1980
California

She can feel the corner of the school building, rough brick pressed between her shoulder blades. Her mouth tastes like acid. The building towers high above her. She feels so small.

Her heart is that of a wild rabbit clutched in human hands, and she tells herself that there is no plausible reason to think it will explode. Still, she feels like the rabbit, tiny and terrified.

She turns to the right. The direction from which she has come. In the space between the building and the shrubbery, she can see a sliver of playground. Younger kids are running, yelling. Oblivious to the way she is straddling two worlds, stuck in place.

She can see her meager lunch, thrown up in the bushes, and the sight of it makes her stomach heave again.

She turns away, toward the street. Chaparral Ave is busy this time of day, and the cars that pass are just as oblivious as the playing kids. They have no clue that she’s here, impaled on the spike of terror that keeps her from moving, one way or the other.

If they knew, those adults driving their cars, would they think it was horrible, would they help her?

Soon the bell will ring.

I could forget all about it, she thinks, go back inside, and no one will ever know.

The road seems so far away.

2004
Las Vegas

She seems to appear out of nowhere, hovering in the doorway, as always. His hearing is slipping just a little, and engrossed in work, he doesn’t near her until she speaks his name.

"Grissom."

He blinks at her. She’s lean and spare in a red top and tight jeans that cling to her body. She doesn't look well. Under her forced smile, the lines of her face are tense and drawn. Will this be the day she quits?

"I need to go over some things with you before I leave."

"Leave?" He blinks owlishly, then cocks his head, and for a split second she can only see white glare on the surface of his glasses.

"I'm off this week. You approved it, remember?"

"Oh. I'm sorry, I forgot. What's up?" He extends a hand, urging her to sit.

She sits down on the chair opposite his desk. "Okay, first of all I want to get you up to speed on that 419 from last week. Everything's in but tox. We found epithelials on the garotte, no match to the boyfriend. Nothing probative, but tox could put a whole different spin on it."

"Okay. What else?" He looks up at her. She thinks about how sad and tired he seems, with his puffy eyes that follow her every move.

"Tonight's case. I only got so far. You made me primary so I'll need to hand it off unless you want to do that for me."

"I'll handle it. What did you get?"

"About a hundred photos and nearly as many swabs. There's a lot of spatter, too bad you can't kick it to Cath."

He looks through the maroon-smeared photos, then removes his glasses, putting the end of one of the arms in his mouth. She glances away as it slips between his sensual lips.

"Anything else?"

"Just a bloodbath. It was pretty degraded. Oh, and my time sheet."

"Okay." He glances over the paperwork to see that it is done. "Well, have a nice vacation."

"Yeah." She is so beautiful, he thinks, despite that terse frown.

"Going somewhere fun, I hope?"

"No," she says. If he isn't mistaken, it's fear that flashes in her eyes.

He sets his glasses down on the table. "Are you okay, Sara?"

Her face reminds him of something brittle, without tensile strength. As if her forced smile might shatter the structure of her bones.

"Fine. I just have to go back to California for something. I'll see you Monday, okay?" She rushes through the sentence as if she can't wait to get out of there.

"Sure. Um, Sara?”

She turns in the doorway, her eyes dark and intense. “Yeah?” She says, her voice husky in a way that betrays some kind of emotion he can’t identify.

“Call me if you need anything."

Her smile has a fiercely cheerful quality. She doesn't want his pity. "Yeah," she says, downright chipper, and it is so phony that he wants to scream. Then, she is gone.

Has he pushed her away so much that this is the result? A familiar remorse mingles coldly with helplessness in his gut as he watches her walk away.

.

She is up early the next day, but it is two hours until the bank opens. Everything is packed, the car loaded, but she can't fall back to sleep.

She reviews her route, tracing the westward line on the map. She's made this trip for two years, the anti-pilgrimage, and each time it has cost her something more.

How many more years will it work? For how many will it be necessary? And how many more will she be able to go while keeping her sanity?

