a thoughtful expression on his face. "How're Nick and Warrick coming with those prints?"

"No hits yet, but AFIS is running." Catherine wasn't thinking about the prints. "So he's getting tired of looking after her… why call you and tell you to come get her? Why not kill her?" She watched as Grissom's face paled and he narrowed his eyes.

"Maybe he loves her… or at least thinks he does... It's Sara. She's easy to love." His face flushed pink when he realized the words he'd allowed to slip from his mouth.

Catherine raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. "Maybe he knows that if he kills her, the kidnapping sentence would go from just that, to homicide. The difference between 25 to life and the death penalty." She frowned. "But then why doesn't he just leave the country, call you and tell you where she is? He'd be gone, and she'd be safe… either way, I only imagine that Sara has his face burned into her memory by now. And his name probably... all the things it would take to get a conviction. Sara's a damn good CSI…I can't picture her not absorbing everything around her. Even under stress." She stopped, well aware of the pinched expression on Grissom's face. "I know you don't like talking about this because…"

"No, I don't." He cut her off. "Because she is a friend, she is a coworker, and she is one of the best CSIs this city's got. But the fact is, if I don't talk about this, discuss her case… I'm not doing her any favors." He stood. "Let's go give Nicky and Warrick a hand processing the rest of that stuff.

He walked into the fingerprint lab and stopped in the doorway, eyeing the items laid side by side across the counter. A light purple candle, a half empty shampoo bottle, and an Aspirin bottle. Sara's things. He sighed and walked up behind Nick, who was rubbing his eyes and staring at the ever-moving current of prints across the computer screen. "Whatcha got Nick?"

The younger man jumped at the sound of his boss' voice. "So far? Five sets of prints. All match each other – none are Sara's. I'm trying to find a match in AFIS, but it's been running for a while now with no hits. I'm not getting my hopes up." He sighed wearily and rubbed his palm over his face.

"The kidnapper called my phone about 15 minutes ago to tell me she wasn't dead." Grissom stated matter-of-factly.

Nick whirled around on the stool and there was a fierceness in his eyes. "What?"

"Sara's not dead Nick. We still have time, so these prints are still important. Ok? Don't give up on them. And having hope isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes it's the only reason to get up in the morning." He turned away as he snapped on a pair of gloves.

"Sounds like you're speaking from experience." Nick had his brows furrowed together in a look of worry. "Something you want to talk about, man?"

Grissom shot him a tired smirk. "Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the music, and never stops at all." He had a wistful look on his face.

Nick surprised him by responding. "Emily Dickinson."

"Yeah." He turned back to face Sara's things. "Ok. So – we're waiting." He tried to find the patient part of himself that made him a good CSI. The part that KNEW computer searches were sometimes endless and painstaking. The part of him that understood that Nick was doing all he could and couldn't make anything move faster then it already was.

He couldn't help the anxious feelings settling themselves in his belly. After his talk with Catherine… he was worried. He felt like he's swallowed a couple handfuls of tiny aquarium rocks, and every time he thought about Sara, it felt like someone reached into the pit of his stomach and stirred them around.

He fought the sudden inexplicable urge to turn around and tell Nick exactly why they needed to find Sara. He suddenly wanted to tell someone the reason that had nothing to do with the lab, or anything else. It was simply because he needed her.

He'd spent the last six years hoping that someday he'd give up his foolish pride and allow himself to love her. Six years of hoping that she would still allow him to love her. Six years of watching her walk into the lab and laugh with the others around her. Six years of falling asleep with the sound of that laugher still ringing through his head. Six years worth of memories, of her reaching across him to grab a paper…of her meeting his eyes and smiling…of the burning sensation on his back as he walked away from her…of the times he let her walk away searing an identical hole into her back…all these memories setting his stomach on jumble and making his pulse race as he sat alone in his empty townhouse.

He turned back toward Nick with the confession forming on his lips. "Nick…I " He didn't get a chance to continue. The computer chirped twice, announcing that it had found a fingerprint match.

Nick grinned at him. "Hold that thought boss. We just might have somewhere to go." He reached the screen first and looked at it before he spoke, frustration filling his voice. "Uh…Grissom? We…we've got the prints of a dead man."

Grissom cocked his head in confusion and walked over to stand beside Nick. "What do you mean?"

"I mean just what I said…The prints came back to a Nitlinan Bergsten…deceased." Nick scrolled down the file. "Died in a house fire…same fire that killed his girlfriend – and his father." He glanced over at Grissom who was just standing there glaring the screen, grinding his teeth.

"How'd they ID the body?" The words came out in a low whisper.

"Uh…I don't know Grissom. This isn't the casefile." He read down a little further. "But here's something interesting." He paused and read on.

"What Nick?"

