Sin City

on those premises.'

Nearby Brass was rocking on his heels. To no one in particular, he said, 'You really think Owen Pierce is the distressed husband he claims to be?'

'You looking for an opinion?' Grissom asked. 'I don't do opinions.'

Catherine was smiling, though, regarding her boss with cat's eyes. 'You don't fool me.'

Grissom's brows rose. 'I don't?'

'Something's wrong in that house, and you know it.'

Grissom frowned at her. 'I don't know it,' he said.

And he stalked back toward the Taurus, Brass following him, throwing a shrug back at the quietly amused Catherine.

'Retaining water,' Catherine said to Sara.

'And me fresh out of Midol,' Sara said.

Grissom got in on the rider's side and sat and brooded. He didn't know that something was wrong in that house-but he felt it.

And he hated when that happened.

For now, he had nothing to go on. Nothing to do but return to HQ and wait for a real crime to come in.

And hope it wasn't a murder, and the victim: Lynn Pierce.

3

A DAY LATER, AND LYNN PIERCE REMAINED AMONG THE missing-the only change in status was that she was now officially listed as such.

Grissom was seated at his desk in his office, dealing with paperwork. The CSI supervisor would not have admitted it under torture, but the face of the sad-eyed blonde in that snapshot haunted him.

Still, at this stage, little remained appropriate for his CSI team's attention: no sign of foul play had been found. There was only the husband's threat to kill his wife to go on…and how many husbands and wives, in the heat and hyperbole of an argument, had threatened as much?

He had assigned Sara to the case, and she had drawn upon her considerable computer expertise to track the woman's credit cards; but none of the cards had been used since Lynn Pierce's disappearance, and the woman hadn't been to an ATM or used a phone card either. E-mails from friends were piling up unanswered and none of her recent cyber-correspondence mentioned a trip or hinted that she might be preparing to run away.

If she was alive, she would leave a trail-this Grissom knew to a certainty; the absence of such, so far, only substantiated his conviction that she had been killed. This was not a hunch, rather a belief built on the circumstantial evidence thus far.

Sara, sitting at her computer, had looked up at him with eyebrows high, and said, 'She could be paying her way with cash-she does have money of her own.'

'Check for withdrawals, then.'

'Maybe she kept a stash of cash, somewhere.'

'What, under a mattress? No, if that's the case, it'll be in a safety deposit box-check with her bank on that, as well.'

Sara smirked at him. 'But that's the point of safety deposit boxes-nobody knows what goes in and out, banks included.'

Grissom lifted a finger. 'Ah, but the banks record who goes in and out, to have a look at their safety deposit boxes…. See if Lynn Pierce has done that, lately.'

Sara, nodding, went back to work.

Even as he sent Sara scurrying to check, Grissom didn't hold much stock in the notion that Lynn Pierce was funding her disappearance, paying as she went. From what he had gathered thus far, this was a woman of faith and family who spent little money on herself.

The phone rang. Grissom, who hated having his thoughts interrupted, looked at it like the object had just flipped him off. It rang a second time, and finally, he reached for the receiver.

He identified himself, listened for several moments, writing down the information, and then told Jim Brass, 'I'll have a team there in under fifteen minutes, and see you in five.'

Grissom glanced at his own notes.

A dead woman-not Lynn Pierce-needed their attention.

Catherine Willows-typically stylish in a formfitting green V-neck ribbed sweater, tailored black slacks and ankle-high black leather boots-was peeling an orange when Grissom walked into the break room and handed her his notes.

'Dream Dolls?' she asked, peering over the edge of the note at Grissom. Her expression split the difference between a smile and a frown. 'You're kidding, right?'

Grissom risked just the hint of a smile. 'You know the place better than anybody else on staff.'

'What's that, another excerpt from The Wit and Wisdom of Gil Grissom?' She tossed the scrap of paper on the table next to the orange peels. 'A very slender volume, I might add.'

He took a seat beside her. 'You can handle this? It's not a problem, is it? Is this…a sensitive issue with you?'

Her eyes were wide and unblinking as she said, 'You'd know this, why? Sensitivity being your long suit and all.' She sighed, nibbled an orange slice. 'A dead stripper, and you immediately think of me-should I be complimented?'

Grissom thought about that for a moment. 'You may have my job one day, you know.'

'It's been offered to me before,' she reminded him, adding wryly, 'Sometimes I wonder why I didn't take it.'

'Me too,' Grissom admitted. 'If you were supervisor, and one of your CSIs was a former stock-car racer, and you had a case turn up at a speedway…who would you send?'

She sighed. 'Point well taken.' She glanced at the notes again. 'How did the woman die?'

'That's what the coroner will tell us…Looks like strangulation.'

'All right,' she said. 'You're not coming?'

He shook his head. 'I'm meeting Brass in five minutes. He's invited me along-interviewing the Blairs, the friends who reported the Lynn Pierce disappearance…now that it's official.'

Catherine was cleaning up her trash, depositing the peels and her Evian bottle in a bin, when he told her, 'I said a CSI team'd be right out.'

She bestowed him her most beautiful sarcastic smile. 'I'll shake a tail feather.'

On her way out of the break room, he called, 'And take Sara!'

Catherine nodded, threw him a wave over her shoulder, and strode down the hall.

Catherine found Sara Sidle huddled over her computer monitor, her mouse racing around the pad as she studied something on the Internet. Wearing dark bell-bottom jeans and a dark blue scoop-neck top under her baby-blue lab coat, she looked more like a clerk at Tower Records than a dedicated scientist. Her dark curly hair bounced as she bobbed in time to some internal rhythm.

'Sorry to interrupt,' Catherine said, 'but we've got a call.'

Sara barely glanced at her. 'Uh, Grissom assigned me to this Pierce disappearance.'

'Well, he wants you to accompany me on this one. We've got a live one.'

'You mean a dead one.'

Catherine shrugged.

'Just give me another minute,' Sara said, her gaze glued to the monitor.

Catherine leaned in for a look.

'I've been checking hotel reservations and check-ins for the last two days,' Sara said, 'and nothing.'

'We'll find her,' Catherine said, 'or she'll turn up on her own. Nobody disappears 'without a trace,' no matter what you hear.'

They gathered their equipment, jumped in one of the department's black Tahoes-Catherine tossing the keys to Sara-and strapped themselves in for the short drive to Dream Dolls.

'So,' Sara said, with a sideways glance, 'this is one of the older, uh, clubs in town, isn't it?'

'That's right. And yes, Dream Dolls is one of the clubs I worked at.'