Stolen

Ok, brace yourselves, this chapter is twice as long as the first few but there was no good place to cut it.
-----------------
Hours after his conversation with the receptionist, Nick was sitting with a phone pressed to his ear, half a sandwich in his hand. He really didn’t want to put any food in his untrustworthy stomach, but Sara had pushed it at him when he’d returned. There was no meat between the slices of wheat bread and Nick was certain she’d pulled it out of her vegetarian friendly lunch. Nick made a face at the cucumber and ranch sandwich and set it down, switching the phone to his right ear.
When he’d arrived back at the lab, he’d learned that the team had returned and left again. Warrick had stayed behind, but Grissom and Catherine had gone to talk to the last officer who had arrested Manning. They wanted to know where he’d picked up the felon. Several hours had passed since they’d left and Nick suspected that they were following a lead. He doubted that they’d find anything on such a cold trail, but the arrest was for the other mutilation cases so maybe they’d get lucky. Nick didn’t want to be lucky; he wanted to talk to a manager at the auto body shop that Garret worked at.
It was barely seconds after six am, right when Magic Mike’s was set to open. The answering machine clicked on and Nick hung up. After a few moments, he dialed the number again. The shop did minor repairs such as popping dents back out and filling scratches, but whoever was in charge of opening wasn’t on time. There probably wasn’t any particular hurry for the employee, as they wouldn’t get a lot of business so early, but Nick hoped he arrived within the next few minutes.
The Texan tapped his fingers on the desk, muttering to himself, “Come on, Mike, you’re supposed to be there already. Answer the damn phone, man.” He got the answering machine again and tried not to scream. The message ran its cycle, ‘Magic Mike’s hours of operation are six am through seven pm. If you’d like to make an appointment, please leave a message with your name and number and someone will contact you.’
Nick cut the line before the beep and took a deep breath. He needed to get himself under control if he expected to help Greg. Cussing out the late employee probably wouldn’t get him the answers he wanted and he had to have some level of control before he got in contact with a member of Magic Mike’s staff. Once the edge had worn off his anger, he dialed one more time.
“Magic Mike’s, what can I do for ya?”
Nick sat up straight; he’d almost hung up on him. The man who answered had also recorded the message machine that he’d listened to seven times now and his impulse slam the phone down when that damn machine started was almost too great. He’d spent so much time mentally and verbally willing someone to pick up that he was surprised to hear a live person.
“Yes, I need to speak with your manager.”
“This is Mike, what do you need?”
There actually was a Mike of Magic Mike’s, Nick was mildly amazed.
“I need the address of one of your employees. Garret Manning, you may also known him as Joseph Williams, or Casey…”
Mike cut him off, “Joseph, yeah. His real name is Garret? He never told me that. Josh lives on Payton Way, I think it’s 1709, or something like that. The house is an ugly green color, hard to miss. It’s awfully early to be looking for Josh, though; he usually doesn’t come in until four. You a friend of his?”
“I really just need to talk to him. He’s got something of mine.”
“Alight, just don’t start any shit with that guy, he’s one crazy son of a bitch,” Mike warned rather cheerfully and hung up.
Nick had no intention on heeding his words of caution. The Texan checked his firearm and made sure he had an extra clip before tossing on his coat. Oh, he was going to start some shit and he was going to do some shooting in ‘self defense’ if he felt so inclined. An escapade like this would get him fired for sure, but if Mr. Manning had so much as touched a single bleach-blonde hair on Greg’s head, there would be blood and he would worry about consequences later.
--------------------
Sara was bent over a fiber sample from her previous shift, a little grumpy that Grissom had left her behind to baby-sit Nick. The graying supervisor had ordered everyone to devote all their time to Greg’s case, but there wasn’t any evidence to process at the lab and she didn’t have anything else to work on but her other case. She didn’t feel like she needed to be in the room with Nick every second, he was, after all, a grown man.
