Chapter 2

Greg slowed as he came in sight of the road sign for Road 211 and turned onto the dirt road. He slowed at the first three mailboxes to make sure he'd turned the right direction, and then sped up. He rolled the windows down, letting in tepid, fragrant air. Greg slowed at each mailbox until his headlights showed him 14643.

He turned onto the road next to it and was forced to slow down as he drove across the ruts. The road crossed a cattle crossing and the ruts smoothed out. Greg almost picked up the speed until a black cow appeared out of the dark, forcing him to swerve off the road to avoid it. He slowed enough so he could dodge the occasional bovine obstacle. The road dove into a valley and made a sudden left hand turn. He slid a little on the turn, but it made him smile.

According to his tripometer, the road led him fifteen miles before his headlights flashed on signs of civilization.

Greg slowed as he crossed a cattle guard and he stopped in the open yard. Right away he sensed something was wrong. There were no police cars, no lights on anywhere except for the two yard lights. The horses in the corral took an interest in him. He took his foot off the brake, letting the Denali roll slowly forward until the house came into sight. His headlights swung across the front, stopping on the front door. Greg put it in park and stepped out. He heard something solid clanking against metal. Animals moved in the corrals behind him. Somewhere to his left he heard grunts that he hoped were pigs.

"Hello?" Greg called.

No one answered him.

He pulled his cell phone out of his jeans and tapped it. The screen lit up and he pushed the quick dial for Russell. He held it to his ear for a few moments before he realized it wasn't dialing. He looked at the face and sighed. The circle slash over the bars told him he had no signal. Frustrated he tossed it on the driver's seat and grabbed his radio.

Just as he keyed it he heard the click of a gun hammer, and a low, gravelly voice ordered, "Put that on the seat, boy."

Greg slowly put his radio on the seat.

"Gun too."

Greg obeyed.

"Back up and shut the door."

Greg slowly obeyed.

"I'm with the crime lab," Greg told the disembodied voice. "I was called to this address about human remains. People know where I am."

"Just a scared punk, aren't you?"

"No. I'm a CSI. If you'll let me reach in my truck, I can show you identification. And my vest is—"

"Walk to the house."

Greg didn't move. He closed his eyes instead. "Sir, I am with the Las Vegas police—"

"Move it, boy!"

Greg opened his eyes and started for the front door. The porch light came on. A woman stepped out onto the porch, followed by three large dogs: two German Sheppard and something that resembled a Great Dane. She was wearing a night coat over a full length floral nightgown. She crossed her arms over her ample breasts, glaring at Greg.

"Where is she?" the woman demanded.

"What?" Greg asked, stopping.

"Up on the porch, boy," the man ordered, pushing with his gun.

"You tell me where Theresa is. Tell me now," she commanded.

Greg climbed the steps and was confronted by the woman.

"I know she snuck out with you earlier tonight. You tell me now where my daughter is."

"Ma'am, I'm with the Las Vegas—"

"Tell us where Theresa is. Where'd she have you drop her off? You'll tell me where the party is, boy."

Greg realized he'd just stumbled into a big confusion.

"Look, folks, I don't know where Theresa, or your daughter, is. I'm not the fella she was with. I am from the Las Vegas police and I was told there was someone dead out here."

"Dead?" The woman's composure melted. "You killed her?"

"No. I—"

"He had a gun, Mary."

"Did you kill her?"

"No! I didn't kill anyone. If you would just let me get my identification or make a phone call, we could clear this whole thing up."

"You teenagers think you can just come here and run the place," the man began. "You think you know everything and can do anything you want. Uh-uh. This is my place, boy. You're gang doesn't mean shit our here, boy. You tell me where my daughter is right now!"

Greg took a long deep sigh and risked turning around to face him. The man he faced had just begun to turn grey. He was pale where his hat and glasses normally sat, but a dark brown tan everywhere else. His hands steadily held the double barrel shotgun aimed at Greg.

"Sir, I am not a teenager and haven't been for about seven years. I work with the crime lab in Las—"

The man thrust the barrel into Greg's face. "Where is my daughter?"

