A/N: I know you guys (erm, girls;) have been waiting a week for this and I am sorry for that. Now that we are getting into the nitty gritty, not that the last few chapters weren't, it is becoming a little more difficult and I fear that I am losing some steam. A big thank you goes out to JellyBean for doing an awesome job as a beta and a phenomenal job as a collaborator. I couldn't do it without you.
Warning: This one gets pretty graphic. So you might want to cover your eyes. You know what; you might just want to skip this chapter all together.
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Chapter Twenty-Four
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Catherine had slept little during her night with Gil and was exhausted but as soon as she had gotten her hands on Gil's case records she felt revitalized. She had called Warrick to give her a hand and when he walked into the conference room she didn't even look up from the folder.
"Whatcha got?" Warrick asked as he sat down beside her.
"I have been going over these files for hours, trying to find some connection between Denalgio and Shelling. Denalgio has quite a history, including his juvenile file — fighting, assaults on school officials. He was arrested for possession and selling of cocaine. He beat up one of his foster fathers when he was fifteen."
"Shelling is a mystery though," Catherine continued. "Denalgio and Shelling appeared to have attended the same high school, but there are no records here that say they were connected. Reggie Shelling has no record whatsoever."
They both shook their heads as Catherine continued to flip through Denalgio's file. She stopped when something caught her eye and held it out for Warrick to see. "Look who is in the interrogation logs the night Denalgio was arrested."
"Reggie Shelling?" Warrick's brow rose. "Who did the interview?"
Catherine sighed as she shook her head. "Detective Martin… I remember him, he retired eight years ago. Not overly dedicated to his job, and was never very hard in the interrogation room."
"So, did Grissom have any contact with Shelling at the scene?" Warrick asked, looking over at the notes.
Catherine shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe he might remember something. I called him about an hour ago and said that I was going to drop by."
Warrick studied the interview. "I wonder if he was running numbers for the fight. That could have been why he was there. That would have put him in the same circles as Denalgio."
Catherine nodded her head. "That's an interesting theory. If they were friends in high school, they may have been running a scam together. Or even business partners."
"Well, if he's still up to his bookie ways, that might be one way to find him," Warrick said. "But I'm thinking he's moved on to bigger things."
"That might be a better possibility," Catherine said.
"What about John Shelling's file?" Warrick asked as he began to flip through the file's pages. "Did you find anything there?"
"Not really. Grissom and Brass did the interrogation, with his lawyer present. He didn't even mention a brother, and I remember that case."
"This looks like a case Grissom would have had a hard time with," Warrick said, recalling his supervisor's disdain for people who hurt children.
"John Shelling never gave any indication of why he killed his daughters," Catherine said. "I know Gil talks about the important aspect of our job is 'the how, not the why,' but that case really got to him."
"Yeah, well, we'll never know since John Shelling is dead." As Warrick spoke, he noticed Catherine got up to leave but still looked at the Denalgio file. "You want me to work the bookie angle?"
Catherine paused. She seemed to be lost on a certain piece of information in Denalgio's file.
"Hey, Cath," Warrick said. "You okay?"
Catherine quickly closed the file and gave a tense smile to her colleague. "Yeah, I'm going to head to Grissom's."
"Sure. Let me know what you find."
She nodded as she left.
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It was the date on the case file that got to Catherine. It's that not she remembered every instance when Lindsey was sick, but a mother never forgets when a fever puts her six-year-old child in the hospital. During those instances some mothers even remembered the year and day. At least that was true for Catherine.
On the evening six-year-old Lindsey had come back from the hospital, Catherine recalled the guilt she had felt because her daughter had become so ill while Catherine was working and because she had to return to work on her daughter's first night home.
During that shift Catherine had been assigned to a drunk and disorderly that possibly spilled out into the streets. As her partner had driven them to the scene, Catherine had been in a daze. When the car stopped, she was surprised that they had driven to her front door.
"I'll take care of tonight," A younger, more energetic Gil Grissom said. "Go take care of Lindsey."
Catherine recalled not wasting a second after she heard her friend's word. She got out of the car and went to the driver's door, asking Gil to roll down his window.
