AN: I hope everyone's having a wonderful holiday – I celebrated with family yesterday, which is the main day here, so I'm all full of Christmas food and candy!
But on with the story – I think a lot of you have been waiting for this chapter… hope you like it!
Thanks to WalkerTRngr for the beta help!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to CSI
Chapter 6
Catherine and Warrick return with bags of trash after an hour and a half, and finally, finally, Grissom feels like he can do something.
"Any sign of Lurie?" he asks as they spread the contents of the first bag on the light table in one of the layout rooms.
"Nope," Warrick replies. "And nobody's seen him since Tuesday."
"I'm with Nick on this, he's holed up out in Coyote Springs," Catherine says, snapping on gloves to start sorting through the trash.
"I think we're all on the same page there, Cath," Grissom sighs, grabbing a pair of gloves for himself.
They find nothing of value in the first bag, or in the second, or third. Two hours later, though, while going through the fourth bag, Warrick straightens up.
"I think I have something," he says, voice just one step above a whisper, as if he's afraid speaking too loudly will make it disappear.
"What is it?" Grissom asks impatiently, abandoning the papers he was sifting through.
"Utility bill for a place on Mormon Well Road."
Catherine frowns. "But that's not anywhere near Coyote Springs, is it?"
"It starts – or ends, depending on how you want to look at it – near Corn Creek out by the I-95, but it goes all the way to Great Basin Highway, comes out a couple of miles south of Coyote Springs," Warrick explains. "There's no address, just a property name…"
"Then let's run it and see what we find," Catherine suggests, snatching the bill out of Warrick's hand and hurrying out of the room. The other two follow.
"Start with pulling up a map so we know if it's even relevant," Grissom instructs when they're in front of a computer.
She taps away at the keyboard for a moment.
"I'd say," Warrick murmurs when the map has opened, indicating a spot about two miles from Great Basin Highway. "Definitely secluded enough to avoid prying eyes, and within the area the cell tower covers."
Trying to control his racing heart, Grissom pulls up a chair to another computer and finds the property records. "It's registered to a Howard Thurston."
"Any relation to the good doctor?" Warrick asks.
"Let's find out. Warrick, get the utility bill to Jim so he can try to get a warrant for the property, hopefully it'll be enough. I'm going to call the utility company, check if the property has power, and see when the account was transferred to Lurie. Catherine, find out everything there is to know about Howard Thurston. I'll get Greg, this is more important than traffic cams that don't give us anything, he can do a more thorough background check on Lurie."
He's doubtful about their chances for a warrant, though – the simple act of owning a property in a specific area can be considered circumstantial at the best of times. The only thing that might work in their favor is that Lurie lied about it, but even that's tenuous.
Grissom gets to his feet and follows Warrick out the door, taking a left towards the AV lab.
"Greg." The tech looks away from the screen when Grissom calls his name. "Any luck?"
Greg shakes his head. "No. I've got the car in the intersection two blocks north of the parking garage, but nothing after that. Trash turn up anything?"
"As a matter of fact, it did," Grissom replies. "Warrick found a utility bill for a property about two miles from Great Basin Highway just south of Coyote Springs."
Greg immediately lights up. "That's good, right? Enough to get a warrant?"
"We'll see," Grissom tries to temper his enthusiasm. "It wouldn't hurt to get a warrant for the cell tower and put Lurie's phone there at the same time as Sara's, but Jim's still working on that. I don't think there's any point in you and Archie both going through these traffic cams, though, so I want you to join Catherine and dig deeper into Lurie's background and family tree – I know his parents are deceased and he doesn't have any siblings, but we didn't get further than that during the check while we were working the Marlin/Clark case. See if there are any aunts, uncles, cousins…"
"Got it, boss!" Greg jumps to his feet and takes off down the hallway. Grissom continues to his office and closes the door behind him.
Lucky for him, like most things in Las Vegas, the utility company offers their customers support twenty-four seven. Taking a breath, he forces his most pleasant voice.
"Hi, my name is Gil Grissom, I was wondering if you could help me with something?" he introduces himself to the woman who answers, consciously leaving out where he's calling from – mention working with the police, and a lot of people are reminded that they're not obligated to offer any information without a warrant, even the innocent ones.
"Certainly, what can I do for you?"
He mentions the property name. "I was just curious if the power is turned on out there? I don't want to drive for hours only to find out it's been turned off, and my buddy who's letting me borrow the place is out of the country. I don't want to saddle him with a huge cellphone bill just because I forgot to ask before he left town." The explanation sounds flimsy even to his own ears, but apparently, the woman's not suspicious by nature.
"No problem, let me check." There's some tapping over the line. "Yes, everything's on and up to date," the woman then reports. "So you should be good to go."
