Thanks for all the reviews! Keep them coming! I'm glad that everyone is getting caught up in the story, but as a sidenote, finals are coming up. So I might be busy for a bit, but I'm going to write as much as I can! And there's always English class...

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The job of supervisor would be a lot easier if he didn't have to deal with people.

That was the conclusion that Gil Grissom came to as he returned to his office. It had been a tricky piece of business convincing the day team to take the old case, as they already had two homicides on their hands. And then on the way back to his office he had run into Ecklie, who had told him, as usual, to get his ass moving and close a couple of cases.

All in all, Grissom much preferred bugs.

He had taken his own advice to Sara and had gotten a couple hours of sleep before returning to the lab. Having heard no word from Al on the body yet, he decided to do a background check on the victim, whom he had IDed from the wallet he had picked up at the crime scene.

Mackenzie Richards, he discovered soon enough, was a 20 year-old sophomore from the University of Pittsburgh. According to her boyfriend, who had reported her missing two days ago, the two of them had been in Vegas on spring break. Grissom was about to do a background check on the boyfriend when the door to his office opened with a resolute click, and Greg Sanders marched in.

"Hey Griss," he greeted happily, "You missed a great game of paintballing last night."

"I can see that," Grissom agreed, raising an eyebrow at a smidget of blue on the tip of Greg's ear. "Tell me, Greg, when was the last time you showered."

"Just before I came, "Greg responded suspiciously. "Why, do I smell?"

"Not more than you usually do," Grissom replied. "Anyway, I'm glad you checked in. We've got a new case on our hands. Came in last night. I'm going to need the entire team on this one."

"Is that why the day shift tried to kill me when I walked in?" Greg asked.

"Possibly one of many reasons," Grissom responded humorlessly. "A girl was murdered and possibly raped in the back of her car. Sara and I couldn't find anything on the preliminary search but we've got the car in the lab. I need you to go in there and really have a good look. Prints on the inside of the car will be tricky with the blood, but we'll need anything you can get."

"Sounds like fun." Giving a cocky salute, Greg left the office.

Turning back to his computer, Grissom had just called up the boyfriend's record when his pager sounded. Seeing that it was the coroner, he quickly locked his computer and started for the morgue.

He ran into Nick on his way out. "Hey boss," the Texan greeted in his usual outgoing way. "Heard about the new case. Anything you need?"

"Yeah. I've got Greg in the car looking for prints and anything else. It's a tough job, so go in there and give him a hand. The boyfriend who reported our vic missing has a criminal record, but I didn't have a good look at it. If you see Catherine, tell her to check it out and contact Brass if we need to call him in." He started to leave, then stopped. "And if you see Sara, send her over to the morgue."

Nick nodded. "I'm on it."

As he continued over to the morgue, Grissom wondered if it had been a good idea to tell Nick to send Sara. She hadn't looked well last night at the crime scene, and Grissom had partly suspected that the lack of evidence she had collected from the car was related to the obvious discomfort she had around Mackenzie's body. Of course, he hadn't said anything and he knew her well enough to know that she would be upset if he hadn't called her in for the autopsy report. Having been in this situation more than once, he had found through trial and error that the best course of action was to keep quiet and treat her as he would any other CSI, and that's what he always did. He just wished that he didn't see through her guise.

"Guess how she died," Doctor Albert Robbins called when Grissom opened the door.

Grissom walked over to the table. "Massive loss of blood?"

Robbins nodded. "Bingo. From the slits in her wrists. Surely that wasn't obvious."

"Time of death?"

"I couldn't get an exact time. It was a while ago… I'd say three nights, looking at her wounds."

"What about the type of knife?"

The doctor held up one of the wrists. "Ah, here's where it gets interesting." He pointed to the cut. "I noticed a sticky substance on the edge of the cut. Guess what it is."

Grissom watched the coroner. "What?"

"Orange juice."

"Orange juice?" Grissom frowned. "So you're saying there was orange juice on the knife blade."

