My Way is Clear

by Simply Ginger

Nick meets a paramedic after getting injured at a crime scene. In an AU, this is their story. This is not a slash and all the characters from CSI show up eventually.

7. Walking on Broken Glass

Chapter 7 – Walking on Broken Glass

"Where's the tow truck driver?" I looked around, trying to find out where the driver went. "We gotta get this car out of here and back to the lab."

"He's over there." Catherine looked over as the driver was standing under a tree out of the rain. "I'll go get him." She went over to where he was and pulled him back to us. "Get it out. We're losing evidence."

The tow truck guy looked confused. He looked up at the sky and wiped rain off of his face. "But it's raining."

"Wow." I looked at Catherine as she shook her head. "Someone's really a master of the obvious. They teach you that in tow truck driving school?" I was getting soaked as I stood out in the rain waiting. The rain coat I had on wasn't helping much. "Just get the car up here so I can get the medics to pronounce and we can go. We're losing evidence because of the rain and we've got to get this car moved."

The tow truck driver went to work as I looked down at the smashed remains of the Ford Explorer. "Hey Nicky."

I turned around, knowing who the voice belonged to. "Hey Anna. You and Bryan first on the scene I take it?" I noticed then she was in her firefighting turnouts, rather than her paramedic uniform. "Now that's hot."

"I wouldn't go that far." Anna pulled the visor of her helmet down, shielding herself from the rain. "Yeah. We were the first on scene. I'm not with Bryan today. I'm on the engine. One of the ladder guys got what I had so I was brought over to take his place and another guy was brought in to drive Bryan around." She started to laugh, "It's like a demented version of Driving Miss Daisy." Straightening up when Bryan flipped her off, Anna returned the gesture and continued, "We got here and PD told us the car skidded off the road. Give some college kids a fast car and some beer plus in an unexpected obstacle like Bambi over there…" Anna turned around to look at the deer in the highway the kids hit. "Or really, what's left of Bambi over there and throw in some rain, momentum and physics and you get this." She looked over at the Explorer as the tow truck driver was hooking the tow chains to the crumpled truck to pull it up over the embankment and onto the road. "Angel Rescue just left. Front seat passenger was just air lifted by them to Desert Palms. It took the Jaws of Life to get him out. He was alive when we pulled him out, but crashed once we got him in the helicopter. Don't know if he's gonna make it. The driver didn't." She looked at the driver, still in the truck. "Poor kid. Waiting on us to pronounce I take it?"

Catherine handed Anna the form she needed to fill out to pronounce the kid. "After you, my lady. Tow truck driver won't pull it out until you're done. We're following you."

Bryan took the form from Anna, "Well, me really. I just need Aggie's signature."

Anna held her hand out and I helped her down the embankment in front of me. She stopped when she got to a tree to adjust a bag she was carrying. "So if you're on the engine today, why does Bryan need you?" I reached out for a tree to keep from sliding down the rest of the way as Bryan passed me. "Your partner can't help you?"

"Nope." Bryan shook his head, "I need another medic to help pronounce. My partner today is just a driver. That's why I needed Aggie or one of the Angel Rescue medics if they were still on scene. They're gone so I'm stuck with her." After Bryan spoke, Anna turned around and shot him the bird for the second time since we had been here.

We slowly made our way down the rest of the embankment without falling. Bryan reached through the driver's side window and attached leads to the kid's chest from the monitors Anna was holding. "No activity." Bryan pulled the leads off of the driver and handed the wires to Anna. "Poor kid." Anna handed him a pen light out of her pocket. He turned it on and shined it in the kid's face. "Both pupils are blown, non reactive." He handed the light back to Anna as she wrote something on the form. He looked down and shook his head. "Going too fast usually doesn't end well with a drunken college kid, Bambi and rain thrown in the mix." Anna gave the form to Bryan who started to fill it out. "By the power vested in me by the state of Nevada, I now pronounce you dead." He signed it and handed it to Anna to sign as his witness. "All yours, CSI Man and CSI Lady."