The three looked up when a car came around the barn and stopped next to Greg's Denali. There wasn't movement for several minutes and then the passenger door opened.

"Daddy! What the hell are you doing!" a young woman said as she came storming around the car.

"Theresa?"

"What are you doing?"

"He took you to that party after we told you that you couldn't go to."

She stopped, thrusting her hand back toward the car. "Justin, dad. My boyfriend Justin took me. Who the hell is this?"

The man looked at Greg, then his daughter. "This is Justin."

"Really? You think Justin would have come home without me? Just admit it! You hate him don't you?"

For a moment Greg thought the whole matter was settled, and then the father took a shot at the car and all hell broke loose.

Justin and six of his gang came out of the car shooting back. The woman disappeared inside and returned with pistols. Theresa fell to the ground. Greg hit the floor of the porch and rolled off into a cactus garden. With much pain, he crawled toward the end of the porch.

"Oh the hell you don't!" he heard and looked back, finding the man charging in his direction.

Greg took off running. The sound of the shootout faded as he ran through the dark into the scrub land around the farm.

He was still at a full tilt run when he found himself running on air, and then falling. He hit the ground so hard it sent his diaphragm into a spasm, knocking the wind out of him. Then his head hit and white sparks erupted behind his eyes. He felt immediately dizzy, but couldn't tell if it was from the hit on the head or because he was unable to grab for a breath of air.

The breath came in a sudden burst and he inhaled a deep, lung full of air. He started to sit up but only made it up on one elbow before the dizziness drove forward nausea and the sparks behind his eyes became a near blinding light. Somewhere in the swirl of light and unnatural feeling, he heard the shootout in the distance.

But then his consciousness slipped away, numbing all injuries out of existence.

#

Nick had never had such a hard time getting a carpet to cut. It was as if this one was trying to help conceal evidence. Nick leaned that were short break and then leaned in, making jabbing cuts along the outline.

"Nick."

Nick paused to look up. Another officer had been sent to stand guard outside the room while Nick worked. He was holding his radio speaker/mic to his ear, likely listening to dispatch.

He let the mic go. "Your supervisor is trying to reach you but your phone is off."

"Oh!" Nick had forgotten he'd turned off his phone. He stood and turned it on. When the phone finished booting, the icon at the top indicated he had 20 messages. Nick dialed Russell.

"You are at the Bellagio," was the first words out of Russell's mouth.

"Well, yeah. There's a—"

"I gave that call to Greg. Why are you there?"

"Greg and I traded."

"Without telling me?"

"It's okay, D.B. We just traded, but the calls are—"

"Why was your phone turned off?"

"I had my hands full, it kept ringing and distracting me from questioning a witness, so I had to turn it off. I just forgot. I'm sorry." Nick sat down on his legs. "Greg should have been to that scene by now, or called dispatch or you for directions."

"He hasn't done either and he was given the wrong address. The officer that called in the human remains said he realized he gave the wrong road number, but he can't recall if he gave 112 or 211, when it should have been 121. So for four hours I have been trying to find Greg!"

"Dispatch should have the address he gave. I'll give them a call and—"

"I already thought of that. The officer radioed it in so there is no recording, and the dispatcher who took it left for France when her shift ended three hours ago. We won't be able to reach her for another six hours, not that she can be any help from France!"

Nick stood up and grimaced. His legs tingled as blood flow returned to normal.

"And he isn't answering his phone?"

"No. Did you give him any of your other calls without telling me?"

"You only gave us each one."

"At this rate I wasn't sure you hadn't been handing others off to him." Nick had to bite his tongue from snapping a retort, and listened to Russell add, "Finish that crime scene and get back here. And hurry."

Nick looked at the screen to make sure Russell had hung up, before telling his boss, "Thanks for the faith there, buddy."

He turned to look out the balcony doors at Las Vegas, but the city offered no help to the situation. All it could tell him was daylight was on the eastern horizon and lighting the sky up with an array of pastel colors. So he went back to work on the stubborn carpet, pausing every so often to call Greg.

But all that got him was Greg's cheerful voicemail recording and a deeper sense of dread up.

