A/N – Okay, I hope you're liking the story. Please read and review. Let me know what you think. Thanks!
NOTE: I don't have a beta, so mistakes are my own. Please be kind.
Disclaimer – Hmmm… I'll get back to you on that.
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Grissom arrived at the lab a few minutes late, feeling hung-over from the migraine, but jumpy from the sheer amount of coffee he'd had to drink. He mirthlessly laughed over the fact that fatigue could give him a migraine faster than anything, and one of the best things to counter-balance and control it was caffeine. So, after passing out in his bathroom after getting home, he'd finally managed to down some coffee and lay out exhausted on his bed, but only sleeping a couple of hours.
Feeling too tired to care, he'd decided to ignore Greg's outburst, knowing his CSIs had been burning the candle at both ends on this one, as well. Part of him also wanted to ignore what Greg had said, because it hurt his head too much to think about it.
Grabbing the assignment slips, he walked into the break room.
"We've only got a B&E tonight – for Catherine and Warrick," he informed them.
"Nick and Greg, let's see what we can do to wrap up this case," he said, looking at the two men sitting at the table.
"Griss, you're not looking so good," Warrick commented. Grissom just looked at him, turned, and left them sitting in the break room.
"Another fun shift," Greg huffed, as he and Nick headed out to check the evidence. While they'd been waiting for Grissom to show up, Nick had filled Greg in on the sheer lack of anything at Baker's residence. "There were no signs of forced entry," Nick said, "and no signs of anything out of place. However, when I powered up the computer, it came up with a blank hard disk, so I'm thinking something happened there. Scientists don't generally just erase their work."
"Hopefully, Archie will be able to retrieve the contents," Greg said, entering Grissom's office. While Nick briefed Grissom on the residence, Greg watched the older man's pale face. Warrick's right, Greg thought, he really does look like hell.
As Nick finished up his account, his pager went off. Found something interesting. A.
"Speak of the devil," he murmured, "Archie's got something."
Once in the lab, Archie pointed to the hard disk daisy chained to his own PC. "Whoever erased the hard disk knew what they were doing. It's a good thing I'm better, though." Turning to his keyboard, Archie clicked some keys on his keyboard and pulled up a screen.
"I was able to recover several partial files," he said. Tapping some more, he continued, "Most are simple notes and other everyday documents. This one, though, is interesting." Clicking his mouse, Archie pulled up a document and hit print. It seems to be a letter, and the contents are interesting. Handing Nick the printout, Archie looked at Grissom and said, "I'm going to keep looking, but I don't think I'll find much more."
"Thanks, Archie," Nick said absently, reading the document. As they walked towards Grissom's office, he described the contents, "This looks like a letter to the guy you spoke to yesterday, and it's not a happy letter, either." With that, he handed the letter to Greg.
"Baker wanted Evans to double-check the results of the analysis being done on the drug he was working on. The one to treat MRSA," Greg murmured. Reaching the bottom, his eyes widened, and he whistled. "Holy shit, he's outright accusing his partner of concocting some of the results of the tests."
Grabbing his cell phone, Grissom punched in Brass' number. "We need a warrant for the residence and workplace of Amelia Kohl." Turning to his guys, he said, "Brass will meet us there."
Grissom, Greg and Nick joined Brass in front of the home of Amelia Kohl at seven o'clock that morning. Opening the door, the young pretty blond looked at the officers and asked, "Can I help you?"
Stepping forward, Brass handed her the warrant and said, "We are here to search your house and vehicle, Ms. Kohl."
Looking at Nick and Greg, Grissom said, "Why don't you go with Brass. I'm going to take the car." Walking over to the silver sedan, Grissom popped open the glove compartment and took out the registration. A quick sniff confirmed the "new car" smell, and the date of the paperwork verified it.
"Ms. Kohl, can I ask what you did with your old car?" Grissom asked, then stated, "this one is just a couple of months old."
"That old pile of garbage?" she innocently asked, "I had that destroyed when I bought this baby." Smiling, she said, "As a matter-of-fact, they even let me watch while it was crushed into this tiny little cube of metal and shipped to the county landfill."
After spending another hour scouring the car, Grissom became frustrated at the prospect of not being able to find justifiable cause to have it towed to the lab's garage. When Nick and Greg came out equally frustrated, Amelia simply looked over her shoulder at the three men, waved the perfectly manicured fingers of one hand at them, and smiled.
"The computer is brand new," Nick said. The receipt was still attached to the front of it.
"Any signs of her old computer?" Grissom asked, rhetorically. If she'd had the car destroyed, odds are she would have had the computer destroyed, as well. However, Nick answered anyway, with "Not a clue. We searched every room, the attic, the crawl space… even the chimney. Nothing."
