Chapter One: What Did You Do?
Jim Brass sat down and faced the prisoner. Some prisoners looked at their hands or the table, while others looked at a spot that was anywhere but Jim's eyes. This one looked him in the eyes. "So, what's your story?" he asked.
People wanted to talk. Some of them demanded to talk. This guy was a talker. Another man was going to receive the ultimate and irrefutable credit for his crime, and Willis Hopsteader would not stand for that.
Hopsteader leaned forward. His teeth were yellowed, as were his fingertips, and his voice was raspy. His rap sheet was long and the only gaps in it were easily explained by his incarcerations. The man's breath stank.
"I'd watched the guy and his family for about a week before I decided to do them," Hopsteader stated. He grinned, exposing almost every tooth in his head, before licking his cracked lips.
Hopsteader had transformed himself during his last trip to prison. He'd dropped close to forty pounds, cut his long blond hair down to a buzz that made what was left look like a halo, and added two pitchfork designs tattooed onto his bulging biceps.
"What made them your targets?" Jim asked, knowing the man wanted to explain this part. He was proud of what he'd done. "Why did you single them out?"
Hopsteader tried another super wide grin. "They chose themselves," he answered.
Jim waited. There was an air in the small room now. An air that could escape if he spoke too often.
"You could see he was beating her and slapping the kid around. They both were alone with other people during the week, but neither of them tried to save themselves. This is Texas, if a battered and bruised woman came to you for help, you'd do it no matter how big her man was. They didn't ask for help.
"You could hear her begging for the boy, but never for herself," Hopsteader stated. "They'd given up. They weren't going to save themselves, so I decided to end it for them all." Hopsteader ran his left arm under his nose, spreading a yellow-green lumpy mucus along it.
"I followed him to the bar, even bought him a couple of rounds, and watched him get so drunk it was amazing he could find his car, let alone drive it." Hopsteader gave a sharp, barking laugh that was cut off by a snort. "Following him home was like playing one of those 3-D driving games."
"Why was that the night?" Brass inquired.
Hopsteader shrugged. "It was the first night after I'd decided to do it. I knew what was going to happen. He'd come stumbling in the house and started yelling about how hard he worked and how he had to come home to a cold dinner." He snickered. "Like she could keep a meal warm when she had no idea when he was coming home."
"Go on," Jim prompted when the other man had lapsed into silence. It was important to get as many details of the purported crime as possible.
"He beat them, starting with the kid, and then switched back to her when she started begging for the child. The boy locked himself in his room, but it was one of those locks you could push a pin in the hole and open." Hopsteader gave Jim another grin. "He was too drunk to do that, but I wasn't."
Hopsteader stopped looking at Jim and looked at Generator instead. Brass had nearly spit his gum when Taylor had arrived at the trucks that afternoon after heading home for some clothes. Generator was a "soft man", as Brass liked to call them. A gay man, comfortable and strangely attractive, in his makeup and stunning in a gown. Now he looked like a young black male professional with a suit, slicked back hair, and glasses. Taylor called it his "butch drag" for court appearances and less than friendly areas.
"Lawyer?" Hopsteader asked.
"Criminologist," Taylor answered. "They call me in for the highest profile, most dangerous, and most heinous crimes." The deep voice was soothing and working on Hopsteader.
Hopsteader gave Generator a small smile and his stare was intense. Most people would look away from such a stare but Taylor had been staring back most of his life. "Good. People need to know."
"And they will," Taylor assured the man. He pushed his glasses back up his nose. They were a prop as Taylor had perfect sight. "How did you get in the house?"
"He left the door from the carport to the kitchen open," Hopsteader answered. "It was an invitation."
Jim was shivering on the inside but he didn't let that interfere with his concentration. This man was cold, truly cold, without a hint of warmth to him. Normally Jim would have asked for Warrick to do the interview, but Gil felt that two smaller men would make their suspect feel more in command and therefore more eager to talk. Gil believed that his own presence, complete with grey hair and beard, would be too authoritarian for their relatively young suspect. Gil had been right. Hopsteader was talking. He couldn't stop talking.
Brass listened as Hopsteader almost lovingly described killing Melissa and Brian and how easily their deaths had come. He was even able to tell them that one of Brian's pupils was permanently enlarged from his frequent beatings.
Generator questioned Hopsteader intimately about the killings, getting even more details. Brass also noted that while the younger man appeared to be utterly fascinated by Hopsteader's crimes, he was actually trying to trip up the man.
Hopsteader may have retold his story as if he were the star of some action movie, he told it convincingly. They moved on to his other confessions.
By the time Hopsteader was taken away, Brass realized he had never before wanted to empty his gun into someone so badly. As Generator bent over the nearest trash can and purged his stomach, Jim wanted to skip the gun and go straight forward with a long strangle.
"I'm okay," Generator promised. He wiped his mouth with a moist towelette and popped a dissolving tab of Listerine. "And they say true evil does not exist."
"Oh, it exists all right," Jim assured the younger man. "Sometimes it wears a prison jumpsuit and sometimes it has on a business suit, but it exists." They rejoined the team in the "war room".
"My gut tells me this bastard did kill those people," Jim reported to the team.
"He wore a butcher's apron and shoulder-high gloves," Generator added. "He knew details of the house he couldn't have gotten from the trial photos and physical things about both the mother and the son."
"There was one definitely strange twist to this tale," Jim added as he took a seat at the table. "Hopsteader stated that he raped Joe Wilcox to make sure he was out for the night."
Chris McKenzie, who would have barely fit in the interrogation room and therefore was banned from sitting with Hopsteader, held up a finger before searching for something on his laptop. Brass had learned that this was his "I remember something, give me a second" signal.
"During his physical examination, semen was found in Wilcox's rectum. It was typed and stored after checking it against prison staff as Wilcox had denied consensual intercourse." Chris typed furiously. "If we can match that semen to Hopsteader, then --"
"We could just as easily prove that Hopsteader and Wilcox were lovers and Hopsteader got rid of the wife and kid to clear the way for himself and now feels guilty for letting his lover fry," Margolis suggested. "It's just not good enough."
Brass loved Margolis's mind. She could always see how some bit of evidence could be twisted.
"It will prove he was there," McKenzie finished. "That could make him an accomplice."
"You take care of the lab work, Generator. Warrick, I need you to follow up on the police reports on who was in the bar that night," Grissom ordered. "Chris, check the bar's receipts and see if we can prove that Hopsteader bought drinks that night. Texas Highway Patrol found Hopsteader's van right where he said he'd hidden it. I'd like Nick, Chloe, and Bo to crawl that van from tires to roof. Don't be afraid to break out the crazy ideas, everyone. This evidence is over ten years old." Gil's phone rang, interrupting him. "Excuse me."
"Chris, run me off some of Hopsteader's old mug shots," Warrick requested. "The current ones won't do us any good."
"What's wrong, Aunt Selene?" Gil asked. "Yes, we've bought a house, but there's not a stick of furniture in it and we don't close on it until Monday." He stood up to walk to a more private part of the room, then sat down when he realized they were in there "cheek-to-jowl" as Generator had put it. "You know we'd all love to see you, Aunt Selene, but we don't have anywhere for you to stay." Gil smiled apologetically at the team. "Oh, that's very nice of Elaine. Yes, Nick's parents are dears but I wouldn't dream of dragging them back to Arkansas to--" His shoulders slumped. "When did all of this get decided?" he asked. He sighed. "Okay, we'll see you when we return to Arkansas." Gil closed the phone.
"What's the matter?" Generator asked.
"My mother and my aunt are coming to see the house and help. Nick's parents have agreed to meet them and so has Ruth. Elaine is putting them all up," Gil reported. "They're closing in from all sides."
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The problem with data collecting is that if you kept it all, eventually you would drown in it. That said, Chris was still cursing the fates as his ten-year-old case was thwarted again and again by the seven-year delete cycle for electronic records. That was why he was sitting in a tiny office with a mound of paper sales slips the bar owner had been using to plug a hole in the wall.
Generator, practically the only person on the team who could fit in the room with Chris and the sales slips, eased in. "You have been going at this non-stop for six hours, man. If Elaine finds out that I've let you run yourself down, she will never send me a big hunk of a man for a roommate again."
Chris snorted. When he'd arrived in Silver Lakes, Generator had been quick to give him and his dogs a home until Chris could find something permanent. McKenzie had loved Generator's beautiful lakeside home, but it wasn't his, so he'd found his own perfect place.
"How are you doing?" Generator asked.
"They are in no particular order," Chris reported.
Generator sat down and began methodically ordering the slips. "Go and eat," he insisted.
Chris was easily a foot taller and over one hundred pounds heavier than the other man, but he knew when to back down. "Okay," he agreed.
Nick had relatives in the area and they'd shown up with mounds of food and drink to keep the team from dying from hunger and thirst. Mostly they wanted to know about the new house.
"Do you have room for a nice vegetable garden?" an older female relative asked.
"Oh yes," Nick agreed. "You could tell someone had already tended one there before it was left to run to ruin. Plus we have all of these roses to look after." He flicked through some photos on his phone and passed it over to the older female relative. "You can see quite a few of them are heirlooms."
An older male relative snatched the phone after the older female relative had looked at it for most of a minute. "You need some muscadines and I'll spot you some of my heirloom tomatoes in exchange for two of those almost orange roses," he declared.
"We have nothing to stake muscadines against," Nick protested, "though I would love some. We'd have to build some T-bars and that takes wood and time. Neither of which I have."
"Hell, I'd get Sam and his boys to do that for you," the older male relative insisted. "'Bout time I got some work out of them, other than waiting for me to die."
"They can wait, Ernest. I intend to spend all of your money before I die," the older female relative insisted.
"Oh, Chris, let me introduce you around," Nick said after he'd noticed McKenzie.
The older couple turned out to be Nick's maternal grandmother's sister and brother-in-law, Edith and Ernest Hutchins. They owned a Tex-Mex restaurant in town and seemed to think Chris was on his last legs.
Stuffed and nearly in a stupor, Chris returned to his little room and his big task. Generator had four hits for their target night, but none of them belonged to Hopsteader. McKenzie was instantly convinced they were close and concentrated on the paper bag that had yielded the earlier hits.
An hour later, Chris was holding the Hopsteader receipt. As he held it, he could see the two men in the bar. Hopsteader was dripping malice but he was also buying. The booze was all Wilcox could see.
Chris couldn't just see the bar, he could hear it and smell it. The faces were as clear and real as Generator had been just seconds before.
Hopsteader followed Wilcox out of the bar and back to his home. The zigzag, curb-hopping, stop sign running drive to the house went in fast motion. It made Chris dizzy.
Wilcox arrived home, leaving the side door not only unlocked but open. He kicked at the dog, threw his cold supper into the trash, and beat his wife and kid. The son locked himself into his room while the wife ran interference for him with her own face. Chris couldn't believe that even a professional boxer could take that kind of punishment.
McKenzie didn't want to see the rest, but he couldn't release the receipt and the receipt was keeping him in this vision.
Hopsteader slipped into the house, dressed to turn the house into an abattoir
"I've got you, Chris," Generator whispered. The scene split as if it had been a picture in a magazine.
"Generator?" Chris asked, still a little confused.
"Yes, you're back now." Generator lifted the phone back to the side of his face. "It worked, Tom. What do I need to watch for?" He frowned in concentration while casually rubbing Chris's head.
Strange as it sounds, McKenzie took great comfort from the feel of the other man's hand. He could also... sense, for lack of a better word, Generator's affection for him and the other man's concern.
"Okay, Tom. Thanks for your help." Generator quickly closed his cell phone. "That was a bit frightening."
"I was holding the receipt and..." Chris trailed off, afraid to tell this man of science what had happened.
"It transported you back to that night," Generator finished. "Tom called me before I left my house and he told me to watch you for any signs of psychic activity. Apparently he thought you were vulnerable." He waved his fingers in the classic "other worldly" motion. "It seems that the Spook Patrol is right again." He sighed, but kept up his rubbing of Chris's head. "You know they'll never let us forget they were right."
"I can live with that," Chris promised.
Generator pulled back his hand just in time for Warrick to open the door. He looked at the tight squeeze and decided he didn't want to come in. "Any luck?" he asked.
"We found Hopsteader's credit card receipt," Chris reported. "Just in time to enter it into evidence and get some sleep," Chris responded.
"You did better than me," Warrick lamented. "Apparently being a booze hound is a dangerous job. Every name has led to a headstone. It's making me rethink my occasional beer."
"You could make a PSA from that statement." Chris made it to his feet and exited the room. He was starved. The Stokes family feast was long gone and Chris seriously didn't think he could make it to a drive-through.
Generator pressed one of his granola bars into Chris's hand and guided him, with Warrick's help, to the truck.
"Low blood sugar?" Warrick asked as he helped Chris into the truck.
"Something like that," Chris answered. He kept waiting for Generator to tell Brown what had happened, but the smaller man kept quiet and drove the three of them back to the hotel.
Chris was stripped down by Bo, Nick, and Warrick and they put him into the shower. Generator managed to find a protein-heavy meal that Chris was able to finish without licking the plate.
"Warrick, go back to the bar owner. There is someone he forgot who is still alive." Chris sketched a man's face onto his last napkin. "This guy was like the furniture, always there and more background than center stage." McKenzie pressed the napkin into Warrick's hands. "Show this to the owner and he'll remember this guy."
"Thanks, Jade," Warrick said softly. He stared at the napkin. "When did you start being able to draw this well?"
"Inspired," Chris responded.
He didn't recall making it to the bed, but since he woke up in it, Chris knew the mattress hadn't managed to slip under him. The rest of the team was gone and Generator had left him a note that said to take it easy. Chris couldn't take it easy.
"Something is wrong," he said to the walls.
. . . .
His target was bent over some broken glass and picking through it with tweezers. If the coroner and the two cops would just leave her alone for a minute or two, she would be his.
No such luck.
She placed the glass shards in an envelope, labeled it, and accepted an unneeded hand up from the coroner. She left minutes later.
Maybe he could follow her home this night. Maybe he could grab her from her own home. That would be so sweet. But it wasn't to be. She left the crime lab with two other employees and went to an AA meeting. She left the meeting with the same two employees and went to their home. He had no idea when she'd gone home, but he must have been asleep when she did it. He would have to wait another night to capture his slender pigeon.
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"That's Teddy," the bar owner, Stuart Carter, announced after looking at the photocopy of the napkin Chris had given Warrick the night before. "I'd forgotten about him. He was one of those artists. He'd come in, buy a cup of coffee, and sketch scenes for most of the night." Carter shook his head. "I'd forgotten about Teddy because he wasn't part of the regular crowd. He was more of what you would call an observer."
"Have you observed him lately," Margolis asked.
"You know, it's funny, but I did," Carter responded. Warrick may as well have been in the truck because the man only had eyes for Chloe. "My daughter dragged me to see some art show her boyfriend was a part of and Teddy was one of the artists. It was at Soho West downtown."
That had led them to the gallery and Edward "Teddy" Finklestein. Teddy had packed on some weight, but you could easily recognize him as the man rendered in the sketch.
"How could I forget that night?" Teddy asked. "It isn't every day that you sketch a killer."
"You sketched Wilcox?" Warrick asked. Now it was Chloe who was being ignored. Teddy kept licking his lips at Warrick and Brown kept right on ignoring it.
Chloe knew the man was more observant than that, but it was like it was not happening at all as far as Warrick was concerned.
"I put that sketch pad away and never used another sheet from it," Finklestein answered. "I can't believe that I looked into the eyes of madness and did not recognize it."
"Do you still have that sketch pad?" Warrick asked hopefully.
"It's in storage at home," Finklestein explained. "You could come over and get it."
"We'll follow you," Chloe said as she stepped between the two men. Nick would bury her in his backyard if she let another man huff and puff over his territory. Grissom could be reasoned with, but only from a safe distance. Distance wouldn't save you from the fury of Nick. The man had forty million relatives and you never knew when one was standing by you.