"Are you sure? What about…"
"Cath, don't worry. It's probably just a run of the mill drunk and disorderly. I'll pick you up later to get your car."
Run of the mill my ass. An older Catherine thought as she realized that scene was anything but run of the mill.
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Reggie stood in the living room of the old farmhouse on the outskirts of Vegas. The house was owned by his mother's cousin, Marie, and her husband, Joe. He looked down at the tattered, braided rug he stood upon and smiled when he remembered playing with die cast cars on the same rug with his brother John decades ago. But his smile quickly faded when he remembered his angry father coming in and yanking the both of them up off the floor by their arms and dragging them out of the house.
With a flat, lifeless expression, Reggie looked down at his elderly second cousins — who he called aunt and uncle — as they sat on the floor with their arms tightly bound behind them. Reggie knew the couple understood what was going to happen to him and brother when they were young boys ripped away from the house. But neither of them said one word to Reggie's father. They never did one thing to rescue Reggie and John from that hell.
And now they would pay.
Reggie wanted to punish them because they did nothing to protect the weak. And in lieu of their punishment, their place of residence would transform into the haven it should have been so many years before.
Joe and Marie looked up at Reggie with their eyes filled with tears and tears running down their cheeks. Reggie took a step forward and pulled the bowie knife from its sheath that was attached to his belt. The look in his eye was one of pure evil as the sadistic grin etched itself across his face. The elderly couple shook their heads as they both looked between the knife and their relative's face.
With a quick downward movement Reggie stabbed the knife into Joe's groin. Joe screamed through his gag, and writhed on the floor as Reggie viciously twisted the knife.
"How do you like it, Joe?!" Reggie screamed like a madman. "All the years that we suffered at the hands of my father and you never did a fucking thing!"
Reggie pulled out the knife and stood up straight as he watched the growing pool of blood between Joe's legs. As the older man's life blood drained from his body it also dripped from the tip of the blade onto the braided rug. Reggie watched with satisfaction as Joe turned to a sickly pallor.
Joe turned to look at his wife as he felt coldness creep through his body. He wished that he could tell her how much he loved her before he died. He wished he could go back and change the past and save his wife from the same fate. But he knew that it was too late for that now, and as he felt the last of his life slipping away from his body and the last of his struggling and shallow breaths he just looked at Marie and hoped that she could see the undying love in his eyes as they closed for the last time.
Marie stared at her dead husband for a long moment before Reggie drew her attention again and she looked up at him as he spoke.
"It's your turn, Marie. You are just as guilty as Joe was."
Reggie grabbed her arm and roughly pulled her to her feet. She stumbled as he dragged her to the staircase and up each step. He pulled Marie into the master bedroom and threw her onto the bed. Using the knife, he cut away her night gown. Marie looked up into the eyes of what had once been an innocent, loving child, but was now a sadistic madman.
"You're gonna pay, Marie. You're gonna fuckin' pay." Reggie's words were cold as he grabbed her breast with one hand and began cutting it off with the knife in his other.
Reggie sat in the antique chair that sat in the corner of his cousin's bedroom. The silence in the house was eerie as he looked at the motionless form of his dead cousin Marie. She lay on the bed with pain etched across her face and her eyes wide with fear. Flies already smelled the blood that soaked everything and had begun to gather. His attention focused on one fly that rested upon one of her open, green eyes and rubbed its tiny legs together.
Suddenly, Reggie's body shook as a maniacal laugh began in his stomach and worked its way up his body. Soon he grabbed his stomach and doubled over as he was overcome with laughter and pure joy at the thought.
"They all pay." He mumbled. But then, the image of his brother John lying on a bed just like the one before him stood out clearly in his mind as his father forced himself into John's body. His laughing ceased. He could envision John laying face first on the bed. But then the image morphed into an image of Gil Grissom lying naked, on his stomach with his wrists and ankles tied tightly to the bed posts.
"They paid for their sins," Reggie whispered. "They all had to pay."