Anna held her hand out waiting on Bryan to hand her the pen so she could sign it. "Now that's a creative way to pronounce someone dead, partner." After he dropped it in her hands, Anna took her glove off so she could sign the form. "You always did have a way with words." She signed it and handed it to Bryan. He tore off the copy we needed and handed it to Catherine. "Remind me of that line next time we work together." After giving Bryan back his pen, Anna flipped the visor of her helmet up and started towards the truck. "We're outta here and on our way back to the station."

I told Catherine I'd be right back and walked with Anna to the engine. She took off the turnout coat she had on and tossed it inside the engine as she held her helmet in her hands. "I'll stop by later if I can."

"You know where I'll be." Anna got in the truck and they left, headed back to the station. Catherine and I finished up at the wreck site and headed back to the lab to start processing the evidence we had collected. A few hours later, Catherine said she was going home to check on Lindsey and if I wanted to go grab lunch, she'd page me when she got back. Taking that as my cue, I left to see Anna. I called her to make sure she was awake and she said they were, having just got back from a call.

I knocked on the side door and Bryan answered. "CSI Man. Welcome." Bryan left the door open for me to come in as he went back to the TV. "Sorry to be rude. Deadliest Catch is on. Aggie's here somewhere." He sat back on the couch with another fireman and soon became lost in the show.

Anna came in from one of the bedrooms of the station and came through the common area and stopped long enough to stare at Bryan. "CSI Man? Really?" Anna looked at him as she shook her head. "Can't remember his name or what?"

"I can, but CSI Man sounds better. We all have nicknames up here and Nick needs one, too. He's up here as much as you are and because of that, he's an honorary fireman therefore he needs a nickname." He picked up his glass of tea and took a drink. "Union bylaws. You should know that, my dear."

"Nice, Bullfrog." Anna rolled her eyes. "Guess it could have been worse."

"Hungry? I brought lunch. Or dinner." I looked at my watch. "Or a 3:30 snack."

We ate in the kitchen, away from where everyone was watching Deadliest Catch with Bryan. "So I know the story about how you got your nickname. What's the story behind Bryan's?"

Anna put her fork down. "Bullfrog's story."

"Do I want to know?"

She stabbed a bite of her food before answering. "I'll do my best to make it as PG as possible. We had dinner one night up here right after I first started. Bryan was my FTO and well, I'll just put it nicely and say that dinner didn't agree with Bryan and he wound up in the bathroom and well, it sounded like a bullfrog being run over by a semi."

"le Damn." I blinked a few times as I stared at Anna. "That's, wow. That sounds like it'd fit up here."

After we finished eating, I still had a few minutes left before I had to go back to the lab. Rather than have Bryan and the other fireman gawk at us, I took Anna outside. She leaned up against my Tahoe to retie the laces on her boots as I got the keys out of my pocket and unlocked the doors so I could get ready to head back to the lab. I left the door open and the keys in the front seat and hugged her close to me and breathed in her intoxicating vanilla scent. "I don't want to go. Need any help on the trucks?"

Anna kissed me. "I'd find something for you to do. I've seen you work enough. You haven't seen me earn my keep at all. Well, other than that time you killed that flower pot when we first met and again at the golf course that day." She started to laugh, "You do know that every time I see a flower pot, I think of you now and seeing as how I walk by two of them every time I come in the station from outside, that's a lot."

I returned the kiss and tightened my arms around her, picking her up so she was eye level with me. "It could be worse." Anna put her legs around my waist and wrapped her arms around my neck. I kissed her again and reluctantly put her back on the ground. I was enjoying the moment outside alone when I noticed something tucked under the windshield wiper of her truck. "Looks like you've got a secret admirer."

Anna broke the hug and looked at her truck. "Leave me a love note?" She took my hand in hers and walked towards her truck to get the note. She put her hand on the door handle so she could pull up to reach the side step but stopped and stepped back down and looked at her hand. "It's oily." She let go of the door handle and rubbed her fingers together. "It smells like…" She stopped talking and looked down at her fingers again. "Oh, God." She dropped my hand and sprinted inside as I followed her in.

