Killing Game

Chapter One Monday, January 24, 6:30 A.M. Los Calina nestled in the foothills at the far west end of Summerlin. Packed in north of Far Hills Avenue, just west of Desert Foothills Drive, the gated community was a relatively new addition catering to upper-middle-class dwellers of a...certain age. Such words as "senior" or "elderly" were not spoken here; and when these folks ate at a restaurant at 4:30 P.M., the reason was preference, not the savings afforded by an "Early Bird Special."Not as trendy, nor as full of star power, as Lake Las Vegas -- its more opulent eastside counterpart -- Los Calina ("The Hills" in less romantic English) catered to older money, clients who wished to remain very private while living in something resembling luxury. Residents were mostly well-to-do retirees still able to live independently. Gardening, garbage collection, and other rudimentary services were provided or overseen by the Los Calina Association, in essence overseen by the residents themselves. For a retirement community, this made other local options -- even pleasant facilities -- seem like nursing homes without staff, at best, and tenements, at worst.A slim but shapely woman in her early thirties, Sara Sidle -- dark hair dangling out under a black CSI baseball cap, her attractive oval face somber -- pulled the black Tahoe into the Los Calina entrance to stop at a guard shack that squatted between the IN and OUT gates. The small, mostly glass structure (about the size of a double-wide phone booth) was the architectural equivalent of the guard who lumbered out of it, sweat rings on his short-sleeve brown shirt beneath meaty arms, despite the chill and the shack's thrumming window air conditioner.In the passenger seat next to her, Gil Grissom stared straight ahead; he might have been catatonic, but was merely absorbed in his own thoughts. Pushing fifty, his hair and trim beard touched with gray, the CSI supervisor wore his customary loose-fitting black shirt and slacks, and an identical ballcap to Sara's. Grissom had never been talkative, but since the Crime Lab's deputy director, Conrad Ecklie, had unceremoniously broken up the graveyard-shift team, Grissom had become ever more interior.Still, Sara could tell her boss was keeping up the appearance that everything was fine, as best he could; but she was attuned enough to him to detect differences out around the edges. In fact, Sara figured she knew Grissom better than anyone else in the crime lab, with the possible exception of Catherine Willows (recently appointed swing shift supervisor, but for years, Grissom's right hand).Sitting quietly behind Grissom was Greg Sanders, the former DNA lab rat who had just completed his final proficiency, his two-tone hair (dark brown, orangeish blond) looking more controlled these days. Slender, with a narrow, handsome face, Greg fixed his eyes on something outside the vehicle -- Sara knew that he had long since learned not to make conversation with Grissom, who on occasion still made life hard for the twenty-something former lab tech.Nonetheless, Sara felt the young scientist -- who had taken the "new kid" mantle from her (thank Godsomebodyfinally had!) -- had already turned a corner. The glib, flirty "kid" had receded into a more serious, committed criminalist -- didn't take many nights on the streets for a CSI to develop that kind of detached, no-nonsense attitude.In the seat behind her, the newest member of theirnewteam -- Sofia Curtis -- also sat in silence. Studying the woman in the rearview mirror, Sara thought the attractive CSI with the long blond hair -- today pulled back in a loose ponytail -- had already shown herself to be a highly competent investigator.But they should be getting to know one another better by now, only Sara couldn't bring herself to let down her guard. Sofia had been the acting day-shift supervisor, seen by many as the much-despiCollins, Max Allan is the author of 'Killing Game ', published 2005 under ISBN 9780743496643 and ISBN 0743496647.