Chapter 7

The storage unit was located in an old brick warehouse that said it'd been in operation since 1972. There was no one in the small office inside the main doors but she saw security cameras and a posted sign that if any assistance was required to call the number. Sara didn't need any assistance as she headed to the map of the facility posted on another wall by the elevators. Finding the unit on the map, she got onto the elevator and headed up to the third floor.

Her stomach had been twisting in knots all day and with every passing moment it got worse. She almost left, almost turned around and walked out, but she knew she had to do this. She tried to tell herself that this was like any other investigation to try to keep a distance from it. But there never had been any amount of distance she could put between her and the past. It was always there, right in front of her, no matter where she went or how long it'd been. It was in her waking moments, working no domestic cases, or in her dreams when she tried to sleep. Memories, screams, and the silence all compounding on top of her until she felt like breaking.

Using the key that was in her pocket, she opened the door and stood for a moment, letting her eyes take everything in first. Most everything was in boxes with a few items that were too big. There was no furniture kept and it appeared that everything in the storage unit were keepsakes. An old grandfather clock that she remembered being in the living room. She hated that thing. The ticking drove her crazy when it was all she heard in the quiet house, especially at night when she tried to sleep. Any noise in the quiet felt disturbing.

Gil liked to sleep with the fan on and after the third time of being kept awake by the noise she finally had to tell him to turn it off. He hadn't been upset about it. He simply just got up, turned it off, and then went right back to sleep.

All the boxes were labeled, which helped her immensely in finding what she was looking for. She hadn't known exactly what she was looking for until she saw the boxes with 'Nathan' printed on the sides. There were a few with her name on it but she ignored them. Anything she wanted from the house she got out before it was cleared out.

A social worker had told her to make a list and she'd get her stuff for her. It'd been a short list. Only a few books, some clothes, her cassette tapes, a stuffed animal that she still had, and a photograph. She remembered getting everything but the photograph. The social worker couldn't find it. She remembered now that the photograph that she'd wanted to keep was the one in the evidence bag that'd been in Nathan's possession.

There were boxes with her father's name on it and her mother's. She left those alone as well. She didn't want to remember her father, and she was scheduled to talk to her mother tomorrow. Today, she wanted to remind herself of who Nathan was. Taking a breath, she opened one of his boxes. It was full of his clothes. They were mostly ripped jeans and rock band t-shirts. Pushing it aside, she opened another box and saw vinyl's, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, and a dreamcatcher.

Pulling out the dreamcatcher, she fingered the white and beige feathers that hung from the eye in the middle. Her mother made them by hand.

She watched her mother's hands as she finished attaching the feathers with beads to the ends of the dreamcatcher. Following her instructions, she did the same with the one in her hands. They were sitting at the kitchen table, supplies spread out all over it, the beads, feathers, suede lace and twine. While they worked, her mother told her, "These will protect you, you and your brother."

"How?"

"The Eye of Horus symbolizes protection from evil and royal power. It'll keep the bad dreams away by catching all the evil in the eye and only letting the good things filter down."

She looked up at her mother as she asked, "And the royal power? What does that mean?"

Her mother was wearing big boho glasses and she could see the bruise under her left eye. On her fingertips were nicotine stains from chain smoking. Next to her a cup of coffee and her pack of cigarettes. "You're special, Sara. They told me. The angels. I hear them in my mind. We're all spiritual royalty. Descendants from sky, from the sun God. You and your brother are chosen saviors. Angels that this world needs."

During the times her mother went silent and became oblivious to the world around her, she'd take a cigarette and go smoke on the roof. She preferred the silence over the delusional rants.

She put the dreamcatcher back into the box and pulled out the VHS tapes. A few were old movies but a couple of them were home movies. One was titled 'The Whatever Family Movie'.

She put it back and pulled another box across the concrete floor. Inside it were the notebooks and a single book on top. Pulling out a notebook, she flipped through it and saw his handwriting. It was a journal with dates of each entry. Some entries were about what happened that day while other entries were just random words, quotes from poets, or lyrics, or something he'd read. Then they were followed by a poem, or prose, or haiku that he'd written.

"How about this one," she said before clearing her throat and reading, "'An unknown sphere, more real than I dream'd, more direct, darts awakening rays about me—So long! Remember my words—I may again return.' That was by Walt Whitman."

