Ghosts Chapter 3, a csi fanfic

A/N: I posted the prologue and the first 3 chapters this week. Thanks for reading, and please leave a review if you want.

Thanks again!

Chapter 3

Las Vegas

Pacing the room, Nathan tried to remember what'd happened. The news was sounding through the apartment. The woman's name was Evelyn Olson. As he saw the face in the picture shown on the screen, he heard a voice in his head. It told him to run. They were after him now. It was all over.

"Think, think, shut up and think," he repeated to himself as he paced.

There were still boxes piled along the walls, clothes thrown over his bed, and a jacket hanging on the back of the front door. His new employee jacket with a company logo embroidered on it and everything. He'd gotten his first break there in Las Vegas, he couldn't leave yet. He couldn't run. He had a job now.

That's right. He'd gone to work that morning. He'd gone to work and then…

They were driving towards the strip, having just picked up dinner at a taco vendor. He was trying to eat his food as the other driver, Alan Franklin, light-heartedly talked about how fucking hot it was on the mid-June day.

"Pretty soon we'll be praying for this heat," Alan was saying as he made a left turn, heading back north. "It gets cold in the mountains at night in the winter. Sand doesn't retain heat."

"I can deal with desert cold," he said as he picked up his soda and took a sip. "It's nothing compared to Colorado."

"Is that where you're from?" Alan asked.

"No," he said and left it at that. He didn't want to talk to the guy. He didn't want to talk to anyone, actually. No one wanted to talk to him and he didn't want to talk to anyone.

"Then how'd you know how cold Colorado is?"

He blinked back at the hot sun in the sky and the desert sand and mountains in the distance and said, "Went skiing in the Rockies."

Alan laughed. "Sure ya did, kid."

"Don't call me that. I'm not a kid." His eyes glared over at Alan as he asked, "You think I'm lying. I've been to the Rocky Mountains."

"And I've been skiing in the Alps."

Letting out a breath, he reached into his jeans pocket when he heard Alan's strict voice.

"Don't even think about it."

He had started to take out his pack of cigarettes when Alan stopped him. "I need one."

"There's no smoking in this rig. It's the company's and I do not want to get bitched out again about the smell."

"I've got the window down," he protested as he waved the unlit cigarette around, gesturing toward the window.

"No," Alan sternly told him. "You said you were quitting. What happened to that?"

"I am quitting."

Alan shook his head and said again, "If you light that up, I'm kicking you out of my truck and you'll have to walk home seeing how you haven't even received your first paycheck yet."

He stared over at his supervisor in disbelief before telling him, "Sand actually does retain heat; it's just at a different rate than soil. Ever wonder why your feet burn when you step on sand during the day? Sand has low specific heat, meaning it needs very little energy from the sun to heat up fast. Because it's so dense, the high density allows sand to store large amounts of the acquired thermal energy—"

"What are you, some kind of scientist now?"

"I read. I know things. I know more than anyone thinks I know."

"Yeah?" Alan glanced over at him as he pulled into the parking lot and headed around to the back of the building. "You're not in science class anymore, Professor. Grab your gloves and let's get this last delivery unloaded."

Rubbing at his head, he felt the headache start as his anxiety grew as he put the cigarette away. His decision to quit smoking was proving to be a challenge. He'd been smoking for so long, most of his life, that it felt like he was giving up food. He craved smoking like he craved a good steak, beer, and sex. It also disrupted a lot of his daily activities. He nearly forgot how to make coffee because he wasn't also lighting up his first cigarette of the day. A lot of his habits were based around smoking so much that it felt like he had to relearn how to do everything all over again.

And he was. He was learning how to work a job again. How to sleep in a regular bed. Even how to hold a conversation. He was learning how to live again. It was harder than he thought.

"You okay over there?"

"No. I have a headache and I want to smoke a cigarette."

"Maybe you should start another habit to replace smoking?

He stared at Alan for a long moment. "Like what?"

"I don't know, man. Drinking coffee?"

"I already drink coffee."

"I know, but I mean like all the time. You can become one of those round-the-clock coffee drinkers. Instead of lighting up a cigarette, buy a cup of Joe. Replace your nicotine addiction with a caffeine addiction."

"Caffeine addiction," he said bitterly, shaking his head as he opened the door. "That won't help ease my stress."

"Okay. How 'bout a sex addiction instead? Turn into a nymphomaniac. I can drop you off on the corner up here if you want to get started on that. It's legal in Vegas, if you didn't already know. She's cute," Alan said as he eyed the woman on the corner.

He shot Alan a glare as he opened the door to get out of the truck. This whole conversation was stupid. Going to the back of the truck, he got to work unloading their last delivery of the day to the fresh market in Las Vegas. For the past week, they'd been driving around the entire state of Nevada making deliveries of refrigerated fresh meat to grocery stores. They always started and ended back in Las Vegas. After today, he would have two days off before doing it all over again.

