Greg Sanders, wearing his usual CD player headphones, skipped lightly down the corridors of the crime lab, accidentally bumping into computer tech Steve Richards.

"Hey, Stevie," Greg said. "Watcha doin'?"

The tech looked up in surprise. Everyone knew there was no blood lost between the day shift and the night shift.

"I'm fine," he said formally, straightening up his bow tie and checking his pocket protector.

"Hey, bud, I gotta show you something," Greg said, wrapping his arm around the slender man's shoulders and guiding him down the hall. "Have you ever been to storage room 333?" he asked.

Richards shook his head no.

"Hey, you gotta see this. I mean it. It's so cool!"

Greg ushered Richards to a door marked 333 and swung it open. The Bone Closet, as it was affectionately known, housed the broken and worn artificial skeletons and fake body parts used in various experiments. Richards cringed at the blood-stained hands, bullet- holed skulls, and other materials crowding the shelves and hanging from the ceilings.

"What is it you want me to see?" Richards asked, anxious to get out of there. The parts may have been fake, but the fear and nausea he was feeling was real.

"Just stand here a minute," Greg said, backing his new-found friend into one of the skeletons and shutting the door behind him. "Now, don't move," he directed.

Greg then took the hands of the skeleton and placed one on each of Richard's shoulders.

"You feel that?" Greg asked.

Richards nodded nervously.

"Good," Greg said, his demeanor suddenly changing. Gone was the boyish good humor, and in its place was a threatening earnestness. "That's the hand of death. And that's what you're going to be feeling soon if you don't tell me what the hell you did with the database DNA files."

Richards, gulping, tried to side-step Greg, but Greg corralled him further into the bones that jiggled and jangled around Richard's sweating head.

"I didn't do anything illegal," he protested.

"Tell me what you did, or I'll lock you in here, in the dark, for the next 48 hours, and I can guarantee you that no one will hear your screams," Greg hissed.

"You can't do anything to me. I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Well, if that's the case...." Greg turned to leave.

"Wait! Don't leave me here!" Richards begged.

Greg turned around, a sinister grin on his face.

"Can't I?" he taunted.

"I swear. I didn't do anything illegal!"

Greg frowned a second, thinking.

"Just what exactly did you do?" he asked.

"All I did was clean out the dead files from the database. You know, old files that were solved, already. That's all."

"Including the Millander file?" Greg asked.

"If the case was closed, it got wiped," Richards said.

The idea of 'cleaning out' a DNA database completely shocked Greg, who almost forgot he was playing the bad guy.

"So all that information is gone?"

"No. Not gone, just not in the database. We have it stored on disc," Richards explained.

"Who is we?" Greg demanded to know.

"The crime lab."

Greg approached Richards again, picked up the hand from one of the skeletons and patted the other man on the head with it. Richards, terrified, looked like he was about to faint.

"Why?" Greg asked.

"Supervisor Eckley ordered it, to free up memory in the computer," Richards said.

Greg looked confused.

"We're linked to all the crime labs in the country. We don't have memory problems on our computers," he said.

"But when the system crashed...."

"You called in an outsider."

"Yeah."

"Who?"

Richards fished a business card out of his wallet and nervously handed it to Greg.

"These guys," he said.

A third voice joined the group.

"Just one more question," Jim Brass asked, stepping out from behind a pile of fake limbs, his arms crossed authoritatively in front of him. "Is this the card you used to walk into the sperm bank, steal a specimen and alter their files?"

Richards suddenly turned pale and sunk to the floor.

"Oh, shit!" he said, desperately swatting the plastic skeleton's dangling legs away from his face.

"I'll take that as a yes," Brass said.

Greg squatted down in front of Richards, eyeing him like a bug under the microscope.

"I didn't steal anything! I was undercover. He said it was part of an investigation!"

"Who said?" Greg asked, waiting for Eckley's name to roll off of Richards' lips.

"Grissom," Richards said.

Greg and Brass stared at him.

"You TALKED to him about this?" Brass asked.

"Yes. No. Well, not exactly TALKED...."

"Go on," Brass encouraged.

