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Infliction
Chapter Nine – Search & Rescue
As their SUV hurried through
the desert landscape, the little boy’s face haunted Sara. Swollen from the
beating he’d sustained, his sorrowful eyes stared up at her as though begging
her to make things right in the world. Relying on her to bring back his big sister.
Grissom’s gentleness with the
child had almost done her in. In a soft voice, he guided Mikey through his
story, managing to extract all the important information from him while trying
not to cause additional trauma.
“Can you tell me what
happened, Mikey?”
The child’s voice, even an
hour later, as she remembered it, brought tears to her eyes.
“Daddy was mad at me because I
wouldn’t stop crying.”
It was a pathetic excuse (as any
excuse would be) for hitting a child, much less for beating one into
unconsciousness. But Mikey believed it. He felt culpable in his own abuse. As
they left the hospital room, he was crying in his mothers arms, apologizing for
acting like a baby. Not for the first time, Sara wished she could forgo the
responsibilities of her job in law enforcement and beat the bastard to a pulp.
She also wished she could just
have an hour in which to unburden herself of all the misery she was feeling.
She just wanted to lock herself in a room and sob all the pain away. And that
made her feel incredibly selfish. After all this child had gone through, all
his sister was still going through,
she was thinking about her own pain, her own problems.
Sitting in the car next to
Grissom in silence, she was still thinking about those problems, becoming
angrier every second she spent focused on them. She was working herself into a
fury – angry with herself, angry with Jill and, as irrational as it was, she
was even angry with Grissom. Why had he allowed himself to get mixed up in her
life now, when she could cause him the most damage? And still he stayed, trying
to convince her that it wasn’t her fault, knowing full well that every moment
he spent with her meant another nail in the coffin of his career.
It had crossed her mind that
morning at her apartment when she sent him home alone and it crossed her mind
again now – how much better off he would be without her. But she couldn’t think
about that now, much less come to a decision. A child was still in danger and
she had a job to do.
Mikey’s information was enough
to secure a warrant for the address Sara had found. His father had told them he
was taking them to their ‘Aunt Jess’s’ house. Now Brass, two patrol cars and
Grissom and Sara’s Tahoe were on their way there too.
The property was a ramshackle
assortment of buildings, resembling what might have been a working farm at one
point in history. At the last possible moment, they announced their presence
with sirens and one patrol car blocked the driveway, while Sara and Grissom
hung back, in case there was any trouble.
They watched in silence as
Brass’s car trundled up the rest of the way to the front of the property.
Hopping out of the driver’s seat, he was immediately flanked by two uniformed
officers as he approached the front door and rapped sharply.
“Michael Harper! Las Vegas
PD!”
They heard a bang as the back
door flew open, and someone they could only assume was Mike Harper made a run
for it.
Grissom could feel Sara tense
beside him. Sensing she was about to take off after their suspect, he grabbed
her arm, keeping her at his side.
“Let the cops do their job,
Sara,” he said in a quiet but firm voice.
Two of the uniforms had
already cut off Harper’s escape route. He changed direction clumsily, only to
find another policeman in his path. Even from a distance, Sara could tell he’d
been drinking. The chase lasted barely a minute, with Harper staggering more
and more, unable to evade his pursuers. He was firmly in the grasp of two cops
when Brass reached him.
“Where is she?”
Harper was the picture of
innocence as he shrugged.
“I don’t know what you’re
talking about.”
Wrenching herself from
Grissom’s grasp, Sara launched herself forwards, hurrying towards their
suspect.
“Where’s Jane? What have you
done with her?”
As he followed Sara, Grissom
spotted a woman, Jess he assumed, standing just inside the front door, her arms
folded, impassively watching the scene. Nodding to two of the police officers
nearest the house, he called out instructions to search the house for the girl
but to touch nothing.
Sara reached Harper several
steps before Grissom did, and he could tell from her posture that she was doing
her best to control herself, and for that he was grateful. The last thing he
needed her to do right now was to attack a suspect.
“What have you done with her,
you son of a bitch?”
Harper regarded her
disdainfully. “Go to hell, lady,” he spat.
“You’ll be in hell if we don’t
find that little girl alive and well.”
Harper turned his attention to
Grissom as he arrived at Sara’s side. “You want to keep her under control,
pal?”
Grissom looked at him like the
dirt he was. “You don’t tell us where your daughter is, and she’ll be the least
of your problems, pal.”
---
Three quarters of an hour
later, Harper still wasn’t forthcoming with the whereabouts of his daughter. He
and the lady of the house had been taken into custody, while the police
commenced their search. The initial search of the house was followed up by a
more detailed one by Grissom and Sara, while the four police officers that had
accompanied them searched the exterior of the property and the many
out-buildings.
Sara barely spoke, though
Grissom noted a steely glaze that had fallen over her eyes, which told him she
was both upset and angered by proceedings. He felt his own professional veneer
slipping every time her glanced round to check on her, desperately wanting to
forget they were at a crime scene so that he could just gather her up in his
arms and take the pain away.
