Title: Appearances Author: Amy aka Lady Julieanne Pairing: C/S Rating: NC-17 Disclaimer: I don't own them and I never will. I know, I'm upset about that too. Feedback: Please, I beg of you!!!! Distribution/Archive: Just ask. Summary: A string of strange murders causes the whole night shift to pull extra shifts to try to catch the killer. **************************************************************** Catherine checked the clock. Just after midnight. She was almost expecting a call from Sara chewing her out for sending the flowers. Since she hadn’t received that phone call, she assumed that she would hear about it later. Catherine couldn’t resist the urge to send the flowers. She knew that Sara would see them and blush, but also that it would make her smile. For the first time in her life, she was tempted to go in to work on her day off. If only to see the look on Sara’s face, it would be worth it. But she stayed at home and patiently waited for the clock to tell her that it was time for the rest of the gang to be off work. At least then she knew she’d get a call from Sara. Sara headed off to the lab to find Greg. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing him, but she needed the reports for her meeting with Warrick and Grissom. She walked into the lab to find Greg waiting for her. “So who were the flowers from?” Greg was not giving up. Everyone knew that Sara wasn’t seeing Hank anymore, and Greg hoped that Hank wasn’t making a second attempt. Sara was too good for him. “I’m not telling Greg. Now give me my reports.” Sara’s tone was stern and her eyes showed complete seriousness. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to get rid of the stupid grin on her face. “Now now. I’ll give the reports as soon as you give up the mystery guy.” Greg really was trying, and he looked genuinely concerned, but Sara wasn’t ready to reveal her mystery romance to anyone in the office. And she especially didn’t want to tell anyone until after she and Catherine talked more about it. “There s no mystery guy Greg,” Sara said. Nope. No mystery guy. Beautiful, charismatic, down right sexy lady, but no guy. No way I’m telling Greg that. “Either give the reports to me now, or take them to conference one in about ten minutes and explain to Grissom why you wouldn’t just hand them over.” Sara was one step from actually putting her hands on her hips and glaring at the tech. “I don’t have time for this.” “Alright, alright, alright,” Greg backed down. “DNA, toxicology, and AFIS did find a hit for you.” “Thank you Greg,” Sara said as turned to leave the room. Sara found Warrick already headed into conference room one, where Grissom appeared to be waiting. She hoped that Warrick wasn’t upset about Sara speaking with Grissom first. Warrick sometimes had a tendency to be territorial about his cases and Sara didn’t want to upset him, especially considering they weren’t exactly the best of friends anyway. Sara tossed her reports onto the center of the table and sat across the table from Grissom. Warrick chose a seat a few down from Sara also facing Grissom. Sara could tell Grissom was still mulling over what she had told him earlier. His brow was slightly furrowed and his eyes were narrowed in concentration. The AFIS report revealed that the victim was Sandra Stewart and that she was indeed a prostitute. So far, Doc was one up on the rest of the team, he had predicted that she was a prostitute the evening before. Sandra had been arresting a few times for petty offenses, including a shoplifting charge when she was 19. Being now 34, and no arrests in the past three years, it was assumed that she had somewhat reformed and that her criminal past did not relate to her murder. Grissom told Sara and Warrick to check into her friends and acquaintances to see if she was in any kind of trouble with anyone; a bad breakup, a pimp, or anything. The toxicology report detailed the considerable amount of drugs found in her system. Ativan, Percocet, along with a healthy dose of illegal drugs including cocaine. The amounts of cocaine in her system would have been enough to at least dull the pain, but combined with the amount of Percocet Sandra ingested, it was unlikely that she felt anything at the time of her death. The DNA report from Greg revealed little. Most of the samples taken from the room belonged to the victim with two exceptions. A hair and one of the epithelials that Sara collected were not a match to the victim. They came from the same donor, most likely the suspect since everything else in the room was so clean. Warrick revealed that the rope was standard, buy it at your local Home Depot, polypropylene rope. The only thing of any significance about the rope itself was that the areas that had contact with the victim’s skin had salve on them. Greg was running the tests necessary to determine the brand of salve, but that