"I got a memo."

He pulled a paper out of his pocket that authorized him to go undercover at the sperm bank, snatch a specimen "for further analysis," and alter the databank to cover up the missing material, using Millander's name. He was to drop the specimen in the lab and not discuss the matter with anyone, because of possible leaks in the investigation. It was signed 'G.G.' Richards had merely done what he was told.

"I don't believe this!" Greg said, throwing up his hands.

"Damn, he covered his tracks well," Brass commented, taking the envelope. "What are the chances any fingerprints we find on this will be Gil's?"

"Of course. All someone had to do was lift some stationary from his office."

Both men glared at Richards, trying to figure out what to do with him.

"You got played," Greg said.

"There was no investigation?" Richards asked, eyes wide.

"There is now," said Brass, "and you're it. You want to help catch the real bad guys, don't you?"

"Yeah. Sure." Anything to get out of here, Richards was thinking.

"Then this is what you're going to do...."

*******

Gil hung up the phone, looking worried.

"Bad news?" Catherine asked, skimming through an assortment of documents from the case file.

"Dead end at the lab," Gil explained, without saying more.

"That leaves Sam," Catherine said.

Gil sank into his chair, looking defeated.

"All we have are innuendoes and speculations."

"Not everything is about science," Catherine said.

They were both startled by a knock at the door. Catherine opened it to find Gil's attorney, Charles Warren Smith, carrying an expensive briefcase and looking very displeased.

"What part of 'don't talk to anyone' don't you get," he asked Gil, not bothering to sit down.

"I haven't been talking. I've been listening," Gil responded.

"You had a police officer in here...."

"Giving me information."

"And a half dozen crime investigators."

"They're my team."

"You don't have a team," Smith said. "You have me. Everyone else is a witness against you."

"He didn't do it!" Catherine snapped, going to sit by Gil.

"My job is to make sure the state can't win it's case," Smith began.

"Mine is to clear my name," Gil countered. "Just having the case dismissed isn't enough. People will always wonder if I did it. I have to find the real killer."

"WE have to find him," Catherine corrected.

"And you have someone in mind?" Smith asked, sarcastically.

"Yes," said Catherine, her voice steady. "My father."

Smith stared at her.

"Who the hell is your father?" he asked.

And Catherine told him the story of Sam Braun and the infamous ride in his limo.

"How would he get all that information on you?" Smith asked. "Who comes into your apartment?"

"I have no idea," Gil said. "I have someone come by to clean once a week, otherwise, the only person who's been in here is Catherine."

"And the police, of course," Catherine said.

Both men looked at her.

"When they arrested you, Gil. They searched the apartment." No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she felt herself getting sick. "The cops who beat you up. They probably work for Sam. That's how he knew about the tarantulas and what you have in your frig."

"But whoever killed Carol already knew about my relationship with Heather," he said.

Maybe not. All they had to know about was your relationship with Carol. She was a cop. She probably talked about it somewhere along the line. If they knew her connection to Heather, and they knew your weakness for Carol...."

"We need to search Eckley's office," Gil said.

"I can't be a party to illegal activity," Smith interrupted.

"It's not illegal, and you don't have to be," said Gil. "The police are working on this. Fromansky and Brass can set it up. There's no expectation of privacy in the crime lab, so no warrant is issued. Whatever is there already belongs to the Las Vegas Police Department."

Smith relaxed a little.

"So, you think Sam Braun is keeping a file on you, somewhere," Smith asked.

The thought had never occurred to Catherine or Grissom.

"He must be," Catherine stated.

"Let's be clear about something," Grissom said. "Braun doesn't do his own dirty work. He has people who do it for him, and they know better than to rat him out. Whoever did it is probably long gone...."

"Or dead," Catherine said.

"Exactly. So proving he's involved is going to be tough."

"Maybe not," Smith said, his mind going into overdrive. "You know, one of the problems with you forensic types is you can't see past the nose on your face. It's all evidence with you."

"What else is there?" Gil asked.

"Psychology," Smith answered. "Have you ever done a sting?"

-- TBC --