She stands and rinses out her coffee mug.

The bank is quiet at this early hour and she is in and out quickly. There aren't many things in her safe deposit box. One original cassette tape, almost twenty-two years old. Her birth certificate, letters from the California Department of Corrections, two duplicate tapes. She removes the recorder and one copy of the tape, then closes the box.

Then, she is on the road.

.

The tape has survived for twenty-four years. It has known more hiding places than she can remember. She stole a copy from the prosecutor's office when she was eleven and has kept it until now.

At the first foster home she put it in a hole in her mattress. At the second one she put it in a triple-sealed baggie in the cat litter box. Then, when she was thirteen, and read The Purloined Letter in school, she hid it in a tape case labeled "Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits." No one ever touched it there. For three entire school years it resided in her locker, taped to the bottom of the shelf.

1980

Still she stands at the corner of the school building. Far above, an airplane flies slowly, circling gently. Wanting to land. It’s a calm sound. She wants to be up that high. But she’s the shortest girl in her class, and she’s down here.

She can feel the building stretching, huge, on either side of her.

She doesn't know what finally pushed her. She doesn't remember deciding. She just knows that she’s walking, bolting across the street.

Breathing and ignoring the churning of her stomach. and the rhythm of her steps in her ugly brown shoes, her hand-me-down brown plaid skirt. She’s walking. She’s doing it. There will be no going back.

2004

She stops just after the California state line, rents a car. She leaves hers in the parking lot of a Pizza Hut, loading her meager bags from trunk to trunk in hundred-degree heat. When she has finished, she slides into the rental, blasts the air conditioning, and as the blessed coolness dries the sweat under her clothes, she grips the steering wheel white-knuckle tight and feels that feeling rising in her chest.

She allows herself to sit for a moment and let it run its course, something she wouldn’t have allowed herself to do on last year’s trip. James would be so proud. Fat lot of good that does her. Her eyes are full with tears but she doesn’t let them fall.

She sits and breathes until the tightness lessens, and finally puts the car in gear and drives.

.

It’s evening, and in the perpetual darkness of the lab, Grissom is looking at fibers under a microscope.

"Grissom?" Archie says from the doorway. Grissom blinks, wondering why all his human contact comes from open doorways these days.

"Hello Archie."

"I have a problem. I have a tape that Sara brought to me about a month ago. I'm copying all my audio files to a back up system and when I entered in the case file number it came up without a match."

"Allright. I'll ask her about it when she gets back from vacation."

"Okay. You might want to put that in lock-up. I have a duplicate and I don't think it's ongoing but it's some pretty sensitive material."

"Will do."

"Thanks."

.

Evening now, and she is tired. Twice she catches herself swerving across the center line. She doesn’t know why she drives herself to exhaustion, takes stupid risks. She has plenty of time to get to where she needs to be, but still she drives. She contemplates this like an abstract puzzle, not something that could send her careening off the road, twisting her body in metal and blazing pain. Finally caution prevails and she rolls onto the gravel drive of a cheap motel with a blue vacancy sign. Good enough.

She checks in, gets a room on the second level, quickly checks the shower and behind the doors and under the bed. Unholsters her weapon and lays it on the bedside table.

She lies, fully clothed, on the bed.

I’m tired of driving, she thinks. And she remembers 1980. Remembers walking with a tape recorder in her satchel and a lump in her throat. In sleep it all comes back, memory replayed like a movie.

1980

She walks and walks, past the low wall edging the playground. If a teacher sees her, she will need to run. But her legs feel like they’re in a nightmare, with all the power of limp noodles. She feels the burn of acid in her throat and the burn of fatigue in her calves and the ache low in her belly.

She crosses the street and walks quickly past the funeral parlor, the vacant lot full of ugly litter and chain link, the chinese restaurant that always smells like steam. She feels wetness and realizes that she forgot to change her pad, even though she is only nine, premenstrual, without a hint of breasts. No time for that now. Hopefully it won’t bleed through her skirt.

