Chapter XXIII

Breakfast and Flashbacks

Despite Vegas being her city, Sara let Alex pick the venue. She was content to relax in the plush leather seat, drink champagne and marvel at the smooth ride that the limousine provided. It was positively lavish, but at one time she had been used to this kind of treatment. It came with the territory of dating an A List Celebrity, and at one time, Sara had been an expert at that. Lately, the last seven years or so, her dating game had been slightly disappointing in comparison. They pulled to a stop in front of thel Paris. Sara controlled her chuckle, it was another blatant allusion to their life together. While San Francisco had always been home, Paris had always seemed to hold a special magic for them. They had vacationed there every year. It had been, of course, a working vacation for the fashion model, two weeks had been centered around the all important Fashion Week. Sara always timed her arrival so she could see the grand finale, then have Alex all to herself for the two weeks of their joint vacation. They had seen the Louvre, the Arc de Triumph, Alex had dragged her to the club scene, then indulged her by accompanying her on tours of the Paris Interpol Forensics Centre and the City's lab facility. It had been under the stars lights of the Eiffel Tower that Alex had told Sara she loved her for the first time, and it had been in this same city that Sara had told Alex of her mother's bloody legacy.

She smirked as the concierge lead them to what was referred to as "The most beautiful dining room in Las Vegas." The Paris's Les Artistes Steakhouse wasn't usually open for breakfast, but the name Alexandra Dupree had opened plenty of doors for them in the past. Sara wasn't especially surprised about this one. "What, was the Eiffel Tower Restaurant was taken?" Alex chuckled, "Yes, actually, some wedding bullshit. The concierge looked slightly scandalized, most people didn't expect a supermodel to act so normal or so crass. Sara only grinned, it was classic Alex. Flowers, a nod to their favorite city, Alex was even wearing her favorite perfume. It wasn't a particularly rare or expensive scent. It was a designer knock off that Alex had started wearing when she couldn't afford any better. Sara liked it better than any of the multitude of other perfumes that were within the model's reach. It was the smell of Alexandra Dupree, the woman.

When they were seated, Alex stretched languidly. "God, I haven't done this in years. It feels decadent and slightly alcoholic to be drinking at eight am. I am either becoming a Republican or getting old." Sara smiled, "Funny, I never knew you to turn down a drink no matter what time it was." Alex draped her arm over the back of her chair and in an almost lazy way signalled a server so they could order. "That's true, very true. I've partied on every civilized continent and several uncivilized countries. After a while, though, the glitter dulled and I realized that I was surrounded by kids half my age, and I couldn't call a damn one of them my friend. If I had known then what I know now," She chuckled almost bitterly, "Lets just say I would have done things very differently."

Sara shrugged, "Wouldn't we all?" The dining room was gorgeous. Sara made herself not gawk like a tourist. The butter yellow walls and the Impresionist paintings, the multiple balconies and mezzinas, the frescoed ceiling. The room was beautiful, Alex was beautiful and she was in danger of relxing. Luckily for her, they were interrupted before she could fully convince herself that they were really in Paris. Their server was a painfully thin red head who looked completely in awe of Alex. She was also completely American. The blonde offered her a smile, then turned to Sara, "You still take your omelette with four cheeses, mushrooms and hot sausage?"

For a moment Sara only sat, then she blinked, "Um, no. No, I'm a vegetarian now."

There was a moment of silence. It was, for Sara's part, uncomfortable, and for Alex, shocked silence. Then, with their server standing there, looking from one of them to the other, Alex laughed out loud. "Well shit! Right, okay, well it's a good thing I went with the orchids instead of the box of steaks I thought about sending you."

Sara tried, but couldn't stop the grin that spread across her face. That had been something that had attracted her in the first place. Even in the face of unspeakable gloom, gore, and complete seriousness, Alex had always been able to make her smile.

Alexandra Dupree, Sara thought as the server left with their orders, didn't fit into any given slot and would have been surprised, make that scandalized, if someone had tried. She was one of the top ladies of the highly competitive runway. Fashion designers adored her, the camera loved her and her contract had, in 2000, been worth close to five million and that was without bonuses. In her work, Alex was very much a perfectionist and something of a primadonna. She was also a workaholic and very in love with her job. That was something they'd had in common from the beginning. In her personal life, though, Alex remained the girl from Sioux Falls, North Dakota. She ate pizza off of paper napkins, cursed like a sailor and was a die hard Packers fan. She was a woman full of complex contradictions and surprising quirks.

There was the beautiful, untouchable woman who wore designer gowns that cost more than most people made in a year and graced the covers of glossy magazines. Behind the flashbulbs and drama of the industry was a woman who had periodic, borderline scary, Big Mac cravings and a bad habit for misplacing everything from her keys to her cellphone on a daily basis. There was the woman the press loved and the woman that Sara loved, had loved.

