DISCLAIMER: I don't own CSI or any of it's characters, Jerry Bruckheimer, Alliance Atlantis and CBS have that priviledge.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A tiny spoiler for "Iced". Thanks go out to my cool beta Ez!
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Cinnamon Girl
By Maaike
Chapter 1
Sara sighed; the last time she had a case in a dorm it involved an exploding toilet. The last time she was accompanied by Greg, and this time it was Catherine. Not that it wasn't good to work with Catherine, but it was definitely not good for her concentration. Lately Sara found it was becoming harder to deny her crush on Catherine for some reason.
Once again she found herself staring at Catherine's cute ass while she was following her. Bad Sara, she mentally slapped herself. She had to focus now. Somewhere in there was a young woman depending on her to find her killer.
Catherine sighed; it was always such a shame to find young women in the prime of their lives with so many things they still had to do and experience but would never get the chance. She glanced over her shoulder to look at Sara who had been following her around the dorms like a puppy dog. She wondered what was going on with the brunette. Normally she would barge into a crime scene and start processing right away; now it seemed like she was waiting for orders.
"You take the photographs, and I'll check the room, " Catherine said, slightly expecting Sara to argue with her.
"Ok," Sara replied as she got her camera out.
It amazed the blonde that Sara didn't argue but started working right away. Something had been up for a while. They didn't argue half as much as they used to. Catherine smiled to herself; maybe someday they could even become friends.
"What have we got, David?" Catherine asked the coroner.
"She's been dead less than 12 hours. So far I've counted 4 stab wounds, all on her back," David answered.
Catherine nodded and walked over to Brass to talk to him, and Sara started taking photographs of the body.
"I always like working with my two favorite women," Brass said with a smile "too bad we always have to meet under these circumstances though."
"Hey Jim, what can you tell me?" Catherine greeted the Detective.
"Victim's name is Dana Anderson, 23. It was called in by her classmate Erin Davies, she is over there. This is not Dana's room, her room is down the hall. This room belongs to Dean Messing, we are still trying to locate him."
"Thanks Jim," Catherine said before turning around to start processing the room.
Dana's body was removed and both Sara and Catherine started processing the room. Sara was collecting hairs from the sink while Catherine was working around where the body was found.
"Cath, look at this," Sara said, motioning for Catherine to come and look at something she found.
Catherine realized Sara was using her nickname and it sounded incredibly sexy coming from Sara's mouth. 'OK, no time for this now, focus Cath' she told herself before walking over to Sara.
"A note," the blonde CSI said when Sara showed her what she found.
"What the fuck are you thinking, messing around with cinnamon girl like that? You are mine, and you know that," Sara slowly read.
"Doesn't sound like a love letter to me," Catherine said with a smirk. "What do you think 'cinnamon girl' means?" She asked her colleague.
"I have no idea. Maybe a nickname for someone," Sara shrugged.
Catherine went back to where she was working earlier; she was dusting prints from a chair near where the body was found.
"Sara, can you come here for a second?" Catherine asked the brunette.
Sara turned around and walked over to where Catherine was, looking at the older woman with her eyebrow raised. Was the great Catherine Willows going to ask her, Sara Sidle, for help?
"Do you smell that?" The blonde CSI said looking up at her colleague.
Sara sniffed and tried to identify the sweet smell filling her nostrils.
"Cinnamon," she said, flashing a smile at Catherine. Maybe that would be an explanation for cinnamon girl.
Suddenly both women were startled by a noise that seemed to come from the closet. Catherine's eyes grew bigger, and Sara reached for her gun.
"This room was cleared, right?" Sara whispered at Catherine.
Catherine nodded and put her finger on her lips, indicating to Sara she should be quiet. Catherine got up, but Sara beat her to the door of the closet and opened it with force. She pointed her gun at the person who was hiding in there.
"Don't shoot!" the girl in the closet shouted, squeezing her eyes shut.
"Get out of there and ID yourself," Sara shouted.
The girl got up from her hiding position; she had curled herself up in a ball on the floor of the closet.
"SLOWLY," Sara shouted, still pointing the gun at the young woman.
Catherine was shocked; the cops had cleared the room but forgot to look in the closet?
"Sara, it's ok," Catherine said. She saw the girl was scared, her eyes gave it away big time and she was shaking.
Sara shot a death glare at Catherine and then looked back at the girl.
"Sara put the gun down," Catherine said, putting her hand on Sara's arm.
It felt as if Catherine's hand was burning through her clothes on her skin, a shiver went through her spine, but still she was mad at the blonde. Catherine was undermining her, again!
Catherine put some more force on Sara's arm, making her put the gun down.
"Let me handle this Sara," she whispered in Sara's ear, not knowing this caused the brunette to shiver.
"Who are you?" Catherine asked the girl now standing in front of them.
"I'm J..Jane, Jane Smith," the girl said, casting her eyes at the floor.
Catherine found there was a certain familiarity about this girl: the brown hair, a little bit curly, brown eyes and a lanky body. Catherine wondered if Sara had looked like that when she was at Harvard, suddenly she saw a younger Sara in front of her. Catherine shook her head to make the image go away, where did that come from? She asked herself.
"Jane, will you come with us so we can talk?" Catherine asked with her soothing mom voice.
Sara glared at Catherine who had ruined her authority by undermining her in front of a suspect. She was just thinking how remarkably well they were doing without all the fighting, but of course she was too soon to think they might even become friends. Every time she would think of that Catherine would put her foot in.
The girl just shrugged and nodded; she seemed eerily calm for someone in a situation like this. There was something odd about this girl and Catherine was determined to find that out. When Catherine stepped closer to the girl, she realized that Jane was the source of the cinnamon smell.
Sara gathered all the evidence they had collected and followed Catherine and Jane out of the room. While walking behind the two, she had the time to observe the suspect they had found. The young woman was a lot like how she was when she was younger. Subconsciously, Sara's gaze turned to the back of Catherine who seemed to carry herself with so much more grace and confidence; it was just plain sexy.
A couple of guys where standing in the hallway, cheering at them. Sara was sure they were jocks of some sort, seeing their jackets and the stupid way of expressing themselves.
"Oooooh our resident geek is being arrested!" One of the guys cheered.
Sara could see Jane cringe and grow two sizes smaller. 'Yup, very much like me,' Sara confirmed to herself.
Catherine had told the cops to stay at the scene and prevent anyone from going in the room. She knew just how students where. They had agreed, although the one in charge was a bit reluctant about letting Jane ride with them, but when Catherine assured him she wasn't a suspect, which was a lie, he let her get away with it.
Catherine closed the door of the backseat and got behind the wheel herself. She looked at Sara who had put the kits in the back of the car and now sat next to her.
"You drop off the evidence while I talk to cinnamon girl here," she said.
Sara just nodded and Catherine drove off.