'Gun out, Gil-you may need it.'
Much as Grissom disliked guns, he did as he was told. He had no desire to let himself, or any of his people, become martyrs in the field.
Brass moved to the alarm box, but the light was already green-Doyle turned it off upon entering, apparently. Brass took the lead, as the detective and CSI went down the hall, edging slowly toward the back, Brass's gun outstretched in both hands, Grissom hugging the wall, gun barrel up.
They didn't see so much as a light under a door until they were approaching the rear of the building. At right- from under the outward-opening double door to a room neither man had been in-a long slice of light beckoned….
Using hand signals, Brass bid Grissom to open one of the double doors so the detective could rush in, the CSI supervisor following.
Grissom nodded.
They got into position. Then Grissom jerked the door open, and Brass entered with gun extended….
Barely had Brass stepped inside the darkness when something shoved through, thrusting open the other door, slamming into the detective, pinning Brass against the corridor wall with a sickening crunch!
Grissom watched in shock as he realized a massive concrete vault on a cart had been shoved into Brass…
…and poised in that open double-doorway was Jimmy Doyle, in his spiffy lavender shirt, the wild-eyed wielder of the cart.
Brass winced in pain; his gun had slipped from his hand. Grissom's first thought was for his friend, and he was grappling with the square slab of concrete as Jimmy Doyle slipped around the other end of the thing and went running down the corridor toward the garage.
Grissom somehow shoved the vault-on-the-cart out of the way, freeing Brass, who crumpled to the floor.
'Never mind me,' Brass sputtered. 'G-get the bastard!'
Grissom didn't argue-he sprinted down the hall after Doyle, while from behind him he heard Brass talking into his radio: 'Doyle's in the garage, Nick-careful!'
Under the door to the garage was another slice of light. The CSI supervisor did not think of himself as a hero; he didn't even consider himself a cop. Situations like this were beyond his purview.
But he took a deep breath, expelled it, jerked the door open, and came into the garage low, fanning his vision-and the gun-in-hand-around the room. At left a frantic Jimmy Doyle was at the workbench, going through boxes like a hyperactive kid on Christmas morning…looking for the gun that was no longer there.
'It's gone, Jimmy,' Grissom said, voice echoing. 'We already found it.'
The boy grabbed a wrench off the wall and whirled with eyes flaring and teeth bared, attack-dog fashion; he brought his arm back to pitch, but it froze as another voice called out to him.
'Jimmy,' Nick said from his doorway at the far end of the garage, 'there are two guns on you. You might want to put that down….'
The boy's face morphed from savagery to pitiful surrender, and the wrench clunked to the workbench as Doyle's hands went tremblingly up, and locked behind his neck. He stood complacently, waiting for the cuffs that Nick quickly brought to him.
When Grissom turned to go check on Brass, the detective was already leaning in the doorway, his suit rumpled, blood trickling from his bottom lip, and one arm pressed against what were likely broken ribs.
'I'll call nine-one-one,' Grissom said.
'Beat you to it,' Brass said.
'You don't look so good.'
'They come prettier than you, too, Gil.'
They exchanged tiny grins.
Sara entered the garage, a plastic evidence bag in hand.
'What do you have there?' Grissom called over.
Holding the bag up like the prize catch it was, Sara said, 'Most likely, Kathy Dean's iPod! I just got it out of Jimmy's car.'
'That's mine,' Doyle protested meekly.
Sara came over to where Doyle, wrists cuffed behind him, stood slump-shouldered next to Nick. 'Digital songs are computer files-they can be tracked.'
Doyle swallowed thickly.
Sara gave him the sweet smile she reserved for the worst people. 'After our computer expert is done with it…? We'll know for sure, whether it's yours or Kathy's.'
Tears filled the young man's eyes, but hung there stubbornly, as if not wanting to admit a defeat that was already complete.
'You know, Jimmy,' Nick said with a devilish grin, 'if you've been downloading tunes without paying for them…you could be in a lot of trouble.'
12
WHILE CATHERINE WILLOWS FELT NO REMORSE about shooting Rene Fairmont, she did regret having to frighten the elderly hostage. But the reality was, Rene's hostage had already been checked out and sent home, shaken but uninjured, while Catherine was still here, hostage to her job.
The angel of mercy lay on a small hospital bed in the emergency room, a curtain pulled around the tiny cubicle for a semblance of privacy, as her white blouse had been unbuttoned and then scissored away to give the young East Indian ER physician access to her wound. Accordingly, Detective Vega waited on the other side of the curtain.
The suspect's left hand was handcuffed to the bed, and she lay so still that the cuff never rattled against the metal of the rail. The doctor, working from a tray, hovered over the woman's right shoulder; soon he had nearly finished suturing the wound, a process the killer seemed not even to notice in her sullen, self-imposed catatonia.
While Warrick had stayed behind to work the crime scene outside the bank, Catherine had accompanied the woman on the ambulance ride, and observed the prisoner's treatment in the hospital, too. In all that time, Rene hadn't uttered a word, not a single syllable (including 'Ouch'), as the doctor cleaned the wound and began sewing it up.
'Before long, Nurse Fairmont,' Catherine said pleasantly, 'you'll be taking your own brand of medicine.'
A tiny frown indicated for the first time that the woman was listening…also, that she didn't understand this remark.
So Catherine clarified: 'I mean, you're a master of lethal injection yourself…right?'
The cold eyes registered something-not much, just a tightening-and what happened next was so fast, Catherine's memory could only report back a blur….
The prisoner raised the hand of her wounded arm and snatched the scissors from the doctor's tray, looped her arm around his neck, and brought his head down against her chest, the closed points of the scissors resting against his throat, the metal gleaming and winking against the dark flesh, dimpling it, drawing a pearl of glistening blood. The young physician looked more startled than scared at first.
Rene Fairmont's eyes were hard, feral, glittering things in a face whose prettiness was lost in an animal snarl, as she held the doctor to her breast as if he were some oversized helpless child.
To Catherine she snapped, 'Handcuff keys, bitch-
The CSI looked at the fearless prisoner and the frightened doctor, and she drew the nine millimeter from her hip and placed the nose of its barrel against the forehead of the prisoner, whose reaction seemed more indignant than shocked.
Wearing the coldest expression she could muster, Catherine said, 'Ask the doctor-when I fire this gun your motor responses will stop and he will be in
'You think I'm
'You think I am? Drop the scissors…
The suspect did so.
