"I see you're after my job again," Mandy noted firmly as Sara sat by the computer, transfixed by the flashing screen as her windowsill prints scanned through AFIS.

"Sorry Mandy, you weren't around and I really needed these done quick," Sara said to her.

"Yeah well I can't help it if Stokes and Langston keep backlogging me with tonnes of prints from their scene," Mandy retorted, with an ugly look of disdain on her face, "Greg gave me a load of prints from your fridge vic. They all came back to Claudia Blanchard."

"All of them?" Sara asked, mortified.

"I'm afraid so," Mandy said sadly, handing Sara the results.

"Every new lead we get seems to push us further away from the truth," Sara replied. The screen started beeping as AFIS found a match from the prints lifted from the windowsill. Sara opened it, looking unhopeful at first but suddenly her eyes lit up as she acquired herself a new suspect. "Priors include breaking and entering as well as petty theft, this could be our guy!"

Without even looking to see Mandy's reaction, Sara quickly left the room and whipped out her cell phone, calling Detective Monaghan to bring a Mr Arnold Klaus into police custody.

Arnold Klaus was a timid man from what Sara could make of his posture and facial expressions. He had thick brown hair, a fringe which covered his right eye and the eye which Sara could see made not contact with her at all. He looked skinny, as if he hadn't eaten in days and his clothes looked like they had last been changed in an even longer period of time.

"Mr Klaus," Monaghan said cooly, "could you explain how your fingerprints ended up on the windowsill of Claudia Blanchard?"

"Mr Klaus, do not answer the question," the attorney seated on his left snapped back. Sara gave him a glare reminding herself on how much she loathed people like him.

"Okay, you see, Mrs Blanchard has been burgled twice in the past fortnight. Once, three Fridays ago, and a second time, two Fridays ago. Surveillance in a pawn shop on Charleston captured you pawning off the earrings and the watch of Mrs Blanchard's dead husband which you stole from her house."

"Some guy gave me those to pawn off, said I could keep half of what they were worth," Klaus replied.

"And then your fingerprints magically appear on her windowsill?" Sara asked sardonically. "Show us your shoes please."

"Don't do anything Mr Klaus," his attorney droned, "you need a warran..."

"I got one," Sara interrupted, casually passing the warrant across the table into the attorney's hands, "now show us your shoes."

Arnold Klaus looked at his attorney who regretfully nodded to him. He stuck both his feet on the top of the table and Sara peered at them with intense scrutiny. She pulled out the photo of the shoe impression she had collected from the scene the first time she had been there and compared it to the bottom of Arnold's shoes.

"Mr Klaus, the shoe impression is a match we found to one we collected from the scene. We've got you for grand theft."

"What made you resort to murder?" Monaghan piped up. Arnold appeared stunned by this accusation, his eyes widened and his feet, now on the floor, began to tap feverishly.

His attorney began to speak, "Mr Klaus don't say anyt..."

"Okay I admit to the theft charges," Arnold blurted out, "but I swear I didn't kill that woman."

"So you admit to being there, those two Fridays?" Monaghan asked to which Arnold nodded, "what about the Friday just gone."

"Okay, I admit, I went to see if I could get in again, find something to sell," he rambled, his speech speeding up and his voice becoming high-pitched, "I needed the money badly, I mean look at me, how can I get by like this? But I saw a light on in the house, I knew it wasn't a good idea, I only break into empty houses I swear."

"Because that makes stealing even better," Sara responded sarcastically. "Getting in's pretty easy, just slide the window round the back and crawl through. I want to know though, what did you kill her with? Why attempt to cover up your crime by crushing her w..."

"I never did any of that! I swear!" Arnold yelled, rising from his seat.

"Sit down," Monaghan said sharply, Arnold obliged to her order.

"What do you two have which actually puts my client at the scene of the murder?" The attorney asked them both impatiently.

"We don't," Sara said truthfully.

"But we can arrest your client for grand theft," Monaghan told them both happily, "have a fun year in prison Mr Klaus."

Arnold just stared at the floor as the over viewing officer hoisted him from his seat and took him away. His attorney followed suit, grunting and giving both Sara and Monaghan an evil glare as he left.

"Well, we didn't quite get what we wanted," Monaghan said in a tone which seemed almost too cheerful considering the circumstances.

"I wasn't too sure about the guy myself," Sara said to her quietly, "I mean, none of the prints on the fridge belonged to him, not even anything in the house did. I'm starting to feel this may be an accident or some weird suicide death wish."

