CHAPTER 9/?

See Part 1 for disclaimers

Previous parts may be found at fanfiction.net; grissomandsara.com/fanfic and my website: www.oocities.org/missyliannem/csi.html

A/N: This story was written very early Season 3. So any episodes after the first couple are irrelevant to how this story progresses.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sunlight filtered into the living area of Eddie Willows' house, illuminating dust particles floating in the air. Warrick opened the curtains, making good use of the daylight outside, a rarity during most of their investigations.

Warrick made his way methodically around the room. He pulled cushions from the couch and slipped his gloved hands between the grooves, searching for anything that may provide a clue as to Sara and Lindsey's whereabouts. Coins, paperclips and crusted pieces of toast revealed themselves, even a used condom, but nothing more substantial. He flicked through the stacks of magazines, sighing as he realized that this search was going to take time.

"I've got something. Or some things..." Toby was flattening out a wadded ball of paper. Looks like an attempt at a ransom note."

Warrick dropped the cushion back onto the couch and looked over Toby's shoulder at the half crumpled sheet of paper. Toby passed it over to him as he continued to rummage through the waste paper basket for more evidence. Warrick's lips curled in anger as he read Eddie's attempt at the ransom note that he had sent.

"There's more." Toby dangled several more attempts in the air, his black eyes glinting in the sunlight. Some were crushed almost beyond recognition and others torn into pieces.

"Hi, guys. What've you got?" Nick came through the door, pulling on his latex gloves.

"Proof," Warrick said triumphantly. "Looks like Eddie's ransom attempts. Now we need to find out where he's got Sara."

"What do you know about him?" Toby asked the two graveshift CSIs.

"Not a lot." Nick said. "Just that he plays rough. You saw what he did to Catherine and Sara last night. Grissom had banned him from getting into the building after he harassed Catherine a couple of years ago. There was a temp working reception last night and he managed to con his way in."

"I heard that Sara educated him on the correct way to treat women," Toby said with a quick grin, easily imagining Sara sending the man to the floor as the internal grapevine had indicated she had.

"Yeah." Warrick agreed, vividly remembering the scene in the breakroom the night before; Eddie seated on the floor and Sara, her anger obvious to all, her face marred by blood from Eddie's punch. "Although she did catch a punch herself."

"Really?" Toby commented, his face registering surprise.

"Eddie's easily twice Sara's weight and he caught her by surprise."

"Even so, Sara's trained in weaponless defense."

"How'd you know that?" Nick was curious. Although Sara didn't hide the fact, she didn't really announce her skills to one and all.

"She teaches a self defense class run at the local YWCA," Toby told them, frowning.

"She does?"

"Yeah. For a couple of years. She does it as a volunteer. Didn't you know?" Toby was surprised by their lack of knowledge of this part of her life. As far as he knew it wasn't a secret, but obviously, Sara kept things about her private life quiet. It made him wonder what else Sara hadn't told them.

"How did you know?"

"My sister-in-law . She attended the classes after her house was burgled."

Nick and Warrick exchanged looks. Neither knew about this part of Sara's life. Thinking it through, they realised how little they knew about Sara apart from her work. She would come to breakfast with them if she wasn't working late. Occasionally, when they were discussing a movie they'd seen, she'd jump into the conversation, giving her own views on the film. Both of them made a silent pact that when they found Sara, they would make a point of getting to know her outside work hours.

"Let's get to work. We've only got the proof here. We need to find where he's got Sara." Warrick headed back over to where he had stopped searching to look at Toby's find. Looking back over his shoulder at his colleague, he asked, "Did you get any info at the shoe store?"

"Archie's working on the computer at the moment," Nick informed him. "Mattie, the guy who ran the store, isn't giving up any info. He's protecting his ass."

"Probably wise from his point of view."

"Nothing on the other kidnappers at all?" asked Toby.

"Not at this stage." Nick turned to Warrick. "Where do you want me to start?"

"Try the bedroom. Hopefully he left more clues around this place."

"With what he left in the trash, let's keep hoping." Before he walked down the hallway Nick asked, "Did Catherine come up with any names?"

"Brass's checking out the names and places she came up with, but she didn't keep up with his day to day comings and goings."

"If I was Catherine, I wouldn't have either. How's she holding up?"

"She's stretched thin. She's also worried about Sara."

"Sara can handle herself. Tricia was in awe of what she could do," Toby said confidently.

"That's fine in a normal situation. But we know that she was injured at the house," Warrick pointed out. "What if she can't defend herself?"

