Nick Stokes was walking along the corridor of the Las Vegas Forensic Lab when he saw his supervisor, Gil Grissom, heading for his office. Nick was surprised to see his boss smiling and looking so relaxed. It had been a tough time for the older man; he had been abducted from the car park, tortured and left to bleed to death in the desert. He was making a good physical recovery, but the psychological one was much harder, as the would be killer was still out there and had stated that he would kill Grissom only when he thought the man had sweated enough. The past few weeks Grissom had been edgy and more quick tempered than usual, which was only to be expected, so to see him acting more like his usual self was a great relief to the young CSI. He watched Grissom enter his office, then he continued on to the locker room to see if Warrick had arrived, they had a report to finish.

As he passed the office he glanced in and saw his supervisor standing at his desk, his face grey and he was staring at a card he held in his hand. Nick knocked the door, but received no reply. He walked in.

"Griss, you okay?" he queried, stepping near to the other man. There was no answer. He noticed a small opened package on the desk and look inside, there was an audio cassette in the bottom, innocent enough Nick thought, then he saw the note in Grissom's hand it said one word- BOOM!

"Grissom!" Nick stated a little louder.

Grissom seemed to recover himself. "Grab some gloves." He ordered the younger man as he cursed his own stupidity at removing evidence from the package without putting gloves on first. With gloved hands Nick picked up the opened package and turned to Grissom for the card. Placing the card in the box, as gently as if it was an actual bomb, the older man released the breath he hadn't realised he had been holding.

"I'll get these to print lab and Archie." Nick stated, heading for the door. "You sure you're okay?" He asked concerned.

"Fine." Grissom told him shakily, "I've got paperwork to do."

Nick realised that the man needed some time to calm himself and that he needed Nick out of the way.

Striding towards the Print Lab he met Catherine and Warrick, and he filled them in on what had just happened, he stopped them from rushing to check on Grissom. "Just give him a minute or two. He was a bit shaken and he wanted me out of the way to give him a chance to sort things out." He told them.

Warrick looked at Catherine who was staring at the floor stunned. Realising that she would probably prefer to talk to Grissom on her own he said, "Catherine, Nick and I have a report to finish, how about you go talk to Grissom while we do that." She mouthed a thank you at him and as they left she forced herself to go into the break room to give her friend and lover the time he needed to make himself calm enough to face anyone.

"You okay?" She asked as she stepped into the office and closed the door. "Nick filled Warrick and I in."

"A little shaken. I don't know why it got to me, I've been expecting something like this, the bastard likes messing with me." He answered.

She looked at the case files on his desk, "You want me to take over?" she gave a little shrug, "Give you a little more time."

He shook his head, "It's okay. I think he just got to me because I was feeling so good after yesterday." He sat back in his chair and smiled. She knew he was thinking of the two of them together in bed in the hotel room.

"We'll need to do that again, soon." She said softly.

Grissom started to nod and then the thought of that package came to him, what if it had been a bomb? What if Catherine was there when the killer came after him?

Watching the look of pleasure change to one of fear Catherine realised that he was letting the would be killer come between them again. "Gil Grissom, don't you dare think that a stupid bomb threat is going to stop me ripping your clothes off and making mad passionate love to you in an hotel room." She snapped.

He gazed at her stunned by her vehemence, he relaxed and smiled. "Much as I'm enjoying the thought of that, I've got work to do, so please take your sexy butt out of here till I get organised."

She flashed him a wicked grin and left.

The team had gathered in the break room to get their assignments. Nick had spotted a hair underneath the cassette in the box and had sent it to Greg for DNA analysis. The young lab technician had started work on it immediately, as had Franco in prints, putting this particular case before any other despite the hassle they would get for doing so. As the team had no other tasks to complete they sat patiently waiting on their next case.

