Missing
Chapter 3
"Do either of you girls know where Tim Johnson lives?" Nick asked.
The girls both shook their heads no.
"Do you have his contact information?"
Again the girls shook their heads no, but then Reese spoke up. "I do know his parents names though." She said.
"What are they?" Nick asked grabbing a pen and a notepad out of his pocket.
"Richard and Victoria Johnson." She answered.
"How do you know that?" Shelley asked her friend with a surprised look on her face.
"Tim's brother Alex is on the football team and his parents often help out with ticket sales as well as merchandise sales at the games." She answered.
"Thanks Reese, that's a huge help." Nick said, then he added "What else do you know about this guy?"
"Nothing really, he is in my chemistry class but we never talk or anything." Reese said.
"I don't even have a class with him so the only time I ever see him is in the hallway walking to class and stuff, sorry." Shelley said.
"That's alright, you girls have really helped us out, if you think of anything else let me know will you?" Nick asked.
"Sure." Reese said.
"Of course" Shelley added.
With that the girls and Brenda left leaving Greg and Nick in the room alone.
Nick turned to Greg "I have an idea, come on." Nick said dashing out of the room with Greg right on his heels.
Nick went into another room and grabbed a phone book. He began to flip through it rapidly.
"Look at this, there is only one listing in the phone book for Richard and Victoria Johnson, and their address is right around the corner from the high school the girls go to, it has to be them." Nick said. He then took his phone out of his pocket.
"Who are you calling?" Greg asked.
"Catherine, I need her to get me a warrant to search their house." Nick replied.
An hour later Catherine told Nick some disturbing news. "Sorry Nicky, the judge wouldn't grant us the warrant to search the Johnson house."
"What do you mean he wouldn't issue the warrant, we have the kid on surveillance video driving off with a girl who is now missing." Nick said angrily.
"I'm sorry Nicky he said we didn't have enough for it to be granted, if it were up to me you would have the warrant in your hand." Catherine replied.
"Well I'm going over to the house anyway, maybe they will willingly let me look around." Nick said.
"Take Sara with you." Catherine instructed.
"Will do, later boss." Nick said hanging up.
He hurried to find Sara. He found her in the break room pouring herself some much needed coffee.
"Hey Nick, want some coffee?" She asked with a smile when she saw him walk in. "No thanks, come on lets go." Nick said.
"Where are we going?" Sara asked, looking as if she didn't want to go anywhere other than to the chair that was on the other side of the break room.
"To the Johnson house."
Sara sighed as she got a lid for her coffee and followed Nick out of the room. When they got to the house Sara was just about to ring the doorbell when Nick tapped her on the shoulder.
She looked at him and he pointed to something in the driveway. "Look that is the same type of car that we saw in the surveillance video." He said, feeling his blood start to boil.
"Good eye." Sara commented as she rang the doorbell.
A man that looked to be in his late forties answered the door.
"Mr. Johnson, I am Nick Stokes and this is Sara Sidle we are with the Las Vegas crime lab, is your son Tim home, we would like to ask him a couple of questions."
The man looked perplexed but he let the CSI'S in.
"Tim, come down here please." Richard Johnson called.
A boy came down the stairs.
"Tim these investigators would like to speak with you." His father said giving his son a look that seemed to say what have you done?"
"Hi Tim, my name is Sara Sidle and this is Nick Stokes, we would like to ask you a few questions." Sara said offering him a slight smile.
"Hi" Tim said tentatively.
"Tim, do you know a girl named Kyla Hamilton?" Sara asked.
"Yeah, I know Kyla"
"How well do you know her?" Nick asked.
"We go to school together, but I don't know her all that well." He answered.
"Did you know she is missing?" Nick asked.
"No I didn't know, that's terrible."
Nick could see the beads of sweat starting to fall from Tim's forehead.
"Do you have any idea where she is?" Nick asked.
"I just told you I didn't even know she is missing, why would I know where she is?" Tim asked, sounding irritated.
"Don't get upset, nobody is accusing you of anything, we are just trying to question everyone so we can find her." Nick lied.
"Tim have you been to Burger 17 recently?" Sara asked.
"No" Tim said.
"Do you mind if we take a look around?" Nick asked.
"Do you have a warrant?" Richard Johnson asked.
"No sir, but if Tim doesn't know where Kyla is what would be the harm in letting us look around?"
"You can come back and look around when you have a warrant." Richard said with his voice rising slightly.
Nick nodded and said "Alright."
Then he and Sara left the house. Sara had almost reached the door of the Denali when she realized Nick wasn't with her. She turned around and saw Nick walking in the other direction. She decided to follow him. Nick stopped walking when he got to the trash can.
"We don't need a warrant to search in the trash." Nick said with a grin.
Sara grinned back as Nick opened the lid. Near the top of the pile Sara found something useful.
