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"What've you go so far?" Catherine asked Archie.

The first order of business had been to obtain the security camera tapes from Sara's building. They had been easy to get since the Building Manager had come home to police all over the apartment complex. He demanded to know what was going on and then promptly started asking if he should lawyer up. Someone had been taken, most likely against their will, in his building. He didn't want any legal action taken against him. So, he'd readily handed over anything that could help find Sara. All the tapes from all the different cameras for the last two weeks) and the blue print of the apartment building and grounds.

"Warrick told me that Nick believes this guy took Sara from her apartment, and headed this way," he pointed to the blue print, dragging his finger along the paper, in the direction of where the cat had lead Nick. "Based on that, only two cameras would've caught anything. I've gone over them, and at first, they came up clean."

"At first?"

"Yeah," he nodded his head, quickly queing up one of the tapes. "If you look closely, when this tape begins, you can see the back end of Nick's Denali pulling away from the curb."

"Obvious from earlier tonight," she nodded her head.

"Yes. The way the camera is positioned, you can't see the front door, or the drivers side door. Not much has been going on around the building, so I wasn't really seeing anything at all . . . but then," he fast forwarded about fourty five minutes from the time that Nick had pulled away, "the feed loops back over and replays. Nick's Denali is back. And at this time," he motioned to the timestamp, "he was already back at the lab."

"So, who ever did this knew how to manipulate security camera feeds?"

Archie nodded. "It's not the easiest thing to do, but you don't have to be a genius to figure it out."

"What about the other tape? You said there were two?"

"Same thing, it loops back over. And given the fact that Nick left the building, the tape replays about fourty five minutes later, and the time stamp on the photo that was emailed to Nick of Sara was about fifteen minutes after that, it seems plausible that this guy knew what he was doing. Probably planning it for a while."

Catherine nodded her head sadly. "The picture was emailed to Nick about an hour after he took her. Probably waited just long enough to get a head start."

"Drop whatever you're doing," Nick said, racing into the lab. "I've got a tape! It could be," he panted, thrusting it into Archie's hands, "our best chance."

Quickly, he changed the tapes and fast forwarded the contents, looking for anything that could be to their advantage.

"Bingo," Archie said, his heart racing increasing slightly, a small smile tugging on his lips. The vehicle pulled up to the curb.

"Wasn't there a strange, late 80's Chevy truck a few blocks from the Mary Bishop crime scene?" Catherine asked, watching as the man, dressed in black, face pointed away from the camera, jumped out of the vehicle and headed across the lawn towards Sara's apartment.

"Yeah," Nick answered, his knuckles turning white as he clutched the back of Archie's chair. He stood a little straighter when a few minutes later, the man came out, craddling Sara's limp body in his arms. He flinched when he noticed how she was roughly thrown inside the cab. He could see Lucky, the cat, trying to attack the man's leg. When the man leant over to grab the cat, Lucky got a good swat in on his bare arm.

Catherine whipped out her cell phone. "The cat managed to scratch the perp. If we're lucky, he's still got some of the guys DNA." She nodded her head as Greg announced that he would try and extract the skin cells, both hoping like hell that the DNA hadn't rubbed off in the grass, or been licked away with the cats grooming skills. Even though they already had the serial rapist and murderers DNA, they needed to know if this was in fact the same person.

"Go back," Nick said. Archie qued the tape back up a bit . . . "Five seconds . . . slow it down . . . . There!" Archie quickly paused the tape, freezing on the mans face. "Print that off."

Archie did as he was told and then started on the next obvious lead. The license plate. He isolated the frames, making the plates enlarged. "Fake," he sighed upon seeing the tags. The serial number read 00000.

"Dammit!" Nick's fist hit the desk in frustration. He rubbed his hand over his face in an attempt to calm down.

"At least we have a picture of him and the vehicle," Catherine pointed out, grabbing the print out of the guys face and rushing out of the room. "We're gonna get him, Nick. We're gonna get Sara back."

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"Have you located him yet?" Nick nearly snapped into his cell phone.

"Nick, the APB has only been out for ten minutes," Sophia said, her nerves frayed. "We have to give it a little time."

He sighed, knowing that she was right. He bid her a hasty good bye before snapping his phone shut and walking into the breakroom.

