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Nick sank back onto his sofa, closing his eyes and just resting for a few moments before reaching out to grab the TV remote. When his hand didn’t find the remote on the end table, he opened one eye long enough to spare a glance at the empty table. He scowled, but made no effort to get up to turn on the TV or find the remote. He was too tired to care that much about the game today, anyway. It had been one hell of a long shift, and tonight’s would be just as long, if not longer.

Unless the culprit stepped forward with a confession, this was going to be one of those jobs that just didn’t wrap up quickly or neatly in a day or two. Maybe not even in a week or two. Possibly it never would, but they were sure going to exhaust every resource trying to figure it all out. From the mysterious kitten, to the game of “musical beds” the inhabitants of the building appeared to be playing, the graveyard shift would be sorting out the pieces of the puzzle until the cows came home, Nick figured. Hell, the only body in the whole building that was where it should be was that of Andrew Vaugn from the penthouse apartment.

Vaugn’s body had been strange for other reasons, though.

“Take a look here,” Grissom had instructed Nick when he’d made his way into the victim’s room. Nick had accepted Gil’s magnifier and carefully examined the victim’s hands. At first, he hadn’t noticed anything unusual. He had almost given up, but looking up at Grissom’s face and seeing the expectant expression on his mentor’s face, he kept at it. Then he noticed it.

There was absolutely nothing under the man’s fingernails. No skin scraped from an attacker, which was disappointing but not entirely unexpected. Not just that, though, but there was no dirt. Or bits of food. Or anything else. He looked up at Grissom, who gave him a small encouraging smile. “He scraped under his nails…recently…” Nick acknowledged as he continued looking for whatever else may have made his boss so excited about this revelation.

And then, there it was; what Gil had been getting excited about. “Someone else scraped under his nails. After he was dead?” Nick looked up at Gil with surprise.

“Yes!” Gil gushed. “See, the break in the skin there,” he pointed at the hairline scratch. “If Mr. Vaugn scraped under his own nails, the angle would have been different. He likely would not have cut himself at all, but if he had, the cut would most likely be up here…”

“And since the cut is still opened, it means it just happened,” Nick continued the theory, not quite as fascinated as Gil, but interested regardless. “Which means that it should have been bleeding. But there’s no blood.”

“Which means was no blood circulation,” Grissom explained unnecessarily. “The heart had already stopped.”

“Dead men don’t bleed,” Nick agreed with the analysis.

After the initial once-over each of the apartments, the bodies had been removed from the site and the CSIs started the painstakingly tedious job of going over absolutely everything in each of the apartments with fine toothed combs. Tonight, they’d finish up the initial sweep of the crime scene and then start processing it all to see if they could figure out what exactly happened at 157 Walnut Avenue. It had been a hard case to just leave in the middle of, but since they already had put in several hours of overtime, they had all agreed, reluctantly, to break for the day at noon so they could get some much needed sleep.

By tonight, they would have the results of the autopsies. And with any luck, they’d have a list of suspects ready.

So far, there were only two, and as noon, neither of them had been located.

The first suspect was Marshall Black. At seventeen years old, he was the oldest of the Black children. The only reason he made the suspect list was because his body had not been found at the scene. With any luck, he would surface alive and well at a friend’s house. He probably hadn’t even learned of the fire yet. Nick hated to think of how the kid was going to feel when he found out that his entire family had perished. Assuming, of course, that Marshall hadn’t had anything to do with the fire being set.

The second suspect was far more likely, in Nick’s opinion. Morris Pearson, the psychic, who had conveniently had enough time to pack and get out while everyone else in the building seemingly slept peacefully. Nick was definitely cynical about the existence of true psychics, but he supposed he wouldn’t rule out the possibility. Maybe the guy had a vision earlier in the day and had packed up and left then.

Of course, that wouldn’t explain the kitten or the towel grabbed in a hurry and shoved under the door. Or why the apartment was left unlocked.

But Nick was far too tired to think about the case anymore. Since the TV remote wasn’t where it should be, he decided to just skip the game and go directly to sleep. He got up from the sofa and shuffled tiredly into his bedroom. He didn’t even bother kicking off his shoes before flopping into bed. He was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

It was not a restful sleep, though. He did not often remember his dreams, but when he woke several times through the day, he had distinct impressions of John Black Jr. and the women that they had tentatively identified as Janet Masters in bed together stuck in his head. The impressions, however, didn’t exactly match what the evidence at the scene indicated. They were more like shadows of another time. Another crime scene. One that had gone without justice for more than twenty years. But Nick refused to consciously think of the scene involving the nine-year-old boy held down by his babysitter.