Two blocks. Walking fast. No turning back. She can see the brick of the police station, two blocks down. It’s a small town. Anyone could see her, skipping out of school, bleeding.

Cliff could drive by at any minute. A teacher could drive by, detain her and ask her why she isn't at recess. Nice old lady walking down the street. She smiles but Sara looks away as if burned. Don't ask me why I'm not in school. Don't ask me. Don't ask me.

Another block. She walks. Why did she eat lunch? She wishes she hadn't. Acid is burning in the back of her throat.

I will not puke I will not puke I will not puke.

She holds her bag close. What if I forgot the tape? I didn't forget it, I checked. What if I left it at home and Cliff is listening to it right now? No, it's in there. I feel its weight. It's safe. It's here. Calm down, Sara. Be strong, Sara. Be quick, Sara. Walk walk walk. Walk walk walk walk.

One block away. She has to pass the cafe. It's where the teachers eat lunch. All it would take would be for Mr. Morgenstern to grab her by the scruff and she would be finished. He would do it, too. He was mean. He’s probably just like Cliff.

.

She wakes and showers. She pulls her hair back harshly and slides a blonde wig on, feeling faintly ridiculous. She slips on her kevlar vest instead of a bra.

She feels stupid, yet she scans the parking lot thoroughly before leaving.

.

Grissom pokes his head into DNA, barely bothering to slow down. "We have an emergency, everyone in the break room, now!"

Nick and Mia look up, staring. They hear him yelling the same thing down the hall, in trace. Within two minutes, everyone is there but Catherine, who is on speakerphone from the crime scene.

They sat there pale and quiet as Grissom outlined the scene. There was a shootout on the previous shift, with possible snipers. A rookie from Ecklie's shift was shot. Those assembled are a motley mix of day, swing, and night shifts. "I want everyone with an officer at all times, and I want everyone in Kevlar. Is that clear?"

Curtis rose her hand. "Burrows was wearing my Kevlar."

"Now it's evidence. Take Sara's. You're about her size."

.

One block away, and now she can see the sign of the police station. She can read the lettering: To Protect and Serve. She thinks it in time with her steps. Protect and Serve. Protect and Serve. There are footsteps behind her. Cliff. A teacher. A cop, who will hold her with an iron hand, hurting her, not believing her.

In the last several yards, she breaks into a run.

.

"Grissom, where does Sara keep her vest?"

"In the locker with all the other vests."

"It's not there."

"It has to be, Sofia, look again."

"There's nothing in there. Every single one is gone."

"Check her locker."

"I already did."

That was strange. We don't have time for this, he thought. "Allright, run down to ballistics, Bobby might have something you can use."

.

She planned everything, in minute detail, with B and C and D plans in case something went wrong. She planned it like a battle, without writing a line of information, lest she be caught. It was all up there in her head. She planned what to do once she was safely inside the police station, the exact words she would say.

But the minute she passes through the doors, she can't utter a peep. Her little chest heaves with exertion. She looks down and can see the bow of her blouse pounding in rhythm with her pulse. It's the high one she wears, pink and silly, but the only one what will hide the bruises. They make fun of her for it. She hates that bow. It feels like his hands around her neck. After today she won't have to ever wear it again.

There is a counter with a swinging door high as her head. There is a lady typing, and she is wearing a cop uniform. There is a man, also in uniform with a cup of coffee, strands of gray just beginning to shoot through his hair. His eyes are kind.

First no one notices her. Her mouth opens in a terrified O and the room seems to spin. Phones ring and the woman types and two cops walk out. Then the man with the gray hair and kind eyes looks up. And he sees her.

"Can I help you?" they gray-haired man asks her, his eyes paternal.

Save me, she wants to say. Save me.

Her tiny heart is pounding. Mouth formed into an O, but no words coming through.

He is nice, but something is happening to her throat. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Why? Because she can't breathe.

Duh. If she can't breathe in, she can't breathe out to talk.

