AN: First off, sorry about the delay – AO3 was down yesterday, and I know I could have still posted here, but I have a routine, so I decided to wait until today, I hope nobody's too disappointed
Also, I just wanted to assure you, since I've had a few reviewers worried about Shelby, that she's just fine – I wanted Grissom to get to experience a meltdown, and it worked well with the Hodges scene, so I made her a little cranky
Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to CSI
Chapter 30
Thursday's shift passes without another body being found, and even though they all know it doesn't mean there isn't a body somewhere waiting to be discovered or that the killer is done, everyone breathes a sigh of relief. One of the tips about Ana Dominguez even leads them to a gas station in Baker, where one of the clerks claims to have seen Ana getting into a semi on Monday around noon. Unfortunately, he didn't catch the license plate or see the driver, but he's able to describe the tractor unit.
"Who knew white was so popular in the trucking industry," Archie complains as he scans surveillance video from the area around the gas station.
"Heavy trucks are actually more fuel efficient if they're white," Grissom offers as explanation.
"Seriously?"
"Yes. It's less energy efficient to cool a truck of a darker shade in sunny conditions, ergo higher fuel consumption."
"Huh. You learn something new every day."
"I know that doesn't help with your search, though. What have you got so far?"
Archie swivels the chair back to face the computer screen and Grissom moves closer to be able to see. "Four semis matching the description the gas station clerk gave getting onto the I-15 in the direction of Las Vegas within an hour of the time Ana was supposedly there." He clicks through four different screenshots, all showing the same type of semi. "All from the same company – Next Day Trucking. I was just about to start on the cameras in the other direction, since we can't be sure he was going this way at the time."
"Good. Do you have the registration numbers for the four identified semis?"
"In the printer."
Grissom chases the lead as far as it can go at the moment, which is a request for a warrant for the company's drivers, before leaving for the day.
The knock on the door pulls his attention from the book in his hand and he listens for any sound from upstairs as he rises, but Shelby must still be asleep. Not surprising, considering how tired she was when they got home earlier.
As he knew, Sara's waiting outside the door, and the smile that appears on her face when she sees him brings him back to the lab, to the warmth from her body as he looked through the microscope, the electricity that always surges between them when they're close.
"Hey," she greets him.
He takes a step back to let her in. "Hey."
She closes the door behind her and toes off her shoes, then raises an eyebrow at him when he doesn't move aside to let her pass or lead her further into the house. Instead, he takes a step forward, bringing him into her personal space. She doesn't move away from him, doesn't react in any way apart from her mouth falling open slightly, and when he leans in, he sees her eyes sliding shut before their lips meet.
She doesn't respond, though, and for a moment, he wonders if he's read her completely wrong. He's just about to step back, apologize, when she tilts her head a little to one side, improving the angle, and then her arms wrap around his neck, pulling him closer.
He responds by resting his hands on her hips, thumbs just sliding under the hem of her shirt and grazing the soft skin there, and she presses closer in turn.
By the time they finally break apart, he discovers that her back's against the front door, though he has no idea when they moved the few steps needed to arrive at that position. Sara's staring at him, eyes darker than usual, breath too quick.
"I wasn't planning on doing that," he admits, and another smile blooms on her face.
"Planning can be overrated," she reasons, leaning in for one more, quick kiss, as if ascertaining that he won't pull away when she initiates. Which, of course, he doesn't. "I assume Shelby's taking a nap?"
"She is," he confirms. "Apparently, daycare was much too exciting today for her to sleep, so she was overtired by the time we got home. She still claimed she wasn't, of course, but she finally fell asleep on the couch about forty-five minutes ago. Do you want to wake her up, so she'll sleep tonight?"
Sara shakes her head. "No, it's not the end of the world if she stays up a little late, it is Friday."
He finally moves to let her further into the house, leading the way into the living room and reclaiming his previous spot on the couch. She follows, a little slower, and pauses a few feet away, tilting her head and giving him a piercing look.
"What?" he asks after a moment, but she just shakes her head.
"Nothing."
