Back at the lab, Nick heaved the boxes of evidence, one at a time, up onto the counter. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the rookie shadowing him staring intently at them, like they were about to explode.

"Take a deep breath, huh?" he said with a half-smile. "The further up you get, the more you'll be doing this. And some evidence sucks, no matter how long you're at it."

"Right," answered the guy. "You're never prepared for every case."

"That's right. I learned that from an old friend here..."

His voice kind of faded. Like a song with no concrete ending... He hated that effect in music, but his smile spread to the other side of his face nonetheless. His hands gripped the sides of the box, and the memory of Grissom left as quickly as it had come. Boy, that was a sudden one...

"Anyway..." he continued. "Before we can begin processing, we have to take a log of what we've got. This notepad, here was the one I took with me to the scene." He gave it a light toss, and it slid until it had halted in front of the trainee. "I counted my evidence markers before I left, and we found a total of twenty-one, between me and the other two ladies out there."

"Yeah...? Ladies...?" He looked suddenly mischievous.

"Yes. Professional ladies," corrected Nick, though he hadn't meant for his tone to come off so harsh... So he softened, and tried again. "Sara Sidle and Morgan Brody, to be specific. You'll probably see them a few times before this case is out. They're real good at this, too."

The rookie nodded, but turned a little red, and redirected his vision to the evidence boxes. "So, what's the logging procedure?"

"These forms." Nick yanked a drawer open underneath the counter's top, and removed a stack of papers attached by adhesive to a cardboard back. "CSI first levels are required to have a witness. You're a trainee, so I'm gonna be yours today. And I'll help you, so don't panic. But this is the most important part of the job, because when we face the criminal's defense, they're going to check our logging integrity. Legally, they can pull video on us, too." He pointed up at one of several cameras around the room. "It's critical that we don't screw this up."

The trainee gave another, solid nod. "Right. Evidence is the name of the game."

Nick smiled again, and put a hand on each hip. "Yep. So get started on the forms, and I'll lay out the evidence. Do NOT remove the actual articles from the bag without some of these."

He took a purple-ish box of latex gloves from the side table behind them, and shook them a couple of times. Eyes looking over an imaginary pair of glasses with warning... The rookie accepted them, and took a pen from his pocket.

"Alright, then... So, what do we got?"

Nick leaned against the counter's edge on his forearm. "You tell me, man. What do the bags say?"

The young man took the first bag from the box, and laid it out with the printing on it upside down. With a nervous chuckle, he corrected it, and then gripped the pen with an iron tightness. Nick's eyes ran from the grip to the evidence, and back again a few times.

"Looks like a... a chunk of some floorboard. With some blood on it...?" As he spoke, he also wrote.

"Very good," complimented Nick. "And you understand the form?"

"Sure," replied the student. "It's all written pretty clear."

At this, Nick was doubly impressed. "And you took the time to read it?"

The kid looked up from where he was hunched over writing, and shrugged. "Don't you have to...?"

Nick jutted his lower lip out. "You've never met Greg Sanders, have you?"

But it was Sara's voice who answered. "Stop knocking on Greg."

They looked over, and there they were: Sara and Morgan, looking tired, and kind of sweaty.

Nick grinned at Sara. "Well, what do you want me to say? Don't you remember how long it took to get him out of that habit?"

"Yes, but he does a good job, now," said Sara.

They strode into the room, and around the table, where they set the box they were carrying to do their own logging.

"I didn't say he didn't," replied Nick defensively. "And what you got there?"

"Jewelry box," said Morgan. "It was buried in the backyard."

Nick blinked a couple of times. "You went digging?"

"I stepped on a loose hole in the back," she explained. "My foot sank a little into it, and so I went to look inside it. I found this..."

Sara did not comment. She sighed, and extracted the other box of gloves. Morgan didn't seem to notice, though. She kept going.

"We looked into the diamond we found. It came from a store owned by some real oddballs. We asked some questions, and found out that an old lady bought it from them. They said that the lady claimed to have saved up for it forever. It was paid in full."

"It's also incredibly close to real," added Sara, eyes down on a clipboard.

The trainee, writing extremely slowly on the forms Nick had given him, looked up. "It was...?"

Sara nodded in his direction. "Yeah. And good work on that call, by the way. We learned a bit more because of it."

