Best of Intentions

The next morning Grissom and Sara were both moving rather slowly from their muscles protesting the evening’s activities. After showers and a long breakfast, they were off to shop for furniture. Between the two of them they had plenty to furnish the house, but they did need a few things to finish it off and they had decided that they wanted new furniture for their bedroom. Eventually they decided on a beautiful cherry four poster bed and matching furniture.

Later that evening Grissom watched his wife, as she got dressed for the banquet. He had always found Sara stunning, but since she became his wife he frequently found himself breathless by her. Her ivory dress with the halter neck and flirty skirt accented her long neck and shapely legs well. When they walked into the Founder’s Banquet later, Grissom took note that every other man in the room noticed his wife’s appearance as well. He was by no means a shallow man but he couldn’t deny the swelling of pride he felt when he realized how many men found Sara attractive, and he knew no matter what happened that she was going home with him.

Chris and Brian got to their boss before any of the other students had a chance to intercept him. They gave him the heads up that Kelly was on the prowl before the university president came to introduce board members to the renowned Dr. Grissom. Chris walked with Sara over to the bar and watched her stiffen as she overheard pieces of conversations along the way.

“…I can’t believe that Dr. Gordon’s new golden boy is a bug scientist. I mean head of forensic science should have been Ray’s job.”

“I know what you mean. And I hear his wife is barely out of diapers.”

“When do you think they’ll be wheeling the old geezer in to show him off?”

Chris smiled at Sara at the bar. “Don’t let those gossip hounds get to you. They’ve never met Dr. Grissom and they have no idea how brilliant he is.”

Sara sipped her drink and looked out across the ballroom. “I’m just not used to people attacking him like that. Even at the lab it was never like that.”

Chris put his hand on her shoulder. “Well let me bring you up to speed. You see that redhead in the black dress? That’s Dr. Ray White’s latest trophy. She’s his third wife and she can’t wait until he starts raking in those big research grants. Becoming head of forensic sciences would have been a big step toward that, but in all honesty he’s really not that good. He knows his stuff all right, but he has no passion for it. He teaches like he’s regurgitating a textbook, and if something doesn’t quite fit a textbook profile he’s lost.”

He took a sip of his own drink and continued. “Now the blonde in green, the one who looks like a complete bimbo? She is. She’s also Dr. Tom Sampson’s wife. Rumor has it she was his secretary and his wife found out she was taking dictation on her back. Neither one of them has any room to talk about anyone with a younger woman, since they’re both more than 10 years younger than their husbands. They’re just upset that their husbands were passed over for department head when Bader left. Being department head does wonders when applying for grants and getting papers published. And we all know how university politics work. The more grants you bring in and the more papers you get published, the more respect you get and the moo-la that goes with it.”

Chris saw a group of students moving toward Dr. Grissom and pointed them out. “Now those are the ones you have to watch for. Kelly Barton is that tall blonde and she has a thing for older men. She was sleeping with Dr. Bader and Brian tells me she made a play for Dr. Grissom.”

Sara giggled. “Yeah she did. I called when she was there apparently in the middle of her ‘oh poor me. Help me pass’ routine”

Chris smiled. “Brian already gave me the play by play on that one. He really enjoyed seeing her get put in her place. By the way you don’t have a thing to worry about as far as Dr. Grissom is concerned. I can see it any time he mentions you that he loves you dearly, and you’re far too pretty for him to even think of stepping out on.”

Sara and Chris started back when the noticed that the president had put Grissom in a central location and now his group, the students who were moving toward him, and the caddy women were all in one huge group in the center of the ballroom. She smiled as she approached opposite her husband and she heard him attempting to be political.

“Nice to meet you Dr. Menzel. I read one of your case studies with using lasers for detecting latent prints on skin. Fascinating really.”

The professors talked among themselves and the students did their best to impress them while their wives looked increasingly bored. One of the students was attempting to get any of the professors to comment on his theory when it caught Sara’s attention.