"Thank you." He decides to push his luck. "Oh, you wouldn't happen to know how long my buddy's had the place, would you? I know he told me, but I cannot for the life of me remember."
"Well, I can't be sure, of course, but the utilities were transferred from the previous owner about three years ago."
"That sounds about right! Thank you so much for all your help." He's about to hang up when something occurs to him. "Oh, one last thing – are there any other properties listed for the same user?"
"Hmm… there's a property in Summerlin as well, but that's all I have here." A pause. "Oh, I probably shouldn't have told you that."
Grissom smiles. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."
Greg and Catherine are focused on their respective computer screens when he returns. "How's it going?"
Catherine swivels her chair around to face him. "Howard Thurston, born May 18, 1929, dead April 21, 2002. Natural causes, as far as I can tell."
"That matches what I got from the utility company – Lurie took over the contract three years ago. Found any connection to him?"
She frowns. "Nothing yet. Thurston was an only child, parents have been dead since 1975 and 1988, respectively. He was married to an Esther Hinsen between 1955 and 1998, when she died, also from natural causes. No children."
"Hang on," Greg pipes in. "What was her last name?"
Catherine double checks. "Hinsen, why?"
"Because Vincent Lurie's mother's maiden name was Hinsen," he exclaims. "There can't be that many people with that name, right?"
"No, there can't," Grissom agrees. "So, Lurie inherits the property from his uncle, but doesn't transfer the deed to his own name… is that even legal?"
"What, you want to get him for property crimes or something?" Greg asks with an incredulous look.
Grissom shrugs. "If we can't get a warrant for anything else, it's a possible way in."
Not that he wants to wait that long, but if they have to…
Another hour, and they have confirmation that Esther Hinsen was indeed the sister of Hazel Lurie, née Hinsen, and a copy of Howard Thurston's will, leaving the property as well as a small sum of money to his wife's nephew, Vincent Lurie, who was apparently his only living relative at the time of his death.
"I don't think there's anything more relevant to find," Catherine announces with a sigh, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes for a moment.
"Yeah," Grissom agrees reluctantly. He knows she's right, but he'd rather be running pointless searches than sit around doing nothing.
Luckily, distraction arrives in the form of Jim. "Do you have anything new I can take to a judge? I managed to get a warrant for the cell tower records, Nick's going through them now, but nobody's willing to give us one for the place out on Mormon Well Road."
Grissom runs a hand over his face. He hadn't been expecting a different result, but it's still frustrating.
"All we have is a will confirming the property was left to Lurie," he says. "I doubt that'll do much good."
"Probably not," Jim sighs.
"Damn it!"
Everyone jumps at Greg's outburst.
"Calm down, Greg," Catherine tells him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"No, I will not calm down!" he replies. "Why can't we just go out there? We can come up with a reason – a broken window, someone screaming from inside the house. Hell, we might even hear Sara screaming if we can just get there!"
His words make a cold lump settle in Grissom's stomach, because he knows the younger man is right. But…
"Greg, we have to do this by the book," he says, keeping his voice steady somehow.
"No, we have to find her! Before he…" Greg trails off, slumping back in the chair. "We have to find her."
"I know, and trust me, I want to find her too," Grissom assures him. "But we have to do this by the book. Let's say we go out there, and we get into the house, and we find her. What if Lurie's lawyer somehow manages to get a judge to rule out any evidence we find in the house because we didn't have a warrant? Do you want Sara to have to look over her shoulder for the rest of her life because he gets off on a technicality? Always worry that he's out there, somewhere, that he'll be back?"
"No," Greg mumbles, burying his face in his hands. Catherine moves her chair closer and wraps an arm around his shoulders.
"We need more," Grissom continues, even though he hates to say it. "That's the only way we can do this and make sure that bastard ends up behind bars for the rest of his life, where he belongs. We just have to find… something."
"How about Lurie's phone pinging the tower in Coyote Springs at the same time as Sara's?"
Everyone looks up at Nick in the doorway, and Grissom feels a flash of hope course through him. "You found him?"
"I did," Nick confirms with a hard-set look. "His phone pinged the tower at ten minutes past one in the morning on Wednesday, at the exact same time as Sara's did for the first time. It then pinged the tower regularly until just after six, which makes sense considering his shift started at eight at Desert Palm."
The room is completely silent for a moment, then the sound of Jim punching numbers on his phone breaks the spell. "Judge Larson? Listen, about that warrant you didn't want to give us… would confirmation that the person of interest was in the same area as the abducted woman for five hours the night of her abduction make a difference? We have his phone entering the area covered by the cell tower at the exact same time as the victim's… I thought so. We'll pick it up on the way."
After that, it's a flurry of activity, but soon enough, they're piling into cars, Jim leading the way through the still dark night to Judge Larson's house, and then through the city and into the desert.
