Catherine knocked on the door to Nicholas Beam's home, looking through the window that was right next to the door. It was a pretty house; on the inside and outside. It was painted white, the shutters and such were black. Flowers bloomed in the front, as well as in baskets hanging from the windowsills. The yard was well taken care of, fresh green grass covering the small amount of land the people owned. And from what she could see on the inside, Nicholas enjoyed the antique theme, as some pieces of furniture in the hallway looked fairly old.

Besides the officer that accompanied her to make sure there would be no "problems", she was alone. Warrick had gone to talk to the dispatcher who received the 911 calls, and Sara had a double homicide with Nick. And Grissom was being, well, Grissom.

The door opened, and a rather attractive young man stood in the doorway. He wore gray slacks and a white shirt with a gray dress coat that matched his slacks over it. His black hair was slicked back, and he was newly shaven. "How may I help you?" he asked, leaning against the door frame.

Catherine smiled briefly before getting down to business. "I'm Catherine Willows with the crime lab, do you know a Melissa Jones?" she asked, watching the surprised look come over his face.

"Yeah, yeah. I know her," he said, stepping aside so she could come in.

She nodded her thanks, looking around the room as she entered before stopping and turning around to face him as he shut the door.

"What do you need to know about Melissa?" he asked, motioning to another room as he walked in and sat down in a lounge chair.

Catherine took a seat on the couch, setting her kit next to her. "Melissa called you last night around six thirty, what did she say?" she asked, realizing how weird this must sound to him.

He gave her a weird look, but answered at once. "She asked if I wanted to have a couple of drinks with her. But my kid had a soccer game at six, so I had to say no," he said, looking fearful. "Did something happen to Melissa?"

"Mr. Beam, Melissa was killed last night," Catherine said, not even flinching when Nicholas visibly fell apart.

He ran his hands through his hair, and sniffled quietly. Sighing he looked at Catherine. "How did she die?"

"Someone hit her in the back of the head with a hard object," she said, looking down slightly so she didn't have to look at his depressed face anymore. "How did you know Melissa, Mr. Beam?"

Nicholas laughed softly, sniffling again. "We've been best friends since middle school," he said, smiling weakly. "We dated for a little while during highschool, but broke up because it was too weird," he said, laughing again. He sighed shakily, running another hand through his hair again. "My son loved Mel."

"You two got together often?" Catherine asked, taking notes.

"Yeah. She came over almost every other day to see Jason, my son," he said, motioning to the pictures of a small boy sitting on a table nearby. "She was the mother figure in his life after his mom left when he was five." A tear rolled down his face. "God, what am I going to tell him?" he said, asking nobody.

"Have you heard from your wife since she left?" Catherine asked, glancing at the grinning pictures of his son again. A cute little kid.

"Ex-wife," Nicholas corrected, looking around the room. "No. She was suffering from depression. Then I caught her using heroin, I told her to pack her stuff that night," he said. "For the first two weeks she called every hour, begging to let her back into the house. But after a while, she got the idea that I wasn't going to let her come back around our son in her current state, so she just stopped calling. I don't know where she is now," he said.

"How old is your son now, Mr. Beam?"

"Thirteen."

Catherine couldn't contain herself this time. She frowned sympathetically. God, poor kid. He was about Lindsay's age. She saw Mr. Beam look at the clock, it was three o'clock in the afternoon. Lindsay got out at two thirty eight. She imagined that he was counting down the minutes until his son gets home.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

"I received the first call at 12:03 a.m.," the dispatcher told Warrick, typing something onto her computer. "Here's the message," she said, hitting 'enter'.

"911, what's your emergency."

There was series of high pitched sobs, obviously coming from a woman.

"Ma'am, what's your emergency?"

"Please...please help me."

"What's your name, ma'am."

A series of sobs answered the dispatcher, and Melissa started ranting random things.

"It's following me...It's going to kill me. P-please help me."

"Calm down ma'am, where are you?"

The phone went dead.

"That phone call lasted two minutes," the dispatcher said, typing again. "Here's the second call."

"911, what's you're emergency?"

"HELP ME"

The scream of the woman pierced Warrick's ears, and from the way she breathed into the phone, it sounded like she was running. The woman's terrified sobs tore at his heart.

"Please. My name...is...Melissa, and I'm...at-oh my god."

For the second time the phone died, and all there was left was silence.

"That's all there is, Mr. Brown," the dispatcher said after a few seconds.

"Alright," he said with a heavy sigh. "I'll need those tapes," he said, taking the two tapes the dispatcher handed to him. "Thank you," he said, then headed out the door and to his car.

Picking up his cell phone, which sat in the passenger's seat, he dialed Catherine's number and held the phone up to his ear as he pulled out into the street.

"Willows."

"Hey Cath, the two tapes don't have much, but I'm on my way back to the lab, did you get anything from Beam?"

"Yeah. Apparently Melissa called him and wanted to go out for drinks, but I'm going to pull up her phone records and see how long the conversation lasted for. Lindsay knows Mr. Beam's kid, Jason."

Warrick frowned slightly. She sounded so tired. "Go home, Cath," he said, looking over his shoulder as he turned down another road. "I'll pull up the phone records and everything else, and fill you in in the morning."

At first he thought she'd refuse, but after a few seconds of silence he heard her say "Thank you."

"Go spend time with Lindsay," he said softly, shutting his phone and tossing it in the passenger's seat. He sighed heavily. "Anything for you," he said, almost in a whisper as he pulled into the Crime Lab's parking lot.