The Bliss of Lies Chapter 11, a csi fanfic

"Nothing?" Sara asked incredulously. "Nothing at all?"

Archie shook his head, and shut the laptop. "Nope. E-mail's to and from her niece… uh, daughter. I printed them out for you." He handed Nick a stack of paper. "There's a scanned copy of the contract with the theater, that hasn't been opened since it was saved. Other than that, it doesn't look like she used this much at all."

Nick listened to the lab tech as he skimmed through the sheets of emails, and looked up quickly when Archie was finished. "Ok, thanks Arch." He handed Sara half of the stack and they set off to find a place to read through the exchanges.

Catherine pushed though the locker room door like a hurricane blast. Opening her locker, she pulled her purse out and stuck her hand in, rummaging for her keys. "Carry way to much crap" she mumbled to herself as her hand grabbed and released items though her purse; pocket mirror, lipstick, a receipt. She'd just come across her checkbook when Warrick came though the door.

She looked up. "Hey" she hesitated, still unsure of how things were between them.

"I didn't realize anyone was in here, sorry." He turneD

Catherine took a relieved breath, and returned her attention to her purse, finding her keys immediately. Clutching them, she raced out the door.

Warrick wandered the halls; searching for another place he could get some privacy. He thought about sitting in the SUV, but when he opened the door that lead to the parking lot, the massive clutch of reporters and television cameras stopped him cold. Warrick shut the door behind him ignoring the reporters shouted pleas fD

Catherine took a relieved breath, and returned her attention to her purse, finding her keys immediately. Clutching them, she raced out the door.

Of course. Mentally kicking himself, he turned around, and started down another hallway.

"Lindsay!" The front door slammed shut behind Catherine, and she jogged down the hall toward her daughter's bedroom.

"Mom?" Lindsay was half sitting up in bed, using one hand to rub her eyes when Catherine walked through the doorway. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry to wake you up, but, Honey, after the concert the other night…" having sudden inspiration, Catherine headed to Lindsay's bureau, and started shuffling through the items on top.

"Mom, what're you doing?" Lindsay tossed the covers off and climbed out of bed, hurrying to her mother's side. "What're you looking for?" Her hands fell to the dresser, touching everything Catherine discarded, and replacing it where it had been a moment before.

A sigh of frustrated exhaustion escaped Catherine's mouth. It wasn't here. She put her hands on the small of her back and stretched, her head falling backwards a bit, and that's when she saw it hanging from the top corner of Lindsay's mirror.

She grabbed at it, tugging it free. "NO Mom! Not that! Not now." Lindsay cried out in protest.

Catherine bent and took Lindsay's face in her hands. "I'm so sorry baby, but this is going to help us arrest the man that killed Carly."

Lindsay's face was a mask of disappointment, at the loss of her idol and the memento her mother was taking away from her. After a moment tears filled her eyes, and she relented. "Ok."

Warrick entered the morgue quietly, and found Doc Robbins working on another body. Blinking, it occurred to the CSI that he'd been so wrapped up in Carly's death, he hadn't realized that other people had died over the past couple days. "Doc?"

Robbins turned, a plastic facemask warped his features, and he raised his right hand, the scalpel in it caught the light, the sharp metal winked at Warrick. The doctor look like a crazed killer in a B movie. "Warrick. What can I do for you?"

"Has Carly been released yet?" His eyes stole toward the row of square doors on the wall.

"No." Doc replaced the blade back on to the tray of lined up instruments and lifted the plastic facemask. Tilting his head, he scrutinized the CSI before him. Satisfied that Warrick was of sound mind, he asked: "Would you like a moment alone?"

Warrick nodded solemnly. "Please."

"Alright then." Robbins turned back to the body on the table, and pulled the sheet up coving the corpse. As he headed toward the side door that connected with his office, he said, "Number 16."

"Mia!"

The DNA tech jumped at the sound of her name being barked in the quiet office. She swiveled in her chair wondering when her co-workers would learn that unlike Greg Sanders, she didn't wear earphones blasting rock music. Using an extremely quiet voice that she hoped Catherine, would take as an example, Mia answered her. "Yes, Catherine, how can I help you?"

Catherine held out the plastic encased badge, it's black chord wound tightly around it, which Carly had given Lindsay backstage the night of the concert. "This was worn by a suspect, think you can get DNA off it?"

Mia took it from her and examined the chord. With a facial shrug, she said, "I can try."

Standing in front of door 16, Warrick felt frozen. He didn't want to open the drawer, didn't want to see Carly so pale and cold. Didn't want to read the letter gripped in his hand.

"I don't really want to leave you alone." He said as he pulled on his shirt. Amazingly, Carly had turned away from him when he'd stood up. She clutched the blanket to her, leaving her bare back exposed. As his head popped out through the neck hole, he caught a glimpse of her smooth skin before he forced himself to avert his eyes.