Teddy lived on a farm and his studio was the barn. It was the nicest barn Chloe had ever seen. The place was so organized that Finklestein had the sketch pad in question within minutes.
"Why weren't you on the witness list?" Margolis inquired.
"I don't know," Finklestein responded. "I gave the detective my name, but I guess I was too gay for the Texas lawman to take seriously." He flipped to the sketches he'd drawn that night. Hopsteader figured prominently in all but two of them.
"Now those were the eyes of madness," the artist recalled as he tapped the close up of Hopsteader watching Wilcox. "I actually placed pitchforks in as his pupils but erased it later. The next day they arrested Wilcox and I put this away. Except to move, I haven't touched it since."
"Mister Finklestein, we'll need to borrow this. It will be returned," Warrick promised.
"Will you be bringing it back?" Finklestein asked hopefully.
"No, Sir," Warrick answered. "A member of the local sheriff's office will bring it back."
Finklestein looked so very disappointed. "Oh well," he sighed.
. . . .
Gil looked at the handmade greeting cards that had been carefully arranged on a board. Each card was written by the same hand, with a date that matched a multiple murder, and they were all decorated by a curl of hair tied back with a ribbon.
"The ribbon on card number one matches the gown Melissa Wilcox was wearing and the hair matches her color. Card number two matches the hair color and the bedspread of Erin Tulley. Number three matches the sweatshirt Bonnie James was wearing, the hair could have been from one of her wigs. According to the police report, she even slept in her wig once the chemo took her hair." Nick paused. "I'm still working on numbers four through seven."
"How much time passed between each of these crimes?" Grissom asked.
"Two years exactly between Wilcox and Tulley, one year three months between Tulley and James, and only nine months between James and Foster. The rest happened within a three-month stretch. So far, I've matched Hopsteader's jail terms with the gaps." Nick pointed at card six. "All of the bedding and the bedclothes were missing from the Renault scene, but the ribbon matches the relatives' description of the bedding in the master bedroom. The hair must come from the daughter, as she was the only redhead in a family of blondes."
Seven cards, seven murder scenes, and Hopsteader had never been so much as questioned in any of them. Now Wilcox was three days away from being executed for the murder of his family. While no one in their right mind would call the man innocent, he may have been not guilty of the murders. It made you lose faith in the process of justice.
"Generator, pull DNA from each of the hair samples and Nick I need a materials and trace off the cards and the ribbons," Grissom ordered. "Any word from Brown and Margolis?"
"They have the sketches and a signed statement from the artist," Nick related. "They're driving back even as we speak."
"With a quick stop at your parents' place for a meal," Generator teased.
"Guys, you don't want to know about the backlash if they don't stop and place their feet under my parents' table," Nick warned.
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"Rick, tell this female that she is totally wrong," Nick's sister, Angela, demanded.
Patricia, yet another sister, made a gesture that Warrick did not get. "Angie, you are begging for a beating," she threatened.
"Ladies, you have confused me with Nick," Warrick informed the feuding sisters. "I can't believe this is the kind of crap you come running to Nick about." He looked to Nick's parents, Roger and Jillian, for support, but they were captivated by the latest pictures of some grandchild who lived only two miles away.
Warrick turned back to the sisters. "Ladies, let me lay down the law here. You have got to stop calling in the middle of the night to get Nick to referee a fight that shouldn't even be happening in the first damn place. If someone has drawn blood, then fine, otherwise..." he let the sentence trail. "The five of you are about to worry my man's magnificent hairline away."
Roger guffawed and Jillian shushed him.
"You grew up in this big ass house, but I sure didn't. My studio over the garage is bigger than any home I've ever lived in. Not only have I saddled myself with a mortgage, when I had sworn them off for all time, I've decided to move into a landmark property." Warrick rubbed his forehead. "I'm in over my head and I can't have you distracting my lifeguard."
"What about Gil?" Patricia, sometimes known as Pattycake, asked.
"Gil would turn the house into a sleek and modern frame for his insect collection," Warrick assured them. "Do you really want that to happen to that beautiful old home?"
"No," the sisters answered simultaneously.
"Good," Warrick responded. "Now I need all five of you to apologize to Nick and think of something you could do to make his life easier and not harder."
"Are you demanding presents?" Angela asked suspiciously.
"Hardly," Warrick snorted. "You've got money and people to buy presents for you. I'm asking for something much more difficult. I want you to put Nick first and think of him."
Jillian gave him a "thumbs up" sign and then hid her hands. Apparently they never interfered in a sibling spat.
The two sisters went off in a sulky snit. Grams would have put both of them over her knee.
"I'm so glad Nick has you, Warrick," Roger informed him once the sisters had left the room. "You're going to do him a lot of good."
"He's done me a world of good," Warrick assured the older man.
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Joe Wilcox got a stay of execution issued by the governor. By the time the press was informed, the Silver Lakes team was over two hundred miles away.
Chapter Two: Who Do You Know?
Warrick had been dreaming about his comfortable bed for the six-hour drive back to Silver Lakes, the two hours it took to check in all of their equipment and store their evidence, and the twenty-minute drive from the labs back to the Rayburn estate and their temporary cottage. Of course he was glad to see his Grams, his uncles, his aunts, and all nine of his cousins, but he was tired.
Gil was excused with only a quick round of hugs, but Nick, who must have had a hidden battery pack, piled right into the crowd. He pretty much convinced Warrick that the family loved Nick more. Warrick settled on the couch in Elaine's family room and listened as Nick tormented the crowd with a dish-by-dish accounting of their three nights of Tex-Mex feasting.
Warrick was drifting off when he saw Nick tense up.
"What happened?" Nick asked.
"I invited her in," Grams answered.
"Who?" Warrick demanded.
"Sara," Grams answered. "Were you asleep?" she asked. "Sara stopped by and we had a nice long talk." She shook her head. "The child has issues."
Warrick, who had suffered through one of the woman's issues, could only agree.
"What happened?" Nick asked, his concern showing.
"It went well and I invited her back if she wanted to talk again," Grams reported. She looked hard at Warrick. "Off to bed with you, young man," Ruth ordered.
Warrick eased to his feet, kissed his Grams, and tugged Nick away with him.
Upon his arrival in the cottage, Warrick was stripped and moved into the shower by Nick. The other man may have had ideas, but by the time Gil was toweling the two of them down, Brown could barely keep his eyes open. For once, he was placed in the center of the bed and snuggled on either side by his guys. It felt good. It felt safe. Warrick may have been asleep before the last light was turned off.
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Chris nearly drove past the driveway but he knew he would not be able to rest unless he spoke to the Spook Patrol, a.k.a. Tom Chang and Brett Stephens.
The gates were open, but in this neighborhood closed gates were more uncommon than open ones. Chris drove up to the house and parked amongst several other vehicles, including the hottest looking racing motorcycle he'd ever seen in person. He'd had no idea that Ducati made a hybrid. Great, he'd rolled up when the two men were having a party and he was going to gatecrash.
The front door opened before Chris could get back into his car and leave or ring the doorbell. Both options were still open. Damien Coleman, multimedia mogul, stood in the doorway.
"It's a long story, but consider me kin to both Brett and Tom," the man stated as he stepped aside for Chris. It took a big door to fit them both. Coleman was only a hair shorter than Chris and while the other man was very muscular, he was still forty pounds lighter than McKenzie. Damien checked his watch. "Damn, did you linger outside? You missed my bet by a measly five minutes."
"Bet?" Chris inquired as he followed Damien to the library.
"We placed five dollar bets on when you would arrive in ten-minute increments. You missed my slot," Damien explained. "Who had 8:30?" he asked, though Chris believed the man already knew the answer.
"Yahtzee," a young man, who Chris remembered from the Grissom birthday extravaganza, called out. "Pay up," he commanded. "I'm broke."
Brett pushed a glass bowl, filled with fives, ones, and the occasional ten, toward Paulo. That's right, the younger man's name was Paulo Hernandez, he was a designer or studying to be one, and he'd made the infamous Sherry Holt red dress.
The dress had belonged to Lillian Johnson, wife of Rashid, and she had lent it to the actress. Photos of Holt wearing the dress had been everywhere. It had marked a Sherry Holt renaissance. Everyone attached to the movie she had filmed in Silver Lakes hoped those good feelings and excitement would continue when the film was released in late summer.
"Have a seat, Chris," Tom said as he placed a cup of exotic-smelling tea on the table. "I don't know if you've met everyone, so let me put faces and names together for you. You'll be working with everyone from now on." He waited for McKenzie to sit down. "We have, in order, Vivian Chang, Brett Stephens, Lillian Johnson, Helen Banks, Rashid Johnson, Erica Porter-Gauthier, Marvin Banks, Barry Winthrop, Paulo Hernandez, Damien Coleman, Laurel Stone, Veronica Jagger, Angelina Cortez, and Clyde Winthrop."
"Hello, everyone," Chris greeted inadequately. How could he explain his presence to these people or would he need to? McKenzie sipped his tea.
"How long were you caught in your vision?" Marvin Banks asked softly. He was an older African-America with a kind face and gentle eyes. There was power behind those eyes but a kind of protective power. If Tom had told the man about Chris's vision, then that meant Tom vouched for the man and everyone else at the table.
"Eleven minutes, four seconds," Chris answered and instantly knew it to be precise. Until that moment, Chris hadn't thought about how much time had passed, but he knew the answer was correct.
"Any adverse effects?" Vivian Chang asked. She was a stunning Chinese-American with a calm, intelligent face and intense almost black eyes.
"I was fatigued and starving," Chris reported, "even though I'd eaten a very large meal not an hour before."
"That big meal saved you," Erica Porter-Gauthier assured him. She was an older Caucasian woman of European descent with mostly black hair and gorgeous blue eyes. If she was this beautiful well into her sixties, she must have stopped traffic and the rain when she was younger.
"What did you learn from your vision?" Helen Banks asked. Banks was an older African-American, whose statuesque beauty reminded McKenzie of LaVern Baker and Lena Horne.
"She's taken, little boy," Marvin Banks informed him.
Several people laughed but Chris wasn't stupid enough not to take the older man seriously. "Yes, sir."
"I'm free," Erica teased.
"I'm expensive," Chris countered. "I've recently fallen under the spell of my dream home."
"I like expensive," Erica promised.
"Kid, you're going to need about twenty more years of experience to handle that woman," Marvin warned Chris. Erica gave the man a warning glance.
"Back on subject," Veronica Jagger interrupted. Jagger was a very tall Scandinavian beauty with blonde-streaked light brown hair and blue-green eyes. He'd seen her at a few police functions as she was dating the captain of the Major Crime Unit. She was also the president of Hellstrom Industries.
"I can't discuss the details of an active case," Chris explained, "but I was able to assist in identifying a witness who had not been interviewed before. During the vision, I could see, hear, and smell everything."
"Could you understand what the people were thinking?" Vivian asked.
Chris shook his head. "No. I could only hear what they were saying and read their body language." He sipped his tea.
"Chris, you have to be trained to use your abilities or they will control you right into madness," Brett asserted.
Chris cocked an eyebrow and tried to come up with a polite way to say "bullshit".
"Okay, not madness, but you'll be really, really irritated," Brett corrected.
Tom placed his hand over his lover's mouth. "They will shut down to protect your brain, but now that you've experienced them, it will be as if you've lost your sense of touch." He released Brett.
"You don't want that, Chris," Brett insisted. "I'm going to call Elaine and tell her to hotfoot it over here so she can be trained to be your anchor."
"Doctor Rayburn has a house full of guests," Chris warned.
"Then she'll thank me," Brett asserted. He stepped out of the room to make the call.
. . . .
His pretty scientist was on her hands and knees fishing a piece of metal out of the storm drain. He was so excited that he decided to follow her home, even though today was an odd number. Odd number days favored the captive and not the captor.
. . . .
"Chris, you're uneasy, and it has nothing to do with training," Lillian Johnson noted. She was African-American, a mother of five, a little over average height, almost too stunning to be considered conventionally pretty, and she favored very high heels. She and Elaine must have compared notes. Chris had seen his boss, friend, and anchor in some extremely high and sexy heels.
There was an aura of calm surrounding the woman and Chris knew if he didn't fight it, that calm would envelop and support him.
"It's okay to hold her hand, Chris," Rashid assured him. "It will help." Johnson had about twenty pounds of muscle on Chris and was darkly chocolate. He and Rashid stood nose-to-nose, but in every other measure, Johnson was bigger.
Vivian gave Chris some centering exercises and with Lilian's hand in his, Chris was able to calm the storm that always seemed to be brewing in the back of his mind. That storm had started not long after he'd encountered those enchanted chains on his first big case in Silver Lakes.
"Hello, everyone," Elaine greeted as she entered the library not ten minutes after Brett had made his call. She did not arrive empty-handed. Through some miracle, the woman had managed to sneak four pies away from her house. They all disappeared soon after she was seated beside Chris.
Vivian had them focus on a map of the United States, starting with Silver Lakes. "Seek out the source of your unease, Chris," she ordered.
Chris's mental twin lifted up through the roof of the Stephens-Chang home. McKenzie sent out mental tethers to Clyde, Angelina, Marvin, Helen, Lillian, and Rashid. He instinctively knew the couples strengthened each other and that their combined power lifted him.
McKenzie could see a barrier around Silver Lakes that warned off certain types of talented folks with evil on their minds. The strength of that barrier had weakened over the last few years, taking a hard blow with the death of Old Annie, but it was coming back. Chris was not egotistical enough to believe that just his arrival had anything to do with that renewal. Everyone in the library and several others added to the power of the barrier.
It was dark around him, but Lillian and now Rashid were holding his hands and Elaine was stroking his neck. He was under their protection and no one could harm him.
"Damn straight," Rashid agreed. Johnson's mental picture of himself was almost teddy bear cuddly. It made Chris relax.
He flew out of the state, across Texas and into New Mexico where he stopped to watch two men bury a woman. One man kept telling the second man, who was crying, to shut up.
It was too late to save her, but justice could still be found for this woman. Her name was Alice, and she was a clerk at the liquor store the two men had decided to rob. They had mistakenly believed she carried the night deposit and when she could not produce it, the shouting man struck her. Soon both men were beating Alice. Now they were burying her broken corpse.
If Chris could have reached out and killed these men, he believed he would and that scared him. He would also have no regrets and that frightened him even more.
Chris pulled in their names, license plate, and where they planned to go and passed that information to Tom after slamming into the 10-foot thick concrete wall of Brett's mind. Ouch.
McKenzie was moving again. Out of New Mexico, across Arizona, and into Nevada. Chris was standing on a corner, watching Sara and Catherine process a drive-by. The women loaded up their silver mobile lab/truck and drove away with Catherine behind the wheel. A black Escalade followed them. First from a respectful distance, then getting closer and closer with each passing block. Chris could not see the driver.
. . . .
He could not help himself, the silver truck was drawing him closer and closer to his pretty scientist. The bumper was calling him to ram it, even with the high volume of cars surrounding them and the small chance of success.
His blood was racing and his fingers clutched tightly at the wheel. Most of his mind was bent to capturing his scientist and he ignored the warnings in his mind to break off pursuit. He had to have her. He must have her. He would have her.
. . . .
McKenzie tapped Paulo for help but only after Damien allowed him the contact. The two men were already tightly wrapped around each other and to touch one was to touch the other. With Paulo's help, Chris had the man's race, eye color, height, and weight, but his face remained obscured.
He sent that information to Erica.
"Vegas has cameras at almost every intersection," Damien reminded him. Coleman's mental image exuded no cuddliness. He was almost as tall as Chris but sleeker and much more dangerous. Damien's bald head and warm brown skin gleamed.
Paulo's mental doppelganger looked exactly like the real young man -- tall, with long streaked brown hair, blue eyes, full lips, tanned skin -- except the wardrobe was obviously custom.
The Escalade was almost touching the bumper of the Denali. Chris couldn't call out a warning to the ladies or stop their pursuer. Did they even guess that the man behind them wasn't just a rude driver?
"Here, use this," Damien said as he offered Chris his gun.