"Nick" She said.
Nick looked at her, she was holding a piece of paper. He took the paper from her hands and looked at it
"A receipt for Burger 17 and the date matches the date that Kyla disappeared." He said, he could hardly keep the excitement out of his voice.
They did a little more digging in the trash can and Nick found something and he couldn't believe his eyes. It was a notebook, every page was filled with colorful drawings of a beautiful girl, a girl strikingly similar to Kyla. In the last page of the notebook there was a drawing of the same girl, just like all the other pages but there was one difference, the word bitch was written in huge letters across the girls' entire face.
"Sara" he said handing her the notebook with a stunned expression on his face. Sara flipped through the notebook and she was equally as shocked.
"This doesn't look good for Kyla." She said.
"No it doesn't." Nick agreed.
They quickly bagged the receipt and the notebook.
They found nothing else of value to them in the trash can so they hurriedly got back into their Denali and headed back to the lab. On the way there Nick called Catherine and filled her in about what he and Sara had discovered. He again told her to try obtain a warrant, for not only the house but the car as well and she promised him she would. This time Nick was very confident that the judge would grant it. When they got back to the lab Nick dropped the evidence off to be analyzed and headed to the break room. He grabbed a bottle of water in the fridge and took two aspirin, Grissom wasn't the only one that got migraine headaches. He took a seat and began to rub his temples. A gentle knock on the door made him look up. Catherine was standing in the door way with a smile, but her smile faded when she saw Nick's face.
"Nicky are you alright?" She asked.
"Yeah I'm fine, I just have a headache." He said.
She grinned "well this will make you feel better." She extended a piece of paper out to him. "Here's your warrant." She said.
Nick sprang out of his chair, his headache was all but forgotten. Soon the entire team, except Sara was racing to the Johnson house. Catherine had instructed Sara to stop at Kyla's house to retrieve something with Kyla's sent on it so cadaver dogs could be used if necessary and then Sara would meet everyone over at the Johnson's. With his team behind him Nick pounded on the door. Mr. Johnson answered and looked dismayed to once again see Nick on his doorstep.
"Here is our warrant, we need everyone in the residence to step outside please." Nick said coldly handing him the warrant.
The man read the warrant, called his family downstairs and they went outside as they were instructed to do. Greg and Ray searched the basement and Nick and Catherine took Tim's room. When Sara arrived a few minutes later Catherine told her to search the backyard.
"Make sure you look for disturbances in the soil, just in case he.." Sara nodded, she knew what Catherine was getting at, there was no need to continue. She made her way to the backyard.
In the basement Ray discovered a huge box that was laying on its side. He looked in it and didn't like what he saw. There was something tall in the box that was covered in a white cloth.
"Greg" Ray said motioning him to come over to where he was standing. Greg looked in the box, and the look on Greg's face told Ray that Greg was thinking the same thing he was.
"Oh no." Greg said.
Ray grabbed the cloth. "On the count of three?" he asked and Greg nodded.
"One." Ray said.
"Two." Greg added.
"Three." Ray said as he yanked the sheet off.
The two investigators breathed a sigh of relief when all they found under the cloth was the family's Christmas tree. They didn't find anything in the basement related to Kyla, and neither did Sara in the backyard. Nick and Catherine hit pay dirt in Tim Johnson's room though. When Nick opened the closet his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. Taped on the closet wall were several drawn pictures of Kyla much like what Nick had found in the notebook in the trash can. In a couple of the pictures Tim had drawn himself in the pictures as well.
"It's like some kind of sick shrine." Catherine commented, and Nick nodded in disgust.
Catherine dug through the closet, and found a pile of notebooks. She snapped a couple of pictures of them before picking one up. In it there were several love poems and more drawings of Kyla. She and Nick flipped through all the notebooks, and in the last one there was a pencil glued down to one of the pages. There was a note above the pencil that read "Kyla I saw you drop this in the hallway, I was going to give it back to you but since your beautiful hands touched it I decided to keep it as a souvenir."
"This kid has serious problems." Nick said.
"That's a major understatement." Catherine agreed.
"Hey look at this." Nick said, holding up a pair of sneakers he found on the floor of the closet. On the bottom of one of the shoes there was sand.
"Maybe Hodges can tell us something about the sand." He said hopeful.
He flipped the shoe over looking for a size.
"He wears a size 10 shoe, that could be helpful down the road." Nick said and Catherine nodded.
They bagged everything that they had found so it could be transported back to the lab.
When the team had finished searching the house they headed back to the lab. The Johnson's car was being towed to the lab so it could be searched as well. Once back at the lab Nick took everything to Hodges so he could analyze it while Sara and Greg searched the Johnson's car. On the passenger seat Sara found something.
"Hey Greg, what city do we live in?" She asked.
