Chapter 7
10:53 p.m
They had gotten the hit off of the stolen credit card some time later and Grissom Warrick and Brass had been ushered to the gas station. The shocked and twitchy young woman at the register had been interrogated and the security tapes had been confiscated.
Back at the Lab Warrick and Nick sat in the AV Lab and pored over hours and hours of tape.
'My head is spinning, and so far we haven't found a single thing' Nick said, but just as the words left his mouth a large truck pulled into screen.
'Hey' Warrick said 'is that a Dodge?'
'I think so' Nick said blinking a few times and leaning forward, a man got out of the car and made his way inside the store.
'I'll get a face' Warrick said wheeling over to the other screen, which was monitoring the inside of the store. Nick stared at the screen watching carefully, there was another person inside the truck and as soon as the door to the store closed the person got out. She left the door open and turned to the camera pointing to her right. Nick hit a button on the keyboard and let out a deep sigh.
'There she is' he said and instantly Warrick appeared at his shoulder. Nick heard him sigh to
'Awe geez' he said quietly, it was hard to tell from the grainy picture, but Sara looked terrified.
'What is she pointing at?' Nick asked
'The liquor store' said a third voice. Warrick and Nick jumped. Grissom had materialized at their side. 'There is a liquor store over there' he said. As if on cue somebody's beeper went off, all three men reached down to their belts and looked at the tiny screens Nicks actually hadn't gone off but Warrick and Grissoms did.
'Catherine has info on the credit card" Warrick said, Grissom looked up with pursed lips
'Brass' he said 'a woman just reported a murder at a liquor store' Nick looked up
'Let me guess, the one down next to that Mohawk' he indicated the security tapes from the gas station, Grissom nodded 'Warrick go talk to Catherine and Nicky you and Greg can go down to the liquor store' and in mere minutes Warrick and Catherine sat with their heads together in deep discussion as Grissom, Nick and Greg went back to the liquor store.
SARA
11:02
She had never been so terrified in her life until now. As Sara lay, once again, curled up in the back of the Pickup Truck, she felt more childlike than she had since she was a child. She was angry with herself at her failure, she was desperately hoping that Grissom and the team found her message soon; she didn't know where she was going next, her stomach was steadily becoming more and more painful and most of all, she was scared. Not only scared for her own life, but scared for the lives of her friends… no not her friends, that lab and all the people on the graveyard shift had become more like a family than she had ever had before. Catherine was like her older sister, Greg was that annoying little brother that could be so sweet sometimes, Nick was that best friend that was over so much that it was like he was part of the family, Brass was very much a father figure to her and Warrick was… well, it was hard to place Warrick, her and him had never gotten along spectacularly before but when the time came they could come together beautifully, and then there was Grissom. Her mentor, to start with, and her friend and then, suddenly, something more that even she wasn't sure of just yet. Adam had called him her lover, but that was perhaps a step to far, she didn't know, but hoped more than anything that she would get the chance to find out. Yes… she wasn't scared for the life of her friends; she was scared for the life of her family.
LIQUOR STORE
'Martha Raycliff" Brass said approaching the Tahoe as Grissom, Nick and Greg emerged, 'Went into the store to buy a case of beer, and when she went in she saw a broken bottle of wine on the floor, she went to tell the cashier about it and found him dead on the floor behind the counter. She says she wasn't sure in her panic, but she thought she'd seen a word written in blood on the floor.' Brass said all this as the four men walked towards the door of the Liquor Shop. He gestured to the door 'it's all yours' he said as Grissom led the way inside. The first thing he noticed was the shattered wine bottle on the floor, it was one of those great big ones off the display rack and it had been busted open like an egg with it's red contents splattered all over the white tiled floor. Greg crouched down there to take a sample of the wine and snap a few pictures as Nick made his way around the counter. The boy looked just barely old enough to be working in a Liquor store and he lay there with a bullet between his eyes. He was sprawled on his back, his eyes wide and his teeth clenched together; his nametag stated that his name was Joseph. Nick let out a small sigh and let his eyes sweep across the area around the body, almost instantly the word caught his eye. Shining in red blood against the white tiles was a single word:
COUSIN
'Hey Grissom!' Nick shouted as Greg appeared at his side
'Cousin?' He said reading the word aloud to himself, even then it sounded perplexing and completely out of place. 'What do you think it means?' Greg asked
'I don't know" Nick replied 'but Sara wouldn't have written it if it didn't mean something'
'We know who has her' Greg said
'And once upon a time he was in an asylum where every one of his contacts from the outside world were monitored' Grissom said quietly as he strode up next to Greg and Nick
'You think this is Adam's cousin?' Nick asked, Grissom nodded
'Maybe, Greg call Catherine and have her find out who Adam's family was, besides his mother.' Greg nodded curtly and hurried from the store as if happy to ave a reason to leave. 'Nick" Grissom continued 'take separate swaps from the word and the body' he said 'take pictures, fingerprints, everything you can find, I'll be in the back.'
'Yes sir' Nick said and Silently went to work.
LAB
Warrick walked into the lab to see Catherine's pretty blonde head bent over a microscope.
'You shouldn't hunch' he said 'bad posture' Catherine looked up and a smile flicked across her mouth
'Hey you' she said, completely evading his comment 'I found skin cells trapped in the raised lettering of the credit card we collected at the gas station' she began.
'Good place for DNA to hide' Warrick remarked, Catherine nodded as he sat down beside her,
'I got two different sets, one was a bit older than the other but I managed to draw some DNA from it, one set, the newer one, I matched to Adam. No surprised there, but the second was a match so I ran it through CODIS and came up with this.' She rolled in her chair to the computer and pulled up a file, Warrick followed her and rested his arm on the back of the chair. A mug shot of a handsome man with shaggy blonde hair and striking green eyes came up 'Marcus Wright' Catherine said, 'charged with "Possession of narcotics with intent to sell, as well as assault, and possession of an illegal firearm."
'Your regular bad boy' Warrick said, she nodded again
'He now lives in Vegas and works as a bartender at a club on the strip.'
'Can we bring him in for questioning?'
'Nope' Catherine said turning in her chair to face Warrick 'wont come in on his own accord, and because he was a victim of credit card theft, we don't have any real reason to hold down a warrant. Except for the fact that he has a minimal amount of alleles in common with Adam,'
'They're related?' he asked
'Yup, but the fact that they are related still isn't enough to get a warrant.'
'Ahh' Warrick said
'I know, any lead that dries up is one more black mark for Sara.' There was a moment of silence in which they both hung their heads
'Are you okay?' Warrick finally asked
'What? Yeah' Catherine said turning back around to the computer screen 'just want to get her back' he hesitated a moment then came around in front of her
'We all do' he said and Catherine looked up at him their eyes met for a moment and Catherine felt herself begin to flush like some stupid little schoolgirl. She was relived when her cell phone rang. She unclipped it from her belt, flipped it open and pressed it to her ear
'Willows' she said
'Cath, it's Greg' Came the younger mans voice on the other end 'I need you to look something up for me' he said.
'Okay' Catherine replied pinning the phone between her ear and shoulder, turning to the computer and pulling up one of their search engines, 'shoot' she said.
'Alright, Sara wrote the word "cousin" next to the body here and I need you to look up All Adam's family.'
'Ok, got it, bye' and she hung up the phone; she looked to Warrick with wide eyes 'we now have reason to bring Marcus in.'