McKenzie accepted the weapon even though he did not like guns. He knew the bullet could not penetrate the windshield and the man's flesh. Elaine drew a target on the front passenger's side tire and Chris fired. Both front tires blew and flew apart, leaving the truck sitting on the rims and on the side of the road. The Denali continued undisturbed.
That was one powerful mental gun.
. . . .
"This is not happening," he hissed as he wrestled the big truck to the side of the road. So close, he had been so close that he could see the unprotected throat of his pretty scientist.
He should have never gone after her on an odd day. The fates had struck him down for his insolence. Now was the time to regroup and move. He abandoned the truck, it wasn't his, and rushed away. Tomorrow was an even day and it would be his day to make his next move.
. . . .
"Disconnect and return," Elaine ordered. Her warm voice was as comfortable as a toasty blanket and Chris wrapped himself in it and returned to his body.
The flash of Las Vegas became the comfortable elegance of Brett and Tom's library. Chris smelled food. It couldn't have been the pies as they were gone.
Esau Warner and Arthur Hellstrom entered the room with a cart loaded with food and drink. Chris, Elaine, Paulo, and Damien were fed first, then the rest of the food was inhaled.
"The man in the truck is talented and very strong," Paulo reported once he lowered his empty soup cup.
"He's after one of those women, not both," Damien added. "Are you going to be able to convince them?"
Elaine sighed. "Neither one of them will believe us, but we have to try and succeed."
Chris ate quickly, but it didn't dampen the strange fire in the pit of his stomach. He looked at Tom and tried to come up with a polite way to say "I'm so horny that I could explode."
Vivian whispered to Lillian and then to Rashid. Rashid and Lillian whispered together until Rashid nodded.
The big man helped Chris to his feet and took him to the elevator and into an upstairs bedroom.
"Do you think Elaine could--" Chris attempted.
"No, she can't, but I can," Rashid answered.
Chris had never felt a man's hand on his cock that did not belong to a doctor. He liked to think of himself as a metrosexual, but he was shocked when Rashid touched him and stunned when his body responded.
Rashid wrapped his full lips around Chris's cock and proceeded to take McKenzie's mind.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
Catherine snatched up the phone on its fourth ring after seeing the "Silver Lakes Crime Lab" in the caller ID. "Willows," she announced.
"Catherine, it's Elaine Rayburn," Elaine answered.
"Ah, the bodysnatcher herself," Willows teased. She took a seat and flipped on her computer. "Who are you about to steal now?"
"Darling, I've moved my net south and I've done very well. Unfortunately, I don't dare show my face in Miami or Tallahassee again." Elaine snickered. "A certain redhead we both know is probably chewing his sunglasses right now."
"You do know that he used to be on the bomb squad," Catherine warned. "A redhead with explosives can't be good."
"I'm not afraid," Elaine assured her. "New York had promised to take a hit out on me. But that's not why I called."
Catherine pulled her attention back from her computer screen where her email box tormented her. "What happened?" she asked. It couldn't be too bad or Elaine wouldn't have started with gossip. At least that was what she was telling herself. Rayburn was good at misdirection if she thought she had something a suspect didn't want to hear but needed to hear.
"Yesterday, you and Sara processed a drive-by shooting. After you left, you were followed by a black Escalade with heavily tinted windows. The truck had no license plates."
Catherine's jaw dropped. "Right," she agreed.
"You escaped because the truck suffered two front tire flats," Elaine continued.
"Patrol picked it up not five minutes later. It was stolen from a car lot in Henderson. The only prints in our system were from the two men who detail the cars at the dealership." Catherine paused, her mind racing into some very dark places. "What are you hesitating to tell me?"
"Tom Chang says that the driver has targeted either you or Sara and that he is dangerous," Elaine reported. "Very dangerous."
Catherine didn't know what to say. She had seen Tom Chang in action when she had been assigned to Silver Lakes and while she did not understand it, Catherine Willows was a woman who believed her own eyes. Of course, Tom had to pay for that other worldly contact by being oblivious to his own. He'd been in some kind of trance and had burned every vegetable on Elaine's grill to the point that they were indistinguishable from charcoal. Warrick had never forgiven the man.
"Is there anything else you can tell me?" Catherine asked hopefully.
"You're looking for a white male between the ages of 35 and 40, overweight, brown hair, balding with a comb over," Elaine ticked off. "That's all they got."
"They?" Catherine asked, confused. She'd thought Tom handled the netherworld and Bret was his "here and now" backup.
"This warranted a full team," Elaine explained without dropping a name.
"Oh," Catherine responded. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if she could send Lindsay to Silver Lakes, but she had another alternative closer to home. She finally had a boyfriend she could trust with her child's safety. Henry Dayton would not let her or Lindsay down.
"Good luck getting Sara to believe you," Elaine said sympathetically, breaking into Catherine's thoughts.
"Sara," Catherine sighed in exasperation. "She will believe a stolen truck and the fact that the same truck nearly rammed us, but she won't believe anything else."
Sidle wouldn't even accept an invitation to room at Henry's house. Catherine knew her man, he wouldn't just offer Sara shelter, he'd insist on it. She'd have to give the "no holds barred" fight to Henry over Sara in a submission. Sidle stood no chance against a determined Henry.
"How is she doing?" Elaine asked, her voice soft with motherly concern, even if Sara was far past the age of Elaine's own brood.
"At work she is doing brilliantly. I can't recall her being this focused before and she has always been focused. Socially, not so well. No dates and if she's going somewhere it has to do with her support meetings."
"Maybe she needs that kind of focus to make it through," Elaine suggested. "Going out, dining, and even just socializing are all places not only to drink but times when not drinking seems wrong."
"Especially in this town," Catherine noted. "I'll warn her and hope she is in a mood to listen."
"We'll stay on this on our end and if Tom's group comes up with more, I'll pass it along immediately," Elaine promised.
"Thank you, Elaine," Catherine said gratefully.
"Hey, I still like you, even if you didn't come here to run my day shift," Elaine assured her. "The job is still open." She paused while Catherine laughed. "And I worry about Sara. I don't want anything to happen to either of you."
"And I appreciate that," Catherine guaranteed the older woman. "I'll keep you updated."
"Good," Elaine stated. "Take care."
"No doubt," Catherine promised. They hung up. Willows called Sidle. "Sara, I need to see you in my office."
This was going to be fun.
Chapter Three: What Did You See?
Warrick opened the indicated box and gasped. It was a V-Bold 2015 Sound Mixer. It may have been five years old but it was still one of the best systems ever made.
"Here are the input boards, the mike station, and the digital mixer." Beth paused as she read the labels on the ends of the boxes. "Power supply regulators, monitors, and monitor switching; it's all here."
Stuart, Beth's brother, uncovered more components of Beth's old home recording studio. They were in Elaine's basement and Doctor Rayburn wanted her space back.
"Beth, there is no way I can afford this and still pay my share of the mortgage," Warrick admitted. He'd been excited when Beth had offered to sell him her old recording equipment that Elaine wanted removed from her basement. He'd been expecting two or three components he could build on, not this first rate system.
"Two thousand, with two hundred down and two hundred every paycheck until it's paid off," Beth offered. She held out her hand for shaking.
"You're losing money," Warrick insisted.
"But I'm getting Mom off my back," Beth countered, "and for that I'd give it to you."
Warrick smirked and shook Beth's hand. "Deal."
"Of course this means I have to get my crap out of here too," Stuart complained. He looked around and sighed. "Yeah, I better get this out of here before Mom sets fire to it all."
They finished the inventory and began loading the gear on dollies and carrying it out to the storage pod that was taking up one lane of Elaine's driveway. It was a wonder the woman didn't toss them.
By mid-afternoon, the pod was sitting in front of the new house and being emptied. Warrick, Nick, and Gil rushed downtown, signed the paperwork, and celebrated with gelatos at the Hot Pot Ice Cream Shoppe before heading to their new home.
Warrick's new recording equipment had been tested, installed, and tested again while they were in town. His new private space should have been a large apartment over the four-car garage, but now it was his own recording studio. The basement space he'd staked out earlier was going to be storage for the three of them and probably any friend with a sad enough story.
Brown stood in the center of his 2400 square foot space, 300 square feet larger than his Las Vegas townhouse, and marveled. He had his own bathroom, a kitchenette with a sink, skinny refrigerator, and microwave, and an entire wall of adjustable wooden bookshelves for his collectibles, books, art, and albums. He could stay up here for hours at a time but not if he were smart. Nick and Gil attracted far too much attention for him to take them for granted.
As he stood there, his cousins broke down the boxes they'd used and Gil's mother Grace and his Aunt Selene measured the windows, and there were a lot of them, including a set of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the pool, for window treatments. Warrick was wishing he hadn't sold his place furnished, but the couple had flipped over his furniture and offered a premium to keep it all. His leather couches, chairs, and loveseats would have been perfect in this new space.
"Leather couch, two leather loveseats, and a leather ottoman-coffee table," Grace spelled out slowly for Warrick's benefit. Gil had regained his hearing, but Brown had continued his pursuit of ASL so he could speak to Gil's mother.
"Exactly," Warrick agreed. "I sold mine with the townhouse," he spelled and spoke. "It meant a quick full-price plus sale."
Grace nodded. "We'll shop," she threatened.
Warrick turned out his empty pockets and looked sad. This house was eating them alive with demands of furniture, plants, and accessories. Both Gil and Nick were still in escrow with their Vegas homes and until that money flowed, they needed to watch the bottom line.
Grace laughed. "We'll shop carefully," she promised.
"Warrick, get out here," Warrick's young cousin, Juan, insisted. "Some crazy white man is about to burn a cross in your backyard."
Warrick was not worried but he also had no idea what Juan had seen. His cousin was not given to seeing things that weren't there.
Outside, seven thick, six-foot crosses lay on the ground and Nick's cousin Sam and his sons struggled the eighth one up.
"Sam, what in the world are you doing?" Warrick called.
"Dad wants you to have muscadines and you have to have strong supports for them," Sam answered as they plunged the sharpened end of the structure into the ground. Quick-drying cement was pouring around the end once they were sure it was level.
"What's a muscadine?" Juan asked.
"A native grape," Warrick answered. "Apparently Southerners make jams and wine out of them, as well as eat them raw."
"Oh, I found a cave," Juan stated while smacking his forehead. "It's on your land and I showed it to Gil. He said to bring you."
"And you're just telling me?" Warrick asked, imagining his man lost forever in some nasty hole in the ground.
"The KKK beats a cave," Juan answered.
"Show me the cave," Warrick said impatiently, "and ease off the KKK references. Nick's people are really sensitive about that. Nick's maternal great-grandfather successfully prosecuted some KKK members and was murdered because of it."
"Ouch," Juan responded.
"You can't know everything about people based on their skin color and where they live," Warrick advised.
He followed the younger man down the outside stairs, past the pool, through the backyard, and down the slope to the pastures. This section was wildly overgrown with some beautiful trees, bushes, and plants peeking out. There was a blackberry bush so large that no child would be allowed to approach it. Juan was no longer a child. How had that happened? Warrick remembered avoiding changing the kid's diaper. He'd learned to change it under threat from his Grams.
As they were approaching Gil's position, several bats flew out of what Warrick had assumed was a gash at the foot of the hill.
"Lord, don't let Nick see that," Warrick prayed quietly. His lover was a brave man but there were things that gave him the willies. Bats were one of them. Warrick had a deep hatred for rats and mold. A scene with a moldy rat would seriously make him think about changing careers.
"Hey, Grissom, you still alive?" Juan called.
"Let me check," Gil responded. He paused. "Yes, I'm still alive."
"Any treasure?" Juan asked as he ascended into the hole as if there were stairs going up the hill.
Warrick followed and discovered there were stone steps. "Look at this," he stated as he shone his flashlight around. The cave was obviously man-made with a 15-foot high domed, brick-lined ceiling in the easily 30-foot diameter chamber. You could have stashed quite a bit in here and no one passing would guess it existed.
"I've found some kid toys and several whiskey barrels," Gil reported. He was wearing his helmet that came with its own light. "The previous owners might have used the cave for household storage."
Juan looked very disappointed. "Anything you can sell on Ebay?"
"The toys for sure and there are some other artifacts that would make great quick sales," Gil reported. "However, if the whiskey barrels hold whiskey, then I doubt Ebay could handle the traffic."
"You should bottle it and give it as gifts," Juan suggested. "Starting with me."
"You're two years short of whiskey gifts, my man," Warrick reminded his cousin. He gripped one of the barrels and tipped it. It sloshed, showing some evaporation, but it was still very heavy.
"Hey, hey, party time," Juan insisted.
"It could have absorbed chemicals from the barrel and be undrinkable," Gil warned the teen.
"Damn, you know how to bring a brother down," Juan complained.
"I try not to," Gil insisted. He tapped the young man on the shoulder. "Since you found the cave, Juan, if this is whiskey and good to drink, you get two bottles on your 21st birthday," Grissom promised.
"Yes!" Juan shouted.
"Go out to the movers' trucks and bring back a dolly," Warrick suggested. "How many barrels did you find?" he asked after Juan was gone.
"At least sixty, but I haven't finished exploring," Gil answered. "This could be a Prohibition storage. The modern house was built before that time and it replaced a house that was built just before the Civil War."
"I know," Warrick reminded him. "That thought really turns you on."
Gil looked startled. "It excites me," he admitted, "but it's nothing sexual."
"Right," Warrick droned, stretching the word into its own sentence.
"It's not," Gil protested primly.
Warrick gave the other man's bottom a fond swat. "I like your kinks," he assured his older lover. "What do we do with the space?" Hopefully, the answer required no money.
"If we get wine from the muscadines, we could store it here," Gil suggested.
Warrick chuckled. "As I understand it, we have a two-year wait before we have our first crop."
Gil wrapped his arms around Warrick and sighed. "But we have the time."
Warrick cuddled the smaller man firmly to him. "Yes, we do," he agreed.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
"I should have been helping my boys with their house instead of looking at such a place," Renata declared as she sat down at Elaine's kitchen table.
Elaine hid a smile as Renata wound herself up.
"Benjamin Cross is a very bad man," Renata declared. "He distracts you."
Elaine placed a coffeecake before the other woman and went to collect the tea kettle. "What did he show you?" she asked once she'd returned to the table.
Renata poured the hot water while Elaine served the cake. As always, Elaine was generous with her slices.
"At first, he showed me two townhouses in Beacon Hill," Renata reported. "Loads of character and beautifully restored, but no room for a proper garden."
"Oh, none at all," Elaine agreed. "Where did you go next?"
"Tall Timber. It was all new but no character," Renata answered.
Elaine wrinkled her nose. "Why would he show you that? Those houses are not at all you. So where next? You were gone for hours."
"He showed me Generator's place and told me that before he met Colt that it was going to be his own home. I was very impressed," Renata admitted.
"I love Jenny's house," Elaine confessed. "If this wasn't mine to protect until I can unload it onto one of the kids, I'd live on Quail Lake. Did you see Beth's home, she lives three houses to the south from Jenny."
"Yes, I did," Renata assured her, "but she wasn't there."
"She's at the Dragonfly House, helping the guys," Elaine explained.
"Where I should have been instead of looking at that shameful house." Renata sighed.
"Shameful?" Elaine asked, absolutely intrigued.
"Four bedrooms and four baths in the main house and a single bedroom and bath in the guesthouse. It has a swimming pool, sunroom, formal dining room, and a study. The place is sitting on a bluff, surrounded by palm trees and has beautiful views of the lake," Renata recounted. "It's Mediterranean, has a courtyard in front and a second one outside the master bath, and a 3-car garage. Why would a single childless woman need such a house?"
"You're not going to be single and childless for long," Elaine assured her.
"Why do you say that?" Renata asked.
"It's open season on beautiful white women and in Silver Lakes the hunting season lasts 362 days," Elaine explained.
"I'm in no hurry," Renata stated. "I've kept telling myself that a new place will bring new opportunities, but I'm a little nervous about tasting the waters."
"That's 'testing the waters'," Elaine corrected.
