This story follows up on my other stories. Please read the other two before you start reading this one or else you might be a little confused what's going on :) thanks

You can find it at my profile or here:

first story: "A day at the video rental store"

.net/s/6502149/1/A_day_at_the_video_rental_store

second story: "An eye for an eye"

.net/s/6506034/1/An_Eye_For_An_Eye

third story: "Boom"

.net/s/6516243/1/Boom

fourth story: "The game is on"

.net/s/6773108/1/The_Game_Is_On

(just put the fanfiction-url in front of the urls above and you're good to go. I can't publish it as a real link, I'm sorry!)

Officer Turner was shot down while coming back from the supermarket. They had no prove yet, but the CSIs were sure being a cop is what killed him. They were sure the guy who attacked Greg was the one who shot the officer. They just had to find evidence linking the man to the murder.

"Time of death, David?" Ray asked, taking photos of the body.

"Approximately three hours ago," David said, getting the thermometer out of the body.

"That's quite some time for a place like this. Didn't anyone hear or find the body earlier?"

"Well this is a part of town where nobody ever saw or heard anything," David said, looking at a gang banger Brass was talking to.

"Are you alright, Jim?" Catherine walked up to him.

"Yeah I'm fine... I knew him quite well, that's all..." he said, keeping his eyes on the body.

"I could call Vartann or Vega to work on the case instead of you." She had a soft smile on her face.

"No, I can handle it. Besides, they're both busy with their cases."

"They both have cases? Who's working with them?" Catherine was surprised because the only CSIs that were supposed to go out in the field tonight were here working on the case.

Brass gave her a surprised look. "Vega is still working on a case with someone from swing shift and Greg's with Vartann. I thought you knew about Greg working the case with him?"

"No, Jim, I didn't! I told him to stay at the lab!" Catherine was furious. Not only was she still worried about Greg, she was also angry with him not obeying her order.

"Well he said you were okay with it and we needed a CSI, so..." Brass wasn't sure it was such a big deal. He didn't tell her, but he thought she was overreacting.

Catherine sighed. "Where is the crime scene?"

"Catherine, we need every man we can at this scene..." Brass tried to calm her down.

"Don't. It's not your call, where is he now?"

"Brass, Catherine!" Nick called from a few feet away, slowly running up to them. "Take a look at that." He held an evidence bag in his hand.

"Oh my god, is that what I think it is?" Catherine said in disgust.

Nick nodded. "A finger. It was lying under our victim, but it's not his."

Greg was arriving at the crime scene. Doc Robbins was already waiting for him. "Hey Doc."

"Greg, I thought you were back in the lab for the next days?"

"Yeah well, we're short handed at the moment so I volunteered." Giving Doc Robbins a look that made him think that Catherine didn't know about this, he knelt down to take a look at the body. It was a young female, in her early 20ies, hands tied behind her back with a rope wrapped around her neck. Her face was beat up beyond recognition. The way she was dressed led both Doc Robbins and Greg to believe she might be a prostitute.

"Does she have an I.D. on her?" Greg took photos of her.

"No. She doesn't have a wallet on her, no cell phone. Only some cash, condoms and make up in her purse."

"Cash... Condoms. The dress, the shoes... I think she might be a prostitute. Maybe we have her fingerprints in the system and can identify her."

"I think it will be not that easy..." Doc Robbins said, slowly turning the body around to reveal her hands. "She has no fingers."

On his way back from the lab, Greg received a phone call on his new cell phone.

"This is Greg."

"Greg, where the hell are you?" Catherine said, almost screaming at him.

"I'm driving back to the lab now. I know I was supposed to stay in the lab, but there was no one else to go! What was I supposed to do?"

"Well you could've at least asked me, Greg!"

"I know, and I'm sorry. Next time I'll ask you. But I figured you'd be okay with it."

"Well maybe I would've if you asked me, but now I'm just angry..."

Greg had to smile when Catherine said that. "Look, I didn't mean to be disrespectful. Please accept my apologies, okay?"

Greg knew Catherine couldn't resist his cute attempts to make it up to her. "Fine... Just come back to the lab."

Greg was processing the rope that was wrapped around the dead body. He was trying to find anything, some fibers, hairs or some DNA from the person who wrapped it around her neck.

"There you are..." Catherine walked in, still looking a bit angry.

"Hey Catherine..." he said with a rather awkward smile.

"I hope this was at least worth it. Tell me about the case."

"Well, our Jane Doe was found in a back alley near the strip. I'm waiting for the autopsy report to confirm it, but it looks like she was strangled with this rope. Judging from her looks and the inside of her purse I believe she was a prostitute."

