12.
"Hey Gil, how are you?" He must have listen to her message, maybe the voice mail was too fast and this was why he couldn't answer the phone.
"Hey, I'm fine. What's up? You said you had to talk to me immediately."
"Uhm yes." Was it this strange she wanted to talk to him? Didn't he want to talk to her? Was her request really unusual? "Where are you? I miss you."
"You know where I am, South America."
"South America?" Was he back already? Did he leave Vegas before he came here to see her? Did he only come to Vegas to see Heather, spent some time with her and left again? This couldn't be true.
"Really?"
"Of course. Where else should I be?"
"How about Vegas?" She really said it. Was she about to confront him with what she saw? Was this a good idea? What if she accused him of something he didn't do? What if she was wrong? Saw a man, who looked like Grissom. Doug's word came back into her mind. Describing a man, who looked like Grissom and he never saw him. And she damn knew how her husband looked like.
"Vegas?"
"Yes."
"Why do you think this?"
"Because…" To hell, she couldn't go back, even when she made herself look ridiculous, she needed to get it off her chest. "I was at the 'Flor de loto' yesterday and I passed the 'Coffee bean jar' and I…I think I saw you there." She couldn't say the words, I saw you and Heather there, just the thought of it hurt, made her feel sick. The thought of him lying to her all the time; or for a while. Mention the café, mention she walked pass there and might have seen him with Heather to see what he did with this information.
"Grissom?" Did the connection broke? Did he hang up the phone? "Grissom?" No answer.
"I'm sorry, we should really talk."
Time stood still. They really need to talk? Did he talk about her seeing things that weren't real? That she needed a break, take some time off to get her body function back to normal, stopped seeing things, that weren't there. Or did they need to talk because her eyes didn't betray her, unlikely her husband, who was there, with another woman and left without seeing her. Or didn't leave at all, was still in Vegas and was with another woman. Doctor Heather Kessler.
"What do you mean?" Her voice was husky. Oh gosh, why did she start all off this? This was what happened when you ask question, knowing you could get an answer, you don't want to hear.
"I mean, there are a few things we should talk about. About us."
"Gil…are you…what are you…" She lost her ability to talk. "Can you come over to talk?" She implied he lied and was in Vegas. Come over from wherever you are, from Heather's place, talk to me. Tell me what happened, what went wrong.
"We should talk tomorrow. I try to make it to for breakfast. Seven?"
"Tomorrow? Why don't you tell me what's going on now?" How was she supposed to concentrate on her work with this in her head? It was impossible.
"I can't, I'm…" The connection broke.
"Fuck!" She re-dialed his number and got straight to voice mail. What happened? Why did he end the call? Or why broke the connection? Was he in a place with a bad signal and lost it? Did this mean he was in South America? Somewhere in the jungle. The signal in the jungle was bad, if you had one at all. She knew about it.
Or he disconnected the call. He said, he wanted to talk to her tomorrow. Seven. Breakfast. It wasn't possible to get from South America to Vegas overnight when you hadn't booked a ticket, hadn't arranged a transport to the airport. So how could he make it to their place by seven in the morning, when he wasn't already in Las Vegas? He couldn't. He had to be in Las Vegas, which meant, he was with Heather and lied to her. And he didn't lose the signal, he ended the call.
Suddenly she started to feel sick, stormed into the bathroom and threw up. This was too much. Her head felt like she was in a roller coaster. Roller coaster, he liked roller coaster, rode them a lot. To her it felt like not like fun, it felt like…she had to throw up again. Was it because of the ice cream or the conversation? It was a little late for the ice cream, wasn't it? It had to be the phone call.
Exhausted, tears running down her face, she sat down, leant her forehead on the cold stone wall, tried to even her breath. Slow down, Sara, maybe you are overreacting. You have no hard evidence all the bad pictures in your head are right. You have no physical evidence that proves Grissom did anything wrong. All you have are clues and accusations. She could be wrong. There could be a good explanation for everything. Like. Like. Like what?
She tried to get up only to fall back on the floor. No balance. She wasn't able to get up and walk, her knees felt like jelly, she had no balance to keep herself on her two feet. It was better she stayed here a little bit, gave herself some time. The floor was nice and cold. It felt good to leave her head on it, rest there, let the cold flow through your body.
Thirsty. She was thirsty. Not for water, she wanted a drink. A good one, a strong one. The nice bottle of whiskey in her bar, it sounded like the perfect solution for all her problems. All she had to do was get up, get it and forget all her sorrow and pain. Drown it and herself with it. And if the whiskey wasn't enough, there was some beer left. Drown your sorrow, use a lot of alcohol, these little fuckers can swim.
But she had to go to work. Had to solve a case. Yeah sure, like she was in a position to work the case, leave alone close it. She was barely capable of sitting upright, how was she supposed to go to work, pretend everything was all right and do her work? Go there, talk to her colleagues and friends, feeling and seeing their looks, knowing they knew something was wrong with her. Hell, she cried like a baby, her eyes had to be red. She threw up, couldn't walk, when she looked at her situation in a realistic way, she knew, she was in no position to work.
Maybe it was better she called in sick, stay here and work the situation out - together with the whiskey. Whiskey didn't give you a lot of answers, but it listened to your problems, made you feel understood and helped to forget whatever you wanted to forget. Right now, she wanted to forget her husband, what he did and do and what he could tell her tomorrow.
