A/N: This is not my first foray into fanfiction, merely my first stab at a different venue. Hopefully, I'll get this right also. If you wanna check out my other stories, go to or to or my livejournal account under this name, tangwstyl (I'm the only one there, so no worries about getting the wrong girl). This story comes out of my love for the character of Tim Speedle, who never should have been killed off, despite Rory Cochrane's desire to cut down on the filming schedule. I think, had the producers actually thought about things instead of getting a knee-jerk reaction and being slightly juvenile about it, Rory might have stuck around a bit longer. Oh well, coz I'm like years too late to voice my objection. My thanks to Addie Logan, who said go for it when I said I was thinking about writing this, and who agreed to beta it for me. Disclaimers prove that I own nothing but the plot and the original characters, everything else belongs to Bruckheimer and company.

Prologue

It wasn't the Agramonte, or even the Hilton, but the Cardozo was still one of the nicer hotels on the beach. Catering to an avant-garde crowd, they rarely got calls to the place. But twice in the last couple of weeks, the day crew of the Miami-Dade Crime Scene Investigations had to respond to the hotel owned by Gloria Estefan and her husband.

At least this time there was the possibility of finding the victim alive.

Hopefully.

Flashbulbs went off every couple of seconds in the background while the red-haired lieutenant questioned the reporting witness. "Miss? What can you tell me about your friend?"

"Ah, she's here on vacation. Well, we came down for the convention. And she's from New York, but she's not a citizen." Noting the very slight change in the man's expression, the slim brunette started rambling. "Look, does it matter? Sorcha wouldn't disappear. It's not like her."

The lieutenant smiled. "I understand. How long have you known Sorcha?"

"Since she came over from Ireland. About six years."

"Okay. Do you have a picture?"

The girl produced a grainy print of a digital photograph. "I got one of the other girls to print this for me. It was taken yesterday."

Horatio Caine stared down at the smiling face of Sorcha Hannagan. "Pretty girl. We're going to need a statement from you. Adele, would you?" He nodded to one of the detectives, directing his witness to her. "You hang in there."

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"Horatio." Two of his detectives, Tim Speedle and Calleigh Duquesne, waved him over to where they were standing by the bed.

"She didn't go willingly." Speedle's voice was pitched low, almost mumbling, so that no one else but the three of them heard him.

"Why do you say that?" Horatio peered down at the marks.

"Look at the scratch marks on the headboard." He pointed out the fresh furrows. They were long and horizontal, like the victim had dragged her nails across the wood, fighting from being removed from the bed.

Calleigh picked up from there. "Pattern repeats again here," she pointed to the wall, "and again here." The night table had similar furrows, identical to the naked eye. All three surfaces were smeared with a dark substance, which, when tested, turned out to be blood.

"Get those to DNA. Maybe she fought her kidnapper, too."

Horatio stood up, walking toward the door. "See if you can get any prints. Have Delko check the stairs and every elevator. We're in a race, people. Let's see if we can find her before something worse happens."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Yelina Salas approached her sometimes partner and former brother-in-law, notes in hand. "No one saw her after midnight, when she went to bed. There were a group of girls in a nearby room, but there was too much talking. None of them noticed anything."

"What kind of convention is this?"

"You're not gonna believe this." Yelina smiled, shaking her head.

"Try me."

"A psychic's convention."

"So our victim is a psychic?" At Yelina's nod of agreement, Horatio remarked, "Too bad she didn't see this coming."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

They had nothing.

Hours later, after all the convention attendees had been questioned, which thankfully wasn't much since it was only the early arrivals, they still had damn little insight.

They knew the victim. Sorcha Hannagan, aged twenty-six, born in New York City, raised in Ireland; County Kildare to be precise. Returned to New York when she turned twenty, worked for a law firm as a paralegal. Spoke fluent Spanish, French and Irish. And saw ghosts, read auras and worked as a medium in her spare time.

They knew her blood type. Her genetic make-up. Knew she had a rare eye condition that could eventually lead to blindness. Her shoe size. Her fingerprints.

Favorite color.

Best friends.

Family.

In short, the Miami Dade criminalists knew everything that mattered about Sorcha Hannagan, except one.

They didn't know where she was.