The X-ray box on one wall, and the whiteboard running the length of another, were not in use. Fluorescent lighting gave the assembly a deathly pallor, as they sat like relatives gathered to hear the reading of a wealthy patriarch’s will, each with the expectation of not getting one red cent. Catherine Willows, leaning back, arms folded, unobtrusively gauged the other faces around the table. To her left, Warrick Brown studied some papers, his eyes half-lidded, his face a grim mask. Across the way, Nick Stokes slouched in his seat, uncharacteristically down, staring at nothing, his mouth a tight line. Opposite Catherine, Sara Sidle fiddled with a pen, spinning it on the table in front of her, her forehead free of thought, her eyes hollow. The crack CSI nightshift team—who prided themselves on not only their expertise and energy, but their patience—seemed beaten down by a dreary week of dead ends. Left of Sara, Greg Sanders, their spiky-haired topnotch DNA lab tech—whose inexplicable aspirations for the lesser pay of CSI field work Grissom had been humoring of late—sat and rocked back and forth, his head bobbing to some rhythm playing in the iPod of his mind as he read a report.
