"Greg, please tell me you have something for me." Catherine strode into the DNA lab, where the analyst was studying a computer. The young man stood when she entered, and his normally playful face was drawn and worried.
Instead of his usual launch into dramatics and speeches, Greg simply replied," The blood by the SUV was Grissom's, and the blood in the alleyway was a match to the DNA on the jacket. I ran that, along with a red hair I found through CODIS and NCVS, and it came up a match in NCVS to Holly Meyers, daughter of David Meyers."
"Right, Sara said he is still in the pen for sexual assault, battery charges and exploitation."
"Nice guy."
"Yeah, and someone who knows this nice guy's girl has Grissom. Get anything off the footprint?"
"Yes. Hay and horse manure. That's all the mass spec gave me to go on."
"That's something but its Nevada. There are all kinds of ranches. Combing through all of them could take days. There's got to be something else. Anything unusual about the hay?"
"No, typical alfalfa, but the spec picked up something else." Greg picked up a sheet of paper and handed it to Catherine who studied it, brow furrowed. She looked up at Greg.
"Dimethyl Sulfoxide, and Phenylbutazone?"
"Both key ingredients in anti-inflammatories given to horses for laminitis. It's not curable, but owners will treat with NSAIDs to see if it helps. Wherever this girl was, there were sick horses. I- spent time around horses when I was in high school. Made some money for prom." Catherine smiled slightly at the bashful confession and nodded. "Thanks Greg." She strode quickly out of the lab, papers in her hand, fluttering at her side. Greg watched her go, a sad frown on his face, mixed with anger, something rarely seen on the young technician's face.
"Go get 'em, Cath," Greg muttered softly, sitting down again at his computer to rescan everything he had already tested, just in case something was missed.
"Okay, lets run through this again." Catherine, Sara, and Warrick all sat around the table, pictures and notes spread out, talking over the case. Grissom's chair was notably empty, and Sara glanced at it every so often. The team was expecting him to say something witty, but that moment never came, and they grew more and more morose.
"Grissom meets this girl at the roller coaster, she asks to ride with him, says he is safe," Sara mused.
"She then disappears, leaves his jacket and a footprint. She knew he was a CSI, it's clearly written on his jacket. Was she trying to get him to find her?"
"That could explain why she told him where she worked, maybe it was all a setup."
"Warrick rested his chin in his hand. "Could also explain why no one reported her missing or disappeared right away. Although why Adam didn't think anything about her leaving doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't he have told the manager?"
"And he didn't," Catherine noted. "When I told them what the other lifeguard has report to have happened, they were clueless. Said he just left when shift was over, didn't mention that Holly wasn't even there for most of the shift and he didn't make sure they knew that there needed to be a replacement."
"Someone needs to talk to that guy." Sara added, glancing at the empty chair. "Anyone heard from Nick?"
"I have," Jim Brass, homicide detective, entered the room. The group gave him a confused collective stare. "He's on his way in right now with this Adam fellow and a few uniforms. Appears this guy has a rap sheet for burglary and being a peeping tom and gave them a bit of hell rounding him up. They will be here soon."
"Why are you here," Catherine asked, shaking her head. "You're in homicide. There isn't a DB yet."
"He's my friend too," Brass replied softly, and the team all looked down at the table uncomfortably. "I asked for the next few days off my usual position so I can work this with you guys."
"Well, we will take the help," Sara replied, and the team nodded. "Thanks, Brass."
"Not at all," he replied. "So, what do we know so far."
Grissom was still staring at Holly, incredulous at her announcement. "He sold you to this man?"
She nodded and brushed the scrap of cloth across her nose. "Yeah. My dad owed him a gambling debt. About $19,000. One night, they were both drunk at the house, and this guy just starts yelling and waving a gun - I think he was going to kill my dad. Then he offered to take me in payment for the debt and - my dad - said go ahead."
"He agreed? Your dad actually agreed to those terms?"
"Yeah. Turned out this guy was a Fed, undercover in some gambling racket investigation, and he recorded everything, and it put my dad away for life. I thought I was safe because he was a Fed and that it would all be over. But - then I ran into him here when I picked up my things at Excalibur, and he-" She fell silent, tilting her head back against the stall frame, squeezing her eyes shut, fingers plucking at the straw beside her.
Grissom swallowed hard, his head aching with the concussion that still addled his thoughts and the implications of what the girl was saying. If this guy was from the Feds, then he would likely be obtaining information on the case, desiring to implicate Grissom and his team, and destroy their livelihood, their reputation, their careers, their spirits...this guy was a professional.
"What did he do, Holly?"
"I don't want to talk about it anymore," she replied softly, a slump to her shoulders that indicated she was exhausted. Gil nodded.
"Alright. But you know I won't hurt you, right?"
She bit her lip nervously for a moment, and nodded. "Not intentionally."
"Not ever," he replied, firmly. She shrugged.