"You have to, my mom's shift is over in a few minutes, and you don't want to catch it from your grandmother either." Panic was rising in her voice.

He kneeled down on the floor next to her, brushed back the hair lying across her shoulder.

Doc Robbins coughed inside his office. It didn't sound like a noise made specifically to hurry him on, but Warrick understood the doctor had work to do. Closing his eyes, he reached out and grabbed the handle; pulling open the door Carly's body was behind.

Catherine floated into Grissom's office, a cat like smile on her face, and slapped a file down on to the desk in front of him. "I got a DNA match to the husband."

"From what?" Grissom asked, opening the file and scanning the report. Brass quickly got up from the chair and moved around to Grissom's side of the desk to read the report. Catherine began to explain; telling them the story of how Carly had unknowingly contributed to the apprehension her own killer.

Dear Warrick,

I'm so sorry, but we're moving. I think we're headed to Wyoming, maybe Cheyenne. My mom says Vegas isn't safe anymore.

I need to tell you something, and I guess maybe it's better to tell you this way, I don't know if I could tell you in person anyway. After graduation, I got a job at one of the casinos, I'm not gonna tell you which one. Well there was this guy there, one of the dealers, and he reminded me so much of you.

We had dinner one night, and he was so sweet to me, it was almost like being with you again, and I missed you so much…

He was driving me home, but he took what he said was a wrong turn, and we ended up miles away from my house, in a part of town I'd never seen before. Oh Warrick, it was so awful, he said the most nasty things, and he wasn't like you at all. He made me.

Oh God, he made me. I just laid there the whole time, and I thought about you. It was like it was better, cause you were with me.

I told my mom a couple of days later, that's why we're moving. She wants to take me away from here. I think she wants to pretend it didn't happen.

Please remember me, and know that I will always love you.

Carly

Warrick hands were shaking, the eighteen-year-old letter Carly had written but never mailed quivered in his hands. Rage and despair formed a tight knot in his stomach. Looking down at the face of the woman lying on the table in front of him, he wished she'd told him back then, wished she'd told him in person. Wished he could have held her in his arms and made it all go away.

There were so many damn things that could have been different.

"What do you want now?" Tommy Bryans leaned against the front door of his house, wearing a maroon colored silk kimono. Brass thought he looked like a pretentious twit.

"Good morning," Brass greeted from the doorstep, the words sarcastic, but the smile was real. "You're under arrest for the murder of Carly Lynne James."

"Tommy?" Jill Johansen emerged from around the corner just in time to see the captain putting handcuffs on her lover. "What's going on?"

Brass finished cuffing Bryans and looked over to the girl. "Jill Johansen?"

"Yes?"

"Yeah, you're going to need to come with me too." He entered the house and took Jill by the arm.

"Can I at least change first? Please?" She was wearing only a thin white baby doll kind of nightie, Brass knew instantly what they'd been doing. Or had just begun to do.

"Uh, yeah. You probably should."

Four very long hours later, Tommy Bryans sat in the interrogation room signing the written confession.

Catherine watched through the glass as Tommy finished the letter 's' at the end of his name and tossed the pen onto the paper and pushed it across the table. Brass took it and with a glance toward the woman on the other side of the mirror, he left the interrogation room. Catherine reached over and turned off the volume on the speaker as Tommy's lawyer leaned toward his client and began to whisper. Whatever the attorney had to say wasn't her business, and didn't really matter anymore.

With a smile on her face, she headed down the hall to report the confession to Grissom. Ecklie was standing in Gil's office when she walked in. "Good morning Catherine," the assistant director said as she strode in through the doorway. His squinting eyes traveled up and down her body. "You're looking none the worse for wear for all this overtime."

"Thank you, Conrad." There was question in her eyes and words. She turned, to face Grissom sitting behind his desk. Ecklie could and should hear about the confession, but she'd rather look at Grissom while she spoke.

"He copped to the whole thing. Carly told him Ginger was her daughter, not her niece a few months back. When Bryans got the feeling that Carly was on to his affair with the backup singer, he assumed she'd be changing her will, so he snooped around till he found out about the appointment with the lawyer. When Ginger showed up in Vegas, and Carly sent her home in the limo, that's when he got the idea for the sleeping pills, thinking we'd chalk the death up to a car accident. He knew the mistress, Jill, had the sleeping pills. So during the concert, he opened all the capsules dumping them into one bottle of water, took all the bottles out of the dressing room refrigerator, leaving only the poisoned one, so Carly would have no choice but to drink that one." Catherine finished the monologue and settled into the chair on the other side of Grissom's desk.

"What about the girlfriend?"

Catherine shook her head. "Both Tommy and she swear she had nothing to do with it. Tell you the truth, I believe them. I don't think that girl could have kept a secret like that to herself, she'd have told someone."