"Aggie?" Bryan stood up as we ran to the bay area of the fire station.

Anna opened the door from the station into the bay and ran to the ambulance. She pulled the door open and climbed in, sitting down on the bench seat. I watched as pulled one of the plastic drawers out of the cabinet and set it on the seat next to where she was as she started to go through whatever was inside. After dumping the contents of the drawer upside down and spilling it all over the ambulance, she finally found what she needed and I watched as Anna untucked her shirt and unbuttoned her pants enough to expose her upper thigh. She was holding something that looked like a highlighter and in one motion, she took the cap off and stabbed herself in the leg with whatever it was she was holding. She dropped it and went to lie back on the seat. "Anna, what was that?" I picked up the thing she dropped and read the label, "An Epi Pen?"

"Peanut butter." She turned to look at me as she started to breathe even harder than she was before, "It was peanut butter on my door handle." Anna was breathing funny and sweating, "Allergic reaction setting in." She started to shake and she sounded like she was having problems breathing. "Get Bryan. Now." Anna gasped again as she started to shove me out of the ambulance. "Nick, I'm serious." She started gasping again, "Go, go!"

As Anna started gasping even harder, I turned to go back in the station and ran into Bryan and the other guy coming out to check on us. Bryan looked in the ambulance at Anna. "Jesus Christ in a bowl of white rice, Aggie. What's wrong?" She was still gasping and didn't answer him as he climbed in beside her and told her to move to the gurney. After watching her for a moment and getting no response out of her, he turned to look at me. "CSI Man?"

"She stabbed herself in the thigh with that Epi Pen and told me to come get you."

Bryan picked it up and threw it in a sharps container in the back of the ambulance and started to check Anna's vitals. "Damn. Aggie, what happened?"

"Peanut butter." Anna gasped as she was still having problems breathing. "Someone left a note on my…" She had to stop speaking because she was still gasping, "On my truck. Nick was getting ready to leave when he noticed I had something on my windshield. I put my hand on the door…" Anna's words were coming out in short sentences as she had to stop and catch her breath. "I put my hand on the door handle to…step up on the side step of my truck to reach it and the door handle had peanut butter on it...I started to sweat outside and I could feel my heart…racing and I knew I was about go into anaphylactic shock. So I came here and got one of the Epi Pens from the truck."

Bryan checked her blood pressure and respiration rate. "Your rates are still high. Do you need to go home?"

"No, no. I'm fine." As she spoke, her breathing was still ragged and harder than I would have liked to have seen, but I knew she was in good hands with Bryan, "You got stung last month and you didn't…go home after you…got stung or after I stabbed you with the Epi Pen. Just let me stay here a bit and give me the O2." He handed her a mask as he reached up to turn it on.

Anna put the mask across her face and went to lie back down on the gurney in the back of the truck. Her breathing rates were slowing, but she was still gasping some. "Anna, stay with Bryan. I'm gonna go call Catherine and get that note and see what's going on."

I called Catherine and told her what was going on and I needed her to come to the station. She told me to wait there and she'd be over in just a minute. After hanging up with Catherine, I went back in the station to check on Anna. Bryan said her rates were coming down. I saw Catherine pull up outside, so I left Anna with Bryan and the other firefighter and met Catherine outside. "Nick? What happened?"

"Anna came outside with me to tell me goodbye before I headed back to the lab." I motioned towards her truck, "I saw that on the windshield and Anna put her hands on the door handle here so she could step up and get it. Peanut butter is on the handle."

"And let me guess, Anna's allergic?"

"Yes. Very allergic."

