FAMILY IS FAMILY
Lieutenant Horatio Caine was at home one unseasonably cold, rainy spring day. It was about 6 A.M. on a Friday when he was woken by his cell phone ringing. He didn't recognize the number, but something in him told him to open the text message that he had just received. It was a bit cryptic, but he quickly understood what it was. The text contained a video file and two attachments. The woman that was talking looked very familiar to him, but he couldn't place her. She was a younger woman whose fiery red hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her piercing ice blue eyes were looking right through him. The video went on for several minutes. "My name is Renee Hope Kerrigan and Horatio if you are watching this video it means that I missed my check-in. If I don't check in on my computer every 24 hours, it will send you this message. To make a long story short, I am your half-sister. My mom was one of your teenage neighbors from that New York apartment. She was sexually assaulted by your father. I was put up for adoption right after my birth mother committed suicide. I was adopted by a single woman who on her death bed gave me my original birth certificate. It says that Ronald Caine was my father. The attached file is a photograph of my birth certificate. As soon as I found out about my possible siblings, I hired a private detective to find out who they were. I am so sorry to find out about my other brother, Raymond as well as your wife, Marisol. Law enforcement must be in our blood since we all have law enforcement careers. When I found out that you were my brother, I didn't want to intrude in your life. I moved here from Texas to be near the only family I had. I am a former Marine K-9 trainer and handler, then Customs and Border Protection K-9 trainer and handler now I'm an MDPD K-9 trainer and handler. You and I have even worked a few missing child cases together. A few weeks ago my dog Echo and I helped search that Paintball course for the shooter. I think Echo growling at the suspect distracted him enough for you to shoot him dead. I'm in trouble, and I don't trust anyone else to help me. I have several prices on my head; that is what made me turn in my commission with the Marines and leave the Border Patrol. I don't know if anyone has been paid off to give me up. Please have Dave Benton track the location attached. It's my GPS watch. I'll explain everything better, I promise." The message continued.

"My dogs Echo and Charlie are in a panic room at my home. I have several prices on my head, but the price on their heads is even bigger, so I put a panic room in and put them in it every night to keep them safe. It's fireproof and bombproof. The panic room itself is under the kitchen island. The lock, however, is in the den. You will have to take out the book, "Where the Red Fern Grows" that will unlock the panic room locking panel on the kitchen island. To open the room itself, put my password in, and play the audio file attached. My password is the number address of that New York apartment. Please send someone to check on them. Horatio looks back down at his phone's screen and notices another attachment. It contained an audio file for her panic room's voice recognition.

The video ends, leaving Horatio stunned. Quickly he calls his team as well as Dave Benton the team's Audio Video guy and Frank Tripp the teams Homicide Detective. He needs all hands on deck.

His first call was his brother in law Eric Delko. He knew that he could call Eric about anything and at any time and that Eric would drop everything and come to help him. Horatio was not sure if Eric was staying at Calleigh's house that night, but he asked Eric not to tell her since she had her two adopted kids Austin and Patty to get ready for school and he knew that she would hurry over to help him. He didn't want to worry her unnecessarily. He then called Ryan Wolfe, Natalia Boa Vista, Walter Simmons, Frank Tripp, and finally Dave Benton to all meet at the crime lab, he had an emergency that he needed everyone's help with. It took Horatio's team about thirty minutes to get to the lab and an additional thirty minutes for Dave to trace her GPS signal.

Dave traced Renee's GPS watch to an abandoned cannery warehouse near the port of Miami. While driving to the warehouse with Eric, Horatio calls for an ambulance to meet them at the scene since they had a possible physical assault or worse. Horatio and Eric bust down the door. Carefully they follow other police officers to clear the warehouse. Some officers break left and others break right to clear the building. The pair fan out from the other officers by going straight to clear the warehouse quicker. It took them a few more minutes to reach a spot in the chaos of the maze-like warehouse where the two of them had to split apart when the path went in different directions. Horatio went left, and Eric went right.

Alone Horatio found himself deep inside the warehouse's labyrinth like floor-plan. When he turned a corner and came face to face with the person he was looking for. She was hanging by her wrists from a wench with her feet bound together attached to an eye screw deeply embedded into the concrete floor. Horatio was not able to recognize this woman as the woman in the video; she was beaten that badly. If it wasn't for her very distinctive eye color, he would not have been able to recognize her. Renee's icy blue eyes were almost white; they were that light. This person hanging in front of him had ice blue, almost white eyes. She was wearing just a white cotton nightie that was just torn to pieces and was hanging off of her tiny frame by threads. Both her nightie and her were covered in blood. Very carefully, Horatio reaches to check her for a carotid pulse, not expecting to find one with so much blood at the scene. To his enormous relief, he feels a barely palpable heartbeat. Her attackers had made a homemade rack which was ratcheted so tight it ripped her arms upwards towards the ceiling. A move that dislocated both of her shoulders. She was beaten to within an inch of her life, and it should have killed her, but she's too stubborn to die.