Rising from his seat, Ecklie told them, "Good work. All of you. The sheriff will be pleased." He looked at his watch. "Go get some sleep, your shift starts again in a few hours." With a forced smile, he left the office and headed down the hall.

"He's got a good idea, for once." Catherine began to get up from her own chair.

"Sit down, please Catherine. We have something to discuss." Grissom's voice had an air to it that shocked her into sitting back down. Grissom shuffled a few papers on his desk, pulling out a red, white and blue cardboard envelope he'd purposely hidden. A FedEx envelope. "This arrived for you this morning while you were in with the suspect. Judy brought it to me, seeing as how it's from the FBI, she thought it was something that needed to be opened right away." Catherine's heart skipped a beat, but she squared her shoulders and kept her mouth shut. Grissom took in her silence for a moment. "I thought I told you no."

"What you told me was not to have Mia run the test, I didn't."

Exasperated, Grissom sighed forcefully. "Semantics, Catherine."

She scooted up in her chair, "Gil, I just wanted-"

"No." His voice was so forceful she shrank back down away from the weight of it. He wasn't very good at this, he knew. Taking off his glasses, he rubbed his eyes, trying to calm himself down.

"Does Ecklie know?"

Ecklie. "No." Grissom said, then added "Not yet." To her imploring expression, he explained, "I have to tell him Catherine, he's supposed to sign off on anything sent to an outside lab, especially the FBI."

After a few moments, Catherine asked quietly, "So what now?"

Grissom considered his answer. "At the very least there'll be a reprimand in your personnel file, anything else, I'll have to discuss with Conrad."

Catherine stood to leave while the getting was good. She hesitated and Grissom looked up at her. "Can I have the results?"

She found him in the locker room, sitting on one of the benches, with his arms on his thighs, his head hanging down. He didn't move with the sound of the door, or her footsteps into the room, and for a moment, she thought he'd fallen asleep in that position.

"Warrick?" she spoke his name softly.

He lifted his head and looked at her with weary eyes. "Hey," he answered just as softly.

She slid onto the bench next to him, the FedEx clasped in between both hands. After a moment she held the envelope out to him.

"What's this?" He asked.

She brought her head up and tossed her hair back over her shoulders. "I sent your and Gingers DNA to Quantico. Those are the results."

Warrick stared at her unbelieving. Then stared at the envelope. Looking back at her, his eyes wide. "You had the FBI run a paternity test?"

"I couldn't get you booked on Jerry Springer."

She still held the envelope, it floated between them. He finally took it from her, and relaxed back into the position she'd first seen him in, holding it in his hands, staring at it, still shocked.

"You gonna open it?"

Warrick slowly shook his head, but it didn't seem like an answer to Catherine. "I don't think I'm Gingers father."

"What?"

He straightened up and met her gaze. "Carly wrote me a letter, all those years ago, and carried it around with her in that notebook of hers. Sara found it, gave it to me. Carly was raped a few weeks after graduation."

Catherine put her hand to her mouth, holding in a gasp. "Did she tell you who?"

"No. And I don't think she knew she was pregnant when she wrote it."

"But your eyes…"

"Yeah. Well, Carly had blue eyes too. And from what she wrote, the guy was probably black."

"Which would explain Ginger's complexion."

"Yeah."

"But there's still a possibility you're her father."

Warrick thought about that, then opened the envelope and slid out the single sheet of paper. He read it silently, and Catherine fought the urge to ask him what it said. After a moment, he shook his head, still reading. "Negative."

A disappointed sigh escaped from Catherine. "Oh, Warrick. I'm so sorry." She gathered him in her arms, her head on his shoulder.

He grunted out a laugh. "Nothing to be sorry about." He put a hand on her arm that crossed his chest. "I didn't have daughter a couple days ago, and I still don't have one."

Catherine picked her head up and looked him in the eye, evaluating the truthfulness of his statement. With a resigned sigh, she said: "Come on, you need to get home and get some sleep." She pulled her arms off from around him and stood, headed for the door.

"Yeah" he agreed.

She paused, holding the door open with one hand. "You coming?"

"Right behind you."

In the hall, Warrick slid the FBI report into the first trashcan they passed.

Bright morning sunlight flooded his eyes as he watched Catherine drive away. He turned to walk to his own car, stopped in his tracks by the sight of a funeral home hearse sitting outside the back door to the coroner's office. As he watched, both David and Doc Robbins emerged from the building, and stood silently next to the open door of the hearse. A gurney carrying a black body bag rolled out right behind them. Warrick watched as they loaded the body. The driver shook hands with David then climbed in behind the wheel and started out of the parking lot.

"I love you too Carly."

fini

a/n: And so dear readers, I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

Thank you to Mma63, iwantboromir, ruzila, ConstanceSanders and of course Navaer for their reviews and thoughtful words

Much appreciation to alwayswrite05 for her beta, her advice, and for putting up with my silly questions.

Sunset