Binding Ties Read Online Free Page B

press it, saying, “Okay I head over next door, to join our detective and officer? They’re interviewing the neighbor, and I’d like to print her, get her eliminated. Partial on the bell might be hers, y’know.”
    â€œMight. You do that.”
    â€œâ€¦ There’s never a good way, is there?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œTo get murdered.”
    â€œNo,” Grissom admitted. “But this strikes me as one of the least desirable.”
    â€œI hear that,” she said, and strode out.
    He smiled to himself, pleased at how unfazed by the crime scene she’d been. He had picked Sara personally, when a CSI had been killed on the job and needed replacing; she’d been a student who excelled at his seminars, and he’d been impressed and sought her out and brought her in, and she had not disappointed.
    On the other hand, he was disappointed in himself, sometimes, as his affection for this bright young woman had on occasion threatened to take him over the professional line.
    And that was a line Gil Grissom did not wish to cross.
    The supervisor returned his attention to the dead body.
    Some sort of liquid pooled on the victim’s back and he bent down to take a closer look.
    Little sailors,
he thought, as he took a photo of the semen gathered at the small of the victim’s back. Setting the camera aside, he then swabbed a small portion of the fluid for DNA testing later. Something about the sample troubled him, though; this was part of the M.O. he had recognized, but it was a little … off.
    Then he had it: The fluid on the back was meant to suggest that the killer had masturbated onto thevictim, but the semen pooled neatly in that one spot on the vic’s back.
    It’s been poured there,
Grissom thought with a grim smile.
    If the killer had ejaculated, in a sick frenzy attached to the murder, the result would hardly have been one tidy little pool. Most likely, other droplets would be here and there, spattered….
    He bagged the semen sample, finished taking his photos, swabbed the blood in the rug, and went over the body for any trace evidence. He found nothing. The last thing he did was carefully remove the rope and bag it. When he had completed his initial pass at the body, he withdrew his cell phone and punched the speed dial.
    On the second ring, a brusque voice answered: “Jim Brass.”
    â€œI’ve got something you need to see,” Grissom said, without identifying himself. “It’s not in your jurisdiction, but it’s right up your alley.”
    â€œCute, Gil. But haven’t you heard? I’m on vacation.”
    â€œReally kicking back, are you?”
    Silence; no, not silence: Grissom, detective that he was, could detect a sigh….
    â€œYou know as well as I do,” Brass said. “I’m bored out of my mind.”
    â€œYou know, people who live for their work should seek other outlets.”
    â€œWhat, like collecting bugs? Gil—what have you got?”
    â€œAn oldie but baddie—I wasn’t with you on it … kind of before our time, together.”
    â€œWhat are you
talking
about?”
    â€œThe one you never forget—your first case.”
    The long pause that followed contained no sigh. Not even a breath. Just stony silence.
    Then Brass said, “You’re not talking about my first case back in Jersey, are you?”
    â€œNo. I’ve got a killing out here in North Las Vegas that shares a distinctive M.O. with your
other
first case.”
    â€œChrist. Where are you exactly?”
    â€œJust getting started.”
    â€œI mean the address!”
    â€œOh,” Grissom said, and gave it to him.
    â€œTwenty minutes,” Brass said and broke the connection.
    The homicide captain made it in fifteen.
    From the open doorway, Grissom watched Brass’s car pull up and the detective get out, and cross the lawn like a man on a mission. Which, Grissom supposed, he was.
    The