Fic: Backtrack Creek, Chapter 10 (CSI/CSI Miami, Nick / Greg, Ryan / Eric)
Title: Backtrack Creek, Chapter 10
Pairings: Greg Sanders / Nick Stokes,
Ryan Wolfe / Eric Delko
Rating: PG
Genre: AU
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Summary: A deranged serial killer is terrorising a small isolated town of Backtrack Creek. CSI Ryan Wolfe and a pesky reporter Greg Sanders end up in the middle of it, and there is no shortage of suspects.
What is the local police officer Nick Stokes hiding? Does Catherine Willows, the madam of the local full-service Inn, have her own ideas of customer service? Has Lindsay, the owner of the tiny diner mummified something else besides her pastries? Is Eric Delko, an enigmatic mechanic, as good under the hood as he says he is? What is Warrick, the man without a past, running from? Has the long lack of bathing finally snapped garage owner Timmy Speedle`s fragile mind? Who wanted to kill a perverted science teacher Gil Grissom and the police chief Brass, the patron saint of the local doughnut shop?
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Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Interlude
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Some loud cursing came through the door and it was pulled open. Miss Willows glared at Nick and Greg like an owl, that had just been woken up.
“What do you want? We’re closed.”
“Sorry to bother you so early, ma`am.” Nick said, not mentioning it was ten in the morning. “We need to talk with you.”
“Who’s that?” Willows gestured at Greg.
“He’s… he’s here… He…” Nick stammered. He wasn’t too keen on mentioning, that he had been coerced to allow the reported to join him.
“I’m taking notes.” Greg gave the woman a beaming grin. “Do you mind if we come in?”
She took a step back to let them in. Nick and Greg stepped into the foyer, but when their hostess didn’t imply they were allowed further in they stayed still.
“So what did you want to talk about?”
“Your lodger.”
“Warrick?”
“Yes. Were you aware the Las Vegas PD is looking for him?”
“No.” Her face didn’t even flinch. She simply pulled on an immovable mask and glared at them. “He needed work, and I needed someone to help me with my business.”
“He showed up here and you didn’t ask any questions?”
“We’ve met before. I trust him.”
“He came to town before the killings started, didn’t that raise any suspicions?”
“No.”
“That’s weird…” Greg said, strumming his chin with his fingers. “Especially when you have connection to the killings all by yourself.”
“You mean I found one of the bodies?” She scoffed. “It was near a footpath, anyone could have found it. It just happened to be me.”
“I didn’t mean that.” Greg smiled at her so sweetly, Nick could almost see hear the underlying move closer to the unsuspecting prey. “I meant your big brother.”
The mask of calm indifference slipped. Willows forced her face neutral, but the few seconds of panic had already exposed it’s phoniness.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do. Your half-brother, who was the original killer’s last known victim.” Greg reminded innocently. “By the way, what kinda nicknames can you get from a name like Horatio? Hory? Horace, Howley, Horley? I mean you can’t take anything off of that or it won’t make any sense-
“My brother is none of your business.” Willows had turned pale under her thick layer of smudged make-up. “If you have some real questions, ask them and then get out of here.”
“Like I said-” Nick started before Greg could continue. “-we need to talk to your friend. Is he here?”
“No.”
“Then where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Willows`s eyes averted Nick’s.
“Did he spend last night here?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, night-times are my business hours. He had to escort one of our regular customers out some time after twelve and I didn’t see him again after that.”
“Is that unusual?”
“No. He does his work and I don’t intervene. I wasn’t here all the time, so he could have come back.”
“Where were you?”
“I told you Warrick had to escort a customer outside and have a little talk with him.”
“Talk?” Greg interrupted.
“The customer got a little rough with one of the girls. She was pretty shaken up, so I stayed with her in her room till she fell asleep.”
“What time was that?”
“After two AM.”
“Do you mind if we take a look around?”
“Why?”
“To make sure he isn’t here.” Nick stated bluntly. “I’m sorry ma`am, but we have to. We’ll make it quick-”
“No.” Willows cleared her throat and went to the door. She pulled it open and lifted his chin defiantly. “Unless you have a search warrant, the answer is no.”
