"Is the kid going to be okay?" Brass asked as Catherine came out of the interrogation room after just talking to the kid.
"He's going to need some therapy," Catherine said with a heavy sigh. "He watched his mother kill his favorite baby sitter," she said, shaking her head in dismay. "But he's physically alright, his mother didn't harm him, the one thing she probably did that was right."
Brass frowned, shaking his head. "Yeah. I just got a call from the hospital; the husband is going to be all right too. He just got out of surgery. I'll have an officer take the kid over to him," he said, motioning back to the interrogation room.
Catherine sighed again. "Do we have any lead on where the ex-wife went?" she asked. She couldn't stand that good people were put through so much, but the murderer of a motherly figure and a best friend couldn't be brought to justice.
"No," Brass said, rubbing the back of his head. "Sorry. But the ex-wife is named Gloria Manson," he said. "She is like a ghost, we don't have her in the system, and she has no credit cards or anything of the sort. She's always paid with cash," he said with a defeated sigh. "No social life, and Mr. Beam says that he doesn't know anything about her after she left. No one else seems to know her either," he said.
"Someone has to know something," Catherine said determinedly. "They just aren't talking." As the two walked down the hallway, an associate handed her a folder. Opening it up, looking at the contents. "Okay, so we've got a friend from high school who says that Gloria contacted her a couple of days ago and wanted to get together. She's here now," Catherine said, motioning to a room ahead.
Opening the door, she looked at the folder as she sat down. "Mrs. Wallace," she said, setting the folder on the table. "When exactly did Gloria Manson call you?" she asked, folding her hands on the table and looking at the young woman as she shifted uncomfortably.
"She, um, called me about three days ago," she said, sighing in frustration. "I c-can't remember what day exactly, I'm sorry." After being motioned to continue, she breathed deeply and hesitated for a second. "She asked me if I knew where Nicholas lived, and I said I didn't, even though I did. She called me a bitch and said that she'd kill me," she said, shuddering. "I found my dog in the front yard with a bullet in it's head a day later."
Catherine couldn't believe this woman. She seemed to stop at nothing to get reunited with her son, but yet she was the one who didn't want him back until eight years after she got kicked out. She couldn't understand it.
"Have you heard from her since?" Catherine asked, jotting down a few notes about her statement.
Mrs. Wallace nodded. "She called me yesterday, she said that she was sorry and that she wanted to get together and catch up on things. I said that I'd love too, but I had to work that day," she sad, sighing heavily. "Gloria was always the hard-core type in high school, if someone talked shit about her then she'd beat the shit out of them," she said, laughing briefly.
Catherine nodded, writing down a few more things. "Mrs. Wallace, is there anything else you can tell us?" she asked as she and Mrs. Wallace stood up.
She shook her head. "No. I just hope that you get her, and I'll let you know if she calls me again," she said as she walked out the door. Catherine watched her walk out the door before turning to Brass, who was waiting outside. "You hear that?" she asked as they walked towards the break room.
"Yeah. She sounds like she's the type of person that believes in an eye for an eye," he said, frowning a bit. "So, what's next?"
"I'm not quite sure," she said with a sigh. "Do you know where Warrick is?"
"Didn't you hear?" Brass said, opening the door for Catherine and they both sat down. He continued when he saw Catherine's blank face. "He's getting a divorce from his wife," he said.
Catherine looked utterly surprised. "Oh my god," she said softly, looking down at her hands. "I wonder why he didn't tell me."
"Oh, well, if it makes you feel better, he didn't tell me either," Brass said, looking a bit guilty. "I caught a glimpse of the divorce papers in his locker," he said with a frown.
"Wow," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. She had never would of thought that Warrick and his wife would have gotten a divorce. She wondered who had brought it up. Although she felt deepest sympathy for Warrick, something inside her made her happy that he and his wife were finally over. Warrick was very attractive, yes, but she had never imagined herself with him. Dreamed, maybe. But she never thought about it, because she figured it would never happy. Calm down, Cath. She told herself. He'd never be interested in you.
"Hey, guys," Warrick said, entering the break room. He looked rather tired, and sounded just a little stressed out. Sitting down, he looked at Catherine. "Sorry I'm late. So what do we have on Gloria?"
Catherine at first thought about telling him how sorry she was, but then she decided against it. He would say so when he felt comfortable. It was only a matter of time. "Well, a high school friend of Gloria's stopped by," she said, filling him in on everything that Mrs. Wallace said.
"So," Warrick said, leaning back. "We've basically got nothin'?"
"Pretty much," Catherine said with disappointment, slapping her hands on the table.
"Well," Brass said, standing up. "I'll put out a watch for Gloria, and I'll see if anyone tells me anything," he said, walking out of the room.
Warrick sighed, running a hand through his hair, then looked at Catherine. "So what's the next step?" he asked, putting his hands on the table.
Catherine sighed, shaking her head and laughing helplessly. "I don't know," she said, shrugging. "Wait to see if Brass gets anything, I guess," she said.
"Um, excuse me, Catherine Willows?"
Catherine turned around to see a police officer opened the door, looking over at her with a little concern. "Yes?" she asked, wondering if this was some sort of warning from Child Services again. Let's hope that that won't happen ever again.