The words hung in the air, dampening an already somber team of CSIs.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sara felt herself falling, the ground no longer solid beneath her feet. She twisted in the air, unable to see, heavy blackness grabbing at her in every direction, pulling her down into a seemingly bottomless pit. Terror filled her and she wanted to scream, but somehow her fear pushed that ability away. The end of the fall came with the crashing halt of reality. Blinking in the darkness, Sara realised that she had almost fallen asleep at the top of the stairs.

She shivered and pulled her bent legs closer to her body, draping her tied hands over the knees. The air in the room had become cooler, but was still musty and thick. She wondered how much time had passed since she had been abducted. Time was impossible to predict without the markers of day and night. Unable to correlate events cohesively, it made the whole event seem surreal. She wished that it could be a simple nightmare from which she would wake and be none the worse for wear other than being tired. The pain from her injuries proved the reality of her situation.

In her earlier exploration of the room, Sara had been unable to discover any escape routes. She vaguely noticed that the rumble of the air-conditioner had ceased. She was grateful; the pulsating sound had aggravated the increasing vice-like pressure inside her head. Idly, Sara wondered if it had overheated and would require maintenance. She rested her head lightly on her knees, her eyes becoming heavy.

A stampede of tiny feet scampering over the newspaper on the concrete floor brought her back to awareness. "Rats," Sara thought to herself, hugging her legs closer to her body, away from the hungry scavengers. Her arms and legs were unsteady, quivering like a bowl of jello. She was glad that she was at the top of the stairs, denying herself the thought that rats could easily climb them.

The chittering sound increased as did the pitter-patter of the sharp claws on the concrete surface. It sent shivers up her spine. They were obviously scurrying around, enjoying some tasty morsel. Sara was grateful that whatever they had found was keeping them down there, away from her. She had witnessed first hand the devastating damage the rodents' sharp teeth gnawing on human flesh could cause. Sara tiredly rested her head on her knees, her eyelids drooping groggily.

Moments later her head shot up suddenly. It dawned on her as to what the rats might have found as the source of their next meal. She forced herself to her feet, swaying unsteadily, taking each step tentatively as she progressed down the stairs, murmuring to herself that she was doing this for Lindsey and Catherine.

Reaching the bottom, she stomped her feet loudly, trying to scare the rodents away. She knew that they were persistent creatures and it wouldn't be long before they realised that she wasn't much of a threat, although she could be another food source. Sara gingerly moved forward, her feet slapping heavily on the concrete floor to scatter the scavengers as she tried to locate Eddie's unconscious form in the darkness.

The pitter-patter of little feet scurrying over the discarded newspaper sheets sent a shiver up her spine. Never again would she think that bugs doing what came naturally on a dead body were gross. The thought of a person being eaten while still living set her stomach roiling. Sara recalled her short search of the surroundings earlier, before Eddie had arrived. She hadn't discovered a single item that would be worthy of holding off the horde of hungry rodents.

Her slow shuffle forward stumbled against Eddie's body. Sara bent down to try and bring him back to consciousness. She knew that the sickening sound of him connecting with the concrete floor would have rendered him unconscious, but she hoped to wake him enough that he could help her save him from becoming the entree for the local four-legged tribe.

Her fingers found his face and she tapped him lightly, calling out his name. He didn't respond. Sara ran her bound hands over his head, doing a quick check for injuries. Her fingers found more than what she bargained for. Bile rose in her throat as she realised that she'd killed the man.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The search of Eddie's house was progressing slowly. Discarded rubbish filled many surfaces; Warrick thought that Catherine should ban Lindsey from ever staying at the place. It was a health hazard. Eddie's computer had been hauled away to the lab for computer technicians to deal with and hopefully find some further incriminating evidence.

They hadn't found much else around the place that might give a clue as to where he might have taken Sara.

"Warrick, Eddie was into making record deals, right?" Nick questioned.

"Yeah. I don't think he was that great at it or he would have been making more dough."

"Wouldn't he have contacts with places to make those deals, you know, like studios..."

"Yeah... yeah, he would." Warrick confirmed, thinking for a moment. His train of thought was interrupted by his cell phone ringing. "Hello. Warrick Brown."

Nick could only hear one side of the conversation and deduced that it was the motor dealership. "Good news?"

"Not bad. Only two cars have been fitted with the make and size of the tire we're seeking. I'll get Greg to run a DMV search on the ownership of the two vehicles and see what we come up with." Warrick informed him as he was dialing the number for the zealous CSI DNA technician.

"Greg, got something for you to do, man." Warrick jumped in with before the young man answering the phone had a chance to say anything but his name. Greg had obviously been sitting by the phone willing it to ring with news. "I need to you to do a DMV search on these two cars." Warrick reeled off the registration numbers and waited until they had been read clearly before continuing, "If you run into any problems, get Catherine to give you a hand."

