milliways_bar | (no subject)

"Las Vegas, 2005. I won't ask how things have progressed--or regressed, whatever the situation might be. I worked at the crime lab there."

"Except for the terror threats I'd guess it's pretty much the same."

"Mmmm." Sara makes a face at that. "It's a shame to hear that but...well, that's life."

Kim nods. "Well I hope it's not quite as dangerous where you're from. So you went to crime scenes or did you just do lab work?"

"I did both, depending on the caseload of any given night. It would also depend on what type of case it was." She smiles wryly. "My supervisor stopped sending me out on domestic abuse cases after I threw a suspect against the wall. Granted, he had been threatening me first." She shrugs a bit.

"He probably deserved it anyway." Kim finds herself saying but after her experiences she has very little patience with abusive husbands or fathers.

"I worked in law enforcement but I was on computers not out in the field."

"Oh, he did." She studies the table intensely. "Beat his wife to death and dumped her in the woods. We were able to prove it, and he's serving a life sentence." Sara despises cowards. Any man who would hit a woman is most certainly a coward.

"We have techs who do similar things. Archie is the lab's resident computer wizard. I honestly don't know how he does half his stuff, but he's very good."

Kim nods. "I once was a live-in-helper to a family and the husband there, well, he beat his wife to death too. Life in prison is really too good for some people." She doesn't mention that he didn't get a chance to serve any time.

"I'm not a computer wizard, just an analyst, but I know my way around the system."

Sara nods in agreement. "In law enforcement, we do see the underbelly of society more often than not." She shrugs again. "And all we can do is try to pick up the pieces."

"More than I know. I can use a computer for anything I need, but I know nothing about hacking the systems or building programs."

"I guess I'm kind of lucky because where I worked we rarely had to try to pick up the pieces." Except of our own lives, she thinks and doesn't say.

"I mean, a lot of our suspects ended up dead."

Kim smiles a little. "I'm pretty good with programming but Chloe and Adam were the hackers."

She smiles wryly. "Even if the suspects wind up dead, we still have to follow everything through. And it would really piss us off if they offed themselves before we had a chance to arrest them. Two serial killers did that."

"Really? Two of them at the same time? That would suck, especially because of all the paperwork."

"Oh, not at the same time. But the paperwork on the two was extensive all the same. One, we had been following for three years. The other, we had to wait until he killed again to get sufficient evidence. The waiting is probably the worst part."

"I can imagine. The worst part of where I worked was waiting for the next threat. Because things would be a little quiet for a day or so and then suddenly...not."

"Yeah." She nods pensively. "I have to admit, I'm glad for a break when I come here."

"It's really nice to not have to worry for a little bit. Did you grow up in Las Vegas?"

"Uh, no. Tamales Bay, California. My parents ran a bed and breakfast there. You?"

"I think we moved around for a while but I mostly grew up around LA. My dad's in law enforcement and he was in the service."

Kim smiles a little. "A bed and breakfast, that must have been kind of cool."

She smiles wryly. "They were true blue hippies. And it was cool..at first at least." She shrugs again. "My dad began drinking...and beating my mother. She snapped one day and killed him. She's still in prison for that."

Kim looks sympathetic. "Sara, I'm so sorry. I know you probably hear that a lot."

She looks down for a moment. "My mom was killed a few years ago. I don't think you ever really get over losing a parent."

She smiles briefly, appreciatively.

"Oh, Kim, I'm sorry to hear that. And no, you don't. No matter what the age."

"How old were you?" Kim asks softly.

"When my father was killed? Twelve. And I honestly cannot bring myself to be angry with Mom. I really can't."

"I can't imagine what it must have been like to live in a house like that." Well she can, but her time spent with Gary is not at all the same thing.

"Something tells me you know all to well what it is like," Sara says gently. If Kim doesn't want to talk, she doesn't have to. But Sara is more than willing to listen.