Horatio still had to figure out how to get her down and off of the homemade rack that she was hanging from. Carefully Horatio pulls out the knife that he had in his front right pocket. He needed to cut her feet clear of the binding that kept her ankles attached to the eye screw in the concrete floor. As Horatio was starting to cut the rope, his cell phone rang. Ryan Wolfe, his co-worker, was calling. Before Horatio left for the warehouse, he had Ryan run Renee's DNA that was on file with MDPD against his DNA using his father as the potential paternal link and the results were a fifty percent match. She was his half-sister. When he heard this Horatio's determination heightened, as carefully as he could, he finished cutting her bound feet free of the screw. When her feet swung free from the binding, Horatio needed to put his body below her so that he could support her weight as he cut her down. Wrapping his left arm around her small five foot one-inch frame at her waist, he gently held on as he cut her free with his right hand. When she fell free, her body heavily slumped down over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. His sister didn't weigh a whole lot, only one hundred twenty pounds soaking wet. As carefully as he could, he slowly starts to place his sister's body down on the concrete floor. When he lowered her lower legs to the ground, he could hear the noise of bone on bone movement. Based on the amount of swelling, he knew both her lower legs were broken.

Lowering her rib cage to the ground, he had noticed the deep black and blue bruising around her ribs and just knew that she had most of her ribs broken, but he couldn't tell the severity of the breaks. When he prepares to lower her neck to the ground, he looked down at her forearms where he saw severe swelling and deduced, they too were broken badly. Just as he placed his hands on her skull, he felt the bones of her skull shift ever so slightly. Upon feeling that he just froze in his tracks. He couldn't put her head down for fear that it would push a bone fragment into her brain, killing her instantly. He had noticed that he didn't feel any shifting of bones when he held the base of her skull near the occipital bone. Gently holding that part of his sisters head, he just screamed for Eric; "Eric, over here, she's alive get me a medic now." Eric following the sound of his bosses voice quickly found Horatio holding the victim's head in his hands. Horatio tells his brother-in-law that the victim was his half-sister and that Ryan confirmed the link. Fearing that they would lose her before they got her to the hospital, Horatio softly spoke to her and hoped it would be enough to keep her in the land of the living. "Hold on there sister, stay with me, we have too much of life to catch up on. You are the only blood family that I have left, and family is everything to me. With her head cradled in his left hand, he pulled out the penlight from his right front pocket since he needed to check her eyes response to light. His heart sank when he saw that her eyes were fixed, dilated, and unresponsive to light. He knew that that meant that his sisters brain was swelling. "Please stay with me sweetheart help is coming," he pleads with her. When the paramedics got to Horatio and his sister, she was slipping in and out or consciousness. The medics were worried about the severity of her head trauma and the fact that Horatio felt the bones of her skull shift in his hands. Going as fast as they could, the paramedics stabilized her as best as they could since Horatio refused to let go of his sister's head for fear of killing her. As the medics got ready to load her into the ambulance, Horatio forced his way onto the ambulance since he still had her skull in his hands.

Eric has known Horatio since 1997, and when he thought back, he hasn't seen his boss so scared since Eric's sister and Horatio's wife was shot. As worried about Renee survival as Eric was he couldn't imagine how his boss felt since to Eric, she was a victim, but to Horatio, this was his baby sister. Watching his boss holding his sisters head in his hands, Eric lovingly tells his brother in law that he will get the police officers at the scene to secure the scene and then meet Horatio at the hospital. All while walking beside Horatio as he ran behind the gurney holding his sisters head in his hands.

The entire drive in the ambulance Horatio held his sisters head speaking softly and often to her. It seemed to take forever to get to the hospital. Pulling into the emergency bay and jumping out of the ambulance, Horatio hears the paramedic talk to the doctor. "We have a female in her late thirties with severe physical trauma. Witness states that they felt the bones of her skull shifting, and he refused to let go of her head until he knew it wouldn't kill her. Her pupils were fixed and dilated." Horatio had recognized his sister's doctor was Alexx Woods, who was a close and trusted friend of Horatio and his team.

