"This is poker. The object is to bluff your opponent into showing his cards," Smith explained.

"You sound like Warrick," Grissom noted.

"One way to do that, is to psych out your opponent," Smith continued, ignoring his client.

"Psych out? How?" Catherine asked.

"Make him believe that someone knows everything there is to know about him, that someone has enough information on him to destroy him."

"How do we do that?" Grissom asked.

"By using what we do know."

"Well," Catherine said, "we know he had the computer files deleted."

"And we know he has a temper," Grissom said, remembering the way Eckley manhandled Catherine.

"And we know he wants you destroyed," Smith added.

"And we know he probably sent the memo to Richards on Gil's stationary," Catherine said.

"Which means he probably ordered Richards to steal the specimen from the sperm bank," Grissom said. "But we don't know that for sure."

"Poker is about playing the probabilities," Smith said. "If we're right, we win. If we're wrong, we're no worse off."

"Okay," Grissom responded, thinking about it. "In terms of probabilities, he probably has a serious sexual deviancy."

Smith and Catherine both looked at Grissom to explain.

"How many guys would kill a woman and then go to the extreme of planting semen in her?" he asked.

"Not just semen. Paul Millander's semen," Catherine said.

"But Paul Millander was a woman, so the whole thing was a ruse. Why?" Grissom was as confused as ever about that one.

"Tell me about Paul Millander," Smith instructed.

"Well," said Catherine, "he was born a girl, had a sex change operation, lived his life in fear, became a judge to hide his true nature, murdered father-figures in a bathtub and staged them to look like suicides. All in all, he was a pretty messed up guy."

Smith leaned forward in his chair, his mind working.

"Gil, aren't you something of a father-figure to your team?"

Catherine's eyes went wide, but Gil's narrowed, trying to follow this new line of thought.

"And wasn't your relationship with Carol based on sexual issues you kept hidden?" Smith added.

Gil was beginning to see where Smith was going.

"Perhaps Carol's murderer saw you as Paul Millander, someone hiding his true nature behind his job." Smith finished.

Gil finally got it, long after Catherine did.

"So, choosing Paul Millander for the name on the sperm donor wasn't a mistake, like I thought," he said. "It was a message."

"Like the message Millander sent you with the double fingerprints," Catherine reminded him. "You know: I've got you under my thumb?"

"It also says that the killer feels himself sexually dominant to you," Smith said.

"You should have been a forensic psychologist," Gil noted.

"In my line of work, you have to know a little about everything," Smith said.

"Mine, too," Gil said, with growing respect for his lawyer.

"What else do we know?" Smith asked.

"We know Eckley knows Sam Bruan," Catherine said. "Braun saw Eckley's injuries and referred to him by his first name."

"High probability, there," Smith agreed.

"And we know that Eckley's prints were the only other prints at that girl's apartment, because he was the landlord," she added.

"She wasn't a girl, Catherine. She was a woman," Gil gently corrected her.

"Don't remind me," she snapped.

He shut up.

"All and all, we know a lot about this guy," Smith said. "Now, how can we use what we know?"

*******

Conrad Eckley returned to the office around 10:15 p.m., after receiving a message from dispatch that a police officer was waiting to talk to him about the MacEnroe murder. The first thing he noticed was that the overhead light in the office didn't turn on. Swearing to himself, he tripped over something on the floor before finding a lamp. Once he could see, he looked back at the floor. There, laying in the middle of it, was one of the artificial female bodies from the Bone Closet, arms tied over its head with an extension cord, wearing a blonde wig, and otherwise naked.

Eckley dashed into the hallway to see who was there. If this was someone's idea of a sick joke, he was going to make them pay. But none of the usual suspects were about. He quickly returned to the office and slammed the door. He couldn't let anyone see this! Eckley untied the body's hands, removed the wig, and opened the closet to throw it inside.