#

Greg opened his eyes and for what felt like hours stared at the tree shading him from the hot, late afternoon Nevada sun. He didn't have to move to know he was sore everywhere, especially his head. He slowly sat up and carefully felt his head. He found a bloody patch on the back of his head but it didn't feel life threatening. Judging from the small spot on the rock behind him, he didn't feel he had much to worry about. He looked up the side of the gulch he'd fallen in. The side was about thirteen or fourteen feet. It went out of sight in both directions. Greg climbed to his feet and waited until a wave of dizziness passed.

He started to move when he felt pain and realized he still had thousands of cacti thorns stuck in him. He pulled as many as out as he could, and then walked up to the gulch wall. Preceding a long breath, Greg started up the side. He didn't know exactly how long it took him, but he reached the top winded, dirty, and dripping with sweat. Greg stood up at the top, staring at the house and outer buildings. They were much further away than he remembered running. Behind the buildings black smoke billowed up into the blue sky. With his breath caught, and his legs feeling a little less rubbery from the climb, Greg started walking.

He reached the first outer building – a lean-to – and stopped. Holes had punched through the walls of the building and blood had run under the boards to a dimple in the ground to create a chokeberry red pool. Greg hugged the wall and paused before looking around the end. Greg slowly stepped out into the yard. The couple on the porch was dead. Their daughter Theresa was dead. There were three dead teenagers in the yard that he could see. His Denali and the car were the source of the black smoke, both engulfed by flames. He briefly wondered which vehicle had started the fire. In the car that it's a body.

Greg looked back when he heard a snort. Two pigs were rummaging through the trough; the other eight were dead from various bullet wounds. Judging from the two pig's wounds, it wasn't going to be long before they joined the other dead pigs.

"I wasn't just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Greg muttered under his breath. "I somehow ended up in hell's half acre of the wrong place at the wrong time. Jesus!"

He walked around the burning cars, looking for any signs of life – and a vehicle. In the corral he'd passed coming in there was only one animal left alive – a Palomino. It had a bleeding wound down its leg, but it looked more like a scrape than anything deadly. The horse watched Greg with intense interest.

Greg walked into the barn and found two sheep alive, along with a plethora of tack and a tractor. There were no keys in the tractor, not that he'd know how to drive it if there had been. He walked to the garage near the house. He found a car in it with all the windows shot out and full of holes, but the keys were in the ignition. He pulled the door opened and sat down, trying to start it. The car wouldn't even turn over. He got out and opened the hood. The battery was in pieces and the acid had already begun to work through the metal around it.

Greg left the building and searched the other five buildings. He found most of the chickens were alive, one dog hiding under the porch, but no vehicle. He tried the back door and found it unlocked. He went in and searched for a phone, only to discover there was no phone. He couldn't even find cell phones.

"Who in the hell lives in the middle of nowhere without a phone?" Greg asked the empty house.

He walked back outside and sat on the back steps in the shade, within sight of the corral. He looked up when the horse whinnied. It pawed the ground and pranced in place.

"Do you have a phone?" Greg asked it.

It whinnied back.

"I bet you're hungry, huh?"

It pawed the ground.

Greg walked back to the barn and found a grain sack with a coffee can. He fed the sheep and took another can out to the corral. He spotted a trough that he dumped it in. The horse went to work on the grain. Greg went back to the stairs and sat down with a long sigh.

He looked across the valley with a forlorn sigh. He wasn't about to hike out into the desert. His last trek across the desert nearly killed him.

Greg looked back at the horse. Course… He did have a horse this time. But he didn't like worse is and had never ridden one. He wasn't even sure how to get the saddle or bridle on. Greg sighed again, looking across the desert. He got up and walked inside. If he was going to attempt riding to somewhere for help, he had to find sunscreen and a hat.

#

Morgan came out of the reception area into the halls of the lab. And stopped. Quickly she became aware that there was no one in sight, no one working in labs. Morgan didn't move when Catherine brushed past her.

"Get that trace to the lab, Morgan," Catherine said. They had state patrol give them a rundown of any strange items found along the road above the landfill and had Catherine's nearly undivided attention.