"I know what I meant," Renata insisted. She pulled out her cell phone, which was playing Josh Dillon's "Work me, Woman".
"Renata," Hill announced to her phone. "Yes, David, I'm doing just fine. I'm looking forward to my first assignment next week." She looked puzzled. "Yes, David, even I have heard of Damien Coleman. There are precious few pictures of the man." She paused and seemed to be concentrating.
Elaine passed the other woman the notepad and pen she always kept handy. There was hardly a room in the house that didn't have paper and pen as she was an incessant list maker.
"Yes, I'll take the assignment. Where did he see my work?" Renata smiled. "Yes, my pictures of Ed Bradley at the Jazz Festival in New Orleans were very successful. Where is his home?" Renata wrote down an address. "Oh, it's across from the Tangerine. Yes, I know where that is. I've eaten there twice. I'll call a cab."
Elaine separated the keys to the Mini Cooper from her ring and gave them to Renata. Rayburn loved to tease Renata about how careful and courteous a driver she was and how that conflicted with her Italian roots.
Renata accepted the keys with gratitude. "No need to get me a cab, David, Elaine loaned me a car. I'll leave as soon as I can load up my equipment." She closed the phone and kissed Elaine on the cheek. "Thank you, Elaine. When I get back, I'll show you the pictures of that shameful house." She wrapped her coffeecake slice in a paper towel and took it with her.
Elaine smiled and leaned back. Renata was going to buy that house. The woman was making entirely too much fuss over a place that had been dismissed. Rayburn finished her tea as she had some time to kill before she had to be at the airport.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
The selection of the site was very important. An ill thought out site said he didn't care and he cared very much. She was worth all of his efforts.
There were windows. Tall windows. Windows that let in a good deal of sunlight, giving the space the "light and airy feel" the design shows went on and on about. The bars on the windows did not detract from that feel.
Too bad there was no view. The burnt and cracked wall of the building next door blocked what would have been a soul-stirring view of the desert. At least it stirred his soul.
He turned to the bed. It was a king-sized tribute to high French-style. The headboard was high, curved, and white-enameled and the center was padded and covered in white leather. He was rather proud of his selection when the far cheaper white wrought iron twin-sized bed would have gotten the job done. Again, it was about care. Did he care enough to make it perfect?
He did.
The four posters had tall gilded finials standing proudly over the arched canopy. The bed and canopy were a soft gray with lavender flowers and dark green leaves with yellow veins. The flowers were so realistic that they looked like a late spring breeze had blown them from a magnificent garden onto the fabric.
He retrieved the small refrigerator from his truck and plugged it in. By the time the interior was nice and cold, she would be here. The pretty scientist, whose meticulous and unshakeable testimony had sent the love of Harold's life to prison and Death Row.
Pamela had killed her husband and daughter to be fully unshackled and able to commit to him and that never would have happened with an ex-husband and child in the picture. He had ignored the prosecution's theory about gambling, inheritance, and insurance policies.
Sara Sidle had ruined their plans. She had ruined everything. Now she would take Pamela's place.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
Timothy "Speed" Speedle came up the tunnel from the plane and almost into Elaine Rayburn's arms.
"Timmy, you look like hell," Rayburn declared as she hugged him tightly.
Most people were timid in their hugs since he'd been shot. Alexx, and now Elaine, were the only exceptions. Tim's own mother could barely bring herself to touch him as she feared hurting him. The hug felt good. Real good.
"Maybe you can put a little meat on my bones," Tim teased. When she had been in Miami, Elaine and Tim had spent several evenings cooking for the team and gossiping. Apparently, Silver Lakes was quite the hotbed of intrigue. Now he could attempt to guess who the "names omitted to protect the guilty" were.
"Count on it," she promised. "You'll be staying with my next door neighbors, Esau Warner and Arthur Hellstrom."
"I don't want to be any trouble," Tim said uneasily. Hellstrom was very, very wealthy and Speed had bad experiences with rich and powerful people.
"Don't talk like that," Elaine insisted. "They're eager to meet you and make you welcome." She began guiding him through the Silver Lakes terminal toward the luggage area. "Your bike and your trunks arrived safe and sound this morning and they're at Storm Haven. That's the name of their house."
"What are they like?" Tim had to ask once they'd come to a halt at the American Airlines designated luggage carousel.
"I'm cuddly and he's smart," Arthur Hellstrom answered. He shook Tim's hand. "It's good to meet you, Speed. I'm Arthur, the cuddly one, and he's Esau."
"The one who spanks the cuddly one," Esau warned. The two men grinned at each other as if the day was a loss without some teasing. It made Tim very jealous.
He'd dreamed of that kind of relationship for himself, but the man he'd pined for was hung up on another man, who was hung on the first man's sister. Tim had decided to break free of what was becoming a toxic situation and take the best offer he could find. Silver Lakes had made the best offer.
Elaine, Esau, and Arthur collected Speed's luggage and moved him out to temporary parking and a minivan. Hellstrom did not look the minivan type. Yet, Hellstrom drove.
"You and I will be working together," Esau announced. "The lab will be field testing some of my ideas."
Speed almost chuckled. "Are we about to become mad scientists?"
"Become?" Elaine huffed. "All of my kids are mad."
Tim smiled. Rayburn referred to all of her people as her kids. It said a lot about the woman.
"The first time I tested one of my devices at the lab, I nearly died of embarrassment," Warner reported.
"Didn't it work?" Speed asked.
"Oh, it worked alright," Esau informed him. "It worked too well."
"Two gentlemen decided to redefine their relationship at the same moment Esau was demonstrating his infrared scanner called the Seeker," Elaine explained. "It was a defining moment for us all."
"Did the locals freak out?" Speed asked. He'd been assured by several people that the Silver Lakes attitude was relaxed around consenting adults.
"Hardly," Arthur assured him. "They were only mad they couldn't rush out and spread the juicy gossip."
"It was very juicy," Elaine assured him. "The larger man, who we'll call Larry, was being played by a very greedy young man we'll call Steve and the smaller and straight man we'll call Glen decided he'd had enough. Glen laid a kiss on Larry that nearly sent the heat sensing on Esau's equipment into overload. Steve was out and the neighborhood sighed in satisfaction."
Esau and Arthur sighed together like little girls and Speed chuckled. He began to relax. Even the sight of their large and gorgeous home didn't take away from that relaxed feeling.
"Welcome to Storm Haven," Esau said once they'd carried in the luggage and loaded it on the elevator. "You have the master suite on the second floor. Vivian Chang is also staying with us. She's on the third floor. You know her brother, Tom Chang."
Tim nodded. "Very intense Homicide cop from Seattle?"
"That's the one," Esau agreed. "He's a partner at Warner Interface now."
"Like Elaine, Tom and Brett have a houseful and we invited Vivian to stay with us," Arthur explained. "You'll like her."
They moved Speed's luggage from the elevator to his large and spacious suite. He was left to unpack. When he'd finished, Tim stepped out onto the terrace and looked around.
An eagle flew past the house and settled in a large oak tree where another eagle awaited it. They had a nest and eggs. Speed couldn't believe they would nest in a place with horses, a big house, a barn, puppies, and two little girls who were tearing around after the puppies. Even when the girls and puppies went around the tree, the eagles seemed undisturbed.
Tim stepped back into the bedroom. That was the closet door, that was the bathroom door, so what was this door? He opened it, found stairs and went up them. The stairs led to another spacious suite, which had doors that opened onto a gorgeous observation room.
There was a table, a telescope, and padded seats ringed the observation room. Splitting one wall of padded seats was a bookcase loaded with novels, technical manuals, maps, and children's books. Speed also found a half-bath with double-sinks, a closet, the top of the house's staircase, and the elevator.
Esau came up the stairs. "Everyone finds this room," he said simply. "It's a great place to relax and if you just have to work, the wireless connects just fine from here. I'll need to add your laptop to the security list."
Tim smiled. "You're making me too welcome and I have it on good authority that I'm a pest."
Esau crossed his arms and cocked his head. "That's funny because I have it on better authority that you're smart, passionate, and someone to cultivate as a friend. Since Elaine was the one to tell me that, then I have to believe her and not your phantom authority. Don't try to make up my mind for me, Speed."
Speed had never been put in his place so politely before. It must have been a Southern thing. "I'll do better," he promised. "Are those your daughters or Arthur's?"
"Arthur has the earlier claim, though technically they belong to Louisa, our housekeeper. Luckily, we can steal them anytime we want." Esau took his arm and led Tim down the stairs. "I hope you're hungry because Louisa has outdone herself. All Elaine had to tell her earlier was that you needed to put on some weight." Without taking a breath, Esau continued. "Let me tell you about this barbeque Elaine threw for some Las Vegas CSIs."
By the time they'd made it to the dining room, Speed was giggling over the children who had sworn eternal servitude to Doctor Grissom. He was surprised that Greg was still alive after that stunt.
"You can still see the artwork in his office," Elaine added. She indicated the chair beside her and Tim sat down. "Unless an emergency comes up, and I mean one with lives at stake, you have a week to acclimate and then I want you on Day Shift, that's eight to four with an hour for lunch. Swing Shift is four to midnight and Graveyard is midnight to eight. If you're hot on a case, then keep going, but after twelve hours you can't drive yourself home and we pay for your dinner."
"How do I get home?" Speed asked.
"Silverlode Cab company will take you home for no charge; you just have to show them your badge and sign the receipt," Elaine answered. "If the lab calls them for you, you don't even have to do that. It's a door-to-door service and ladies get a walk-up and a safety check. Eventually, you'll know all the cabbies by sight. I sure do."
"Mimi Stone owns Silverlode and is a stickler for safety," Esau explained. "She's also a neighbor and a total garden nut."
"She came out every day to see what the 'rich man from California' was doing to the gardens here." Arthur chuckled. "I couldn't seem to convince her that I was born in Silver Lakes. Mimi only trusted Esau when she asked about our plans."
"Now she's our biggest fan because of the work we did to restore the grounds," Esau reported.
Arthur uncovered about six of Speed's all-time favorite foods and started serving. They talked, ate, laughed, and ate some more. The gathering moved outside to the patio and the outdoor fireplace.
The two little girls, Rosalita and Carmen Cortez, showed up with what turned out to be Esau and Arthur's German Shepherd puppies. The girls were helping to care for the pups. Soon the girls were sharing tidbits about their town, school, and friends. Speed hung on their every word as the girls were adorable, observant, and funny.
Speed couldn't believe how much of the day had gotten away from him. He excused himself, called Alexx, and let her know he was comfortably settled, though he was sure Alexx was going to show up to check for herself. It was good to talk to his friend and personal mother hen.
Next he called Calleigh but planned to keep the conversation short. She had pleaded for him not to leave, while Alexx, the person Speed had expected to work the hardest to get him to stay, had simply said "follow your heart and do what is best for you".
"Calleigh, don't you get it?" Tim interrupted as Calleigh again tried to get him to come back. "I was in love with Eric and Eric could only see Horatio and Horatio married Marisol," Speed blurted. He could have kicked himself.
"Oh my God," Calleigh whispered. "I had no idea that you were in love with Eric. I knew Eric wanted --" she stopped. "You need to take care of yourself, Speed. I'm sorry if I've made that decision any harder."
"You were just being a friend and I should have told you the whole story to your face," Tim admitted. "I couldn't do it."
"Does Alexx know?" Calleigh asked, though she had to have known the answer to that.
"Yes, she knows. Alexx knew how I felt about Eric from the beginning and she told me, more than once, to look elsewhere." Tim sighed. "I wish to God I'd listened to her."
"Oh, Speed, I'm so sorry," Calleigh said softly. "I hope this is the new beginning you were hoping for. Don't lose my number."
"I won't," Speed promised, grateful he had not lost another friend.
"Where are you staying?" Calleigh asked casually enough so Speed wouldn't immediately assume she was planning a trip.
"In Storm Haven. That's Arthur Hellstrom and Esau Warner's place. It's in Cotton Row. Have you heard of it?" he asked in a teasing manner.
"That's like asking a lifelong baseball fan if they've heard of the New York Yankees," Calleigh responded. "You're in the middle of restoration heaven there. What's Storm Haven like?"
"Well, I haven't seen close to all of it, but I can tell you about what I have seen." Speed settled in to talk to his friend about one of her favorite subjects -- old houses.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
Sara had spent the last two days in the home of Henry Dayton as his guest. Her room was lovely, Henry could order food with the best of them, and the company was great, but the sense that she was hiding would not leave her alone. She'd managed to slip out while Hodges held Catherine hostage with one of his reports. Now she was heading to her own home and her own bed. She'd pick up her things later.
. . .
At last, she was alone and heading home. He had waited so long. So very long. His pretty scientist was going to be his at last.
. . .
Catherine couldn't believe Sara had skipped off and the woman wasn't answering her cell phone. Telling herself it was simple caution and not raging paranoia, she put in a call to patrol.
"This is Catherine Willows, I need you to do a check at 1115 Ronald Coleman Drive in Henderson. Sara Sidle. Make sure she comes out onto the steps before you leave. I want to make sure she is fine." Catherine closed the phone. "And then I can kill her."
Chapter Four: Who Saw You?
Gil was tired. He'd lectured, held a video consultation, worked three scenes, and gone to the dentist. It was the trip to the dentist that had done him in. All that waiting and anxiety over going to someone new followed by a lecture about his flossing and an impression for his new caps. Sigh.
The only two things that could liven him up would be to be snatched and fucked stupid by either or both of his men or to finally find the boxes with his butterfly collection and place them on their new shelves. His men had left that morning for Las Vegas, so the butterflies won. Gil had a magnificent library with a conservatory and the space was all his to decorate with his collections and the conservatory would house his insects.
He drove past Elaine's house where the driveway was suspiciously empty and on to the Dragonfly House where everyone seemed to be. Gil had to park on the grass. A major no-no for Nick.
"You're parked on the grass!" Roger, Nick's father, wailed. He flapped his arms as if he were trying to lift the offending vehicle with arm-produced gusts of wind.
"The driveway is full," Gil explained.
"Dear lord," Roger moaned. "Frankie, get out here and park Gil's truck on the gravel by the gate."
Frankie, who was the son of Frank, who Gil was fairly sure was one of Roger's many brothers or maybe one of Jillian's, came out of the house, flexed his muscles as he accepted Gil's keys, and jumped in the truck to re-park it.
"Come on in, Gil," Roger insisted. "Nick and Warrick thought you'd head straight to the cottage after going to the dentist."
"It was just a cleaning and they took some impressions to replace my damaged crowns," Gil explained.
"Las Vegas is coughing up the money for those, right?" Roger asked. "You were hurt on the job."
"Yes, they are," Gil assured the other man. Very early that morning, Warrick had opened the doors to the house for their mob of a family to work before he and Nick left for the airport. Gil remembered many boxes being stacked to either side of the foyer, but those were all gone. So were the ones in the greatroom.
Gil fixated on the bookshelves in the greatroom where posters of the covers of his three published books were displayed, along with a gorgeous oil painting of himself, Nick, and Warrick, and several of their personal photos from their first trip to Silver Lakes. "Where did the painting come from?" he asked as he lifted his glasses and peered at the signature. "Jillian?"
"My wife has many talents," Roger said proudly. "Wait until you see your library."
Gil was torn between continuing to explore the bookshelves in the greatroom and finding out what was happening in his library. The library won. He followed Roger into the room, which was reached from the greatroom.
His butterfly collections were distributed in three framed collections to a wall. They seemed to be grouped by predominate color and not subspecies. That was okay, it made them even more interesting.
"Eeewww, that's spoiled," a woman declared.
"That's what he wants," a man assured her.
"No one wants spoiled fruit," the woman replied, disgust painting her words.
"He's an insect, he doesn't know any better," the man explained.
"Don't listen to him," the woman soothed.
Gil left his library and entered the conservatory that was reached by the two sets of French doors that flanked either side of the fireplace. Someone had placed Roman shades in a soft sage color on the French doors and had drawn them all the way up.