"Are you okay, honey?" He kneels down to see her at eye level. He smells good, like soap.

"Help," she croaks, and that's all that comes out.

.

When she drives she thinks about her mother, her real mother. She remembers that she was pretty, with blue eyes and brown hair. She remembers her laughing. She remembers that when she was taking her medicine she was always happy. She remembers the way mommy shot the medicine directly into her arm. She remembers that mommy was gone, and that she was really hungry, and that's the last thing she remembers.

The first year she came here, she was told that her trip had been for nothing. There would be no hearing, and she was safe for another year. She didn't see him; they never even brought her in.

The next year she shared a waiting room with any one else waiting for a hearing, whether they be family or victim. She didn't recognize anyone and when they called her in she was the only one who went in.

She had watched as they brought Cliff Peretti in. He never noticed the slight brunette in shades who sat half-behind a support pole. He was seated while the three parole board members pored over the file. She wished she could read the file. She craned her head forward as if she could, as if some resolution lay there.

She sat there for an eternity while they pointed and whispered. She couldn't hear what they were saying.

"Anyone have anything to say on Mr. Peretti's behalf?" She wanted to shrink in her chair as Cliff looked around the room. He was never too bright, and his eyes never rested on her for longer than a second. Perhaps she looked official. Or perhaps she just blended in. God knows she was good at that. Her hand clutched the recorder, not the sticky Fisher Price one from twenty years ago, but a state-of-the- art one with amazing audio capability.

You could have heard a pin drop.

Before she could speak, the head of the board spoke. "Allright, well parole is denied, Mr. Peretti will be remanded for one more year."

Her bones felt liquid and relief surged through her. It was a different year then. The year before the explosion, before the DUI, before Debbie Marlin. She felt good. Even when she got into the parking lot and saw that her tires were slashed, that "DIE PIG BITCH" was emblazoned on the windshield of her car, she felt relief from the simple fact that she was free to get the hell out of there.

.

The kind graying officer wore a nameplate saying HODGE. She has a clear memory of its navy blue color, the gold edging. Of staring at it as she tried to speak. She couldn't will her throat to open enough for air to come through.

His hands were gentle and nothing like Cliff's. He must have escorted her gently into a more private area within the station, because she remembers sitting at a desk, him leaning over to meet her eyes. She remembers the woman giving her water, and rubbing her back, and saying something soothing, but she doesn't know what.

She doesn't know how long it was. Probably a good five minutes.

"It's okay honey, you're safe here." he said. She can't remember his voice, but those words, and his gentle eyes, are crystal clear in her memory.

She nodded quickly, eager to show that she understood.

"Did someone hurt you?"

She nodded again, thinking that he probably thought she was retarded.

"Okay, I'm going to help you, okay. But you have to tell me what happened."

She looked at the cup of water in her hands. How did the lady know she was thirsty? That her throat was stuck together? That her mouth was like a desert?

She raised a shaking hand and slowly drank the water.

She then undid the buckle of her book bag, and pulled out the recorder. His eyes narrowed in confusion, wondering what she had. The recorder was of sticky white plastic. Fisher Price logo on the side and colored buttons. The play button was red. She swallowed and pressed it.

.

She sits in the same spot, a year later. In the parking lot, sun glistening thorny off the razor wire curls. She keeps flicking the rearview mirror to reflect her impossible blond image. Her lipstick is pink. She looks like a stranger.

Her cell phone rings and her brows furrow. No one but work has this number.

She looks at the display. Grissom. Just what she needs. Dare she answer it?

Of course she does.

"Hello."

"Hello Sara, it's Grissom."

"Hey."

"Hey, sorry to bug you on your vacation."

"That's cool. I'm just getting ready to hit the beach. What's up?"

"I just need to know where you left your bulletproof vest. We had a bit of an emergency and yours turned up missing."

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. She really doesn't need this now.

"It should be in the locker. I always leave it there."

"I know, but it's missing."

She hates to lie to him about something like this. "Well, the only other thing I can think of is if I left it at home, which I doubt."

