A man driving with a wooden stake in his head dies in front of a casino.

A team of robbers heist the First Monument Bank and Detective Cyrus Lockwood is shot and murdered. The team investigate the case and find that the thieves wanted a specific safety deposit box in the vault. Meanwhile the driver of the getaway van is found dead in the vehicle, Larry Whiting. He was a former valet of the Rampart Casino, owned by Sam Braun. When they find the name of the owner of the stolen box, Benny Murdock, an Catherine recognizes the name.

In the Mediterranean Casino, Ty Caulfield is speaking for guests that the casino will exhibit rare Japanese antiques from the Seventeenth Century owned by Mr. Yuri Yamamoto in the casino. Out of the blue, a woman cries and they see a body floating in the pool and a live wire at the edge. Grissom, Sara and Capt. Brass investigate the case and soon they find that the body is a CPR dummy. They hear the security alarm and find the guard wrapped up in duct tape, and the samurai sword is missing. They investigate the findings and return to the exhibition room to collect other evidences but the room is empty. The head of the casino security tells that the pieces have been transported to the casino vault to be in a secure place. Soon Grissom finds the sword hidden in an air duct and questions Yamamoto why a Nineteenth Century armor was together with the other pieces Surprisingly Yamamoto say that he has no armor in his collection. They go to the vault with Ty and find that all the casino money has been stolen, in a masterstroke. But their findings do not stop. Meanwhile, Catherine and Warrick go to an abandoned house with fame of haunted and find the corpse of Angela Sommerville with two holes in her jugular vein and drained without any blood. Further, there is no gore in the crime scene. Soon they learn that Angela used acrylic fangs and her friends belonged to a vampire "coven".

When a roller coaster derails in an amusement park, there are six victims in the parking lot. Grissom, Nick, Sara and Capt. Brass investigate the case and soon they find that five deceased persons were in the train, but the employee Jim Nevins died twenty-hours before with a head trauma. Grissom interviews the park chief engineer Woody and learns that the old roller coaster has good maintenance. Grissom shows a nut to Woody and he says that it would be impossible to cause the train derail since there are eight sets that would have to lose. Meanwhile, Catherine and Warrick investigate the murder of the thirteen-year-old Tessa Press that was found murdered but not raped. Her mother Raina tells them that Tessa used to go to the house of a friend twice a week and she had assumed that her daughter was with her friend. Now they need to find what has happened to her.

Greg has found a replacement in the DNA lab, Chandra Moore, and introduces her to the co-workers. Capt. Brass, Grissom and Greg, in his first case, investigate the death of an unidentified victim with a shot in the forehead in a shooting in the nightclub owned by Manny Brazil. He says that he does not know how the gun has passed through the metal detector. Catherine and Det. Louis Vartann investigate the murder of a woman covered in blood in a hotel room. The man, Carl Johnson, also covered in blood, tells to the detectives that he has never seen that woman before. Soon they learn that the victim is the stripper Nicole "Raven" Richards that drugged Carl to rob him. Warrick and Det. Chris Cavaliere investigate the death of Lance Frazer, a loser that died in the bathtub electrified by heat exchanger causing a short circuit in the motel. Soon Warrick learns that Lance hit a fifty-thousand-dollar jackpot on the previous night. Nick, Sara and Det. Travis investigate an "alien" buried in a shallow grave near the Area 51.

While investigating a case, Nick is abducted and is buried alive in a special coffin while his team takes unorthodox steps to try to find him.

With its desperate attempt to ransom Nick's release failed by their enemy's fanatical revenge, the CSI team must use all their investigative talents to find Nick, whose perilous situation is becoming all the more horrific by the minute.