Inside the conservatory were several potted plants, including at least three miniature citrus trees, Gil's insects, and a slate water fountain that matched the slate floor in the room. All of the windows had been cleaned and the last of the day's sunlight was pouring into the room. More Roman shades waited to be put in place.
Gil remembered the man from his birthday party and the woman had been there too. The man had also been at the barbeque and he had something to do with football. He certainly looked the part. Their names escaped him.
Bugsy, Gil's favorite tarantula was on the woman's right shoulder, and Tessa, another tarantula, rode the woman's left shoulder. He still couldn't remember the woman's name, but she was Hispanic, dainty, and built to force a man make a fool of himself. Bugsy went up her shiny black curls and rested on the top of her head but it didn't bother the woman at all.
"Don't go after Tessa, Bugsy," the lady warned, "she'll make you pay." Bugsy seemed to understand as he went back down to the woman's right shoulder.
"Gil, this is Doctor Laurel Stone and Barry Winthrop. Laurel works with Esau at Warner Interface." Roger pulled Gil close. "Buy the stock," he whispered. "Barry is the owner of the Silver Lake Silver Wolves football team. As a loyal Cowboys fan, I should kick him out of my sons' home, but he is a neighbor."
"It's good to see you both again," Gil said as he shook their hands. "How did you end up caring for my little friends?"
"We volunteered," Barry explained. The man was huge, muscular, black-haired, and green eyed. He had great peaches and cream skin and a very nice mouth. It was a good thing Nick and Warrick weren't in the room or he would have been busted for ogling their guests.
Gil intercepted Brutus Maximus, his rhinoceros beetle, as he tried to escape from his temporary box. Brutus's old cage had been replaced with one that was easily twice the size. Barry was adding rotting fruit to a bowl that was cleverly set in the bottom, so it could be removed and cleaned, and surrounded by leaves, twigs, and a branch that reached all the way to the top of the cage.
"Gil, your keys are on your desk," Frankie called. "That dummy in the backseat gave me a fright." Everyone in the room turned to look at Gil.
"We push rods through it that simulate the path of a bullet to determine the position of the body when the victim was shot," Gil explained.
"But why is it in your car?" Roger asked. His face clearly stated that no explanation would be good enough.
"I used him as a demo in my class this morning, forgot him, and had to swing by campus on my way to the dentist to pick him up. I didn't feel like driving back to the lab just to drop him off." Gil placed Brutus in his new cage and after a quick walk around, the beetle zeroed in on the fruit.
"My explanation was a lot funnier," Frankie informed them. The teen left.
"I wanted to hear it," Barry complained.
"No, you didn't," Roger promised.
"I rigged up a very small waterfall to keep his water bowl fresh," Laurel explained as she demonstrated her clever adaptation that allowed Gil to add more water from outside the cage without disturbing Bugsy, who now kept different hours from Gil.
The two tarantulas were placed in their separate cages and Gil's insects were all safely housed.
Roger leaned over and inspected each home. He stopped at Gil's racing cockroaches and frowned. "Don't let Jillian see those or we'll be begging her off the roof."
Gil's phone rang and he snatched it up. "Grissom."
"Gil, it's Catherine. Sara was kidnapped about seven hours ago and --"
"You're just now calling me," Gil interrupted.
"We just found her vehicle, Gil, until then we had hope she'd just skipped town on her day off," Catherine explained. "We'd been taking precautions since Elaine told us about the warning Tom and his group had gotten, but Sara slipped the leash this morning. Can you contact Tom Chang and see if he can give us some help?"
"Of course, Catherine," Gil answered. "I'll call you as soon as I know something." He closed his phone and realized that both Barry and Laurel were holding him. "One of my old team members was kidnapped," he explained. "I need to get to Tom Chang."
"We'll take you," Laurel offered.
"I need to call Warrick and Nick," Gil continued.
"I'll contact them," Roger promised. "Chang is the one who burned the vegetables, right?"
"The man is never going to live that down," Barry complained as he steered Gil out of the house.
Gil's mind was so caught up in his worry for Sara that he didn't even notice getting into Barry's SUV until he was being pulled out of it. Tom Chang met them on the steps and they were conducted into the library of the large house without a word being said.
Elaine and Chris arrived next. "Can we proceed?" Chris asked.
"Yes," Vivian Chang answered. Gil remembered her from his birthday party as they had danced together twice.
Three older people joined them, two women and one man, but none were introduced. They all linked hands.
Old memories of Sara came rushing to the front of his mind with HDTV-like clarity. Gil could see her from her college days. He could see the worn-down sneakers that her scholarships didn't pay to replace and the wooden hair thing she'd worn almost every day. Sara -- smart, funny, and intense -- who questioned harder than any other student and always seemed ready to spend extra time working on real world problems. He'd been so proud when she'd gone into the field.
Gil could almost hear Chris whispering in his ear, asking more and more questions about Sara, and Elaine's voice guiding Chris. He wanted to ask them questions but his lips would not move and neither could he make a sound in his throat. Yet, McKenzie clearly could understand Gil.
Someone placed a phone in front of Gil and pressed the speaker button. It was a woman and her hands were so beautiful. It was as if Gil knew he could trust those strong brown hands and the woman they belonged to.
"Hello," Gil managed. That was good, he'd thought he'd lost his ability to speak and he needed his voice.
"Gil, we're here," Warrick assured him. "Nick and Generator are right beside me."
"You tell us what you need," Generator insisted. "We'll get her back." Generator had gone to Vegas with the guys to conduct training at the lab on some new equipment developed by Warner Interface. It was Elaine's way of making peace with the lab director. Gil was fairly sure Ecklie planned to recruit Taylor.
"Do you have a map?" Chris asked.
They could hear paper rustling and Generator telling someone to turn it around.
"Got it," Nick alerted them.
"Okay, Nick, I need you to place your finger on the map at your present location. Warrick, I need you to be in close physical contact with Nick. Generator, I need you to guard them," Tom instructed. "This guy will fight to hide Sara and he will fight like hell to keep her."
"Seven hours," Gil whispered and his stomach tightened.
"I need you to focus, Gil," Chris said firmly. McKenzie touched Gil's chest. "You've known her longer and you know her better than anyone else here. Help us find her."
Gil's whole body felt flushed. As if he'd stepped into a sauna. A tall black man, bald, and beautiful sat down and was joined by a long-haired beauty with full lips and blue eyes. It was Paulo and Damien from his birthday party. The party Sara nearly ruined. Yet, he'd forgo celebrating ever again if it brought her home safe and sound.
"Her favorite color is?" Laurel Stone asked.
"Leaf Green," Gil answered.
"Her favorite song?" Laurel inquired.
"At the time it was Mannheim Steamroller's 'Twilight at Rhodes'," Gil recalled. "She likes instrumentals."
"Recall the song for me, Gil," Tom requested.
The song was the second one on the album Fresh Aire VI. Grissom could hear it now, complete with the scratching noise the stereo made as the needle moved from one track to the next on the album. He could see Sara.
Sara Sidle was dressed in an ill-fitting wedding dress with too many frills and drippy bits for even the most frill-loving woman. A circlet of white and pink flowers rested on her head. She was lying on an elaborate bed, her left eye was blackened and Sara was attempting to cover that with makeup but her hands were shaking too much. Her left hand was cuffed to the bed.
Gil Grissom knew enough about Sara to know she would not cooperate even this much if there wasn't something threatening either herself or someone else. What was the threat and why couldn't he see it? It was as if Sara were in a bubble of light and the edges were very slowly expanding.
"Nick, move directly north," Vivian instructed. "No, that's not it. Try south. Yes, that's better. Now move east. Stop, go back and go west from your starting point."
Gil felt something trickle down his lip and onto the table. He didn't look down because he knew it was blood. His nose was bleeding.
Two very large hands cradled his head. "If we stop, we lose her," a very bass voice informed him. Gil recognized the voice, it was Rashid Johnson, a new neighbor. "I've looked down some very intimidating men but nothing like what you're facing right now. I'm going to block for you and Lillian is going to support us both."
Gil bore back down to the task at hand, gathering evidence from the scene of Sara's imprisonment, secure in the knowledge that Rashid and Lillian Johnson had his back.
"Spring Valley," Warrick announced. "We've settled on the northeast edge of Spring Valley."
"Okay, guys, this is the location. Get in your car and drive there. Call us when you arrive," Vivian ordered.
. . . .
"Spring Valley?" Catherine puzzled. "Okay, I'll get you a team to follow you there and alert patrol that you'll be flying through hot. Give me your plate numbers." Willows wrote down the information, repeated it, and confirmed what she had. She hung up the phone. "I need a group to follow up on this tip."
Her people were tired and soul sick over what could be happening to Sara, but they were still game. Sikes, Hodges, Falcon, and Sara's former boyfriend Derrick Jones, volunteered to go to Spring Valley and meet up with Nick, Warrick, and Generator.
. . . .
Sara could hear Mannheim Steamroller's 'Twilight at Rhodes' in her mind and it was calming her. She needed to be calm. If she didn't get this makeup on to hide her black eye, then the nutcase holding her would use his cattle prod on one or both of the two little boys he was holding to keep her in line. Her own life was such a joke that she'd asked him to go ahead and kill her as she had no intention of even sitting on his ridiculous bed, let alone lie in it dressed in the ugliest wedding dress ever sewn. He'd left and returned with two little boys she did care about. Those poor kids.
They stopped crying and that had frightened her at first, but now they were talking and convincing themselves that Detective Hazard, the TV daredevil cop, was going to rescue them. If that was what it took to calm them, then Sara was all for it.
Sidle applied her makeup with unsteady hands and set it aside. When he got back, she would do whatever it took to keep those boys alive.
. . . .
"Her captor has two little boys as hostages to make her obey," Gil reported. "Have them check the Amber Alerts in the area."
"On it," someone responded.
"We're coming, Sara," Gil promised.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
Frank Brass, who had to constantly tell people he was not related to Jim Brass despite the fact that Jim was white and Frank was not, stared at CSI Willows.
"Catherine, you are one of the finest CSIs I've ever worked with, but you have obviously lost your mind." The Chief of Police waved toward the Squad Room just outside his office. "If you told me you needed dogs, my helicopter, and every man and woman I've got on payroll to find Sidle, they would be yours," he leaned closer, "but you have got to come to me with something other than 'John Edward'."
"Frank, you've got to help me. Tom says that the man has two little boys." She checked her notes. "Both age seven, one African-American and one Asian, both with dark hair, school uniforms in blue, and both with brown eyes."
Frank sighed. "This is not Las Vegas, Catherine. Two missing kids would be reported fast. Blue school uniforms means Hawks Elementary and they have not reported--"
Reed Turner, the youngest and the best homicide detective they had, burst into the room. "Captain, Hawks Elementary came up two short from their field trip to the Summerland Museum. Tucker Pratt and Nam Hyun Jun. They could have been missing as long as three hours." He placed two school pictures and their fingerprint cards, a requirement for all Nevada students, before Brass.
One African-American kid and one Asian kid. Boys, both seven, and both with brown hair and eyes.
Frank looked back to Catherine, who had the grace not to appear smug. "What do you need from us?" he asked sincerely.
. . . .
Spring Valley may have been the land of the luxurious condos and golf courses, but right now it was where Sara was being held. Warrick looked around the perimeter of the burnt shell of a hotel complex. "Arson," he whispered.
"Definitely," Nick agreed. As he pointed an image of the old complex superimposed itself over the ruin. "The fires were set in three different locations and they burned hotter than the materials can account for."
Generator nodded. "Why is it still standing?" he asked. Looking around, it was hard to believe the neighborhood hadn't insisted it be leveled.
"The investigation must still be in progress," Warrick suggested. He stepped forward and a river of bloody, mucus-seeping rats rushed from the ruins, ready to latch onto his flesh and chew. "Shit!" He jumped back and the rats vanished.
"What's the matter, Rick?" Nick asked as he stepped forward and took Warrick's arm.
Warrick tried to find any part of his mouth that wanted to work and failed.
Nick ducked down and swung over his head as if something was flying down on him. As soon as he'd leapt back, he stopped. "It was bats."
"I saw rats," Warrick admitted.
"Even your phobias sound alike," Generator muttered. He walked all the way up to the temporary fence and began shaking it. "I don't hear you and I don't care," he said loudly.
"What do you see?" Nick asked.
"My biological father," Generator answered. "It's annoying."
Warrick's phone rang and nearly made him scream. Damn, he was on edge. He wasn't going to be able to sleep for a very long, long time. Brown managed to get the phone to his face. "Hello?"
"Warrick, this is Brett," Stephens announced. "Vivian says that you're close to Sara but there is a barrier between you and her."
"Something scared me and Nick," Warrick admitted, "but Generator doesn't seem to care about it."
Hodges, Derrick, Sikes, and Falcon arrived in a silver Denali and exited. Warrick was going to warn them about the barrier but they were all inside of it and showing no effects before he could speak. Nick turned and cast him a puzzled glance.
David Hodges had a phobia about just about everything, but he slipped through the break in the fence right after Generator found it.
"She can see a burnt-out building through the window," Brett advised.
"Everything is burnt here," Warrick responded. "She's good with directions. Which direction is her window facing?" Everyone in their group stopped to hear the answer. "South, southeast. Got it."
"How is she talking to them?" Richard Sikes asked.
"You didn't hear any of that," Nick answered. "Not a damn thing. Nothing can muddy the waters. Get me?"
Sikes nodded. He looked around. "Which direction do you want to try first?" he asked.
"South, southeast," Hodges suggested. He led the way, nimbly jumping over all sorts of disgusting things that would have normally sent the lab tech screaming.
Warrick looked at Nick. "Who is that man? He looks just like David Hodges."
Sikes kept Derrick Jones, who was getting too far ahead of them, from being skewered by a sharpened stake festooned with ooze-dripping nails. Generator kept Sikes from losing his head to a rusty bucket with nails sticking out of it. Warrick was beginning to hope the rats would come back.
"Call me paranoid, but I'm convinced someone doesn't want us coming this way," Robert Falcon quipped. He nearly piled into Generator when the other man came to a complete stop.
Generator picked up a chunk of rubble and threw it in front of him. He got more distance than you have expected from someone so slender and the chunk crashed through as if there was a thin layer of trash over a very, very large hole. He picked up a new chunk and repeated the action.
Hodges, Falcon, Warrick, Sikes, and Nick all took up rubble and together they defined the edges of a very nasty hole. Obviously the foundation of a new building had been dug and adjoining buildings had toppled across it but had not come close to filling the hole.
The group inched their way around the edge and found themselves facing a nearly intact building.
"He's going to fight like hell to keep her," Warrick reminded the group. They went inside.
. . . .
Sonia Taylor was still new to this blocking thing she could do. She did it so well that Sonia could do it for other people, even if those people were in Las Vegas while she sat at her brother's library table in Silver Lakes. It bothered her that she had to cover four men she'd never met while leaving three men she did know uncovered. Unfortunately, Warrick and Nick were Gil's path to Las Vegas and Chris needed that path. Generator had to be left aware and that meant she could only shore up his own protections and not cover him entirely.
It would have to be enough.
. . . .
Everything was shattering around him. He could feel it. He could taste it. He could almost see it. There were evil knights in his castle and he must repel them. His pretty princess scientist could not be taken from him. He would not use the word "rescued" as it fouled what he planned to achieve.
Sara had already ruined his plans by fighting him so hard that he'd been forced to capture two little boys to serve as object lessons for his scientist. Scientists did so much appreciate demonstrations. Now that she was finally dressed AND behaving, the evil knights had arrived.
He would deal with them.
. . . .
It started with a clank then a clunk and finally the sound of something heavy crashing down some stairs. A door to the group's left half a floor beneath them burst open and a steel drum disgorged its slithery contents.
"Oh damn," Sikes whispered as he placed himself in front of Generator, protecting the smaller man from the approaching menace.
"Snakes," Falcon hissed.
"Every last one of them is poisonous too," Nick warned.
"Oh, hell no," Warrick said as he opened the next door. He closed it quickly. "Don't open that," he warned.
"What--?" Hodges began.
