I'm so sorry for the delay! I thought that anothe member was going to be helping me with this story but it looks as though she's lost interst in mentoring a junior member of this site. Anyway, I ened up taking an unitended hiatus but I'm back and I don't intend to go anywhere before this story's been completed. Look for the next chapter in the next day or two!

The next chapter will be a little more casey or a bit more N/G depending on which outline I decide to go with. You'll know soon!

And please review.

Half Past Now

No matter how furiously the urge had nagged him to jump in and solve the case immediately he resisted. Nothing would justify his compromising the chain of due process and getting the case thrown away in court. It was harder for him though, than he realized, to work so closely with a case involving someone he'd known. Warrick's case had been hard, so hard, but they were on autopilot and had solved it so quickly. There was no investigating really... simply shock.

Marty's death though not nearly as hard to stomach as Warrick's had been it still had him reeling. Marty was more than just an old friend's husband, he had been a friend to Greg too. They had met, through Liz, in college and had all spent nearly every day together in their very early adult years but the time had come when they'd divided from one another. A matter of a couple of years found Marty and Liz back in one another's lives and the marriage had followed shortly there after.

"I've got something," Catherine's voice announced as she walked into the room, pulling Greg out of his thoughts. "On the Gellar case, I have something I thought you might want to see."

"What?" he asked, coming to full attention at her side. "What'd you find?"

"We just got tox back on the white pills that Doc Robbins found in his mouth and esophageal passageway," she told him, showing him the file. "It looks like they're fertility pills."

"You mean for women who want to get pregnant?" He asked, Catherine gave him an affirming nod. "But where would they have come from? I mean you've met Liz and the kids... it's not exactly like they needed help."

"Well I don't know yet," Catherine admitted, though it was obvious. "But I'm going to. I think this is a good lead."

"Of course," Greg agreed. "You can use the pills to track down all of the doctors in this area that prescribe them and work out from there. Eventually someone's going to cross paths with someone who knew the Gellar's, then we'll have a viable suspect."

"We've got one other thing," she offered. "It looks like the ligature mark around his neck was caused by a small wire cord. There were a few metal shards in his skin."

Greg took some photographs and frowned unable to identify the weapon from fist view. "It's so frustrating that I can't help with this. I should be able to work on identifying this while you track down people involved in the fertility treatments."

"Yeah but there's the whole conflict of interests issue," she said soberly. "I realize how important this is to you Greg, I'm gonna figure it out."

"I know. I just want to do more... for Liz and Marty." he said in the voice of a child. A moment later his eyes lit up with an idea, he grabbed the keys from his belt and held them up, though they remained attached. They were hooked onto a retractable chord the base of which clipped over his belt loop. "Look at this."

Catherine ran a finger down over the chord and observed the few flecks of spun steel that rubbed off on her fingertip. "Greg I think you've got it! We know what we're looking for in a murder weapon!"