She furrowed her brow slightly as she tried to place the fluorescent orange fibers at the scene. It was very difficult to concentrate on the task at hand when all she could think about was being the designated babysitter. She would have asked Warrick to take a turn, but he’d gone back out to Harmon Avenue to see if he could find anything else. If Grissom really wanted to go by the rules, then none of them should have been allowed to work Greg’s case. They were all emotionally involved, not just Nick. The poor man had been so distraught without anything to keep him occupied. Sara knew Grissom had bad people skills, but he just wasn’t being fair.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sara caught her charge barreling past the windows. Nick was running down the hall at top speed, something he’d been doing a lot lately, in the direction of the parking lot. Sara jumped of her stool, knocking it to the floor in the process, and took off after him.
“Nick!” she yelled after his shrinking form. He didn’t stop. The Aggie may not have been an athlete anymore, but he was definitely faster than she was. He’d escaped into the parking lot before she’d even gotten to the end of the hall. “You could at least have told me where you were going…” she muttered in his absence.
Sara wondered what could have possibly put him in such a rush. She trailed back the way he’d come, looking for any clues. Nothing seemed particularly out of the ordinary, except for Greg’s empty lab, which she hurried past. She was about to give up and go back to her orange fibers when she noticed a case file and several sheets of paper abandoned on a break table. Case files were to be treated with the utmost respect and it was shocking that someone would leave one out so carelessly, unless they were in a hurry. Sara picked up the notes and her chocolate colored eyes went wide.
-------------------
Grissom growled faintly at his ringing phone. It was highly irritating when he got calls at a scene. There really wasn’t a whole lot to go off of at the apartment where the arresting officer had apprehended Manning. The landlord had been pleasantly cooperative and had let them in without any arguments. He’d yet to rent out the apartment again and had no one to displace while they looked, so it made no difference to him.
Garret hadn’t left them much trace, just a few holes in the walls and a bad cockroach infestation. On the other hand, there was plenty of blood evidence. They’d sprayed luminal all over the apartment and come up blank in every room except one. The room farthest from the front door, the one the floor plan called the office, glowed brighter than a fluorescent bulb. It would probably be more than enough new evidence to convict him of the double homicide he’d managed to escape, but it wasn’t getting them any closer to Greg. CSI Willows was taking samples from the carpet to test for DNA.
Catherine sat back on her heels and shot Gil a raised eyebrow as she snapped a swab tube shut, “You want to answer that?”
“Not really,” he commented back, but pulled the cell from the clip on his belt. “Grissom.”
“Nick found him but he left before he told anybody! He’s going by himself!” Sara yelled frantically.
Gil shot to his feet faster than his aging joints approved of, muttering obscenities under his breath. “And you didn’t stop him?!”
“I am not Nick’s babysitter!”
Grissom took off his glasses and sighed. Of course she wasn’t his sitter; he shouldn’t make her responsible for Nick’s actions. He chewed his lip and readjusted his tone, “I need the address, Sara, and I need you to call Brass and tell him that we need a warrant for Garrett Manning’s arrest.”
----------------
The number was wrong, but Mike was right, the house was hard to miss. It was painted a disgusting, limey green. The landscaping in the front was completely decimated by neglect and the grass was choked with weeds. Just around the side of the house, hap-hazardously covered with a tarp, was a black Ford van. Nick slammed his truck to a screeching halt, half of it bumping up onto the curb. He put it in park and sat a moment, gripping the wheel hard enough to drain the blood from his knuckles. What was he going to do now that he was here? He had no warrant. As a CSI, he couldn’t just waltz in if the suspect didn’t want him to. As a man, as a friend, he had every right to break down his goddamned door and kick his sorry ass. He was so going to get fired.
Decided, Nick grabbed the door handle, but was stopped. His phone was ringing. He wanted to ignore it, but he couldn’t, his conscious was calling. His hand moved on its own and flipped the mobile device open.
“What is it?” he snapped into the phone, never letting his eyes leave the still house.
“Nicky, stay where you are, we’re coming to you.”