"Hey, don't get yourself down," Monaghan said to her, "I've heard people say you get far too involved in cases for your own good. Just because you don't get a conviction with every case it doesn't mean you're a failure."

Monaghan smiled to her and Sara felt obliged she had to smile back although she felt no happiness emitting it. She heard her pager beep and with a groan, brought herself to look at it. "I need to go," she told Monaghan, "Greg apparently has something 'exciting' to show me in the garage."

"I don't know if you should be alarmed or equally excited," Monaghan joked back at her, prompting Sara to smile, although this one, portrayed genuine warmth. She picked up her stuff and began leaving the room, "you know, just call me if you need someone picking up again."

"Right Lorena," Nick said in a comforting voice, "I'm gonna need to know exactly what happened between you and Lomar Valdez up to Saturday morning."

"I... urm... I..." she faltered, unsure where to start.

"Lorena," Ray said in an equally soothing voice, "the physical evidence is implying that you murdered him. Even with a suicide note, I can't guarantee the jury may take sympathy on you, so if you don't want to be in jail for a very long time, I'd advise you to start speaking now."

Lorena looked at her attorney desperately who whispered into her ear something which suggested that she should speak up.

Finally, the barrier was broken and Lorena began talking, "okay, okay. It all began around five months ago. Lomar and I were having a rough patch; I kicked him out the house one evening for something stupid, something really stupid. That evening, Stefan came round unexpectedly..."

"Stefan, as in Stefan Berluschi?" Nick asked, "the man who went up to the room with you after Lomar died?" Lorena nodded.

"Okay Stefan, what did you do when you got to her apartment then?" Vega asked Stefan Berluschi, who was sat across him in an adjacent interrogation room. The man's cold eyes glanced at him for a second, before he began telling his side of the story.

"I heard she and Lomar had gotten into a rough patch so I went round to... let's say, comfort her. I mean, I didn't intend on anything to happen but we just... we just..."

"It's okay, I get what you're trying to say," Vega noted, "what happened after that?"

"Well, although I hated to admit it, but the way Stefan made love to me was far more passionate, far more enjoyable than the sex Lomar and I ever had," Lorena whispered, sounding rather embarrassed to be relaying this information, "I found myself falling in love with him. I tried to convince myself not to, but after he broke up with his girlfriend... I... I..."

"Okay, you couldn't lay his hands off him," Ray finished for her, "so where did this trip to Vegas come from?"

"Lomar suggested that we ought to do something as friends," Stefan said, "he was thinking of taking his girlfriend to Vegas and insisted that the group of us should come."

"The group?" Vega asked, "what, your own special wolf pack?"

"Well there was Lomar and Lorena, myself, my ex-girlfriend and another couple, so yes we all agreed to come along. We arrived Wednesday night and decided we'd have a guys night out, you know, hit a couple of casinos, a few strip clubs, all that stuff and the ladies would have a girly night out."

"On the second night," Lorena carried the story along, "we decided to have a couples night... well, a bit more actually, someone suggested we should swing and I immediately thought that was a great idea."

"Let me guess, you ended up having a steamy night with your Romeo," Nick remarked.

"Yeah," she admitted, beginning to sound even quieter for every tale she spoke, "I don't know how he found out about it," she said referring to the note on the table, "Lomar and I weren't feeling up to going out Friday night. I didn't know he was even in the room at the time but anyway we had sex... and it was average, I tried to spice things up, a bit of pillow play but no, he wouldn't have any of it."

Ray and Nick exchanged an awkward glance between them as she went into details about how much better Stefan had been before Nick interrupted her by shouting over her, "hey, hey, I think we get the picture." Lorena immediately shut her mouth and her attorney shuffled uncomfortably in her chair. "So tell me what happened after you had sex with Lomar."

"I went down to do some gambling, I mean, it is Vegas and all. Around eleven thirty, I wanted to go somewhere else and it was getting cold so I went up to the room to get my coat and..." tears began to form in the corners of her eyes, "and..."

"She rang me telling me something was wrong and to meet her back at the Emerald Eyes," Stefan continued the story, "so I get there just before midnight and she shows me... Lomar... lying on the bed, dead." Vega watched him blink blankly, as if he was finding it difficult to continue the story. "She showed me the suicide note... and the part about the life insurance for us... she wanted to call the police but I told her she wouldn't get the money for the life insurance... so I said we should, stage it as a murder."