There, on the inside door of the closet, was a blown up picture of Gil and Catherine, taken at the last Christmas party. The couple were engaged in what appeared to be a very intimate conversation. The photo was stuck to a dart board and littered with holes from a dart. Eckley tore it down and threw it in the closet, along with the Bone Closet doll.

His hands were shaking when he sat down at his desk. There, sitting in the middle, was an envelope with nothing written on it. He carefully opened it and found a single piece of paper, with the exact same instructions on it as were on the paper to Richards, except instead of being signed G.G., it was signed C.E. & S.B.

Eckley got up and checked the office door, making sure it was locked. Back behind his desk, he opened the drawer to find the phone book. But when he reached in, he pulled out a test tube covered with a sticky substance and bearing the name Paul Millander. He threw the test tube in the trash and grabbed a tissue to wipe off his hands. That's when the phone rang. Eckley hit the speaker button.

"Eckley. What do you want?" he snapped.

"You'd better not cross us," said an anonymous voice.

The line went dead, and Conrad Eckley went pale. Eckley picked up the phone and made a call.

"I thought we had a deal," he said.

The line went dead, again.

Locking up his office, he went to the men's room first, to wash his hands, then headed out the door.

"He's on his way," Richards said into his phone, as he observed Eckley pull out of the parking lot.

*******

"Too bad," Catherine Willows said, as she sat next to Gil in an unmarked sedan behind the Rampart Casino. "I really liked that picture."

Gil gave her the evil eye.

"How did you know about this entrance?" he asked.

"When I was a kid, Sam used to bring me up to the penthouse this way. He didn't want me wandering around the casino. Said it was a bad influence," Catherine explained. "In hindsight, I realize he was just being cautious. He needed a way in and out where no one would see him, not even the people who worked for him. He never was a very trusting guy."

"He trusted you," Gil noted.

"Not enough," she said.

"Perhaps too much," he countered.

Grissom's phone rang. It was Brass.

"Yeah. Our man is headed your way."

"Duck," Grissom ordered Catherine, as he pulled her into his lab and buried his face in her soft hair.

Catherine could feel Gil's breath tingling on her neck.

Eckley jumped out of his rig and ran to the back entrance door. He keyed in a number, but the door didn't respond. Swearing, he keyed it in, again. Again, it didn't answer. He hit the intercom, but no one answered. Eckley screamed at the door.

"Damn it, Braun! I know you can see me! Let me up!"

Eckley kicked the door and tried the lock one more time, without success.

"Don't you dare screw with me!" Eckley yelled. "You hang me out to dry, and you'll pay for it!"

Furious, he jumped in his car and drove off.

"He's headed for the main entrance," Brass said, still on the phone.

Gil repeated the message in his partner's ear.

"Are you going to let me up, now?" she asked.

"I don't know," he teased.

She pinched him in the leg.

"Ow!" he said, sitting up.

"He won't get far that way." Catherine tried to sound cool and collected. "Sam's men will be all over him."

"How did Sam know to change the combination?" Gil asked.

"He always changes it. All the time. Paranoid," Catherine said.

A rap on the window startled them.

"You guys done doing the nasty in there?" Nick asked.

Gil scowled at the CSI.

"I'll get his prints off the lock," Nick continued. "And we got video."

"Good," said Grissom. He called Smith on the phone and filled him in.

"Time to call it a night," Catherine said, starting up the car.

"And tomorrow?" asked Gil.

"Tomorrow, we go after Sam," she answered.

"Where are you going?" Grissom asked, as they drove into the night.

"My place," she said. "You can drop me off and take the car home.... If you want."

He frowned.

"Suddenly, you don't like my place?" he asked.

"Not since Sara brought the spiders back," she said.

"But your place is so... so... feminine!" he objected.

Catherine laughed.

"You do know I'm a woman, don't you?" she quizzed.

Gil's eyes twinkled as he looked over at her.

"Yes. I do," he said.

She glanced over at him.

"What?" she asked.

"I'm getting used to having you around," Gil said.

Catherine smiled to herself as she drove home.

-- TBC --