Running right behind the gurney with his sister Horatio pushes himself inside the emergency room. Non-medical staff isn't normally allowed in the emergency room, but since Horatio would not let go of his sister's head, the hospital had to let him in if they were going to save her life. Horatio doesn't let go of her head until the hospital took a portable x-ray of her entire skull and showed Horatio that Renee's Occipital bone was not broken but it did have a stress fracture, so he had to be careful when he placed her head on the table. As soon as he placed her head on the table, Horatio was pushed rather forcefully out of the emergency room. He was finally able to check in on his team and see if they found anything at the warehouse. He was going to have to trust Eric and his team to take care of the case without him. He just found out that he had a little sister, and he wasn't willing to leave her for anything.

Eric closed the ambulance doors and quickly spoke to the police officers and rushed to the hospital to be with Horatio in this hour of fear. Before the ambulance left the crime scene, Eric told his brother and boss that he would meet them at the hospital since Horatio was going with his sister in the ambulance to the hospital. As Horatio watched his sister be wheeled into the trauma room of the hospital, he was left alone. He could only pace the length of the emergency room hall going back and forth, almost wearing a path into the tile flooring. It took Eric close to half an hour to get to the hospital, and by that time, Horatio was driving the nurses insane with his unending pacing.

Walking through the hospitals revolving doors into the waiting room, Eric was startled to see Horatio almost as white as a ghost. By the time the doctors came out of the surgery suite, it had been close to twelve hours. The surgeons needed to stabilize Renee's skull without putting unnecessary pressure on her brains swelling as well as put pins and plates in her broken forearms and lower legs, stabilize her broken ribs and a fractured spine. They had to repair a lot of broken bones in her small body since Renee's Temporal, Sphenoid, Parietal, and Frontal bones were all completely shattered. Her nasal bones and jawbone were broken into half a dozen pieces each.

When Horatio saw Eric relief floods his face. Horatio was very grateful to his brother that he wasn't alone. Eric begged Horatio to sit and wait with him, but Horatio couldn't do it, he couldn't sit still. When the surgeon finally came out to talk to the pair, Horatio was as white as a sheet and a nervous wreck. Seeing the surgeon walking through the door, Horatio runs to him with anticipation of the news. Before the surgeon could talk, Horatio begs him for any good news.
"Well, she survived the surgery, but she is by no means out of the woods. The only reason she's alive is the severity of her beating. Her entire skull was shattered, so when her brain swelled her skull just expanded with it. She was beaten very badly and broke a lot of bones. Follow me, and I will take you into a consultation room to show you her X-rays," her surgeon told Horatio and Eric.

The two quietly walked behind the surgeon into a quiet room away from the noise of the waiting room. When the surgeon turned on the X-rays light, Horatio and Eric were horrified by the sheer number of breaks that Renee survived receiving. All of her ribs were broken some in multiple places as well as the tibia and fibula of both legs and the radius and ulna of both forearms. Her cheekbones and both eye sockets were shattered as well as fracturing two vertebrae in her spine. "Both of her shoulders were dislocated, and she was currently in surgery to repair the broken bones or her arms and legs as well as to secure her shoulders and make sure they don't get dislocated again," the surgeon finished talking to the pair. Before the surgeon leaves the room, he tells them, "when she is out of surgery and settled into her recovery room, we will allow you to see her and spend some time with her."
When Horatio saw her X-rays and found out the extent of her injuries, he said to himself, "my God they tortured her, and apparently she didn't tell them the information that they wanted, or they would have killed her outright." Punching a hole in the hospital wall, he quietly allowed a bit of pride for her. She was a Caine, like her brothers she would not go quietly since they were all fighters and she could not be broken. He was pissed that they tortured her and even more driven to find her attackers and make them pay dearly. Nobody hurts his family and gets away with it.

The next time that Horatio saw his sister, she was intubated and connected to a ventilator. Renee's head was wrapped up in gauze to protect the incisions in her skull. If Horatio didn't know any better, he would not have recognized his baby sister since she had been beaten beyond recognition. Walking inside of her recovery room, Horatio stopped in his tracks. She was lying there on her bed with tubes in her since the doctors had put her on life support. The doctors don't usually use drugs like Pentobarbital to force a coma on a patient, but Renee's injuries, the doctors felt compelled to put her in a coma. They thought that they needed to allow her body to focus on healing and not on keeping her alive.