"You're not going to run with it yourself?" Nick asked, surprised.

"No. What you said earlier has reminded me of something. Matchbooks." Warrick pursed his lips as he mentally ran through the search he'd conducted so far. Nick followed his colleague and watched him, his brows knitted in confusion. Warrick traced back his steps to the lounge and began sifting through the rubbish on the floor beside the lounge suite. The small, flip back matchbook had slipped past his notice, he hadn't thought of the significance of the item until now.

"What's the common thing people pick up when they're a regular at a casino?"

"Matchbooks."

"There are several in this room. I saw them and didn't give them a second thought until now." Warrick was still hunting the room and coming up with more of the matchbooks. "Four from the Golden Egg and two from Caesers. What's the bet that the IOUs that Lindsey was taken because of his gambling at one of these two?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Greg slid into the ergonomic seat, his notepad close at hand with the two registration numbers diligently written down in precise penmanship. His job required pinpoint accuracy and this had carried through into his writing. It was useless to have accurate work if no one was able to decipher the results.

He logged onto the DMV secure website for searches by authorised personnel. It didn't take him long to find the owners of the two vehicles, one of which was a corporation. A gnawing in his gut told him that the corporation was the one that they were looking for. He logged on to the SEC website and conducted a search, knowing that any publicly held company would have to file documents outline its ownership structure with that agency. Within a few minutes, he had printed out the precise details including a list of its directorships and major shareholders. After a few more quick searches, he came up with a name that tied in with his earlier DNA discovery.

Greg pulled all the printouts neatly together and placed them into a folder. He wondered whom he should go to with all the information. As he was passing the AV lab, he caught sight of the strawberry-blonde CSI seated beside Archie and within moments knew that this tied in with the news she had just heard on the voice over played for her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Walking dejectedly down the hallway, Catherine had decided to make her way back to her sister's house. Maybe Lindsey would call again. At least someone would be there to hold her hand as she waited. The hallways in the CSI building were vacant; everybody working overtime trying to come up with answers to find her daughter and Sara. Time was running out. A scream pierced the air as she passed by the AV lab. It was a familiar sound, one that she'd heard plenty of times before.

Catherine tried to ignore it, walk by and leave the sound behind. But she couldn't. She knew the sound would haunt her on the drive to Jennifer's house and during the time she spent there. It was hard to deny the fact that even if she did walk out now, it would only be a matter of time before she would return to hear the evidence for herself. She may as well save herself time.

"Is that the 911 tape?"

"Catherine? It's evidence," Archie's voice held a note of warning.

"Play it back for me."

"You know I can't do that. You're not on the case."

"I may be able to identify a voice, help in some way."

"You will also be contaminating the evidence."

"Who will know, but you and me?" Catherine questioned quietly, sliding into the chair beside him. She leaned forward towards him and continued, "Look, it's not as if it's going to greatly affect the outcome at this stage. You've heard it. Is there anything on there that you think can help?"

Archie reluctantly shook his head. If Grissom or the defense team caught wind of this Catherine's involvement could end up freeing the kidnappers he and everyone else in the lab were now working so hard to catch.

"There may be something on there that I recognise." Catherine didn't know why she was pushing to hear the tape. Archie had already admitted the tape held nothing of significance, but in her gut, she knew she needed to hear it for herself.

"Voices. Several of them." Archie had his hand poised over the keyboard, ready to play the sound sequence again and then, with a look of gentle concern, turned to Catherine. "Be warned. You can hear both Sara and Lindsey in the recording."

Catherine took a deep breath and slowly released it. "Okay. I'm ready." As ready as she'd ever be to hear the replay of her daughter's kidnapping and an attack on her colleague.

They listened to the tape, the sounds sometimes indistinct and at other times, crystal clear and leaving little to the imagination. Catherine put her hand over her mouth when her daughter's scream filled the air again before it all went silent. She didn't realise that tears were flowing until she felt a hand cover her own.

"Grissom'll find her." Archie told her sincerely.

"Catherine..." Greg's voice interrupted them from the doorway.

Quickly wiping at her eyes, Catherine looked up at younger man. "What is it, Greg?" She asked, tiredly.

"The motor dealership rang with details of the registration numbers of the two cars that had been fitted with the tires. It was when I did the company search that it showed up. You might be interested to see this."

Catherine snatched the proffered paperwork from his hand, scanning the contents quickly. It didn't take her long to find the details that Greg was alluding to. It was all there in fine print. Handing the paperwork back to him, she raced out the door.

Both Archie and Greg were startled by the abrupt change. "Catherine, where are you going?" they both called out, but the words failed to register with the departing woman. She was on a mission to find her daughter.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

End Chapter 9/?