He expects her to sit down next to him, but instead, she moves closer, deliberate, placing one knee on either side of his legs. His hands come up automatically to steady her, preventing her from falling backwards.
Her hands settle on his shoulders, and she leans in, pausing a few inches away. "OK?"
Instead of responding, he slides one hand around to the small of her back, raising the other to wrap around her neck, and pulls her the rest of the way down.
It's been years – decades – since he did anything like this. Grissom almost feels like a teenager again, making out with his crush on his mom's couch while she was out running errands.
She almost melts into him, her body molding to his, and for a long moment, time simply slips away, everything around them fading. All there is, is her – their mouths moving together, her warm body against his as she presses closer, or he does, he's not sure, her smooth skin under his fingers, the soft sounds that escape her now and then.
Fortunately, neither of them is so far gone they don't hear the voice from upstairs some time later.
"Daddy!"
Sara pulls back, but only far enough to lean her forehead against his, and for a moment, they breathe together. "Rain check?" she suggests.
"I will hold you to that," he replies gruffly.
"Good. I'll go get her," she offers, smirking down at him. "Give you a moment to… calm down a little."
She gets off him and heads for the stairs, and Grissom drops his head back against the wall, taking a few deep, steadying breaths. In an attempt to tell his body that no, it's not getting laid anytime soon, he starts going through the lifespan of the common blow fly in his head, which used to be efficient during his college years.
It doesn't take long for Sara to return with Shelby, but it's enough for him to get himself under control.
"Did you have a nice nap, sweetheart?" he asks when the little girl climbs onto the couch and leans against him. She nods, pulling her thumb from her mouth.
"Mommy says we can watch a movie and order take out," she announces, and he looks over at Sara who's gone into the kitchen to get some water.
"It is Friday," she says with a shrug. "I definitely don't feel like cooking, and I figured you wouldn't mind."
"Not at all. What are we watching?"
"Madagascar," Shelby announces.
The title is vaguely familiar from the list Sara gave him when he said he wanted to stock up on some entertainment for Shelby, but he can't for the life of him remember what kind of movie it is. "And what's it about?"
"It's about Marty and Alex and Mel-man and Gloria, and the penguins. I like the penguins, they're funny. And Marty doesn't like the zoo, so he ec-scapes, and then they meet king Julien and…"
"It's about a bunch of animals escaping from Central Park Zoo and ending up in Madagascar," Sara supplies quietly over Shelby's tirade, probably seeing his confusion. "I assume you're going to have some problems with a few of the plot points, but it's a cute movie."
He considers that as she settles in on the couch next to him, putting her feet up on the table and sliding down low enough to be able to lean her head against his shoulder. He hesitates for a moment, but then shifts to wrap an arm around her, and she hums and snuggles in closer.
He has absolutely no idea what happens in the movie.
When Sara gets to the lab on Friday evening, the whole place is buzzing with excitement – the three truckers that were identified leaving the gas station in Baker when Ana Dominguez disappeared and were also in the areas in question around the times of the other murders and body dumps are down at PD getting interrogated, and Grissom and Catherine are about to head over to collect DNA samples while Greg and Warrick have already left to check the semis at the trucking company. They might have their serial killer identified in the next few hours.
"Hey," she says as she reaches Grissom's office, leaning against the doorway.
He looks up from his kit. "Hey."
She wouldn't mind closing the door behind her and giving him a proper hello, even though it's only been a couple of hours since she left his house, but people are rushing by in the corridor, reminding her that they're at work.
Judging by the way his eyes trail up and down her body, making her feel warm all over, he's thinking along the same lines.
"You and Nick are working on your Bernie case, right?" he asks instead, making her roll her eyes.
"Yeah, we've got a warrant for the main suspect's house, just waiting on Vega and then we'll head over there, see what we might be able to find."
"Good." He closes his kit and crosses the room. "Be careful," he tells her quietly, one hand reaching out to wrap around her wrist briefly, his thumb dipping under the fabric of her shirt to rub against her skin.
"Always," she assures him.
"Ready?" comes Catherine's voice from behind her, and Grissom quickly lets her go to join the other woman.