"Like what?" asked Nick.

"Like that the girl we talked to was a serious idiot," said Morgan. "She says the old lady left something in the store on her way out. A postcard, with the word 'help' written on it. Or, well, printed on it..."

Nick squinted, and looked up at the ceiling with a bit of a weary sigh. "Did you check with dispatch for a phone call to that effect?"

"I did," answered Sara. "And they had nothing."

Nick pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment. "Then, where we're at is: as far as we know, they could be lying or telling the truth. It could work both ways..."

"Then I say we chase your lead," said Sara. "Unless we find something else implicating the store workers, we'd be better off following up on something more concrete. Someone we know was involved..."

Nick nodded... but had kind of hoped they would've found something, or someone, else.

Nevertheless, he waved Sara forward with two fingers. "Morgan, how would you like to be the witness for our learner, here? And you can work on that jewelry box, too."

She nodded, and flashed a thumbs up. "Got it. Lemme know how it looks with the suspect!"

Her enthusiasm was contagious. Neither Nick nor Sara could resist catching a bit of it. "Understood," Nick chuckled.

But as they turned for the door, they suddenly collided with Hodges. "Whoa!" he shouted. A laptop he was carrying almost fell out of his hands.

"Hodges!" exclaimed Sara. "What are you doing, creeping up behind us?"

He frowned. "I just needed to ask if anyone knew the password for the materials laptop. Russell didn't leave it logged in before he left."

"Oh." Nick reached into his inside shirt pocket, and withdrew a card between two fingers. "This is what you need. Hold that thing still, for a moment."

On the side of the computer's lower body was a small reader for electronic keys. Nick gave his a slide through the reader, and it made a small beep. A series of number prompts would have popped up on the touchscreen, if he hadn't had them all memorized. Well enough to punch them in before they were visible... A bright, generic smiley face welcomed them to the program, and there it was.

"Try to keep that turned on, alright?" requested Nick, slipping the card back into his pocket. "I know we had a breakdown, but we gotta get some progress under our belts, here. Sara?"

"Yeah. Let's go." She grabbed a couple of bagged evidence pieces on her way over to him.

"Hey! Where did you get that?" called Hodges after them.

When they were out of earshot, Nick leaned over towards Sara. "Did you find anything else worthwhile out there?"
"Nothing newer than what we've got. Why, don't you trust me?" she murmured back.

He stopped, and leaned back a bit. "Ouch. What has that got to do with anything?"

She ran a hand through her hair. "I just wondered. It seemed like you wanted us out of the picture at the crime scene."

That was a trap. And if he answered it now, they would be at blatant odds for the whole case. So he shook his head, and left it at: "That wasn't it."

Perhaps she felt like he was baiting her, too. She didn't say anything about it for the rest of the walk to the interrogation rooms, at least. Which... in part, because he had been baiting her... was something of a disappointment to him.

"Look, I really don't mean to be a bother... but did anyone find my grandma?"

Nick slid his chair a bit closer to the other side of the table. It scraped loudly, but he barely noticed it from familiarity, anymore. "I'm sorry, man, but we're still looking." Then he indicated Sara, who had settled in with her hands loosely folded on her lap; her observatory thinking stance, he'd always thought... "This is Sara. She's a good friend. She did some looking, too."

Brandon looked at her expectantly, but Sara shook her head. "I'm sorry. I haven't found anything, yet," she answered softly.

Brandon nodded, and brushed his finger on his nose. "I understand..."

For a moment or two, there was just silence. Nick tapped his fingers on the table. Sara kept glancing over at him. Brandon's eyes were down.

"When was the last time you saw your grandma?" he finally asked. We'll start there...

"A few days ago," answered the distressed-looking young man. "She had come out to the apartment with my uncle to show me something she'd bought. It was a diamond."

He ducked his head a little bit. Nick sighed, and pressed his lips together. In his side vision, Sara appeared to be saddened, too. But she cleared her throat, and reached into the small field kit they had brought with them.

"Did it, uhm... did it look like this?" And she slid the diamond in the evidence bag to the middle of the table.

Brandon leaned forward and narrowed his eyes at it. "Yes... Yes, that's it. She had been saving up for it since she took me in."

At this, Nick perked up a little. "Took you in?"

