Title: To Hell with Love

Rating: (T)

Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or its characters. I'm just a fan

Author's Note: A big "thank you" goes out to all who reviewed. Each and every one of you fuelled my thoughts.

Chapter 3

Catherine and Grissom were working on a case together. A body was found under a one of Las Vegas's busy expressways. A passer-by filed a complaint after detecting a pungent scent of decomposition. The police did a search of the area, expecting to find a dead animal or a homeless person. After some time, they found a person, but by the looks of it, she wasn't homeless. She looked like she's been dead for about 3 weeks and any evidence at the scene were compromised or non-existent. But thanks to the 4 weeks of 100-degree days and zero percent humidity, the body did not disintegrated badly.

The body was now on the table. Grissom started to take pictures, while Catherine tried to scrape the undersurface of the loose, damaged nails. When a person has been dead for 3 weeks, the skin, hair and nails are so loose that they're easily pulled off the corpse.

"I got blood and skin under the nail, not sure if it's the victim's or her attacker. I'll send it to DNA." Catherine said as she folded the piece of paper containing the debris and bagged it.

She looked up at Grissom thoughtfully. "Our Jane Doe was dump under a busy expressway, in close proximity to dozens of homeless people, and nobody reported her?"

"People with cars have places to go, the homeless people… they presumed that she's asleep. I guess it's hard to smell decomposition when you're homeless.

Catherine smiled. "She close to mummification but not mummified. Her body has already undergone rigor mortis, it would be hard to bend the body without breaking something." The stiffen body showed Grissom and Catherine the position of their Jane Doe at the time of death. She was lying on her right side, her head on her bended arm. Her left hand was cupping her left ear, as if it was protecting her face. It would be hard for the CSIs to get dental impressions without breaking the arm off. Both legs were bended, left over right and from what they can tell, she was wearing a sleeveless top and denim shorts.

"I think we done all that we can, lets send her to the coroners." Grissom said as he placed a tag on the body's toe and headed towards the autopsy room.

Nick and Warrick walked into the autopsy room, the woman in the desert was out on the table before them. Robbins was standing beside the body, looking at his set of notes to report his findings to them.

"There are no bullet wounds, that rules out shooting," Robbins began, "Sexual assault kit was positive. She has puncture wounds on forearm." He pointed to her arm. It had holes that were most likely caused by a syringe. "X-ray shown multiple fractures of the fingers, hands, ribs, legs and feet."

"A classic case of being beaten to death." Warrick surveyed the body. "Whoever did this to her must be either angry or insane."

"Well, not angry enough to cause any real damage, not insane enough to not know where to hit." Nick and Warrick looked at him with confusion as Robbins cleared his throat. "The fractures are minor, not serious enough to require immediate medical attention. But definitely serious enough to hurt like hell." Robbins pointed towards her head, "Her face showed signs of trauma, but not enough to be the cause of death. The attacker may have broke a few ribs and bruised the organs, but that didn't cause any serious internal bleeding."

Nick was puzzled, "So what you're saying, she didn't die from these injuries?" Robbins nodded. "Then, what's the cause of death?"

Robbins handled Nick a clip board, "She drowned. There were evidence of fluid in her lungs and she asphyxiated."

"How could you drown in the desert?" Warrick asked. Nick looked at the clipboard. He recalled a similar case like this. He began to explain to Warrick and Robbins about the death of a hiker who drowned due to heavy rains while in Diablo Canyon.

"Did it rain anytime in the last 2 weeks or so? Nick looked up from the clipboard.

"I thought of something like that. If you remembered, David was the one who processed that hiker's body long ago. The samples that we got from the nearest bodies of water… none of them match. And besides that, I checked with the national weather service, the area where the vic was found--- hardly any rain for the pass few weeks."

"So, whoever did this drowned her, and then dump the body in the middle of the desert." Warrick concluded. "What about the word carved onto her forearm? Did she get that before or after he drowned her?"

"After--- Apparently your killer likes people who can breathe underwater." Robbins joked, only to have Nick and Warrick stare back at him. "Erm--- there were indications that your killer tried to resuscitate her." He pointed the area near the woman's right collarbone and the left side of her body, near the ribs. "Those are minor defibrillator burns. Also, I noticed that the areas of the rib closest to the sternum are cracked. That… may be due to repeated CPR."