Catherine put on a pair of gloves and got the note off Anna's truck and opened it as she spoke out loud to herself, which was something we all did at crime scenes, "The envelope is larger than a regular envelope. 5x7 envelope." She flipped it over to see the back. "No postal markings on the envelope meaning that it was probably dropped off by someone who knew which car was Anna's." Catherine surveyed the other six cars in the lot next to Anna's, "All of them have fire fighter plates, so this was someone who knew which one was Anna's." As she opened the envelope, she shook a note out and as she read it, even though it was dark outside, I could still see the color drain from Catherine's face. She looked up at me so I could see the look she was giving me before she handed me a pair of gloves out of her field kit and told me to put them on. I put them on and Catherine handed me the note.

I read it and then looked up. "Cath, please tell me this is a sick joke."

"Nick, what's it say?"

I turned around and Anna was coming around the side of the building with Bryan next to her and the other fireman behind him. Anna was leaned against Bryan as he supported her weight while she stood up, "It's telling you to stay away from something." I looked at the note again. It was a simple note written on white copy paper. "Your name was printed on the front of the envelope in block letters." I looked at Anna and read the note to her. "This is what happens when you get in the way. You'll learn one way or another." I flipped the note over and looked on the back. "Nothing. Cath, was there anything else in the envelope?"

She shook it again. "Just a newspaper article." She turned it over to read it. "It's about the Audrey Malone case." Catherine put the article in an evidence bag and sealed it.

"This had better be someone's idea of a sick prank gone wrong. The note is one thing, but the peanut butter?" Anna rubbed the spot on her thigh where she injected herself with the Epi Pen. "You know how allergic I am to peanuts."

Catherine looked over at her, "How bad is your allergy to peanuts? Rash? Breathing problems?"

"Someone tosses a peanut at me and it touches me and I get a rash. Someone smears peanut butter on my door handle and I touch it or if someone puts peanut butter in something I eat and I do eat it, I cease to exist if I don't get treated. I could have died. I was out here thirty seconds, maybe, and I could already feel my heart rate rising and my breathing becoming more labored. Whoever did this knew enough to put a lot of peanut butter on my door handle so I'd react."

Catherine handed Anna the bag with the note inside of it. "Look at this and see if you recognize the handwriting."

Anna held her hand out and took the bag from Catherine and read the note. "This is the note someone left on my truck?"

"Yes. Do you recognize the handwriting?"

"I don't, Catherine." Anna flipped the note over to look at the back. "I have no idea who wrote this is." She handed Catherine the bag. "The writing is too plain."

Catherine read the note again through the plastic evidence bag. "Now that's disturbing." She took the second bag and looked at the newspaper article. "This is the case where Anna's shirt was found, wasn't it?" Catherine motioned for me to hand her the third bag with the envelope in it.

"Yes it is the same case with Anna's shirt. Anyone could have written that note. It's about as useless as type set. You haven't heard anything at the lab about someone not liking Anna? Who else could have known that we found Anna's shirt at the scene?"

"I highly doubt anyone at the lab is doing this to her, Nick. They're more into pranks in the office, not messing with someone's life. As for who could have known, I don't know. Reporters? The killer? A witness? Someone who has a subscription to the newspaper this article was in? The only thing we do know is someone is playing a really sick game with Anna." Catherine flipped the bag over to look at the back of the note. "Nothing on the back. No writing. Nothing." She looked at the bag with the envelope. "Glue seal it looks like. No DNA but I'll have Wendy check it for me anyway."

"That's all well and good, but I just want to know who's doing this and why." Anna looked like she was on the verge of tears. "The note is one thing, but the peanut butter?"

Catherine looked up from the bag she was holding. "Who knows you're allergic to peanut butter, other than Nick and me?"

"Cath, she wears a medical bracelet. Anyone who got close enough to that bracelet would know she's allergic." I noticed that Anna wore the bracelet relatively early in our relationship. Anna had told me about her peanut allergy after one of my neighbors had baked some cookies for the rest of the tenants in the building I lived in. Anna couldn't eat them because my neighbor had put peanuts in the batter.