"He told me to destroy the suicide note, get rid of anything which might have suggested it was suicide and together we... we threw his body out the window," Lorena began bawling. "I couldn't destroy the note... it's the last thing which connects me, to him... I just can't..."

"Afterwards, I told her to go somewhere else, anywhere away from the Emerald Eyes and wait for it to pass over... all she had to do was keep her big mouth shut."

"Well, I think I've heard enough here," Vega yawned and closed his notes, "Mr Berluschi, you're under arrest for tampering with evidence," he gestured to the overseeing officer who cuffed him. He added coldly, "enjoy the rest of your stay in Vegas."

There was an eerie silence in the room once Lorena had finished her story. It was broken up by Nick's cell phone ringing; pulling it out of his pocked he answered it swiftly. "Stokes... yep... okay, thanks Mandy." He turned to Lorena and began talking to her, "luckily for you, you're not being charged with murder. Trace confirms that the diazepam was ground up by the pebble we found, containing only prints belonging to Lomar."

Lorena began smiling with relief, although Ray quickly wiped it off her face, "however, tampering with evidence surrounding a suspicious death is a felony in itself. So you'll be lucky if you manage to escape the clink." Her attorney gave Langston a disapproving glare which stated she was going to try and intervene. She abruptly stood up and marched out of the room.

"I guess I deserve it," Lorena told herself sadly, ignoring her attorney's departure. "How can I live with the guilt? The guilt that my own boyfriend killed himself because of me!"

"With all due respect Miss Melua," Nick spoke to her, "you had a choice, call the police, or take the money. You made the wrong choice and for that, I have no sympathy towards you."

Sara walked into the garage and saw that Greg was standing waiting for her, dressed in coveralls and smiling like a dork. "What are you so excited about?" Sara asked him.

"I think I may have just cracked the case," he said excitedly. "Seeing as we have no physical evidence to suggest that there was anyone else there, I reckon that Mrs Blanchard's death was an accident."

"So much for being so sure it was murder," Sara commented sarcastically, "go on, tell us your theory."

"Firstly, how did the fridge get moved away from the wall? I originally thought the killer moved it to push it from behind."

"But, the prints came back to Claudia Blanchard," Sara pointed out.

"Correctamundo," Greg replied, "then, you collected that photo from behind the adjacent counter and you told me that she had temporarily stashed her precious jewellery on top of the fridge."

"Well that's what the mother told me."

"Right. I found some dust voids and it could be fair to say that those were where the jewellery boxes were kept temporarily."

"But we didn't find them at the scene."

"Exactly, which suggests she may have decided to move them to a better place. Now I reckon, at some point she may have knocked something down the back of the fridge, I mean, you found the photo pretty much behind it too, what if that was also on top of the fridge?"

"So she'd have to push the fridge forwards to get the stuff which had fallen behind."

"Exactly what I was thinking. This doesn't sound too... you know... crazy does it?"

"Strangely enough, it's making sense," Sara admitted.

"Good," he flashed another goofy smile and continued rambling, "now the broken chair. I reckon the victim was standing on it to get the boxes off the shelf, I reckon it must have given way at some point. Victim falls and hits their head."

"We found a small blood pool away from where the fridge landed from her, so that's how she got the head wound."

"Right," Greg continued his theory, "now we get on to the grand finale! The head wound was not immediately fatal, yes?" Sara nodded, "maybe in her dazed and confused state she didn't know if there was still anything up there, and not wanting to risk using a chair again, she leaps up and grabs on to the fridge to check. She adds too much weight to the top, unbalancing the fridge and then smack!" He clapped his hands together as he signalled with his hands Claudia Blanchard's final moments.

"That seems a good theory, it explains the blood, the lack of evidence, the prints on the top of the fridge, but we don't have a lot to prove the build-up to it."

"We don't, but I was once told many times it's not about the why, it's about the how, and if we can prove the how, we don't need to worry about the why."

"And how exactly are you going to do that?"

"Follow me," Greg waved Sara to follow him into the garage where she saw the very same fridge set upright. It had been roped onto a pulley and a crash mat lay on the floor in front of it. Greg stood in front of the apparatus and proclaimed in a loud voice, "now for my next trick, I'm going to need a volunteer," he pointed at Sara, "you! Yes you! The pretty lady with the gap, step right up please."

