A few weeks later Grissom and Sara had found a new apartment that suited them. An easy commute to the lab, an extra room to make into a study, and best of all, a floor to ceiling bookshelf lining half the open space kitchen/dinning room.
Sara spent her day off packing up her apartment, going through her things and boxing up her books. She'd been sitting on the floor of her living room when she came across a few things she hadn't spent much time looking at in years. A small shoe box filled with the few belongings she'd been able to hang onto while she was moved around different foster homes. A teacher's letter of recommendation, a few childhood photos, a small notebook, and her first copy of Moby Dick. She smiled as she picked it up. It's spine a bit ragged. She remembered reading it in fifth grade for the first time, memorized by the story. She'd become entranced with the novel. Even drawing a harpooned whale to the horror of her classmates and teachers. She placed the book to the side and decided she'd give it to Grissom for his birthday, not wanting him to wait until he thinks he's dying to reread the classic.
Sara made her way into the lab for the next shift. First, she stoped by Grissom's office before heading to the locker room to get ready.
"Hey."
He looked up to see her walking in.
"How was your day off?" He looked over his glasses at her, still flipping through a case file he'd been reviewing.
"Good. I finished packing."
He smiled with the joy of anticipation and nodded knowingly.
"Next Saturday then? When we're both off?"
He nodded again.
"Lucky our schedules worked out that way."
"Yes." He spoke through a small smile, "Luck."
"Hey Grissom, are we doing assignments or what?" Catherine popped her head in causing them to look at their watches. It was five after. "At some point I'm going to request half your salary if I keep doing half your job." She jabbed at him before disappearing down the hall toward the break room.
"Shall we?" He motioned toward the door. They walked toward the break room.
"So? Are you going to let me in on this scheduling luck?" She tried again before they reached the break room.
"Our new shift rotation was due to Ecklie last week. We now have a shared day off every third Saturday of the month."
She barely had time to hide her smile before they entered the break room to join the rest of the team. It was these gestures that filled her cup.
That next Saturday came and their things began to merge into one home. Entomology textbooks and classic novels co-mingled with her forensic literature and crime novels. Grissom hung the shadowboxed butterflies on the wall. He reached into a box for the next framed critter.
He stared at the frame with confusion for a moment before Sara caught his expression.
"You okay?"
"I don't remember having a framed Titanus Giganteus."
"Oh the Titan Beetle? That's mine." She smiled at the combination of shock and boyish giddiness that overcame his features.
"This is yours?"
"Yeah. I studied abroad in Brazil my junior of undergrad. Traded my sunhat for him actually." She smiled at the memory, "It spoke to me." She shrugged, "Largest beetle species in the world. They're adaptable and are keen survivalists. I liked what that represented I guess. Plus, look how big that thing is. It's wild."
He walked over to her and placed a kiss on her lips. Unable to help himself, overwhelmed with the swell of joy in how impressed he was. How she never ceased in her ability to amaze him. To leave him speechless.
She leaned in further to his kiss and began unbuttoning his shirt. She smiled up at him as he raised a brow with excitement. They abandoned their tasks and made their way down the hall to break in the bedroom.
In previous relationships, sex felt like a robotic series of systematic events for Grissom. But with Sara, his mind was off. He was free to fully listen to his body, to focus on hers. He didn't overthink every movement and action. Didn't analyze and process. He'd never known that it could feel like this. For as hesitant and unable he still found it to express his feeling to her with words, his actions had no issues.
"I've got somewhere to be tonight." Sara spoke as she pulled a shirt over her head.
"You do?" Grissom furrowed then raised his brows. He watched her nod and avoid his eye contact. "What is it?" He asked more pointedly, his voice bordered on unamused.
"I have a standing date with Pam and Tom Adler." She said, already defensive in her inflection.
He stayed silent for a moment, searching the corners of his mind to assign meaning to the names. "Pamela Adler? The Jane Doe rape victim from five years ago?"
"Yeah." Her tone turned more serious to match his. "I chased both rabbits." She spoke with equal parts levity and jab.
"How often do you visit with them?" His tone became softer. He moved toward her, sitting on the edge of the bed beside her.
"About once a month." She shrugged, "I know." She added, already confident in what he was going to say, "It's just something I feel I have to do. I can't explain it or defend it."
He nodded, staying silent for a long beat. "Okay." He stood and finished dressing, "So, where should Steve, Martin and Marty go?"
"Who?"
He looked at her as if offended, a quirkiness overtook him in ways reminiscent of the man she remembered from her first year in Vegas, "My guys. The cockroaches."
Sara's expression found its way from speechless to determined in record time, "In the study. And please, no where else."
He flashed a boyish grin her way and left the room to go tend to 'his guys.' Before he was out of ear shot, she called after him, "And no blood in the fridge." She assumed his agreement through his lack of response and laughed internally at the idea that they were living together now. The guy who races cockroaches, has a radiated fetal pig, a collection of pinned insects, and offbeat experiments. The guy she'd been after for six years. She was now negotiating house rules with.
September 2006
Grissom leaned over the perfect half inch scale model of the victim, Izzy Delancey, a famous rockstar.
"I think Malibu Barbie did it." Sara approached and joined him, leaning over the model shoulder to shoulder.
"Then there's more to Barbie then just a pretty face because this is a perfect half inch scale model. And assuming that the killer is the same person who made the miniature…"
"It would have taken weeks, maybe even months, to create with this level of detail. It certainly qualifies as premeditation."
Grissom looked up at Sara as the swab turned pink, "It's real blood."
"That, is a level of obsession that gives even you are run for your money." He pushed down a smile, feeling the warmth of being known.
Sara shined her flashlight on the wall and read the platinum records, "Dusty fell, Izzy Delancey. I have never heard of him."