"Don't ask, don't tell," Warrick insisted as he headed further up.
"Warrick, this is the floor she's on," Nick reported as he listened to his phone.
"This is not happening," Warrick complained. He came back down.
Generator pushed the door opened quickly and grimaced. "What the fuck?" he asked.
Sikes pushed in front of Generator as if the smaller man was a damsel in distress. It happened a lot. Generator was the only male CSI who always received a walk-up and a security check when he was dropped off by a cab. The drivers also liked to carry his bag and purchases. Generator never resisted the help. It wasn't gentlemanly to dismiss someone's efforts to be kind.
Poor Sikes came face-to-face with the calf's head displayed there and nearly lost his last meal. The mouth hung open, fluids dripped, and flies buzzed.
"I'm willing to take on the goat head in order to miss the snakes," Falcon complained as he batted one back with a torn off piece of Sheetrock.
"Calf's head," Hodges corrected as he knocked it away. The offending totem fell into a disgusting pool of goo in the corner.
"Who is that man?" Nick asked.
. . . .
It was like playing a 3-D video game but with a real person. Naturally Damien would end up with the wimp of the bunch. This Hodges character was afraid of everything, including his own shadow, but Coleman had managed to put some steel in the man's spine and give him some attitude.
"Gentlemen, we are moving," Damien whispered.
. . . .
"Gentlemen, we are moving," Hodges insisted.
"I have no idea," Sikes admitted. "He looks like Hodges."
Generator didn't know why he was expecting it, but he was totally unsurprised as a jar of powder sailed toward them. He kicked a pail, that had been catching water dripping from some pipe, forward and the jar splashed inside without breaking.
Hodges piled into a strange man and began beating him. Generator passed up this very exciting match-up to check on Sara. Her eyes were glassy and there was a plastic tumbler by the bed.
"I didn't drink it," Sara reported, "I used my eye drops to make myself look drugged." She held up her chained wrist. "You could release me though."
"Do you know where he's got those kids?" Nick asked as he and Warrick helped release her. He gave her a quick hug.
"I can hear them occasionally, so they must be on this floor," Sara answered. "I'll help you look." She made it to her feet but that ugly gown nearly tripped her up. How much train did a woman need?
"Let's get you out of this first," Generator suggested before hugging the woman tight. "We told you he was out there," he reminded her as he began the arduous task of separating Sara from the wedding dress of the damned.
Falcon and Sikes pulled Hodges off their kidnapper and Dexter read the man his rights.
"It's not over," the man promised before spitting blood onto the floor. "I swear we will finish this."
"I happen to know where there is a stairwell of snakes," Hodges threatened.
Nick, Dexter, and Warrick left in search of the children and within two minutes returned with them. The boys were crying, Sara was crying, and the kidnapper was chanting in some singsong language.
"Shut up," Hodges commanded, "or you can serenade the snakes."
"Who is that man?" Warrick demanded to know.
Nick made a call. "Catherine, we have found Sara and the boys and have our suspect in custody."
"They'll die," the suspect warned. His pale eyes glinted and everyone reacted as if they'd seen it. The two boys clutched tightly to Warrick and hid their faces.
"Catherine, we're in the Regis Complex. It's mostly burnt down and the path is full of traps, natural and set. You need another way in." Nick paused and everyone waited. "Excellent. Tell Chief Brass we appreciate his help."
"Tin soldiers marching to their deaths," the suspect intoned. "Marching, marching, marching."
"Do you think he's going for a psycho defense?" Hodges asked with a sneer.
"He was already there," Sara insisted.
"You're still mine, Sara," the suspect insisted. "You'll run to me and beg for the antidote."
"Then it's a good thing I didn't drink it," Sara replied. Her smile infuriated the suspect and even though Sikes had close to sixty pounds on the man, he almost broke free.
Hodges popped the man in the nose as he placed himself between Sara and the suspect. The man sagged and Sikes was able to regain control over him.
"The helicopter is almost here," Generator announced. He could hear the soft whish-whish of the blades over the howl of the wind as it wound its way through the shattered buildings surrounding them. "It's time to go."
"Go carefully," Warrick reminded him. "I know he left something for us."
"Then he can lead," Hodges suggested as he assisted Sikes in moving the suspect out of the room and up the stairs.
"Who is that man?" Sara asked in admiration.
"Hodges seems to have found his cape and tights," Warrick whispered as he took the boys' hands.
It was a slow walk up the stairs and Catherine met them halfway. Recriminations would come later, but for now, Willows was satisfied to hug Sara. They made their way up to the waiting helicopter.
Chapter Five: Can You Explain?
"His fingerprints are not in the system, he has no I.D., and he refuses to tell us his name," Catherine informed Generator. "He did ask for a lawyer, so the questioning is at an end."
The Silver Lakes CSI smiled. "A lawyer in general or a specific lawyer?"
"He's already seen you, Generator," Catherine said knowingly. The man was often mistaken for a lawyer when he was in his "butch drag", or so the stories went.
"If he asked for a lawyer by name, then that lawyer knows his name," Generator explained. "This John Doe act will have to fade."
"He did ask for a lawyer by name, but the man in question is a local legend named Hubert Reese. His last client killed her husband and four-year-old daughter and tried to make it look like a burglary. She received the death penalty." Catherine frowned and an obvious connection came to her mind. "Sara was lead on that case, worked it like a dog, and broke it wide open."
"Did this Reese character question Sara or have a technical specialist on his team do it?" Generator asked.
"Three different team members questioned her for at least three days. Reese did his best to crack her, but Sara held firm and the jury believed the evidence." Catherine sat back. "Pamela Jordan complained loudly how she should have gotten away with it as she was being dragged away."
"It could be a coincidence," Generator stated with little conviction. The two CSIs looked each other in the eyes.
"I'll pull the records and see if this guy shows up," Catherine stated.
"I'll help," Generator offered.
. . . .
"I have got to have that man," Ecklie declared to Warrick Brown after Generator and Catherine had passed them in the Hall.
"He's seeing someone," Warrick interjected.
Ecklie frowned. "You know what I mean. You can start making up for the pillaging of my Graveyard Shift by helping me recruit Taylor."
"I didn't pillage your Graveyard Shift," Warrick reminded the older man.
Ecklie took in a breath and let it out slowly. "But you allowed yourself to be pillaged."
Warrick smiled apologetically. "Generator has a gorgeous lakeside home with a pool, two or three lovers on a string, and is completing his Ph.D. in Forensic Science. He works in a city where everyone calls him Generator and not his given name, even the defense attorneys, and he's highly respected. How can you compete with that?"
"This is Las Vegas and we're still the number two lab in the country," Ecklie pointed out.
"But Silver Lakes is catching up, Ecklie, thanks to people like Generator." Warrick walked away, leaving his old boss to fume.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
"This is not going to work," Nick complained for the eighth or ninth time.
Generator gripped the larger man by the earlobe and pinched.
"Ow!" Nick complained, getting a snicker out of Catherine.
"Listen to me, you Texas pretty boy." Generator pinched his colleague's earlobe again. "Tom and Vivian mapped this out for us and if we want this guy to break, then we need to follow their plan." He let Nick's ear go. "Don't screw it up."
"Are you sure you don't want to come work for us?" Catherine asked. "We could use someone with your management skills. I've never seen Nicky handled better."
"You're so funny," Nick complained as he massaged his wounded ear.
They walked into the interrogation room where John Doe sat with his attorney, Hubert Reese. The man had attended every day of Pamela Jordan's trial but no one knew his name.
"My client has nothing to say," Reese informed them.
"Including his name?" Nick asked in that soft Texas drawl that was pretty much guaranteed to moisten panties and jocks alike.
Generator sat directly across from the suspect so no one could break the line of sight between them. He placed the miniature Ouija board before him and aligned the triangle on the MAYBE there.
"I'm protected," their suspect announced as he sneered at Generator. "You and your entire group will be punished for --" he stopped talking as Generator extracted a single lock of Sara's hair.
The hair had been braided with exactly 12 twists and then secured with six black and six red strings that crisscrossed the hair leaving 12 open triangles. It was delicate work for something that was about to do a giant's work of crushing a monster.
Generator wove the symbols for TRUTH, JUSTICE, and STRENGTH in the air and then placed the hair on the table directly in line with his heart. Taylor withdrew the next item, a vial of rose water fortified by Sara's tears, and added two drops of his own blood. He passed the vial to Nick and then to Catherine and both of them did the same thing. Generator accepted the vial back, shook it, and then used the contents to draw symbols of protection on his, Nick, and Catherine's foreheads.
"That's disgusting," Attorney Reese complained, getting red in the face. His artificial tan wasn't up to the task of covering so much reddened skin. The man's brown eyes were bloodshot.
"I'm stronger than you," their suspect insisted. "Even now, I know I can escape and finish my work."
"Shut up," Reese hissed.
"They're nothing," their suspect declared. He leaned back in his chair but his eyes were still locked on Sara's sacrifice of hair.
"You've been identified by both of the boys as well as CSI Sidle as the person who abducted them," Catherine stated. "You're also facing charges of assault, animal abuse, arson, and --"
"How did you know I burned --" their suspect began.
"I'm telling you to be quiet," Reese repeated. "They're fishing."
"Are we fishing?" Generator asked his Ouija board. The triangle moved from the MAYBE to the NO without being touched.
Their suspect jumped out of his seat and Sikes stuffed him back in it instantly.
"The Day Shift forensics team found accellerants as well as a plan of the complex and a computer-generated model to apply them on a laptop in your truck," Catherine stated.
Reese snatched the triangle off the board and examined it. "Where is the magnet?" he asked as his fingers traced the edge.
"No magnet and no string," Generator insisted. "Ask your client how it works." He plucked the triangle from the lawyer's hand and placed it back on the board.
"Sara Sidle is mine and no amateur is going to take her away from me," their suspect insisted. His pale eyes glowed, then darkened.
Generator placed his fingertips on the small triangle, waited until he felt Nick's firm and gentle hand on the center of his back and let the triangle move. He could almost taste Warrick in his mind as he was their conduit back to Gil and Vivian. "Show me his name," he commanded.
"This is ridiculous," Reese insisted.
The triangle moved to the R and their suspect gasped. H A R O.
"Harold," Catherine announced.
"No, I'm still strong," their suspect insisted. "No one in Las Vegas has the power to stop me. No one."
C U L P and the triangle stilled. Their suspect leapt across the table without making a sound and there was a scuffle. Somehow, Sara's hair totem became lodged in the man's throat and he began to choke. Catherine's quick action saved his life.
As he was being wheeled out on a stretcher to be checked, their suspect began to cry and to confess. "My name is Harold Jordan Culp and I kidnaped those boys and Sidle. She was to be mine. She should have been mine. She took away Pamela and she has to be mine." Jordan drew in a ragged breath. "Mine," he repeated softly again and again.
"I want to see the tape," Reese insisted. "Someone put that hair in his throat."
Generator followed Catherine and Nick to the observation room where Reese was given the privilege of occupying the only empty seat. Larry the technician cued the tape up to exactly thirty seconds before Jordan leapt across the table.
Watching it all in slow motion, it looked like the hair was blown up for air from Jordan landing on the table. Culp grabbed it and slammed it down his own throat. That's what it looked like, but Generator knew better. The hair had levitated and tried to cram itself down Culp's throat and he had fought to keep it out. If you knew how to look, it was plain that the man was straining against the onslaught of the totem and lost. Badly.
"Well, he did it to himself," the lawyer stated. He rose from his chair and exited the room.
Larry, Catherine, and Nick all looked at Generator. "That was freaky," Larry announced, speaking for them all.
"Freaky," Catherine repeated. She looked at Generator but didn't dare ask the question so obvious in her eyes. What did you do?
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
Nick looked into Elaine's bedroom and saw Gil sleeping there. Normally such a discovery would require revenge on a scale few could imagine. Instead, it settled his heart to know his older lover had been so well taken care of during his and Warrick's absence.
"Hey, Sugar Bear," Nick whispered softly. Gil turned over and cuddled against Nick. "Don't you want to wake up?"
Gil suddenly sat up. He looked around, obviously confused. "Nick?"
"You're in Elaine's house, in her bed and naked," Nick reported. "You were squeezed in between Elaine and Chris McKenzie last night."
Gil stared, his eyes wide. "And I slept through it?" he asked, crestfallen.
Nick nodded, enjoying the look on his lover's face. "It gets worse, Babe."
"How?" Gil demanded, waving at the bed. "Chris AND Elaine?"
"The night before, it was Rashid and Lillian," Nick informed the older man.
"No," Gil whined. "I slept with Lillian and Rashid and I don't remember it?"
"Rashid said it was like sleeping with a living teddy bear and he kept you naked," Nick informed him.
Gil lowered his head into his hands. "I'd forgive you if you were lying," he swore. "There is no way I slept through that."
"Renata snapped this." Nick produced a photo of Gil sleeping on Rashid's bare chest while Rashid held a single finger over his lips to silence the photographer. There was no sign that Gil was dressed. The angle and lighting were the signs of a professional. He and Warrick had several other shots they planned to premiere later. Renata had done them proud.
"Nooooo," Gil moaned. "Look at all of that man."
"Straight married man," Nick reminded his lover.
"I've turned straight men before," Gil insisted.
"I know, Sugar Bear, but Lillian would do you serious bodily harm," Nick assured the other man. He pulled Gil out of bed and smiled at the other man's nakedness.
"This is so unfair," Gil continued to protest. "I remember having breakfast with Rashid's family yesterday and I spoke to Catherine and Sara then you and Warrick, but I can't recall a minute of being in the bed with Lillian and Rashid. Now you're telling me I slept with Elaine and Chris too." He shook his head. "My body is such a slut. A slut with taste, though."
"You were in a 'healing trance'," Nick reported. "Don't ask me what that means or how it works. All I know is that they protected you."
Gil pouted. "Please tell me they at least copped a feel."
"Of course they did," Nick responded as he found Gil's clothes hanging on the closet door. "Rashid probably grabbed two handfuls of your ass."
"Did he squeeze it?" Gil asked hopefully.
Nick could see Grissom's reasoning dancing in his eyes. Only a man well past it wouldn't have gotten felt up in such a situation. Gil was not past it.
"The man risked all to fondle your ass and get a squeeze of your dick while his wife lay inches away." Nick shook his head in disapproval. "Gil, where is your honor? How could you tempt a married father of five off his straight man pedestal? Shame, shame, shame."
"I'm sorry," Grissom apologized.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
Gil was like a little kid as their new outdoor bed and other patio and pool furniture were delivered. He was already seeing himself being taken on them and as soon as they could get rid of all of their guests and various neighbors, it was going to happen.
The delivery people removed the items from their boxes or plastic wrappings, assembled them, and then placed them according to Gil's instructions. It looked wonderful.
"If you'll sign here, Doctor Grissom. We'll take the trash with us," the short well built man with the clipboard promised.
Gil checked the list and signed for their delivery. "Thank you. Everything looks perfect."
"You've got a great place here," the clipboard man, who wore the name Peewee stitched on his shirt, stated.
"Thank you," Gil responded. He reached for his wallet to tip the four men, but Peewee waved him off.
"It's already settled, Doctor Grissom," he explained. "You have a good day."
The men gathered every scrap of cardboard and plastic sheeting, some of which may have been there earlier, and headed out through the side gate.
Gil sat on every chair and lounge and had a swing in Warrick's hammock, but he saved the bed for when the three of them could test it. The place was definitely earning its title of Dream Home.
. . . .
"Ohmigawd!" Nick shouted as the 60-inch LCD HDTV was mounted on the greatroom wall. It was an outrageously expensive thing and he couldn't believe his sisters had gotten together and bought it for them. They also seemed to have managed to do it without having a fight.
"Wait until Warrick sees this. He's going to flip." Nick held the remote, too choked up to say anything more. This was one of the most thoughtful and unexpected gifts his sisters had ever given him. "I don't think I can tell you--" he tried. Suddenly he was smothered in sisters. "Thanks," he whispered.
. . . .
"Grams, you don't have to rush away," Warrick said as he helped his grandmother pack.
