Disclaimer: I don't any of the characters from CSI, just the ones I make up.
Warning: Story centred around child abuse and is inspired by some actual events that happened in America, the U.K. and Ireland to hundreds of girls, boys and women.
Story Spoilers: The main character I use is Sara Sidle. This story starts at a crimescene and as Sara goes through the house collecting evidence and stuff, you learn about her childhood and teenage years which will be told from her POV. Major on the angst, I will have never written one this bad and probably won't again...put it that way lol...
Thank you in advance to anyone who reads this story and please take the time to let me know what you think. I really don't want to give up on this story so please leave reviews because they are so appreciated! Any ideas are also appreciated, though I do have a general idea of where I am going, I will always consider doing things a different way.
A/N: All I have done to this chapter is changed the formating slightly because house-of-insanity left a comment saying it was a bit weird so I changed it.
They stood outside of a suburban house, with its typical, artificial white picket fence and planted cornflowers in symmetrical places. It was modern house with no cobwebs and stories. The moon was snagged up in the sky, closed around with darkness. It made the moon seem brighter and regularly glistened making the grass grey for a blink. It was a sweet darkness. There was a central tree which broke Sara's heart with its giant arms stretching out and the great sweeps of leaves and in the soft glowing it had against the starry night. She was sure it would have a rough surface that she would love to stroke, to sweep her hand down from the crown of the tree, across all the great sprawling branches, right down to the craggy base with its erupted roots. Sara turned her head, stirring her hair, watching it swirl back and forth tickling her cheeks. It was thick and shining. For some reason she had let her shower water beat it down for over an hour tonight.
"It's like auntie Em's farmhouse, minus the farm."
Gil looked at her as she spoke. She had a beautiful voice and not one syllable was lost. She had made art from her simple speech. So why did he snap?
"That's an observation I have never heard, Sara," his voice stirred the air, "and it's also a non-professional one. This is a crime scene, act like it's one."
The expression on his face was so wrathful. He bit on to the last four words as he spat out the venom and Gil didn't even know why he did it, he was so level, so cold. Sara picked up her metal case and sniffed, he matched her movements, only a second out of time. Together they looked at Brass come out of the house, dazed and marvelling.
"I'm sorry, Sir,"
She hadn't called him 'sir' in a long time, and they both knew it. They both knew if Greg had cracked that remark Grissom may have even smiled. There was a glimmer of tears in her eyes and it startled her. She quickly ran her fingers through her mussed hair and rubbed her face, which was still smooth.
"Hey, Sara. Gil. The scene is secure-," Sara lifted herself under the tape.
They were the three words she needed more than any others. She gracefully looked at Brass, piercing his iris with her own rich brown orbs. He sent her a soft smile. The two men watch her step up to the doorway and place her kit down. Her beauty made Gil weep.
"I hope that thunderstorm isn't contagious."
Brass suddenly realised he didn't know who he was directing his comment at, whether it was joke between him and Gil about Sara or whether it was a statement of Gil's fantastic angry and swirling mood. Perhaps it was a combination. Gil was more the thunder and clouds and Sara was the delicate rain.
"So what's the situation?"
"Got a phone call from a woman telling us that she killed her husband. She is at PD."
"Do you know why she did it?"
"No, she hasn't spoken a word. I am going to talk to the neighbours. See if I can find out anything about the couple's lifestyle until Sofia gets here."
"You're not the preliminary?"
"Not on this case. I was closer to here than Sofia. She is stuck in traffic."
Gil sighed, the cool air slipping off his bottom lip. He was aware of the two incredible woman and there 'differences'. A few months ago, Sofia had called Sara out to a phone booth. He had both women in his office, complaining and bitching about each other. Sara had gone silently insane that Sofia could have contaminated her crime scene and implied she needed help. Sofia felt Sara's behaviour for lying and then being late was inappropriate. And before that Sara had found Sofia in his office when she was to be on leave. Professionally dealt with but he didn't want to see Sara's pupils gorge in to him for another lifetime.
He looked at Sara. A little evil crept in to Sara's head, as she consciously was aware of him watching her. She peeled out something to clip her hair up. She brushed her hair back with her hands firmly away from her forehead and behind her neck. She snapped on a slick, thick and white glove on her left hand and then reached up with her right, touching her hair, making sure it was secure. She stepped through doorway. Inside was very grand, with no light the walls seemed dusty gold, but they were probably just magnolia. It had high doorways and she could smell wax and copper. She glanced left to right as the details caught her. She clicked her small torch and swung it side to side. Photographs hung on the wall and washed-out paintings of beach scenes that looked as though they had been stolen from a hotel. She felt overwhelm or spellbound. Some warmness developed at the base of her spine.
"Hey," his voice hushed and quiet and thick.
He placed himself exactly behind her, so nobody could see his hand. He hadn't wanted to jolt her, but she looked so intense staring at… well he didn't know, but it was freakish and confusing. He awakened her from her trance and it was rather like setting off a burglar alarm as she jumped as his touch. She felt him pull away his hand and leaned back in to it slightly, feeling the blood in her spine slightly. His hand lingered for a second more and dropped down by his side. Sara's eyes glassed over, as if she had lost something precious. Together they walked through the hallway.