"Yes. My parents died when I was about seven or so. Grandma fought to keep me from going into foster care. Grandpa was against it, but she won. I came to live with them." He wiped his eyes a little, and straightened up. Like he was ready to put forth a more dignified impression, all of a sudden... "Story of my life. Nobody wanted me except my grandma..." He sighed.

Sara turned her expression into confusion. "Oh...? What about your uncle? He was living there, too, wasn't he?"

"That's right," affirmed Brandon. "But he wasn't always the most pleasant house guest. He had some problems. You probably found a lot of alcohol there."

"We sure did," said Nick. "And plenty of bodily fluids, too."

Brandon sniffed. Or snorted... One of the two. "Uncle Hector was in some pretty serious denial about his sexuality. He had a wife back in Phoenix, but she ended up leaving him and changing her legal name. After that, he became twice the drunk. And when he was drunk, he let his... other side out to play."

"All over the house, it seemed," Sara interjected.

"That sounds like him. He spent more money on boys and booze than he did bills and family needs. He used to run a pretty successful business, you know: car wash, with a detailing service on the side. It's making money for somebody else, now... But the kind of money he made, he could have taken care of all my grandma's financial problems after grandpa died."

"And where were you during all this? I mean, after you moved out?" said Nick.

"Oh, I didn't leave right away. I used to work with my school's janitor on my weekends, and some days after school. Jason was really nice. I haven't talked to him in a while, but he understood some of my family problems."

Something terrible occurred to Nick. But he couldn't quite bring himself to say it... Luckily, he supposed, Sara hadn't taken quite as much of a liking to their suspect.

Though she still used a delicate tone while posing her question to him... "Did he understand enough to... help you with a murder?"

Brandon frowned. "What? No! No, absolutely not! I would never have done something like that! My grandmother would never have forgiven me! She loved my uncle! And he wasn't exactly my favorite person, but he did some good things for me, too!"

Nick held two hands up. "Alright. Alright... We get it. We really do. But we have to cover all of our options, here, okay? And you wouldn't believe some of the screwed up things we see in this work. Much stranger things than what Sara just said. Calm down a little."

He sighed, and sat back in his chair with his face in his hands. "Please," he sniffled. "Please, just go and look for my grandmother. I'll be here if you have any other questions. I just... I need to know if she's all right or not." And he ducked his head.

Beside him, Sara rubbed her forehead and sighed, before leaning against her elbow, cheek resting on the palm of her hand. Resigned, it appeared, that they wouldn't get anything else, for the time being...

But Nick's eyes were for the tear-stained young man before them. A sight that was becoming increasingly pitiful with each passing moment.

"Okay. I don't think he's lying..." assessed Sara, after they had left the interrogation room. "I don't think he's telling us everything he knows... but I don't think he's lying about not killing his uncle."

Something like relief went through him. He looked up from the corner of the floor his vision had kind of defaulted to, and just nodded with a measure of peace. As long as she thought so, too... Maybe he would just allow himself this pretty pressing lapse in judgment.

"Unless he was the lead in drama at school..." she allowed.

He chuckled. "I doubt it. But, hey, when he calms down, we can ask him. Look into all that..."

She clicked her tongue. "Yeah. Something like... In the meantime, what's next? Evidence? Or did we ever hear from David about the autopsy?"

"I haven't. You...?"

"Why do you think I was–?"

Beep, beep, beep.

There went the generic text tone. The harsh expression she was delivering – head down, and eyes peering over her nose – disappeared in the sudden flurry of her hair, caused by the hasty switch from glaring at him to the phone in its holder down on her belt. While she busily undid it, he pressed his backside a little harder against the wall; he could feel his phone vibrating, but he wasn't exactly sure it would be David.

"Speak of the devil. Or, the super coroner..." She clicked the screen off on her phone, and hooked it back onto her belt.

His eyes had returned to the floor, where his mind began to run away with him. "Or some combination..." he managed to get out.

Two fingers snapped out of his vision's range. "Nick! Stay with me on this."

He glanced up again, perpetually unbothered by her sudden intervention. "On what...?"

"The case," she answered, incredulously. "I need you to stay with me on the case."

He shook his head, trying to clear the memories of his family that he kept going back to. Hard as it was, he attempted to welcome the return of corpses, and young rookies studying his collected evidence with blond bombshells back into his thoughts. Never exactly an easy process, but considerably less so in light of the recent news...