Renee's surgery to stabilize her skull lasted six hours during which the surgeon placed a small metal plate and screws to stabilize her Occipital bone's stress fracture. Renee's heart stopped twice during the six hours she was under anesthesia. When her heart stopped for the first time, the medical staff was able to restart it fairly quickly, but the doctors and nurses tried to restart her heart for quite a while the second time her heart stopped. Renee didn't respond when they shocked her heart at 200... 300... or even 350 joules, but as a last-ditch effort, one of the doctors set the defibrillator to 360 joules. This time they saw a single beat on her heart monitor. The whole surgical team in her surgery suite waited with bated breath to see if that meant that they got her heart beating again. When her heart beat again then again, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief that they got her back. Horatio had only left the hospital a few days before when Piper's dad got back. Today he was back this time for family. Horatio was not ever going to leave her now that he knew she was his baby sister.

By this time Calleigh had dropped Austin and Patty off at school. When she arrives at the lab, she finds out that Horatio had a sister that he didn't know about and that she was attacked. Eric had called her and confessed that he already knew about it, but Horatio didn't want Eric telling her. He didn't want Calleigh to worry since Horatio knew that if she knew about the attack, she would rush over to help. Calleigh called her boss to find out if he needed anything to which Horatio tells her about his sister and tells Calleigh to talk to Dave about going to his sister's house and checking in on his sister's dogs.

Dave gave Calleigh the instructions as to how to unlock the panic room and where it was. Before giving her an audio recording with a voice message and a password to open it. The panic room was simple enough to get open with Renee's detailed instructions.

Echo herself came bounding out to greet this new person. She was a gorgeous young dog. Calleigh being a native of Louisiana recognized the breed immediately. Echo was a Catahoula Leopard dog which is the state dog of Louisiana crossed with a Rhodesian Ridgeback. Echo had the characteristic blue, brown spots of the Catahoula and the ridge of hair growing in the opposite direction on her back of the Ridgeback. Slowly another dog came out from the room since she was an older dog. "Charlie" was scrawled on the beautiful mahogany colored hand-tooled leather collar.
Horatio had asked Calleigh specifically to bring Echo directly to the hospital since he knew that his sister would want to see her partner as soon as she woke up. Having cleared Echo's arrival with the hospital staff was easy since she was a working police dog and was not considered a pet. As Calleigh walks Echo into the waiting room, the dog carefully smells Horatio and picks up the scent of family, sitting perfectly at his feet. Echo was trained to only listen to family, and she immediately obeyed Horatio when he told her to jump up on the chair next to him. While at the hospital, Calleigh volunteered to watch Charlie, Renee's retired Customs dog since she recently adopted the chocolate lab and Chihuahua that were part of the case that almost killed Horatio when he accidentally overdosed on Fentanyl. Charlie was close to 11 years old, and she was a beautiful black Belgian Malinois.

Echo was cross-trained on all facets of police work, including drugs, firearms, explosives, search and rescue, cadaver, human trafficking, arson, patrol, and apprehension. There was no dog was better at the work that she did since they caught 99.9% of illegal activity that they came across in their sector. Drug cartels and terrorists alike wanted the two of them out of the way.
There were two crime scenes. The primary crime scene was Renee's house. The house looked trashed with broken picture frames and shattered lamps along with destroyed furniture, and bullet holes in the walls. The evidence showed definite signs of a struggle with blood all over. Calleigh and Eric took swabs of every blood stain in the house. The team was hoping that some of the blood was of one of her attackers. Some of the blood was on the shattered glass of a coffee table.
With Horatio at the hospital, the team needed to follow the evidence through to the end. Natalia the teams DNA expert analyzed the blood evidence at both the warehouse and the household. Ryan ran the trace evidence at the scenes, and Eric ran point. Walter was the teams go between the lab and Horatio at the hospital keeping him up to date on any new development with the case. Calleigh was responsible for the ballistic evidence. The ballistics were mostly at Renee's house, and they were all over. In the living room near the bookcase was a slug in the wall with blood spray all around it. It was of high velocity, so Calleigh was able to determine that it came from a through and through gunshot wound since the bullet was in the middle of the splatter. Along the opposite side of the room was the dead body of one of Renee's attackers. He was hit in the chest, and it was not a through, and through so Calleigh would have to wait until Dr. Tom Loman removed it during the man's autopsy. Calleigh was able to see that Renee was shot with a 9MM. Half-way to the kitchen down the hallway from the living room was a single bullet hole in the wall surrounded by high-velocity blood splatter. There was a bullet hole but no bullet. Calleigh thought to herself that whoever it was that Renee shot took out the bullet and must have taken it with them.

