DISCLAIMER || I don't own any of the CSI: Miami team, but I do happen to own a few characters in here. The ones you don't recognize? Yeah, mine. I have a computer, CSIM DVDs, and ADD: oh the thrills I will have ruining the lives of our favorite characters.
A/N || I think my muse is running a bit low, but I wanted to get this on here before I lost interest. Sorry in advance about the slow updates, but please read & review! I love me some reviews. The more you give, the faster I write. If you have any ideas about what I should add, send those too. I'll credit ya. :]
The sirens were faint in the distance, and she was cold. …Why was she cold? She looked down and shivered. It couldn't be more than sixty degrees, and the girl was wearing nothing more than a lacy bra and a pair of matching panties. She was badly bruised and her skin was littered with cuts. People were stopping and staring at her, but the woman who was kneeling next to her was shooing them away. A contraption was held to her ear. Was -- was that a phone? It was so small. Where was the cord to it? And why had this woman called the police?
Her mind was racing, and she thought to start with the basic fact. Fact, as in singular. Not plural. It was simple: other than her name, the girl knew nothing. A huge champagne-colored vehicle pulled up, with flashing red and blue lights. The decal on the door was a large, black badge with lettering. She watched as a red haired man rushed up to her. "Ma'am, my name is Lieutenant Horatio Caine, and I'm with the Miami-Dade Police Department." The girl barely heard him over the commotion going on around her. She watched as he made everyone move back, and was taken by surprise when someone wrapped her in blankets. Since she didn't appear to be fatally wounded, the man who identified himself as Lieutenant Caine helped her to his H2, opening the door to his back seat and had her sit down, asking her the routine questions.
Calleigh drifted around the corner, slamming to a stop once she reached the scene and threw her H2 into park. She grabbed her silver kit from the back of her micro-organized vehicle, and searched the crowd for her boss' telltale location giveaway: his hair. Once she found it, she swiftly dodged officials left and right. By the way his head was tilted, he was obviously talking to someone considerably shorter than his six feet. When she saw the face of his conversation partner, she stopped dead in her tracks and studied the face, wide eyed. There was no way this was real.
That girl was supposed to be dead.
Her kit dropped from her grip, but with all the hustle and bustle, the noise wasn't heard. She darted toward the girl, her feet seemingly never touching the ground, but was caught in the middle of her sprint by a pair of strong, tan arms. "Woah, Calleigh, what are you doing? Where's your kit?"
Her eyes flicked from the girl to her co-worker. "Sorry. I just had a total blank," she forced a smile and a small laugh. "I dropped my kit about ten yards back." She briefly pointed her finger in the general direction of her kit, and smiled at the man's expression. "What? A girl can't endure a momentary lapse of judgment?"
"No, you can." Eric nodded, and glanced quickly at the girl their boss was talking to. "Just try to save them for off-duty hours. Who is she?"
"Her name is Lissy Adams," Horatio told his second-in-command once they were back at the lab. She looked at him, and the gears in her mind started turning. He could tell she had something she wasn't telling him. "She's a seventeen year old girl who doesn't know anything about herself. Is everything okay, Calleigh?" He tilted his head to the left, hands on his hips, as he studied her.
"Yeah," she told him, nodding. She let a moment of silence pass before she changed her mind. "Actually no, it's not. That's not Lissy Adams, Horatio. That girl disappeared eight years ago from her elementary school; she was only nine years old. Taken right out from under the teacher's nose." She continued telling him specifics about the case, ending with how the investigation ended. "A body was found, and it was released to the family and local media that it was hers. The family laid her to rest, case closed."
With everything she had told him, Horatio realized that it was clear his CSI had taken more than just a common interest in this case. Nodding as he listened, she finished up right as they approached his office threshold. Licking his lips, he spoke. "Calleigh, you seem to know an awful lot about this case. What is this girl's name?"
He noticed that she hesitated, and hesitating was just not something that Calleigh did. With a deep breath, she looked from her boss to the goings-on outside the lab, easily seen through the glass wall. "Her name is…oh my God. Her name is something that is completely lost on me," she said. "I don't remember."
"Well, since you know so much about the case, I'm assigning you to it." A questioning look crossed his face as Calleigh shook her head in protest.
"Horatio, I don't think that's such a good idea." The blond replied. "I mean, I'm already leading another investigation. I was covering for Wolfe."
Truly confused, Horatio's brow furrowed a bit. She seemed to know everything there was to know, but the name escaped her. Calleigh never forgot names like that. Was his best CSI really turning down a chance to solve a re-opened case? Both he and Calleigh were workaholics, that was a well known fact, and solving this case would put a good boost on her career. "Well as of right now, ma'am, you and Mr. Wolfe are switching cases. I need you on this, Calleigh."
Watching as her boss walked away, all Calleigh could do was let out a heavy sigh and nod, her eyes staring out the window to her right.
Eric, sitting in one of the chairs in the break rook, hung up his cell phone and let his head rest against the back of the chair. "Man..."
"Something wrong, Delko?" a woman asked, joining him in the room. "You look a little worn out."
Picking his head up and looking towards the voice, he saw Natalia closing the fridge, a Diet Coke in hand. He sat up a bit in the chair, and nodded. "No, everything's fine. I just haven't been getting a lot of rest."
Natalia's eyebrow quirked. "Oh?" Her curiosity was somewhat piqued now. "Anything I can help with?"
Eric chuckled a bit. He tried his best to keep his personal life out of the lab, but that didn't always work. His fling with Natalia after she first started, his thing for Calleigh (that has gone away, it really has) and his boss marrying his sister are just a few of the examples to support this. But when it came to this new girl, he wanted to keep her away from the lab. The only way that she had any connections to the lab was through Ryan, and more recently, Calleigh. "I don't think there is, Nat, but thanks."
"Well," she said, "if you need me, I'm here." Meeting Eric's grin with one of her own, Natalia cracked the top on her pop can and took a seat. "So that case you and Calleigh are working on. What's the deal?"
Shoving his phone in his pocket, Eric shifted in his seat and turned his mind from his new girl back to his work. "Some girl went missing almost a decade ago, Calleigh hasn't told me much about it. Kid's from some small town in Louisiana, they're supposed to be faxing over the case file soon." He shook his head. Should he say anything? Probably. "She's acting really weird. Horatio said she knows everything about the case, that the girl's name isn't really Lissy Adams, but Cal can't remember what her name really is. And she insisted that she be the one to pick up the case file from the fax machine, like there's something that she doesn't want me to know."
Natalia tilted her head. "That's strange. Calleigh never forgets names." Sipping her pop, something dawned on her. "Wait, did you say that the girl was from Louisiana?"
"Yeah," Eric replied. "Why?"
Natalia finished her pop and rose, making her way to the door. "Something's not right, Delko. Find out what. If she's keeping secrets..." She shook her head.
"It could hinder the investigation, I know." He nodded, and watched his co-worker walk out.