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She knows he doesn't want to go to Vegas when she catches him smoking. He's promised to quit, and she's not too bothered by the occasional cigarette he sneaks in the cold outside of their building, but Alex is thinking five years down the road: their own house, the possibility of kids, a dog, maybe a fence. Bobby is still only thinking five minutes into the future. "We're going to Vegas," she tells him. "Your mom is in good hands, Bobby. The Captain won't forgive you this one if you don't go."
He's not exactly comfortable with the conference atmosphere, and she knows it. It's not the number of people that bother him, or the talk they invariably have to give about the Wallace case, it's the sitting and listening to someone he'd much rather be arguing with. He stubs out the cigarette. "Fine. For you."
*
Alex has been to Vegas before and it had lost its sheen about twenty minutes into that trip, so she barely even registers all the neon. But she has to admit that the view of the city at night from their airplane as it descends into McCarran is a little intoxicating. She's sleepy and Bobby's hand is warm in hers, and she thinks this might not be so bad after all.
The feeling lasts barely an hour. At the hotel there's a stack of messages waiting for them already. The Captain. The Las Vegas Police Department. The Las Vegas Crime Lab. The Captain again. Bobby calls LVPD while she calls home.
*
"Jim Brass," the LVPD detective introduces himself. He gestures to the two people in CSI vests next to him. "Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows."
Brass' handshake is a little loose. Grissom and Willows abstain, their hands encased in latex gloves. Bobby is already pulling on a pair. Alex slips the booties over her shoes, the ones that aren't exactly the best for this situation. She hadn't figured on ending up at a crime scene in Las Vegas.
"One of our guys submitted the Monahan murder to VICAP," Willows says. "and the Juarez-Sanchez murder popped up. We got the call for this one at the same time Brass was trying to track the two of you down, and when we found out you were already in town for IHIA, bringing you out here seemed like the best thing to do."
Alex remembers Juarez-Sanchez vividly. Six months like it was yesterday. This house they're in could almost be the same house. Strange little details are the same – the angle of the couch, the line of framed family photos staggered in precise order down the stairway wall. She can see the faded squares where the pictures were. The television is on, all static. She looks at Bobby; she can tell that he's noticed, too. "I think we need to get our crime scene photos out here," she says, and he nods.
The grieving family out on the front lawn, that could almost be the same, too.
Willows lifts a long hair from the coffee table. "Red," she says in a skeptical tone. "It's not from our vic."
Bobby's got another from the back of the couch. "That's because it's from ours."
*
Alex is laying on the bed in their hotel room, listening to the Discovery Channel on the television (her vision is blurry with tiredness, and she knows the best thing for that is just to zone out until she falls asleep), when Bobby gets off the phone. She hears him come back out of the bathroom and put on the sweatpants he wears to bed no matter the temperature, and then he curls around her, still a little damp from his shower. "How's your mom?" she murmurs.
"It could be worse," he replies, which means she's doing all right, considering. The last six months have been a slow downhill slide, and the doctors say it's just a matter of time now before she goes. "It's been a matter of time for two years," Bobby had scoffed, on the phone with her on his way home from the hospital one night, and she had heard the wariness in his voice. Alex has been to visit Frances with him a few times, especially after they'd moved in together, but she hates hospitals and he knows it. Not to mention Bobby has always been adamant that his mom is his burden, and that it's unnecessary for her to accompany him. But she does it anyway every so often, because he's still learning how not to be alone.
"How much longer do you think we'll be out here?" she asks now. "A weekend has turned into a week."
"That could turn into a month."
"I'm not thrilled about the idea of living in a hotel room for a month, Bobby."
He presses a kiss to her neck. "I know."
"He's probably not even in Vegas anymore," she grumbles. "We can't do anything out here. I give it another three days max and Ross recalls us. We've got our own cases to work."
*
She's walking into the crime lab with Bobby and Brass when the front desk clerk calls out. "Detective Goren!"
"Yes?"
"Mail room left this for you." She holds out a small package. "It checks out," she adds, looking at Brass.
"We've had some problems," he explains. "Let's find a CSI and take a look."
Alex catches Sara around the corner. "Care to help?" she asks, nodding toward the box.
"Suspicious package. Excellent."
They all glove up. Alex can feel the nervousness fluttering under Bobby's skin. She presses her fingers against his wrist. Sara trains a bright light on the box. Slowly, carefully, she peels away the clear packing tape it's wrapped in. "No visible prints," she announces. "This sort of tape, you'd see them right away on the adhesive. I'll dust the back later."
Inside the box is a mix of packing peanuts and shredded newspaper, and a necklace belonging to Adina Juarez-Sanchez. Alex has seen it countless times in the pictures so perfectly lined up along the stairway wall.
There is also an index card. On it is scrawled I have no mouth and I must scream. "That's so unoriginal," she mutters.
On the back, a short string of numbers and letters. "Dewey decimal system," Bobby says almost immediately. "Art history."
Alex meets his gaze and raises her eyebrows. "Let's go to the library."
*
Inside The Art of Europe is another index card, with a thumb print in black ink. "Oh, that's entirely too convenient," Alex says, and catches Bobby trying not to smile. "Since when do we ever get to wrap anything up this easy?" she asks.
"Point taken." He slides the card into an evidence envelope.
In the back of the car they're always being driven around in, her cell phone rings. It's Ross. "You're coming home, and you're coming home now," he says. "I can't have my two best detectives running around Vegas any longer. There's a flight leaving in six hours. Be on it."
Ross hangs up on her. Alex slips her foot out of her shoe (still heels, still impractical for a crime scene) and slides it along Bobby's calf. He looks at her sideways. "Ross says we're the best detectives he's got," she informs him, "so it's time to go back to the Big Apple."
His sigh of relief is so exaggerated she laughs. "Thank God," he says, and she laughs harder. Bobby catches her hand in his and leans over, his lips brushing her ear. "Want to get married before we leave?"
Alex tells her heart not to jolt but it does anyway. Maybe five years down the road is closer than she thought. "Forty-five minutes back to the station, at least two hours there, an hour to get our things and check out of the hotel before we go to the airport." There's at least two drive-through wedding chapels down the street from where they'd been staying. "That gives me four hours to make up my mind, Bobby, so you'd better be quiet and let me think."
He doesn't say anything else, just rubs his thumb along her thigh.
*
Gil Grissom calls the moment their plane touches down. Bobby tilts the phone so they both can listen. "We found him hanging from his ceiling fan," he tells them, his voice even. "Our evidence is pointing very strongly at this guy; so as far as our District Attorney's concerned, the Monahan and Bristoli cases are closed. There was a note in his pocket claiming responsibility for both of them, and yours. Brass is going to FedEx the appropriate documents over to you; I wouldn't be surprised if they arrived this afternoon, or Thursday at the latest."
Alex looks at her watch and realizes that it is indeed Wednesday. "Did the note say why he did it?"
"Releasing the demons and angels trapped within," Grissom replies, resigned.
She nods, mostly to herself. No one's ever said that murder makes any sense. "Thanks, Gil. It was nice working with you."
"You, too. Take care, the both of you. And congratulations." Bobby's phone beeps as Grissom hangs up. He folds it and slips it back into his jacket pocket.
"Did you say something?" she asks.
Bobby shakes his head. "I didn't say a word."
"Home first, or the precinct?" Alex fights back a yawn.
He looks as tired as she feels. "Coffee, and then the precinct."
She wiggles the ring on her finger. It's a little too big; she'll have to have it resized. Bobby covers her hand with his and tells her he loves her. The 'fasten seatbelts' light dings off and all around them, people stand up.