A/N: My thanks to the few people who reviewed, as well as to my great beta Tangled Pencils who just joined the world of writers with her first own fic. Now go on and read this chapter, and don't forget to send a review, please.

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Fire and Water

by Nicol Leoraine

Chapter 3

As Nick had said, Travis Andrews had a temper, one that matched his appearance and probably also the choice of his working career as a car dealer. He had the kind of personality that could charm you into buying a complete wreck – that is, unless he got angry. Jim Brass was very glad that he hadn't turned down Nick's offer to come with him. It was only just past six in the morning, but the CSI hadn't wanted to wait any longer. The car they had found was already secured and had been looked over, though there were still a few things to check out. But that could wait, Nick thought, and forced himself to calm down. He was successful, up until the moment Brass parked the car before the familiar looking two-storey house.

Now he was standing at the door, one hand pushing at the chime for all of two seconds, when the door opened and he was facing a weary, haggard looking Travis Andrews.

The man threw a look at Brass, taking notice of the gun in the holster and the badge, then turned to Nick with a mixture of confusion and fear on his face.

"What the hell are you doing here, Nick?" he all but barked and Nick took in a hissing breath, again telling himself to calm down. Then, in a quiet voice he spoke.

"I'm sorry Travis."

And that was all. The man before him blinked several times, as if trying to clear his vision, though Brass knew he was just processing the words.

"No." It wasn't more than an angry hiss, but Nick felt the force of it as if it was a physical blow. Brass watched as the man's eyes set on the criminalist and he was overcome by the feeling of foreboding.

Nick must've felt something too, because he swallowed hard and opened his mouth to say something, anything, just to stop that glare.

"Tra-" was all Nick managed to get out, when a hand shot out and in the next second he found himself pinned against the wall, Travis Andrews breathing hard into his face, the anger in his eyes replaced by raw despair.

"No!" he repeated the word, just as Brass forced him off the panting CSI.

"Stay where you are, or I will arrest you!" he barked as he pushed the man back to the door, and away from Nick, instantly berating himself that it was a mistake to bring him there.

"You okay, Nicky?"

"Yeah, I'm fine Jim," he said and tried to suppress a wince as he felt the protest of his back. He was sure the bruises left would be matching the ones from the time Travis knocked him down in their football play at school. To be frank, Nick expected some reaction from Travis, he was just taken by surprise at how fast the man was. "No harm done," he mumbled quietly and with a sigh, walked up to the now slumped form of his school friend.

"I really am sorry Travis," he repeated and got a silent nod in reply. He didn't need to tell Travis that his wife was dead. The man knew enough about his job to realise that he wouldn't be visiting just to say Hi.

"What happened?"

"We found a body in Lake Mead. Didn't identify her until we found the car."

"Sh-she drowned?" Travis stuttered, his voice not more than a whisper.

"Why don't we go inside?" Brass said, not wanting to discuss things on the front porch. Travis blankly nodded and led them to the living room. Without a word he headed for the mini-bar and poured himself a healthy dose of scotch, swallowing it in one long gulp. Shaking off the taste, he then looked at Nick with confusion written all over his face.

"She was never a good swimmer," he commented, then shook his head in frustration. "What the hell was she doing at the lake!"

"That's what we would like to know too," Brass said, throwing Nick a warning look. He didn't want the CSI to spill out all the details right now. The detective had a feeling he would get more information from Travis if the man didn't know his wife was murdered. "You reported her missing four days ago, right? Can you tell us something about it?"

"What do you want to know?" Travis barked and started pacing the small room. "She was supposed to come home from work before five. I waited until six then started calling. The secretary told me that she left the office at lunch. She had some meeting and wasn't planning on returning to the editorial office that day."

"What meeting?"

"I don't know, okay? She was a journalist, for God's sake. They never tell where they're going," he added bitterly and Brass realised that this was probably something Travis had never accepted.

"And that was the last anyone saw her?"

"To my knowledge, yes. But you're the cops, why don't you 'investigate'?" the last word sounded more like a curse and Nick mentally cringed.

"Travis... was there anyone that would want to harm her?" Nick asked slowly and a pair of narrowing eyes glared at him.

"Harm her? What-" but then realisation hit and his eyes went wide. "She didn't drown, did she?" Travis headed toward Nick, hands flailing in the air. "Someone hurt her." It was a statement, not a question and Nick looked at Brass, who was ready to hurl himself at Travis if the man as much as touched Nick. The CSI shook his head, his eyes stopping Brass in mid stride, when Travis' hands brushed through his hair in a nervous manner. Then as suddenly as he started moving, he slumped onto the couch.

"Was she ra-" Travis gulped, unable to ask the question, but Nick guessed it.

"No," he quickly supplied. He already had a preliminary report from the pathologist and the rape kit had come back as negative. "No, she wasn't." He saw the flicker of relief that quickly vanished. She was dead and there was no way to change it. Travis closed his eyes.

"Mr. Andrews?" Brass spoke after a moment.

"Just leave me alone."

"I'm sorry, but we still need to make a positive identification."