Reggie would not be safe in Vegas; the cops would find him there. He would return one last time, to retrieve his property, and then the likes of Vegas would never see him, or Gilbert Grissom, ever again.
"I own him," Reggie mumbled under his breath. "He'll fucking pay, just like they did. They all pay in the end."
Reggie rubbed himself through his jeans as he could feel himself taking Gil's body over and over again.
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Before Catherine could walk to the entrance of Gil's townhouse, the front door was opened for her by the bug man himself.
"Jeez, Gil, if only single men were this excited to see me."
"Did you bring the files?" Gil asked, forgetting his normally polite demeanor.
Catherine stopped at the front door with a motherly look on her face. "A 'hello' and/or 'good afternoon' would be nice."
Gil rolled his eyes. "Hello and good afternoon, Catherine. Did you bring the files?"
Catherine laughed as she stepped across the threshold to see Sara in the kitchen. "Hey, Sara, I thought you would be in bed asleep."
"Oh, I was, but Gil's been pacing around like a caged animal since you called. I was afraid he was going to jump in the car and drive you over here," Sara said as she put a fresh cup of coffee in front of Catherine. "But now, he is your problem."
The comment garnered a small look of annoyance from Gil until Sara brushed passed him and made a signal asking for a kiss. He complied without a word and with a small smile. Catherine sat down at the table and waited for Gil to make his way there.
"I wanted to jog your memory about both cases, see if anything comes to mind." Catherine said as she spread out the files.
"I'll try. The Denalgio case w-was a while ago," Gil said as he took the file and started thumbing through the pages. It didn't take him long to see the interview log. "Reggie Shelling w-was there?"
"Seems so," Catherine said in a soft tone. "But it doesn't look like you talked with him."
Gil put the file down and looked off into the distance. He spoke a moment later. "From w-what I remember of that night, I spent most of the time inside the fighting hall. According to Detective Martin's notes Shelling w-was interviewed outside. I probably didn't even see Shelling that night."
Catherine took notes and studied her friend. In the past few days she had seen parts of the old Grissom return. "Gil, while you were on the case that night did you come in contact with anyone?"
"No. I spent the hours processing evidence. Sorry, Catherine," he said.
"Don't be. We'll find something."
"I've been trying to remember Denalgio's court hearing since you called," Gil said. "Denalgio never w-went to trial. I testified at his grand jury hearing. Once the evidence was seen as enough for a trial, that's w-when Denalgio lost it and threatened me. I remember Detective Martin w-was there but other than the lawyers and the court room personnel, the room w-was empty."
Catherine sat there quietly. Her nerves were getting the best of her, but she worked to maintain her composure.
"Are you OK, Catherine?" Gil asked.
"What?" She asked as her face lit up with sincere bewilderment. "Just lost in thought. I'm not thinking about anything particular."
Gil closed the Denalgio file. "Your being there that night on the scene, it w-wouldn't have made any difference about w-what happened to me," Gil said. Catherine blanched at his comment, but said nothing, leaving Gil to continue. "I remember that night. I remember how sick Lindsey w-was. You belonged at home w-with her, not in some dump w-with me sorting through teeth and blood types, and getting teeth imp-pressions off Denalgio's fists. Although, you probably w-would have done better with the splatter."
The two looked at each other and held each others gaze for a short moment as an understanding of two friends passed silently between them. Then Catherine placed her hand on his forearm and then withdrew it.
"Okay," Catherine said before taking a deep breath. "Let's move to the John Shelling case. How's your memory of the interrogation?"
"It's good." Gil said his voice was low and hard.
"Let's walk through it a bit."
"Jim took the lead about his w-whereabouts and the drugs in his system," Gil recounted. "He tested positive for cocaine and ecstasy. I took the lead on the physical evidence…"
Gil stopped for a second as he recalled the evidence he had collected from the gruesome scene. Three young girls -- Alison, age fifteen, Mika, age fourteen and Courtney, age twelve, were shot in their beds while they slept. "I remember the look on his face w-when w-we told him that w-we knew he used the couch pillows as a silencer for the shooting. He looked up at me and told us how the girls used to love to cuddle together on the couch and w-watch 'Feifel Goes W-West.'"