Public versus private. Alex had lived a double life and done well, very well. For a while, at least. Her career had skyrocketed almost overnight. The line between her public and private life had blurred almost into non-existence. With the fame that Alex had so craved had come more traveling, more stress and far more temptations. Temptations, like her own very strong one to slide back into the past, had been their undoing in the end. Sara smiled and thanked the server when her plate came and looked across the table at Alex.

Sara wasn't stone; she was still stirred by the other woman, even after seven years. Some things you never forgot. Your first bike, your first car, your first love. There could only be one first, and you never forgot it. Even if the end had been a disaster of Katrina-like proportions, everything hadn't been bad.

"Have you been hit since?"

Sara looked up, "What?"

Alex smiled, "What was it I threw at you the first time we met?" Sara laughed at the memory that floated up, "A can of hairspray, you threw a can of hairspray at me." Across the table, Alex's forget-me-not blue eyes sparkled, "And I hit you too, then was all but tackled by fifty cops." Sara took a sip of the new bottle of champenge they'd been brought. It was a good vintage, "Don't over-exagerate, there were only five unis."

San Fransisco

1996

She was bent over a microscope, puzzling over a fibre she'd tape lifted off of a dead man's tee shirt. She jumped when Riley burst into the room, knocking her nose against the eyepiece in the process. The man she scowled at only shrugged, "Sara, grab your case you're with me tonight."

She stood up, "Awesome."

Riley only rolled his eyes, "Don't feel special, Kid, you're the only monkey in this damn barrel that I can trust to behave tonight."

She cocked an eyebrow as she repacked the evidence. "Strip Bar?"

Riley shook his head, so while she resealed the bag, she tried again, "Bordello?"

Riley laughed, "If only. No, we've got a Priority One in downtown. Dead underwear model."

Sara blinked, "How is an underwear model rate priority one?" Riley waited until she'd stored the evidence then motioned her to follow.

"When a dead twenty year old dies in the middle of the Victoria's Secret fashion show of the year, it's a priority one. Press is already circling like vultures." Sara almost had to jog to keep up with her long-legged boss. "I need you to wear your badge, gun, take the fancy looking kit and try not to look like you're twelve, Kid."

She would have laughed at his joke, but was too busy absorbing the fact that she was going in on a two-man Priority One as a CSI I. It was practically unheard of, and man- oh- man were the boys going to be pissed. When Riley ducked into his office, presumably to retrieve his own kit, she indulged herself in a short victory dance.

The ride over was filled with Riley's gruff reminder of how to conduct herself with the press. Since she'd heard this speech enough times to recite it in the short time she'd been a CSI, she only passively listened. The majority of her concentration was on the early evening rush hour traffic she was weaving through.

Their crime scene, the show, was being held at 1192 Market Street, the Orpheum Theatre. Sara had never been there, it wasn't hard to find. An underwear show, for some reason that Sara couldn't quite fathom, had gotten the red carpet treatment. Traffic was backed up for blocks, there were bright search lights marking the spot and there was, of course, the red carpet entrance.

She looked around, craning her neck from left to right, trying to find the coroner's van in the mess of press and black and whites. "Please don't tell me we have to go through the front."

The other CSI sat in the passenger seat shrugged and continued to twist and turn his trademark Rubix Cube. " Crazies try to get at the girls so there's only two ways in and out. The front and the back. Bringing a body down the carpet isn't what the Chief wants, so we get to go in back."

She almost sighed in relief. A uniform waved them through and Sara got a look at the front. Press and the civilian observers Riley had dubbed Looky-Loos were pressed up against the velvet ropes that bordered the famous red carpet. She wondered, vaguely, which press had been here from the start and which were the sharks who had smelled blood. It didn't actually matter, they were all going to be a pain in the neck. She followed the uniform's hand signals around the theatre to an alley that already held the coroner's van and an unmarked Sedan. She put the department issued GMC Jimmy into park and got out. Riley, after stowing his puzzle in the glove box, followed her.

Inspectors Davis and Ashbourne from Homicide were already there. Sara offered each a nod as she went around and got her kit out of the SUV's hatch. Russell Davis was a cop's cop. He had worked his way up from Beat Cop to SWAT only to take a bullet for his partner four years later. The resulting damage to his thigh -- a shredded muscle and broken femur -- had left him behind a desk for a year. It had been during that year that he took his Inspector's exam and had done so well on it he'd been placed in Robbery-Homicide. That had been five years ago, now he was being considered for Lieutenant in Homicide. He was tall, dark, dangerous and made all the Lab Ladies swoon. He was also married to his wife of twelve years with three girls and one more on the way. His partner was light, blonde hair and blue eyes, to his dark, a graceful 5'7" and no more than one hundred and fifteen pounds to his gargantuan 6'4" and two hundred pounds. Lucy Ashbourne was a by the book, computer savvy naturally curious woman who was shoulder deep in testosterone and made it look easy. She was also an ex-wife to an orthodontist and full time mother to two small boys. Davis and Ashbourne had been partners for two years and they worked together surprisingly well. Who knew how many times they had covered for each other. Between one ex and one current spouse and five and a half children, Sara was sometimes surprised they had energy left for the perps.

