**Hey all! Okay, I'm honestly sorry for tossing up so many fics at once! It's just that I'm getting so many ideas pouring into my head! I've been watching CSI: Miami since day one, and I've always wanted to write my own story for it. I never did, because I hardly know anything about forensics. This time, I've looked at a few websites and re-watched my old tapes of CSI, and I think I might be able to pull of an okay story. I always like to add a little bit of my own taste to things (romance, mainly), and since I see a lot of Tim/Calleigh pairings, I've decided to give Horatio a chance. He's actually quite charming! Again, I'm adding an original main character, so please don't get angry. She ties into the story, but I'm not 100% sure in what direction I'm heading. Just sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy!**
*Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or anything, except for my one original main character.
CSI Miami: Captiva
Chapter One: Prologue
It was a warm, Saturday morning--early, about 6am. A mother and her child, vacationers from Michigan, were sifting through the sands of Miami Beach for shells and sea creatures that had been washed ashore.
"Mommy! Come see what I found!" the little blonde-haired girl said excitedly as she hopped down to a row of large rocks aside a nearby jetty.
"What is it? Do you see some fish swimming down there?" the mother asked as she carefully stepped down to where her daughter was standing.
The little girl shook her head, holding up a soggy item. The mother examined it, "A Teddy bear, huh? I wonder if someone lost it…"
The woman watched as her daughter made her way down to the next level of the large ocean rocks, "Be careful! Don't go too close to the water, okay?"
There was no response--her daughter's attention was directed to something else. She crouched down to get a better look, but her foot slipped on the moss. She started to cry, cradling her scraped knee.
"I told you to be careful!" her mom said, dropping the plush toy and rushing to her child's side.
The woman looked around, then asked, "Oh, no…where did your bucket of shells go?"
The little girl whimpered, then pointed to the space in the rocks that she had been looking in just moments earlier. The mother figured that she had simply dropped it when she fell. When she got on her knees to reach for it, she noticed something piled up beside the little red pail. After realizing what it was, the woman screamed, quickly shuffling back and pulling her daughter against her.
* * * * *
Horatio Caine, head of the CSI crime lab in Miami, said kindly to the woman, "Thank you, Mrs. Brighton. If you don't mind, I'll need you to stick around for a little while longer."
She nodded in agreement, standing with her arm around the confused little girl.
As Horatio walked away from them, he was approached by Tim Speedle, a fellow detective from the crime lab, "Hey, got anything yet?"
"We've got a mother and her daughter, just here for a nice two-week vacation, until they come across the dead body of what looks like a child--a little girl, maybe six…seven years tops. From the looks of it, she suffered from a shot directly to the spinal cord."
"Instant death?"
Horatio nodded, "Had to be. Mrs. Brighton found a Teddy Bear laying nearby too, looks like it had some spatter on it. We've got a lot of stuff to check out before going any farther."
Speed sighed, "Who would want to do this? Especially to a little girl…"
Horatio pulled his sunglasses from his jacket pocket, setting them on the bridge of his nose, "That's exactly our job--to find out."