"Check this out." Sara said, looking at Gil.
Several glass frames was shattered on both sides of the wall. She tugged with her tweezers a large piece of glass away from the frame. It had a red stain.
"Sign of a struggle? Could you test that please?" Grissom swabbed the piece of glass. The tip turned purple.
"Blood."
They moved in to the kitchen and it was cold and quiet and empty. Gil greeted David and moved towards the body. Sara hovered slightly. A male, mid-thirties, lay in a pool of blood with large butcher knife next to him. Blood had poured and gushed from this man and had seeped out of the battered case of skin, it had drained out of him everywhere. It was a sprawling body, with gangly arms and flowing, sleek, yellow hair. There was blood smears on the plastic and once tender skin. His face was swollen slightly. His blue eyes stared up as if he could see through the roof. The mouth was a perfect of oval, like he had frozen while feeling pure amazement. Blood has once flowed down in rivulets out of his nostrils past his mouth and chin.
"I have counted four stab wounds, including the one in the neck. There is also a fresh cut right palm."
"This wound wasn't made with a knife." Grissom pointed at the victim's neck. It was a puncture wound.
"Ice pick maybe?" David suggested. Sara picked up a long and silver cooking skewer and put it into a plastic tube. She looked to her right and the pale wall had a blood smear.
"Grissom?" He looked up at her. The grey hairs at his temple drove her crazy and the sunburnt tan of his skin was wonderful. Heavy and valiant blue eyes.
"There is more blood here."
"Okay." he answered, not elaborating. Her sigh was interrupted.
"Swab it and can you find out where the fight started? Start upstairs and work your way down."
"Yeah," She heard him ask what the time of death was but was to far gone to hear David's answer.
Sara stepped in to another magnolia stained room. She hated the colour. The room was small and smelt different. It was delicious and it was like a combination of butterscotch and chocolate but with a sense of caramel and sweet, sticky fruit. There was gasoline too, hot tar and bluebells. It was tantalising, as if all the smells had been compressed and this was the outcome. It couldn't be compared to anything else in the world and she took a deep breath of it and found it tasted of nothing. The light from the street lamp filtered through the soft net curtain making the room turn slightly pink in the corners. A rug embraced the floor, plum coloured and dotted with several wind-up toys. The paintings were different, dense murky murals with scenes of long winding roads and lots of grass. Something changed in the series, in one a girl fed the ducks and in another the girl had been replaced with a sugar mill. There was a camp bed and there was a large cover, wickedly rich looking, as it was amber and blue striped. The pillowcase, however, deglamourised it, baby pink with hand-sewn flowers laced around the edges.
She slumped down like a sack of potatoes but she worked slow and savage like a brilliant Neanderthal had slumbered in to her body. She lifted hairs from the blanket, one set was brown and the other was blonde. The father was blonde. She turned off the light and pushed up her orange shades all the way to the bridge of her nose. She snaked her purple light over the soft bedcovers. Semen…and urine. She let out a long, raw, uneasy breath.The lighting changed again and she cut squares of the material that was stained with the human fluid. Something was off here.
She looked under the bed. She pushed the bed, noticing the imprints in the carpet. It was a dirty pink mantle, which must have belonged to a child. She photographed the blanket before unwrapping it. It was a diary with a flower montage decorating the front. She stroked the yellow and white roses. She picked up the book by its front cover and clumsily papers fell out. She cursed under her breath. She unfolded a sheet of paper. It was a drawing, rough rude lines and dark colours, browns and oranges mostly, and Sara assumed it was done by a girl because it had flowers and a girl was at the centre holding hands with a woman and man who was scribbled out in violent scratches of black crayon. She opened another one. It was darker in quality: a shark with large triangle teeth and ghost in the far corner. She thought it was a ghost but it had a large circular mouth. There was another girl, her hands above her head, hands but no fingers, but a male figure with fingers gripping the child. Again the male's mouth was oval shaped and his eyes were deep black holes. The child had a straight mouth with crosses for eyes. There were several more sharks and large male figures.
"Sara, can you draw me your Daddy? Can you draw me what your Daddy does?"
"I want my mommy."
She sunk in to sadness again and she began collecting the rest of the drawings when her hand touched something hard, like card. She flipped it over and there was the large tree from outside. Again the male figure was scribbled out but there was woman with her arms around a child. The woman was smiling, blonde with natural waves, aged skin and brown eyes, wearing a long sleeved turtleneck and the side of her head was tinged with black and blue, starting at the temple and travelling down to the small cheekbone. Sara stopped, looking as if she had forgotten what to do. She stared for a long moment and Sara spoke out loud to the walls.
"I bet you said you fell. Down the stairs or in to the door?"
Sara was hungry, tired and all alone. The air stood motionless around her. Her mind clicked, like wax was melting together and an ugly feeling came over her. Where is the girl in this photo? Grissom had not said anything about a daughter or niece. She thought of the drawings, the semen in the bed, a child's bed. She was jumping the evidence, but she knew this. She was about as expert in this as Grissom was with entomology