"And you think a John killed her?"

"Well I have yet to find any evidence to back my theory up, but I'm thinking it could be her pimp..."

"Why do you think that?"

Greg handed some pictures he took over to Catherine. "Because her fingers were chopped off. I'm thinking the pimp knew she was in the system and tried to get rid of any evidence linking her to him. Like her identity."

Catherine looked surprised at the pictures.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

"Nothing... I... it might be a really weird coincidence... But we found a finger at our crime scene that didn't belong to our dead body..." She didn't keep her eyes off the pictures when she noticed something. "Red nail polish on her feet... Our finger had red nail polish, too. And it was applied quite sloppy."

Greg stared at her. "Doc Robbins noticed that the nail polish on her toes was applied sloppy, too, as if she was in a hurry when she did it..."

"Our cases may be linked together..." Catherine sighed. "You do know that the case I'm working on probably involves the guy that attacked you?"

"No, Catherine, you can't pull me off that case, too!"

"It's the same case, Greg! You're involved!"

"But... Okay, we don't know that for sure yet. Let me keep on working on it until we're 100% sure that these two cases are involved AND that this guy is involved!"

Catherine rolled her eyes. "Okay.. We don't know anything yet officially. But the second we do know I expect you to step away from the case."

Nick walked into the DNA lab. He found Julian on one of the microscopes and Greg nervously waiting for something. "Hey guys. Do we know yet if the finger belongs to your victim, Greg?"

Greg shook his head. "Julian's working on it..." he said impatient, noticing the look Julian gave him.

"Well... I know you want to work on this case, so I hope the DNA won't match..." Nick said, handing Greg a report.

"Why?" He took a look at it.

"The woman the finger belongs to is Officer Claudia Richards... There's no way this is a coincidence."

Greg looked shocked at Nick. "But my victim... I... She was a prostitute!"

"Greg, we don't know that. Maybe this guy wanted us to believe she was, dressing her up like that. Is this your victim?" He handed him a picture of Officer Richards.

"I don't know..." He put the picture down. "She was beat up, her face was bruised badly. It could be her, but the hair color doesn't match. The Jane Doe was brunette, officer Richards was a blond."

"Did Doc Robbins already determine whether the fingers were chopped off postmortem?" Nick asked.

"Yeah... Five fingers postmortem, five when she was still alive..." the painful look Greg now had on his face made Nick worry about him again. "How about your finger?"

"Postmortem... But we're not sure which hand it came from."

"And it's not like left hand, perimortem, right hand postmortem on our victim... We'll have to wait for Julian to confirm the DNA-match."

Julian rolled his eyes. "I'm working as fast as I can, it's ready in a minute."

"You said that half an hour ago..." Greg responded, giving him an annoyed look.

"Well in that case it can't take too long anymore, right?" He walked out the room for a few minutes.

"What the hell? Where's he going?" Greg said aggressively. He was waiting for this important DNA result and Julian was obviously taking another coffee break. "I'm so sick of this guy."

"You didn't seem to care too much about that before." Nick said, sitting down next to Greg.

"So? It takes a while to annoy me that much, I guess..." he replied, trying to avoid the conversation Nick was trying to get at.

"Come on, Greg, ever since, you know, all that happened, you're having a shorter fuse. And I'm not the only one to notice it."

"And that surprises you? Julian's a jerk. He's working on very important evidence and acts like it's not a big deal to take forever to process it!"

"Alright, calm down... I understand you're annoyed by him, but you never acted up like this before. You can't let your emotions get the best of you."

"Nick, I'm only stressed out. You can't really blame me for being mean to Julian, it's not like he's ever been nice to me." Greg got up and walked up to the printer, waiting for the result.

"Yeah I know, but still... You normally have been nicer to him. And you've been stressed out before. Are you still talking to the department shrink?"

Greg rolled his eyes. "Yes... And he told me to let my feelings out when I need to."

"Sure, but you can't let them out on anyone, let alone your colleagues! Just try not to lose your temper that quick, alright?"

The printer finally printed out the results. As Greg picked the paper up, Julian went back in.

"Hey, Sanders, I already told you. It's my lab now, stay away from the results until I give them to you!" He grabbed the paper out of Greg's hand.

"Hey, back off!" Nick was now facing Julian, taking the paper out of his hand. "You shouldn't worry about him. You should worry about losing your job for being too slow and giving everyone an attitude."

Julian stared at Nick for a while, looked at Greg and just went out the lab.

"What the hell, Nick? I can deal with him myself!" Greg stormed off angry.

Nick rolled his eyes. "Hey, what about the DNA results?"