A/N: Thanks once again for reading. I posted 2 chapters today, please read 7 first. Also, I have no idea if anyone is actually listening to the songs in these chapters, but the song featured in this chapter is specifically set up to be heard as it acts as Grissom's "voice". It's called "Solitude" by M83.

Thanks again, I truly appreciate it.

Part 3: In The Cold I'm Standing

Chapter 8

Saturday, March 9th, 2002

The rest of the day was spent at the department doing paperwork. Warrick was following up on the warehouse that seemed to not exist except on property websites. His desk was beside hers, and it was after midnight when he leaned back in his chair and said, "It exists, but not as a business, commercial, or a residential. It's just a property sold to Gil Grissom. He's running nothing out of it. There's no money to follow."

"He's paying for the electricity, isn't he?"

"No."

She lifted her head to stare over at him. "It has lights."

"Then he's using electricity off the grid. Generator, probably. No water bill either. Like I said, it's just a building."

She sighed as she went back to typing up her report. The autopsy report had been submitted by the M.E.'s office. "Autopsy confirmed that the vic was raped and died from asphyxiation. Contents found in the stomach were beer and chicken soup."

"The past vic's died the same way?"

"Yeah, strangled then chopped up."

"These girls weren't dismembered," Warrick said.

"I know. It's not an exact match, but it's close enough. The flower earrings are the important part."

"Then it could be someone else. A copycat of the original 'Motel Butcher' killings."

"Okay, but how does he know about the earrings?"

"A partner, or coincidence. This might not have anything to do with the old case—"

"I've got a hunch, okay," she said, cutting him off. "Any luck on identifying the girls?"

Warrick shook his head. "I called all the schools in the area around where they were found, and the school next to the warehouse, and got nothing. That got me thinking, the OG killed the mothers, right?"

"I thought you said it's not the same case."

"I also have a hunch, and my hunch is telling me you're right."

"Yeah, well, we haven't had any women murdered in motel rooms."

"No, but what about kids without mothers."

She stared at him as the answer formed in her head. "Parentless kids. Fosters."

"Or runaways. If you haven't noticed, Los Angeles has a homeless pandemic. I'm going to stop by the Homeless Outreach Center on my way out." Warrick gathered a stack of flyers that he'd copied earlier into his hand. "We'll get these Missing Persons flyers of the missing girls circulating around the homeless shelters, foster system, and streets. So far, the general public hasn't been too helpful."

"Good thinking. I'm going to finish up here and head home."

Warrick stood, saying, "Get some sleep. You look like hell."

"Thanks," she said bitterly, making him crack a smile.

"Still beautiful though."

She smiled as she watched as Warrick strolled out of the Homicide Division. It took another hour before she was done. Grabbing her bag out of her locker in the hallway, she exited out the back door into the police carport. A few patrol officers passed her to her 2000 Ford Focus. Getting in, she sat and let out a breath. They had nothing.

Starting the car, she turned on the radio and a song called "Ocean Avenue" by Yellowcard started playing. Keeping it on, she headed home. The route she took sent her past his street. A familiar ache settled inside as she neared the right turn that led to his house. They'd broken up months ago, an off-and-on relationship since they were teenagers. Her first love. Every other month, he'd drift into her mind. A memory, and then a longing, and then an aching that wouldn't go away.

A text was sent and then one was received.

The light changed from red to green and she took the right turn. A row of bungalows ended in a cul-de-sac. Parked in the driveway was a Ford Bronco. Getting out, she locked her car and headed through the open garage door to the side door. It opened and she saw Hank standing there in a tight-fitting EMS t-shirt and loose jeans.

"Just got off.

He pointed over his shoulder, saying, "I grilled burgers and there's beer."

"After."

He stepped aside to let her inside.

She didn't stay for after. He fell asleep as she showered and pulled her clothes back on before she was out the door. They were not back together and she didn't want him thinking they were. Nearing Glendale, she stopped and grabbed a box of desserts at the farmer's market.

The security guard, Officer Mitchell, was posted in the lobby and greeted her as she arrived home. She opened the box of desserts and offered him one. "Thanks, and how's Miss Sara today?"

Forming a smile, she told him, "A grind, like every other day. Have a good night, Mitchell."

"You too."