"Nick's right. I do wear one." Anna shook her arm and the bracelet fell to her wrist. She took it off and held it out for Catherine to take. "I've worn this bracelet for years and it lists peanuts and penicillin as my allergies. I'm deathly allergic to both. I've worn this bracelet since high school when I got sick from penicillin. The only time I take this off is when I sleep. The links get tangled in my hair but you'd have to be really close to me to read it. The engraving is on the bottom of the bracelet."

Catherine took the bracelet from Anna and turned her flashlight back on so she could see it better. "This bracelet lists your name, birth date and your allergies." She flipped it over and looked at the front. "Mind if I hold on to this. Dust it for prints? I'll give it to Nick and he can bring it to you when he gets off work later on."

Anna rubbed her hands across her sleeves. "That's fine. I'll be working here and everyone knows I'm allergic to both anyway. Just make sure I get it back. That's the only one I've got."

"You'll get it back in a few hours when we're done. I'll get Mandy to dust it as soon as we get back to the lab." Catherine dropped the bracelet in a bag and got a pen out of her pocket and started writing up a report about the note. "Anna, how long have you been here? I'm going to put this in a report so if something else happens, we've got a paper trail."

"I got to work this morning at my normal time. We've had a few calls since then and I didn't notice anything on my truck. I backed into the spot this morning when we got here and each time we get back to the station, we have to use this driveway where we park to come in the back part of the station so the trucks are all facing the right direction in the bays. That makes the engines easier to get out in a hurry. Our last call was around midnight or so. Dispatch will have the exact time. We got back here around 1:15 I think. It was right before Nick got here. I've been up with Bryan and Brandon watching Deadliest Catch from earlier tonight."

Catherine started writing down what Anna was saying. "So you didn't notice anything then?"

Anna shook her head, "No. I didn't. I'd have to ask Bryan and Brandon. Bryan?" Anna turned around to look for Bryan. "You see this on my truck?"

Bryan shook his head, "No. Our last run was right before yours. Y'all got back before we did, then we got back and then CSI Man got here."

"I was driving the engine earlier and I didn't see anything and I know I looked over there. I always do to make sure when I turn to go in the bay doors I'm not going to hit one of our cars." Brandon looked at Anna's truck before turning his attention to Catherine. "I know for a fact it wasn't there when we got back right before CSI Man got here. Aggie's truck's on the end right there and I know I looked at it as I turned in to make sure I wasn't going to hit her X. She'd beat me if I did."

"Not hard enough to leave a mark, but thanks, dear." Anna sighed. "What a night."

"Tell me about it." Anna stood next to me, angling her body close to mine. "Cath, I didn't see anything, but I also wasn't looking. My Tahoe's over there." I pointed a few spaces up from Anna's truck. "I had to drive right by Anna's truck and I didn't look, so it could have been there, but with the envelope being that big, I'm sure I would have noticed it."

Catherine finished writing on the report. "I need to dust your truck for prints. Yours are in the system aren't they?"

Anna nodded, "Yep. We all got fingerprinted for the job when we started, plus I'm also on file for having an advanced paramedic license and a DEA number for the field."

"That'll eliminate you when we find yours on the truck, which we expect to. Where was the peanut butter? You didn't wipe it off, did you?"

"I didn't touch the peanut butter except for when I touched the handle to pull myself up. If I touched it again, I'd be tempting fate. I used an alcohol wipe and washed it off my hands in the ambulance after I injected myself with the Epi Pen."

Anna showed Catherine where the peanut butter was. She scraped some off the door handle after taking some pictures of it. "Looks like some prints, but they're probably yours, but we'll check it." Catherine got her flashlight out and looked over Anna's windshield. "I don't see anything, but let me ALS it and dust it." Anna stood next to me while Catherine checked for fingerprints on her truck. "I may have something." Catherine got a fingerprint duster and some powder out of her kit and lifted a print from the paint on Anna's truck. "Found a fingerprint." She lifted it and put the card in her vest pocket while she stepped down off Anna's truck. "Anna, let me see your hands. I can check it right now to see if it's yours or not." Anna held her hands out towards Catherine as she pulled the card out of her vest pocket and checked. "Not even close." Anna put her hands back in her pockets as Catherine put the print card in her kit. "Nick, did you touch it?"

