It was a beautiful summer day in Miami. Horatio had just finished some paperwork when he got a call about a teenage girl found on the beach. He hopped into his hummer and drove off.
When he got to the scene there were photographers behind the yellow tape trying to get the best shot they could of the dead body; many of them working for the local news station. They yelled out question after question, "who do you think could have done this? Do you have any suspects in mind? Are there any specific markings that could lead you to a previous offender?"
Horatio had been working at this type of job for a very long time. He has become accustomed to the news reporters and photographers. He just ignored them. Maybe giving a sly little smile wondering why they begged for answers. Horatio walked up to Alexx.
"Hey Alexx. Do you have an ID on our victim yet?" asked Horatio.
"Hey Horatio. Say hello to Angela Hemper. Now I don't know about you, but she doesn't look like a Miami girl to me. Probably a tourist. She has a spray on tan; maybe to impress her boyfriend or something,"Alexx replied.
"Do you have a cause of death?" Horatio asked already trying to piece together how an out-of-towner got killed on a Miami beach.
"From the looks of it, she was shot three times in the back. One of them was a through and through. Hopefully Calleigh can find it in all this sand," Alexx said. "I'll take the other two out when I get this girl onto my table. I'll be able to tell you more after post."
"Okay," Horatio replied finally noticing Eric already sifting through sand for any evidence, "Eric, do you have anything?"
"Sorry H. There is nothing here but a dead body and some photographers," Eric said looking very unhappy, "Oh hey, there's Calleigh now. I guess she must have got stuck in traffic."
"Hey guys, sorry I'm late. I got stuck in traffic on my way in here," yelled Calleigh as she approached the tape.
"Told you so, H," said Eric with a very happy smile. Horatio couldn't hold back his smile.
As Calleigh was walking up to the yellow tape that surrounded the crime scene, a black van pulled up behind her. Three men jumped out of the car and started shooting their semi-automatic guns wildly all around the crime scene. The news crews and photographers ducked to the ground as the police and CSIs drew out their guns trying to get a good aim at the van. Horatio and Eric let out a few rounds. When all the rush and gunfire ceased, Horatio and Eric looked around to see if anyone was hurt.
The EMTs showed up soon after to assess the people involved. They had to send two people to the hospital for non-life threatening gun wounds.
Eric looked around.
"Where is Calleigh? Oh no. What if she got shot? What if we accidentally shot her? What if ...," cried Eric but he couldn't finish his sentence before Horatio said in a calming voice, "don't worry Eric, she'll be okay. She knows how to handle things in this kind of a situation. We don't want to make it worse by letting the media hear that a CSI has been taken. That will just give the perp the satisfaction he wanted in the first place."
"Okay, now we really need to find some good evidence. I'll go see if there were any tire marks. That thing left just as quickly as came in here," Eric said sounding a little calmer now.
Eric went over to the side of the road to investigate the tire marks. He stopped dead in his tracks.
"H!" Eric yelled, "there's a huge blood pool over here. It's to far away from the dead body to be from our original victim. It must be Calleigh's. There's a lot of blood. I don't even think she'd be conscious at this amount of blood loss."
"Go take a sample of the blood back to the lab to confirm if we are right or not," Horatio exclaimed.
"Sure thing, H," Eric replied, "afterwards, I think I'll go over to Calleighs apartment to see if I can find any reason why someone would kidnap her."
"Go do that. From the looks of it, Calleigh was their intended target. They came in, picked her up and left." Horatio explained.