She pushed open the door and entered into the open Spanish courtyard. Once in the apartment, she dropped the box and her shoulder bag on the counter and stared out the balcony door. Her usual routine was to get her dog, take a bath, drink a beer, and then sit out there and just…breathe.

There was a knock at her door. Who the hell? It was probably Carol. Without checking the peephole, she opened the door and saw Grissom standing there. She stilled once again as their eyes locked. He wore his black leather jacket and held up a note.

He'd written: 'Come take a drive with me.'

"How did you get past security?"

He only smirked and stepped away from the open door. Then he signed by placing his right hand flat against his chest and rubbed it in a circle. /Please./

She figured that if he tried something she'd just shoot him. Grabbing her bag, she pulled her cell out of it as she left. She texted Warrick that she was going for a drive with Grissom. They left through the side gate where his Mercedes was parked. She wondered if he bypassed Officer Mitchell by coming through the side gate. That meant he had a key, or that he knew how to pick a lock.

He opened the passenger door for her. At least he was a gentleman, but he was also used to it with his job of chauffeur. He shut the door and she eased back into the seat as she tried not to seem so nervous. The interior of his car was different from any other car she'd seen. There were pocket lights built into the roof and lights that wrapped around it.

Grissom got into the driver's seat and started the car. The dashboard light lit up in various colors. Blues and reds and pinks and green. A rotating stream of colors. The rearview mirror was bigger than the standard size, as well as the side mirrors. It gave him a wider field of view.

As he started driving, she waited for him to look over at her before asking, "Where are we going?"

He thought about it as he grabbed the MP3 player that was hooked up to his car's radio. She was surprised he had a music system at all. There was a large display screen built into his dash where the radio was. Lights lit up the display screen, the interior of the car, as music started playing. She could feel a vibration in the seats.

Then the lyrics appeared on the display screen.

~"Somewhere

Back in time…"~

The palm tree lined streets seemed to fade all around them as the lights in the car lit up. They flickered and danced in time with the music. Out the windshield, the street changed from the tree lined neighborhood to the freeway.

~"I left a part of me

I wanna see if you can try…"~

She watched his stoic face in the mesmerizing blue and pink lights as the voice from the song said, ~"…To bring it back to me…"~

As she heard the words, she realized he chose this song for a reason. Were they his words?

~"You gotta go

Where I cry…"~

She had to go where he cried. Somewhere in the past that haunted him. A place much like her own black hole that represented her past.

~"And take in all the tears

I wanna see if you can try…"~

Try to what?

~"Drink a little bit of me..."~

The city of Los Angeles was before them in all the lights of skyscrapers in the sunken basin surrounded by mountains and valleys. All the lamp posts that lined the freeway turned on at once as the sun faded below the surface of the ocean.

~"No…No…"~

There was a feeling that washed over her as they hit the 101 headed west towards Sherman Oaks. That familiar hum in the back of her head. Whatever it was, wherever it came from, she wasn't scared of it. Sitting in that car beside him, she wasn't afraid of him. If anything, he felt comfortable. Like an old friend.

The facts of the old case came back to mind. Everything she knew about her mothers' deaths.

~"Just a little lonely

Where I am…"~

Her mother was murdered in a motel room. The 'Motel Butcher' killed mothers and took their daughters. The redacted case file, her foster parents cryptic answers. Annie had said that library books had been checked out under Grissom's name, one of which was Moby Dick. 'Call me Gil.' 'Call me Ishamael'. That exchange stirred something inside him that sent him out of the diner.

~"Take me back in time

I wanna see if you can smile…"~

Something that brought him to her doorstep to ask her to go for a drive so he could play her this song. Take me back in time…Words of regret, of wanting forgiveness. The main suspect in their case knew her, because he'd been the one who checked out the library books. The same one that'd been found in the motel room where her mother had been murdered.

~"If I become a better man

I need you, now I know..."~

She read those words on the display screen before the next ones lit up.

~"Just give me one more time

I'm gonna try and be your friend…"~

Tears welled as her heart clenched inside her chest. His eyes were focused on the road as she took in a shaky deep breath as the cliffs over the ocean appeared in the night. Stars lit up the sky as the blinking lights lit up the interior of the car.

~"So we can beat the end

No…"~

1982

~"...No…"~

An envelope was waiting in the mailbox from Nicholas along with a package. I took both to the bedroom and shut the door. In the envelope was a note that read, 'Charlie's employer knows it was you.' Wrapped in the package was a gun.

