We took those two low lifes in and got the kid covered. There was a slight lull in the case, so I went and found Sara to see what she was working on. Some wealthy, married woman was found dead in her home. They had tracked her to a club where she had been seeing some kind of male escort. "So, they don't sell sex?"

"No! They sell 'a relationship'."

"That's...weird."

"I know!" We were headed down the hall where Grissom's office was when we saw that Mike was in there. Sara pulled off into there, so I followed. "Hi. What are you doing?"

Mike had been intently observing one of the many models in the office. He straightened up when we walked in. "Just looking," he said.

"What do you think?"

"Meticulous, obsessive. Really knows his way around a modeling kit."

"Grissom...didn't make those."

"No? Hm. Fits the profile. Bugs in bottles, Darwin desk set."

"He's a bit of a collector of certain things."

"I knew a guy in Philly like that. Kept a case of thumbs in his closet."

"Friend of yours?"

"No. Serial killer."

Sara nodded thoughtfully. "Do you miss it?"

"What?"

"Philly."

Mike's expression changed in that moment. I didn't think Sara saw it, but I did. His amiable-ish look changed to a darker, more negative one. "No," he answered before leaving.

Sara watched him go, then cast a look around the room. I looked at Grissom's desk and scoffed. "The guy sure seems popular. That's a lot of mail!"

"Yeah," she said as she wandered around.

"I'm going to go scarf down some late lunch."

"Ok. See ya." I left her there, peering at a cucoon. There was something between her and Grissom, or else I wasn't a CSI level 2.

I was in the staff room, downing a sandwich, when Nick came in. "Hey, beach girl."

"Hey...casino boy," I muttered around the bite I had in my mouth.

He smiled and continued, "Greg found something that might be related to our case. He was doing some follow-up on tissue procurement companies in the area. Turns out there's only two in the state. One of them, Longevity Tissue Services, has the same logo that you found on the umbrella in Lapinsky's leg."

"Great!" I took a swig out of my water bottle and jumped up. "Let's check it out." I texted Mike to let him know about the find, then followed Nick out to his vehicle.

We arrived and immediately asked to see the owner. He came in and shook hands. "What can Longevity do for the LV police?"

I told him, "We need to know if your company recieved tissue or bone from a Roger Lapinsky."

"What's the problem?"

"There might not be one," I answered with a small smile.

"Alright. Well, I'd be happy to check." He sat down at a computer and typed in some things. Nick came up beside me and gave me one of those, 'are you suspicious yet, 'cuz I am' looks. I just smiled and looked away. I refocused when the computer beeped. "Yep! There he is," the owner said. "Roger Lapinsky, 37 years old, died of cardiac arrest. That's tragic," he muttered as he turned back to us.

Nick said, "We're going to need copies of his records and we're going to need to confiscate his parts."

"And if you don't tell me what's going on, you're going to need a warrant."

"This is a criminal investigation. Those parts are evidence now." The owner stared at us for a bit, then finally relented. He led us to a big storage room full of fridges full of body parts. While pulling out one of Lapinsky's bones, Nick said, "I was always under the impression that body parts were to be removed at the hospital."

"Major organs have to be removed at the hospital and transplanted into the new patients within 46 hours, but bone and tissue can be removed at any point and stored for up to 5 years."

"Who gives you access to those parts?" I asked.

"There is always signed consent from next of kin, and most funeral homes have a tissue recovery coordinator. They choose who the parts go to. Better the reputation, better the chance to get the parts. I help the dead help the living."

"According to your records, Roger Lapinsky's body parts came from Silver Hills mortuary."

"If that's what it says," he responded assuredly.

Nick and I gathered up the rest of the parts, then left. While in the car, I called Mike. "Hey, will you go check out Silver Hills Mortuary?...Yes, I know it's late!... That's the consequence of working night shift." I gave him all the needed info, then hung up.

Nick looked over and asked, "So, how are you and Keppler these days?"

"Fine. We're still in the early stages. Getting to know each other a little better with every conversation. You know."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Just wondering."

He sounded a little too innocent, but I let it go. After we dropped the parts off for day shift to analyze in our absence, we headed home. I was just about to climb into bed when Mike called. "Hello."

"Hey. We got a problem. Well, a corrupt body parts supplier anyway."

"What happened?"

"The records that his guy has at Silver Hills says Lapinsky died of cardiac arrest. Doc Robbins just called and informed me that Lapinsky died of leukemia."

"Oh god," I sighed. "I guess we'll work on that when we get back in. How long until you can go home?"

"I just have to hang around until some people come to relieve me. You in bed?"

"About to be."

"Oh, sorry."

"That's fine. I'll see you around 6?"

"Of course. Goodnight, Sierra."

"Night, Mike."

I fell asleep quickly. I managed to stay in a relatively deep sleep and when my alarm went off, I was ready to roll. I got ready and drove over to Mike's to make sure he was up. It was about 6pm. He was just walking out the front door of his apartment building. I parked and got out. He smiled one of those shy looking, closed-mouth smiles and met me by his car. "Sleep well?" he asked.

"Very. You?"

"Well enough once I finally got in bed."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to make you work overtime."