particular report wasn’t ready. Gil listened with interest as everything was laid out for him. Sara once again explained the eerie alias that the murderer used. When Warrick looked confused at the significance of the room number and the credit card, Sara patiently explained that Jeffrey Dahmer lived in Milwaukee in an apartment numbered 213. “So this guy just pulled a twisted practical joke on us,” Warrick looked close to disgusted. He had processed many scenes, and interviewed an enormous amount of people, but he had never come across anything like this before. “Yeah. Kind of sounds like it,” Sara said. “I really think he’s going to do this again. As far as I can tell, I think his reference to Jeffrey Dahmer was a hint that there would be more than one victim.” Grissom finally spoke up for the first time. “I think you’re right Sara. I’m not sure what exactly he means by referencing Dahmer, since this is absolutely nothing like the crimes Dahmer committed, but you’re right, I think he will be claiming more victims before we get him. Sara, I want you to stay here and get that fiber analysis done, and wait on Greg to give you the mass spec and gas chromatograph. Warrick and I are going to head to a new scene at the Luxor. Nick is out on his own tonight on a hit-and-run.” Sara was reluctant to stay in the lab with Greg, knowing full well he probably wouldn’t shut up about those flowers. I’ll kill Catherine for this, Sara thought silently. On the other hand, going with Grissom to the new scene meant she would be doing the field interviews, and she had just about as much people skills as Grissom. At least at the lab she was in her element. Now if only she could find a way to hide from Greg. Sara gathered the reports up from the middle of the table as Grissom and Warrick headed out. She hardly even noticed that Warrick had hung back and was waiting for her to look up from the table. When she did, she looked at Warrick confused. “Need something Warrick?” Sara asked. It came out a lot cooler than she had intended, but she was pretty sure he didn’t notice. Sara had tried in the past to make more of an effort to be friends with Warrick, she not only wanted to be his friend, but she also knew that he and Catherine were pretty close. Throughout the past couple of years, she had learned that he was a difficult person to get to know. Especially if you recommend that he get fired from his job for not following protocol. “That smile, it suits you.” Warrick said cryptically before he left the conference room. Sara stood at the edge of the table trying to wrap her mind around what Warrick had said. Not so much the words, but the meaning behind them. He seemed to be warming up to Sara finally. Sara headed back into her office to put the reports back on her desk and catch one last look at the flowers sitting on her desk. Sara walked out of her office all smiles. She had Catherine, flowers, and Warrick was actually being friendly. It was going to be a good day. Sara headed into her favorite lab room and sat down at a microscope to analyze the few fibers from the crime scene. Not much time had passed when she heard her cell phone ringing. One look at the caller ID and Sara knew the good day she was having was about to go to shit. “Sidle.” “Sara, it’s Grissom,” Yeah, like I didn’t know that, Sara thought to herself. “Our theory on your killer was right on. Our vic here at the Luxor is his second, and I need you to get to O’Riley at the MGM for his third.” “Wait a minute. He’s accelerating pretty fast. Are you sure that the vic at the MGM is related to this?” Sara was alarmed. It is not common for serial killers to become this active so fast. She was hoping that Grissom was wrong. “O’Riley confirmed it. He was there for the first one, so it’s a pretty safe bet that he’s right. Tell Greg we’ve got priority evidence coming in tonight. If he’s moving this fast, he’ll have made some mistakes and I’m not taking the chance that he’ll move faster.” Sara heard the phone go dead and knew that Grissom was on to something at that hotel room. Sara sealed the evidence up and headed off to the lab to find Greg. She found him hiding under stacks of evidence from other cases. “Greg-o,” Sara said, intentionally changing her voice to reflect cheerfulness she was definitely not feeling. “Sara, I know that tone of voice. You want something from me. You’re going to have to make it worth my while. I’m a bit backed up here.” Greg was smiling broadly at her before ducking his eyes back down to the microscope in front of him. “I need you to check these fibers, run them through the databases and tell me what’s the what. Then I need you to put all this other stuff,” Sara swept her arms across the piles of evidence, “on the back burner. We’ve got priority evidence coming in tonight and we need it taken care of promptly. Oh, and if you get the chance I need