"This guy has a way of getting you to do stuff without even thinking. I- I'm afraid he's trying to set you up like he did my dad."
"Was that the only thing your dad did to you, Holly?"
Her brow furrowed and she looked away, twisting pieces of hay in her fingers. "No."
"Did this Fed know any of those things?"
She shook her head. "I never told him. Maybe my dad did while he was drunk at some point. Please stop asking questions, my head is throbbing."
Gil raised his eyebrows in agreement, his own head having settled into a dull pounding behind his eyes. "Okay, just one more question, do you know the man's name?"
"He calls himself Tweed. That's all I know."
Gil nodded, turning his attentions back to the shackles that kept him linked to a place he could not identify, and a child he could not save.
"I said, sit down," Nick Stokes grunted at Adam, the lifeguard, shoving him into his seat in the interrogation room. "You will stand when we are finished."
"Ease up man," the lifeguard grumbled. "Excessive use of force, I'll have your head for this."
"Calm down, Adam," Brass chided, entering the room. "I believe Nick requires both cooperation and civility in his interrogation room, don't you Nick?"
The comment was double edged, and Nick took a deep breath. "Yes, I do."
Adam grunted. "Save it."
"Adam Reichert, is it? Yeah, we pulled your rap sheet. Petty theft, burglary, and caught being a peeping tom by several people in your neighborhood. Did some time, now you are out. So let me ask, why did your employer hire you with this kind of record?"
"Must have not believed the record," Adam snarled at them. A tapping on the door caught Nick's attention, and he exited the room, finding Sara standing there, a perturbed look on her face, and a file.
"Sara, I am interrogating the suspect. What's going on? You aren't supposed to interrupt an interrogation!"
"I know," she replied, shoving the file at him. "But that's not the right man."
"What?" Nick took the file and flipped it open, studying the pages, then nodded. "Thanks, Sara."
"Let me know what happens. I am going to go back to the pool area and see if I can get the camera footage."
"Alright, take Warrick."
"Can't," Sara replied, walking away. "He's doing some research on ranches, based on some data Greg found on the jacket. Catherine is researching vets and sick horses, seems like the missing girl might have been at a ranch recently where there were sick horses."
"Fine, take Catherine then," he called after her. "Don't go alone, you know Grissom wouldn't want you to."
"Grissom's not here, is he?" Sara called over her shoulder, the pain evident in her tone. "Besides, Catherine is getting the lady lifeguard from the Excalibur to get an ID on your Adam imposter." Her voice faded into the distance and Nick shook his head, returning to the interrogation room.
"Well, well, looks like you have been lying to us, buddy. Unless you died your hair and changed your hair color since yesterday and lost about thirty pounds and gained 3 inches. Adam is a blonde haired blue eyed Scandinavian and you are definitely not. Black hair, brown eyes, rough and tough short guy, no surfer dude, that's for sure. So, where is Adam?"
The man sneered at Nick, but said nothing. Nick took a deep breath through his nose, glancing at Brass. Brass slammed a fist on the table, making everyone jump.
"Look here, Mister, we have a little girl missing, a CSI missing, and now a lifeguard, and you are where all the evidence is pointing to. Now, all we have to do is get a positive identification from the Excalibur, and that places you at the scene of the crime. Fingerprints follow, DNA..."
"Why are you guys even on this," the man smirked at Nick. "There hasn't even been a murder yet. Thought you crime lab guys only work on cases once there's a dead body."
Nick nodded. "This was more of a preliminary investigation." His phone rang at that moment and he stepped aside, leaving Brass to continue the questioning, and flipped the phone open just as his pager went off.
"Nick." He listened for a moment. "Thanks for the heads up, we will get out there."
He snapped the phone shut and looked at Brass. "Well, you spoke too soon, buddy. We have a dead body now. The real Adam Reichert was just found floating in the Excalibur pool."
"How are you doing, sweetheart," Gil asked softly, having spent the last two hours prying at his shackles with a nail he found sticking out of the stable. He glanced at the silent Holly, who still leaned against the wall, eyes closed. She slowly moved her head to look at him and he involuntarily winced. Her right eye was worse, the skin black and blue, and it was swelling shut. The blood that had streamed down her face further served to obscure her face, and Grissom wished he had water to clean it up for her.
"Feel like crap," she muttered, sitting up and instantly cradling her head in her hand. "Look like it too, I'm sure."
His face twitched apologetically. "How's the head?"
"Positively groovy," she grumbled, then glanced at him. Her face fell contritely and she sighed. "Hurts really bad. I can feel my pulse just pounding in my head. Everything feels a little off."
"I think he drugged you," Grissom commented, studying her for a moment, still prying at his bonds. "You didn't wake up for a long time. Might be combined with the effects of the number he did to your face. Sorry, kid."
"I'm just sorry I brought you into this," she replied softly, glancing at him. "I should never have come to you. If anything happens to you or your team, I - I will never forgive myself."
