Author's Note: This chapter is not beta-read, so there are probably plenty of errors. I'm going to blame *spins wheel* global warming and be done with it. A couple of comments before the chapter:

schdiw - Where is Grissom? My first answer was with his bugs. My second, more serious, answer is that we will see him later.

Gringo - I have had more alcohol related comments on this story then on any other. As for the tecuila, it was all Alex's idea.

Now on to the interogation.

Chapter L

Questions

The chaos of what was going on around her, around the case, fell away when she stepped into the interrogation room. There was only her and Kera Heine, cop and murderer.

"I heard you were asking for me, Kera. Have something you'd want to talk about?" She slid a yellow legal pad and a dull pencil across the table. "Something you'd like to confess, maybe?"

Sofia sat across from the suspected serial killer and rested her chin on her hand, completely non-chalant, calm and cool as a cucumber. She had caught a little bit of sleep, not enough to be fully recharged, but enough to function. She had taken a shower, changed her clothes and Sofia felt almost human. That was more then she could say for the woman sitting across from her.

"I still don't know why I'm here. I mean you chased me and arrested me over a couple of unpaid parking tickets or jaywalking or what? The march last month did someone tell you I faked the permit?"

Sofia didn't break eye contact and didn't crack a smile, "I don't jog for anything less then armed robbery, that tell you anything?"

Kera sighed and clanked the handcuffs around her wrists, "There must be allot of armed robberies in Vegas."

"Cute, that's cute." Sofia shook her head, the girl thought she was clever. Why Jim had decided that she should interrogate Heine was beyond her. They didn't need a confession; the evidence was overwhelmingly against her. If Kera knew that she wouldn't look so relaxed and the smirk on her face would be long gone. She was either stupid or deluded, either way she was guilty. If she could get a confession, which Sofia doubted, it would let the case die a quick and quiet death. There would be no long, drawn out, dramatic trial, just a lifetime in prison, a women's prison.

"So you're trying to tell me you don't know anything about the murders I'm investigating."

Kera shrugged as much as a handcuffed person could, "I only know what I've seen on the news."

Sofia tapped the folder she'd brought with her on the table. "Then why did you run?"

It was a simple question, one she was sure that Kera had concocted an answer for.

Sam had told her that one of the CSIs had taken DNA samples. Wendy was going to text her as soon as the tests gave them something to go on. Wendy knew the gravity of the situation, and Sofia knew she could rely on the brunette tech. Stepping out of the lab and seeing the gore had made the lab rat all the more determined to help close the case. Even if the DNA would take all day and part of the night, if they were lucky, a basic type comparison would be much faster.

Sofia doubted they would need the DNA, though. Nick had secured a warrant and he had gone to the woman's apartment. She'd only seen some of the goodies that had come from that.

Kera twitched her shimmery pink lips, "I don't know about you, Sweetie, but when someone with a gun chases me, I run."

Sofia leafed through the folders content aimlessly, "You couldn't see my gun, try again, Sweetie."

Kera's half smile twisted into a scowl, "I know you had one, though, I'm not stupid."

She was getting defensive over practically nothing. Every interrogation was different and while some suspects would be bowled over by the full court press right about now, Sofia knew that Kera needed some more softening up.

"I didn't say you were stupid, it just seems a little presumptuous. I could have been there to check out a book. It is a library after all. It wasn't like I kicked the door in and had SWAT swarm in, guns out." She pushed her damp ponytail over her shoulder and laid the folder on the table, folded her hands on top of it. "No, I don't think you ran because you're stupid. You ran because you're guilty."

Kera tilted her head to the side, almost ninety degrees, "This is nuts. I'm here because I ran away? Maybe I have a crap-load of unpaid parking tickets or I fudged on my financial aid forms, it doesn't mean I killed somebody."

Sofia held up three fingers, "Three. You're here because you killed three men." She opened the folder and laid out the Polaroid pictures in a neat row, chronologically from left to right. The morgue photos of the victims were facing their killer, it was disturbingly ironic. Dedrick Marsh, Preston Abernathy and on the far right was the fresh from the slab picture of Adam Roggen. She tapped her finger against the dead boy's image. "Adam was only in high school, you know. He was just a kid; he wasn't even old enough to cut himself shaving yet."

Kera didn't even blink. "I've never seen him before." Her voice was cold, like ice, and it raised goose bumps on Sofia's arms under her jacket sleeves. She was getting cocky; it was time for the gloves to come off.

"Really? So how do you explain your fingerprints on the bloody baseball bat that he was beaten to death with?"