"How do you think she's doing?" Greg asked Warrick quietly.

"C'mon, man, you know Sar," Warrick answered in the same hushed tone. "She's going to be fine."

Brass and Grissom exchanged looks knowing that when her back was against the wall, and she felt cornered, she fought. That wasn't always a bad thing, but in this case, it might mean the difference between life and death. Brass remembered when she had drawn her gun and gone into the apartment with him and other officers before the room had been cleared. And she found the guy trying to escape through the window. It had been right after the explosion and everyone knew that she needed to take some time off to clear her head, but she refused. Grissom couldn't help but remember the man at the Institution who locked them into the officer together and held the makeshift knife to her throat.

"I know this is going to sound stupid, Nick, but what's going on?" Catherine asked. They were once again at a stand still with nothing to track down. All they had was a face and a vehicle -- but where they were, no one knew. Nick looked over at Catherine and then glanced around at his team mates who were looking at him, waiting for him to respond. "There is something you're not telling us," she pressed. "I can see it in your eyes."

He sighed, knowing that whatever the out come, they would find out anyway.

"Sara wasn't completely honest with you guys," he hedged. "I don't mean that she lied, but she withheld some information in regards to the case -" he saw all the shocked expressions and raised his hands, palms towards them, in an effort to keep them quiet so he could finish. "It's nothing that would've told us who," he stopped for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts, "this is. But I whole heartedly supported her decision."

"What didn't she tell us?" Brass asked.

He remained quiet for a few moments trying to decide just how much he could tell them without breaking her trust. But he knew that he had to come clean and tell them everything. If when they got Sara back, and she was pissed at him, he could deal with that. It would make him more than happy for that. "She was the first victim."

Catherine let out a shaky breath. "That explains a lot."

"How does she know?"

"Everything fits," he shrugged. "In the time line -- she was the first, it happened in park, in Boston in '91 when she was at Harvard. He wore a ski mask too. She said she felt like the case was following her. But she couldn't offer any other information because she didn't see his face. She told me that she thought he was going to kill her. But two girls showed up in the park and so he bolted. Saved her life."

"Why didn't she report it?" Warrick asked, leaning back in his seat.

"She did, but the officer who took her statement apparently didn't create a case file, and pretended like he had no idea what she was talking about when she showed up at the Boston PD demanding answers."

"That's unacceptable!" Grissom shouted, startling the occupants of the room. The man rarely ever raised his voice or got angry. "Did she speak with the Police Chief?"

Nick nodded his head. "He accessed her file. Life history seems more accurate, really. It's a long story, but Sara had a rough past. I think we all figured that out for ourselves. She only recently confided in me about it," he took a shaky breath. "Anyway, after glancing at her file, Sara told me that he decided she was a screwed up kid looking for attention. The officer, Alexander Danes, had just been given a medal for bravery or something, so no one thought he was capable of doing something against policy. By the time she had gone to the PD demanding that someone update her about what was going on, it had been a few days and all the evidence would've been gone. There was nothing she could do. At best, it was his word against hers, and she didn't even know who he was. The next night, the second rape and first murder happened. She is convinced that if those girls hadn't shown up in the park when they did, she'd have been dead."

"Why didn't she say anything?" Grissom's voice was decidedly soft now. "To us?"

"Because," he rubbed his eyes. "She needs to find this guy. To give her some peace. Give her justice. Give those other girls justice. She knew that if she told you about it, you would pull her off the case." He looked at Grissom. "And if you had, there is no doubt in my mind that she wouldn't have been able to handle it. She's lived with this for 16 years. I think she felt like if she was able to know that something she found helped put him away, it would really give her closure. And she wouldn't get that if she wasn't on the case."

"Do you think it's the same guy?" Brass asked.

"How could it not be?" His eyes filled with water. "The email said that he was going to finish what he started. If she was the first victim, and he had planned on killing her?" He swallowed against the bile that threatened to rise in his throat. "It started in Boston. Then the guy goes underground and shows up again in San Francisco, where she's working the case. And now, here . . . it's not a coincidence."

"But it goes against his pattern," Greg muttered.

"Fuck the pattern!" Nick said, sweeping his hand over the table top, newspapers and paper cups floating down to the ground.