"I would… But I don't think anyone is in the trace lab."

Catherine stopped, looking back. She turned a full circle, realizing the same thing Morgan did. There was no one in the lab.

"This is like the beginning of the zombie apocalypse," Morgan commented.

Catherine shot her a disapproving glare. "I'm sure there's a reason it's empty. Come on."

The two walked to Russell's lab, but he wasn't there. They were passing the break room when they found Henry and two more lab techs. There were several maps laid out on the table and one was working on a laptop.

"Where is everyone?" Catherine asked.

The three looked up.

"You haven't heard?" Henry asked.

"I guess not. Heard what?"

"Greg's missing."

"He's at the Bellagio."

Morgan looked away, muttering, "No he's not."

Catherine turned to her. "He's not?"

Morgan shook her head, smiling wistfully. "They said this was normal."

"What was?"

Morgan looked down.

"What was, Morgan?"

"We put our call sheets in the middle of the table and—"

Through gritted teeth, Catherine demanded, "Who did you play Call Roulette with?"

She offered another wistful smile. "Greg, Nick and Sara, but this time…" Morgan shrugged. "We've played it before."

"But what about this time?

She shook her head. "Nothing. It's nothing."

The decibels of Catherine's voice rose when she asked, "What about this time, Morgan?"

"Well… I… Greg, he… He wasn't going to… Play."

"Then why did he?"

"We, may have, possibly, talked him into it."

"You mean pressured him into it."

Morgan offered a wistful smile. "He did play, though."

"Start working our case."

"I need help look for him."

"You need to start working this case before I recommend D.B. do more than put you on probation for three months."

Morgan made a few feeble attempts to answer, but stopped finally and left to obey. Catherine turned back to Henry.

"Where is D.B.?"

"Ecklie's office."

Catherine left. With each new supervisor Nick always seemed to talk the others into playing Call Roulette. The game was innocent enough, but in her mind, playing roulette in any form was just begging for bad luck. Bad luck had finally happened, and they had to find Greg.

#

Nick hurried through the halls on the hunt for Henry. He had to talk to him before he could join the search for Greg. He breezed past Russell's office.

From behind him he heard Russell's voice loudly announce, "Nicholas Parker Stokes."

Nick stopped mid-step, almost tripping. He wasn't used to anyone beside his parents using his full name – and they hadn't done that since he was a teenager. The call had gotten the attention of a few lab techs who turned to stare at him.

Nick turned around. Russell stood with his hand on the door handle of his open office door.

"A word," Russell said.

Nick slowly walked in, watching Russell shut the door behind him.

"I'm taking evidence to Henry," Nick told him, "and then Sara and I are—"

"Sit down," Russell said as he sat down in his own chair.

Nick hesitated, until Russell turned a dark glare on him. He sank onto a chair. He didn't know what Russell was angry about, but from the expression on Russell's face, he was in for a long lecture.

"Tell me how Call Roulette works, Nick."

"The… What?" The way this had started, he really expected something else. Not questions about a game.

"Explain how the game you, Morgan, Sara, and Greg played works. The one that put the call with the wrong address in Greg's hands instead of yours."

Nick didn't want to answer that. The last sentence hinted that there was a very uncomfortable storm brewing behind Russell's calm questioning, and the outcome was not going to be in Nick's favor.

"It's just a game we play sometimes. It's nothing."

"And how to does this game work? What are the rules?"

"The players put their call sheets in the center of the table. Someone starts by calling heads or tails. A coin is flipped. If they get the call right, they get to pull out a call sheet. If they lose, the next person to their right calls. The players do this until all the calls have been claimed."

Russell stared at him for a long, silent, and very uncomfortable moment.

"Well, if that's all, I need to get this evidence to—"

"You told me that you and Greg traded calls."

"We did."

"You didn't trade calls, Nick. Someone overheard you four and said Greg didn't want to play, but that you three pressured him into it."

Nick hesitated again. Had the heater come on? It never worked right in this office. Nick looked out into the lab, wondering who told Russell about that.

"Was Greg pressured into playing or not?"