"Okay. Well, it's not important now."

Then why did you call, she thinks?

"So you're at the beach, huh?"

"Yeah. Surf's up." She looks at the coiled silver barbed wire surrounding the top of the fence like clouds.

"You surf?"

"No, but it's fun to say. I don't really know what to tell you about the vest, Grissom," she says, feeling its tight weight around her chest.

"Don't worry about it. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She bangs her head gently against the steering wheel. His concern somehow hurts worse than his indifference.

"Oh, one other thing, Archie brought by an audio tape you gave him; he wanted to log it in to the database but he said the file number was wrong. Do you remember what case it was?"

Adrenaline skyrockets through her, unbearable after her already terrified state. I'm gonna get fired. Everyone will know. Grissom will hear it.

Her breathing sounds obscenely loud in her ears. For a second she fears he can hear the terror there.

What does he know? He doesn't sound suspicious. She didn't think Archie still even had a copy. She knew about the database, she just hoped it would fall through the cracks.

“Sara?”

She blurts the first thing she can think of. "Did you listen to it?" She can hear the panic clearly in her own voice. No way will he miss it, she thinks. Fucking perceptive, sensitive as hell, when he wishes to be.

Fuck, she spits soundlessly. Oh, fuck fuck fuck, that was stupid.

"No, should I?"

"No." She struggles to be nonchalant. "But nothing's popping to mind. I'm not really sure what case it's from. Hold on to it and I'll deal with it when I get back.

"No problem. I miss you."

He feels stupid the instant it is out of his mouth but his adrenaline is high and they lost a CSI today and he's just worked twenty hours.

She gives him nothing but her baffled silence.

Shit, shit, shit, he mouths silently.

"Grissom, you never even look at me or talk to me when I'm there, so I really don't know what you mean." He wonders if those are tears in her voice.

"I'm sorry. It's been a rough day."

"Is everyone okay?"

He sighs. "Everyone but Burrows from days."

"Don't know him."

"Her."

"What happened?"

He sighs, debating about whether or not to tell her. He doesn't want to worry her on her vacation. Or whatever it is she's on. He's not sure if he believes she's at the beach.

"Burrows was shot at an active crime scene, we all got called in to investigate."

"Oh, geez. What a nightmare. All our people are okay?"

He knows that she means Nick, Warrick and Cath, even though they are on a different shift. "They're fine."

"Good." The correctional officer she has been waiting for appears in the doorway of the loading dock, and beckons her.

"Griss, I have to go. I'm glad everyone's okay."

"Okay. I'll see you in a few days."

"Okay. Bye."

She tosses the phone down, grabs her bag and her keys, and moves quickly to the door.

In Vegas, Grissom pulls out a thick file of personal leave forms for his staff. He is not the most organized, but he sorts through them quickly. In the five years Sara has worked for him she has put in four leave requests. One was a formality, after the DUI.

The first was for June 2001, for June sixteenth through twenty-second.

The second was for June 2002, for the sixteenth through the twenty-second.

Today is June nineteenth. He finds the request for this year, with the same week outlined.

She's taken off the same week every year for three years. Why?

She never talks about her family but he assumes that this is some sort of family entanglement.

She would never, ever ever leave her vest at home. Her kit and supplies were always ready, even after a double. Sara was perfect when it came to that stuff. None of it made any sense.

He pulls the tape from his locked desk drawer. He turns it over, takes it out of the evidence bag with the bogus case number. He takes the tape out of the case. There is only one thing written on it: 1980.

"Did you listen to it?" Is his stressed-out adrenalized mind imagining things, or was that abject panic in her voice?

1980. What happened in 1980? He can't think of any evidence that his lab had processed from that long ago. In 1980, he was twenty four. In 1980, Sara was nine.

1980 could be part of a case file number, but there would be nine digits. The tape should have the whole case file number on the sticker, on an LVMPD sticker. No such sticker, no such number. It wasn't clumsy shorthand, though the handwriting was indubitably hers. Sara would never make such a mistake, either of them.

