CSI - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Dreamer ❯ Chapter 2

Hillary walked into the destroyed apartment. She stepped over a large piece of a door, than looked around the room.

 

“Whoa,” she murmured.

 

The door had been kicked in and there were clothes and objects strewn all over the floor. The window was broken from the inside out, which could have been an escape route, considering the apartment was on the second floor of the building.

 

“Well somebody was angry.” Catherine said coming up behind her.

 

“Yeah,” Hillary set down her forensics case. She was already comfortable with Catherine, and she knew Gil. Things weren't so bad after all.

 

She looked around again. This should be easy enough. She didn't like being put on a beginner case, but she knew that she would. She was the new CSI.

 

`Go figure.' she thought as she pulled her latex gloves on. Catherine was there to supervise and evaluate her. She felt like she did when she was a beginner. `Oh well.'

 

She started at the door. The whole thing was in pieces. On the largest chunk, there was a shoeprint. She took a picture of it after setting some markers down.

 

“We're going to be here all night.” Catherine said as stepping over a chair.

 

“Definitely,” Hillary replied, taking another picture. “Obvious forced entry, looks like they kicked the door in.”

 

“They?” Catherine asked.

 

“Yes. There are two sets of different size shoeprints on the door.” Hillary stepped towards the desk. Papers were all over the floor and the computer was gone, the monitor was still there. “Robbery, you think?” She snapped another picture and put a marker down.

 

“Most likely,” Catherine looked at Hillary. She obviously knew what she was doing, and could easily be a level three CSI.

 

Gil had said she was back in Toronto, or the at least equivalence to one. Why she had moved, Catherine couldn't figure out.

 

“So Hillary,” she began. “I'm at a loss here. Why did you move from Toronto to here?” Easy enough.

 

“Ah, quite a few reasons.” Hillary went around the room, snapping pictures and laying down markers.

 

“Like what?”

 

“Well,” Hillary took a deep breath. “For one thing, my brother and his wife live here, in Nevada I mean.”

 

“Your brother? What does he do?” Catherine wanted to know what Hillary was like.

 

“My brother's a lawyer, his wife's a landscaper.” Hillary went towards the window. “Well, what do we have here?” She pulled up her tweezers and picked a piece of fabric off the broken glass.

 

“Good eye,” Hillary put it in a baggy.

 

“Also, when I heard Grissom was supervising and you guys were short-handed, I couldn't say no.”

 

Catherine grinned. “Anything else?”

 

Hillary continued looking around. “I've got some friends here, and one of them owns a great stable. I board my horse there.”

 

“You've got a horse?” Catherine was interested in that.

 

“Yeah, a black Morgan gelding. His name's Louie.” Hillary grinned. “Horse-back riding is my hobby; it's what I do after work.”

 

“Good idea.” Catherine said. `Lucky her.'

 

“How about you Catherine? What are you like?”

 

“Well,” Catherine thought, “I've been working here for quite along time. And I have a daughter named Lindsey.” Catherine grinned at the thought of her younger daughter. But the thought also brought worry.

 

Eddie, Catherine's ex husband and Lindsey's father, had been shot in the stomach after getting into an argument with the wrong people. He had died. Lindsey had gone down-hill for awhile, got into fights in school and her grades lowered. But lately she was better.

 

“You have a daughter? What's it like?”

 

Catherine replied with a grin, saying the first thing that came to her mind. She liked Hillary already. “Tiring.”

 

“More tiring then this job?” Hillary smiled, she knew the answer.

 

“Definitely.”

 

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On the other side of town, Nick, Warrick and Sara walked into the Palm Springs hotel area. There were officers scattered all over the building, and people were walking around with panicked looks on their faces.

 

“I'll go check the video surveillance. Third floor right?” Warrick said, not asking anybody in particular.

 

“Right.” Nick answered. Warrick walked off.

 

Nick and Sara went up the elevator.

 

“So, what do you think of the new girl?” Sara asked as they stood, watching the buttons light up.

 

“Nothing really. You?”

 

“I don't know. Do you know where she's from?”

 

“Yeah, Toronto.” Sara gave him a puzzled look.

 

“Like in Toronto, Canada?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“But I thought Grissom called her in.” Nick could almost see Sara scratching her head in puzzlement.

 

“Warrick said that Grissom taught her a course `way back when'.”

 

“Oh, I see.”

 

The elevator ringed open. A police officer stood by the door of the room. He nodded as Nick and Sara stepped in.

 

“Woo.” Nick grumbled. The whole room smelled of decaying flesh.

