15 yrs ago...
Lauren's POV
I push open the glass doors to be greeted with the hustle and bustle of the crime lab. Feeling a little overwhelmed, I stroke the pendant hanging around my neck to help calm my jittery nerves. I finally work up the guts to walk up to reception. "Hi, my name is Lauren Callgate, I'm here to see Supervisor Gilbert Grissom?" I introduce myself before asking. "Ah Yes, Doctor Grissom said we should be expecting a new recruit. Welcome, my name is Judy, I'm the receptionist. Doctor Grissom should be in his office, right down the hall." She explains with a friendly smile. "Thank you." I Thank with a nervous smile before walking toward Doctor Grissom's office. "Hello?" I call out, knocking at the door. "Supervisor Grissom?" I call out again. The door is wide open but Supervisor Grissom is nowhere to be seen. I make my way inside, the jars of specimens catching my eye. Most of them seem to be of insects but there's a big jar resting on a desk at the end of the room with a pig fetus curled up inside. "Doctor Grissom??" I call out again nervously. "Ah!! Sorry to keep you waiting. I was in the lab and I'm afraid time got away from me!" A man suddenly walks in, hands in the air and an observant but friendly smile on his face. "Hi, Doctor Grissom? I'm Lauren, Lauren Callgate." I introduce myself. "Nice to meet you Miss Callgate. I'm Gil Grissom." He shakes my hand. "I see you're admiring my pig fetus." He smirks. "Um, you seem to have a lot of specimens here." I comment. "Entomology." He explains simply. "My area of expertise." He elaborates. "I see." I mutter. "Alright. Your paperwork is all sorted out, I assume you have your service weapon, kit and ID?" He asks. "Yes." I nod. "Before I give out the assignments tonight, I'll introduce you to the team. They should be in the break room." He states. He leads me through a maze of halls and finally to a room with a TV, 2 big couches, a table in the middle, coffee machine and fridge in the corner. This must be the break room. "Everyone, meet Lauren Callgate. She'll be joining the grave shift." Doctor Grissom introduces me. "Hi." I wave timidly. "Welcome." They all chime in. "Hi, I'm Catherine and this is Sara. Welcome to Grave." A slightly older woman and a younger brunette greet me with friendly smiles. "Thanks." I smile. "Hay, nice to meet you. I'm Warrick." A dark skinned man with slight Afro and warm smile greets me next. "Nice to meet you Warrick, thanks." I shake his outstretched hand. Another man greets me next. His button up shirt and worn out jeans tell me he isn't much for fancy things. "Hay, welcome to the team. I'm Nick Stokes." He smiles, his Texan twang making me blush. "Hay, thanks. Nice to meet you too." I mutter. "So, where did you transfer from?" Warrick asks. "London crime lab." I answer. "Wow, long way away. Any reason for the change of scenery?" He chuckles. "Honestly, I'm not much of an inside person. They had me stuck in the lab for 3 years because they were short of tech but all I wanted was field work. Vegas had an opening and I took the first flight out here I could." I explain. ""Alright, now that we're all acquainted, I have assignments. Warrick and Nick, burglary in Henderson, Vartann should be waiting for you. Sara and and myself, unidentified vic near the strip. And Lauren, you're with Catherine tonight. We have a murder victim down at the Palermo, Jim Brass is waiting for you down there." Grissom hands out the assignments. "So, who's Brass?" I ask Catherine as we walk to her car. "He's the lead homicide detective at LVPD." She explains. "Used to be grave shift supervisor but he got moved to homicide a couple of years ago." She reveals. "Have you got your kit?" She asks. "Yeah, if we make a detour to the locker room I can pick it up." I nod. We stop at the locker room on the way out and I pick up my vest, kit, service weapon and ID. "All good." I nod and so we head off on my first case at the Grave shift of the Vegas crime lab.
At the crime scene...