Again, Gil took a pause. Catherine got out the transcript from the interview while Gil composed himself. "Gil? What was he muttering here?" She pushed the file into both of their views as she pointed out the phrases referred to.
Gil sat up straighter, his face contorted in thought. "W-We got the confession out of him and we were trying to find a motive of why he shot them, and he kept saying three phrases, 'I don't want them to taste'; 'the bitterness w-will kill them'; and 'they w-would be torn.' He repeated it over and over again. Then at the end of the interview he said five times, 'I couldn't let it happen.'"
Catherine weighed the words as she was sure Gil did ten years ago. "Okay, maybe he was thinking of poisoning them, but he just couldn't do it. Maybe he thought they would hurt themselves more if they tasted the bitter poison…"
Catherine continued to think out loud, but her words were lost on Gil. He turned over the phrases in his mind. But unlike ten years ago, he was able to look at the words from another terrifying, horrible perspective. He became a bit shaky and stood up from the table. It wasn't until he knocked over his glass of juice that Catherine even noticed what was going on.
"Careful, Gil, don't trip." Catherine said as she soaked up the spilled juice. "Gil? Gil?"
Gil seemed lost for a second as he walked slowly and unsteadily with his cane. Catherine stood up and went to his side. "Hey. Gil. What's up?"
He looked at Catherine and slowly shook his head. Through the tears that were beginning to form in his eyes she could see the horrified look that grew up from his very soul. Gil pointed his cane towards the table and they silently and slowly made their way back to it. "Gil, did you remember something?"
"He w-wasn't talking about poison or another w-way to kill them or his drug habit. I thought of those same things when we interviewed him," Gil said in a steady, but sad voice. "He was talking about his brother."
Catherine looked at Gil then thumbed through the transcripts again. "Gil, he never mentioned his brother or any family member. Is there a note or anything that you're recalling instead?"
"N-No! W-When he said those three ph-phrases; he was t-talking about his b-brother!" He shouted his words; a hint of fear laced the anger in his voice. He clenched his eyes shut as he tried to drown out his emotional pain with his physical pain and began to punch his thigh with such force that Catherine could feel the vibrations in the floor. She was taken aback for a moment. She had never seen him this violent towards himself before.
"Okay, Gil!" Catherine said as she regained her composure. "Please calm down. Okay?" Catherine watched him fearfully as he pounded his thigh with his fist. She put a hand over his fist, halting the violent action. "I'm listening to you, but I don't understand. Calm down, take a deep breath and then we'll continue."
Gil nodded and stopped fidgeting. He used the calming exercises that Dr. Stacey Tolliver had taught him in their last session to steady his breathing. Catherine noticed the pattern and breathed with him. She looked over Gil's shoulder to see a very concerned Sara walk into the kitchen. The two women exchanged very perplexed looks and Sara made her way over to the table, although Gil hadn't noticed.
"Gil, are you okay to talk? We don't have to continue."
"N-No," he said surely. "No. No. I… I'm okay."
"Okay, tell me again, Gil. What's your theory?'
Gil closed his eyes. The memories of Shelling, Denalgio and O'Tool forcing themselves on him filled his mind. The steel ring forced his mouth open while their bodies invaded Gil's own body. Their smells, their tastes defiled his senses. He remembered the bitter taste of their cum as it dribbled from his mouth and down his neck and chest. Except for Shelling's cum. He was forced to swallow the bitterness down.
As tears flowed from his eyes, Gil continued to make no sound as he recalled the feeling of being torn open from behind. The torturous memories still shook his body. With his hands roughly rubbing his thighs he began to rock back and forth.
Catherine had stood up and let Sara take her place. As Catherine stood behind Gil with her hands kneading his shoulders, Sara sat down in front of him and tried to catch his gaze. She spoke to him in a soothing, but concerned tone. "Gil, it's Sara. You're okay. Catherine and I are here. Tell me what's going on, please."