 

It was a large two bed room, the windows were open and the curtains blew in the breeze. A man sat squatting over one of the bodies on the floor, the body was female. Another body was on the bed closest to the window, it was male. Other then that, everything was clean.

 

“Hey David.” Sara said.

 

“Hello Sara, Nick.” David said, looking over his glasses.

 

David Phillips is one of the coroners well known by the night shift.

 

Nick set his briefcase down. “I thought this was a triple homicide. I count two bodies.”

 

“The other one's in the bathtub.” David began describing the time of death for the bodies as Nick walked towards the bathroom door. “I pinpoint these two at about, say, 48 hours ago. The one in the bathtub, it's hard to say, he's been in water for quite some time.”

 

Nick opened the bathroom door and was immediately hit with the stench of rotting flesh.

 

“Jeese, think you could of warned me David?”

 

“Sorry Nick.”

 

Sara walked up beside him with a grim look on her face. “You wanna deal with him?” She meant the body in the full bathtub.

 

The bathtub water had a red tinge to it, blood. The body looked like it had been boiled and Nick could only guess that the man had died while he was taking a hot bath.

 

“Sure, why not.” Actually, he really didn't want to, but he did anyway. Sara walked away to examine the room.

 

`Great.' Nick thought, as he went to work.

 

By the time he was done, all of the bodies had been removed and he'd dusted for fingerprints, looked for blood spatter or smear, scoured the entire bathroom, and checked the drain.

 

A few minutes in, he had put a mask on over his nose, the stench was unbearable. Grissom had even come in after he interviewed some of the people in the hotel to help Sara. Nick stood up and wiped his brow. There was absolutely no ventilation in here!

 

He was about to walk out the door when he ran into Warrick.

 

“Woo man, you smell like death!” Nick knew he was joking.

 

“Ha ha, very funny.” He pulled his latex gloves off. Warrick grinned at him. “Anything yet?”

 

“No, nothing. We're going to bring the tapes back and take a look at those.” Warrick rubbed the back of his neck. “Right now all I want is to get back to the lab, then go home.”

 

`And take a long shower.' Nick thought.

 

“Good work guys,” Grissom passed them as they left the hotel room.

 

“Thanks boss, see ya back at the lab.” Nick said drowsily. He was tired; he needed sleep before he fell over. Grissom nodded and continued down the hall.

 

Nick went down the elevator and headed straight for the lab SUV. He was glad he drove over by himself as he really didn't want anyone complaining about the smell. He rolled the windows down as he followed Warrick and Sara in the SUV in front of him back to the lab.

 

When they reached the lab, he took his findings out of the back of the vehicle and put it in the evidence locker. He looked at his watch, his shift was almost over.

 

`Thank god.' He thought as he headed towards the locker room. He hoped nobody was in there. He poked his head around the corner and sighed. Good, nobody was there.

 

He went to his locker and took his bullet proof vest off and hung it on the hook. He was taking his identification badge off when Hillary walked through the door.

 

`Oh, crap.' Nick thought.

 

“Hello Nick,” she said cheerfully.

 

“Hey Hillary,” They had only briefly met, and as Warrick said, Nick smelled `like death'. He hoped her locker wasn't anywhere next to his. Was he disappointed.

 

`Of all the luck.' And as luck would have it, her locker was right next to his.

 

Nick was really tense, but he didn't show it. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and pretended to rummage through his locker. She opened her locker and took off her bullet proof vest and identification badge. She didn't at all seem to be put off by the smell.

 

“Sorry `bout the smell.” Nick said.

 

“Hm? Oh no, that's okay.” She smiled and pulled a small backpack from her locker. “Been there, done that.” She closed her locker door. “Well, see you tomorrow Nick.”

 

“Bye,” Nick looked after her. He felt weird. Hillary walked out of the locker room and passed Warrick on the way.

 

“Night, Hillary.”

 

“Night.”

 

Nick shook his head and closed his locker.

 

“What are you still doing here?” Warrick asked. “I thought you'd be long gone by now.”

 

“Uh, guess I'm just taking my time.” Warrick looked at him, than changed the subject.

 

“Hillary's nice, ain't she?” He opened up his locker.

 

“Hm, oh yeah.”

 

“She came in and talked to Sara and I after you bolted for your locker.”

 

“Did she?”

 

“Yeah. Feel a bit sorry for her. Cath told me that she's a really good CSI, level 3 material even. They had to stick her on that robbery case, cause she's new and all.”

 

Nick nodded his head. “Well, I gotta get home.” He yawned, he was exhausted. He started out “Night.”

 

“Night. And, oh Nick?”

 

Nick turned around. “Yeah.”

 

“Remember to take a shower, you smell like death.”