"All right, then," he said through an exhale. "If you'll stop glaring at me, I'll go."

She did a kind of double take, albeit subdued. "Am I glaring?"

"Sharply," he answered. "But the real question is: are you coming, now?"

He hoped that his step past her came off as a stride. But he was fairly certain that some of the usual muster behind it was lacking. Somehow... Maybe lingering in puddles of resonance, pooling at the bottom of his shoes, and then picking a place on the floor – hard, and cold enough to feel through his soles – to stay wherever it landed.

The quiet hum of the morgue would persist in her mind long after she'd left it. It had always been that way, even before she had been a week in Las Vegas. And that was about fifteen years ago; she had definitely mastered anticipating it subconsciously, far before she was in the room. But for some reason, going in felt ominous. More so than usual, that was... even with Nick a step or two ahead of her.

"You think anyone else is about to burst out of the other doors, guns blazing?" she asked stupidly.

Wherever Nick's mind was, it returned to the present when he looked over at her, eyebrows raised in question. "I really don't think it's likely, Sara. Not this time, anyway..."

She nodded, and stepped past him as he watched her with an expression of some worry, running her hand through her hair. Which, she was beginning to feel, might need cut a little shorter, still...

"Nick. Sara," greeted David. "There you are..."

"Hey," returned Sara. "We made it."

"You're going to wish you hadn't," said David. "This one's rough."

"Like, what kind of rough?" inquired Sara. "'Suicide' rough, or 'raped with a glass bottle' rough?"

David seemed to mull that one over for a moment. He didn't answer, anyway... as his eyes scanned the body, with his hands folded in front of him. An non-reassuring response, to be sure...

"I don't know about all that," he finally replied. "But rough..."

A bit of a sinking feeling settled in Sara's stomach. "I see... What do we got?"

"Well, cause of death was a mystery, at first," began Super Dave. "I had thought alcohol poisoning, but then I found a low BAC."

Nick seemed to come to life at this. "You found a low BAC? In the guy who was lying in booze bottles?"

"Yeah... But then I kind of guessed at a stab wound. Underneath his filthy clothes, and the decomposition, he had some pretty nasty ones."

Sara scratched her head, and rolled her vision over the body.

"But, it was this that killed him," continued David. He reached to the items table beside him, and held up a large, bagged hair dryer. "Somebody bashed his brains literally all the way in. The marks match perfectly."

He set it back on the table, and gave it a little slide so that it came to a stop by Sara. She looked down at it with a bit of pity. Like the hair dryer had cared at all that somebody had been using its ancient-looking frame to take a man's life... She took it from the table rather carefully. Between her two hands' fingers, she gave it a little squeeze. What a terrible way to die, even for a man like their victim was looking to have been...

"And, uh..." pressed David, in that professional-yet-obligatory sensitive tone that he and Doc had come to have trained themselves to use, when they could see that a case was affecting its investigator(s). "There was... something else, too. I removed this... from the inside of his throat."

Sara's mouth fell open when the next item to appear from behind David was a hair-curling iron. "You found this in the victim's throat?"

"Yes."

She took it in its bag from him with very little hesitation.

"His clothes are in the bags over there, as well. I didn't see anything that looked strange on the outside. The decomp smelled terrible, but it was a lot less poignant without the accompanying body." His lips pursed, and his eyes scrunched up in an expression of disgust.

Behind her, Nick took the victim's personal effects, and held them up to the dim light, as if looking for anything else weird that would be visible. A flash of irritation bubbled up in Sara; it wasn't like he would be able to find anything admissible in court just by looking.

But her emotion didn't boil over that time. She turned back to Dave. "Give me his ten card. If you could get it...?"

"There's not much," he admitted. "But here: there's a little something to help you start eliminating with."

"Thanks."

She started to go for Nick, but then David's voice changed so drastically, she had to stop again and look back at him. "Do you think, in life, he had ever hoped for a better death than this?"

She knew he was hoping that she would pull a Grissom, and drop a thoughtful, comforting answer for him. But for the life of her, she couldn't think of one, at the moment. Not with the way the hair dryer and the curling iron – two items she had just used that morning – felt like they were burning her hands through the evidence bags...