It didn’t take too long before
she was frustrated beyond reason.
“This is ridiculous!” she stated,
getting up off her haunches, having been crouched down for the better part of
five minutes looking for loose floor boards in the living room. “She’s not in
here.”
Grissom kept his voice cool
and calm to counteract hers. “We have to keep looking.”
Breathing out in frustration,
she made her way to the door. “You keep looking here, then. I’m going to go
search the property.”
The cops were already covering
the barn and the larger out-buildings near the house, so Sara made her way to
the buildings further away. What she guessed was an old tool shed, along with a
tiny outside toilet were both empty.
The third building she entered
could only have been the slaughter house, judging from the multitude of now
rusting hooks that hung from the rafters. Fighting off the urge to shiver, she
looked around for any place suitable to hide a small child. Unfortunately,
there were many such places.
“Jane!” she called out, her
voice echoing around the place in a haunting manner. “My name’s Sara. You don’t
need to be scared. I’m here to bring you back to your Mom.”
Avoiding a dangerous piece of
rusting metal, Sara slid open a cupboard door. Nothing was inside but the
carcass of a dead rat. Placing her sleeve across her nose and mouth, she slid
the door closed again.
“Jane! If you can hear me,
tell me where you are.” No reply, except
the echo of her own voice.
Making her way to the far side
of the building, she pried open another door, so stiff she doubted it had been
opened in decades. There was nothing at the other side of it except more piles
of rusting metal.
She was about to give up hope
and move on to the next building when she heard it. The tiniest of noises. She
became perfectly still as she listened with all her might. And then it came
again.
“Help me.”
The voice was so quiet, so
muffled; Sara could barely make it out. But she was in no doubt of what she had
heard.
“Jane. My name’s Sara. Where
are you honey?”
Silence for a moment, an
excruciatingly long moment, until… “I don’t know. It’s dark.”
The child sounded terrified.
Hunkering closer to where she’s though the voice was coming from, Sara tried to
keep her own voice strong and reassuring. “It’s okay, sweetheart. We’re going
to get you out of there and get you home, okay?”
Moving quickly, she ran to the
door of the building to alert the rest of the search party.
“I’ve found her!”
Dashing back to the corner
where she heard the voice, she started talking again. “We’re going to get you
out of there, Jane. Just keep talking to me. I’ll follow the sound of your
voice, okay.”
“Okay,” came the tiny reply.
“How’s my little brother? Did you find him?”
Sara had begun moving debris
out of the way, searching for a door or something that would lead to Jane.
“Yes. We found him. He’s safe. He’s with your Mom. Which is exactly where
you’re going to be very soon. Keep talking to me.”
Brass and a handful of cops
piled into the building, followed quickly by Grissom. By that time, Sara had
already figured out Jane’s hiding place.
“See the drag marks,” she
pointed out to them. “He dragged this piece of machinery over some kind of
trapdoor, I’ll bet. Piled a lot of detritus on top of it. I need help moving it
all.”
It took them only a few
moments to clear the area of debris and uncover the hidden trapdoor beneath.
Rushing forward, Sara opened the door with a gloved hand to reveal the wide,
scared eyes of the little girl.
“It’s okay, honey,” she
whispered, scooping her up into her arms. “You’re safe now.”
---
By the time they had driven
back to Vegas and reunited Jane with her Mother and brother, Sara was
emotionally drained. There was intense satisfaction in having found the little
girl and arrested her abusive father, but the needlessness of the whole
situation still stuck in her throat. Children should not have to go through
experiences like these.
Grissom found her getting some
air outside the hospital entrance.
“Do you want to go to PD for
the interrogation?” he asked her, noting how tired and strung out she looked.
Slowly, she shook her head.
“I, uh… I think I’ll just head back to the lab and start logging the evidence
we collected out at the house. Okay?”
Thinking it was probably for
the best, Grissom agreed. “Okay.”
“See you later,” she said, not
looking up, walking off towards the SUV before he could utter another word.
---
“Summations are first thing
tomorrow morning,” the District Attorney, Marcus Rutherford, grumbled. “You’ve
cut this very fine.”
Catherine shot him a look that
would curdle milk. “You didn’t exactly give us a lot of time on this. Now,
would you like to waste even more time, or do you want to hear our findings?”
Appropriately discomfited,
“The defense are doing a
tap-dance routine to distract the jury,” Catherine cut him off. “Grissom and
Sara Sidle were not involved in a personal relationship at the time of this
investigation. There was no reason for Grissom to remove himself from the case.
The defense can cry about it all they want. There is no evidence of any wrong
doing by any member of this lab.”
The DA sighed and looked to
Ecklie. “I’m not sure it’ll make much difference anymore, Catherine,” Ecklie
admitted. “Your internal investigation may have cleared Grissom, but it may be
too late to sway the jury.”