"That's ok." He tossed his stuff in the passenger seat, then walked back around to the driver's side. Now that his arms were free, he wrapped them around me and kissed me. "I forgive you," he said between kisses.

I laughed and pulled away. "Thanks. We need to go." I started back towards my car, but when I didn't hear him get in his, I turned and looked back. He was giving me this look that was somewhere between a puppy dog whine and his normal self. It got to me. I sighed and relented, "Ok, maybe one more." I ran over and basically jumped into his arms. After that, we got in our vehicles and drove to work. Nick texted both of us and asked us to meet him in the lab where we had hung all of our evidence in, so we could regroup. We did just that.

Mike said, "I got a copy of Lapinsky's death certificate from Carson City. This is the one we got from the mortician. See, they don't match up. He changed the cause of death."

Nick nodded and added, "It turns out that the owner of Longevity, Ty Malony, is a bit of a hustler as well. Those umbrellas were a promotional gift from a telemarketing company he ran a few years back."

"The guy's not even a doctor," I muttered.

"He did drop out of chiropractic school," Nick offered.

"Are you saying that any avergage Joe with a sign can open a tissue bank?"

"If you're FDA registered, yeah."

"How do you get FDA registered?"

"You just fill out a form."

I scoffed and looked to Mike. "Now you know why I don't like doctors!"

He smiled, and Nick continued, "In the last 3 years, 37 bone and tissue donations came from Silver Hill's mortuary to this Longevity clinic. 23 of those cases was cardiac arrest. And most of those people were in their 30s and 40s."

"That's a lot of young heart attacks," Mike mentioned. "We're going to have to look through all these CODs and match them up with the official death certificates."

"And do more exhumations."

Mike laughed and laid his head on his arm in defeat for a second. I smiled, but I said, "The only thing I'm wondering, is the mortician hustling the tissue bank guy or are they working together?"

Mike looked up from his arm and said, "I'll go through his stuff again."

"Call me when you get something."

"Will do."

Nick said, "I'll bring in Malony."

"Alright."

About an hour later, Mike called. "I'm bringing the guy in for questioning. You want to observe?"

"Sure."

"Room 3."

"Roger." I hung up and went to the observation room of interrogation room 3.

Mike led in the mortician and tossed a pictured down in front of him. "Dr. Stuart, Dr. Kline, Dr. Colmes, and Dr. Jones."

"That's not my handwriting," he argued.

"Well, that's the point of forgery, isn't it, Mr. Hines? Man dies of leukemia and his body comes into your mortuary, and you decide to sell his spare parts for a few extra bucks. Only problem is no one wants to buy diseased body parts, so you make a new death certificate, change the cause of death, sign off with a legit doctor's signature and cash your checks from Ty Malony."

Nick texted me and told me Malony was in room 4 and needed me to cover the interrogation because he was looking into something. I sighed and told him I would. I went in and sat down, then told Malony what we had discovered about this Hines guy. "I'm so disappointed with Mr. Hines. He always seemed so honest!"

"Have you ever followed up on any other patients that recieved parts from Silver Hills mortuary?"

"That's the hospital's job. As far as I know, none of the recipients have ever complained."

Nick walked in and said, "Maybe that's because they're not around anymore." He tossed a file on the table. "We followed up on several patients who recieved Silver Hills bone and tissue from your clinic, and now seven of them are dead. 3 from hepatitis, 3 from cancer, and one age related. The same thing that, ironically, killed the donors. One of the victims was a healthy, 15 year old, high school soccer player. You gave him a contaminated knee cap."

"Oh my god." He looked at us and noted our expressions. "You got nothing on me," he said defensively. "I don't care what that little body snatcher tells you."

"The families are going to sue you and your company to bankruptcy," I told him.

"They can try. That is what signed release forms are for."

Nick said, "You're reopening a nasty, old wound for them, now."

"Nope. I didn't do anything."

I cried, "Because of you, they are going to have to rebury their mother, their father, their son, their daughter!"

"Ty, let me tell you something," Nick started. "I'm going to come down to that clinic, and I'm going to go through it piece by piece by piece. And if something doesn't jive, I can assure you, sir, I will find it."

"Well, that is your job, isn't it?" Malony sneered.

"Yes, it is."

"And you'll have my full cooperation."

A buzz from the observation room interrupted us. I had a pretty good idea of who it was, so I said, "I'll take it." On my way out, I suddenly realized something. As childish as it was, the guys were fighting for my attention. "Stupid maleness," I mumbled to myself. Mike met me in the hallway. "What's up?"

"Hines is claiming that Malony told him to do it and what to do. We still got him for taking money and people dying because of it. You two get anything out of Malony?"

"Not really. Nick threatened to go through everything at the clinic and Malony offered full cooperation. Sure, he did it with a little bit of attitude, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

"I'm willing to bet you won't be able to get anything."

"Me? I ain't going down there. Nick ran his big Texas mouth, and all he said was that he was going down there. I'll happily let him have that job."

Mike was looking behind me, and just that moment, the door shut. I hadn't even heard it open. Nick was standing behind me with a small grin-like thing on his face. "As it happens," he told me, "I wasn't going to ask you to do it, or even help." Embarassed, I just kind of ducked my head and started off. He and Mike both chuckled amongst themselves. I rolled my eyes, smiled, and kept walking.