Catherine had to work. After cleansing the stench of jail out of my pores, I dressed and grabbed the Nikon camera and gun off my dresser as I left the bedroom. She was waiting in the living room, skimming over my father's records. I showed her the note I'd written. 'I'll drop you off at work. I need to use your car.'

She handed me the keys without protest. I made a stop at the university and used a dark room to process the photos from my camera. As the picture came to life in the red room, I saw her face. Sara was holding up the 'peace sign', heart-shaped glasses, with a wide smile. There was another I'd taken the Saturday before. She was standing against the brick wall of the library, dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved jacket, and she was looking to her left down the street. I used the copy machine to make flyers, putting Catherine's home phone number at the bottom, then we headed out.

Catherine took a stack of flyers with her into the strip club. I told her to distribute them around the strippers, and to their coke dealers. She'd given me an odd look but did as I asked without question.

It was after two in the morning as I drove across the city. It stirred the infinite night, or as T.S. Eliot wrote, "So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing." The lights of the city streets lit up the interior of the car as I drove towards West Hollywood.

I knew where I was going and what awaited me once I got there. My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I wondered not for the first time if all this was my fault. Was her disappearance a coincidence or was it a consequence? I wouldn't know until I saw Anton. He wouldn't lie to me, not about this. Sara was just a child, and I've only known Anton to be a man of principle, despite the business he was in. Though, I didn't know anything about her parents. Not really.

Her mother had been the murdered victim, and her dad had gone missing. Consequences, consequences, they never ended. With each action there was an equal and opposite reaction. Newton's Third Law of Motion. I was at one end of the action, and Sara was at the other. If it wasn't Anton, then it was a stranger. A random act. Chaos Theory.

I had to find her. That was the never-ending thought that swirled inside my head as the lights from the city streamed up and over the windshield. I had to apologize.

~"No…"~

2002

~"...No."~

The city disappeared completely under a sky full of stars and a full moon that reflected over the still ocean water. Grissom took the car to the edge of a cliff where he parked it facing the ocean. Keeping the car running, he got out.

She opened her door as he sat on the front hood, his feet up on the fender, as he looked out where the ocean met sky. It was beautiful.

He pulled out a plain envelope and licked it, sealed it, and handed it over. She took it and, in the light coming from the headlights, she read what he'd already written. 'Next time just ask.'

He knew. His eyes were on her face. "You know who I am?"

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. He nodded.

She was a detective and putting clues together was what she excelled at. The pieces were all there. That noise in the back of her head was him. She just knew it. "You know what happened? I don't mean what's going on now, but…You know what happened to me as a child, don't you?"

A shadow of pain and guilt betrayed his stoic face. He swallowed it down as he nodded again.

"I don't."

Confusion settled in before realization. His lips parted slightly at that revelation. Before she could say anything else about it, car lights appeared around the bend as a car slowed to a stop across the street.

"That's my partner." She held up the envelope and said, "Next time I will."

She left him alone to sit on the front of his car as she headed across the street. Settling into the passenger seat, she handed Warrick the envelope.

He read it and said, "Damn. I guess we should've just asked."

She kept her eyes on Grissom as he didn't move off the car. He sat there, staring out at the deep dark ocean and night sky as the stars twinkled in the distance. Headlights shining out into the openness until they disappeared.

"What'd you think?"

"He didn't do it."

Warrick nodded as he dropped the envelope into a bag he'd produced out of thin air. He shifted the car into drive and as they drove away, she felt a tear on her cheek. Reaching up, she wiped it away as she suddenly felt so alone.

Wednesday, March 10th, 1982

The name of the club out in West Hollywood, in the banquet hall below a brewery, was called Oberkorn in reference to the Soviet Union town where the owner was born and raised. He'd moved to America, Los Angeles, before the Berlin Wall prevented him from leaving East Berlin where he'd lived at the time. The club was Russian themed and saturated in blue and red lights. No other colors existed except what was on the customers' clothes.

With every step I took down into the deep dark blue coming out of the open banquet hall doors, I felt a vibration up my leg. The walls even seemed to be thumping to the banging of a drum. Through the open doors I saw people dancing in what seemed like slow motion. What wasn't moving slow was the pounding in my chest. I knew why I was here.

