The boy flew across the interrogation room in panic and moved a chair in to the corner. He dove under it and started crying. Sara walked carefully into the room.
"Hej," she said, friendly smiling. "Calm down, kiddo."
The boy calmed down a bit and look up at her in fear. His blue eyes were watery:
"Mommy, please..."
Sara haunched in front of the chair. The boy pushed himself even further into the corner. It hurt Sara to see a child this scared. For a second she recognized herself in his pained look. Old scars send warning signs through her body. She ignored them and look at the boy intensely.
"Mommy is sick. She needed to go to the doctor for a while. She'll be back tomorrow, alright?"
"Go away, mommy! MOMMY!"
Sara smiled patiently:
"My name is Sara, what's your name?"
With big angry eyes the boy gazed back at her.
"Go away, stay away from mommy!"
"Mommy will be back tomorrow."
"Mommy, please..."
From behind the window Warrick observed the kid. He read the file and stared at the boy, who was now reasonably relaxed, but still sat in the corner. Not a single useful word out of him. Greg came strawling in.
"Hej, what's this?"
"DB found, young female, in a vault in a warehouse. Next to the body in the same vault was this boy and another young woman, most likely his mother. The latter had a bloody knife in her hand."
"Obvious," Greg smiled. "Piece of cake. Where is the mother, AKA murderer?"
"In the hospital, Sara shot her."
Greg whisled. Warrick barely reacted. He stared through the glass at the boy who was now murmeling strange words. The only thing the kid was wearing was an oversized white T-shirt which he had pulled over his knees. Sara tried to reach the boy with al her might, but to no avail. With a tight stare the boy watched his fingers and didn't look up again.
"You'd think there'd be loads of evidence in a vault with three persons in it, wouldn't you?" Nick commented after he and Grissom had combed through the entire thing twice.
"Never assume anything, Nicky, only trust the evidence." He replied curtly. He too was a bit pissed of at the obvious lack of hairs, fibers or any other sort of trace they could investigate.
"Did you search the handle?" Nick drew up an eyebrow.
"We found three hairs, six partial fingerprints and a pool of blood inside, and you expect to find anything on the outside?" He look every bit as sceptical as he had at Sara's suggestion five hours ago.
"You've hung to much around Sara. Or is it the other way around?" He wasn't sure.
"Very funny, Nick," Grissom replied, not looking amused. "Just do it, pretty please."
Nick walked outside the vault and closed the door halfway, so that he could powder it.
"Ooh... Big shock, no prints. Can we go now?" Grissom laughed out loud when he look at him.
"Nicky, my boy, you look like a baby when you start pouting like that!" Grissom him still grinning. "Make sure to check the rest of the outside too."
Nick let out a tortured moan and set to work on the leftside of the vault. After covering about a square yard and finding a good 25 prints he got a bad feeling.
"Griss, could you take a look at this?" he said.
Grissom came outside looking as though he had been disturbed in the middle of something utterly important.Until he saw the fingerprints scattered over the outside of the vault.
Apparantly awestruck he said drily:
"That's a lot of prints!"