-CSI-
Sara quickly abandons her attempt to get the bolts securing the bed to the wall to loosen – she hasn't made any progress as far as she can tell – when she hears a key in the lock outside the door. By the time Lurie steps into the room with a tray with a glass of orange juice and a bowl of something she can't see, she's leaning against the headboard, her knees pulled to her chest and the comforter wrapped around herself tightly.
"Morning," he greets her cheerfully. She doesn't respond. "Hungry?"
"Do you think I'm stupid?" she retorts. "I know you put something in the food yesterday to knock me out."
He studies her for a moment, head tilted slightly to one side.
"Fine, we can do this the hard way," he then says, disappearing for a moment. When he returns, he has a syringe and a vial of clear liquid in his hands. He draws some of the liquid into the syringe before approaching the bed, and she shies away from him.
"If you don't stay still, I could hurt you."
He doesn't seem to realize the irony in his words.
"I'll eat the food," she tries, thinking she can fake it. He left before she ate yesterday, after all.
"No, you had your chance," he replies, grabbing her free arm. "Make a fist."
She hesitates for another moment, but she wouldn't put it past him to do something worse if she refuses, so, reluctantly, she does as she's told, turning her head away when he pushes the needle through her skin.
Her head starts spinning before he even leaves the room, and soon after, the entire world goes dark.
-CSI-
It's light when they finally make it to the turnoff from Great Basin Highway. Mormon Well Road is nothing but a dirt track, and their progress slows, making Grissom fidget in his seat next to Catherine, who's driving.
But eventually, the house comes into view – a simple, one-story wooden structure, with a roof and windows that have seen better days. He's out of the car almost before it comes to a full stop, and if it hadn't been for Warrick's hand around his bicep, he would have been on the rickety old porch before Jim and the officers they brought even had a chance to react.
"Let them clear the scene, Griss," the younger man tells him in a placating tone, in direct contradiction with the tight grip around his arm.
"She's in there, Warrick, we have to get to her. We have no idea what he… what that monster has done to her."
"I know. But she would kill all of us if we let you go in there and something happened to you. Just give them a minute."
There's no car anywhere to be seen, so he doubts Lurie is here, but he knows that pointing that out to Warrick won't do any good.
The ambulance they alerted pulls up next to their car as one of the officers kicks in the front door, and then he and Jim are inside.
Grissom is sure it doesn't take more than a few minutes, but it feels like a lifetime before the officer appears in the doorway again. "Clear. Get the paramedics in here!"
Warrick's grip on his arm disappears, and he's across the gravel front yard and in the house in an instant. "Where is she?"
"Basement," the cop replies, nodding to the end of the hallway, where there's an open door.
He takes the stairs two at a time, following Jim's voice to a doorway to his right when he reaches the bottom.
"Sara? Kiddo, can you hear me?"
The scene in front of him makes Grissom freeze, his heart leaping into his throat. The only thing in the room is a bed, where Sara's curled up on her side, knees pulled to her chest. There's a comforter wrapped around her, and her right wrist is chained to the headboard by a pair of handcuffs with an extra-long chain.
The thing that has him locked in place, though, is that she's not moving. She's too still, Sara's never still like that, she's always fidgeting with something.
"Jim, is she…" he manages to get out, drawing Brass' attention.
"She's unresponsive, but she's breathing normally, and I have a strong heartbeat."
The words ease the knot in his stomach some, but not all the way.
"Sir, could you please step aside so we can attend to the patient?"
He quickly moves out of the doorway and the two paramedics sweep in, and as they lean over the bed, Jim's attention turns to him. "Do you have gloves? I want to get these off her but I figure there might be prints or DNA on them," he says, nodding at the handcuffs.
With a task to complete, Grissom jerks into action. He doesn't have his kit, but he is wearing his vest, and he finds a pair of fresh gloves in one of the pockets, snapping them on as he crosses to the bed. The paramedics are on the other side. They've moved Sara onto her back and are trying to rouse her.
"Miss, can you hear us?" one of them asks, lifting her eyelids and shining a penlight into them. "What's her name?"
"Sara," Grissom tells them, but it comes out hoarse. He clears his throat as he accepts the key from Jim and unlocks the handcuffs. "Sara. Is she…"
"Breathing is slow but even, heartbeat steady but also slow. Judging by pupillary diameter, I would say she's been given some sort of sedative."
Jim huffs. "Well, the kidnapper is a doctor, so I wouldn't be surprised."
Grissom is only half-listening to their conversation, focused instead on Sara. The skin on her freed wrist is rubbed bloody, as if she's been tugging on the cuffs, the left side of her face is swollen, her lip cut, and there are clear marks from fingers around her throat, dark against the pale skin. Oh, honey, what did that monster do to you?