"Nick, you and Warrick," Grissom began only to be stopped by a cough from the doorway. He turned round and saw Jim Brass standing, leaning against the doorframe, an odd look in his eye. "Can I help you?" Grissom asked lightly.

"There's been a slight change to your plan," Brass said, walking into the room, "everything has been put on hold."

Grissom looked at him his brow furrowed in confusion, "What?"

"Our friend, Sheriff Mobley, heard about the latest threat. Don't ask," the detective raised his hands as though to fend off any questions, "Anyway the threat to you has now got top priority." He finished, enjoying the look of utter confusion on Grissom's face.

With a slight twist to his lips and a raised eyebrow Grissom stated, "I didn't know he cared."

"He doesn't," Brass informed him sardonically, "it just wouldn't look good in the media if the threat got out and you were killed and LVPD had done nothing about it. So, for now," He paused to add weight to his word, "you're our number one priority."

Grissom shrugged, Nick whispered "All right." to Warrick and Sara, and Catherine gave a sigh of relief that they could concentrate on finding Grissom's would be killer and that he would get police protection back, she hadn't been happy when they had removed it so quickly.

"The question now is where do we start?" Brass asked. "You got any more than when we had to give up the last time?"

"We found a hair in the box with the cassette." Nick told him, "Greg is working on it."

"There's nothing else." Sara told him. "So unless that hair gives us a break we can't do anything." She finished glumly.

"What now?" Warrick asked, "We sit around here doing nothing?"

Grissom gave a shrug and a wry grin, "I've got paperwork," he tilted his head and looked questioningly at the two younger men, "and I believe you have too." They were almost as bad as him at putting off filing reports.

Some time later Greg knocked on Grissom's office door. "That hair," he began, just walking in.

"Don't you ever wait for a reply?" Grissom asked quizzically.

"Sorry boss, but this is important," he stopped looking for the older man's permission to go on. "It belongs to Dr. Hillridge. You know the woman with the dog."

Grissom sat upright. It had been over a year since they had caught her. She had trained a large Mastiff, Great Dane cross to attack joggers. She then cut out the organs that had the most blood, ground them and dried them. She mixed them as a shake and drank it to hold back the effects of Pyroria, the illness that was the reason for the madness of King George and the bases of the legend of vampires. Grissom immediately contacted the others.

Brass and the others gathered in the break room on receipt of their page. Grissom had brought Greg with him allowing him the right to inform the others of his discovery.

"But she's still in jail." Sara stated, "Isn't she? She wasn't granted bail was she?"

"I'll get O'Riley to check on her." Brass stated.

"Could be someone working for her, or getting revenge for her on their own." Nick put in.

"You know, now that the killer has given you this clue does it mean he'll be coming after you soon?" Greg asked and was stunned at the looks the others threw at him.

Grissom recovered first. "Greg has a point. I thought at first the killer had just got careless leaving the hair, now..." he paused, "it could be he's letting me know who he is revenging because he's going to do it soon. He might be worried if he plays the waiting game too long he might make a mistake and not get time to finish it." He went on calmly.

"Okay," Brass said, "let's list possible suspects."

"A relative of Hillridge?" Sara put in, "I'll go check her files." She gave a tight grin and left.

"A client?" Was Nick's suggestion "I go do a Sara, only with her clients."

"That leaves me with lover." Warrick stated, "Wish they had a file on her lovers."

"I'll help you there," Brass informed him, "we'll do it the old fashioned way."

Warrick raised an eyebrow then smiled, "Question friends, neighbours etc. who she was seeing, when, how long, that it?"

Brass nodded.

Greg looked at Grissom, "Anything I can do?" he asked.

"Looks like they've got everything covered." Grissom told him, "But if you hadn't done such good work on that hair we'd still be sitting here twiddling our thumbs, thanks." He went on.

Greg smiled and went back to his lab to get on with the load of other tests he had to carry out for a dozen cases.

"And just what do we do?" Catherine asked.

"Paperwork till it's time to go home."