This was the moment. There was always a moment where a murderer realized that he, or in this case she, was caught. The tone of the rest of the interrogation, and the entire case, would be decided by whatever Kera Hiene said next.

"What? I don't understand."

Sofia wasn't particularly surprised, she had seen plenty of killers play dumb.

"Your fingerprints were all over the murder weapon. We also matched them to prints found at our other two scenes. Fingerprints, hair samples, blood: you name it, we have it and it's all going to come back to you."

Kera tilted her head to the side, "How many rape cases have you worked, Detective Curtis?"

It was a complete and utter change of subject, but it wasn't completely unexpected.

"Plenty." It was going to be tough, but Sofia was an expert at these sorts of games.

"Do you solve the national average of twenty percent or do you even try?"

Sofia leaned back in her chair, smirk on her face, "I think a better question, Miss Hiene, is something more in the area of why did you kill three men. Do you have a statistic for that?"

"She's good," Federal Marshall Mary Shannon watched the interrogation with narrowed eyes.

"I've seen better." Federal Prosecutor Abbie Carmichael didn't seem especially impressed.

Soon-to-be-fired Clark County CSI Sara Sidle didn't particularly care what they thought.

"You always say that. Like lawyers are so much better at interrogating peps then Agents and LEOs."

Carmichael didn't even look away from the interrogation playing out in front of them, "I've worked with my fair share of LEOs and I've seen several miracles cases in situations just like this."

"Between Detective Curtis and Capitan Brass we will wrap this case up."

Undersheriff McKeen was unabashedly confident.

Sara just wanted it all to be over.

Abbie Carmichael, who bore a disturbing resemblance to an old friend, leaned closer to her. "She is very good, you know." Sara only shrugged, but that didn't stop the lawyer. "Which makes me wonder why she had Nicky Stokes call me up at a God-awful hour to take over this case." Carmichael's voice was barely a whisper but it impacted Sara's brain like a sledge hammer. No one else seemed to notice.

"She's a good cop," Sara's voice was just as quiet but that was from a suddenly tight throat, not attempts at subterfuge.

She looked across the observation room where the window that looked into the other interrogation room. Brass and Alex were situated in the other room and Sara smiled a little bit, "She learned from the best."

Jim Brass ran his hand over his forehead to fend off the headache that was brewing behind his eyes. He didn't bother to watch Dupree pace the room. He had dealt with his share of pissed women and had learned enough to know when to let one pace. A man didn't go through a marriage, successful or not, without picking up a few tricks. He wasn't sure about lesbians, but strait women wanted a reaction. Back when things had been at their worst he had been able to accurately countdown his ex-wife's reactions.

"You brought me all the way down here, aren't you going to ask me any fucking questions?! Make with the interrogation already!" Dupree jerked the chair back and sat in it for the first time since he'd come in, "Say something!"

That hadn't taken all that long, of course the woman had been stewing for several hours.

He leaned his cheek against his fingertips and propped his elbow on the table to support his head's weight, "Well now that we're all sitting down like civilized people-" Jim pushed a blank yellow legal pad and a pen across the table, "What I need you to do is write down everything you know about this little cult you're in. Take Action Now, right?"

Dupree slapped her hands on the table and the uniform at the door moved like greased lightning to intercept her. Jim flicked the fingers of his free hand to warn him off. He knew that Kera Hiene, and not Alexandra Dupree, was the murderer. Dupree didn't need to know that, though.

"It's not a cult. I am not in a damn cult."

Jim quirked his lips, "You could have fooled me, lady. I've seen cults and I say this meets all the standards, including making me sick." He spit the last word out like a rotten piece of meat and meant it. "It might be the fact that you're telling little girls that all men are evil rapists. Now I'm all for free speech and self protection, but hacking off men's penises? That's just wrong."

"I have never-what the fuc-I told you people I have never seen or heard of any of this bullshit before! Whoever did that is fucking sick."

"If your followers are sick, then you must be the disease."

Dupree's eyes went shades past sapphire, they were an unfathomable hue of blue. Red raced up her neck and cheeks and her golden brows lowered menacingly. "I help those girls."

"Help them become brainwashed freaks, you mean."

"TAN is not a cult, God damn it! We don't have a compound, we're not preaching the end of the world, we're not forcing cyanide down their throats-"

Her words died suddenly, without even a whimper and her eyes darted to the glass. She could only see herself, but they both knew what was going on behind the reflective surface.

"Sahara."

Compared to her enraged screams of just moments before, her quiet words were barely audile.

"Hey hey hey hey!" He stood up, "You're talking to me. You look at me. Now you've got one shot here. If you want to help Sara you'll tell me everything now."