Catherine shook her head.
“That’s ridiculous. Jill is as guilt as sin.”
“That as maybe,”
---
“Everything logged?” Grissom
asked as he entered the layout room several hours later to find Sara immersed
in paper work; boxes and envelops of evidence laid out in front of her.
“This is the last piece,” she
replied, not looking up. “I’ll leave the report on your desk when I’m done.”
He suddenly felt incredibly
frustrated. Sara had always given him her full attention in the past, whether
in the professional realm or, more recently, in the realm of the personal. Now
she was actively not looking at him.
“Sara.”
The impatience in her voice
did not mask the other emotion that was present. Distance.
“I said I’m nearly done,
Grissom.”
Still no eye contact. Grissom
sighed out in frustration and rubbed a hand idly over his beard. Surely she
wasn’t mad at him? Had he done anything
to piss her off in the past 48 hours? Racking his brains for the slightest
clue, he concluded that he had not. He’d been nothing but supportive of her. Maybe a little too supportive, the
paranoid sector of his brain suggested. Maybe
you’re suffocating her…
He stood by the door watching
her, suddenly realizing what he’d been like when he’d shut her out all of those
years. Cold and distance, finding eye contact difficult. All because he had
been afraid of hurting her. And, most especially, because he had been afraid of
getting hurt.
Things had been going so well
between them, and as much as he wanted to avoid putting too much pressure on
her, he’d be damned if he let her repeat his mistakes by keeping him at arms
length.
While he’d been lost in
thought, Sara had risen to her feet and begun to gather the evidence into her
arms.
“Let me help you with that.”
“It’s okay. I can manage.”
Stepping forward, he picked up
a large box from the table. “Sara, let me help, okay?”
“Okay,” she said reluctantly.
“Thanks.”
They didn’t speak on their way
to the evidence vault, the silence laying heavy between them. Once everything
was inside and the door safely locked, Grissom decided to try again.
“Shift’s over. Would you like
to grab some breakfast?”
She shook her head, granting
him a small, regretful smile. “Not today. I just… I’m just going to head home.”
She looked at him, her eyes meeting his for a split second before darting away again.
“I’ll see you tonight.”
As she started towards the
locker room, Grissom felt anger start to build within him. Why was she pushing him away?
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his
tone halting her steps.
Barely looking back over her
shoulder, she feigned confusion. “What do you mean?”
Not wanting to have a scene
with her in the middle of the corridor, he nodded his head in the opposite
direction. “Let’s go to my office.” Without waiting for her to acquiesce, he
stalked off in that direction, not stopping or turning around until he reached
his desk. He was relieved to see that she’d followed him.
“What are you doing?” he asked
her, his eyes searching her face for a clue to what she was thinking.
“What the county pays me for,
Grissom. My job.”
She did flippant better than
anyone he knew and right now it was pissing him off.
“Shut the door.”
Ignoring the reproachful look
she shot him, he waited until the rest of the lab was excluded from their
conversation.
“What’s going on with you?” he
asked her. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
She looked at him as though
he’d lost his mind. “I’ve been working with you on this case. I’d hardly call
that ‘avoiding’ you.”
“Stop it Sara,” he replied,
losing his battle with himself to keep his voice down. “Stop pretending nothing
is wrong. I’m meant to be the asshole of this relationship. I’m the one who
avoids you, who runs away, who hides behind the job to avoid intimacy. You
think five years of practice hasn’t given me sufficient ability to spot that
behavior in you? You’ve barely been able to look me in the eye since I got back
from court. We haven’t spent any personal time alone together, much less talked
about everything that’s happened.”
She bent her head, her stoic
façade cracking. Seeing her upset, he immediately hated himself for being angry
and went to her, cradling her cheek in his hand. “Sara, how can I help you if
you won’t let me in?”
It
would be so easy, she thought. Just to give in, to let him take
care of her. To act like the helpless woman Jill wanted her to become and just
let him wrap his arms around her and sob into his shirt. But she couldn’t do
it.
“Maybe I don’t want you to
help,” she said, her voice quiet but firm. “Maybe it’s something I have to do
alone.”
And with that, she had left
his office before he even knew how to respond.
---
Sara sat in the locker room,
both mentally and physically exhausted. She was grateful that Grissom hadn’t
followed her – the last thing she needed was another heart-wrenching
conversation. And yet, she didn’t hurry to leave the building; a small part of
her (the weak part, she thought)
wanted him to find her.
When Nick came in at the end
of his shift, she was gathering her things together.
“Hey,” he greeted her
cheerfully. “Greg and me are heading out for some breakfast. You up for joining
us?”
Grateful for the offer, she
sadly shook her head. “Sorry, Nick. It’ll have to be another time. I have
somewhere I need to be.”
Half an hour later, Sara
slipped into the back of the courtroom, just as Helen Spencer stood to give her
closing statement.
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