He remembers Archie's words. "Don't think it's ongoing but it's some pretty sensitive material." So Archie heard the tape, and believed it was for a case. Therefore whatever what on it likely alluded to a crime. But why was Sara dealing with a crime?

Grissom's brows furrow together. She is up to something. He should give her the benefit of the doubt. He has no right to listen to the tape, but he has every right. It is unlabeled evidence in his lab, on his shift.

He could call and ask her but he remembers her hurry to get off the phone.

In the end, he is too tired and too confused to do anything. He puts the tape in the drawer and locks the desk, then goes home to sleep with the resolution to deal with it tomorrow.

.

Peretti is slick this year. He wants out and he feels lucky. He can feel it. He can taste it. He is even wearing a suit.

Since her tires were slashed last year they sequester her and let her watch through closed-circuit TV.

"Mr. Peretti, you have been convicted, two counts of rape of a minor, one count of assault, one count of parole violation. Do you have anything to say to contest the twenty-five more years you are sentenced to serve?"

"Yes ma'am. I was practically a kid myself when I hurt that girl. I had been abused myself. I had sex and abuse all mixed up in my head. I've been here for twenty-two years. I've got a lot of therapy, got a lot of that stuff straightened out. I will never harm another child."

She tenses, clutching the recorder. This is it. Her chest closes like a fist.

"Does anyone have any objections?"

"Now," she tells the officer, heart pounding sickly in her throat.

Everyone turns to the petite blonde who is being led in by a CO.

"State your name, ma'am."

"I'd rather not. My name is in the file. I was the minor he raped. I can prove that. I was nine years old."

"Um, okay. Your objection?"

Sara sits opposite the parole board and presses the play button. Only then does she look at Cliff Peretti, and his eyes shut. He knows that he's fucked. She was such a crafty little bitch, then and now.

"The audio tape you are about to hear is a copy of tape I made the night of the rape with a Fisher Price toy tape recorder that belonged to another child in the house. I had a friend enhance the audio to remove hiss and make it clearer but there are no other changes. If that is in doubt you can compare it to the original, which I'm told is still filed somewhere in police HQ."

.

She has listened to the tape three times. Once, in the bathroom in school the morning after the rape. Again, in the woods that next night. To make sure that it was clear enough for an indictment.

Then, she listened to it again several months ago, sitting in the lab with Archie. When he heard it he looked green. Sara shuddered, and saw him look at her.

"It gives me the creeps. That little girl had the same name as me."

"This is disgusting."

She just nodded, trying to block out the tortured sounds of his breathing, trying to float above the air.

Archie was able to clean the tape up - raise the treble and totally remove the tape hiss- with just a few mouse clicks. He then made several copies, presented her with several tapes including the original, and smiled. She thanked him, having no clue at the time that it was protocol for him to store the copies in a centralized database.

.

Now, in the jail, she hears the tape for a forth time. Her heart is pounding and everyone in the room is staring at her. She doesn't look at Peretti.

The members of the parole board look vaguely horrified. They are used to dealing with ink and paper, at the most case photos. The thought of hearing the rape of a nine year old horrifies them.

She hears her heart, booms of ragged thunder in her ears. Then she presses play. And she turns it up loud.

.

There is barely perceptible tape hiss. Archie's work is that good. Then, eerily comes the voice. Deep, compelling, somewhat flirtatious.

"Brownie? Are you awake?" It has a singsong quality that makes the eyes of the parole board widen.

She feels the room growing around her. She is so small. Silence, just that white noise hiss. She isn't in jail, she is back. In the top bunk. Shaking in her clothing and praying he can't hear the hiss of the Fisher Price recorder. If he finds it, he will kill her.

"Sara? It's playtime..." Again the singsong. She breathes slow to stave off nausea.

Then the tone becomes harsh, loses its song. "I know you're awake!"

"Leave me alone."