"We don't have a damn thing," Grissom murmured, and suddenly felt an overwhelming fatigue. In an instant, the rays of the sun became just a little too bright, and the heat a little too much to take. Handing the keys to Nick, he faintly said, "Let's head back to the lab," and climbed into the back seat, where he could stretch out a bit. Looking at each other across the hood of the Denali, Greg and Nick glanced back at their boss, who was rubbing his eyes furiously, and clenching his jaw.
After dropping Grissom off in the lab, Greg and Nick headed out to LV Labs. Greg had made a call earlier, speaking with Evan Stevens, the president of the company and man he'd interviewed the day before, asking that Amelia not be allowed into her office until they'd searched it. Upon arrival, the two men were escorted directly to Stevens' office, where the young man greeted them.
"Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Stevens," Nick said.
"Anything I can do to help, I'd be happy to do," Stevens said, walking down one hallway, then turning into another. "Amelia and Andy shared the lab down at the end of this corridor. It's a bit smaller than some of the team labs that have to contain up to ten people to work. However, Andy always liked it, and managed to make room for whatever equipment he needed."
As if realizing he was babbling, Stevens stopped talking and shook his head. "I apologize. I haven't had a lot of sleep since you told me about Andy," he softly said, addressing Greg. Continuing, he added, "I wasn't kidding when I said we're like a family here. When Don down in HR found out his kid had leukemia, everyone stepped in to help him out. The last thing we wanted was for him to have to worry about his job. Last summer, one of our toxicology expert's kid broke an arm – everyone and their families showed up at the hospital to sign the cast. The poor kid was only seven, and the cast was nothing but a mass of signatures."
As they approached the door, Stevens stepped up and punched in a code, causing the latch on the door to audibly click. "Before we go in, I am going to ask you to step into the clean room and put on suits. After that, please touch nothing without letting me know first. I'm not familiar with everything going on in the lab, so I don't know what might be disrupted."
Once in their protective gear, Stevens turned to the CSI and said, "Please keep in mind that anything in here is considered confidential." With that, the young company president escorted the men through the lab.
While Nick and Greg went through LV Labs, Grissom was reviewing the handwriting analysis report waiting on his desk. The letter of resignation had been put in an unsealed envelope. No fingerprints had been found on the envelope or the letter. The letter itself consisted of very few words, and all of them had been forged, but forged well. Everything from the paper to the ink was common grade grocery store material.
Back in his office, Grissom and Brass sat in the CSI supervisor's office, looking through reports. "The worst part of the whole thing is the complete inability to arrest her," Brass said. As if accused, Grissom sat forward and yelled, "How the hell am I supposed to provide evidence that doesn't exist?"
Holding up his hands, palms out, Brass sat back and calmly said, "You need to calm down. I can understand your being frustrated, but you're only pissing me off."
Running his hand over his face, Grissom wearily replied, "I know," then repeated it when he blew out a long breath. "I know."
"I won't ask if you've heard from her," Brass said. Smiling, he continued, "I'm pretty sure I don't want to know at this point. Just keep in mind that if you want to go out and get shit-faced one night, I'll drive."
"Thanks, but no," Grissom said, and was distracted as Nick and Greg walked into his office. Sinking down hard into unoccupied chairs next to Jim, neither looked happy.
"We didn't find anything that would allow us to take the computers, and nothing seemed out of place in the lab. The fact is, the Dimethylmercury can't even be marked off as missing, because all the vials are accounted for," Nick said.
The four men sat quietly for a moment before Greg suddenly grinned, "We may know we don't have enough evidence, but would Ms. Kohl?" Turning to Brass, he clarified, "How does she know we weren't able to trace the neurotoxin to a vial and from the vial to her?"
Raising his brow, Jim smirked at the younger man and said, "We could give it a try." Within an hour, Amelia Kohl was sitting in interrogation, and Gil Grissom sat across from her.
"We know you killed him, so why don't you just make it easy on yourself," Brass said standing behind her, sounding bored.
"Really?" she asked, "how did I kill him?"
Pulling up a toxicology report, Grissom passed it across the table to Amelia and said, "It only takes a few drops of Dimethylmercury to kill a person."
"I'm aware of that," she said, her tone sounding as bored as Brass's.
"Once you killed him, you took his body and placed it in your vehicle," Grissom expounded.
"Oh? Andy's a big guy. Are you sure I could possibly lift him?" she asked, innocently.
Shaking his head, Grissom responded, "Did you know that when adrenaline kicks in, you can gain superhuman strength?"