Greg raised an eyebrow at her "Vegas, why?" He asked.
She gave him one of her famous Sidle smiles "That's fitting because I just hit the jackpot." She said.
"What did you find?" he asked.
"A blonde hair, it's the same color as Kyla's."
"Nice" Greg said with a smile of his own.
They finished up searching the car, they didn't find anything else useful but the hair could prove very valuable in finding Kyla, if not at the very least it could help convict Tim Johnson of her kidnapping, that is if it really was Kyla's hair. Sara hurriedly took the hair to DNA to be compared to Kyla's hair.
Not long after that Tim Johnson was brought in for questioning, Nick wanted to conduct the interview.
"Tim, you have to tell me what happened to Kyla, because if I have to figure it out on my own it isn't going to be good for you." Nick said, trying to get the kid to talk.
"I already told you, I don't know what happened to her."
"Now we both know that isn't true."
"Yes it is true."
"Tim we have you and Kyla on surveillance video leaving Burger 17, Kyla got into your car, and you drove off with her. Now tell me what happened. If something happened that was an accident, tell me, I can help you"
Tim looked as if he was going to vomit. "Alright, alright, I lied, I did go to Burger 17 and I did see Kyla. And you are right, she did get into my car, she asked me for a ride home and so I gave her a ride."
"So let me get this straight, she asked you for a ride home, and you gave her a ride, and after she gets out of your car she just disappears?" Nick asked, he didn't believe a word of that story, there was absolutely no evidence that indicated Kyla had made it home from Burger 17.
"Why would Kyla ask you for a ride when she was with her friends?" Nick asked.
"I don't know, but she did, and when she got out of my car, she was just fine."
"Did you actually see her go into her house?" Nick asked.
"No, I just let her out of my car and drove off, I didn't watch her go in."
"What a gentleman." Nick said sarcastically. It took every once of strength Nick had to not reach across the table and smack him.
"Look, can I go now?" Tim asked sounding annoyed.
"Do you know anything else about what happened to Kyla?" Nick asked.
"No"
Nick sighed "You're free to go." He said.
Tim gave Nick an evil smirk as he walked out of the interrogation room. What a punk Nick thought as he watched him leave. Nick knew he was lying but he needed a way to prove it and so he left the lab and got into his Denali. Nick knew this was a long shot but it was worth a try. He drove over to the Hamilton house and knocked on the door. Brenda quickly answered the door.
"Mr. Stokes, did you find her yet?" She asked immediately.
"No, Brenda listen, Tim Johnson claims he gave her a ride home from Burger 17."
"That lying bastard, he did not, if he did she would be here now." She said as tears started to well in her eyes. The look on her face showed a mix of sadness and anger.
Nick put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Brenda, I don't believe him either, but I need a way to prove it, do you have any security cameras or anything?" Nick asked.
The tears begin to stream down her face "no, I was going to get a security system so many times but never got around to it, oh god why didn't I? It's just the two of us living here, I should have done everything I possibly could to keep us safe, and I didn't, what kind of a mother doesn't do everything she can to protect her child from harm?"
By now the poor woman was bent over she was crying so hard. Nick was holding her, he was supporting all of her weight, he was pretty sure that had let go of her she would have fallen over.
"Brenda, this is not your fault, you did nothing wrong. It's going to be alright, I just have to find another way to prove he is lying that's all." Nick said.
All of a sudden she quit crying and stood up straight. "I just remembered the neighbor across the street has a security system, come on, hurry." She said as she grabbed Nick's arm and raced across the street.
Before Nick knew it she was banging on the door as loud as she could. An elderly man answered the door.
"Brenda, what's wrong?" the man asked, seeing the terrified expression on her face.
"Lyle, Kyla is missing we need to see your security camera's immediately." Brenda said.
"What?" the man asked, Brenda spoke so quickly the man didn't understand a word she had said, so Nick stepped in.
"Sir, my name is Nick Stokes, I'm with the Vegas crime lab, Kyla is missing and I am investigating her disappearance and it would really help me out if I could take a look at your security cameras.
"My God, Brenda I am so sorry." Lyle said, and to Nick he said "Yes of course you can take a look at my cameras.
"Thank you sir." Nick said stepping into the house with Brenda right on his heals. The man led them to where the videos were.
"I have to be honest with you, my daughter had that installed for us, I don't know how to use it." Lyle said.
"That's alright, I think I can figure it out if I mess with it for a minute." Nick said.
Luckily it was a fairly basic set up and Nick figured it out without much of a problem. They were just about to watch the video when an elderly woman came into the room.
"What's going on Lyle?" She asked.
"Joanne, Kyla is missing, and this young man is trying to find her, he asked if he could look at our cameras."
The woman gasped and immediately went to Brenda's side.