“We can’t wait any longer! He could be dying, damn you! I’m going in!”
“Don’t you dare! You could put Greg in more danger than he’s already in,” Grissom roared at him. Nick had never heard the supervisor yell like that before, but he wasn’t about to back down.
He screamed right back at him, “God damn it, Gil! I am not going to lose him because you don’t think I’m capable! I know he’s here, I’m looking at the fucking van!”
Gil’s voice dropped to a dangerously low level, “Nick, you have to keep driving, if he sees you out there, what is he going to think? Tell me you don’t have your police lights on.”
“No, I’m in my truck; it doesn’t even have lights…” he muttered. Nick was beginning to see Grissom’s point. There wasn’t anything he could do without putting Greg into harm’s way. He regretfully backed his vehicle off the curb and circled the block. “Alright, Gil, you win.”
“We’ll be there in a few minutes… We won’t leave you out of this, Nicky.”
His anger turned bitter on his tongue and the tale-tell sting of tears burned the back of his eyelids. Nick threw his phone, with more force than necessary, into the passenger seat. It bounced sporadically off the cushion and broke into several pieces against the dash. He looked at the fragments, but he was too detached to really care.
Nick stopped the car in a cul-de-sac a few blocks away and buried his face in his hands. He’d yelled at Grissom. He usually didn’t even have the nerve to argue with Gil, but he’d all out screamed at him. There had to be something wrong with him. He was normally so docile, so willing to give someone the smile they needed, even if he didn’t feel like smiling himself. Nick tried to be the salve that kept the team from noticing its hurts, but his own wounds were just too great this time. His forehead connected with the steering wheel with a thud. It took every ounce of his self control to sit in his truck, two blocks from the man of his dreams and the kidnapper who had taken him.
Something occurred to him as he was waiting, Gil had the wrong address. Nick had only found the place because Mike had told him that it was green. Gil had the wrong address and Nick’s phone was broken. He cursed profusely and scrambled to reassemble the pieces.
-------------------
A SWAT van tore down the freeway, three police cars and several black Tahoes in hot pursuit. One squad car lead the way to clear the road. Most of the traffic got out of the way by coming to a complete stop, drivers gawking at the entourage. Blue and red lights lit up the freeway like the Strip and sirens wailed in the early morning air.
-------------------
Nick fumbled with his phone’s battery, trying to get it back into place. The key pad had been easy enough to get straight because there was only one direction it could go, but the battery’s casing had cracked and it didn’t fit the way it did before. He finally managed to crush it back into the slot. Miraculously, the machine actually responded when he pressed the power button.
“Yes! Go, baby, go!”
He dialed Grissom’s number and waited, anxiously, three rings for an answer.
“Grissom.”
“Gil! You have the wrong address! Don’t let them bust into the wrong house. It’s 1705, not 1709. It’s the bright green one.”
“We’re almost there, but I’ll make sure they get the message. I have to let you go so I can call them.”
There was a click and Grissom was gone. Relief briefly flooded him, but it was quickly replaced by nervous anticipation that gripped his guts like a vice.
---------------------
The SWAT team swarmed out of the van like a pack of wolves, organized and precise. They moved in on the house with silent hand signals, half of the team going around back to block off any escape route. The rest of the caravan clogged the street and the nightshift CSI piled from their SUVs to watch, with bated breath, as the SWAT prepared to kick the door in. A dark blue truck joined the mix right before impact.
It was very possible that this would become a crime scene, with a body to process and evidence to find. No one dared to breathe a word of their concerns as they waited and watched. Sara tossed a glance at Nick, who was chewing on his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, but she didn’t have the time to tell him to stop. The front door was bashed in with enough force to rattle the nearby windows and the well-trained operatives rushed inside. In a matter of seconds, they had a man in his thirties face-down on the floor. They cleared the rest of the house while an officer cuffed the downed man. To the shock of those waiting on edge, none of the SWAT called out the finding of either victim, or body before deeming the house ‘clear’.