Sara takes a couple of steadying breaths – how can he do that with just a brief touch? – before turning, just in time to catch him glancing over his shoulder before he and Catherine round the corner.
She heads in the opposite direction, finding Nick in the break room. "Hey, Vega just called, he's meeting us there," he says, pushing himself up out of a chair. "Want to get going?"
"Lead the way."
Roland Walsh doesn't seem surprised to find a cop and two CSIs outside his door at eleven thirty on a Friday night and doesn't even bother to check the warrant they present him with before stepping aside to let them into the apartment.
It's not very big, just a small bedroom with adjoining bathroom and a combined kitchen and living room, so it only takes them a few hours to go through everything.
"Anything?" Sara asks, stopping in the door to the bedroom that Nick's been processing.
"Well, I've got a set of golf clubs," he replies, holding up the bag in question. "Missing the 9 iron, and it looks like the same brand to me."
She frowns. "So, are we looking at a planned murder and he brought his own golf club with him, or did he steal the rest of the clubs after the fact to cover his tracks?"
"I guess we'll have to ask him."
"Yeah. I don't really have anything except for a yearbook," she reports. "Looks like the vic and Walsh went to high school together, class of eighty-five. So we know they knew each other."
"Bingo."
"What?" She joins him at the door to the closet.
"Bloody shirt, bloody khakis, bloody sneakers," Nick replies, snapping a few photos before lifting each of the items out of the hamper and carefully placing them in the evidence bags she finds in his kit. "And that's not a nosebleed."
"I love it when they make it this easy for us."
It doesn't take long to get a confession out of their suspect, either – as soon as they show him the photos of the bloody clothes, he sighs and starts talking.
"I didn't mean to kill him, it was a thing we did."
Sara exchanges an incredulous look with Nick. "A thing you did?"
"Yeah, like… trick shots." At their blank expressions, he continues. "We'd take turns putting a peg in our mouth and the other would hit a golf ball from it. I guess I… misjudged the distance."
"You… misjudged the distance so bad you smashed your friend's head in?" Nick says, eyebrows furrowed.
"He was taunting me!" Walsh exclaims. "I got distracted, and, well…"
"Why didn't you call 911?" Sara asks.
"Oh, please, nobody would believe that. I'd still get locked up."
He does have a point…
"Why did you stage the scene, though?"
Walsh smiles a little. "Denny loved Weekend at Bernie's. I figured he would have gotten a kick out of it."
Grissom has always loved the rush of closing a case, especially a high-profile one – and not what the mayor or Ecklie would deem high-profile, but the cases that make people look over their shoulders, double latch their doors, not let their kids out of their sight. True, in this case, there are certain complications, but there's nothing he can do about that for now, so he's trying to not let it ruin the moment.
Putting away Steve Pritchard and making the I-15 safe again – or as safe as any US highway ever is – feels like a great end to the week.
He spots Nick and Sara in the DNA lab and detours into the room. "How's the Bernie case going?"
Sara looks up from the paper in her hand. "Just got the DNA results on the blood from the clothes we found at Roland Walsh's place – it matches Denny Warren."
"We also got a confession," Nick adds. "So should be open and shut."
"Great. What was with dressing the body up and staging it?"
Sara snorts. "Apparently, Warren was a big fan of the movie. How'd the truckers pan out?"
He can't help the smile on his face. "We've got him – Steve Pritchard. DNA matches, and Warrick and Greg found jewelry belonging to each of our four girls in his semi." He pauses, his smile turning into a frown. "Plus six unidentified pieces."
"Six more victims?" she infers.
"It would appear so. Judging by the organization of his little… trophy collection, it would seem they're all from before the four here in Nevada. Pritchard's been working as a trucker for fifteen years, but he only moved here two years ago. Before that he was in Colorado between -02 and -06, Minnesota between -98 and -02, and Ohio between -93 and -98, so we've sent out specific requests to those areas about similar cases during the time periods in question. Conrad's talking to a few news outlets about getting photos of the jewelry out there, and I've got everyone not working an active case going through missing persons reports. Hopefully we'll get lucky."
"Yeah, let's hope," Nick says.