"I'm told that I could find you here," he said, stepping inside and shifting his weight a little nervously. He looked down at his feet. He couldn't meet her gaze.
"Well, here I am. What is it, officer?" she asked a little irritably.
"Are you the mother of Lindsay Willows?" he asked as if he was hoping that she really wasn't. He must be a new guy or something.
That rang an alarm off in Catherine's head. She and Warrick standing up, she walked closer to the officer. "Yes. What happened?" she asked urgently, sounding a little angered. "Did Lindsay get into some sort of trouble?" It would be just like Lindsay. She had been getting in trouble lately, and Catherine didn't know what to do besides ground her.
"No," he said, laughing nervously. He shifted his weight uncomfortably.
"Well say it, officer," Warrick snapped, noticing that Catherine was starting to look a little jumpy.
"Look, ma'am," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "We got a call from a neighbor of yours, and she said that she heard noises and called the police to go check it out. We found your mother dead in the home, and a kidnapping of your daughter is what we suspect."
"No…" Catherine felt her legs grow weak, and she would have fallen if Warrick wasn't there to catch her before she hit the ground. He brought her close to him. She grabbed onto his shirt, the tears falling from her eyes immediately.
Warrick wrapped his arms around her, looking at the officer who was about to walk out of the room. "You ain't done here!" he snapped, making the officer stop immediately. "What the hell are you doing to find her? Why wasn't we informed earlier?" he asked, still having a hold on Catherine even after she pulled away slightly to look at the officer.
"Take me there. Right now," she said, whipping the tears from her eyes. She needed to find Lindsay. "Hey, Warrick, can you um, tell the rest of the team?" she asked as she basically ran out of the room with the officer.
Warrick followed her. "Yeah, no problem. I'll be there in ten minutes," he said, then they went their separate directions. He found Nick and Sara in the lab. He ran in, and they instantly stopped what they were doing to listen to what they had to say. After he told them, they offered to tell Grissom. So his next destination was Catherine's house.
Getting into his car, he skidded out into the street, a car honking at him after he cut them off. He couldn't believe this. Things couldn't get any worse. Getting his cell phone, he dialed Brass's number. "Brass," he said after running a red light. "Catherine's mother was murdered, Lindsay's been kidnapped. The prime suspect is Gloria, Mr. Beam's ex-wife."
He was in Catherine's drive way in a matter of minutes, and got out of the car and walked inside, leaving his door open. Catherine was inside, sitting on the couch, her fingers entwined in her hair. Tears flew freely down her face, and every now and then she'd emit a sob.
"She's gone. Lindsay is gone, my mother is dead, who would do this to me?" she said, her voice quickly working up into a shout. She stood up. "They took my baby!"
Warrick felt his heart be torn apart as he watched her, so he just let her cry on him, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. He put his head down next to hers. "It'll be okay," he said softly. "We'll find her. We'll get Lindsay back." Catherine cried even harder, and Warrick noticed that more officers had shown up and were scanning the area, looking for clues.
"Catherine," Brass walked into the house, walking to Catherine with the deepest look of sympathy on his face. "Is there anywhere that you can stay while we process the scene?" he asked. He seemed to regret asking these questions, but he had to treat Catherine like everyone else.
Catherine shook her head. "My mother was the only one," she said, emitting a sob and bringing a hand to her mouth. The side of her head was pressed against Warrick's chest, but neither of them seemed to be paying attention.
"She can stay with me," Warrick said suddenly, not quite sure where that had come from. He supposed it could work, since his wife was now out of the house. This was when he realized that Catherine was still close to him, but he made no attempt to pull away. From the way that she still clamped so tightly onto his shirt, he knew that he was her support.
"No, no Warrick. I can't, I can't trouble you like that," she said, shaking her head and stepping away from him, a little wobbly on her feet. She looked around the house, sniffling. "Do we have anything, yet? I want every room searched, all the neighbor's interrogated, I want to know what everyone was doing the second the bitch took my daughter and killed my mother," she said, walking away to ask an officer some questions.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Warrick?" Brass asked, glancing at him. "I'm sure she has friends she can stay with."
"No. She needs somebody that will-" he broke off. Do anything for her. "Be able to fill her in on a regular basis about what's going on," he finished after a moment of thinking.
Brass nodded, then walked away to give instructions to an officer.
"Warrick."
Nick and Sara walked in, followed by Grissom. They all had their kits in hand, and Grissom and Sara went to work immediately. Nick walked up to Warrick, and they watched Catherine bark orders at an officer. "I'm sorry that we couldn't get here earlier man," Nick said. "Sara and I had to do some work on our case, and Gris was working on his too. We told Hodges to take his time on getting the results to the samples we sent him," he said, setting down his kit. He nodded towards Catherine. "How's she holding up?"
Warrick followed his gaze, sighing heavily. "The best she can do, I mean her mother was murdered right after Sam, and then Lindsay was kidnapped for the second time in three months," he said, shaking his head in disgust. "She's just been through so much, and I don't know how much longer she can hold up." It seemed the moment he was done talking Catherine broke into another fit of sobs. Warrick hurried to comfort her again, whispering words of comfort to her and holding her tightly.