What the hell was I thinking—coming on to Sara like that? And she had to have noticed. My goodness, did you see how she reacted when I touched her and whispered in her ear? Shit, I probably just set our friendship back months. Of course, it's hard to set back what hasn't moved forward. So, what do I do now? Maybe I can just act like nothing happened. We're working this case together, so it's not like I can ignore her completely. But, I can act like my little indiscretion at the crime scene didn't happen. I'll just play it like it was no big deal. I have to make sure she sees me doing that to someone else—so she won't think it was just me coming on to her. Great…she already thinks I use my sexuality to get everything I want. Now I have to do use it to make her think I'm not hot for her—which, of course, I am. This is definitely going to be interesting.
Catherine pulled into the lab's parking lot and took notice of the fact that Sara's truck was already there. Of course it is. She said she was going back to the lab. Play it cool, Willows. She parked, grabbed her kit out of the truck and headed into the building. She saw the tow truck pulling the SUV from the crime scene into the vehicle processing area and knew that Sara would soon be busy processing it.
Catherine sauntered into the lab, walking past the receptionist and flashing her a quick smile. She headed straight to the evidence room to log-in her evidence. She noticed Sara standing in the lab with Wendy engaged in a conversation. They were laughing and obviously enjoying each other's company. Catherine checked in the evidence and walked back to the lab with one piece of evidence in her hand.
As she had earlier that evening with Sara, Catherine walked up to Wendy, place her one hand on her lower back, leaned down, and in a low voice, said, "Can you run this for me as soon as possible?" Without waiting for her answer, Catherine straightened herself, turned to Sara and said, "Your SUV is here. You can get busy processing it now. I've got something to take care of and then I'll check in on you and see how it's going." With that, she turned and left Sara and Wendy alone in the lab.
"See, I told you something is up with her," Sara said to Wendy. "She did the exact same thing to you that she did to me at the crime scene. "
"Well, if she did it to me to, what makes you think she meant anything by it when she did it to you?" Wendy asked Sara.
"Catherine is smart enough to know that she weirded me out when she pulled that on the scene tonight. She's probably just trying to throw me off—make me believe I'm imagining stuff."
"Yeah, Sidle. That's what she's doing. She's secretly in love with you but afraid of scaring you off. So now, she's going to hit on me to throw you off," Wendy responded with sarcasm dripping in her voice. "Did you ever consider that maybe she's just being nice? I mean, come on. Catherine uses her body to get whatever she wants. Perhaps she's just being herself. She's like that with the guys. I mean, you've seen the way she looks at Warrick. It's just Catherine being Catherine. Don't take this the wrong way, but what even makes you think that Catherine would be interested in you?"
"Why wouldn't she be interested in me? I'm smart. Hell, I graduated from Harvard. I'm not drop dead gorgeous, but I'm certainly not unattractive by any estimation. I work my ass off. I'm one of the top people in my field," Sara snapped.
"Yeah, and you're not exactly the most approachable person. Come on. Sara Sidle and people person aren't words you typically find in the same sentence. And you're kinda intimidating. On the plus side though, you also have this dark, mysterious thing going on. Some people find that sexy. But you're just so private. No one really knows anything about you," Wendy offered.
"Perhaps no one knows much about me after all these years because no one has ever tried to get to know me. From the moment I walked into this lab, people had these preconceived notions about me. And as for this "dark, mysterious" thing that you mention, I don't try to be mysterious. It's just that I'm a very private person. I don't want people knowing everything about me. The fact that we're even having this conversation is totally out of character for me. Grissom has known me longer than anyone else and knows the most about me. I'm not entirely comfortable with the entire lab knowing the facts of my life story."
Wendy never broke eye-contact with Sara as she simply stated, "All I'm saying is that it's very presumptuous of someone who does nothing other than work—of someone who is absent of emotion—of someone who acknowledges that she's not the friendliest person in the world—"
"Catherine could like me. She could," Sara said as she exited the lab.