The group of CSI entered the lime-green house on edge, but there was no blood or signs of struggle in immediate sight. A slight crease in his brow, Grissom approached the suspect as the arresting officer hauled him to his feet. Garret Manning looked exactly as he did in his mug shots, greasy black hair and all, so they couldn’t have the wrong house. Strangely, the suspect wasn’t complaining, or cursing, or denying that he did anything. He just stood, calmly, his dark eyes boring into Grissom. This didn’t unnerve Gil, he’d been glared at before, and attacked, so let him stare.
“Where is Greg? Where is the boy you kidnapped?” he asked, his tone low and even.
The rest of the team didn’t even wait for an answer, they fanned out across the house to search for the missing lab technician. They gave each room a good once over before moving on. Nick ghosted rapidly from room to room, calling Greg’s name. He opened closets, fell to the floor to check under beds, and even went as far as opening the kitchen cabinets. For all his efforts, he found very little. There was no sign of the DNA specialist. They filtered back into the living room with no results.
All Garret did was grin. He gave no answers, no hints, and no clues as to Greg’s whereabouts. Grissom wasn’t deterred and spoke over his shoulder to his team, “Search for evidence. If Greg isn’t here, we have to find him.” When they’d scattered, he turned back to their quiet suspect. “We know you have Greg. Tell us where he is now or you’ll be facing bitter consequences,” Gil threatened.
Manning’s smile broadened and he leaned foreword slightly. “You’ve got nothing on me, Mr…,” he glanced at Gil’s vest, “Mr. Grissom. I have no idea what you’re talking about. If this is concerning my arrest a year ago, I was put through a trial of my peers and found not guilty. I have nothing to say to you.”
“I’m not going to put up with this. Where is Greg Sanders?”
He tossed back his head, his dark eyes falling closed as he laughed. Gil’s lip curled in an unconscious snarl. Manning looked back at him, still chuckling, and said, “I’ve always loved hide-and-go-seek, have you ever played, Mr. Grissom?” When he started laughing again, Gil had to walk away. He couldn’t deal with him at his current level of frustration, he would make bad decisions. At Grissom’s look of ‘he’s all yours’, Brass took over.
The team searched every nook and cranny the house had to offer as well as the van sitting outside. When nothing obvious could be found, then they began to tear things apart. Catherine filed through the closet, moving clothes and scanning for blood stains. Sarah went through the kitchen, emptying every drawer and cabinet of its contents. Warrick examined the bedroom, trying to pick up anything with an ultraviolet light. Gil focused on the living room while Nick checked the bathroom sinks for blood.
They moved along slowly, covering everything they could think of, but they could find no traces of the brown-eyed lab rat. It was Sara’s discovery that got them back on track. She’d moved on to the laundry room and found clothes in the dryer. Blood traces were all over the tee-shirts and on several pairs of the jeans. The DNA would have been compromised by the wash cycle, but everyone had a strong suspicion that they knew who it belonged to. Nick’s rage came to a full boil. This man had not only touched Greg, he had hurt him, bad.
The level three CSI had his gun in his hand before he even realized what he was doing. He heard Warrick yell something, but he was flying through the kitchen and into the living room. The suspect raised those dark, unnerving eyes as he entered. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. All of his conscious mind was screaming at him to stop, but the rest of him had other ideas. As a CSI, he processed evidence to catch murderers, not become one. The gun was coming up, his finger tight on the trigger and then Warrick was there, restraining him. Through the blur of his fury, he heard his friend talking him down. As he regained control, he released his grip on the handgun and let Brown take it from him.
The rest of the nightshift caught up to the pair quickly. Shock dominated every face in the group. Grissom let his eyes travel from the suspect to Nick’s flushed face, his mouth slack. The Texan stopped struggling against his coworker’s grasp and Warrick released him. When he’d gathered the courage, he met his boss’s ice blue gaze.
“That, Nicky, would have been a crime of passion… I’m not sure what to think of that.”
