A Random Day at the Vegas Crime Lab: Happy Birthday Pranks

Catherine, Nick, Warrick and Sara were all sitting silently in the break room, bold grins on their faces. After a week of planning and snickering in secret, Greg's birthday had arrived and their Happy Birthday prank was ready. Even better? Grissom didn't know about it, and they weren't planning on telling him until the last minute so he couldn't the mature stick-in-the-mud and ruin it for them.

"I haven't been able to look at him with a straight face this whole week," Sara said suddenly, shaking her head and trying to stop giggling at the look she could imagine would be on Greg's face. "He kept asking me what was so funny."

"What did you tell him?" Nick asked curiously.

"That I was pregnant." The brunette's voice came out thick with suppressed laughing.

Catherine snorted with laughter and nearly choked on her coffee. It was true that she was supposed to be working - and that it was Nick's and Warrick's night off - but it was impossible to concentrate when something this funny was going to be happening so soon. Besides, Warrick and Nick were the one's with the idea to pull a prank on Greg for his thirtieth birthday and what to do.

Sara's pager chose that time to begin to beep. "It's Brass," she told the others. " Our 'suspect's' at the station, so I'd better go find our victim... I mean, Greg."

Everyone forced the smiles off their face and left to get in position. It took Sara only seconds to find who she was looking for.

"I just got a call from Brass," Greg told her. "He said they just brought our suspect in."

She nodded, her face with only the slightest smile on it. " I just got the same call. If you beat me to the parking lot, I'll let you drive."

A grin spread across Greg's own face. "Gotcha," he said, already beginning to walk away. He would 'bump into' Nick, she knew, to make sure that Greg wouldn't be able to find out about the prank if Grissom was somehow able to slip through Catherine's and Warrick's clutches and warn the youngest CSI once he had been informed.

She let Greg beat her to the dark blue Denali waiting for them in front of the Crime Lab, and so she had to endure his triumphant nattering all the way to the station. He only stopped once to ask her why she was so quiet while glancing down to her stomach before bringing his eyes back on the road. She replied that she felt a bit nauseous, but was fine. Such an easy excuse.

Brass met them outside the interrogation room with a fake-grim look on his face. " Rani Hashid, age 28. She's the one who as phoning your vic so much."

"Why is she in the interrogation room, then?" Greg asked, a curious but slightly surprised look on his face. "If she just phoned him a bunch of time, why isn't she in the waiting room?"

Brass glanced at the grey door beside him and shrugged." I sent two uniforms to check the perimeter of her house when we went to talk to her. They caught her trying to sneak out her back door, so I figure she's got something to hide - Sara, are you okay?"

Sara had suddenly doubled over slightly, putting one hand on her stomach and the other on her mouth, hoping that her acting skills were good enough to convince Greg that she was about to be sick. "Do you think you can do this on your own, Greg?" She muttered through her fingers.

Greg nodded, his eyes full of concern.

"Great," she whispered, and dashed off in the directions of the washrooms.

The two men watched her go, one worried, the other knowing full well what was going on.

"Well, let's go have a chat with Miss Hashid, shall we?" The police captain said finally, opening the door and motioning for Greg to enter, which he did.

Greg soon discovered that Rani Hashid was an extremely attractive woman, and she knew it. Her black hair had a few streaks in it, which accented her face wonderfully, and her equally dark eyes, perfectly symmetrical, were watching him with a look he couldn't quite place. She obviously took care of her olive shaded skin, since it was completely flawless.

Already feeling uncomfortable, he sat down across from her and placed the file he was carrying on the table. He could hear Brass relaxing against the wall behind him.

It was at this time when the police captain's cell phone rang, causing it's owner to sigh and check the call display. There was a look of surprise on his face as he answered.

Greg ignored this and began the interrogation. "Miss Hashid, do you know a man by the name of Malcolm Stanton?"

She shook her head apologetically. "Sorry, but I've never heard of him in my life."

He was about to ask his next question when Brass hung up his phone and interrupted quietly. "I'm got to go; something urgent just came up," he muttered into the young CSI's ear. "You think you can deal with this yourself?"

Greg nodded and continued as the older man left. "That's odd, because you phoned him a dozen time last week." He pulled out her phone records, which he and Sara had gotten a warrant for a few days ago. "And then, suddenly, you decide to stop phoning him (he pointed out the last highlighted line on he sheet), the day after he died."

She considered him for a moment, allowing him to prepare himself for the verbal attack that almost always followed a suspect's pause. To his surprise, though, she didn't hiss threats at him, but said "you shouldn't be a CSI."

He was taken aback by the comment. "Why's that?" He asked before he could stop himself, and cursed silently when the words escaped his mouth.

She gave him a rather flirtatious smile. "You're far too cute to be running around, poking at dead bodies." Letting out a slight chuckle, she slid off her chair and, licking her lips, neared him.

"Would you mind sitting back down?" Greg asked as politely as he could, feeling extremely uncomfortable - not to mention wondering what Sara or Brass would do and say if they came in and saw this.

To his great relief, Rani obeyed. She sat back down on her chair and pulled off her jacket, claiming that she was becoming too warm. Revealed when she took the jacket off, though, was a rather tight, black tank top.

Whose right strap she promptly began to play with.

"Umm... About the phone records..." He began, looking at the file and said records instead of at the pleasing woman who was trying to seduce him.

She shrugged a shoulder. "My friends might have used my phone without me knowing; they're in and out of my apartment all the time."

Greg nodded, still not looking at her. "I'll need the names of all your friends who have access to your apartment, then."

"Okay." She leaned against the metal table between them, licking her lips again, tilting her head so that her eyes shined brightly...

Enough was enough.

Greg grabbed his completely silent, non-vibrating phone out of his pocket and looked down at the blank screen. "Oh, look, Mia has my results. Sorry, I'd better go get them..." As quickly as he could without looking like a complete idiot, Greg hurried out of the interrogation room.

The night shift CSIs and Brass were outside the room, watching him through the one-way mirror with grins on their faces that clearly told him that the whole thing had been a set up. He starred at them for a few seconds, completely nonplussed, before a snickering Warrick said "happy birthday, man."

"That wasn't funny!" He cried out, finally having returned to his senses. The grins of those around him only broadened.

"You're right," Nick told, wiping a tear of laughter out of his eye. "That was hilarious."

"And we got it all on tape," Catherine added.

Pointless? Oh yeah. Plotless? Oh yeah. Stupid? Oh yeah. Did I have a fun time writing this? You'd better believe it! Hope this starts to make up for my Writer's Block! And lucky for everyone I have a lot of these written out as manuscripts already.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must plan more ways how to completely humiliate various CSIs...

Hee hee...

xCxBxBx