"This isn't your fault," Grissom replied firmly, grunting as the nail slipped and he scraped his knuckle, nearly stabbing his leg with the nail. "None of this is. Here's what I want you to do though. Take that bit of my pocket and hide it under some hay over there. If we get moved, my team will find it."
She raised her eyebrows in appreciation of his presence of mind and reached a few feet away, piling hay onto the white cloth until it was no longer visible. Gil nodded. "Good girl."
At that moment, the barn door flung open, and the slam of a large switch being flipped off reverberated through the empty structure. Dragging sounds reached their ears and Gils heart plummeted to his stomach as their captor reappeared, dragging Sara behind him.
"Ah, ah!" the man waggled a finger at Grissom, to stay the fury on the man's face. "If you attack me or say anything, I will put her in a different stall and you can listen to us have a good time without you."
Grissom's face darkened to an anger that would have killed if he had the chance, but he controlled himself as the man dropped Sara into the hay filled stall beside the door where Gil could not reach her. He then entered the stall behind the furious CSI and unhooked his chains, dragging them over the top of the stall to make them shorter, and pulling the man closer to the wall again, until he only had a foot of chain between his wrists and the top of the stall.
"Wouldn't want you picking any fights, right, Mr. Grissom?" He unceremoniously dragged Sara into the stall close to Grissom, and reached for one of the older man's wrists. Gil clenched his hand into a fist, and the man gave him a cool glare. "If you so much as look at me, I will snap her neck."
Grissom glared at the man, studying the dark eyes that looked back at him and he saw the man was not bluffing. Gil's angry gaze faltered and he looked away, meeting Holly's terrified gaze, and an uncharacteristic disappointment in himself and his momentary inability to protect his family.
But with Sara's life hanging over him, and his choices, he wasn't about to misstep yet.
Their captor unlocked one of Grissom's wrists, and latched the chain tightly around Sara's wrist, so they were chained together. Gil winced at the way the man dragged her around, and the strain that was on her small shoulders as her unconscious body could not support her properly. He couldn't wait for the creep to leave so he could cradle her against his chest and relieve the strain on her joints, and smooth back her tangled hair, kissing away the blood that trickled from her scalp down her cheek.
"Got a thing for hitting people over the head, don't you," Gil grunted as the man released his chain, returning a length of chain to his shackled hand. The man jerked the chain, sending a stab of pain through the CSI's arm, and a trickle of blood from a new cut dripping down his wrist. He swallowed the pain as best he could, breathing through his nose, as he locked eyes with Holly, who was pitifully cowering against the wall, terrified. He begged the universe to let the man leave them to their misery so he could comfort his wife and the poor girl.
But the universe did not grant his wish. The man tested the chains to make sure they were locked, then strode into the stall. He set down a gallon of water and a cardboard box from a fast food restaurant.
"Now, Mr. Grissom, you are all set for the night. Feed your lady when she comes to, and don't get dehydrated now, be smart about it all. I will be back tomorrow and your physical torture will start then. Might as well give you a warning, see, I hate suprises, so I don't like to surprise people, myself."
"Except for the hitting them over the head part," Grissom grunted, his blood pressure soaring at the man's implications, the pounding in his ears nearly drowning out the world around him.
"Tut, tut, Mr. Grissom, no snide remarks. I will give you that one because I am not interested in kicking in your head right now. He walked over to Holly, where she whimpered and backed away from him, a terrified child, and Grissom's eyes widened. "Hey! Leave her alone."
"Too bad, Mr. Grissom. Just look at her. Let that terror sink into your soul. Can't save 'em all, you see."
Grissom lunged for Holly, but the chain was not long enough to reach her this time and he fell to his knees, grunting at the pain in his shoulder.
"Tut, tut, Mr. Grissom, your theatrics are going to cause such pain to your lady friends." The man threw a swift kick into Holly's stomach and she fell sideways, gasping for breath.
"Stop it, stop," Gil pleaded, holding up both hands. "I'll behave, don't hurt her."
The man knelt, grasping Holly's hair and jerking her up to her feet, and smiled at Grissom, a snakelike grin that sickened the CSI.
"Too late, Grissom. See, I knew you were like this. You can't help yourself. This time, all of your heroics and morality will be your undoing. Every time you try to save them, they will suffer. See? I said your physical torture starts tomorrow. Your mental torture starts tonight." He slowly unlatched the girl's chains from the wall, his eyes locked with Grissom's narrowed gaze.
Grissom's shout of anger blended with Holly's scream of fear and pain as their captor then dragged the small girl out of the stall, and into the main area of the barn. There, Grissom did not need to see what was happening to know, and every second burned into his brain, tears of anger and grief pouring down his tanned face, mixing with sweat as he struggled to free himself from the shackles, blood making the metal slippery and acrid, every scream a knife plunging into his heart over and over, until the girl fell terrifyingly silent, and the barn door shut behind their captor.