Travis blinked, looking lost all of a sudden and Nick felt a pang of guilt.

"Will you come down to the coroner's office with us, Travis?"

"I just…" the man shook his head, trying to clear it. The glass of scotch he had downed earlier on an empty stomach wasn't helping though. "I need to get some sleep. I've had hardly any sleep in the last few days. Just... leave, please."

"Call if you need a ride, okay?" Nick said, getting a silent nod in reply. He was already by the door, when Travis called out.

"Nick?"

"Yeah," he looked back.

"You will catch him, right? The bastard that killed her."

Nick knew what he was supposed to say. He knew what Travis wanted to hear, but he also knew that making false promises could be worse than outright lying. Still, seeing all the emotions pouring from his friend's eyes, he couldn't stop himself.

"I will do whatever it takes to get him, buddy."

And it was a promise he planned to fulfil.
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Grissom was sitting behind his desk, doing literally nothing. He was just staring at the computer screen, his fingers laying on the keyboard twitching sporadically from time to time, just enough that the screen saver didn't pop up.

He knew he was acting irrationally, hiding in his office, leaving all the cases to the others. It wasn't like he didn't have that right; he was a supervisor after all. And there really had been times when the paperwork had just needed to be done. But this wasn't one of those nights and Grissom knew it. He was afraid that the rest of his team knew it too. He already had had a visit from Catherine and he'd barely managed to steer her interrogation by asking about her case. Thankfully, Greg paged her before she could realise that, for which Grissom was thankful. But he knew the quiet wouldn't last long, as both Sara and Warrick had now returned to the lab. He'd spotted Sara peeking in from the doorway, and he'd managed to look busy at the computer, so she'd just dropped her report on a corner of his desk and left.

With a sigh, Grissom pushed himself out of the chair and winced at the feeling of stiff muscles trying to work. He really needed to move.

It was already morning and the day shift were slowly trickling in. But his team was still there. He was about to head for the break room, when he heard laughter. He looked up in surprise and saw that Greg and Warrick were in a heated discussion about something, while Sara was shaking her head in amusement, sipping at her juice. He let a small smile turn up the corner of his mouth, but it didn't stay long when he noticed Catherine walking into the break room.

"Hey kids, did someone see Gris?" she asked and Grissom paused.

"Last time I saw him he was still holed up in his office, pretending to be working," Sara said in that all knowing voice and Grissom frowned. Was he really that transparent?

"Yeah well, anybody know what's bugging him?" Warrick asked and Grissom quickly changed his direction, heading for the labs.

"Coward," he thought about himself, but couldn't stop his retreat. When he saw Nick he straightened, suddenly finding a good distraction. He still didn't have Nick's report about the Jason case.

"Hey, Nick? Wait up a minute," he said, just as Nick was about to close the door. Pausing, the CSI stiffly turned.

"Yeah?"

"I need the report from the Jason case," Grissom stated and mentally cringed. He really needed to get some work done.

"Oh, sorry. It's right here," Nick walked to his desk and grabbed the report, handing it to Grissom distractedly.

"Everything okay?" Grissom asked with a frown, only now noticing how weary Nick looked. He'd seemed all right when he came to work. As if reading his thoughts, Nick put on a fake smile and shrugged.

"Just a hard case, that's all."

"That victim from the lake. How's it going?"

"Well, we have a positive identification, at last. Her husband just left the morgue. Doc Robbins also determined that the cause of death was hypoxia and shock from internal bleeding."

"How does that add up?" Grissom asked with a frown.

"She was also stabbed. But Robbins found some water in her stomach. I already took samples from the lake and I'm waiting for Greg to do the analysis."

"Do you have anything else?"

"Oh, yes... but I'm not sure if it's any help. I'm just going to look at her clothes. I found some hair in the car that doesn't belong to the vic, Greg will run it through the DNA database. There are some footprints and the Water Safety Patrol is looking out for a boat. I didn't found any blood in the car or around it, so the original crime scene must be somewhere else," Nick said with a tired sigh.

"Do you need some help?"

"No, I can handle it just fine," Nick bit back a little harshly, getting a surprised glare from Grissom. He'd asked, because he thought it would be good to work on the case with Nick. So far he seemed less inclined to start questioning him about his strange behaviour, but now Grissom realised that he wasn't the only one who had some problems.

"Nick?"

"Look man, I'm sorry. Really. I appreciate the offer, but I think I can handle this one alone."

Grissom watched him for a moment, then nodded and prepared to leave.

"Uh, Gris? Maybe... uhm, maybe you can help me with some thing." Nick said, suddenly remembering the strange wound.

"Yes?" Grissom was waiting and Nick looked at his desk, conducting a quick search through several folders, until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a photograph and handed it to Grissom.

"I know I've seen that sign somewhere, but I can't for the hell of it remember where," he said and he showed him the photo of the carving on Jamie's forehead. Grissom put up his glasses and stared at the picture, then slowly gave it back to Nick, a frown etching his face.

"Yeah, I've seen it before too," he said, carefully choosing his words.

"Where?"

"On another body."

TBC

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