Nathan had been quiet, sitting up in his bed while she sat on his bedroom floor, listening to her read. It'd been a scary day. One of doctor visits and odd looks and shaking from fear on the inside when trying to hold it together on the outside. She couldn't sleep, and neither could he. Their dreamcatchers weren't working. She had nightmares all the time. This had become something they did. They stayed up talking or read when they didn't have anything else to say. Reading had always been her escape, and Nathan didn't mind listening to her do it.

He didn't take his eyes off the ceiling as he said, "So long my heart, so long my mind, so long my love. Two birds swoop and dive through the breeze, up into the sun. One chirps, it twists up past the sun, over it, and down into the dark, and sings 'so long world'. Down. Down. Down—Splat. So long, bird, the other bird sings as it dives, and dips, into the light."

She stared at him, and he finally blinked and looked at her. "That's what you thought of? A bird dying?"

"We all have to go sometime, Sara. That bird was ready. I envy that bird."

She shook her head and returned her attention back to the book. "I don't."

Through the dark, she heard the smile in his voice as he said, "Good. I don't ever want you to envy that bird. You're the one that keeps flying."

One of his journal entries was from that night, with that written on the page. Reaching up, she wiped the tear that had slid down her face. She hadn't even realized that she'd been crying.

Setting the notebook down, she picked up the book. On the front was a picture of an owl. It was "Stories That Could Be True: New and Collected Poems. William Stafford". It was well worn and when she opened the cover she saw her handwriting.

She'd written: Happy Birthday. I know you love poetry even though you'd lie and say you didn't. You'll love this book. – Sara

There was a page marked, poem highlighted, and she turned to that page. She took a deep breath and started reading the poem that Nathan had highlighted. "If you were exchanged in the cradle and your real mother died without ever telling the story, then no one knows your name, and somewhere in the world your father is lost and needs you, but you are far away…"

"…He can never find how true you are, how ready…When the great wind comes, and the robberies of the rain, you stand on the corner shivering…"

Detective Bill Nowlins was waiting for him as he exited the vehicle. Gil grabbed his field kit out of the back as he took in the parking lot, the apartment, and the proximity to the interstate. He could hear the cars going by. There was a door open on the second floor of the building. Standing on the sidewalk under an African Sumac tree was an older man with white hair and mustache that contrasted his dark skin. He was smoking a cigarette.

"…The people who go by—you wonder at their calm…"

"The property manager," Nowlins told him as he gestured over his shoulder to the man. "Malcom Luther was the one who called it in. His tenant, Nathan Cole, went missing last night. Didn't you guys find a jacket in the park with the name 'Nathan' embroiled on it?"

"Warrick did. It had a sweat stain on the collar. Hopefully we'll get a hit in CODIS."

"And a matching sample from the apartment." Holding up the stack of papers in his hand, Nowlins told him, "Everything the manager had on Mr. Cole."

"Anything interesting?" he asked as they started up the steps to the second floor.

"He's not local. Moved here from California a little over a month ago. Right before these killings started. Got the name of the employer. Wanna guess where?"

Stopping at the door, he pulled on a pair of booties as he told him, "I don't want to guess. I want you to tell me."

Nowlins smiled a little, saying, "You knew where the guy lived." Eying the detective, he waited until he told him, "Sunbelt Foods Deliveries. They have a distribution center in the industrial business park across from the park where the victims were found last night."

"All roads are converging into one. Now all we need is to confirm DNA and get a positive ID of this guy. Do we have a driver's license photo?" he asked as he pulled on a pair of latex gloves.

Out of the stack of papers, Nowlins pulled a sheet and turned it around to show him. Printed on it was a grainy photocopy of a California driver's license. Photo, name, and last known address. "Who said killers were smart?"

"I'm going to do a quick walkthrough before I do anything else." He left his field kit by the front door and ventured around the living room.

"…They miss the whisper that runs any day in your mind, "Who are you really, wanderer?"—"

One couch, one table, one TV, and boxes upon boxes that lined the walls. There were empty beer bottles and dirty plates in the sink. A towel over the only chair in the room. There wasn't a single piece of personal item anywhere in the living room. He went down the hallway and checked the bathroom and saw it bare except for a single toothbrush, toothpaste, and a stick of deodorant. There was soap in the shower and a bottle of shampoo. A washcloth over the side.

He opened the linen closet and saw it empty. There wasn't even a spare towel. At the end of the hallway was the bedroom. The door was open and, on the floor, a single mattress. The only thing of interest was a book of poetry on the floor next to the bed, along with a notebook on a flipped over box that was being used as a table. A floor lamp was in the corner and hanging on the wall above the bed was a dreamcatcher. In the middle was an eye.

"...And the answer you have to give..."

