A/N: This time big thanks goes to my beta TangledPencils who not only corrected the grammar but also added in a little scene and pointed out some of my mistakes. Thanks, lol.

Also a thank you to my only reviewer for the last chapter Wraiths-Angel. Your review was truly appreciated -hug-

Fire and water

by Nicol Leoraine

Chapter 20

"We found her diary," Warrick announced to the team that assembled in the conference room.

"You read it?!" Nick asked harshly, the thought of it somehow appalling to him. Warrick raised his eyebrows and the others shot Nick a curious look.

"Chill, man. That definitely isn't your average 'girly' diary," and seeing another protest coming, this time from Sara, Warrick quickly raised his hand to stop it.

"No offense, Sara," he grinned and she rolled her eyes but let him continue.

"This is the ultimate dream of every detective," Warrick flipped a look toward Brass who was half sitting, half leaning against the corner of the table, looking as unimpressed as ever. Deciding that it was a good time to stop playing around, Warrick cleared his throat and tapped his fingers against the leather bound book.

"Like I said, this isn't as much a diary as a notebook. She wrote in everything work related, or at least most of it. The last note is from the day before she was killed."

Hearing that, everyone in the room perked up, even Grissom who hadn't really had a chance to have more than a cursory look inside the diary.

Seeing the interest, Warrick stood up and walked toward the projector. He opened the diary, searching for a particular page, then turned it down and scanned it so it could be projected onto the big screen on the wall. Feet scuffed against the carpet as the CSI's turned their chairs to view the big wall screen, Sara yelping as the static electricity zapped her when Nick accidentally brushed her arm. She rubbed her arm while glaring at him, and he gave an apologetic shrug, nearly yelping himself when his stitches pulled at his skin with the movement. Catherine snickered quietly while resettling in her chair and Warrick rolled his eyes, causing Grissom to glower at each of them in turn while Brass merely ignored them after a quick glance, although closer scrutiny might have revealed his lip twitched.

Once they'd all settled, Warrick showed them several pages of handwritten text, some of them dated up to a year ago, others only a day before Jamie's death. Warrick read several sentences out loud, the rest they read in silence.

"Who's this guy Alan Rickson?" Sara asked with a frown when she saw the name several times on the same page.

"That's the prosecutor in the Fedderson case. And here's the reason why he would want Jamie and Howard Jerry dead."

"...we were just leaving the court through the garage, when Kyle stopped with this puzzled look on his face. Elli stopped too and asked him what was wrong. He hushed her and nodded towards the farthest end of the garage," Sara read the part Warrick pointed at.

"I didn't realize at first who the man was that Kyle kept staring at, but then he slightly turned toward us and we all saw Alan Rickson.

"So what?" Howard asked quietly. He didn't like the man, none of us did after that blasted case. We all saw the smug look he had on his face once the court ended and Fedderson was released. Pity the journalists were all paying more attention to Fedderson than to him.

This time Rickson wasn't alone though. There was this weird looking guy. He was standing right under a light so we could all see his ugly face. He had quite a scar on his left temple too. I don't know what they were doing. Sure, they were talking but in hushed tones and we were too far away to hear them, but the man with the scar seemed to be pissed. In contrast, Rickson looked cool, as if everything was ok. We watched the scene for several minutes, but then a car pulled up and both Rickson and the man stopped talking, looking startled. By the time the car was parked and its occupants were walking toward the elevator, the guy with the scar was already gone and Rickson was heading to his own car. We went our own way too, a little puzzled and maybe just a bit curious. I know for sure that the Fedderson case went down the toilet thanks to some people that were paid off by Fedderson. But it's only now that I am getting the suspicion that Rickson was one of them."

"Who's the guy with the scar?" Nick asked with a frown, squirming on his chair which started to get uncomfortable. Grissom shot him a look, then nodded at Warrick to continue.

"Two months ago she wrote this."

