Chapter 3

Ten minutes later Sara was walking down the hall toward Grissom. She was close to tears again and waited for him to start talking. He had a paper evidence bag in his hands along with what she assumed was Nick's camera in a bag.

"Process these," he said, putting the two bags in her hands then turing to go.

"Wait, whoa whoa whoa," she said running around to block his path. "You're not going to tell me anything?" she asked with an edge to her voice.

"You already know everything I do. I need you to process these. Then I can tell you something." He said abruptly and walked around her. "I'll see you in half an hour!" he shouted over his shoulder. Sara looked at him with her mouth open a little. She looked at the empty layout room next to her with a tight mouth and huffed a breath. "Fine then," she said to the closed door and went in to do her job.

She was sitting in the layout room, processing the evidence Grissom had given her. She went through the motions of working, not really noticing what she was doing. She paused for a moment, thinking about how happy she had been just hours before. Seemed like a lifetime. Then she thought of their kiss. How good it had felt. She so badly wanted to do it again. "I have to stop thinking about it," she thought. She noticed she was crying and tried to wipe the tears away before anyone noticed.

She was just about the open the bag with the Styrofoam cup in it when Grissom walked in.

"Tell me something," he said, the urgency and frustration evident in his voice.

"I swabbed the seal for epithelials but there were no prints on the outside of the bag." She said, trying to sound as clam as possible.

He let out a sigh and said, "What about Nick's camera?"

"There were no fingerprints. Pictures were mostly generals with a few close ups of trash and entrails, but no lucky grabs of anyone else at the scene." She looked at him expecting him to tell her something in return. But all she got was

"I don't think we're going to get lucky with this guy, he knows how to work clean."

"ok," she said to his back, the lump coming back into her throat.

A couple minutes later Greg poked his head into the layout room. "Meeting," was all he said and Sara quickly grabbed her stuff to follow Greg into the meeting room.

She got a cup of coffee and sat down next to Grissom just as Warrick and Catherine came into the room. Warrick was telling them about cars and trucks on camera. Sara realized that this was much worse then she anticipated. "So nick could be anywhere from Green Valley to Seven Hills to Arizona."

"Assuming he was in that truck," said Greg, just worsening the situation. She looked at him wishing he was wrong.

"….vest, were traces of Ether." Catherine was saying.

"Ether, that's old school," Sara said.

" People work with what they know." Grissom said.

Next, Greg told them they had no new leads on who could have done it. That made sense to Sara. "Who could hurt such a nice guy," a question she had been asking herself. She voiced that opinion, "Maybe it was a random act."

"That's possible," Catherine replied, "no one could have known Nick was going to respond."

"Yeah, it's just bad luck he did," Warrick said with a hint of regret in his voice. Sara looked at him and wondered what had happened. She made a mental note to ask him later.

Her name brought her back, "What about the coffee cup?"

"There was No DNA on the cup and I found no prints on the cup or the inside of the bag." She could see Grissom thinking this over when she heard yelling in the background. She tried to figure out where it was coming from, and noticed Grissom and Warrick were already heading out the door. She got up quickly and followed them to the main doors.

At first she just thought "Hodges being Hodges again," When she saw him attacking a guy, but Grissom tried to figure out more. "What are you doing Hodges?" he asked obviously annoyed. He started Blabbering on about how the guy had a package, and Hodges didn't want to ruin it, "blah, blah, blah," Sara thought, but Nick's name caught her attention. She tried to remember what was said. Then her brain clicked 'about Nick'!

Her mind was racing as she looked at the package sitting on the counter. Sure enough it was addressed to the lab with 'RE: Stokes' written on the bottom. She wanted to snatch the package and rip it open but Grissom got there first. "I think I'm going to do this," He said. He picked it up and walked away.

Sara walked over to the counter and leaned, two handed, against it trying to let out the breath she had no idea she was holding. Greg looked at her and put his hand on her arm. She turned and leaned backwards on the counter.

"You ok?" he asked?

"Yeah," she said. She could tell Greg didn't believe her.

She looked up and saw Grissom working with the ALS. She was so anxious to see what this sick bastered had sent them about Nick that she could barley look at how calm Grissom was.

Finally he opened it and she could see him empty it's contents onto the counter. She couldn't tell what it was, and then she really wanted to, but later she would be wishing she hadn't.

Nick woke up but didn't open his eyes. He had a huge headache and couldn't remember where he had gotten it. Then he remembered being in a car. And being really scared. He tried to get up quickly on realizing that he could be in danger, only to hit his head on something hard. He touched it hoping it wouldn't bruise. He spat because he could still taste that bitter taste in his mouth. That's when he noticed that he wasn't in bed. He was lying on something hard, and there was a freakish green glow around him.

He reached around him and picked up a glow stick. He used it to look around him, still curious as to where he was. He saw dirt around him and wondered "Where the heck am I?"

He felt around him to see what else could tell him where he was. He reached to the same side he found the glow stick and touched cold metal. He picked up his gun and wondered what it was doing here. After checking the rounds he went back to trying to figure out what was going on. He picked up the glow stick again and tapped the glass, realizing it was plexi glass.

"odd," He thought.

Realizing he might be in trouble, he looked around him again, this time on the other side of his body, retrieving a tape recorder. A little reluctant, he presses play.

"hi CSI guy," said a creepy voice, "Wondering why you're here? Because you followed the evidence…because that's what CSIs do. So breathe quick, breath slow, put your gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. Whatever way you want, your gonna die here.

Nick opened his mouth in horror. "Who was this? What did I do?" He asked frantically. He dropped the tape and tried to roll over in the box. It was too tight so he rolled back over and tried to bench press the ceiling up. "Come on!" he thought, trying desperately to move the solid wall of dirt.

Giving that up he realized he was stuck here…but maybe someone was within earshot, she he screamed. He screamed until his voice went hoarse.