the results from the mass spec on that salve.” “I don’t know Sara,” Greg toyed with her, “I’ve got all kinds of people breathing down my neck to get the rest of this done. What makes you more important than them?” Sara knew full well that Greg would do what she asked and she didn’t have time to piss around playing games. “I’m more important for two reasons. One, Grissom will fire your ass if you don’t do what I tell you. This order comes from him, not me. And two, if you’re extra nice and maybe get someone to help, I’ll show you the card that came with the flowers.” Sara knew she had Greg in the palm of her hand, but it was still fun to watch his eyes widen when he figured out what she was saying. “So, you’re saying that if I get your evidence done before these others, then I get to find out who the mystery man is?” Greg looked intrigued, and more than that, Sara could already tell he had taken the bait. “I promise I’ll let you see the card,” Sara knew that the card didn’t have Catherine’s full name on it, only the letter ‘C’, and it would take Greg forever to figure it out, if he ever did. “Oh, and I’m taking some of that vanilla roast coffee with me on the way out.” “Deal.” And Sara was out the door before Greg even got the word out of his mouth. Sara tried not to drive too fast, remembering Catherine mocking her for driving like she was in NASCAR, but she still made it to the MGM in record time. She could feel the adrenaline buzz, not to mention the coffee, running through her veins. She was only a few hours into her shift, but she knew that by the time she was done processing this scene, it would be well past time quitting time. Sara got to the room to find O’Riley and another miscellaneous patrolman at the scene. Sara had once tried to make it a point to remember the officers at the scenes, but soon discovered that there were just way too many of them and they all looked so much alike after a while. “You got something for me?” Sara asked O’Riley. “Déjà vu Sara. Seems like only yesterday were standing outside a similar hotel room.” O’Riley moved to open the hotel door, “Oh wait. It was.” His tone was completely sour. Inside was another ‘tossed’ room. Everything that wasn’t nailed down was strewn across the room and there was yet another awkwardly bound woman on the center of the bed. Sara snapped some pictures of the entrance and lugged her cases into the room. “Anybody move anything?” Sara asked O’Riley as she moved about the room taking more pictures. “No. Neighbors heard something this time, called the front desk. They sent someone up to check it out and he hightailed it out of the room as soon as he saw she wasn’t breathing anymore. Kid’s scared shitless now, probably quit his job by morning. Policy is to call an ambulance, and the EMT’s arrived to find her as she is now. They didn’t touch anything, but I’ve got an officer tracking them down to take a report. I don’t like the idea of two of these popping up in two days.” Sara looked over at O’Riley, who was hovering at the door. She thought for sure Grissom would have told him that the vic at the Luxor matched the MO as well. “Three.” O’Riley looked confused. “Three?” “Yeah. Three. As in three victims in two days. Grissom and Warrick are at the Luxor with Brass on number two. I need you to pull some favors okay?” Sara heard O’Riley cursing under his breath. “Anything.” Sara picked up the nervous tone in his voice and realized that though she didn’t really know O’Riley all that well, she knew enough to figure out that something about this case had him really upset. No cop likes to know that they are facing a serial. “I need some uniforms to do the FI’s here. I’m on my own and I want to get this evidence back to the lab as soon as I can, but I can’t rush the work, I don’t want to make any mistakes. Have the officer at the door check in with the folks that called downstairs. Then have him interview the kid. If you can, I need someone else to interview any hotel staff that came in or out of this room in the past two days. I want to know everything.” “Fuck. Okay. You’ll get everything by the time you leave. Where’s the rest of your crew?” Sara had never heard O’Riley curse out loud before. O’Riley was not looking forward to putting uniforms on the interviews. He knew as well as Sara that people open up more to the CSI’s because they’re not in uniform. They don’t look like the investigators that they are, they look more like everyday people. Some people do not like to be interviewed by cops, it usually makes them shut up fast. Sara watched O’Riley turn away and talk to the officer at the door. O’Riley then went one way, and the officer another. Sara returned to her work in the room, knowing she was in for a long night. **************************************************************** Dont forget the feedback folks. Tell me what you think. js1n2001@y...