A/N: Takes place directly after "Grave Danger."
Summary: My thoughts on how Grissom and Sara might have started their relationship...
Disclaimer: CSI belongs to CBS and no one else... I'm just renting the characters :-)
Note: This is my first fanfic EVAR! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated...
The sky is growing light by the time Brass and Devon Wright pile into his Denali. Wright is still handcuffed and Detective Vartann keeps a steady eye on him from the back seat. Next to Vartann is Warrick Brown, anxiously holding his crime scene case in his lap. Everyone is extremely tense as Wright babbles on about his adventures before leaving the greater Las Vegas area.
"Yeah, so, when I met this guy… I thought he would be cool, you know? Like me… But he was a total freak—I think he was a meth head or something. He invited me inside the house and then attacked me. The guy was so paranoid, he thought I was a cop, even though he knew my voice. Once he calmed down, he gave me ten thousand cash and told me to leave everything, even my car. Man, I loved that Escalade…"
Finally, Brass interrupts him to get some useful information. "Devon, how do we know the guy you met is the guy who hired you?"
"I talked to him a few times over Skype. I recognized his voice. This is definitely the guy."
Sofia's voice buzzes over the intercom. "Brass, I'm going to try to look up this guy's alias—I assume he didn't give you his real name, Mr. Wright. Maybe I can find some intel on him."
"Sure," Devon agrees, almost enthusiastically. He's gone from arrogant holdout to helpful snitch in record time, Brass thinks. Self-preservation always wins out. "The guy called himself Edina," Devon finishes.
Sofia's laughter echoes through the car. "What's so funny?" Brass says, getting irritated. Nothing's more annoying than being on the outside of an inside joke.
"Oh come on," Sofia chides. "Edina? That's funny."
"Why?" Devon asks.
"If he's Edina, that makes you Patsy." She erupts into laughter again and the four men in the car shrug helplessly.
Luckily, Warrick's phone beeps. It's Greg back at the lab. "Brown here," Warrick intones.
"Hey, Warrick. I've been looking into Devon's file and he's right—all of the evidence against him: files, his computer, stuff like that—all gone from the evidence locker. Just vanished."
Warrick's face falls. "Dust everything for prints, Greg—filing cabinets, doorknobs, folders, everything. We need to find out who stole those files."
There's a pause as Warrick imagines that Greg is contemplating the huge amount of work in front of him. Considering all of the people who've gone in and out of there in the last month or so, just taking fingerprints will take hours. But they don't have hours. They need to know the identity of the guy who set those bombs.
Warrick thinks about Grissom and Sara trapped and alone in the building. His throat clenches as he involuntarily remembers Nicky in the plastic box under the earth. At least they got to see him though. From what Catherine told him a few minutes ago, Grissom and Sara might already be drowned in there. He balls his hand in his lap into a tight fist, trying to make himself concentrate on his part in rescuing them. Greg's voice pulls him out of the fog. "Warrick? You still there?"
"I'm here," Warrick says weakly, his voice nearly cracking. "One thing, Greg, who was the last person to access the evidence in the DeSoto case?"
"That would be B. DeSoto. Makes sense, I guess."
Devon chooses this moment to pipe up. "There! That house there. That's where I met the guy… Edina."
"Is this some kind of joke?" Vartann demands angrily.
"No joke. That's his house… I'm sure of it."
"You have got to be shitting me," Brass mutters.
"What is it?" Warrick asks.
"That's the DeSoto house. Brad and Christine used to live there."
"You have got to be shitting me!" Catherine exclaims into her cell phone. "I can't believe it."
"It's true," Greg replies. "DeSoto was the mastermind."
"But why?" Catherine asks, completely thunderstruck.
"I can't say all of it for sure, but there are a few things I managed to uncover. Doc Robbins says Christine's body was in the water for at least three weeks. That means that she was killed immediately and not kidnapped and held hostage, as we originally thought. Devon Wright was most likely still in jail at the time of her murder. He hadn't made bail yet."
"So Brad DeSoto made bail for him… just so he could be the fall guy," Catherine surmises.
"Something like that. Anyway, it seems DeSoto really was the one behind all of the ATM data-mining scams. We checked into his records and he has a few offshore accounts in the Caymans. Getting information about them will be nearly impossible, but what's a cop doing with tax-free bank accounts, I ask you?"
"An excellent question. So DeSoto really did make good on his promise to destroy the evidence against Wright?"
"It seems so. If the DA ever wanted to bring Wright to trial for the computer scams, he'd be up shit creek. There's nothing left, not even the notes he supposedly took on the case."
"Well, we can assume that Wright killed his wife in a fit of passion or something. Word around here is that their relationship was somewhat tempestuous. So, why not just let it go? We never would have found her body. All of the transceivers, the bombs, totally unnecessary if he just wanted to get away with it."
Greg cracks a smile at his own clever deduction skills. "You'd be right except for one thing. Devon said that his contact ordered the transceivers about a week ago. Well, almost two weeks ago, Brad DeSoto tried to call in his wife's life insurance policy. All cops have them, so it didn't set off any alarms that she had one worth more than $500,000. But there was a hitch…"
Catherine's eyes light up. "No body, no proof of death."
"No death certificate," Greg finishes. "If he wants that money, he has to prove she's dead. We have to find a body."
"So all of this… the bombs and anonymous call… was just to distract us while he collected on her life insurance policy?" Catherine is taken aback. Surely, no one could be so cold blooded. But, then again, this is a man who murdered his wife and dumped her body in the loneliest piece of real estate in Las Vegas. Thinking back over the cases of the last ten years, she's sure she's seen plenty of acts even more heartless.
Brad DeSoto has proven to be cleverer than anyone ever imagined. Not only did he front an entire computer fraud operation, he managed to get away with killing his wife. At least, until now. He's way too smart to just come in for questioning, she thinks. If we ask him to come in to answer some questions, he'll smell blood in the water and we'll never get him. But we need him.
She looks back at the ruined building that holds the bodies, either dead or alive, of her friends. And then she gets an idea. "Greg, tell David to call Brad DeSoto. Tell him that we found his wife's body and could he please identify it. Tell him we need him to identify the body before we can issue a death certificate. And once he's there, get Brass to hold him and interrogate the shit out of him, okay? He's the only one who knows how to shut those transceivers off."
"Awesome," Greg cackles, suitably impressed. Then his tone quickly sobers. "But what will we do if he doesn't cooperate? How can we… find… rescue… Grissom and Sara without his help?"
"I don't know, Greg," she whispers back. God help me, I don't know.
Sorry this keeps taking me so long... real life keeps intervening! Thanks again for all of your reviews and encouragement!