"Oh. His name has been flagged by the FBI."

"Huh?" Grissom couldn't hide his amusement. "The dead can't break the law…"

Nick shrugged. "Maybe I ought to give them a call. See what they want with our dead suspect."

Grissom was still frowning as he turned and walked away. "No, I'll do it." He sighed. "They respond better when they hear from the boss as opposed to his minions."

The door was falling shut behind him as Nick caught what he'd said. He shook his head in amazement. Did Grissom just crack a joke? "Hey. I'm nobody's minion." He defended himself to the empty room.

Grissom sat in his office, on hold with yet another person at the FBI office. He was alternating tapping his pen in an impatient tune and writing almost illegibly in the margins of his desk calendar. He'd been on hold six times, being passed from person to person. He looked at the clock. Twenty minutes since he'd dialed the phone. He was on the verge of banging his head against the wall when Warrick walked in.

"Still on hold?" He sat down in the chair across from Grissom.

"Yeah. I knew these guys were going to be a pain, but this is testing even my patience." He rolled his eyes. "You find anything new?"

"Yeah…I got the casefile for our dead suspect…" He held up the file in front of him.

"And?"

"And the case was handled by a couple of rookies… both the lead investigator, and the lead CSI were fresh faces. Not a good combo." He sighed. "About five years ago, a fire broke out in the home of one…" He flipped through a couple pages. "Calvin Bergsten. Three bodies. The first belonged to Calvin, the second to his son's girlfriend – a Miss Natasha Dacotah. The last was the worst burned… not even enough to compare dentals to. Without enough evidence to ID him, they just took the melted ID from the wallet beside the bed and the fact that the body was found in bed with Miss Dacotah and made a bad ID." Warrick shrugged. "Messy case, messy evidence, and sloppy police work. I'm going to assume it was a case of mistaken identity when they ID'd him."

"Given the fact that those prints were only between two and three weeks old when we found them…I'd say that's a safe assessment. Is there anything in there that would point to why the FBI would be after him?"

"Nope. The fire was ruled an accident and the case was closed."

Grissom sighed as the elevator music continued playing softly in his ear. "Well…was the son living with his father at the time?"

Warrick flipped through the file again. "No. It appears he had inherited his grandfather's house when the old man died. That's the address he had on file – and that's the address they searched for him at, when they decided it was him in the fire. The house was sealed, but was eventually released again to the family after the case was closed."

"Ok so - a man goes missing, presumed dead. Why didn't he come back to say he was alive?" The elevator music continued playing, rubbing a nerve he thought he'd long ago gotten a handle on.

"Maybe he started the fire. The two rookies made a bad ID... maybe the fire was an arson and they missed that too? It could have been started to cover the fact that he'd just killed a man." Warrick stared at a spot over Grissom's head. "He comes home from work early - maybe he's staying with his father for some reason... Goes into his room and finds a strange man in bed with his girlfriend. Snaps. Things get out of hand... go bad. Or worse. Ends up killing his girlfriend and her lover. Starts the fire to cover it up." He paused. "And when he was assumed dead - he was really on the run. Took advantage of his own 'death'."

Grissom looked at him thoughtfully. "Then why draw attention to himself by kidnapping a member of law enforcement?"

Warrick nodded. "I think...I don't know. Maybe he didn't know Sara was a CSI. Or at least not a first. If we choose to believe that it's this 'Bill' guy, we also have to assume that all those cases were messages to her. Meaning he's been following her for - well, a while. He could have first seen her in the supermarket, or at a bar." He shook his head and shrugged. "I dunno Grissom."

Grissom frowned as a new song started playing, sounding like a bad hybrid of classical and jazz. "I'd really like to know what the FBI has interest in this for."

Warrick shot him a smile that was lacking in any emotion. "Yeah. Good luck with that. Archie should have the security tapes down in AV by now. I'm gonna go check them out."

Grissom nodded. "If you find anything..."

"You'll be my first call."

Warrick walked out of the room and Grissom leaned back in his chair, growing weary of the harshly sad notes floating through the phone. He ran the case through his head.

'Bill.' Dollars. Sara. Stalker? Sara. He'd called, they never call. Sara. Prints of a dead man. Arson ruled an accident. A mess. Sara.

He couldn't concentrate, and that bothered him. The music in his head smoothed out and he recognized Bach playing. Sara. His head was starting to pound.

She was so close. She was alive. They knew who had her. They just didn't know where. She was alive. That thought kept bouncing through his mind like a rubber ball. He'd all but given up hope, had he never would have given up all hope. Not until he saw a body.

He'd told Nick earlier not to quit hoping. That it was sometimes the only reason to get out of bed. And he hadn't been lying. Knowing the horrors of the world - sometimes you had to be able to hope for something better. And his hope had always been Sara. When he'd met her, he had seen what good there was. When she'd smiled he'd remembered a thousand reasons to keep living. When she laughed...she became the reason he woke up each day. He'd never let himself admit it before, but it was true.