She lugged her kit and stood with them. Davis grinned at her and held out a hand, not to help her, but to collect. His Raiders had beaten her Niners, she should have known better than to bet on sentiment. Lucy, who was standing beside her, told her so as she took her half of the twenty dollar bet from her partner. With her wallet lighter, she switched her kit back to her other hand.

"All right, Luce, tell us what we have in there."

The blonde woman pushed her bangs out of her face, "About twenty-five hundred scared civilians, fifty and some change models and support people, and around thirty more stage crew in back and one very dead model who fell from the ceiling right onto the runway during the first fifteen minutes of the show."

Beside her, Riley grunted. "Runway the primary?"

Russell Davis shook his head, "I went up there myself, it was stashed up there in the catwalks and whatnot and fell. Probably when the lights started working for the show. The primary is one of the dressing rooms, hers. Signs of a major struggle in there."

Riley was technically in charge of the scene as Head CSI, and the Inspectors respected that, so he called the shots. "Who's the top of the totem here on your end?"

Davis ran his hand over his close cropped dark brown hair, "Caps here, but he's off with the movers and shakers."

Riley nodded, "Okay, I'll take the body and runway, Russ, I'll want you talking to anyone who had access to the catwalk before and during the show. Sara, take the dressing room, and Lucy, you get to talk to the models." Before any of them could even take a step towards the door, Riley held up a finger. "Talk to the press and I'll dump you in the Bay."

Sara, camera around her neck, moved through the backstage area, taking photos as she went. The stage was only the finished product, the backstage was the real show. There were women in robes, women in just the skimpy thongs and bras they were supposed to modeling. Some were crying, others were fighting, some were quiet. There were signs of backstage chaos. Lip gloss on the floor here, a clothes rack positioned for quick wardrobe changes, tape and chalk lines on the floor. There were folders and hastily stapled together chunks of paper lying around everywhere. Everyone seemed to have a walkie-talkie and no one was paying any heed to them. Because it was warmer than she expected, Sara took off her dark navy blue windbreaker and tied it around her waist. It was a maze of rooms, curtained off areas and open stations. Uniformed officers, mostly female, were trying to take statements and were, for the most part, failing miserably. Sara moved through the crowd, trying to eventually get to the room she was interested in. She could hear Lucy, somewhere on her left, arguing with someone.

Sara worked towards the cordoned off primary scene, juggling her camera and her kit, when one of the many doors flew open. She didn't know it then, but she was about to get her first dose of an Alexandra Dupree tantrum, and unfortunately, she'd walked directly into the line of fire.

The first person to exit the room was a bald man who could only be described as quite possibly the gayest man she'd ever seen. Since this was San Francisco, that was saying something. The next thing to come out of the room was a round hairbrush.

"Forget you, Manny! Anastia is dead and I am fucking tired of this bullshit!"

The woman who followed, and presumably threw, the hairbrush was clad only in white silk high cut panties and a bra that clung to her breasts like a second, supportive, skin. The white stood out against her golden skin and the honey gold curls, but her eyes were what caught Sara's attention. They were blazing with anger.

"I am tired of the fucking press and the fucking stupid cops asking me questions. The press just needs to give us space and the cops need to start solving the case and stop harassing us! The next person who says one thing to me is going to-" She ended the sentence in a growl. Her hand darted back into the room and came back out with one of the biggest cans of hairspray Sara had ever seen. Sara would have preferred to wait out the primadonna's show, but the blonde model saw her first.

"WHAT THE HELL IS PRESS DOING BACK HERE NOW?! FUCKING VULTURES!" Between her kit and her camera, which she jerked to the side, Sara wasn't able to catch the can being hurled at her, and was too shocked at the outburst to move. The aluminum aeresol can hit her dead square in the chest, fell to hit the toe of her boot then rolled across the floor. Sara looked from the can to the thrower.

"I'm Sara Sidle with the SFPD Forensics Department, I just need to know which one is Miss Kovak's dressing room so I can start solving the case."

Author's Note: Oh boy, it's a flashback! On a somewhat seriouser note, the dates and timeline used in this series is based on a few facts. Sara was born on September 17, 1971. She graduated highschool when she was 16 and arrived in Las Vegas in the second episode of the first season, which would be in 2000. I'm sure I've made a few errors, but I'm going to claim writer's privlage and leave it at that.