Chapter 21.

The nightmare followed its usual routine.

She rushed through door after door…

But fortunately Chris woke her up before it could get any further. Hygiene conscious and saliva phobic as she was, Sara was grateful for the licks to her face as she stumbled to the bathroom. Sara felt a pain in her lower abdomen, but ignored it. She was good at ignoring pain. It felt similar to period pain, but duller and more localized to her right lower abdomen. It wasn't her time, but Sara's cycle had always been rather erratic so it wasn't impossible that she was just super early this month. She washed down two aspirins with some orange juice before taking Chris back to Mrs. Milligan's. She felt vaguely nauseous but put that down to the nightmare. Making sure she was stocked up on necessities and clean clothes, she headed in to the lab.

On the way she tried phoning Agent Scott again, but again it went straight to voicemail. The woman was devilishly hard to reach.

Setting herself up in the computer lab Sara was pleasantly surprised to see several emails in her inbox. Apart from the normal correspondence and notices about journal publications, there was one from Wolmerans, thanking her for the update. He was very interested in Conrad Nieves and asked for all the information the LVPD had on him. Sara gladly complied.

The second email was from Immigrations and contained a list of employees. One name in particular jumped out at Sara. Justine Nieves. She had been working there for five years. Sara added a note to the email to Wolmerans asking him to check the dates on the dodgy passports. Sara was sure Justine Nieves was involved with it. The Nieves name just kept popping up too often in this case for it to be coincidental.

Sara was unsure who to ask to look into Justine Nieves. She didn't really want to get anyone from the lab involved, also it was juristically problematic. She mailed a contact at the FBI, Clarice Starling, and gave a very brief outline of the case when someone approached the table

"You're here early Sidle." Ecklie made even that simple statement into a condescending question. "I thought you worked the night shift. I hope you're catching up on your paperwork. "

Sara had been so engrossed in her research she hadn't even noticed him entering the room.

"What are you working on?" he asked as he moved to stand behind her chair.

"Case reports," she answered smoothly.

The Hall-case was open on her screen. She waited for him to say something, to challenge her. But any further confrontation was curtailed by his phone ringing. He answered and left without even giving Sara as much as a glance. Sighing Sara went back to her research into Conrad Nieves. The last thing she needed now was another confrontation with Ecklie.

Conrad Nieves had been a very busy traveler. He not only visited China twice in the last two years, but went to Africa six times. The trend seemed to be to fly into South Africa via Cape Town, then fly up to Maputo in Mozambique or Harare in Zimbabwe where he would catch a flight back to Cape Town of Johannesburg and then on to Dubai. From there he would then return to the States. Sara's geography was pretty good, but she still had to go look up where exactly those cities were. They both bordered South Africa. Sara typed a quick note to Wolmerans to ask his opinion.

She figured there wasn't much point in pretending to arrive with the others, so she went to wait for them in the break room. She ate her apple while catching up on the forensic journal she received in the mail yesterday. She still felt a bit nauseous but ignored it.

Grissom arrived first with Greg close on his heels. Greg was trying to get Grissom to swap a weekend with him, but the older man wasn't budging.

"Hi guys. The coffee is fresh. I brewed a new pot."

The irritation with his antics was evident on Grissom's face and Greg obviously picked up on it.

"Two cups of coffee coming-up boss," he piped and jogged over to the coffee pot.

Sara watched Grissom carefully as he took a seat opposite her. Apart from his brief irritation at Greg, he seemed to be in a remarkably good mood. She marveled at how well he could separate himself from his cases. He and Nick had worked a horrific triple, but no trace of the strain he must have felt showed on his face as he casually picked up the evening paper and gave it a cursory glance before flipping to the crossword puzzle. Sara wondered if the calm exterior was just a façade, if deep down such cases did rattle him, but she pushed the thoughts down. Even if it did, he wasn't interested in her support. Greg handed her a cup of coffee, giving her a strange look. She realized that she had been staring at Grissom.

Again.

She quickly tried to cover her embarrassment by taking a sip. Grissom absentmindedly took a sip of his own coffee. Oblivious to everyone around him. The rest of the team ambled in.

"Give a ten letter word that describes the property of certain gels to be viscous in its natural state, yet become more fluid when agitated," Grissom asked no one in particular, totally engrossed in his cross-word puzzle.

"Where's Nick?" Catherine asked, taking a seat next to Sara.

"I gave him the night off." Grissom answered, folding the newspaper away "Right. Since we're all here." He took the familiar yellow case slips out of his pocket

"Sara and Warrick, you have gun-shot victim downtown," Grissom said handing Warrick the piece of paper. "Greg and Catherine, home invasion with fatalities"

"And you?" Catherine asked teasingly.

Grissom smiled brightly, the brightest Sara had seen in a long time.

"I'm giving evening lectures at Western LVU on entomology."

For the life of her Sara couldn't understand why, but she felt intensely jealous and sad. It was as if he was going to find a new bright young student to mentor. As if she was no longer sufficient. She knew it was silly and childish and completely irrational to think like that, but she could hardly help it.

"Enjoy, "she said as she got up to leave.

Something in her voice must have betrayed something of the turmoil she was feeling, because Grissom gave her a surprised look and opened his mouth to speak. Then thought better of it and settled on a plain "Thank you," spoken to her back.

"Oh, by the way I think the term you're looking for is thixotropy," she replied.

Sara tossed her half-eaten apple in the trash, she wasn't really hungry anyway.

Greg trotted after her and caught her arm.

"You did submit the case report for the Greeves case right?"

Sara stared at him baffled.

"Yeah off course."

"Oh. The DA assigned to the case gave me an earful for it being missing. They must have made a mistake. Don't worry, I'll let him know."

Sara stared after him. Once was coincidence, twice definitely not.