“I… I lost control when I saw that he’d hurt Greg…”
“I understand that Nick, but it still doesn’t forgive the fact.”
Nick fell silent. He had never been so worked up over anyone before, but Greg was just different. What he felt for the DNA specialist was a one-sided love so deep it hurt. It clouded his judgment and warped his very being. Even knowing that, he wouldn’t let it go for anything. He’d always hold onto the impression Greg had left in his heart, even if it turned into a scar.
“Grissom, please don’t send me home. Let me stay and I swear to god I’ll resign as soon as this is over with. Just don’t make me leave until we find Greg. I want to see that he’s okay. I have to know,” Nick pleaded quietly. Gris had every right to chew him up and spit him out for his actions, but he was hoping that the entomologist would give him another chance.
A heavy sigh proceeded Gil’s words, “I didn’t say that you had to leave and I don’t want you to resign, Nick, but please, get this sorted out. I may not understand the ins and outs of human affection, but I know that killing this man will not help Greg.”
So Gil had pegged it. He’d put the pieces of the puzzle together, just the way Sara had. It was understandable, though, solving puzzles was his job. Nick nodded slightly at his conclusion and hung his head. Greg probably wouldn’t accept him as is, but he certainly wouldn’t even consider him if he’d killed someone.
“Everyone back to work. If there’s blood on his clothes, there has to be more evidence. I want everyone but Sara to keep searching in the house. Sara, I want you to go vacuum the van for leaves or dirt, I want to know if he dumped Greg somewhere,” Gil ordered to get the team moving. They split apart, but Warrick stayed with Nick to ensure that he kept out of trouble. The pair returned to the bedroom CSI Brown had been processing.
When they were alone, Warrick cleared his throat. “You never bothered to mention this to me,” he said casually and picked up where he left off, at the dresser.
Nick helped him remove one of the drawers and spilled, “Warrick, I really didn’t know what you’d think, man. You’re a really good friend and I’ve never seen you as any more than that, except maybe as a brother, but that’s not what most guys think of when they find out a guy they know is gay. I was afraid that you’d freak out on me.”
Warrick considered this in silence as he passed an ultraviolet light over each item he removed from the dresser. After a moment, he found the words he was looking for, “You know, that’s really not what crossed my mind.”
“Really? What did?”
“Why Greg?”
Nick let a small, sad smile tug at the edges of his mouth. A sharp prick of pain brought his attention to the damage he’d caused to his lip when waiting for backup, but he pushed it to the back of his mind. “Greg is just so adorable. He always manages to find something to smile about and that grin is just so damn infectious. I mean, have you ever noticed the way he dances around in the lab when he thinks no one is looking? I can’t help but love him,” he murmured.
Out of drawers, Warrick moved to the left cabinet with a shake of his head. “That’s a little sappy for my tastes, but I see where you’re coming from. How long have you felt like this?”
“Years.”
This made Warrick bump his head on the underside of the cabinet while reaching for the items in the back. He withdrew from the tight storage space and gave Nick a look of total disbelief. “Years?! You’ve thought about him like that for years and haven’t said a damn word? How do you get up in the morning knowing you have to face that?”
He shrugged helplessly and said, “It was actually better before I got switched to dayshift, I actually got to see him when I worked nights.”
His coworker rolled his eyes and moved to the second cabinet. He removed the contents and was just about to close it when he noticed something; he didn’t have to lean all the way in to remove everything. “Hey Nick, check this out. This cabinet has a false back. It’s not nearly as deep as the other side.”
The backing wasn’t even the same material as the rest of the dresser and numerous tool marks around the edges suggested that the suspect pulled it out a lot. He had something very important stashed back there.
Nick handed the dark-skinned man a screwdriver and sat back as he worked the thin piece of wood free. Warrick yanked it free and examined what it had been hiding. There was a long-handled knife with rust colored crust along the blade and handle and a small journal. Nick didn’t even have to test the material on the knife to know what it was, but the spiral was curious. He picked it up, holding it so Warrick could look over his shoulder.