“I’m sorry but your entire thesis is flawed.” Sara stopped as everyone stared at her and she saw Grissom grinning at her. He gave her a little nod and she continued. “Abbe’s law was regarded as being insurmountable, but over the past few years German researchers have developed with Stimulated Emission Depletion microscopy, a physically consistent concept for breaking the diffraction limited resolution limit in fluorescence microscopy and have verified it experimentally. In a STED microscope, the relevant focal fluorescence spot can, in principle, be reduced in size to the size of a molecule, thus resolutions at the nano-level are possible in fluorescing samples.”

Brian and Chris looked at Dr. Grissom with their mouths open and the rest of the faculty wasn’t doing any better at disguising their shock. Dr. Sampson smiled and glanced at the only person in the room not shocked, Grissom. “I take it you know this brilliant woman?” Grissom nodded. “Oh yes. This is my wife Sara.” Dr. White stepped forward and introduced himself to Sara as he gave her the once over, then looked at Grissom. “Gil you’ve been holding out on us. We knew she was beautiful from her pictures, but you didn’t tell us she had brains as well. So Sara you must spend your time reading while Gil’s here molding young minds.”

“Actually when he’s here I’m usually catching some sleep so we can have dinner together before I go into work. I work the night shift at the crime lab.”

Grissom saw the glares she was getting from the bimbos in the room and grinned. “Yes Sara is one of the top CSI’s we have. She came here from San Francisco to help out with an internal investigation and we wound up offering her a permanent job. We’d have been crazy not to. An experienced CSI with a Masters in Theoretical Physics is a huge asset to any lab, especially the number two lab in the country that’s gunning for the number one spot.”

Dinner was a bit uncomfortable for Sara with the faculty fawning over her and their wives glaring at her all evening. When they left, she had never been so happy to leave anywhere in her life. “Ok Dr. Grissom. Do you mind telling me what all that was about?”

Grissom chuckled. “Well for the last couple of weeks I’ve been hearing all about everyone’s wives and how wonderful they are, complete with photos to show me how beautiful they are. I guess when I stepped into the head of the department over them they felt the need to point out what they have that I don’t. I knew eventually either Gary or Michael would feel the need to try and impress someone with what they knew and it would give you an opening. I’m just glad you took it.”

“Oh so I got to be a pawn in your game to get one up on your colleagues?”

“No you got to drive the point home to those arrogant bastards that appearances aren’t everything. And got to show them that not only is my wife beautiful, but she had brains too.”

Sara laughed. “It’s the same thing Gil. But I have to admit it does sound less childish your way.”

Grissom laughed with her. “Yes it does. Now if you want to hear childish, you should have been there when Ray and Tom were going back and forth bragging about their wives lingerie and boob jobs.”

Over the next week they settled into their routine and got ready to move Grissom’s townhouse contents over to their home. Sara met the delivery people at the house and let them in to set up the new bedroom furniture when her pager went off. There had been another kidnapping and it was all hands on. The men left quickly and Sara called Catherine on her way to the lab. Catherine relayed the information and Sara detoured to UNLV campus. She saw Catherine, Brass and Nick outside the building when she arrived.
“This isn’t right guys. Our guy broke pattern. What do we have?”

No one spoke and she brushed by them to enter the building. The hallway was full of officers and CSI’s, but everyone was silent as she walked past. As she turned the corner, she saw the crime scene tape and dropped her kit. Before she could move Warrick had her from behind. “Sara just wait a sec.”

She broke free and ran to the open office door. Books and files were all over the floor, the computer had been smashed and broken glass mixed with blood was everywhere. In front of the desk she saw large pieces of glass that were familiar. She recognized pieces of a crystal picture frame and the pictures were on the floor. One of the pictures caught her eye. It was a photo from her and Gil’s wedding, and the photo had Gil’s face slashed out.

“Sara you shouldn’t be in here.”

She looked up to see Conrad Ecklie kneeling beside her. “Where is he? Where did this monster take him?”