Picking up the book, he read the cover: "Stories That Could be True: New and Collected Poems. William Stafford." A piece of paper was being used as a bookmark. Flipping it to the marked page, he saw that it was the receipt for the book. It'd been purchased four weeks ago from a used bookstore. The poem that was bookmarked was the title's namesake: 'A Story That Could be True'.

He sat the book back on the floor and went over to the closet and opened it up to reveal a few items of clothing. A few of the clothing items still had tags on them. Checking the tags, he saw they were all used, purchased from a local thrift store. There was no dresser but there were sealed boxes.

Going over to the boxes, he knelt down and used his pocketknife to slice open the tape. He opened the box and saw it full of personal items including clothes. He opened another box and found more clothes. Why buy used clothes if he had boxes full of his own? Standing, he headed back into the living room and eyed the boxes stacked around the walls.

"How long has he lived here?" he asked the detective as he knelt down at a box and cut the tape off.

"According to the manager and the records, five weeks. Why?"

"And he never unpacked?" He removed several framed photographs from the box.

There was one of him on the dock. It looked to be a hot day, but he was wearing long sleeves and was hugging himself. Another was him in the Rocky Mountains, holding a pair of skis, and smiling at the person holding the camera. In the third photo, he was laughing and holding his right hand, giving the peace sign, in the middle of Times Square with a 'I Love N.Y.' t-shirt on. The man in all the photos resembled the picture on the California driver's license. He was looking at a photo of Nathan Cole. He could clearly see both of Cole's hands in the picture. He didn't have any burns.

"Did the property manager confirm the ID of his tenant?"

Nowlins walked to the door and called down to the manager. "Mr. Luther, can you come up here for a moment?"

Gil stood and looked around the apartment again as he got a sinking feeling in his gut. Who moved and didn't unpack?

"…No matter how dark and cold the world around you is:..."

Malcolm Luther stopped just outside the front door. Taking the framed photo with him, he asked as he approached him, "Mr. Luther, is this your tenant?" He showed him the framed photo of the man who matched the picture on the driver's license.

Luther took one look at the man in the photo and said, "No."

He took the photocopy of the California driver's license from Nowlins and showed it to Luther. "Are you positive?"

Luther eyed both photos and seemed startled, like he didn't know what he was certain of anymore. "I don't know who that is, but that's not my tenant. That's not Nathan Cole."

"Maybe I'm a king."

Nowlins eyed the photos and said, "This isn't the guy?"

Luther shook his head. "Never seen him before in my life."

"How did he acquire this apartment? Was it in person?"

"No," Luther said as he shook his head. "It was through email and over the phone. He was moving here from California and wanted an apartment before he arrived. He sent me all the necessary documents, new employer information, first months' rent and security deposit, all by check. When he arrived, he just walked into the office and said he was Nathan Cole, and he was picking up his key. I didn't think to check his ID or make sure his face matched the one on the driver's license he sent. I just…took his word for it. I gave him the key and showed him around. I never had reason to check—"

"Do you think you can describe him to our sketch artist?"

"I can try."

Gil only had one other question he needed answered. "Mr. Luther, this man who was staying here, did, uh…did he have any deformities? Anything at all about his look, his skin, perhaps on his face, or his hands that—"

"He was burned."

"Burned?"

"Yeah," Luther said as he lit another cigarette. He looked visibly upset. "On his hands. He said it happened in a fire. That's why he was moving here. He was displaced by a fire."

"How'd he pay rent?" Nowlins asked. "You said he paid with a check at first. How about after he got here?"

"Cash. I thought he was just a good gambler, even asked for a few pointers. He never told me where he got the money."

"What else did he tell you?" Gil asked.

"He didn't say much. He wasn't a talker—"

"But he has spoken to you."

"Yeah, but…it was always over my head. I don't know. Gibberish nonsense at times."

"Anything that you can remember would be helpful, even the gibberish."

"Uh, he talked about chemical reactions. I don't know. Sounded like a chemist some days, a lunatic the next, talking about space, and the stars, the sun and moon's rotation. Devils and angels. Things like that."

Gil glanced at Nowlins and gave a nod. He was done with Mr. Luther, for now. He needed to process the scene. Once Luther walked away, he told Nowlins, "According to the license, and all the personal belongings in the boxes, this is Nathan Cole." He handed him the framed photograph. "But he is not the man who's been living here. He has no burns on his hands."

"But our suspect does?"

He gave a nod. "That's why I couldn't get any usable prints off that handprint from the car window."