The day finally ended five hours later and he received his first paycheck in fifteen years. Staring at the envelope in his hand, he wanted to smile but didn't think he knew how. He had money. His rent and bills were paid. And there was a growing ache inside his body as he started for the Strip. The noise and lights were overwhelming as he bypassed casino after casino. From the people to cars, it felt like he was suffocating. He needed a drink, a smoke, and that steak.

Entering a restaurant that he'd read about on-line, which was also a new thing for him, he was seated at a table. He ordered a beer and steak dinner as he felt eyes on him. Eyes in the sky and eyes all around from the people. Pushing the paranoia away, he tried very hard not to guard his food once it was placed in front of him on the table. He also had to tell himself that he could take his time to eat.

The steak was perfect, the beer cold, and by the time he was done, he only had one more desire itching at his control. It'd been so long and he normally wouldn't have lusted after the warmth of a body, but a lot had changed in fifteen years. It was just that he had no idea how to date. How to even flirt. It was hard to even think about starting a relationship.

His body was just on fire for something he hadn't had in over a decade. The company of a woman. He didn't want to pay for it, but currently that was his only option. He ordered another drink first. And then another.

A woman sat down next to him and ordered a drink. She'd asked for a light. As he lit her cigarette, her hand landed on his thigh. Her voice was in his ear, asking him questions. Brown eyes danced in the neon lights, enticing him, her red lips begging him, until he couldn't say no.

By the time he was in the hotel room, sitting on the bed with the woman in front of him, he wasn't seeing or thinking too clearly. What he did remember was her hands and how when she touched him his body flinched in pain. He couldn't get comfortable or relaxed enough to enjoy it. Then she smiled and he saw a gap between her two front teeth. He jolted back as if he'd been shocked by a cattle prod. Shoving her away, he started gathering up his shoes and t-shirt.

"I'm sorry," he said, and why he was apologizing to a hooker he had no idea. Maybe because she wasn't a hooker, but a woman with bills to pay as well. He tossed some money on the bed before leaving the room.

Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn. She was the hooker. She was the one who took him back to her hotel room. How did the cop get his wallet? When did he talk to the cop? Had he been waiting for him when he left the room? The cop had to work with Vice. He bet a million dollars that the cop was Vice. He took his wallet and then let him go.

That made no sense. Nothing made any sense anymore. Why was Evelyn dead? Was he—Did they…

Run. He heard again. Run, run away.

He pocketed his wallet, grabbed the work jacket off the back of the door, and left the apartment, leaving the front door wide open as the TV continued to blare in his head.

San Francisco

Jane had come through and by nine o'clock the next morning, Sara was seated in a conference room at the crime lab with two boxes in front of her on the table. Both were marked with the same case number and year. She'd worked countless crime scenes, seen dead bodies, and the worst in humanity. She'd let a giant spider crawl on her hand and survived being taken by a psycho serial killer.

But this; this was what scared her. Two boxes. She tried to tell herself that it was like reviewing any other case, all she had to do was take the tops off, pull out the evidence and all the files and documents, and review it. Easy enough, except it wasn't. This was her parents. Her life. In those two boxes was where she came from. She'd spent years trying to forget that night, the screaming, the blood. Since that night she never felt at home anywhere.

Pulling out her cell phone, sat it on the table and fought the urge to call Gil. The reason she left Las Vegas was for this very moment. Even though Gil was her anchor, she had to learn how to steady herself or else she'd always get right back here again. The urge to run, to leave, wouldn't stop. She'd always be angry, always feel so weird on the inside, and she'd always wake up screaming.

Removing both lids, she tossed them aside and pulled the first box over. Inside were mostly reports and documents. All the paperwork. Sitting down at the conference table, she started shifting through it all. There were count documents, medical records, both for mental services and others for all the hospital visits. She remembered the trips to the hospital being so quiet, filled with silent tears and deer-in-the-headlight looks. Bruises and cuts brushed off as 'accidents' and any broken bone or fracture a result of "kids being kids" or "you know how it is once you start drinking" and of course the "I'm just clumsy" responses.

She was taught to lie, to rationalize behavior, the same way she'd been taught that screaming and fighting was normal. Abuse had been normalized in her house along with the lies. She never remembered lying. What she'd done was keep quiet. She never said a word.

Shoving the box away, she grabbed the second one and pulled it over in front of her. Reaching in, she pulled out an evidence bag. Inside was a bloody knife. Placing it on the table, she looked at it as she felt the anger and grief hit her all over again. She still remembered as if it'd happened yesterday.

Getting home, she went through the kitchen door like always, bypassing the front, and walked inside. She dropped the books to the table, she called out to no one, "I'm back! If anyone cares," she muttered the last part under her breath.