"It's probably before your time."
"I'll download it." She quipped back. Her phone began to buzz. "Sidle." She listened to Catherine on the other end.
"No questions asked. I need you to meet me, I'll text you the address. Bring your kit."
"Okay…" Her voice trailed and listened as the line went dead. She closed her phone and threw it back in her pocket. "Catherine needs me for something."
"Alright, just get Greg here to help out before you leave." He snapped another photo of the miniature, "Please."
Sara texted Greg to come to the scene as she crouched down on the floor, shining her flashlight eye level. "I've never seen a kitchen floor this clean."
"That's your level of obsession talking now." He jabbed back in rebuttal to her previous comment on his dedication to detail. Because as obsessive as he was about his proclivity for the meticulous, she was equally as obsessed with cleanliness. A trait he found uncharacteristic to everything he'd known about her up to that point. With a starch inability to engage with most common domestic tasks, like cooking for example. But the counters and the floors always sparkled. He found it especially endearing that she tended to engage in that cleaning when she was working off steam, mulling over a case after maxing out on overtime, or avoiding a task.
She checked her watch, "Greg should be pulling up soon. I'm going to go."
"Bye."
Sara walked out of the house, kit in hand. A chorus of cries and cheers emanated from the end of the driveway where Izzy Delancey's fanbase had begun to gather. She spotted Greg as he ducked under the caution tape and up the driveway.
"Greg! Great you're here."
"I can't believe you're leaving Izzy's murder scene!" Greg explained with boyish giddy.
"I've got something I've got to take care of. Grissom is in the kitchen. Thanks for coming."
Sara got in her Tahoe and peeled out. When she arrived at the address Catherine had provided, she found herself at a run down motel in an iffy neighborhood. She got out of the car upon seeing Catherine in the lot.
"Hey, What's going on?" Sara spoke as they approached one another.
"I need you to process a room for me." Sara took in Catherine's appearance as she spoke, her wet hair, disheveled dress, smudged makeup.
"Are you okay?"
"I—I may have been roofied last night, I woke up here."
"What?" The blood drained from Sara's face, leaving her pasty white, "I thought you went out with Nick last night."
"I improvised a rape kit." Catherine spoke without acknowledging Sara's question. "Pubic combings, vaginal swabs…"
"Whoa, whoa, Catherine." Sara stoped her, "Did you call it in?" Her voice low and sympathetic.
"I called you." Catherine responded with crackles in her voice.
"None of this is going to be admissible.." Sara responded.
"I don't want an investigation. I just want to know what happened. Room 229. Print it? And um, Sara… keep this between us?"
"Okay." Sara agreed and watched as Catherine got in a cab. She made her way to room 229 and swept the room first. Upon confirming it was empty, she got to work. Dusting for prints, collecting hairs. She finished up nearly two hours later and made her way back to the lab. She handed everything off to Catherine immediately.
"There were… a lot… of finger prints, as you might expect. I grouped off a few that could be more pertinent, ones found on the night stand, side of the bed, interior door knob. No seminal contributions on the sheets."
"Yeah the rape kit came back negative."
"Thank god." Came Sara's knee-jerk response. "Look Catherine…"
"Thank you, Sara." She cut her off before Sara could continue and walked off.
Sara found Grissom in the larger layout room, huddled over a series of photos stitched together as one large panoramic of the miniature they had found earlier that shift and Izzy Delancey's home. She loved the way he hunched over the table, the way he wore the microscopic visor as he seemingly directed the Izzy Delancey doll.
"Blood matched the vic." Grissom spoke without needing to look up.
"Anything else?"
"No fingerprints, no hairs." He looked up at her now, "You take care of what Catherine needed?"
She nodded and leaned in closer to the miniature just as Ecklie walked into the room at full speed.
"Maybe we should release it to the media. Someone may have unwittingly helped create the miniature. Maybe if they come forward that could help us."
"What is the point of gratifying the murderer with publicity?"
"Izzy Delancey is Famous. The press wants answers."
"Don't we all." Grissom smirked back at Ecklie.
Ecklie turned his attention to Sara, hoping to reason to a more level headed answer, "Sara, This is your case too. What do you think?"
"I—Uh—I agree with Grissom." She smiled small and nodded as she looked up at Ecklie in time to catch him rolling his eyes.
"Of course you do." He spoke with annoyance then turned on his heels and left the room.
Sara and Grissom exchanged surprised looks, "You don't think…"
"No." Sara shook her head at Grissom's thought. Working to convince herself of that too. "But he might be right, Griss. Maybe there's a hobby shop with an employee who help the killer without know what they were helping with."
"Gil." Sara hurried into his office, her tone was urgent. He looked up with a start and peered at her over his glasses.
"What is it?" If her tone wasn't alarming enough, using his first name like that at work definitely was. In fact, he could only remember a handful of times she'd ever used his first name in a context outside of sex.
"It's Catherine." She began. "There was a car accident, and they took Lindsey."
"What do you mean they took Lindsey?" He stood up now, his glasses quickly discarded to the desk, "To the hospital?"
"No, no…" Sara composed herself and began to relay what she knew to Grissom, "When I met up with Catherine this morning, she wanted me to print a motel room for her. She thought she'd been roofied and raped."
"My god."
"She was just in a car accident and the driver abducted Lindsay. Catherine is okay, but they don't know where Lindsay is."
"Where is she now?"
"She's on her way back to the lab. Warrick has her." She paused, "She asked me not to tell anyone. We had no idea there was more to it."
He nodded and placed a hand on her shoulder, "It's okay." He pinched the bridge of his nose, "Let's meet in the layout room in five with any evidence we have."