"No. Anna realized that it was peanut butter and she ran inside the station and I followed her. I didn't have a chance to touch it."

"What about you two?"

"No." Brandon shook his head. "Bullfrog and I came out only after Aggie said she was feeling good enough to come outside and check with CSI Man to see what was going on. We didn't touch it either, but we are both in the system. Frog's got a DEA number like Aggie and I'm in the system for being with the LVFD. The other three guys at the station are all in the system as well."

"Thanks. I'm gonna take the print I lifted back over to the lab with the note and the envelope. Mandy will check them for prints. I'll let you know if we find anything."

Bryan and Brandon left to go inside as Catherine was getting ready to leave. Catherine finally left, leaving Anna and me alone in the lot. I could tell that Anna was still worried about the note. "I'm going to talk to Grissom and Brass about getting you a cop to follow you around or something until we get this straightened out."

Anna groaned. "Nick, I don't need a babysitter. I'm fine. I've got Bryan with me and 99% of the time when we make a call, there are at least half a dozen cops nearby. I'm fine."

"Please. Let me do this. You're a FTO, right?"

"Yeah. Bryan and I both are. Why?"

"He can be undercover as a new trainee or something. You could have him driving and you and Bryan could still be in the back doing the real medical work. I'd do it myself, but if someone is watching you, they obviously know who I am and they'd know what's going on. We'd need someone no one knows about."

Anna put her arms around me and put her face into my chest as if she was hiding. "I don't know." She shook her head. "This is all a bit much, Nick." She looked up at me so I could see her face.

"Let me at least find out what Brass thinks first. He may not even go for it. I don't know. Just a thought. I just want to keep you safe if there is someone out there who has it in for you. Plus your birthday's in two weeks and I've got a surprise in store for you." I kissed her and hugged her tightly.

Anna looked up at me. "What is it?"

I kissed her again. "You'll have to wait." I checked my watch. "I hate to have to do this, but I've got to get back to work. Catherine said she'd tell Grissom I was late because of helping you, but she's been back at the lab and if I don't get back, I'm gonna have the hounds out after me." I put my hands on her cheeks and kissed her again. "I'll have my phone on me all night long. If anything looks bad, call. Call me immediately." Kissing her again, I felt her arms tighten around me. "This will all be over soon. You've got the best lab in the country working on this. Present company included."

Anna kissed me again. "Now that does make me feel better. I'm headed back inside to sleep until we get another call. Let me know if Catherine finds anything."

I left Anna and headed to the lab to finish my shift.

We got busy as usual and the hours flew by. I was just getting ready to go to the locker room to change to go home when a call came out for me to head to a house fire in town. I put everything I was working on in the evidence bin and locked it and headed towards the scene. The detective I spoke to when I first got to the scene said he thought it was accidental judging from the victim's statement, but they still wanted us there to do an investigation. I was getting my kit out of my truck and getting out a new scene form when I heard Anna call out to me. I turned around and she was walking towards me. "Career change again? Thought you were going back to the ambulance for this shift?" Anna had taken off the heavy turnout coat that some of the other firemen on scene had on, but still had on the pants and red suspenders and was still wearing her helmet. "This whole fireman thing you got going on…Wow. Sexy. Haven't seen you in these much. The red suspenders are by far the sexiest thing about the outfit."

She looked down at her pants. "Ha. It's like walking outside with an electric blanket wrapped around me and turned on the highest setting. Thank God I'll be back on the ambulance next shift. I was supposed to go back today, but one of the firemen called in sick a little bit ago. Engine company was still shorthanded, so shift captain asked me to ride with them and put a driver from another station with Bryan on the ambulance. I'm sure he's heartbroken not being able to work with me two days in a row. New guy who's driving for Bryan's probably gonna need therapy after this. Wonder if that's covered under workers comp?"