"Baby, Sara is practically all alone," Ruth reminded him. "She can talk tough all she wants, but I heard her beg for company when we talked."
"And that company needs to be you?" Warrick asked.
"Yes, Baby, that company needs to be me," Ruth answered. She placed her hand on her grandson's shoulder. "I know she hurt all three of you deeply, but she hurt herself even more by ruining her friendship with you. You put all of that aside to bring her home and I wouldn't have expected anything else from my boys, but I need to help her over the next patch of the road."
Warrick didn't get it. His Grams barely knew the woman but she was flying back to Las Vegas, at great expense, to sit with Sara until Sidle was ready to return to work.
Nick, Warrick, and Generator had all offered to stay but had been rebuffed. Sara was fine, she said so. She said it so often that you actually started to believe her. Yet when Ruth had called, Sara had been very eager for the older woman to come and see her.
Maybe Warrick never truly appreciated how lucky he was to have been raised by Ruth Brown. He hugged his grandmother tightly. "You're a good woman, Grams. I'm glad to see you weren't just fronting all of these years." He knew he was going to get swatted for his "sass" and Warrick wasn't disappointed.
"You're not too big to spank, Warrick Brown," Ruth warned.
"Yes, ma'am," he agreed.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
"Man, there is not even a hint of contaminants in this hooch," Greg reported as he handed over the lab results. "You have got some Class A single malt whiskey in your barrels."
Grissom smiled. "I would have hated to call the Haz-Mat people to carry it all away."
"What are you going to do with it?" Greg asked.
"Bottle it, label it, and give it to everyone in thanks for their help with the house," Grissom answered.
"I hope I'm still on your Christmas list," Greg said hopefully. He looked past Gil. "Hel-lo."
Standing behind Gil was Elaine and a dark-haired man with about two days worth of beard growth. He had deep brown eyes and a shy smile. Adorable.
"Doctor Gil Grissom and Greg Sanders, this is Tim Speedle, formerly of Miami. Tim, Doctor Grissom and Greg both are from Las Vegas," Elaine explained.
"Nice to meet you," Tim stated as he offered Grissom his hand. "I worked with two of your CSIs a few years ago."
"You're Speed," Greg realized. "Warrick and Catherine both had great things to say about you." He and Speed shook hands.
"Yes, they did," Gil agreed. "I'm glad to see you in our lab."
"Warrick is here too," Elaine pointed out. "I still have hopes of snagging Catherine. Sorry, guys, there are a lot of departments to visit." She ushered Speed out of the lab.
"She stole a fine one there," Gil noted. "I'll pick up my barrels this afternoon."
"You could leave them," Greg offered, "but you would have to expect some evaporation."
Gil gave him the "not amused" eyebrow before exiting the lab. Greg slipped his headphones back on and rocked out as he started up his next set of slides.
. . . .
Speed had completed the official rounds of all of the departments and finished at his own office. He'd never had an office before. In Miami, he had a lab but no office. Here he had both. There was some landscaping going on outside his window and some of the men had removed their shirts because of the heat. Nice. Very nice. Especially the hot Arabian Nights hottie who seemed to be in charge.
He turned to see who was knocking on his door and had to keep himself from gasping. One of the most gorgeous dudes he'd ever seen rolled in with the aid of a very high tech wheelchair.
"Hi there, I'm Billy Strayhorn," the sexy man announced. "I missed you when Elaine took you around earlier."
Strayhorn. This had to be William Strayhorn, the CSI who had been shot along with two other officers by a serial killer. Speed hadn't heard that the man was back on the job.
Speed offered his hand. "Tim Speedle, most people call me Speed. I didn't know you were back at work."
"Elaine dragged me back two months early because she's shorthanded." He spread his hands. "What could I do when she asked so nice?"
Speed nodded. "What kind of evil taskmaster am I looking at as daytime shift supervisor?"
"That would be me," Billy answered. "I'm holding down the job until they can get someone permanent to take over."
"Are you evil?" Speed had to ask.
"I'm the worst," Billy swore. "I was such a bad boy myself that I already know all the tricks," he warned.
Speed pouted and sighed. "There goes that plan," he complained. He adjusted the collar of his new Silver Lakes coverall.
"Those coveralls are always a little stiff fresh out of the package," Billy explained. "Wash the rest before you wear them."
"Good plan," Speed noted.
"An even better plan is for you to have lunch with me," Billy suggested. "I've got some meal vouchers to spend and Sister Sally is just three blocks away."
"Sister Sally," Speed repeated. "Is that a Southern place?"
"You know it," Billy assured him. "Famous for their fluffy biscuits, fried chicken, catfish, and pulled pork. Don't worry, they also sell hamburgers and have a real long salad bar if you're afraid." He grinned and his dark blue eyes looked so mischievous.
"I've never been afraid of fried chicken," Speed replied. "It's a date."
Billy smiled. "Hmmm, I like the sound of that." He wheeled away.
Speed knew he was blushing.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
"They're gone. They're gone. They are gone," Gil whispered to himself. He loved his mother and his aunt. He adored Nick's parents, grandparents, and assorted Stokes family members. He nearly worshiped Ruth and would crawl across broken glass for the rest of the Brown family. He really did appreciate all they had done to turn the large house into a home. Gil just wanted his quiet and full non-"look first then grab" contact with his men.
"Gil, you're not nearly naked enough," Warrick complained as he gripped the older man by the waist and moaned hotly into his ear. "According to Nick, we only have four days left to fuck you in every room."
"Every room and on every piece of outdoor furniture," Nick corrected. "You're going to have to stand up when you get back to the office."
"I can live with that," Gil promised as he was made the filling in a Nick/Warrick sandwich. "Let's start with the foyer and then my library and conservatory."
"I'd brave the bugs for some Gil-loving," Warrick promised as his large hands did all sorts of magical things to Gil's ass.
The doorbell rang.
"Ignore it," Gil begged. It might have been some stray Stokes who hadn't had a full-fledge tour of the house or who wanted to put their name down on the "give me whiskey" list. They would want to talk for hours, share a meal, help clean up, and spend the night. Gil would go unfucked and that could not happen.
"I've got it," Nick announced as he abandoned Gil and went to the door. "Lillian, Rashid, come on in. We were just molesting Gil," he teased. "Business as usual."
"We're not here to stay, so you can get back to your molesting," Lillian announced. "We're just dropping off one of Rashid's chocolate cakes."
"It's my only culinary triumph," Rashid explained.
Gil looked past Warrick and could not say what was more tempting, the three-layer cake or the big chocolate man. Damn, Gil still could not believe he'd slept with that man and could not remember a second of it.
Warrick let Gil go with a promissory note of a licked neck and greeted their neighbors.
"Gil, can I have a word with you?" Rashid asked.
Lillian held the cake aloft. "While they're talking, why don't you boys show me your kitchen?" She followed Nick and Warrick to the rear of the house.
Gil led Rashid into his library. "Is there something wrong?" he asked.
"I want to apologize for any unauthorized cuddling that may have occurred while I was supposed to have been protecting you." Rashid pouted. "I couldn't help myself."
Gil blushed. "There is no need to apologize. I would have thoroughly enjoyed it if I could have participated."
Rashid pressed Gil against the paneled wall and ground his body against him. "You were a delicious little teddy bear," he whispered. "You made me think of doing scenes from 'Out of the Closet' with you. We'd shower together with all of those bubbles clinging to your hairy body and I'd make you suck me." He gently lifted Gil's hand and placed it onto his massive cock. Holy Jesus. "It's a good thing I didn't give into those instincts." He cuddled Gil and it felt wonderful. "I might not have given you back once I'd trained you to take me."
Gil whimpered at that thought.
"I hope you'll keep this just between us." Rashid cuddled Gil again and slowly, reluctantly released him. "You're too much temptation, Gil Grissom."
Gil nodded, unable to speak.
. . . .
"Do you think we'll be able to handle him after he gets his Rashid cuddles?" Nick asked excitedly as he, Warrick, and Lillian conspired in the kitchen.
"My Boo can be quite a force of seduction," Lillian warned. "You might need vitamin shots."
"We will need a slice or two of this cake to fortify us," Warrick suggested as he handed Nick a saucer with a generous portion on it.
"Good plan." Nick accepted the cake. "You are the best, Lillian," he insisted. "Not many wives would do this."
"I think this is fun," Lillian confessed.
"Damn, this is so good," Warrick moaned as he ate the cake.
"Mmmmmmmmm," Nick agreed.
"Save some and we'll smear it on Gil," Warrick suggested.
"You guys are making me hot and Rashid might not survive," Lillian warned.
"We have guestrooms if you can't make it back home," Nick offered.
The three tiptoed back into the greatroom and witnessed Rashid leaving Gil's library with his enormous cock outlined by his stretched khaki pants.
"Good lord," Nick whispered. "It's bringing out the bottom boy in me."
"Good," Warrick stated as he smacked Nick's rounded ass.
"It's a very nice bottom," Lillian stated appreciatively.
"Baby, let's go home," Rashid urged. He tossed his wife the keys. "You drive, I'm incapacitated."
Lillian caught the keys and tugged her big man out the door by his belt loop.
"Let's start with the library in our fuck Gil everywhere agenda," Warrick suggested as Nick locked the front door.
"Good idea," Nick agreed. The two men went into the library where Gil was standing against the wall. He looked rumpled and slightly dazed.
"He cuddled me," Gil confessed, "and I loved it."
"He's got you leaking in your pants," Warrick noted as he pushed the soiled garment down. Gil's briefs followed and he was taken to the large desk and bent over it bareassed. "I think we need to retake this territory."
Warrick filled Gil's mouth with his cock and held Gil's asscheeks apart while Nick prepared the older man. "Fuck him, Nicky. Let Gil know who this ass belongs to."
It was always a treat to watch Nick fuck Gil. Like everything else in his life, Nick fucked full out.
Warrick gripped the desk, leaned forward, and kept himself from thrusting so he could not choke Gil. "Give him every inch, Nick. We can't have our Sugar Bear going off to another cave."
Gil tried to protest, but it was tough with about five inches of cock in your mouth. Nick took that as a challenge and plowed his way into Gil's heated hole and pounded the older man's ass.
Warrick rebalanced himself and landed several sharp swats onto Gil's nice firm asscheeks. Grissom loved having his ass slapped. Slap it while Gil was stuffed with cock on both ends and the man was in orbit.
Nick withdrew. "Next room," he commanded.
Gil moaned as he was divested of cock and all but carried into the conservatory. The older man's insects were the only witnesses as Warrick took the chair. His cock was prepared and Gil guided down onto it.
Warrick could have spent the rest of the night there, but Gil didn't last five minutes with Warrick in his ass and Nick sucking down on his cock.
"Living room," Nick insisted. They moved into the living room and Gil was placed on his back on the couch and Nick mounted up again.
Warrick would have fed the older man some dick, but he was whipping his head back and forth so quickly that Brown wouldn't risk his flesh.
The plan to anoint all of the rooms of the house pretty much ended there. Gil wrapped his legs around Nick, moaned and babbled something that sounded like Latin, and then threw his head back as Nick's hips went wild.
Nick sagged and almost smothered Gil as his whole body seemed to puddle. Warrick helped the smaller man to roll to the side and pulled Gil off the couch.
He had to help first Gil and then Nick to the bed. Gil was worn out, but Nick was more than willing to accommodate Warrick's desperate need.
"I've just got to feel you around me," Warrick moaned into the smaller man's ear as he slid inside.
Nick like to, no, Nick loved to talk. He had both the voice and the brain for long talks. But when Nick went silent, that was when he was his most dangerous. His physical strength could shock you. His sexual desires could delight you. When they clashed, hang on.
Every window in the room should have been blown out as Nick's strength and his desire clashed in their bed. Warrick could only clutch the sheets and howl to the moon as Nick flipped Brown onto his back and rode him.
As Nick hung over him, every muscle straining and sweat running down his body, Warrick felt as if his physical body were frozen in time and his mind had expanded to the point that it could no longer be contained. He saw them. He saw Gil. He saw the house. He saw their friends. He saw their families. He even saw Sara as she buried her face in Ruth's shoulder and cried. She was healing, their friends and families were safe, and Warrick came crashing back down into his body as his cum shot from him into the condom.
"Man," Nick panted as he lay across Warrick, "what a ride."
"No... problem," Warrick panted. What had just happened to him and did he really want to know?
Chapter Six: Is There Anything You'd Like To Add?
The letter was nineteen pages long. Pamela could sum them up this way. Six pages reminded her of his love, four pages cursed some unnamed slender man who had broken his protections, eight pages forgave her for not successfully hiding the fact that she'd killed her husband and child, and one page was dedicated to a poem and the vow that she and he would always be soul mates.
Pamela had assured the authorities she did not know this man, but many thought she was trying to distance herself from a kidnapper while her appeals made the rounds. The simple truth of it was that Jordan did not know Harold Culp. She did not recognize his face or his name.
She returned the letter to its envelope and handed it over without waiting for a court order. It didn't matter, there was nothing in the letter that would hamper her case. She'd just gotten an obsessed fan.
Pamela went back to her cell and laid down. Why had he fixated on her and how long had he been watching her? Was he a witness who could forever taint a retrial? Would he show up with new evidence? What did he know?
Her only hope if he did have something was that he was so obviously crazy. That thought allowed her to settle.
"Pamela," a nasal male voice whispered in her ear.
Pamela rubbed her hands against the legs of her pants as they were tingling.
"Pamela," the man repeated. "It's me, my love."
She could see him. He was almost touching her. Pamela was revolted and he knew that.
"Feckless bitch," he hissed. His hand clamped over her mouth and Pamela began to suffocate. She fought him and she fought for a breath.
"What's the matter with you?" Geraldine Faulkner, her cellmate, asked. "Shit! Guard, guard!!!"
. . . .
"There was peanut oil in the ink and she was deathly allergic to peanuts," the coroner explained. He slid the refrigerator drawer holding the body of Pamela Jordan closed.
. . . .
Pamela was dead, an unfortunate accident, and Sara was totally out of his reach. Harold needed a new paramour. He would choose one from the newspaper. A man needed a goal. Idle hands were the instruments of the Devil.
The front page of the "B" section detailed a lurid trial taking place in Silver Lakes, Arkansas. The woman had orchestrated the kidnapping of a Japanese child that had resulted in the death of two of her men, a newspaper deliveryman, and an elderly woman. How delicious.
Rhonda Hopps Burton was so distinguished a name and she was beautiful. Her picture in the newspaper was taken as she entered the courtroom and those were never flattering. He nearly swooned to think how much more beautiful she would be in person.
He pulled several threads from the sleeve of his coverall and twisted them. "Reveal," he whispered. The threads twirled around on the table, startling the Neanderthal on the other side. Really, the riffraff they had incarcerated in this jail.
The threads twisted into a raven and he knew that was her totem. This one would be difficult, but he was up to the challenge. A woman you could pick up without defeating something to win her was no better than a prostitute.
He had no room in his life for a prostitute.
Harold Culp focused his mind upon Rhonda Hopps Burton. "You are mine," he whispered to the tiny totem.
"No, I am not," the thread-raven replied before it burst into flames.
Good, a challenge.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
Warrick grinned as the Ducati, a shamefully dangerous looking bike, roared up to the sidewalk with Nick clinging tightly to the driver, Speed. "How was it?" he asked.
"Warrick, I've decided to have an affair with this bike," Nick answered before climbing off the motorcycle. He gave it a fond pat.
Speed laughed. "Would you like a ride, Warrick? You could make it a threesome."
"How can I turn that down?" Warrick asked. He accepted the helmet from Nick and straddled the machine. Speed whipped them around the campus and returned Brown, safe and exhilarated, to where Nick and now Gil were waiting.
"It's almost as good as sex," Warrick had to admit.
"Would you like a ride, Doctor Grissom?" Speed offered.
"Definitely," Grissom agreed, "but we have to pick up a friend at the airport. Can I get a raincheck?"
"Of course," Speed promised before powering away from the curb.