"Why can't you demonstrate this?" Sara quizzed him, adding, "and don't comment on my gap!"

"Well I presumed that you were a closer build and size to Claudia than myself and therefore more suitable for the experiment."

"Okay then," she said uneasily, "are you sure this is safe?"

"Yes it is, the ropes should hold it in place at a forty degree angle, I tested it earlier."

Sara looked up at the fridge, still not trusting Greg's experiment entirely but at least she could pin the blame on him if it went wrong. She took a deep breath and jumped up and grabbed the top of the fridge. She immediately felt the fridge beginning to tip over and in a panic, she let go prematurely.

"Hold on a bit longer," Greg called out to her.

"Sorry, sorry!" Sara quickly said, trying to hide some anxiety as she stepped up for another go.

She took another deep breath and jumped up again, gripping the top again like last time. Again she felt the fridge begin to tip but this time she held on. A split second later she saw the fridge tumbling towards her, but before she had a chance to let go, the fridge suddenly halted its descent sending Sara stumbling across the room. She let out a small yelp as she began falling backwards only to be caught by Greg, who hoisted her back onto her feet.

She looked back at the fridge; it had indeed been left at a forty degree angle, supported by the make-shift pulley system. "Well," Sara panted, "that's one way to close a case. I better call Monaghan," she grinned, "and tell her that her services are no longer required."

Catherine walked down the corridor to find her team assembled in the locker room, discussing their peculiar cases which they'd solved that evening. "Listen up everyone," Catherine announced holding the room's attention, "before you all clock out, don't forget to pick your annual evaluations on the way out. Oh, and don't take things too much the wrong way," she chuckled and left them both confused and concerned that they hadn't been informed of their evaluations.

All of them decided to go together and share each other's reports as they left the building. "Apparently I need to be less emotionally involved with my cases," Nick laughed, "hey Sara, are you sure you haven't got mine?"

"Shut it, Texas!" She snapped back at him reading her own evaluation, "pretty bog-standard evaluation, same every year though, "Sara needs to express a greater appreciation for lab politics."" She mocked.

"Well if it's the same every year, surely that shows you need to take feedback on board," Greg smiled opening his, upon reading his he scowled and cried out, "oh for God's sake! I'm sure she's not allowed to put that in her reports."

"She mentioned your stripper friend again?" Nick teased.

"Burlesque dancer," Greg reminded them, "okay Ray, what do you have?"

"Hmm," he commented, "I'm doing well, but I shouldn't be afraid to ask your colleagues for assistance when in trouble."

"So when were you gonna tell us about your recommendation for CSI three?" Nick commented, peeking over at his files causing a cheer from the other members of the team and Ray to blush.

"Oh, it's nothing... really," Ray laughed, trying hard not to attract all the attention.

Upon reaching the car park, the team said their goodbyes and departed to their vehicles, looking forward to not having to pull a double and having some quality time at home. Greg was just about to unlock his car when he heard a voice, a familiar voice call out behind him.

"Hey Sanders, wait up." He turned around and stood in front of him was Amy Griffin, the paramedic who he had "interrogated" earlier that day. "I need a ride home."

"Errm... didn't PD call you a cab?" Greg asked her suspiciously.

Amy shrugged her shoulders and looked at him with cute, begging eyes, like a puppy, "I guess he didn't turn up."

"I don't know, I think it's agai..."

"Listen," she said quietly, a smirk appearing on her face, "you got me into this mess by bringing me down here so you better get me out of it and take me home." She whispered, "you know it's not good news to get on the bad side of a paramedic."

Greg sighed and finally gave into her, "Fine, I'll take you home, but don't tell anyone, technically you were a person of interest."

"My lips are sealed," she winked at him cheekily, almost, seductively, as she strapped herself into the passenger seat. "Thanks Hojem."

A/N: Hmm... mysterious, how does she know his name? ;)

This chapter was meant to be a bit longer with one of the scenes extended but I've decided to cut it down and use it in a later story which I think will suit it better in my opinion. Also, the scene where they interrogate suspects in Nick's case, Nick/Ray are interrogating Lorena and Vega is interrogating Stefan separately and I joined the conversations together. (Just a little note if you got confused at that point.)

That is the end of the story. The next story in the series, Too Little, Too Late (1x05) will be published on Friday July 15. It will also be a Nick-centric story so Nick fans will be in for a treat next week! :)

Thank you all for reading and feel free to review and let me know what you thought!