Upon seeing the calendar on the wall, next to the refrigerator, she saw it was a week until her birthday. She could not wait. The legal age to be emancipated from your parents in San Francisco was fourteen. She'd been taking college courses along with finishing high school a few years early while working at the bed and breakfast full time.

It'd been a real balancing act, but she'd been up to the challenge. She was set to graduate high school next month, then in the spring, she'd be a part time college student. And, hopefully, fully independent. She wanted to move out, live closer to the university, but still work. Someone had to take care of the place. If she left the business in the hands of her parents, they'd be homeless in a month. Two tops.

Taking Peter Benchley's "Beast" with her, having just finished his novel "Jaws", she pushed the kitchen door open. She couldn't wait to start reading it at the front desk while waiting for customers—

The book dropped to the floor next to the dead body. There was a pool of blood. Her mother, next to him, crying with the bloody knife still in her hand. Shock was the best description for what she'd been in, staring down at the lifeless body of her father.

"I saw them. I saw them. In his eyes. In his eyes, they went on for miles." Her words were lost in a jumbled mess of illogical nonsense. Then she said, "I did it for you." Blinking back against the tears, she heard her mom say again, "I did it for you."

Reaching up, she wiped the tear away that had broken free from her eye. A thought ran through her head, one she had when she was chained to a torture device and left for dead.

He left her there alone in the dark with nothing but the pain and her fear. A tear broke free from her eyes as she thought of Gil. She hoped she'd be able to see again.

She hoped when she did, he looked like the same man that she'd fallen in love with. She hoped he didn't look like a murderer.

Could she forgive him? Yes, she thought, she could.

She thought that because of her mother. In her heart, she could forgive her mother, and if she could forgive her, then she could forgive Gil. In her head, she had no idea what her mother looked like, but what she did know was that she didn't look like a murderer. Her mother was crazy, and she'd been abused, and in a moment of psychosis, she reacted.

Rationally, she knew that. So why the uneasiness in her heart. Why did it feel like she was falling apart on the inside? She was self-destructing, but into what? Her mother didn't look like a murderer, but did she look crazy?

Was she?

Reaching back into the box, she pulled out an envelope. Written on it was Property of Nathanial Sidle. She nearly froze at the name. Why were there things belonging to Nathan in the box? She opened it, reached inside, and felt something flimsy like a picture. Pulling out the old photograph, she wanted to smile but she felt no happiness. A boy with dark brown eyes stared up at her with a shy smile. He wore dirty jeans, striped white and blue polo, and his right arm was in a cast. It'd been broken. A bruise was under his left eye. "Kids will be kids," her mother's voice echoed in her head.

Standing beside the boy was a girl, nearly the same height, with the same dark brown eyes and nose as the boy. She wore jeans with a long, oversized beige jacket; most likely her mothers'. She wasn't smiling, not even warily. Her eyes were sad as she clutched a book in front of her body. Behind them was a school bus. It must have been a picture of the first day of high school.

Touching the photo, she remembered how his arm had gotten broken. She'd told Gil only part of the truth. Her brother had been grounded for a year, but that wasn't the worst of it. The beating he'd suffered had been worse than the grounding. It hadn't even been the fact that he was smoking pot, her parents were ex-hippies. Her father had snapped because it'd been his pot. Nathan had taken it from him.

Best intentions, Gil had said. Her best intentions had led to her brother receiving a broken arm. Nathan always lied and said it'd been from playing basketball. At school, she watched as he was shoved around, bullied and teased, and ignored. She'd endured the same in a lot of ways, but with less physical bullying. The only thing she had to deal with was the rumors, the snickering and whispering, and not having any friends.

Her only friend for a long time had been Nathan. And she didn't even know if he had anyone other than her. The last time she saw him, the police were taking him out of the bed and breakfast. A woman with Child Services took a hold of her hand, but police officers had taken him away.

Then someone moved. Behind the door, she saw his bloody shoes first and then his jeans. Eyes traveling up, she saw his eyes. They were wide and scared, and so distant.

His name formed on her lips as she gasped, "Nathan?"

He didn't move, didn't even flinch at his name. As she pulled herself to her feet and called the police, tears streaming down her face, Nathan never moved from his spot behind the door. It wasn't until the police arrived that he moved. Like some scared and feral cat, he reared back and then attacked one of them.

Her screams, like her mothers, filled the house as he was thrown to the floor and handcuffed. There was a struggle getting him out of the door.

She thought that she'd see him in the foster system or in court, but she never did. After that night, he was just gone. Her brother had always been so quiet, very shy and distant for most of their lives. When they were kids, he never spoke at all and had written everything down on paper.

In the box, she found a piece of notebook paper in a plastic evidence bag. The handwriting was familiar and she knew it was his. On it were words that shook her to the core.

Nathan had written in bold letters: "I did it. I killed my father. Good riddance."

TBC…