It was only four in the afternoon when he gave up the notion of getting a good day’s rest and rolled out of bed.

He went briefly out to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, leaving it to percolate as he took a shower to really wake himself up. The shower, however, wasn’t exactly a nice way to wake up. It seemed that his water heater had died at some point in the past 24 hours, leaving him with an ice cold stream of water. So he showered fast. Even so, he was shivering almost violently as he stepped out of the shower, grabbing for a towel. He swore he could feel himself turning blue from the cold as he hurried back to his bedroom to grab some warmer clothes.

He pulled open his drawer, looking for his old Texas A&M sweatshirt. It was the most comfortably worn one he owned, and since it was going to be another long night, he wanted to be comfortable.

He scowled as he dug through the drawer. It wasn’t there. Damn it, he knew it wasn’t in the wash. He hadn’t worn it since the last time he’d done laundry. He swore that the drycleaners losing his orders and people swiping stuff at the Laundromat, he’d had to buy more clothes in the past couple months than he had in years. One of these days he was going to just break down and buy his own washer and dryer. It’d save him a heck of a lot of money in the long run. Maybe he’d go shopping his next day off.

Since he couldn’t find the one he wanted, he just grabbed an old grey sweatshirt and pulled it on, hoping to stifle the involuntary shivering.

He was just pulling on his jeans when the phone started ringing. It was only 4:30. Nobody who knew him would be calling at this hour unless it was an emergency. He reached for the phone, glancing at the caller ID. The display only told him that the originating number was blocked. Figured. Probably a telemarketer. But Nick answered anyway.

“Mr. Stokes?” the caller asked before he had a chance to make his own greeting. Definitely a telemarketer, Nick scowled. “Please don’t hang up, Mr. Stokes,” the man on the other end asked of him as he was just contemplating doing just that. He sighed.

“Who is this?”

“My name is Morris Pearson, Mr. Stokes.” Nick’s eyebrows shot up. It was a good thing he hadn’t hung up after all.

“Mr. Pearson. Where are you?” he asked the first question that popped into his mind. He reached for the pad of paper and pen that he kept by the phone.

“I believe you’re in danger, Mr. Stokes.”

“And why is that?” Nick asked automatically. He wondered at why the man kept repeating his name.

“I’m…afraid I don’t really know. I…sometimes just feel things. There is something wrong. Something…I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Nick wasn’t sure how else to respond. “Does it have anything to do with your apartment building?”

“So it happened, then?” the man suddenly sounded quite subdued.

“What happened?”

“I tried to warn them.”

“Warn who, Mr. Pearson?”

“The Blacks. The Masterses. Ms. Warren. I tried to warn them.”

“And what about Andrew Vaugn?” Nick found himself asking before he could edit himself. “Did you try to warn him, too?” He felt his anger starting to rise.

“It was too late for Mr. Vaugn. There was nothing I could do for him.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed as he jotted that tidbit down on the pad of paper, underlining Vaugn’s name and the words ‘too late’ and punctuating with a question mark. “I really think you and I need to talk,” Nick informed the other man. “Maybe you could meet me somewhere. Like at the lab?”

“I…don’t think that’s a good idea, Mr. Stokes.”

“And why is that?”

“I think you know why.”

“Did you set the fire, Mr. Pearson?”

“Of course not. But…I will be blamed, Mr. Stokes. You know that, too, don’t you?” Yes, Nick did know that. It didn’t take a ‘psychic’ to figure that one out. “I did not set the fire.”

“Do you know who did?”

There was a pregnant pause before the replay finally came. “No. Not exactly.”

“What exactly do you know, then?”

Morris Pearson hesitated again before answering. “He…did it for you.”

Nick’s mouth suddenly went dry. “What?” he choked out. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know…Did you…did you find your gifts?”

Nick licked his lips nervously. “What gifts?”

“I don’t know. But he left some…things for you.”

“What sort of things? For me specifically?”

“He thought you would…appreciate them.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m sorry…I don’t know. I don’t…he left a warning, too.”

“A warning?”

“Not for you. It’s…I’m seeing Ms. Warren. Ms. Warren. Something about…her nightshirt.”

Nick jotted that down as well. “What about it.”

“I don’t know. It’s a warning. Not for you,” he repeated. “I don’t know for who. Someone…I don’t know.”

“Look, I really think it would be best if we talked in person. We should meet. It doesn’t have to be at the lab. Somewhere else. There’s a--”

“No. I’m sorry. It’s not a good idea. I better go.”

“No wait!”

“Be careful, Mr. Stokes. I sense…it’s going to be bad for you.”

Before Nick could ask any more questions, the line went dead.