He got up because he had hope. Hope that it would be the day that he could push past his own selfish insecurities and let himself love her. Let himself be loved by her. Hope that she wouldn't laugh in his face and tell him he was too late. Hope that he'd be able to pull her into his arms and show her the good things in life that she had shown him - just by being near him. And now it was hope that he would get the chance.

He jumped when the phone clicked and a woman's voice floated through. "Dr. Grissom? Sorry for making you wait."

"Skip the empty apologies." He snapped. "I have a missing woman. You've got the record flagged of the man we believe has her. The record of a supposed dead man. Can you explain that to me?"

She sighed. "Dr. Grissom, we handle identity theft very seriously. Even when the victim is deceased."

"Identity theft?"

"The victim - a Mr. Nitlinan Bergsten, deceased. His sister called us in after she received a credit card statement for her brother. Four years after his death. We began an investigation immediately."

"Ma'am...It has come to our attention in the last day, that Mr. Bergsten may not be dead. We believe he started the fire and then escaped alive. We also believe he has kidnapped one of our investigators. I'm going to need everything you have on this man."

"Sir..." She hesitated. "I'm not sure how much help we're actually going to be. We've had a team staking out a house in Las Vegas for the past week... However, we have yet to see anything suspicious. If he were holding a kidnap victim there...I'm sure our people would have noticed it."

Grissom was floored. Not because of the fact that they hadn't seen anything...people are sneaky. But the fact that they had an address. "Where?"

He heard a file being flipped through. "I don't seem to have it here." More rustling of papers.

Grissom was standing now, pacing behind his desk. "How can you misplace THAT? It's where your suspect is!" He was feeling a little irate and the urge to crawl through the phone and smack this woman upside the head was pushing him into the irrational part of his mind.

"Sir, I'm not the lead on the case. The people that need the address have the address. I'll find it for you...get it to you as soon as I can. I apologize for this."

Grissom could feel his pulse racing and his face was flushed with anger. "Time is of the essence. I NEED that address. Now." His voice was surprisingly calm. He rattled off his phone number. "Call me. Immediately." He hung up the phone and left his office in a rush he could feel pouring through his every vein.

He made it to the AV lab in record time. Warrick looked up with a unreadable expression written across his face. "We have it on tape."

Grissom stepped closer. There playing enlarged on the computer monitor was Sara walking to her car. He watched her hit the lock on her key chain, watched her headlights flash as the doors unlocked. She got into the car. Shut the door. Then she hesitated before starting the engine. He could see her brows furrow with a sense of realization as another form popped up in the backseat. As she turned her head, an arm reached around the seat.

It felt like his stomach hit the floor. As the hand was removed she spoke. Then the realization on her face became knowing. And knowing turned into worry. Then terror.

Grissom's hand was clenching the back of Archie's chair so hard his knuckles hurt. "How'd he get into the car? Locks weren't jimmied. Windows in tact. And I know Sara...there's no way she'd leave her vehicle unlocked. No way."

Archie looked over his shoulder. "That's where it gets a little creepier. Watch." He hit a series of buttons and the image on the screen changed.

Grissom could tell from the shadows on the tape that it had occurred at night - during shift. "What am I watching?"

"He had her keys alright. But he had them before he took her." He pointed to the screen as a man on a bicycle rode up beside Sara's car and pulled a set of keys from his pocket. Selecting one with ease, he opened the trunk and placed his bike inside. Pulling a gun from the waist of his pants, he used the same key and opened the driver's side door. He looked completely innocent as he hit the lock button and opened the back door. He climbed inside and pulled the door closed behind him. His figure disappeared as he lay down.

Archie hit another button and the shadows grew quickly as the tape sped past the rising of the sun, back to the scene of Sara leaving the building. "Stop the tape. I've seen enough." Grissom's voice sounded weak even to himself and nausea quickly joined his growing headache. He turned to leave the room. "See if you can get a clear view of the man's face. I want to compare it to the photo we got from the prints."

Archie nodded. "You got it boss."

He pulled his phone from his belt and dialed Catherine's number. "Where are you?"

"Henderson - B&E ...Grissom, what's wrong?" Her voice was tinged in the tone he'd begun to hate over the last couple weeks...pity.

"We have the kidnapping on tape. He just...took her." His voice shook and he stopped walking. "In just seconds he had complete control."

"Gil..." There was that pity again.

"Catherine would you please stop using that tone with me?" He closed his eyes. "I'm not going to break." One foot in front of the other. He had to get to his office.

This time the pity was gone, replaced by concern. "You sure?"