Her photo was in my pocket, and I had to know if he had anything to do with her disappearance. It was also a risk. The gun was clip onto my right hip and I prayed to God that I didn't have to use it. Charlie. Nicholas said that they knew. They knew it was me. My dad's note appeared in my head. It read: 'I'll be at Parker's Bench. We have a 2 a.m. meeting with Charlie. Bring the gun.' A body dropped in my vision. Blood soaking into the porous concrete floor. Charlie's blood.

Charlie was Anton's hired gun, who was now missing and presumed dead. Unless someone snitched, which was possible. There was always a canary in this business. People liked to talk when money was involved. The ruling hand of all things evil.

I crossed into the saturated blue light as the interior of the club came into focus. Chandeliers of bright lights and blue shades hung from the ceiling as red light pooled over the surfaces of the tables that lined the walls to keep the middle open to a dance floor. A mirror ran the length of the wall opposite the stage where a band played. TOSKA was their name.

"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning…" Those were the words of Vladimir Sirin, aka, Vladimir Nabokov. Nabokov had been a Russian novelist, poet, and even an entomologist.

The men and women moved around me on the dance floor as if in a slow stilted waltz. Contorted bodies and arms jilted up and down, left and right. Music box dancers. I could only imagine what the music sounded like that compelled their bodies to move in such a way. A heavy, deep thump, popping rhythmic noises along with static electricity like how I thought lightening sounded as it streaked across the dark sky during a thunderstorm.

This was a dark storm I was walking into. Lightning streaks lit up the blue ceiling as tables burned in red flames as I crossed the dance floor and without asking, opened the door behind the bar.

A man appeared in the backroom. His office was dark, only a desk lamp on, as he shoved himself against the body of a woman. I caught him with his pants down, but I didn't look away. The panicked woman pushed off the desk, shoved her skirt down, and hurried out of the room. Anton dropped into the chair to cover himself with the desk.

I didn't take the gun off him as I shut the door behind me and walked over to the table. Sitting across from him, my aim never wavering, I showed him the picture of the girl.

He didn't even look at it and kept his mouth shut.

I tapped the picture.

His eyes flicked to it, and he shook his head. "No children."

At least he was respectable, if he was telling the truth. I believed him. Like I said, he had principles. No children meant no children. It took everything I had to stay calm, to focus my breathing, and to not lose it on the guy.

He must have realized my dilemma because he said, "You idiot. Put gun away."

I put the gun away. Then he was kind enough to wait, but I knew I was running out of time. I knew what he'd want to ask about. It was on my mind as well. I wasn't too sorry about Charlie. He made his choice. What I was sorry about was that it didn't have to happen. That was the thing about this business. No one wanted to talk. It all fell apart because of a communication problem. I angrily wrote on the piece of paper as my temper spiked. My heart was racing, hand clenched around the pen, as I scribbled my words.

I knew I was close, but I didn't think I was that close. The anger felt like a tidal wave crashing into shore. And I was riding that wave. The cycle continued that never stopped. With no hope of it ever stopping. My nerves were racing, my skin burned from my boiling blood. I was done. I slammed the note down on the desk.

'Charlie didn't want to talk. He wanted to kill. My father was an old man on his deathbed. I would have given it to you. All you had to do was ask.'

The door busted open as I saw the blue explode over the walls. I didn't have to turn around to see the guns aimed at the target on my back. Anton had stood and held up his hand. Stopping the firing squad. Thankfully he'd pulled up his pants. I felt like laughing at the absurdity. This was crazy. This was absolutely insane, and a waste of time. I really did not have time for this shit.

Anton pushed the note away. "Your father stubborn. You stubborn. Gil, I like you. I give you running start. You make it out alive…you keep running. You killed Charlie. It only fair I kill you."

So much for communication.

He made a show of looking at his watch. "One min—"

I was out the door, running through the ice-cold blue lights, before he could finish.

One minute to get out before they fired. I cleared the door before I felt a sharp brush of hot air brush by my face. The concrete wall in front of me exploded as tiny holes grew out of the flying cracked mortar. I ducked as I jerked right, towards the steps and hurried up into the bright lights of the dark city.

The chase was on.

TBC…

Disclaimer song used: "Ocean Avenue" by Yellowcard, "Solitude" by M83, and "Oberkorn (It's a Small Town)" by Depeche Mode.