Concatenation

Rating: PG, just to make it sound racier than it is.
Category: Drama
Archive: Please ask first I might say yes.
Disclaimer: Insert random legal mumbo-jumbo here.

Author's Note: Thanks to Mossley for betaing, but more importantly, for pushing, pulling, teasing, cajoling, and any other verb you care to use that means she enticed me to finish it.

Summary: Sara's mentoring Greg on an unusual case.

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Chapter 7

"Victim number eight. This is getting real old, real fast. The Sheriff has basically told me that I better wrap this up quick, or it's going to the Feds, and I could easily find myself teaching crowd control at the police academy."

Grissom looked over at Brass with a pained look on his face. Neither had really spent much time discussing his demotion four years ago, brought about by the death of Holly Gribbs at a crime scene.

The rookie CSI's death was in no way Brass's fault, but as supervisor of the Crime Lab, he was ultimately held responsible, and demoted. The only saving grace was that he was sent to Homicide, a department he had a lot of experience with, making the transition less painful.

But knowing that his career path towards Sheriff had suddenly taken a sharp U-turn, threw him into a state of resignation. If he failed at this investigation and was demoted again, he knew his days at the department were numbered. He'd have to get out while he was still wearing a suit instead of a uniform.

"Jim, we're working on it. I've got four CSIs, including me, working on it every shift, and we're pulling doubles every few days."

"Yeah, 'cause he's killing some girl every few days," Brass grumbled. "What's with this guy?"

"There's more to this than the control issue that serials typically have. They usually like the hunt, the planning, the careful execution of their plan. The anticipation is part of the build-up to the actual event. If anything, the murder itself isn't always the high point of the crime for them. They don't usually rush things like this," Grissom said, walking around the latest corpse.

"What's that tell you?" Brass asked.

"I think there's a rage motivation here as well. He's not doing this for the usual reasons. He's not taking time to enjoy his conquest. He's pissed and it shows."

"Hmmm. You think some call girl set him off? Maybe a trick roll?"

"It's worth a shot," Grissom said, shrugging helplessly.

"I'll check into the last six months of reports of trick rolls. Maybe he just couldn't let it go, and snapped."

"Let's hope you can find something," Grissom said, trying to be supportive, though it didn't come naturally.

"Yeah. You have any idea how many trick rolls have been reported in the greater Las Vegas area in the last six months?"

"I'm guessing quite a few," Grissom answered drolly.

"It's practically an industry here. The out-of-towners might was well wear a bullseye on their chests."

"Sometimes it seems like there are only two types of people in Vegas: predators and prey," Grissom groused.

"What does that make us?" Brass asked, smiling wanly at Grissom.

"Overworked," Grissom answered, unable to decide whether they were most often the winners or the losers in the Darwinian struggle that waged in the streets of Las Vegas every day.

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