"That's one hot package," Nick announced.
"The man or the bike?" Gil asked.
"Both," Stokes confessed.
Warrick smacked both of his bad boys on the butt and shooed them toward the truck. Catherine had insisted she could take a cab from the airport, but they had been equally insistent that they would pick her up.
Willows had to testify in what the local papers were calling the "Stalking Bomber" case. A nutjob had left a bomb in Cynthia Haslet's BMW and Willows had led the charge to track down Andrew DeRossi. It seemed Cynthia had danced with him at some Sao Paulo nightclub and from that he'd built an elaborate love affair. When he'd seen her at the Quarter Note Night Club in Silver Lakes with another man, he'd snapped.
The psychiatrists had concluded that Andrew DeRossi was sane, no matter how nutty he acted. Love made you clown. This guy had taken clowning to the extreme and he was going to pay to the tune of 25 to life.
They were early, thanks to Nick, and the plane was late, thanks to the weather. It was rare when the threesome found themselves with nothing to do but talk while they were away from their own neighborhood.
Warrick waited to see what subject would engage them. He hoped it wasn't work and he wasn't disappointed.
"Rick, Chloe wants you to talk to Max Landry about 'Strong Like Texas'," Nick announced.
"Who is Max Landry?" Warrick inquired.
"He's a Nashville record producer and he wants to record the song with Big Tex Hammond," Nick explained. "Big Tex is an up and coming singer/musician."
"That's your song, Babe. I know you don't want some other man singing your song." Warrick squeezed the other man's hand.
"Didn't Big Tex sing the national anthem at the Cowboys-Patriots game?" Gil asked.
"That was him," Nick answered. "He has a huge voice."
"You're really alright with someone else singing your song?" Warrick had to ask. He wouldn't put it past Nick to do this for Warrick while being bitter that his present was in someone else's hands. Nick wouldn't lie to him if asked directly.
"I'm totally alright with it. Every time I heard it on the radio, I would remember that you wrote it for me." Nick's voice was slow and sweet and spread itself over Warrick's skin like the softest caress. The man needed to be jumped.
"Mimi Stone called me at the office today," Gil announced.
Mimi was a neighbor, the owner of Silverlode Cab Company, and a Master Gardener. Warrick had come to the house several times to find her working in their overgrown gardens with other neighbors and members of their family. Brown had to admire a woman who would roll up her sleeves and work in a neighbor's garden to make sure it was done right.
"Is there anything wrong?" Nick asked.
"No, she just wanted our permission to take some cuttings of some of our heirloom roses for propagation in her greenhouse," Gil explained.
"As long as she also does a few for Uncle Ernest, I don't have a problem with it," Nick stated.
"She promised us some Concord grape vines since she knows they're Warrick's favorite," Gil continued. "I think she's sweet on you."
Warrick blinked. "She's old enough to be my mother."
"And?" Gil drawled, raising his left eyebrow.
Warrick blushed because Gil was showing jealousy and it was a rare sight. "I'm taken," Brown explained.
"Exactly," Gil agreed, lightly touching Warrick's wrist. Nick smiled at him with his "I have a secret" look.
"We're going to be hit with a lot of begging on the part of my nieces, nephews, and cousins come next summer," Nick warned. "They're going to want to stay with us for a week or two."
"Why?" Warrick asked.
"We have a pool, a monster television, we keep odd hours, and they can rock and roll because they think three bachelors would let them skate on the rules," Nick answered.
"If they do ask, tell them they are welcome," Gil insisted, "but warn them that we have a basement to finish and acreage we haven't even touched yet."
"That'll keep them away," Warrick stated with confidence.
Nick shook his head. "You guys don't know my relatives. They would take that as a challenge."
"We need to tear down that old barn and repair or rip out that weird looking fence," Warrick reminded them.
"We cannot touch that fence," Gil stated fiercely. "It's almost an artifact."
"What about the barn?" Warrick asked.
"It's more scraggly trees and thick vines than barn. It has to go," Nick asserted. Overhead, Catherine's flight was announced.
"She's going to be ragged out after the delay and bumpy ride," Warrick warned. "Just let her complain."
Passengers began filtering down to the luggage rack. Red-haired Catherine was easy to spot.
"Hey, Cat," Warrick called. She turned and Brown did his best not to go bug-eyed. Oh hell, she'd fallen into the plastic surgery vortex of stupidity. Catherine had puffed up her lips so they would only look right on a black woman and tightened the skin around her eyes to the point that it must have been painful to blink.
He knew Hank, Catherine's boyfriend, didn't want her to do that, so it had to have been something she'd wanted. Warrick tried to come up with a greeting that didn't start with "what the fuck have you done to yourself?".
"Jesus, Catherine, you were gorgeous. Why did you touch yourself?" Nick asked, obviously pained.
Warrick smacked Nick, though his lover had simply stated what Brown had been thinking. Gil was not looking at her and it was obvious.
"I did it for me," Catherine answered.
"Good enough," Gil declared. "Let's get her luggage."
"Hi, guys," Sara greeted. "She wouldn't listen to me either."
"Sara came with me," Catherine announced.
Warrick surprised himself by hugging Sara when he had not hugged Catherine. He corrected that error. Nick and Gil grabbed the luggage and they all piled into the truck. Warrick drove, Gil sitting shotgun, and Nick in the back with the ladies. After a quiet start, Nick soon had them laughing with his "Gil, Nick, and Warrick are ganged up on by their families" stories.
"I had been counting on them barely tolerating each other, but it was not to be," Nick moaned. "My sisters can't get along with each other, but they were soon best of pals with everyone else."
"They organized our closets. All of them," Gil threw in. "Even the ones that were empty."
"They're called closet systems, Gil, and it was very sweet of them to do it," Warrick corrected. "Nick's uncles went nuts over our pool area and fixed us up a really top flight barbeque and outdoor kitchen, which they made me cook on every day."
"The kids camped out in the house and the adults slept at Elaine and Tina's houses," Nick continued. "You remember Tina Coleman."
"Laurel and Barry transferred all of Gil's menagerie into their new homes," Warrick threw in. "I couldn't have done it."
"Barry, as in Barry Winthrop, the owner of the Silver Lake Silver Wolves," Nick added.
"Roger threatened to throw him out of the house because of his loyalty to the Cowboys, but he restrained himself since the man was a neighbor of his sons," Gil added. "We're not letting you talk," he stated.
"Why?" Catherine asked. "We can't compete."
"And I want to hear about Juan thinking Nick's cousin was about to burn a cross in the yard," Sara added.
. . . .
The ladies were unpacking, Nick and Warrick were in the kitchen seeing to dinner, and Gil ascended the stairs to have a talk with Sara. They had talked several times on the phone, but this would be their first face-to-face private conversation.
"You kept your head," was Gil's not-too-subtle opening. No wonder Nick and Warrick were damaging their eyes by constantly rolling them over Gil's many goofs.
"If I'd truly kept my head, I would have hustled my way back to Hank's house, instead of running off on my own," Sara responded as she closed the drawer on the beautiful white gilt-edged chest of drawers that went with the beautiful French Country set Nick's sister Chloe had in her attic after her last redecorating blitz. Chloe loaded it all into a U-Haul and drove it to Silver Lakes from Nashville.
Gil had also scored a velvet-lined globe/bar set, complete with lead crystal bottles, where the globe was hopelessly outdated but the bar part worked fine. Warrick received an Art Deco crystal chess set that was "gathering dust" with the matching table and two chairs. Nick received a massive mahogany desk with matching chair that had taken four strong men and two teenagers to move up the stairs and into Nick's office.
"It was a mistake most people wouldn't have been able to recover from," Gil noted. "You did." He had a seat on the small couch in the sitting area of the room.
Gil recalled watching his mother, Grace, and Nick's mother, Jillian, having the furniture placed by two Stokes and two Brown men without being able to talk to one another with his Aunt Selene out of the room. They hadn't needed words, they had understood each other.
"This is a beautiful room," Sara remarked before sitting down beside Gil.
Gil wrapped his arm around the young woman and squeezed. "I remembered you and it helped them find you."
"I could hear 'Twilight at Rhodes' and almost see your face," Sara reported. "I knew you were coming for me and all I had to do was hang on. You're the only one I've told that. I'm so glad you don't hate me any more because I know it couldn't have been easy letting them... focus through you."
Gil placed his chin on top of Sidle's head. "I never hated you, Sara. I was angry and I was hurt, but there was no hate." He began to rock her. "Welcome back."
"Thanks," Sara replied.
"How are the rest of the team fairing?" he asked. Gil didn't need to tell her he was speaking of her rescue team.
"Sikes has been promoted to patrol sergeant and is dating a showgirl. Falcon is going back to school to finish his masters in Criminal Justice. Hodges was promoted and moved to the day shift. He came out of the closet and is dating a much younger and very wealthy Englishman. Derrick seems to have forgiven me and often accompanies me to my therapy sessions." Sara sighed. "He's a good man and he deserved a lot better than he got."
"That can be said about a lot of people, Sara," Gil noted. "But as my Aunt Selene is fond of saying, 'where there is life, there is hope'."
"I can admit it now that I'm home and dry, that I thought I was dead." She held her hand out, fingers splayed as if the weight of memory were bearing down on her. "He ran me off the road and as I struggled to get out of my seatbelt, I knew it was him and I knew I was dead." She covered her face and bowed her head. "I was so stupid."
"Yes," Gil agreed, "but I've pulled some bonehead moves in my time and other people had to pull my bacon out of the fire."
"No meat metaphors," Sara chastised.
"Sorry," Gil said, just before a snicker. "My mind is flooded with puns. Can I do one?"
"No," Sara responded.
"I'll just get to the meat of it," Grissom promised.
Sara swatted the man with a cushion. "Stop it."
"I'm not being a ham," he swore even as he chuckled.
"I've got an entire room of cushions to get you with," Sara threatened.
"If I promised to put my puns back in the box, do you promise to come to me if you need to talk?" Gil asked sincerely.
Sara nodded. "Yes, I do." They sat in silence for a moment. "What are we going to NOT talk about next?"
"I was going to make an attempt at subtext, but I've come to the conclusion that the skill is overrated," Gil admitted. "Straightforward discussions seem to rule down here and as long as I'm not asking another male to discuss his feelings, I do alright."
Sara chuckled. "When do you ask another man to discuss his feelings?" she asked.
"Outside this house, almost never," Gil admitted.
Sara sighed. "So, you've settled here." It was a statement. They both knew he'd never go back to Vegas.
"This is my place," Gill agreed. "I've never felt so comfortable in my own skin before. Clyde Winthrop, he's Barry's uncle, told me that after a man acquired a certain amount of gray hair that if he hadn't developed a 'full blown' personality by then, he was shipped off to Florida where no one would notice. It's okay to be eccentric here. It makes you interesting."
"I've been looking at moving on," Sara admitted.
"Culp is never getting out," Gil promised her.
"No one can guarantee that, but he's not the reason I want to leave." Sara straightened her back. "I need to start clean. There's nothing and no one keeping me in Vegas. I've put in some applications in both San Francisco and New York."
Neither one of them bothered to suggest she try her luck in Silver Lakes. The truth was, and Gil could admit it to himself, he did not want her here.
"Keep me informed," he said instead.
Sara looked at him. "Of course," she agreed.
Gil got up. "I'll let you finish unpacking." He exited the room and softly closed the door on his old life.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
The jury pool consisted of citizens from as far away as Fayetteville and Hope. The defendant had six lawyers, his own forensic team, and a model acting like she was his girlfriend. Prosecuting Attorney Sam Cross and his team ate Andrew DeRossi and his Dream Team a new one. The jury deliberated just long enough to get lunch from the Silver Belles Restaurant before returning a guilty on all counts verdict.
Nick, Warrick, and Catherine exited the courtroom just as DeRossi, who was sobbing like a broken man, was dragged out.
"You've got to hit the clubs with us before you go," Warrick cajoled.
"No clubs, but you can take me out to dinner," Catherine suggested. "I want to get as much sleep as possible before I head back."
"You ought to pack up your things and move your entire family back to Silver Lakes," Nick suggested. "You'd have to fight Elaine for Lindsey, but otherwise, you'd love it here."
Catherine smiled. "It's very tempting, guys, but there are some family things going on that require me to stay in Vegas for a bit longer. Besides, Hank still has a contract with the University Hospital."
"We had to try," Warrick stated as they made their way to the parking lot.
They were able to get to the truck unnoticed because Sam Cross was showing the Press some love on the courthouse steps. Traffic was a snarly mess until Nick got them onto Mississippi Boulevard, which was strictly residential and had a very low speed limit, but compared to Union Ave, it was moving quite quickly.
"Oh my gawd," Catherine whispered as they slowed down to allow a cement truck to back up into a driveway. The house that had caught her eye was a brand new Prairie-style cedar and stone beauty that backed up to the Boston Hill Reservoir.
Someone had split the double lot in two and built a new home that looked as if it had been built with the rest of the older neighborhood.
"I bet the bottom level is stone-covered and opens out onto a deck," Warrick stated.
"Do you think they'd let us look?" Catherine asked, her voice soft.
"We can ask," Nick answered as he parked the truck in the next driveway. They were in a civilian truck and dressed in their conservative court clothes, but they might as well have blasted into the drive with lights and sirens. As soon as the crew spotted them, they began looking around for a recently committed crime.
The foreman, a petite woman with the words BIG BOSS stitched onto her shirt above the breast pocket, stepped forward. "Can I help you, officers?"
Nick felt like looking at himself to see if he was still wearing his badge. "Nick Stokes, Catherine Willows, and Warrick Brown," he introduced. "Catherine would like to peek at the house. We're hoping she'll fall in love with it and leave Las Vegas and come to work for us at the Crime Lab."
Pride is a big factor in Silver Lakes and it never hurt to stroke the local pride. The foreman smiled and took Catherine by the arm. "Catherine, I am about to make you happier than any woman has in your whole life."
Nick and Warrick followed the two women in respectful silence as they toured the close to complete house. A lot of attention had been put into the details of the place and you could tell that all of the workers were really proud of it.
The kitchen, living room, dining/sunroom, master bedroom, master bath, half-bath, and study were all on the main floor, while the family room, a wet bar, a wine cellar, three bedrooms, and two baths were on the lower floor. The bonus room over the garage came with a full bath and could be used for lots of purposes. Nick favored a home theater.
After such an overwhelming case of "house love", Nick could think of nothing better than a run to a couple of their favorite stores, a few phone calls, and hosting the old Las Vegas team, plus a few, in the Dragonfly House.
Catherine and Renata discussed their houses that they weren't going to buy. Archie and Greg had recently purchased a condo together and wanted to make sure everyone knew they were expected to help with the move. Jim's new house was having its final inspection in two days and he was also counting on some help. Al and Sonya had moved into their place a week after coming back to Silver Lakes and were planning on a housewarming party. Bobby had purchased a townhouse in the Beacon Hill area and for the first time in his life, he was not going to be a renter.
Nick knew that no amount of cajoling on their part could have turned Catherine toward Silver Lakes as much as seeing how well her friends had settled. It was a great evening.
<><><>=============<><><>=============<><><>
Warrick could not imagine a more perfect day. It was Sunday and none of them were on call. The weather was splendid, they'd cooked outside, and now the three of them were enjoying their backyard and the serenity it seemed to induce.
Gil was reading while reclining on the outdoor bed. That thick book was as good as a chastity belt and it kept Warrick and Nick from jumping the man's bones just because he was on the bed.
Nick was swaying softly in the hammock. He had been reading, but the book was resting on his stomach and the man was simply resting and smiling. There was something so sweet about his expression and Warrick was glad that he'd contributed to that smile.
Warrick was writing a new song. It was about this moment of quiet and peace. Everyone understood that feeling, no matter how rare it was in their lives. Brown sure did.
He peeked over the top edge of his notebook and watched Nick sway and Gil carefully turn the page. This was what he'd worked for all his life and until now, he'd never guessed that his biggest goal in life wasn't a huge jackpot but times like this.
Warrick was content.
The End
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