"No, that's what' you're saying. I'm just saying there was orange juice in the wound. Maybe the killer poured it into the wound for added agony. I don't know."

"After what I've seen some of these people do, that's not far off at all. Anything else?"

"Well, concerning rape, she certainly was." The coroner moved down her body. "The amount of bruising here is consistent of that on rape victims." He gestured to bruises all along the girl's naked body. "All this indicates a hard struggle. She wasn't easy to subdue."

Grissom nodded just as Sara entered. "Hey," he welcomed her as she approached the body. "Keep going," he told the doctor.

Robbins gave Sara nod before turning back to the girl. "I couldn't, however, get a sample of the semen."

"You can't get anything at all?" Sara cut in quickly. "Epithelials, even?"

"You can check if you want," Doc Robbins said. "But I'm guessing he used a condom."

"Our killer knew what he was doing," Grissom told Sara. "He wouldn't have left his DNA around like that. We're going to have to get it some other way he didn't consider."

Robbins cut in before Sara could speak. "Look at this." He handed Grissom a piece of paper, which Grissom moved so that Sara could see as well.

"She was pregnant?" Sara asked incredulously after a moment.

"The high levels of hormones in her blood tipped me off. I did a test, and she came back positive." Robbins gestured to the sheet. "She wasn't very far off, but of course it wouldn't be your killer's."

"Still a big piece of evidence," Grissom said. "We'll need the embryo's DNA." He nodded at Robbins. "Thanks for the info. I'll fill Sara in on the rest."

Sara usually bubbled with ideas after talking to the coroner, but she was uncharacteristically silent after Grissom told her everything she had missed. Seeing as she didn't want to talk, Grissom kept his thoughts to himself. The autopsy report was intriguing, but he decided to take one lead at a time and investigate the boyfriend first. Fortunately for him, Catherine was just stepping out of his office as he and Sara approached the room.

"Hey, there you are," Catherine said when she saw them. "I checked out the boyfriend, Sammy DuLilo. Turns out he had been charged with sexual harassment last year. He's still on a two-year probation. Brass has him waiting."

"Good." Grissom handed Catherine the autopsy report. "Here are the autopsy results. We're still waiting for DNA from the embryo." He headed off for the interrogation room, Sara behind him.

Dressed in a collared Polo shirt, Sammy DuLilo emanated smooth nonchalance as he watched the two CSIs sit down in front of him, next to Brass. His eyes lingered slightly on Sara, who returned the look with a hard, cold stare as she pulled the chair in from behind her.

"So," Brass started after a moment, "you wanna tell us about Mackenzie?'

Sammy shrugged. "I dunno. I'm the one who filed the missing persons report. I'm assuming you'd tell me."

Brass gave Grissom an annoyed look. "Look, Sammy, why don't you just cut the crap and tell us why Mackenzie was found dead with her wrists slit last night?"

Sammy stopped. "Dead?" he asked, the suaveness gone from his voice. "Mackenzie's dead?'

"Yah," Brass agreed. "Wanna talk now?'

"Look, if you're thinking I did it, I didn't!" Sammy had lost his cool attitude. "I didn't do anything!"

"I never said you did," Brass pointed out. "But now that you've reacted the way you did, I'm starting to wonder." He leaned in. "So you better start talking, kid."

Sammy opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Look," he said finally, "I didn't do it. Why would I call her in missing if I had killed her?"

Brass cocked his head. "To cover up your tracks? People'd get mighty suspicious if your girlfriend had been missing for two days and you did nothing about it."

Sammy shook his head. "That's all I can come up with. I didn't do it! You can't just accuse me like this!"

"We're not accusing anyone," Grissom assured him, jumping in before Brass could fire back. "We just want to find out who did this, and we were hoping you'd have some information." He gave Brass a look to silence him. The cop had done well to scare the kid into a more honest demeanor, but they weren't going to get anywhere the way they were going. "When was the last time you saw Mackenzie?"