Greg jumped at Nick's outburst though he knew that it wasn't aimed at him.

"He's deviating from what he knows," Warrick calmly spoke, telling the youngest CSI, and voicing what everyone else in the room knew, but needed to hear anyway. "He's going to slip up."

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Sara's eyes fluttered open, her head throbbing. The fast motion of a moving vehicle made her queasy.

"How nice of you to finally wake up," he taunted her.

Her eyes opened wide and she attempted to focus, but her vision was blurry. "Who are you?" she asked timidly, beginning to tug at the ropes that were around her wrists.

"You know," he sneered.

His face came into focus, but she didn't recognize him, though his eyes were framiliar. She just couldn't place them.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice becoming stronger. The CSI part of her brain was kicking into gear. She needed to get information, she needed to process what was going on and formulate a plan to get herself out. Or to get word to someone else who could help her . . .

Suddenly, he let go of the steering wheel with his right hand and grabbed a fist full of her hair, yanking her head towards him. She made him focus on his eyes. "January 13th, 1991. The bushes in the park. Ring any bells?"

"Oh!" she choked, her eyes watering.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," he released his grip on her hair suddenly, pushing her head away from him with such force that she wasn't able to get her equilibrum balanced and she hit her head on the passenger side window. "Playing dumb never suits the smart girls. Of course, how smart can you be? You ignored me for months!" He shook his head furiously, glancing from the road, to her. "If you'd just paid attention, this never would've happened! I'd never have had to take from you what was mine, and I never would gotten a taste of what it was like. Exhilerating. Intoxicating. Freeing. Those girls never would've lost their lives. But they did . . . and I think maybe I should thank you for that. You know, because it gave me the knowledge that I'm smarter than those . . . those idiots who think that they can keep people safe. They couldn't keep me safe. They certainly couldn't keep you safe. They practically handed you to me on a silver platter."

"I think I'm going to be sick," she muttered before the soup that Nick had made her resurfaced, hitting the floor between them.

"UGH!" He fumed. "Look what you've done!" When she vomitted a second time, he lost his temper and hit her from across the seat.

When she recoiled back in her seat, trying to bring a hand up to the stinging flesh, he smiled proudly. He'd put her in her place, and the vision of her struggling against the restraints he'd tied to her made him feel oddly giddy.

"I'm sorry," she fought against throwing up again. "I'm not feeling too well. I think it's the flu."

"I don't care what it is," he laughed. "It helped me get you out of your place. I thought it would've been more difficult. But you made it especially easy. I thought I was going to have to kill your little boyfriend to get you outta there. But you sent him on his way. Probably saved his life," he sneered.

She closed her eyes, wishing that Nick would take her in his arms. She prayed that he would find her.

"I need some water, or something," she said.

"Oh no," he shook his head. "We have a long drive in front of us and we have no time for unplanned pit stops."

"Please," she begged. "If I have some water or something, it'll probably help settle my stomach."

He glanced over at her and realized that she was right. He didn't have his rag of chloriform anymore since he'd lost it somewhere along the way. "I could beat you into silence," he pondered outloud, seeing her flinch. He smirked. "But I want you to be conscious when I torture you. Then there is the main event. I've been waiting and planning for a long time," he said in a quiet whisper that made her shiver in terror. "It's perfect."

"You'll need to untie me," she held up her hands to show him the binding.

"I'm going in alone," he shook his head. "You're staying put."

"Please," she begged. "I need to go to the bathroom. My stomach really is unsettled, and I don't think either of us want anymore accidents. Not like that," she nodded her head at the vomit on the floor, "or any other kind of accident."

He visibly cringed and he started to think. "Fine," he conceded. He reached into his left pocket and grabbed a Swiss Army Knife. "I will let you out to go to the washroom, and get a drink, but I'll be with you the whole time. And if you try anything, and I mean, anything at all, I won't hesitate to kill the clerk," he nodded his head at the small gas station that seemed to be oddly out of place in the desert, looming just ahead of them. No buildings were around it, it just sat in solitary silence next to the two lane highway. "But don't worry, I still plan to have my fun with you, no matter what. And then," he smiled at her, flashing his dirty teeth, ". . . you die."

TBC . . . .