"Doubt it." Anna had two plastic tags in her hand with a D ring clip hanging from each the tags. She tried clipping them to the loop on the back of her helmet but one of them fell and I picked it up. "What are the dog tags for?" I dropped the blue one I was holding into her outstretched hand.

"Scene tags. Each station has an incident commander and in this case, it's Torrey over there." She pointed towards a man talking to one of the LVPD officers. "We give the blue one you picked up for me to the incident commander when we're here. It's basically just a way for us to know who's in the building if it collapses or something or if someone doesn't come out. The tags the IC has are given back to us when we clear the scene and get ready to leave. It's kinda like a head count in school after a field trip before you board the bus to go back to school. The red one on the back of my helmet we keep and if we get hurt, we give to the IC if we need medical aid that way they don't send other people back in to look for us if they can't find us outside. If he's got the red tag that means we're either being treated or we're at the hospital and not inside being cooked to death."

"Makes sense. Y'all finished up here?" I turned my attention back to the form I was filling out for the crime scene. Anna said nothing and I looked up to see what was wrong. "You look like something's bothering you." Anna had a look on her face I've seen a few times since her shirt showed up at the crime scene and again earlier after the peanut butter incident. "What's wrong?"

"It may be nothing. I don't know, but something's off. Don't y'all usually take crowd pictures at scenes like this?"

"Sometimes. Depends. Why?" I looked past Anna at the gathering crowd. "You see something?"

She rubbed her hands across her arms. "I don't know. Maybe someone is watching us? I don't know." She looked over at the crowd for a moment before diverting her gaze back to me. "Something just doesn't sit right. Think you can snap some shots, just in case? I've got chill bumps and it's hot outside and I'm in these turnouts. I shouldn't have chill bumps but I do."

"Yeah, Catherine's taking exterior shots of the damage around back. I'll tell her to get some. Stay here." I found Catherine looking in a bush at the back of the house. "Hey, think you can take some crowd shots?"

"Yeah, why?" Catherine stood up and turned to face me before shooting a few more pictures from the angle she was in while she stood next to me. "What for? Damage is in the back."

"Anna's still kind of uneasy about the note thing from earlier. She's got chills and asked me to get you to take some for her."

"Yeah. I can do that right now. The peanut butter incident had me a bit upset and it wasn't even my car. Anyone in particular she's thinking about?"

We walked back around the front of the house and I spotted Anna talking with one of the other firemen. He handed her a clipboard and she wrote something on it and handed it back to him. "No, she didn't. Anna just says she feels like someone's watching her." I looked at the crowd, trying to find anyone who didn't belong. No one stuck out. "I don't know. She may be overreacting, but after the shirt and now the note and the peanut butter I'm beginning to think she's right and something is off. Humor her please but don't tell her I said anything about this bothering me, please?"

Catherine and I started to walk towards Anna. Catherine stopped at her Tahoe to get something as I kept walking towards where Anna was. With her voice barely above a whisper, Catherine told Anna she'd take the crowd shots for her. We watched as she moved around behind one of the squad cars and began to shoot pictures of the crowd.

Catherine took several shots before moving to a different area and shooting again. "She's doing it now for you. The way she's aiming to take the shots, it looks like she was getting pictures of the yard and bushes which are on the same side as where the fire broke out, but they'll actually have the crowd in the background. That note really had you freaked out?"

"Between that and the near death earlier at the hands of a jar of Jiff? Yeah." Anna turned to watch the crowd again but shook her head and diverted her attention back to the scene. "You thinking like us and that it's accidental?"

"Looks that way to us. Same for your report?"

"Yeah, we think so. Fire's in the rear of the house in the laundry room. Looks like dryer overheated and caught fire from what we could tell. We went in, put it out and waiting on someone from the crime lab to finish it up so we could split. Now that you're here, I'm headed back. Did you get a chance to talk to Grissom or Brass yet?"