"I just got a call from Howard Jerry, one of the guys who was on the jury of the Fedderson case with me. I hadn't seen him since the trial collapsed. Sure, we'd exchanged a few phone calls, mostly about the speculations that appeared in the newspapers a few days after the court ended, but nothing else. And now he called me, all excited and faxed me over a newspaper clipping. It was about the Jackson case. There was a photo of the drug dealer that was one of the men charged for drug dealing, murder and fraud. He wasn't the biggest fish in the lake, but was the sidekick of one. Here he was with a big, shit-eating grin on his face. And next to him in the photo was Alan Rickson, the prosecutor on Jackson's case. Guess who the drug dealer was?

Yeah, the guy from the garage. So I am getting a little curious. What was the guy with the scar talking about with the man who was trying to convict him on serious charges just a few months later?"

"Well, that explains why Alan Rickson would want to get rid of any possible witnesses. If someone got wind of him knowing that guy with the scar, they may start digging into his other cases too. And sooner or later something might turn up against him," Catherine was the first to speak and the others turned to her.

"Yeah, but how did he know about Jamie and Howard Jerry?" Nick wondered, the frown on his face deepening.

"She had to contact him at some time. He must've recognized her from the court with Fedderson and put two and two together. Who knows, maybe he sent someone to talk with Jerry, the second vic, just to get the names of the others."

"We won't know for sure now," Grissom shrugged and his attention was back on the diary. He took it from the projector and sat back with it, flipping through the pages. "The main thing is that we know the names of the other two people that were with Jamie and Howard. They're the Master's next targets."

"But we still don't know their full names," Sara protested. "They might not even be from the jury."

"Oh, they were in the jury all right," Nick said and opened the files he'd brought with him. "There is a full list of the jury." He quickly found the page he was looking for and handed it to Jim Brass whose hand was the first to reach out. The detective's eyes ran down the list and a slight grin appeared on his face.

"We not only have their names but also their addresses. Good thinking, Nicky."

"So shouldn't we be going after them and warn them?" Nick asked, a little impatiently.

"You're right, Nicky," Brass spoke and pulled out his phone. "I'm sending out a patrol car to both of these people and we'll be monitoring them. If the master wants to attack, we'll catch him."

"What about Alan Rickson? After all, he's the one who hired that killer."

"First we need to catch the Master. Maybe he'll talk and then we could put up a solid case against the prosecutor. But without him, we don't have much."

"We still have two living witnesses. There must be a reason why is he so afraid of them," Nick pushed and Brass nodded.

"Sure. But our priority right now is the Master. If I go to the judge and ask for a warrant against Alan Rickson, he will know it before I get the paper into my hand. And even if he doesn't bolt and leave the country, he would surely call the killer and warn him. Our best chance is that the killer will attack in the next few days and we will catch him. Getting Rickson in jail is another matter."

The detective held Nick's gaze for a moment, wanting to make sure the younger man understood that he wasn't letting Rickson off the hook. He turned to his phone only after he received a small nod.

"What now?" Nick asked after a second, turning to Grissom who at first didn't reply. He had that lost look in his eyes once again and Nick realized that after all that had happened the previous night, he still hadn't got a chance to talk with Grissom about his apparent hearing loss. Maybe it was time to do just that.

"Grissom?" Sara asked with a concerned frown and Grissom blinked, clearing his throat.

"Yeah, well, I am sure Jim will take care of the two witnesses. We should probably return to our cases." As if on cue, his pager beeped and the CSI pushed away from the table and stood up.

"Cath, how are you doing with your cases?"

"Pretty well, I just need to finish up in the lab. Do you have another case for me?"

"Yes. We have a double homicide at Holiday Inn. I need you there, as well as Warrick. Sara..."

"Sorry, but I still have to look at the Anderson case."

"What about me?" Nick asked, having the feeling that he was being purposefully left out. He wasn't mistaken.

"You can finish Catherine's job at the lab or go home, I don't care," Grissom replied a little harshly. He blinked as he heard his own tone of voice. Noting the look on Nick's face, he continued more gently. "If I remember rightly, you're not even supposed to be at work today."

Nick felt the anger rising anyway. He considered saying something about Grissom not being in the right state to go into the field either, but he bit his tongue instead. After all, he didn't know what was really going on with Grissom and it definitely wasn't the wisest idea to call him on it before the whole team, however tempting it was.