"D.B.," Nick focused on him again. He even risked a smile. "It's just a game. We've played it for years. Any one of us, even me, could have gotten that call."

"Yes. You're right. But I didn't ask what the chances someone else selected the call. I asked if Greg was pressured into playing the game."

Nick almost laughed. He found this whole thing ludicrous. "He's always played before and he went along this time."

"From how you're avoiding the question, I'm going to guess he didn't want to play last night."

"D.B., this is crazy. I mean, what if I had kept it and I was missing. Would you be questioning the others about the game?"

"Nick, you're the assistant supervisor. What you do matters twice as much as what everyone else does. Do you know what the lab saw with your behavior and this Call Roulette last night?" Russell leaned on his desk. "If you're assistant supervisor it's okay to pressure you co-workers into doing things they don't want to do and it's okay to undermine my authority as well."

Nick was growing hotter with embarrassment by the second. "How did the game undermine your authority?"

"I give my CSI cases that I feel each of your skill sets and background will provide the best chance of solving. But your blatant disregard to my authority showed the lab they don't have to really do as I tell them."

Nick stared at him. He stared back. He was waiting for Nick to ask the obvious and was going to let Nick sit and sweat until he did. So Nick got it over with.

"How did those calls match Greg's and my skill sets?"

"The description of the d.b. sounded like an O.D. Greg finished his forensic pathology and serology degrees last month. That, coupled with his chemistry and DNA background, means he can run his own narco panels, which frees Henry up to help on other cases. Further—"

Further? Why'd there have to be a further? Nick wanted to shrink and slip away from this conversation.

"Your call was a joint effort with the State Patrol, who regularly asks to work with you or Catherine. Since Catherine was supervising Morgan, I sent you. So, not only have you undermined my authority, you bullied a co-worker into playing a game you, as an assistant supervisor, shouldn't have been playing at all. Now that co-worker is missing, I have to reassign all our open cases to swing and day, doubling their work loads, and if the people along the chain of command aren't worried, they are not happy. But at least you gotthe case you wanted, right?"

Nick didn't wonder how Russell knew he'd wanted Greg's case. The weight of his poor decisions was heavy and uncomfortable threatening to prevent him from breathing. It came with the iron fisted realization that he had made some very poor decisions in the last twenty-four hours – and Greg was the one paying for those decisions. So he kept silent, staring at Russell, and praying this would end soon so he could go look for Greg.

"I need you here helping to find Greg, so for now you're still on the clock. But as soon as he's found, your two week, unpaid, suspension begins. I also don't feel you were ready to be an assistant supervisor. When you return to work you will no longer be an assistant supervisor and your salary will be downgraded to CSI 3. Do you have any questions?"

Nick's eyes burned but he kept silent. He shook his head.

"Go take your evidence to Henry, and then go look for our friend."

Nick got up and left the office. When he was out of sight of Russell's office he stopped and took several long breaths to settle his nerves. Only his father had ever so skillfully made him feel small and so horrible about decisions he'd made, without raising his voice once. He had never expected Russell to be capable of doing the same.

Once Nick had a grip on his nerves, he headed for the tox lab.

He found Henry talking to someone on the phone. Nick waited, and realized Henry was writing down GPS coordinates.

"I'll start in that grid at daylight," Henry told the person and hung up. "Nick."

"Has anyone ever overdosed on LSD?"

Henry blinked. "Here?"

"Ever. Has anyone ever overdosed on it?"

"Not that I know of."

"Could someone overdose?"

Henry thought about it. "I suppose it's possible, but the amount would be a crazy amount. They'd have to cover their entire body with LSD blots, but they'd be already tripping before they got enough on them. They'd probably stop long before the levels would hospitalize them."

"There is a body and a suspect on my last case. Can you test them both for LSD?"

"Sure."

Nick handed him the plastic bag with the sticker sheets. "And this too."

"Okay. But I'm leaving in an hour, when the sun comes up."

"I heard. Do the test for the body and woman, before the LSD breaks down."

"I'm on it."

Nick turned and left. He turned a corner, running into Sara.

"I picked up three grids. Are you ready?" she asked Nick.

Nick nodded. The two headed to the parking garage.