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Sara snapped another picture of the young blonde woman. The woman appeared to have died peacefully in her sleep. There was no sign of struggle, no sign that she'd heard any alarm.

Even if she had heard the alarms, Sara noted, she would probably have not been able to get out of the apartment. It was quite apparent from the damage that the fire had started right outside Rebecca Warren's door, and with the security bars in place, she wouldn't have been able to escape out the window. The apartment building managers were surely going to have a few lawsuits on their hands about those bars. What had probably seemed like a good idea for protecting the apartment residents from people breaking in, they also would be doing a good job at keeping the residents from breaking out.

The extent of the damage to the door suggested that an accelerant had been used. Sara swabbed samples from the wood to take back to the lab for analyzing before continuing on in processing the apartment.

"So who was she?" Sara wondered silently as she studied the deceased. Rebecca Warren according to the bills. Becky, according to the only piece of personal mail that had been found in the mail holder on her desk.

Becky was an excessively tidy person, Sara assessed. Not a thing was out of place in her apartment. She was young, but obviously looked younger than her age. Sara had yet to find a purse or anything with Becky's identification, but the woman looked too young to even have her own apartment. She didn't look older than fourteen or fifteen at best. Far too young looking to leave anything but a sour taste in Sara's mouth when she tried to imagine the young woman wearing the skimpy cocktail waitress uniforms (such as they were) found in her closet. It seemed that Becky made quite a bit of money in tips, though, judging from the quality of her possessions. For a cocktail waitress, Becky seemed to have pretty expensive tastes in artwork. Except for the poster of the Arizona Wildcats Cheerleaders from the 1999-2000 season on the wall, every one of the paintings were ones that Sara could see selling for hundreds--if not thousands--of dollars at a gallery. Of course they could all just be copies, but they would find out for sure on closer examination.

The Wildcats poster seemed so out of place that Sara found herself staring at it for a long time. At first she'd wondered if maybe the vic was on the squad, but she wasn't in the picture. She did have a name in common with one of the cheerleaders, though, Sara noticed. The Becky Warren on the squad, though, was a very pretty African-American woman, not an extremely young looking blonde.

Sara's alarm started beeping. Time to go out and swap filters, she sighed. She hated having to take the time out to go, but knew it was necessary. She took one last look around the bedroom before heading outside. There was something else strange about the room, but she just couldn't put her finger on it. It would come to her, she was sure. When she got outside and let her head clear a moment, it would surely come to her.

"They looked so peaceful," Catherine was comparing notes with Warrick and Nick as Sara made her way toward them. "They had no idea there was a fire."

"Mine, either. She died in her sleep, never knowing there was any danger," Sara added.

"Our guy knew and he didn't even bother to wake anyone," Warrick fumed. Now that his mind had had a little time to process the scene in Mr. Pearson's apartment, he couldn't help but blame the man for the deaths of the others. "He grabbed his clothes and hightailed it."

"It's weird that he took the time to try and save this little fella, but didn't try to save his neighbors," Nick pointed out. "Maybe Pearson was the one who set off the alarm?"

"Too little, too late," Warrick countered.

"So where did he go?" Catherine wondered aloud. "If your house was on fire, wouldn't you want to stay and make sure that the fire was put out?"

Nick shook his head. "No way. I wouldn't. I mean, everything you own, everything you've worked for being destroyed and you can't personally do anything to stop it? I wouldn't want to hang around and watch."

"So, who's your friend?" Sara asked, noticing for the first time that Nick was holding a kitten.

"Mr. Pearson's cat," Nick informed her.

"How did the cat survive when none of the humans did?" Sara asked, looking the kitten over. Her eyes narrowed. "And she's still all white. Not dirty at all."

"Wet towel under the door," Warrick explained. "The guy took the time to pack all his clothes--even his shoes--and save his kitten, but didn't take the time to knock on a few doors."

Catherine patted him on the back before she finished replacing the filter for her mask. "I'm going to finish up in the Masters apartment. You guys do the preliminaries in the Black apartment and I'll meet up with you there." As she headed into the building again, she saw Greg, one of the lab technicians, crossing the lawn. She wondered why he was at the scene until she noticed that he was carrying a small animal carrier.

"Someone called for a pet taxi?" the tech called, approaching the others.

"Here she is," Nick presented the kitten to Greg. The kitten squirmed, trying to turn back toward Nick. "Take care of her."

Greg smirked, detecting a little bit of hesitation in Nick's handing her over. "Nicky wants a pet?" he suggested. Nick gazed back at him pointedly, but still smiling good-naturedly. "Nobody claims her, she...er...he's all yours," Greg amended as he got a better look at the kitten.

"He?"

"You don't need me to give a lecture about the differences in male and female anatomy, do you?" Greg teased. "This here, is not a she." He put the kitten into the carrier. It made a sad mewing sound as he latched the cage shut. "Don't worry, little fella, Nicky will take you home tonight."

Nick chuckled as he finished replacing the filter for his mask. A cat? He didn't think so. dog, maybe, but a cat? "Nah, the lab's a good home for now."

"Okay, but just so you know, I'm not cleaning up his litter box," Greg called after him as he headed back into the building, following Warrick upstairs to start processing the Black apartment.

Litter box.

As Warrick started examining the Black's destroyed door, Nick headed back to Mr. Pearson's apartment to confirm something that he'd seen.

Or rather, what he hadn't seen.

"No litter box, no cat food, no water bowl," he announced a few minutes later as he met back up with Warrick and Sara in the Black's living room.

"What?" Warrick looked away from the portrait of the Black family. They looked like the perfect "All-American" sort of family. Blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect smiles.

"Mr. Pearson didn't own a cat. I checked out the sofa and chairs. No cat hair."

"So maybe he just got it?" Sara suggested.

"And didn't bother picking up a litter box or food? I don't think so. Besides, he seemed far too...tidy to want to have a cat to mess things up."

Warrick squared his jaw. "So where did it come from, then?"

Nick shrugged. "Don't know, but I think that's one thing we'll have to figure out."

Warrick nodded, pushing open the door that led, if the drawing on the door was correct, to Lindy Black's bedroom. "Here's another good question for you."

"Hmm?"

"Who's been sleeping in Lindy Black's bed?"

Nick felt sick as he absorbed the question. If the family portrait on the wall was recent, Lindy wasn't more than thirteen or fourteen years old. And if Warrick could tell immediately that someone else had been with Lindy...either there was blood, or the person was still there. He peered into the room expecting the worst, but was quite surprised by what he saw. "That...is not Lindy Black."

Warrick chuckled humorlessly. "You think? So, who is she?" he asked as he snapped a picture of the woman in the bed. "And where's Lindy?"

Sara looked past Warrick and Nick to see what they were looking at. Her eyes widened. She turned to look at the portrait that Warrick had been looking at to confirm her suspicions. "Guys, I think this case just took on Greg's proverbial whole new level of weird," she announced. "But I can answer both of those questions."