Numerous photographs were tucked between the blank pages and, after trying to leaf through them, Nick shook them out into his gloved hand. The first few snapshots all had the same young woman in them. She had long dark hair with a slight curl and a kind, genuine smile. In each picture, she was with a different man. The subjects were all in their late teens, easily in high school.
The fourth picture in the series made him blink several times. “My god,” Nick breathed. The teen pictured with the young girl had spiky, bleach-blonde hair and dark eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled. At first glance, he thought he was looking at Greg himself but the subtle differences soon jumped out at him. The boy in the picture had a more squared jaw than Greg, and his eyes had more of an almond shape.
“Now that’s just plain creepy,” Warrick muttered.
Nick agreed whole-heartedly and moved on. He didn’t know how it related to the case just yet, but he was sure it was an important part of it. When he got to the Polaroid’s in the back, all the color drained out of his face. The men in the photos all had striking similarities to the boy’s pictured with the brunette and they were all bound and blindfolded. He thumbed through them slowly, a numb feeling creeping through his body.
“That’s one of the victims from the homicide we tried to pin on him… and that’s the other.”
Warrick’s observation was unsettling, because there were six Polaroid’s total. That left four bodies unaccounted for. The last picture in the stack forced Nick to grab the dresser to still the spinning room. It was Greg. The lab technician was lying on his side, apparently unconscious. The only wound Nick could see was a small split in his lip, which accounted for the blood found at the scene.
“Oh shit…” was all his coworker managed to get out.
Nick tried to get his shocked brain to work again, to analyze what he was seeing. “He’s on cement. Other than the garage, which we’ve checked, there’s nowhere in the house that has cement.”
“Unless he took the photo in the garage and then moved him.”
“I don’t think so, it doesn’t look the same. He might not be in the house Warrick.”
Warrick sighed, “Let’s get this stuff to Grissom.”
The head CSI was circling the house slowly when they found him, his brow furrowed in that deep-in-thought look they all knew so well. Nick handed him their findings wordlessly. The older man took the photographs with a raised eyebrow.
“What are these?”
“Evidence that this wasn’t as random as we all thought it was. Every single victim matched a man in one of these photographs, plus several repeats.”
Gil slipped his glasses onto the bridge of his nose and thumbed through the pictures. He slowed when he reached the Polaroid’s and pressed his lips together tightly.
“We’re pretty sure that it’s not the same cement as the garage, so we don’t think he’s even here,” Nick supplied in a wavering voice, but Grissom shook his grey head. Nick and Warrick exchanged a confused look and the Texan asked, “You want to let us in on it?”
“Do you know what I was just telling Catherine?”
“No, Gil, I don’t and I’m really not in the mood for riddles.”
Grissom cocked an eyebrow at Nick’s snappy comment and the level three CSI fell silent. “I was just telling her that this house is very old, which means that it could have a basement.”
“But we haven’t seen a door…”
“But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t one.”
This took a moment to sink in and then they took off at full speed. Gil followed, his shoes sounding clearly on the hardwood floor. The steps were muffled, briefly, by a wool rug, but a strange inconsistency in the noise caused him to stop. Before the surgery to correct his hearing, he wouldn’t have trusted his ears to find something like that, but there had definitely been an inconsistency in sound halfway across the rug.
He stepped off the southwest style carpet and pulled it up by the corner. There, underneath their very feet, was the door they were seeking. Gil called the team to him with a shout and tried the handle. Not surprisingly, it didn’t budge. He looked up at the apprehensive faces gathered around him.
“It’s locked.”
The muscle in Nick’s jaw twitched slightly. “I think I know where we can find a key,” he said darkly and stormed into the living room. The officers around Manning tensed when the Texan entered the room, still wary after his last little episode, but Brass waved them down. “I want the key, Garrett, the key to the basement.”
The unstable man grinned at him and Nick couldn’t help but notice that he was missing one of his front teeth. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have the key, I lost it years ago. I never go down there,” he lied through those crooked teeth.