Nowlins shook his head and said, "If this is the real Nathan Cole, then who's the guy that's been living here pretending to be him? And what happened to him?" he asked as he showed him the photograph.

Gil felt his frustration as he looked around the apartment and said, "I don't know."

"You get a read on this guy?"

He thought about the few things he found in the bedroom and the marked poem. "He's a real nowhere man. Used clothes from second-hand stores, no personal belongings or documents…No pictures. My best guess is that he has no family, no roots. And I doubt he'll come back."

Nowlins went to leave the apartment as he told him, "I'm going to talk to the employer, see what they have to say. I'll post a deputy at the door."

"I'll be here."

He finally grabbed his field kit and started processing the apartment. As he did so, he felt the unsteadiness of his body and of his head. He kept thinking about all the evidence, or lack thereof, as he swabbed the inside and outside of bottles, the few utensils, and collected the hairs from the towel. He bagged the toothbrush and toothpaste. Lastly was the bedroom. On the pillow were more hairs and he collected those as well as the dirty clothes on the floor in the closet.

He bagged the book, the receipt, and then sat down on the mattress with the notebook in hand. As he opened it, his eyes took in the words written. It appeared to be a journal and what was written were the thoughts of someone who sounded paranoid and at times oddly disconnected from who he was.

One of the things he read was: "He saw a door to his face, reflected in the blade, and felt the same thing he's heard all day, "take the knife out and open it'."

Flipping back through the book, he stopped on a page and stared at the drawings. There were several sketches over the pages, over words and quotes. One was of a torch with flames. One was of hands, chained at the wrists, and they appeared to be holding, or reaching, for something. It was a symbol he didn't recognize.

Below it was written: "I have a migraine of the mind. I think, I think, I think…Would it be better to touch it, to beat the terror, or, to just drop into the fire and—Reborn! Up from the flames, life."

Maybe the chained hands were reaching for a ball of fire? He studied the sketch and thought that could be right, given the fact that the suspect's hands had been burned.

The other sketch was of an eye. A single eye staring out at him under it was the latin E. Pluribus Unum. He knew those words read: Out of one, many.

What the suspect had written was something else entirely: "A single eye moves up and over and to the middle. A little confused about what he was being told, so was I, but—I am not going into my head all day with the others, watching. Listening. We can help you, they say, the prying eye in the room."

He shut the notebook and looked up at the dreamcatcher above the bed. After he bagged the notebook, he took a photograph of the dreamcatcher. Once he was done, he finally left the apartment.

Sara stacked as many of the boxes as she could into the rental car and headed for the hotel. She wanted to read through more of the notebooks and watch the home movies. The hotel most likely didn't have an old school VCR, so she kept a lookout for a thrift store or anywhere that advertised it sold old cassettes, VHS's and vinyl records. Normally, they also sold VCR's and record players and boom-boxes.

It wasn't long before she spotted such a store. After she made her purchase, she continued on to the hotel, bypassing all the attractions that the city of San Francisco had to offer. She wasn't interested in any of it. This wasn't a vacation spot for her. The city had been her home. It'd been a place that she'd once loved and then a place that she'd desperately wanted to leave.

Her only home now, the only place she'd ever, truly, felt at home since leaving, was in the arms and heart of the man she loved. He was her home, not a place. She could basically live anywhere; scenery was secondary to the man she wanted to be with more than anything.

Once she got back to the hotel, she'd call him. Even if he was sleeping, which he probably wasn't, he'd answer her call. She knew without question that she could rely on Gil for anything, even if it was just a shoulder to cry on or someone to talk to. And, as he'd already told her, he wasn't going anywhere.

Before she got to the hotel though, her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She stopped at a red light and answered it. It was her old CSI colleague Jane Snyder.

"Hey, Sara, I was just wondering if you wanted to grab dinner."

"Uh, yeah, that'd be great. Where?"

"There's this new restaurant out on the bay called 'The Bay'. It used to be a warehouse. It's pretty good, and they serve vegan meals. You'll love it."

She agreed to go and then almost changed her mind once she got back to the hotel and unloaded all the boxes. The only reason she didn't was because Jane had once been a friend and had been kind enough to help her. The least she could do was have dinner. So, she showered and changed clothes before heading out.

By the time she got to the restaurant, the sun was beginning its descent over the Pacific. Jane wasn't lying. The restaurant had once been a warehouse on the bay. It had floor to ceiling windows that gave a panorama view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin Headlands, and all the sea life that ventured by out on the water. Standing at one of the windows, she slipped off her sunglasses as she looked north towards the hilly peninsula known as Marin Headlands and smiled at the memory of her last visit there.