"We should get her loaded up and head back to the hospital," one of the EMTs says.
"I'm going with you," Grissom immediately replies.
"That's fine."
He turns to Jim as the EMTs transfer Sara to their gurney, the brief moment between the comforter being pushed aside and a blanket tucked around her instead revealing more bruises and marks on her body, making his throat close further.
"I want a warrant out for Lurie's arrest," he says, focusing on Jim. "Get uniforms to the hospital as quickly as possible, he doesn't know that we've found his little hideout, odds are he's on his way to work, his shift starts at eight. Send someone to his house as well, just in case, and put out an APB on the car he's using."
"This isn't my first rodeo," Jim replies. "You focus on our girl, I'll get the bastard, OK?"
Grissom nods, then hurries to lead the way out of the room and back up the stairs. When he emerges from the house, he finds his team huddled in a circle a few feet from the porch. Greg is the first to spot him and takes a few steps closer, unusually subdued. "Is she OK?"
The paramedics appear at that moment, and Grissom lets them precede him down the steps. "They think she's been given a sedative," he reports as he watches them cross to the ambulance. "But she's breathing OK and her heartbeat's steady, so that's good. I'm going with her to the hospital, I'll let you know as soon as I know something."
"Are we processing?" Catherine asks, and he meets her eyes.
"No. I don't want some lawyer to play the 'too close to the victim' card. Call Ecklie, get dayshift out here."
She nods. "OK, we'll head back to the lab then. I'll tell him to send someone over to the hospital to process… Sara."
He squeezes his eyes closed for a moment at the reminder and feels her hand on his shoulder.
"Are you coming, sir? We need to get going."
The EMT's voice grabs his attention, and he hurries to jump into the back of the ambulance.
Sara has another blanket covering her, a cannula in her nose, and an IV line going into the crook of her left elbow. There's a portable heart rate monitor to one side of the gurney, with lines running under the edge of the blanket, and the steady beeping from it is calming. Her chest rises and falls under the blankets, too slow for his liking, but still another reassurance.
Without even realizing it, he reaches for her hand, stopping himself at the last moment. "Can I…" he starts, looking up at the EMT, who nods. Her hand is cold, and he wraps both of his around it, careful to avoid the chafed skin on her wrist. "You're OK, honey. You're going to be OK."
She doesn't stir as they make their way through the desert towards the city, and he doesn't take his eyes off her. Not until his phone starts buzzing about halfway back to Vegas. He pulls it out of his pocket and considers ignoring it when he sees the name on the display, but it could be important.
"Grissom."
"Gil. How is she?" comes Conrad's voice over the line.
"They think he gave her some sort of sedative, but apart from that, she seems to be OK," he reports.
To his surprise, there's a relieved sigh over the line. "Thank God. I'm on my way out to the property to process, along with the rest of the team, except Curtis – she's ready to head over to the hospital as soon as I know where you're going."
"Hang on," Grissom says, turning to the EMT. "Where are you taking her?"
"Um, Desert Palm is the closest…"
"No," he objects. "He works there. The… monster that did this to her. Go somewhere else."
The EMT frowns but turns to address the driver. "Hey, Ed, let's reroute to Mountainview."
"Got it."
Grissom turns his focus back to Sara and the phone. "We're heading for Mountainview."
"OK, I'll send her over there. Keep me posted on Sidle, OK?"
"Sure." He has no intention of calling Conrad, but Catherine can deal with it. "Have you given her something to reverse the effects of the sedative?" he asks the EMT after hanging up.
The man shakes his head. "Since we don't know what she's been given to start with, we don't want to do that at this stage, so she's just on a normal saline IV with some electrolytes, to restore hydration levels, since she seems a little dehydrated. Hopefully, she'll wake up on her own in a few hours – most sedatives don't last very long."
"OK."
The rest of the ride is silent, the only sound in the ambulance the steady beep of the heart rate monitor, which is almost hypnotic to Grissom as he sits clutching Sara's hand, eyes intent on her face for any signs she might be waking up.
He might actually doze off a little, because he jerks awake when the ambulance comes to a stop at the hospital. The back doors are opened by waiting nurses, and he hops out to get out of the way. Sara's transferred to a hospital gurney, the EMTs rattle off vitals and treatment so far, then the ambulance is leaving, and Grissom hurries to keep up with the nurses as they roll the gurney into the hospital.
"You're going to have to wait here, sir," one of the nurses tells him when they get to a set of swinging doors with the sign 'Hospital personnel only'. "Please talk to someone at the nurses' station over there, they're going to need the patient's insurance information and things like that."
Before he has a chance to object, the gurney disappears through the doors, which swing closed with a deafening finality.