“Gentlemen, if you would be so kind as to check his pockets for a key,” Nick directed at the police on either side of him. He didn’t have the patience to run in verbal circles.
There was nothing in the man’s pockets, but a search of his shoes produced a small, silver key. As soon as it had dropped into Nick’s waiting hand, Garrett’s disposition went from mocking and docile to extremely violent. His face twisted into a nasty snarl and he lunged for the Texan, screaming like a banshee, “You can’t take him until I’m done! He must be punished for what he did to my Angie!”
The officers grabbed his arms roughly to keep him from plowing into Nick. The dark-haired CSI didn’t flinch away. Instead, he turned from the deranged man and took the key back to the basement door. He didn’t have the time to spend gloating over his victory. All he wanted was for that door to be open and Greg to be alive on the other side.
Nick struggled to steady his hands enough to get the key into the lock, but no one took it from him. When he threw back the door, the hinges squealed like a dying pig. It really needed some WD-40.
As soon as it was open, he was barreling down the stairs into the dimly lit space below. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust so he could visually sweep the basement. The room was long enough to suggest that it spread underneath the entire house and thick support beams of cement dotted the area. A single, bare bulb was the only light source and it flickered like it was at the end of its life.
Nick took in the room in less than a second, looking for only one thing. The object of his desire was against the wall farthest from the door, huddled in a dark corner like a frightened animal. A tidal wave of pure relief washed through Nick’s system. Greg was alive and they’d found him.
He crossed the long room in what seemed like less than two steps and pulled the terrified young man into his arms. Nick pressed his lips to Greg’s forehead, tears threatening to flow.
“Nick, take a second to pull off the blindfold,” Warrick suggested from halfway across the room. The rest of the team formed a misshapen crescent around the tattered lab tech. Greg was in nothing but his blue-jeans, which were torn and stained, his bare chest riddled with numerous shallow knife wounds. At first, he shrank away from Nick’s touch, but the Texan cut both the zip-strip around his wrists as well as the bandana around his eyes and the tension fled from his body. Greg’s bewildered expression melted faster than Nick could blink, and then the blonde man tossed his arms around his neck in a hug that was desperate for familiar touch.
Nick was more than happy to oblige, returning Greg’s fierce hug, but trying to be mindful of his injuries. Ragged sobs racked the young CSI’s lean frame and the Texan’s soft heart ached. He knew what it was like, wanting to laugh and cry and shout for joy all in the same instant. It was that moment when all hope was lost and suddenly there were familiar faces all around and you knew that you were going to be alright. Nick also knew that exhaustion was going to sweep through Greg in a matter of seconds. After all, adrenaline could only last so long.
Gil yelled up the stairs, “Get the paramedics down here!”
Nick wrapped his coat around the huddled form and scooped him up. Greg didn’t seem inclined to let go of his neck, so he braced his arms beneath his butt and the younger man’s legs wrapped instinctively around his waist. Greg kept his face buried in Nick’s broad shoulder, still sobbing faintly.
“Maybe you should let the paramedics take him, Nick,” Catherine said gently, but made no move to stop him.
Nick responded, not angrily, but firmly, “I’m taking him.” He didn’t want to let Greg out of his sight, not after they’d just found him. That, and Greg had become an octopus of sorts and Nick didn’t think he could dislodge him, nor did he want to. He carried him out of that hell, worried friends on his heels. As he crossed through the living room, Nick met the suspect’s livid eyes with a glare that could melt metal. Detective Brass led Garret Manning away with a little more force than necessary, giving him the Miranda rights on the way to the nearest squad car.
The nightmare was over. Greg was safe in Nick’s protective hold and they had enough evidence to get Mr. Manning the death penalty for the other homicides, but there was still one unanswered question. Why? The photographs with the girl named Angie were clutched in Warrick’s hand. He didn’t know what had happened to this teenager to cause Garret to take such twisted actions against the boys’ look-a-likes, but he intended to find out. The case wasn’t closed just yet.