There is the screaming inside her chest, in her head. But on the tape she sounds so small, so weak. She remembers trying not to pee herself. The fear is so strong that she has to make a conscious effort, even as an adult, holding those muscles tight.

She opens her eyes. She begins tracing points around the room, eyes darting from one landmark to the other, a fuse box, lines of brown water damage. Her eyes race to the barred window, to the door, to the correctional officers, to each member of the board, to every individual brick in the wall. It is a technique her therapist taught her, and it works, sometimes.

The breathing on the tape. "Not a chance, baby girl. Take off your pants."

One of the parole board turns her head away, disgusted. Sara feels as if she is outside of her body. She is watching herself with the recorder held high in one hand, watching the parole board. The woman is visibly upset. One of the men is stoic. The other man looks as if he might go over to Peretti and strangle him. She doesn't look at Peretti. She fears he might be hard, enjoying the reminiscing, and that alone would be like another rape.

"No." The voice on the tape is choked. She remembers with inhuman clarity the thoughts she was having then. The realization that she needed to defy him just a little, so there was proof of his intent. She had learned the hard way, at the first foster home, that allegations weren't enough.

There must be proof. A simple credo that gave birth to who she is today, her career, all of it.

"I'm not asking you. Be nice, Brownie, it'll be nicer for both of us." The voice is alternately saccharine and wheedling. And downright cold. She closes her eyes. Opens them again. One of the men on the board, the angry one, is staring at her.

"No! Cliff! No!" The childlike scream tests the limited treble of the recorder, but it is horrifically loud in the room. The female board member covers her ears.

The breath on the tape shifts closer, and though Peretti is across the room, it feels like he is breathing just over her shoulder. With alarming quickness, she is in her body again, panicked. Her hand moves to her hip before her brain remembers that she's checked her weapon. The recorder trembles in her hands. "I saw your brother today, did I tell you that? He's really happy with the family who adopted him. You wouldn't want me to hurt him, would you?"

"Don't you dare hurt him!" Sara marvels at the rage in her nine-year old voice. Its power buoys her. This was her at nine. Think of the voice she has now. She marvels at the simple ferocity of her nine year-old self. She isn't sure if it was stupid or heroic.

"He's almost as pretty as you." The tone is back, the sickening flirtatious, aroused tone that makes her vagina hurt. She tries another exercise the therapist taught her. She imagines Cliff in a cell with a bigger, stronger man raping him. That's what they do to pedophiles in prison. Surely he's had a taste of his own medicine. Usually, this works. Now she just identifies with Cliff and that makes her the rapist. She takes a long, deep, deliberate breath.

"Don't you hurt him!"

"You're such a little spitfire. You can scream as loud as you want to. There's no one home to hear you. Panties too, Brownie." She hears this, and begins to float above her body again. And then it’s better, because she is above.

"You can't rape me again!"

"I can, sugar, and I will." Singsong. "Now lose the fucking panties!" From far, far away, she remembers the second of terrifying triumph when she realized she had that on tape. To her it was everything. Declaration of his intent. Even if they claimed the tape was a fabrication, she had this.

She experiences the pain secondhand, as if she were a stranger watching another stranger stand in a blonde wig, recorder held like a beacon. There is empathy, but nothing else. The fear is gone as if muted by a thick rag. Movements, rustling. Then a scream that chokes and obscures a harsh grunt.

"Oh, shush, you know you like it."

The woman on the parole board gets up and walks quickly from the room. The men look after her. One of them is very green, Sara wonders with detachment whether or not he will lose it.

"You're raping me! It burns! I don't like it! You're a rapist!"

There is the sound of a slap. She slams back into her body so quick it hurts. "I’m just giving you what you want, you little slut!"

"Cliff! It burns!"

The little-girl voice on the tape and the silent voice screaming in her head are indistinguishable. The voice on the tape is silent, but the pain screaming up through her is real.

Her finger harshly presses the stop button. Silence resounds in the room. The burning flares through her, real as ever.