"Three nights ago. We were at the Mirage when Mackenzie said she wanted to go back to the hotel. She said she wasn't feeling well. I was having a good night so I stayed behind. I haven't seen her since."

"Do you remember around what time she left?"

Sammy thought for a moment. "I don't remember exactly. It was a while before I got back. Around eight, I'd say."

"We found her in a parking lot of a convenience store," Grissom continued. "Any idea about that?"

Sammy shrugged. "I guess she wanted a snack or something. We didn't have much food in our room."

"So around what time did you get back?"

"Around midnight. She wasn't there, but I figured that she was at our friends' or something. I didn't check, but I talked with them in the morning and they said that they hadn't seen her all night. I tried calling her cell phone but no one picked up. That's when I called her in."

"You didn't check?" Brass raised his eyebrows. "Your girlfriend goes back to your hotel feeling sick and is gone when you arrive four hours later, and you didn't bother to check?"

Sammy glared at the detective. "I was tired, okay? I told you, I figured she was at our friends'."

"Sammy," Grissom cut in, "did you know that Mackenzie was pregnant?"

He knew that Sara was detailing Sammy's physical reactions, but it didn't take a professional to see Sammy's face fall. "Yeah," he said quietly.

"And you were charged with multiple accounts of harassment just a year ago and put on probation for two years," Brass pointed out. "Sounds like you got a little too close to her, accidentally got her pregnant, and she was angry. She was going to tell on you, and since you were on probation, you couldn't let her do that."

"No!" Sammy objected. "Look, that baby's not even mine. After the sexual harassment charges I realized that I had been dumb. I changed my ways. I hadn't even had sex with Mackenzie at all."

"So if it's not your baby, then whose is it?"

"Luke. Luke Nigers'. He's my best friend and Mackenzie wanted some action that I didn't want to give her, so she went to him one night while I was out." He stopped as he saw the reactions on his interrogators' faces. "No! It's not what you think! I didn't kill Mackenzie because she slept with Luke! We all talked it out, the three of us. She was going to get an abortion. We're cool. Luke even came with us to Vegas with his girlfriend."

Sara was making a note to no doubt check on Luke. "Maybe we take your DNA and fingerprints to rule you out as a suspect?" Grissom asked.

Sammy shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Why? I didn't do it."

"Yeah, well, we'll need your DNA and prints to confirm that," Grissom told him, swabbing the inside of Sammy's cheek. "That's all for now," he said, after getting the final print. "Thank you for the information, Sammy. We'll let you know if we need anything else, or if we have any leads." He paused. "And I'm very sorry for the loss of your girlfriend."

"Thanks," Sammy responded, looking away. Demeanor completely changed from what it was when he arrived, he left the interrogation room.

"I don't think it's him," Sara confessed as she and Grissom headed back to his office. "He seemed pretty upset."

"Me neither. The only motive he would possibly have would be his girlfriend getting pregnant with his best friend, in which case if he was mad enough to kill, he would kill the best friend, of all people."

Sara snickered. "You sound like the voice of experience there, Griss."

"I'm serious."

"But according to Sammy, Mackenzie was coming onto Luke. She was the one initiating the relationship."

"He went along with it. I really think that if he had wanted to kill someone, he would have chosen Luke. He wouldn't have killed Mackenzie without killing Luke first."

"Well, there's only one way to find out." Sara waved her notes. "I'm on Luke." With that, she headed off towards her computer.

Having reached his office, Grissom sat down and unlocked his computer. He would have to prepare a statement for Mackenzie's parents, as they no doubt would want to know everything. He wondered if they even knew that their daughter had been pregnant. And he was still concerned for Sara. She had regained some of her old sarcastic self after the interrogation, but he still wasn't entirely convinced that it had been a good decision putting her on the case. He knew how affected she was by cases such as this one, and he only needed a glance to know that she hadn't gotten more than an hour of sleep before she had returned to the lab.

For the second time that night, Grissom decided that life would be much easier if he didn't have to deal with people.