A slow pain-filled chuckle escaped his lips. "No. I'm not. I feel like I am breaking - like I'm losing whatever Sara possessed that held me together." He didn't register what he'd just admitted to, and Catherine didn't sound shocked, nor did she try to figure out what he'd said.

"I know. She's going to be ok. Ok? She's a fighter, she's stronger then you or I. This guy picked the wrong girl to be his submissive. If anyone..." The words trailed off. "...It'll be her."

Grissom sighed. "I want to believe you Cath. But... it's...hard." He hated the sob he could feel building in his chest. "Watching the terror on her face..." He stopped himself. "Her fear - hurts me, Catherine. More then I thought possible.

The other end of the line was silent for a long time before she spoke again. "That's what happens Gil...when you love someone."

He reached his office and closed the door behind him, thumbing the lock. He sat heavily in his chair, not sure of how to respond. "I didn't want to love her."

"But you do." It wasn't a question.

"And I..." He fought back that same sob, now lodged in his throat. "I want to be able to tell her that."

Catherine could feel the pain in his voice as it traveled over the phone lines and into her own heart, along with the tears she knew he didn't want her to hear.

She tried to speak again but he cleared his throat and interrupted her. "I'm sorry Catherine...I didn't mean to take you away from your work. I...I have to go."

"But Gil..." He was pulling his shell down again.

"Thank you Catherine. Really. But I...I can't do this now ok? I shouldn't have called. I was - upset. But I'm better now." He lied as one tear slipped down his cheek.

He heard her take a breath. He knew she didn't believe him. She knew him better then that. "You know how to get ahold of me Grissom. If you want to...talk."

He closed the phone and put his elbows on his desk, followed shortly by his head in his hands. Only then did the sob escape. Quietly and without as much force as he'd expected. In his mind, he saw Sara's eyes as that man clapped his hand over her mouth. Saw her terror growing as they spoke. Felt the terror in that moment force itself into his own heart.

In the two weeks she'd been missing, he had never allowed himself to imagine her fear. He hadn't wanted to know. But now he did. And now he hurt. Everything hurt, his head pounding out an unnatural rhythm. His stomach threatening to lose what little he'd eaten in the last twelve hours. His back and neck screaming at him for falling asleep in his chair every day for the last two weeks.

He couldn't sleep in his bed, when he slept in his bed he dreamt. And his dreams were nightmares. So he slept in a chair in his living room, upright and uncomfortable, so he never was asleep long enough to dream.

His sobs had stopped but his tears were still flowing when the phone beside his elbow chirped, drawing him out of his cocoon of depression.

"Grissom." His voice sounded husky.

"Dr. Grissom. This is Mandy Kilmoore from the FBI. One of your CSI's faxed me a photo of the man you think took...Sara Sidle."

Grissom perked up considerably. "And?"

"The picture we received from you is of the same man we had under surveillance."

"Had?" Grissom's heart fluttered in his chest.

"We had someone watching 24 hours a dayfor an entire week. Nothing. We sent a man to the door with a hidden camera to get a good look at our guy just this morning. Got nothing remotely suspicious. But about an hour ago I got an order from my superiors to pull surveillance."

Grissom groaned. "Why?"

"We needed the manpower for another case."

"The address? Can I have it?"

"Yeah. But in light of what you've told us... I thought you should know - the credit card? The statement consisted largely of online purchases."

Grissom left the obvious question hanging in the air, afraid to ask. Afraid to know.

"Chains. Police quality restraints. Handcuffs." She paused. "Things you use for holding prisoners."

Grissom bit his bottom lip to keep from swearing out loud. "The address. Please."

She rattled off an address in a poverty-riddled area of Las Vegas. Grissom wrote it down and was out his door before he even realized he'd hung up on the woman. He was dialing Brass as he stuck his head in the break room. "Nick. Warrick. We have to go. Now." He took off again out the door.

He brought the phone to his ear in time to hear Brass answer. "Jim, I got an address from the FBI." He repeated it without looking at the paper he was clutching in his hand. "I'll meet you there."

"Wait - Gil. The FBI?"

"I'll explain later. I've gotta go Jim, just meet me there - bring back-up." He slammed the phone shut with more force then was necessary. Nick and Warrick ran up behind him as he reached the Denali. They climbed in without asking what was going on.

As Grissom pulled harshly from the parking spot, Nick threw a concerned look at Warrick before turning in the front seat and looking at his boss. "Is she...?"

"No. I don't know. God, I hope not."

Nick frowned. "Then where - ?"

"The feds came through - gave us an address. I just hope we get there in time."

Ok - so apparently I have to offer bribes to get reviews. Uh, well. Cookies - hot chocolate - lemonade - coffee! Whatever you want, it's your's! Cake. Pie! Yes. Just review!