Trigger
In an instant, he wondered why she'd never finished graduate school. It wasn't like her. She wasn't one to give up, to walk away. Sara Sidle was nothing if not determined.
He wondered when she'd gotten that tattoo on her ankle. Did it have a special significance? Had she pored over pages of designs at the tattoo parlor, her slender fingers running down the endless choices until she found that one strange, dark flower?
He didn't know her favorite food, her favorite color, her favorite scented candle. He didn't know what it felt like to kiss her bare shoulder.
Sweat trickled down his brow, trailing between his eyebrows, running down to perch in a ridiculous drop on the tip of his nose. It might have made her laugh, if her eyes hadn't been frozen on the gun pressed to her forehead.
It was the cop's fault, he decided. The uniform posted outside was clearly inexperienced, to have let this man past the door. Inexperienced, he thought, or dead.
"Why are you here?" the gunman asked quietly, patiently. He was staring at Sara, but his question was aimed at Grissom.
"We're not cops," Grissom replied at once.
The man pushed the muzzle of the gun harder against Sara's skin. "Not what I asked, sir," he said pleasantly.
He'd been very polite when he'd entered the crime scene, asking Sara to please kneel as he pressed steel between her eyes. His gaze had flickered down to Grissom's holster, and with a grin he'd cocked his head almost ruefully. Grissom had slid his firearm over, watching as it came to a stop under the man's boot.
"We were called in to gather evidence. I'm the one who's in charge here, you can let the woman go." Just a woman. A nameless, inconsequential woman. Women and children first, like on the Titanic, and then we can settle the matter like men.
"This is my home. You're trespassing in my home."
Grissom doubted the man was after an apology.
Sara wasn't blinking. Her eyes were fixed on the barrel of the gun, brows furrowed in concentration. He'd seen that expression hundreds of times. Some nights he dreamed about it.
"I'd like you to leave now," the gunman whispered.
"Fine. We'll be on our way. Sara?"
"Just you, sir." His words left the taste of fear on Grissom's tongue, heavy and thick. "I'd like you to leave."
"It's okay." Sara's voice was shaking. "Really, I'm fine, Grissom. Go."
"Listen to the nice lady, Mr. Grissom." The muzzle of the gun left her forehead and trailed down her cheek in an absurd caress.
There were a few certainties in Gil Grissom's life. There was science, there was truth, and there was the knowledge that he was going to die tonight. For two months, a serial killer had been escalating in Las Vegas. The crime scene photos were gruesome and disturbing. The killer favored tall, lean brunettes, and Grissom had noticed Sara glancing over her shoulder nervously for weeks. Finally someone had witnessed an abduction and called in the license plate number, which had led them here.
This was the guy, and if Grissom had to absorb every bullet of that gun into his body, he wasn't going to let anything happen to Sara.
"If you don't leave, sir," the man said, using the gun to trace her trembling lower lip, "I'll kill her here and now."
"No you won't," Grissom replied, a note of false confidence ringing in his voice. "Not with that gun, anyway. It's not your M.O."
"I've got six bullets, and they all work just fine."
"Not ammo. M.O. It stands for modus operandi. The way you work. Not by shooting. That's not what gets you off."
He'd piqued the man's interest. "What gets me off, then? Raping them?"
"There were no rapes," Grissom said with authority. "No sexual assaults of any kind. It's not your style. Rapes are messy, chaotic. No, you like to slice your victims."
A glint of pleasure shone in the man's eyes.
"You work with precision and care. Organs removed and placed around the room cleverly."
"Cleverly?"
"You're bright, and you have a sense of humor. You place your victim's heart on the object that they liked best in life. For instance, Alice Fitzpatrick's went on her TV set, because she watched reality television all day long. And you place your victim's liver on top of any bills or letters she's received, then pick it back up and lay it beside the letters."
The corners of the man's lips twitched. He was pleased. "Why do I do that?"
"You're taking the liver off the mail. You're de-livering the mail."
"I didn't think anyone would get that."
Grissom leaned against the couch, attempting to look relaxed. "I did. I got a lot about you from studying your work. You're patient. Calm. You get a thrill out of killing women, but the rush is drawn out for so long that it's almost tantric in nature. That's why I know you won't shoot her. It'd be over in seconds."
The man's eyes darkened.
"And think about the mess," Grissom added. "Ever try to get bone fragments out of carpet?"
"You know... when you're right, you're right." He smiled at Grissom with grudging respect. "I shouldn't rush my last one."
"Who says I'm going to be your last?" Sara's voice startled them both, and the man's grip on the gun tightened.
"You know my name. You know where I live, what car I drive, where I work. Plus, I had to shoot a cop to get in here." He shook his head, licking his lips. "Neither of us is living past tonight, miss. We should make it count."
It's said that when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes, like a film roll on fast-forward. What no one had told Grissom was that when the person you love most is about to die, the past doesn't appear in grainy strips of memory.
Instead he saw Sara lying under his quilt, her naked back smooth under his fingertips. A long walk by the lake, his arm slung across her shoulders. A little girl with curly brown hair and a stubborn streak, asleep by the fire as they placed gifts under the Christmas tree. He wanted to explain to the gunman that the little girl needed to keep believing in Santa Claus, but a lump in his throat was rendering speech impossible.
The man stepped back, keeping his gun trained on Sara as he leaned down to pick up Grissom's gun with his other hand. "My knives are in the kitchen," he said absently.
"You could tie us up," Sara suggested, jutting her chin toward two table lamps. Grissom's eyes widened in disbelief, but when the man turned to glance at the lamps, she cocked her head toward the front door. Brass was looking in the window, his gun poised.
"I can kneel down too," Grissom said quickly, so that the man didn't look at the door.
"Thanks," was the appreciative reply as the gunman trussed them both up with the lamp cords. "I'll be right back."
As soon as he disappeared from the room, Brass opened the front door and crept in, several police officers trailing after him. They made their way into the kitchen. There were shouts, and a short burst of gunfire, but Grissom and Sara didn't hear any of it. They just stared at each other.
"You shouldn't have stayed," she whispered, her eyes finally filling with tears.
"I had to. He had a gun to my head."
They watched Brass lead the man out of the kitchen in handcuffs, as a policeman untied the cords from their wrists and ankles.
"You okay?" Brass called to them, and they both nodded.
The man began to chuckle. "I was de-livering the mail."
"Laugh it up, buddy," Brass growled. "Pretty soon you'll be in prison, and they'll be delivering something very different in your slot." The cops followed them out the front door.
Sara was rubbing her forehead, where the imprint of the gun was slowly fading. He wanted to take her into his arms, to kiss her shoulder and smell her hair and murmur a thousand promises.
"Sara?"
She glanced up at him. "Yeah?"
"Why didn't you finish grad school?"
She blinked. "I just... was ready for my life to begin, I guess."
He knew how she felt.
They stood and walked outside on shaky legs, getting into the car and heading back to the lab. Grissom took the long way so that they could drive by the lake.
It was a start.
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