Both women were prepared for swinging. They both had experience with that new, dark side of Gil. But instead Gil lifted his head and took a deep breath. He spoke softly and slowly as he tried to voice his theory. "J-John Shelling… was talking about his b-brother. … R-Reggie Shelling b-blamed J-John Shelling's d-daughters for their own d-deaths. … He c-c-called them whores who used J-John… ch-children… they were ch-children… the twisted son-of-a-b-bitch. … How c-can you b-blame ch-children?"
Although neither Catherine nor Sara fully understood what Gil was saying, they let him continue and listened to every word. But Catherine had to clarify something as she sat down on the other side of Gil. "Gil when did Reggie say that?"
Again Gil took a deep breath. "W-While he was torturing me. He c-called them whores."
Catherine still didnt understand where Grissom was going with his train of thought. But she needed him to continue, so she gingerly asked, "Gil, help me read between the lines with what John Shelling said because I still can't see it."
Gil put a nervous, shaking hand above his lips. He was close to crying again. He looked into Sara's eyes, full of love and concern, and the first of fresh tears began to roll down his cheeks. "I'm sorry, Sara. I know you know what happened... but I'm sorry you have to hear this," he said. With downcast eyes, Gil continued. "J-John Shelling k-kept talking about tasting, b-bitterness and tearing. Those are three things that I r-remember Shelling, D-Denalgio and O'Tool d-doing to me. They m-made m-me taste them, I had to sw-wallow their b-bitter ejaculate and then they tore me open when the anally raped me."
Putting his hand to his mouth, Gil found the strength to continue. "W-What if R-Reggie Shelling had that in m-mind for J-John Shelling's daughters? Forced P-Prostitution. M-Maybe that's what his b-brother had in store for Alison, M-Mika and C-Courtney, and J-John c-couldn't let that happen."
"And in his drug-crazed mind, he killed them so it wouldn't happen." Catherine added.
"You said w-we d-don't know w-what Shelling d-does for money," Gil said. "M-maybe he's involved in p-prostitution or even human trafficking?"
"If that's the case," Catherine said. "Than Vice or the Nevada Bureau of Investigation might have something on him. I could take his photo and see if they know him under an alias."
"Has anyone checked out J-John Shelling's b-belongings from p-prison?"
Catherine looked through the file. "No, but no one has claimed them either. I'll have Warrick do that," Catherine said. "And I think it would be a good idea for us to interview the cellmate who killed him. Ecklie's guys did, but he didn't say much just the 'he asked for it.'"
"Maybe he actually did ask for it," Gil said his tone distant. "I d-don't know how you w-would live with yourself after that."
The comment caught Catherine off guard. She had never witnessed Gil talking as he had or acting as he had. But she took a look at Sara and while Catherine was incredulous, Sara showed strength and compassion. Then Catherine recalled Warrick telling her of Gil's suicide attempt and understood. It was time for her to leave; they needed to be alone after that.
"Gil, I'm going to go," she said, not knowing exactly what to say next. "You did good, hon. I'll let you know what's going on, okay."
Gil gave a weak nod and smile, but Catherine didn't expect much more. When Sara went to get up and escort Catherine to the door, she stopped her. "I know my way out. You stay with Gil. I'll call you in a few to make sure every thing's okay."
"Thanks, Cath," Sara said as she returned her attention to Gil. She put her hands on his own which rested nervously on his lap.
They both heard the door close and sat in silence. When Gil let out a sigh, Sara reached out to caress his face. He caught her hand and kissed her palm. "I'm sorry."
"I've never been more proud of you," Sara said. "I love you."
Gil looked at her and encircled her body with his arms. As they hugged each other tight, Sara heard a faint, "I love you too." As Gil's tears flowed on her shoulder and neck.
"Come on," Sara said. "You need rest."
"I want to be with you."
"You will. Always."
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A/N: I know you guys have been waiting for this for a long time and I am truly sorry for the wait. But all good things come to those who wait. At least that's what my grandmother keeps saying. But I'm still waiting for my Farari... sidle77. You guys have been so patient, and non-threatening, that if you all leave me some nice, long reviews I'll post a special chapter sooner. And yes, it contains something that you ALL have been asking for;)