Smiling in reply, Amelia just shook her head, and said, "What else did I do?"
"I think you drove, trying to figure out what to do with your colleague," Grissom stated, then continued with, "and when you found an old dirt ranch road, you took it."
"The location was just sheer luck," Brass added, "because you found the perfect place to dump Andy off on that back road in the middle of nowhere. You rolled him from your car to the old steel water trough. Unfortunately, the hat fell off right away, and the shirt ripped off when he got stuck on the edge of your trunk."
"You know, it's really amazing what can be found from a car that has been compacted," Grissom said, knowing the whole while that wasn't remotely true. You can't get shit from a car that's been compacted and heaved into the landfill.
"But why would I want to hurt Andy?" she innocently asked.
"We found a letter he wrote to your company's president, explaining that you doctored the MRSA drug's trial run – that you made up some of the results so you could fast track it to the market," Grissom said. Sitting back, he added, "I'd say that goes towards motive."
"So why don't we just cut the crap," Brass finally said, taking a seat next to Amelia. Lowering his voice a touch, he continued, "Just tell us your story, and maybe the D.A. will go easier on you. Otherwise…" he finished, spreading his hand, indicating otherwise you're on your own. For nearly a minute, the woman looked from Grissom to Brass, and back again, worry etched across her face. Within thirty seconds she began biting her lip, and her eyes began to tear up. Brass stood and walked behind her, and could just about feel the confession oozing out of her.
Just as suddenly, and so fast neither man so it coming, the eyes dried up, and her lips curled into a smile. "That's a very interesting tale you've woven there," she said pleasantly. Leaning back, she laughed softly before adding, "It's too bad you don't have any real evidence."
Standing, she tossed her hair back and asked, "Am I under arrest?"
At Brass's grudging "No", Amelia Kohl walked to the door. Turning back to Brass and Grissom, she said, "Yes, that was a very good story you just told me."
They had no choice but to let her walk out of the room.
"She's right. We just don't have the evidence," Grissom said, resignedly. Standing slowly, he walked out of the room and made his way down to his office. Standing in the doorway of his office, he looked around the dim room and meticulously shuffled the pages of the reports into a neat pile… and used every ounce of strength he had to throw them across his office.
As papers flew, Grissom turned and stalked past Greg and Nick, not even bothering to stop when his shoulder slammed into Nick's, and nearly knocked him over. Instead, he stood next to his car, clenched his hands, and asked himself why the hell he did this job. As he peeled out of the parking lot, Grissom headed home, as exhaustion finally overtook him.
Friday night's graveyard shift ended up being fairly light. A B&E and a trick roll kept Nick, Greg, and Warrick busy, so Grissom busied himself with what little paperwork was available. Part of him wanted to ditch out and go ride a roller coast, while another part knew he'd have plenty of time to do so later.
Catherine dropped by his office an hour before shift end.
"You have tomorrow night off, Gil," she reminded him. When he looked at her, she scowled and said, "If you step one foot near this building, I'm going to talk to Ecklie about the state of the lab right now. We may be loyal to you, but you need to take a break, and we'll do what we have to in order to make you do it." On that threat, which he figured was probably not so idle, Catherine walked out of his office.
That's how he ended up spending most of Friday – instead of working the usual double, which kept his mind and body occupied, he road roller coasters. On the fifth different ride at the fifth different location, Grissom realized he'd been putting off the inevitable. Added to that, this nagging guilt in the back of his mind about not spending enough time with Hank irritated him to the point that he ended up taking him for an extra long walk.
Lying in bed late Friday night, Grissom played back Sara's message a couple of times. It still made him feel foolish, but he also recognized he wouldn't be sleeping without it. The same sleep turned from blessed nothing to coughing sand and burning sun. Panic ran over him as he dug up one body after another in the hot Nevada desert. Faces collided, as he saw the model morph into the car in the desert. His blood ran cold as he felt her lifeless hand in his, and suddenly his blood raged. Natalie and Amelia sat in an interrogation room, comparing notes. Both laughed at the sheer stupidity of their team. The harder they laughed, the greater the rage that built, and burned, until he became enveloped by it, and began to pound his fist into the table… over and over and over…
Grissom shot awake, the burning rage in his throat, and his arms twitching to pound something, until he realized the noise came from his front door. Stalking down the hall, he threw on his robe, and yanked open the door, knowing he had a snarl on his face.
"What the fuck do you want?" almost came out of his mouth, before he really saw her. Instead, he just whispered, "Sara."
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A/N – Okay, I could really use some feedback. So, let's take a vote. All in favor of having me continue this story, press the Review button. Yeah, it's that little button right down there that you can tell me stuff with. Thanks!