“Miss Willows-”
“I have things to do, so if you don’t have any more question, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
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“Yeah… You want me to come in or… When? Okay, I’ll be there.” Eric flipped his phone shut and turned to look at the man in his bed. Ryan was halfway awake and rubbing his eyes tiredly.
“What was that?”
“Speedle. He got the parts for your car, so I gotta go there to take care of it.”
“It’s not my car, it’s…” Ryan groaned and buried his head under the pillow. “Vartann signed it out, not me.”
“Anyway, it should be ready by the end of the day.” Eric stopped for a minute to listen a tinny noise coming from underneath a pile of clothes. He crouched down and pulled out Ryan’s cellphone. “You wanna take this?”
“I’ll have to, I’m already late.” Ryan took the phone from him and snapped the call through. “Wolfe. Yeah, I was… checking a lead.” He quickly glanced up at Eric, then continued. “No, it was a red herring.” He listened to what the person in the other end was saying, professional focus overriding embarrassment. “Did you run them through the database? Yeah, I know I said that… Okay, just send them to me and I’ll run it myself. Thanks.” He closed his phone and got off the bed, searching for his clothes.
“You gotta go?”
“That was from the lab, they’ve analyzed the samples I sent to them yesterday from Vartann`s scene.”
“Did it go anywhere?”
“Well, I can count you out now.” Ryan gave him a little grin, that came out more forced than he had intended. “The traces of skin cells under Vartann`s fingernails were from a Caucasian male.”
“Is that all?”
“I asked them to skip the comparison and just send me the results. It’s usually faster that way, they always got their hands full anyway.”
“That whole “Sleeping with the Enemy” thing sounds kinda hot.”
“What have I told you about the flirting?”
“Sorry.”
“And that movie was about domestic violence, not serial killers.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Ryan pulled on his jacket. “Sorry about leaving like this, but this is-”
“Little town, a serial killer and the cute one’s usually the first to be off-ed, so go ahead and make this place safe for me.”
“I don’t know how this will go or…” Ryan blushed, quickly buttoning up his jeans. “I’m not sure how to handle this.”
“This?”
“The whole after a one night affair discussion isn’t really my forte.”
“Okay.” Eric nodded. “Go and catch the baddie.”
“Yeah… I’m not sure… I mean after this case-”
“Don’t make promises you’re not gonna keep.”
“I try to keep mine.” Ryan muttered. “But I have no idea what we’re doing, so I guess I shouldn’t make any promises.”
“We’ll see how things go.”
“Yeah.”
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“Well, that went well.” Nick said dryly after the door had been slammed shut behind them. “The guy is in that house, I’d bet my pension on it.”
“I now how much a policeman’s pension is, so that’s not really much of an enticement.” Greg replied. He looked around, eyes searching for something and then nodded. “And you’d loose.”
“How do you know?”
“Danny’s notes. Willows has an old pick-up truck registered to her name.”
“So what?”
“There was one like that parked on the side of the road when we got here.” He gestured at the empty street. “Now it’s gone.”
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“This is our only computer that has an access to the database.” Officer Curtis explained and pointed at the large thing in the corner of the bullpen. She typed in her password and pulled a chair in front of the equipment. “It’s quite old and slow, but you know how it is when the budget doesn’t have any room to replace anything that still works.”
“It still works?” Ryan asked skeptically.
“Barely… and it’s really slow. But it gets the job done.”
“Eventually.”
“Right.” She grinned. “We got some new computers a few years back, but none of them is encrypted for the secure line.”
“And neither is my laptop, or I would have done this already.” He placed the laptop in question next to the monitor. “At least we got some usable samples. That’s a step forward.”
“So how does this go from now on?”
“Our tech sent me her results and now I’ll run them through our databases. DNA is normally our best bet, but the database isn’t very covering in places like this. I mean how many times have you taken a sample for the database?”
“None.” Curtis admitted. “We have to sent our samples to the main lab to be analyzed and added to the database, so Brass always thought it was too much trouble. He wasn’t very fond of computers either.”
“I can see that…” The computer had finally managed to open the connection to the database, and Ryan signed in. “I have a feeling this will be a long day.”
Chapter 11