I shook my head. "I don't know why they sent both Catherine and me here for this little scene, but whatever. As for talking to them, not yet. I stayed in the lab most of the night processing from that accident earlier in the night. I'll let you know." I put my hand on her shoulder and used my fingers to trace down her arm until I held her hand. "We'll find out who's doing this. I promise." I let go of her hand as Anna's engine number was called out on the radio and she and the other three men on the engine left the scene. I went back inside the house and I could tell by looking at it that this was an accident. I collected some evidence and took some pictures of the dryer and the damage done to the room and left the house, telling the homeowner that we'd write it up as an accident so her insurance would pay for it.

I got back to the lab and was in locker room changing when Grissom stopped me. "Nick, what happened to Anna earlier? Catherine said someone tried to kill her?"

I pulled my shirt off and stuck it in my locker and reached for a clean one. "Someone put a note on her windshield." I put the shirt on and faced Grissom. "Someone put an entire jar of peanut butter on the door handle of Anna's Xterra and Anna's allergic. Bad allergic."

"She okay?" Grissom started looking through the papers in the case file. "I didn't see anything in Catherine's report about a hospital trip?"

"No, she stayed at the station and got an Epi Pen out of the truck. Her partner treated her and she didn't need to go." I took my belt off and watched as Grissom flipped through the file Catherine gave him. "Listen, I did need to talk to you about something."

"Come on to my office when you get done." Grissom left the locker room. I changed my pants and put my shoes back on and headed upstairs.

"Grissom?" He looked up from a cage. As he turned to face me, he had a spider crawling on his arm. "New pet?"

"Yes. New tarantula. Haven't named her yet as I just got her earlier tonight. What a beautiful creature." He held the spider towards me. "You want to hold her?"

"Uh, no. Thanks anyway, though. Spiders and I don't get a long very well."

He put the spider back in the aquarium and shut the lid. "So what's up, Nick?"

"I was thinking about all of this with Anna. First, the shirt at the scene and we still don't know how it got there and now the peanut butter on her door handle? Sounds like someone's got a grudge against her and she and I both can't figure out who's doing this or why. She says she doesn't have any enemies and no one is mad at her, but apparently someone is mad or just obsessed in a serious stalker kind of way."

"Hold on." He picked up his office phone and dialed a number. "Brass, are you free?" Grissom paused as Brass answered. "Good. Come by my office. Nick and I need some help."

Grissom hung the phone up. We talked about the case I worked earlier as we waited on Brass to get here. He knocked on the door and let himself in, not even bothering for Grissom to wave him in. "I'm here. What's up?"

"Got a favor to ask of you. Any of your guys got any medical training?"

Brass pulled up a chair and sat next to me. "I'm sure one of them does, why?"

"Anna needs help." I told him about the peanut butter and the note. "Just for a couple shifts. Just need someone to help her out and keep an eye on things. We think whoever is doing this is watching her and seeing her at scenes. They're obsessed and trying to hurt her. Obviously if Anna is working on a patient, she can't concentrate on both the patient and looking out for whoever is doing this to her, so we were wondering if you had someone to go undercover for a couple shifts."

Brass exhaled as he thought. "Brad. Brad Rogers. He's one of the uniforms assigned to this area. I think he was an EMT before he started the cop thing. I can check and let you know. When's Anna's next shift?"

"Tuesday. She's getting off work tomorrow and will go back then and work Tuesday and Wednesday and get off work Thursday for her birthday. She'll be off for hers and mine. I put in a vacation request so we'd both be off."

"Happy early birthday, Nick to both of you." Brass wrote himself a note to remind himself to ask and stuck it in his pocket. "Let me find out if he's going to be free those days and I'll let you know."

"Thanks, man." Brass left and I left shortly after he did to finish up my case so I could go home and see Anna.

A/N: I will try to get chapter 8 up before this weekend. I've got to finish the last few paragraphs, then proof it. I'm off Monday for the 4th Holiday, so it may be Tuesday as I'll be out of town and floating in a pool all weekend long. All hail long weekends! Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Review away!