"Fine," he grumbled and waited until the team left the conference room, ignoring the concerned look he got from Catherine, the apologetic shrug from Warrick or the scrutiny he got from Grissom. He made a show of picking up his notes and turning off the projector, waiting until the room finally emptied.

"If you don't need me here, I can do something more useful," he muttered to himself.

Yeah, going after Travis and trying to clear the air between the two of them definitely looked like a better plan.

-xXxXx-

There was no way he could sleep. He had trouble even keeping still long enough for the Master to fall asleep. The very last thing Jonah wanted was for the man to stay awake and think about what happened in the last twenty four hours. He was angry enough as it was and Jonah was scared to even breathe let alone crawl out of his sleep-bag and take a walk around the warehouse, like he itched to do. He so desperately wanted to clear his head, but he wasn't allowed to, and the damn sleeping-bag was too warm for his liking. He slowly opened it, wincing at the sound of the zipper and casting a glance at the Master, who was lying in another bag just in front of the door.

'How thoughtful of him,' Jonah almost snorted. Seeing the other man frown slightly as if he read his thoughts even in sleep, Jonah swallowed and turned away, facing the ceiling. While his body settled into a seemingly relaxed state, his mind was anything but.

Everything started because of those stupid drugs. No, not everything, Jonah thought a moment later with some self recrimination. He could've stopped taking them. He could've stayed at the detox center, but he'd chosen to run. And he was still running when the Master came and gave him what he wanted. A feeling of power. A feeling of purpose. Pity that his sole purpose was taking life.

It looked like the right thing to do. When the drug coursed through his body and that voice spoke to him with something akin to admiration, Jonah for the first time felt like someone. A real person, an important person. And the Master gave him the reason. The fate, the ritual... the meaning of 'family'.

But that feeling was now gone and even when Jonah got his dose of crystal meth, the feeling hadn't returned. Not the one he really wanted. Because even if he'd felt power at the first kill, the feeling that just became stronger when they killed the other guy, he'd lost the 'purpose'.

It suddenly wasn't about the ritual, about getting the better life and all that crap that brought him there. It was about orders. Not just the orders the Master issued, but the orders the Master accepted from someone else.

Tonight, Jonah's eyes finally opened. And he didn't like what he saw, not at all. Because the Master wasn't the one in charge. Because he wasn't a Master at all. Jonah didn't know the name of the man sleeping next to him, but he knew what he was…he was a killer.

So, lying on the floor of the small office within the confines of the warehouse, he decided that it was time to move on. He would have to wait for the best chance. Then he would run.

-xXxXx-

There was one person who wasn't having trouble sleeping, quite the opposite. He couldn't wake up. At first the dream was just that - a dream. But Travis soon realized that what he was seeing were more like memories than his own fantasy playing tricks on him. In those dreams, his wife Jamie was still alive. She was still breathing and smiling at him, sitting behind the table and enjoying breakfast. While Travis was just sitting on the chair, stunned, Jamie kept talking. And Travis suddenly knew that he'dheard those words before.

"I think I'm on to something, Trav," Jamie said and smiled at him with one of her most beautiful smiles, one that made Travis want to cry. He knew he would never see it again.

"Yesterday I talked to Howard, and today I am planning on meeting up with Kyle and Elli. I had to make sure they'll go into it with me, or not."

"And what are you getting into, exactly?" Travis heard himself ask, sounding as if he wasn't paying attention. And he wasn't, not really. He was too busy reading the papers that morning to pay attention to his wife. She knew it, of course, but she still answered him.

"I'm not sure. But it's bigI'll tell you about it, once I have all the facts. You won't believe it, Trav," she added with gleaming eyes and when Travis looked up from his papers, he really couldn't believe it. She was sitting before him, the wound on her forehead as fresh as when he saw her on that steel slab in the autopsy. This time, Travis had no trouble waking up, not at all.

It took him several minutes to recognize his surroundings. Then he spent two more minutes trying to brush away the concerned stares of his two room mates, who were woken up by his scream.

What took him the longest time though was to convince the doctor to let him leave the hospital. By the time Nick Stokes pulled out of the CSI's parking lot, Travis was signing his AMA papers. He too had a job to do.

TBC

Hm, is there anyone reading?