"Hay Brass, what have we got?" Catherine asks the man in the suit standing in the room as he talks to a hotel employee. "Hay, we got one vic. Female, mid 20s. Still waiting on ID." He explains. "Hi, I'm Lauren." I introduce myself. "The new girl? Nice to meet you. Jim Brass, homicide." He introduces himself as we shake hands. "Thanks." I nod. "So, Lauren. What do you see?" Catherine asks me. "Well...from the looks of her body, I'd say she died from blunt force trauma but there's no blood pool here so this can't be where she bled out." I observe. "Very good." Catherine nods approvingly. "Hay, sorry I'm late." Another man with a blue LVPD coat and wide rimmed glasses rushes in with assistants in tow. "That's alright David." Catherine nods. "David, meet Lauren. Newest addition to Grave." She introduces me. "Hi, nice to meet you." I nod, extending my hand. "Nice to meet you too Lauren. I'm David, assistant coroner." He smiles as we shake hands. "Alright." He mutters before bending down to examine the body. "Well, I can tell you she most likely died of blunt force trauma to her head but I'll be sure once the autopsy is done. I don't have a lot of blood here so she obviously didn't bleed out here. And...levity is fixed and based on the liver temp I'd estimate she died about 10-12 hours ago." He states as she examines the lifeless body. "Great observation Lauren." Catherine flashed me a smile at my accurate observation. "Thanks David, you're good to go." Catherine gives a nod and David and his assistants wheel out the body. Catherine and I continue to look around while Brass interviews the hotel staff and neighbouring rooms. "Catherine, come check this out." I call for her once I open the bathroom door. "Well I think it's safe to say we found where she bled out." She mutters. "Yup." I nod. "I'll take a sample and start bagging and tagging." I state. "Okay. And I'll finish up in the bedroom and then come help out." She agrees. So, we both get busy. I take several photographs of the bathroom before taking 2-3 samples of the blood for testing before looking around. There's a pool of blood on the peach tiles near the tub, with directional blood drops leading towards the door. What I'm most concerned about, is that there seems to be an absence of a murder weapon. There really isn't much that can be taken here to be used as a weapon. The shower curtain seems intact, no loose object spotted on a first blush. The sink has a mirror cupboard hanging above it. I slide open the mirrors to find an assortment of shampoo bottles, conditioner bottles, comb, tooth brush and tooth paste. I look around a little longer and once I'm satisfied that there's nothing else left here, I head back to the bedroom to find Catherine taking the final pictures of the bedroom. "Hay find anything?" She asks. "No, you?" I ask. "Not much. I got a few clothing items, shoes and such. Still no ID and no sign of a wallet, purse or handbag. Brass is almost finished with the interviews." She replies. "Well, there was nothing in the bathroom. I mean, other than the blood bath (no pun intended) on the floor. No sign of murder weapon." I report. "Alright, well might as well head back and get this stuff to the lab." She states. We pack up our kits and the evidence we collected and meet Brass outside. "How did the interviews go?" I ask. "Neighbours didn't hear a thing. Employees couldn't confirm ID because as far as they knew, no one was staying in that room. They only found the body when a Mr. Gregory booked it for Thursday and they sent in house keeping to make sure everything was in order before he comes in." He reveals. "I'll let you know if I find anything else." He states before we head back to the lab.
Back at the lab...
We make the rounds, passing off all the evidence we have in the necessary fields and I get to meet the lab techs. There's Henry, Wendy, Mandy, Archie, Greg, Hodges who is an oddball and kinda hard to tolerate and Bobby the gun expert. "So Catherine...tell me a little about yourself." I ask. "Not much to it. I have a little girl, Lindsey and I live with her and my mother. She looks after her while I'm away." She explains. "Divorced?" I ask. "How did you guess?" She chuckles sarcastically. "I'm pretty observant." I snigger. At that moment, a text comes through to both of us as we sit in the break room from a doc Robbins. "Doc's finished autopsy. Let's go." Catherine prompts. We head down to autopsy to see what he found. "Hay Doc, whatcha got?" She asks as we walk into the morgue. "Hay Catherine. We have some interesting findings." He states. "I don't believe we've met. Doctor Robbins the coroner here." The elderly man on crutches extends a friendly but gloved hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm Lauren Callgate. Just joined Grave." I shake his hand lightly. "Welcome." He flashes a friendly smile. "Thanks." I nod. "So doc, any ID?" Catherine asks. "Actually yes." He nods. "Our Jane Doe here is actually Ariana Davis, bounced from foster care to foster care and by the looks of her physical condition, I'd say the main reason being abuse." He explains with a heavy sigh. My heart stops at those words and memories I've worked hard to bury resurface. "Um, is it okay if you take this Catherine? I'm, I'mma go check on the lab results." I mutter before running out.
Catherine's POV
Doc Robbins explains his findings and I watch as Lauren's face turns paler by the minute, as she grips the metal slab tightly to steady herself. I'm about to ask if she's okay when she mutters something about checking on the lab results before running out. "Thanks doc." I nod to doc Robbins who wears an equally worried and perplexed look. "I'll send up the complete file." He assures me before I run after Lauren. I find her in the bathroom, shaking over a sink as she tries to steady herself. "Everything alright?" I ask. "Oh, um...yeah, yeah. I'm fine." She nods. "Is something wrong?" I persist. "No, no. I mean, these cases are always the hardest. You know? These people didn't have a voice." She mutters shakily and I feel there's more to her freak out than she says. "Okay." I settle. "I'm happy to take it from here. You can go ask Grissom to swap you out." I offer. "N, no. It's fine. I'm really sorry about this, very unprofessional, it won't happen again." She apologises profusely. "Lauren, it's fine. We all have those hard ones." I assure her. "How about you take the lab work and I'll deal with the autopsy?" I suggest. "Sounds like a plan." She flashes me a faint smile. "I'll get onto that." She mutters before heading back to the lab and leaving me wandering about the new girl and what kind of skeletons she may be hiding in her closet.
Here is the next chapter!! I finally conquered my writers block!!! And who knew I could write such short chapters?!😂😂😂🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️ Also,
I'm kinda procrastinating cuz I have my semester 1 finals next week for uni and I haven't studied but ayooo😂😂🤦♀️👌👌anyway, hope u like it, I have lots planned ahead so don't go anywhere and till the next chapter ya'll!!😜😜
"There are no secrets that time does not reveal." Jean Racine
"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." Seneca
Hope you're feeling inspired!!☺️☺️😘😘
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C S I (UNDER EDITING)
Fanfiction(UNDER MAJOR EDITING, WILL REQUIRE A REREAD ONCE DONE) Every year, hundreds flock to this city to try out their luck, unaware of it's reality. Just ask the residents of the Las Vegas crime lab. And it's up to this team to find the people's stories...