There is more, but she can't bear any more. She thought it was behind her. She ended with her PEAP counselor a few weeks ago. Now she knows it is just the beginning.

.

That moment in time stretches forever. Sara stands there, feeling disoriented in her own body. The dissociation isn't new, but going in and out in such rapid turns is. She shifts on her feet and blinks at her surroundings.

The angry board member looks at Peretti with sweat on his brow. "Never as long as I'm breathing, buddy. And I'm healthy as a horse. And younger than you. You are never, ever, seeing the light of day again."

She slumps in relief. She is done, for this year.

She leaves the room. An officer lets her out of the building and there she gasps for air.

"That was so brave of you ma'am. We'll take care of him."

She swallows and nods, speechless, but she says much with her eyes.

She thinks later that she should have asked what he means, should have advised him against any criminal intent. She just nods and gets into her car. The rental leaves dust on the parched highway as she peels out. There is hot bile in her throat and she swallows it.

She makes it out of town, to an abandoned gas station. She pulls around behind then vomits violently in the bushes.

.

When she is back in the hotel makes a long distance call.

"PEAP, this is James Schuster."

"James. It's Sara. Sidle."

"Hi Sara, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I guess. I don't know. I'm here. I did it, I played the tape."

"And he won't get out."

"Not this year."

"How do you feel right now?"

"I..." Tears rush to her eyes. She feels humiliated, as if James can see them over the phone. "Not good," she whispers.

"That's normal."

"Doesn't feel normal."

"Sara, you're the bravest person I've ever known in my life."

"I thought all this was behind me."

"It doesn't work that way, remember? We talked about trauma, about how long it lasts, how its effects can come and go."

"I think..." She wipes her eyes. He is silent, waiting for her to finish her thought. "I think I need to come back to therapy."

In Vegas, James Schuster smiles. He's been hoping she'd say this.

.

"Hey." She appears in his doorway, back from vacation a day early, an apparition in jeans and a white peasant blouse that makes him blink.

"Hi."

"I owe you an explanation."

"I'm listening."

She takes a deep breath.

"I borrowed my kevlar when I went away on vacation. And I used lab resources on a personal project."

"I suspected as much."

"I had Archie help me enhance an old audio recording."

"Why didn't you just ask me for those things?"

"I didn't feel comfortable. Did you listen to the tape?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I could tell you didn't want me to, and I was pretty sure it was irrelevant to the lab."

"Really?"

"Really. I haven't listened to it. Archie told me it had some pretty sensitive material, so I locked it up."

"Oh. I really didn't deserve that, thank you."

"It's the least I could do for you. I know I haven't treated you well. Please though, Sara, tell me one thing."

She nods, heart thrumming high in her chest.

"Were you in danger? Really in the kind of danger that necessitates a bulletproof vest?"

She opens her mouth but is quiet for a second, unsure of the answer to that question. She doesn't know how to respond, so she starts at the beginning.

"I was a victim of a crime some time ago. The guy who did it has been up for parole for three years. Back... when it happened I managed to get it on tape. Every year I go back with the tape and pray that I don't have to play it for the parole board. This year I did."

He looks at her, mouth open owlishly, no clue what to say.

Grissom leans back in his chair and sets his glasses on the desk, rubbing his stubbly face. His eyes seem tired, even though it’s early in the evening.

"Last year they slashed my tires. His mother collected guns. She used to wave them around, threaten to shoot us. I know I'm a grown woman with a gun of my own and she's a sick old lady, but still."

“I understand,” he says. He turns toward his desk and unlocks it, pulls out the tape with 1980 scrawled on it. “I’ll have Archie delete it from the system.”

She’s loathe to take the tape, and she’s not sure why. She slips it into the front pocket of her jeans. “Thank you.”

“Least I could do for you Sara.”

She stands there for a second, leaning on the doorframe, lips parted slightly in surprise. She nods at him awkwardly, patting the secret tape on her hip. “Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll be here.”