It was in 1998, and it'd been with Gil. He was only in San Francisco for a forensic conference that lasted two weeks. But in that very short amount of time, they'd gotten to know one another, and she'd felt something she'd never felt before in her life. She knew she'd met her soul mate.

She'd told him in her letter that she'd felt like she's loved him her whole life. That had been the truth and it had happened right there, on Marin Headlands across the bay, when she'd first fallen in love with Gil Grissom. There was a picture on their refrigerator that was taken at the near exact moment when she'd felt it. And the smile on her face couldn't have been helped. She'd felt so happy being with him.

"Do you enjoy camping? This is a great spot to camp."

They had spent the day together visiting the Golden Gate National Park. They hiked and he'd used it as a teaching tool to educate her on all things bugs and forensic entomology while she informed him of cases that she'd worked in San Francisco all while asking him more questions.

Grissom agreed that it was a great spot to camp so much that he decided to buy camping gear to do just that. She had her own and they agreed to meet up that evening, at that spot, and camp overnight. She hadn't expected the spur of the moment camping trip and had to cancel a dinner with Doug. They were no longer together anyway, and he'd get over it. At least, she hoped. He'd been acting weird lately, getting extremely jealous since they'd broken up, and she didn't know what to do about it.

She almost talked to Grissom about it but didn't. He mostly likely did not want to hear about her messed up love life. Instead, they spent the evening under the stars talking about other things. The constellations, books they were reading, and anything other than the personal. He told her about Las Vegas, and she told him about San Francisco. About how humidity and ocean water affected the decomp process. All they talked about was work or science.

Then as the crackling from the campfire and the chirping from the bugs the only sounds between them as they both looked out across the bay, she heard him say, "O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem by that sweet ornament which truth doth give. The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem for that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye as the perfumed tincture of the roses, hand on such thorns and play as wantonly when summer's breath their masked buds discloses: but, for their virtue only is their show, they live unwoo'd and unrespected fade, die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made-"

And while he recited the Shakespearian sonnet, she looked in his eyes that never strayed from the water, as she felt a pull in her heart that was hard to ignore. She wanted him to kiss her.

He hesitated a moment before finishing, "And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, when that shall fade, my verse distills your truth."

"Shakespeare."

He smiled. "Sonnet 54." There was an odd look that came over his face. A shadow of sorts and then it was gone. "You can say whatever it is you want to say, Sara." He finally took his eyes off the water to look at her.

Could she? Could she really say what was in her heart and in her mind? They barely knew each other and the last thing she wanted was to ruin this perfect moment. "I–uh," she laughed a little. Shook her head and looked away from him, back towards the water. "I was just thinking that, uh…this is just too good to be true, you know? Don't want to ruin it." She could feel his eyes on her, and instead of acknowledging it, she tilted her head back and looked up at the stars.

He hadn't kissed her, and in fact, she thought that she'd felt him pull away from her. She thought she had ruined it until the last day of the conference when he asked for her phone number. "To keep in touch," he had said. She never thought that he would actually call her. They were colleagues and he was, if anything, a mentor. There was no way he loved her back, or ever would. What had she been thinking?

She knew exactly what she'd been thinking. Her heart was telling her one thing, but her head was saying something different. She knew she had a choice to make. Stay in San Francisco and deny herself of the possibility of being with the man she loved or go after him. Two years had gotten away from them before he made the choice for her by calling her to come out to Las Vegas.

A few years ago, Gil had told her that he became interested in beauty when he'd met her. Sonnet 54 was about beauty. And now, six years later, his ring was on her finger, and she had run away. She knew he wouldn't consider it that, but she did. She felt like a coward for not talking to him about it face-to-face, but she was afraid that he'd talk her out of it, or worse, come with her.

This was something she had to do on her own. This was her family. Gil had his family in Las Vegas. He had to already deal with so much that she didn't want to burden him with all this as well. She also didn't know how to tell him. He knew some of it, but not all of it. Hell, she didn't know all of it. She didn't just keep secrets for her family, but from her family, just as they had kept secrets from her.

"Sara?"

At hearing the voice behind her, she stilled. The breath caught in her lungs as she felt her body tense. It wasn't Jane. The voice was that of a man.

"Sara Sidle?"

Letting out the air that'd gotten stuck in her chest, she turned to be staring into the eyes of a man she had once loved, a long time ago. It was Doug Wilson. And standing behind Doug was Jane.

TBC…