"Maybe it wasn't his intention to kill her. An accident, maybe?" Nick asked. "Do you have anything else for us? Stomach contents? Fingernail scrapings?"

"Stomach's empty. Here's the scraping from the toenails and fingernails…" Robbins gave them a small envelope and a bag, " …and clothes. The rest of the body's clean. I'll let you know if I find anything else."

"Thanks." Both the men walked out of the autopsy room. "Not much to go on… this guy's either smart or careful." Warrick said has he walked alittle ahead of Nick. "All those injuries and signs of abuse---"

Signs of abuse… the article!

"Hey Rick, you go on ahead. I need to talk to Robbins for a bit." Warrick nodded and said he'll call if he gets anything. Nick replied with a thumbs-up before walking through the doors of the autopsy room.

"Hey doc' ", I need to ask you something…"

Sara was at her desk finishing up some paperwork. The day was a slow one. Apart from the hit-and-run case, they have been called to other minor felonies like car theft, shoplifting and attempt arson. She sighed at the stupidity of these "criminals". The car thief broken into his ex-wife's car to get back at her, a teenager was too embarrass to purchase a packet of condoms from a local store, and a jealous boyfriend who threw a Molotov Cocktail at a closed window, only to have it bounced back, setting himself on fire. They didn't need the CSIs for that, but according to protocol, they had to be there. By the time they were done, it was close to evening.

Sara looked up as she heard a knock on the door.

"Busy?"

She shook her head, "Not so much. Just finishing up on some paper work."

"I'm sorry that I had to assign you to the minor cases. I didn't think Greg was ready." Grissom said. He was still standing by the door.

"That's fine." Sara replied, smiling at the stack of paperwork instead of Grissom. She wasn't mad at him, she didn't mind hanging out with Greg. She just felt drained after not sleeping well for 2 days. "How are your cases?"

"There was a body found under an expressway. The woman has been there for 3 weeks. Her name was Cindy Kiske. We managed to identify her through her dental records. She had been missing for about a month now. Cause of death was cardiac arrest, most likely due to starvation. She had a mild heart condition and may have been suffering from depression."

"What made you say that?" Sara asked, suddenly interested in the case.

"There were cuts on her arms that could be self-inflicted. On her right thigh, there seems to be a word cut onto her skin. Sadly, she has been dead for so long, her skin has degenerated too badly to make up what it is." Grissom tried to hide the fact that X-ray showed signs of abuse. He did not want to upset Sara.

Sara felt sorry for the woman. After hearing what Grissom had to say, she was glad to have the simple cases. There are times during cases where she tries to distance herself from her emotions, but she still feels it. She even loses sleep over it. She despised herself for that. "Have you told her family yet?"

"Yes we did, her family's driving down from Utah."

Sara nodded her head slowly. She didn't really want to think about anything right now. She decided to change the subject.

"So, have you packed yet?" Grissom was leaving Las Vegas for a month on sabbatical to teach. He told each member of the team quite some time ago. Nick thinks that Grissom won't be coming back. Catherine joked that Ecklie must have pulled some strings to get rid of him.

"I have packed a few things."

Sara's looked up from her stack of paper work, but instead of looking at his face, she looked down to his feet. "Okay…I'll see you when you get back." She couldn't help but show a bit of mixed emotions on her face.

"Sara," Grissom said when he noticed the reaction on her face, "If you get the chance… don't wait for me." He studied her for a moment before continuing. "Just to let you know, I won't hold it against you. Don't wait for me, Sara. I'll see you soon." And on that note, he left.

Sara looked at the foot of the door till Grissom's shadow was obstructed from view.

"I'll try." She whispered sadly before continuing her paperwork.

TBC

At first, I wrote a really long chapter, but I thought it was too much. So I made it into 2 chapters. Hope you guys don't mind. Let me know what you think of chapter 3 k. Reviews cheer me up. I'll post chapter 4 in a minute :)

P.S Sorry GSR fans. I preferred Grissom and Sara to have a student/mentor relationship. Have mercy.