The Pain in the Past : A CSI:MIAMI Fanfiction - Chapter 3 Rated M for Mature

Calleigh Duquesne was the first to arrive to the warehouse, and she was simultaneously followed by Natalia "Nat" Boa Vista and Francis "Frank" Tripp, as well as several radio cars. "What in the hell happened?" Frank Tripp asked in his Texas drawl. The slightly heavy, bald Texan was another father, just like Horatio, to the team of young CSI's. Horatio and Tripp were like brothers both being much older than the rest: Tripp being in his 60's and Horatio in his 50's. "I don't know." Ryan said, "We followed the lead Nat gave us, and it led us here. We found blood and Horatio called it in. After that it was a blur. There was a shot, and H. screamed. Just like that he was gone." "Well, you're both now witnesses to a kidnapping and attempted murder. You know what you guys gotta do." Calleigh looked at the two boys in their mid to late 30's with her compassionate, sister-like eyes. A tear ran down her cheek as her voice broke, "We are going to need as much information as you can give us to find Horatio." "So, this blood must be H.'s?" Natalia Boa Vista asked Ryan and Eric, kneeling down in front of the medium sized blood pools that H.'s blood had formed. "Ya." CSI Ryan Wolfe responded. "Are you OK, Eric?" Tripp asked the visibly shaken, Cuban CSI. Eric had always been close to Horatio, but that relationship had deepened after Horatio married his older sister, Marisol. When Marisol was killed by the Mella Noche, a large Brazilian drug cartel, their relationship had become much more than brothers or best friends: Killing the man that had put the hit on Marisol, together. "Ya. I guess so. I keep hearing H.'s screams, for me, for me to save him." Eric hung his head, and a tear ran down his cheek. "There is nothing either of us could have done," Ryan put his hand on his friends back, "but we'll get him back." Just as Ryan finished his thought another siren could be heard as a hummer sped around on to the street. "I guess Alexx heard." Natalia said sarcastically as an African-American women practically jumped out of the still moving police car. "What in the hell happened?!" Alexx Woods, the medical examiner for the team of CSIs, exclaimed. "Eric, Ryan, are you ok? Where is Horatio? Where was he shot? What happened?" "Woah, woah, woah. Alexx calm down. Ryan and I are fine, but we don't know where Horatio is. He was taken." Eric stepped up towards Alexx. "What happened to Horatio?" Alexx's voice broke, "Eric, what are they going to do to Horatio?" "We don't know, Alexx. We are just going to have to trust the evidence will lead us to him. That's what Horatio would want us to do." Eric wrapped Alexx in his well-defined arms and just held her. "The blood drops lead towards the back of this warehouse." Natalia motioned for the team to come closer to her position about 100 feet down the warehouse. "What were his injuries?" Alexx asked, as they walked toward Natalia. "We don't know. By the time we had turned around H. was gone. All I saw was the black end of a car." Ryan responded "Well, these buildings give a perfect vantage point for a sniper." Calleigh, who had always been interested with firearms, pointed out. The place where Natalia's evidence had led them was an abandon and worn-down warehouse. The roof was gone and taller buildings were to the left and the right leaving a perfect spot for the sniper that had shot Horatio. "Well, let's look into that. Meanwhile, I'm going to get this evidence back to the lab, and you two better get yourselves checked out. We need all hands on deck for this." "Hey, Nat!" Eric called from the far end of the warehouse. They had yet to find any evidence as to who had taken Horatio or to who had killed the girl from the Gables, Jinnefer Caldwin, but Eric had seen something glinting from the place near where Horatio had been forced into the car. "What'd you find, Eric?" Boa Vista said, as she collected a sample from yet another blood drop, hoping that one or more was from a kidnapper, and not Horatio. "Silver flecks." Eric sounded confused, "They are fresh, but I swear the car that took Horatio was black." "Maybe it was," Natalia crouched down about a foot away from Eric, "There are black flecks over here. These could be from a separate car. The car that took Horatio." "These could be from the car that took Jinnefer Caldwin to the drop site. How luck could we be if both cars scraped the same wall?" Eric thought aloud. "Well, these are the only leads we have to Jinnefer's killer, and to H.'s kidnapper, so bag and tag." Natalia said, scraping some of the black flecks of the brick wall and into an evidence bag, "Here's Calleigh, I wonder what she found on the buildings." "Well, the left building seems to be our lucky one." Calleigh held up the shell casing she had found on the warehouse to the left of the crime scene, "This is the casing from a Remington 700. It's in mass production, so it's not going to help us much, but it's a start. The place where I found it had a GSR cone and a clear view of where Horatio was standing. The position of the GSR cone indicates that the shooter was in a prone position, right about there." She said pointing up at a place on the roof. "Whats a GSR cone?" Alexx asked Calleigh. "It's what happens when a rifle is steadied on a wall or building and when the gun is shot gun shot residue collects underneath where the gun was steadied." Calleigh explained, "I dusted for finger prints as well, but our guy was clean. There isn't even a fiber up there." "Well let's get this stuff back to the lab." Natalia got up from the crouching position she was in, "Valera is going to be thrilled she has to go through all these blood samples." she said chuckling. "She's going to be thrilled alright." Eric said sarcastically as he packed up his kit and got in his hummer, "See ya back in the lab." "Here's all of the samples I told you about." Natalia said laying them on Maxine Valera's lab table next to her Thermal Cycler. She had always been a DNA analyst, even before Natalia had become part of the lab. She always had went by Valera in the lab, as her real name annoyed her. "Thanks." She said sarcastically, but still with a defined sense of worry in her voice. "Any news on Horatio yet?" "No," Natalia sighed, "but this should give us something. Hopefully Horatio fought back and got some blood out of him." "I can't imagine what there doing to him." Valera closed her eyes, and shook her head. "Neither can I." Natalia put her arms around Valera, "What could they be doing to him?" "Hey, let's stop the love fest and lets get this evidence processed from H.'s crime scene." Ryan chuckled as he walked in on Valera and Natalia hugging, "I thought you were crushing on me Nat." Everyone knew Ryan handled stress with humor. "Oh, shut up Ryan." Natalia said as she wrapped her arms around Ryan's neck. "We need to process these paint scrapes too. I'm gonna head over to trace and start that up." She kissed Ryan's cheek as she left the lab. Valera started quickly on the swabs taken from the blood drops at the scene. She quickly clipped the tips of the swabs placing each in the solution and placing it in the Thermal Cycler, which multiplied DNA. She started the machine. Soon the machine was done and into the DNA sequencer, which read the DNA and inputted the data in the computer and waited. Meanwhile, Natalia took the scrapes of paint and examined them. She put a small sample of them into a sterile solution and placed the two small vials, each with one of the two different paints in them, and placed them in the MasSpec, hoping that either of the paints would give them some kind of lead. She knew that each car manufacturer used a different formula of paint for each, make the paint traceable down to the make and model. At that moment Valera ran through the door hold the printed DNA samples that she had compared to Horatio's blood. "I think I got something!" Valera exclaimed.