"Hi Ma'am, I'm Nick Stokes." Nick said extending a hand out to her.
"I'm Joanne, it's nice to meet you." She said shaking his hand.
Nick smiled then turned his attention back to the video. "Alright, this is around the time that he supposedly brought her home." Nick said staring at the video.
Just as he and Brenda had thought, he lied, he never brought her home. They watched the video once more just to make absolutely sure, and again, no Kyla.
This was too much for Brenda to take, "Oh my god, what has he done with my baby, where is she." She was sobbing so hard, she was once again doubled over.
Joanne wrapped her arms around her "It's alright, she'll be alright, come on into the kitchen and I'll make you some tea." Joanne offered, leading a devastated Brenda out of the room.
Once she was out of the room Nick let out a sigh and shook his head.
"Thank you for your help sir." Nick said to Lyle.
"No problem, I hope you find Kyla, she is such a nice girl. When my wife and I go out of town Kyla feeds and waters our dog, and she does it for free, we always offer to pay her but she never takes the money." Nick smiled at the elderly man and then he walked to the door.
"Thanks again for your help." He said as he grabbed the door handle.
"Don't mention it, if we can help in any other way please let us know."
"Thank you, I will." Nick said before leaving the house and getting back into his Denali.
Nick hit the steering wheel with his fist in frustration then he laid his head against the head rest, closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. He kept his eyes closed a couple of minutes and then his cell phone started buzzing, indicating he had a text message. It was from Hodges and it read: Got the results about the sand you found on the shoe, come see me for more details.
Nick immediately started the Denali and raced back to the lab. He was literally running through the lab hallway. He almost ran right into Sara.
"Hey Nick where's the fire?" Sara asked.
"Sorry Sara, I'm in a hurry because Hodges has results on the flower I found on the bottom of Tim's shoe."
"Good, and did you know that the hair that Greg and I found in Tim's car does in fact belong to Kyla, that proves she was in his car." Sara said.
"No I didn't know we got the results on that yet, thanks Sara." He said as he again started running down the hallway.
When he finally reached Hodges' lab, he was out of breath.
"Nick, I have never seen you this eager to see me." Hodges commented with a smirk.
"The results Hodges." Nick said impatiently.
"Alright, I did some research about the sand that was on your suspect's shoe, because as you know I always aim to please."
"Hodges" Nick said impatiently crossing his arms.
"Ok, ok, the only place this type of sand exists in Nevada is a small patch of the desert not far from Vegas, and this sand is not found in any of the states neighboring Nevada."
"How far outside of Vegas?" Nick asked.
"About a half hour, and there is only about a 15 mile stretch where it appears."
Nick's moral was rising with every word Hodges said.
"Do you have a map for me to look at?" Nick asked.
"I thought you might ask me that, hold on a minute." Hodges answered as he left the room.
He appeared just a couple minutes later with a big map. "According to my research, the sand can be found in this area." He made a big circle on the map.
"Thanks Hodges, you have been a huge help."
"That's just the way I roll." Hodges said.
Nick rolled his eyes, rolled up the map, and dashed out of the room. He ran to the break room, grabbed 3 bottles of water and rushed outside. He quickly went and got in the Denali, this was urgent, they had no evidence that Kyla was dead, and if she was alive she might not have much time left. As he left the parking garage of the lab he called Catherine and told her what Hodges had told him. Nick also told her that he was going to that area to look around.
"So you are going to the desert by yourself?" Catherine asked.
Nick could tell by the tone of her voice she didn't like the idea. "Yeah I'll be fine, this might not lead to anything but I wanted to check it out just to make sure."
"Well if you find something, call for backup before you do anything Nicky." She told him.
"I will, I'll talk to you later." Nick said and then he ended the phone call.
Nick turned on the radio and rocked out to some tunes. As he left the lights of Vegas and entered the desert he immediately noticed the increase in temperature. The Denali thermometer read 121 degrees, but Nick had the air conditioning cranked up so he was actually quite comfortable. He glanced at the map Hodges had given him. "I should be getting close." He said out loud. He drove for a few more miles then something caught his eye, there were tire tracks off the road in the sand. He looked up and saw an abandoned storage shed. Nick immediately pulled off the road and drove up to the shed. He grabbed the three bottles of water and got out of the Denali. He immediately noticed two sets of footprints, one he estimated to be about a size 10. Nick remembered the sole of the shoe the sand was on, the footprints seemed to match that sole. He started to quicken his pace and then he remembered Catherine's warning about back up, he contemplated what to do for a split second and then said out loud "Screw it, I don't have time." He went to the door of the shed, and it had a lock on it, he tried to push the door open but it wouldn't budge. He was just about to run back to his car to grab his battering ram when he felt a hard blow across the back of his head, and then everything went black.
To Be Continued….