The trace evidence that Ryan processed showed that Renee did not go quietly and fought like hell to not be taken. Ryan identified several locations in her house where a severe altercation took place. Ryan identified some glass that was found inside the dead attacker as coming from the shattered coffee table in the living room from when Renee threw one the attackers into the coffee table smashing it. Calleigh was able to determine that the gun found on the dead man did not shot Renee. She was hit with a Smith and Weston 9MM and the gun found on him as a Glock 30. One of the sites was where she was shot by an unknown assailant. When she was shot, Renee went down but forced herself back on her feet to keep fighting. Her attackers finally overwhelmed her by tasing her with a Taser. Dr. Loman was able to remove the slug that killed the attacker at Renee's house. He was shot with Renee's SIG Sauer
P-226. The SIG Sauer P-226 can fire four different types of bullets with conversions; a 9MM, .40 Smith and Wesson, a .357, and a .22 long rifle, but Renee used .357's. Several of the bullets pulled from her walls were also traced back to her Sig. The team just needed to name the person who shot the gun that went through Renee's shoulder and into her wall. The dead one of the attackers never got a shot off since she killed him before he could even clear the holster.

Horatio has Ryan leak to the media that Renee had died. Horatio knew that if they believed that she survived they would try again, and this time they might not be able to save her. He wasn't willing to lose her now that he found had Renee put into protective custody, and then she had an armed guard outside her room plus Horatio with his SIG Sauer.

When the media was made aware of what took place, they tried to paint the story, so Horatio looked responsible. They brought up the fact that he is connected with several people close to him getting either shot or killed. First his brother then his coworkers Speedle then Eric, his wife was even shot and killed the day she married him now a sister is assaulted and killed. Horatio has to be cursed or something. They would have a point except that nobody knew Horatio and Renee were related until she was assaulted. "Local police K-9 handler killed in home invasion turned kidnapping. Her brother Lieutenant Horatio Caine is familiar with shootings. First his brother then his wife now his sister," was the news networks tagline.

Echo and Horatio by now have become very much like family. Whenever Horatio was asleep in Renee's hospital room Echo would stand guard and protect both her partner and now her partner's brother. Dogs have a sense of smell many times stronger than man; they can pick up on odors that most man-made equipment can miss. This is why Echo was able to pick up on the fact that her partner was related to this new person that Echo had never met. Horatio could not quite understand it, but he trusted the dog more than he trusted his senses. Echo, and he had a mutual understanding and trust with each other. That trust is why Horatio knew something was off about the new member of Renee's protective custody detail when Echo let out an almost inaudible growl. So quiet someone else might have overlooked it.

Horatio had never met this new officer before. Echo lifted her head and jumped off Renee's bed in a blink of an eye. She ran to the doorway and wouldn't let this new person enter. Horatio was surprised that this ordinarily quiet and sweet dog would be able to let out an almost primitive wolf-like snarl.

Now Echo was an active duty police dog, but when she didn't have her vest and badge on, she was just the dog next door. Echo would let just about everyone else come in the room with only a silent head lift, but this person was different.

Horatio told this new person to stand back and do not enter, or Horatio would let Echo take him out. The new officer froze in his tracks. Horatio needed to have Ryan run this young person's information and make sure that he is who he says he is. Ryan quickly confirmed that this officer was NOT who he said he was. Ryan told Horatio that the officer who's ID and badge he was looking at was found shot dead in his house a few hours before. When he heard this Horatio wordlessly pulled his Sig Sauer out and let go of a snarling Echo. Horatio quickly told her to let go of this suspect, but he wanted the dog to know that she was right and therefore she was a good girl. The suspect was very fast to flip on his boss when Horatio threatens to let Echo loose again. The two people sat quietly, waiting for H's team to get there to take the suspect into custody. Echo sat opposite the person and just stared at the suspect. Eric came very quickly to get the person back to the police station. Eric found himself laughing quietly when the suspect begged him to keep that beast away from him when Eric knew that Echo wasn't anything like a beast.

After roughly two months being in a medically induced coma and with daily MRI's that checked her brain swelling until her doctors finally saw enough swelling reduction they felt comfortable slowly weaning her off the drugs keeping her in the coma. They took a week to wean her off the drugs; it was soon up to her when and if she woke up since there wasn't anything keeping her in her coma.

Horatio could only wait and trust that she would choose to wake up. There wasn't anything that he wanted more than to hug his long lost sister and help her heal. Echo was there all the time, but besides her, Horatio was alone in the hospital. Eric and the team would come by often and keep him company, but they would leave since they all had a family away from the team but all of Horatio's family and all of Renee's family were dead except for her dogs, and one of them was there at the hospital with him at all times.

Horatio spent all day every day sitting in a chair that the nurses had brought him on Renee's left side by his sister's bedside. It was no surprise that he found himself falling asleep with his head on the side of her bed. After about two hours of him sleeping on her bed, he felt someone touch the left side of his face. Who could have done that since he was the only person not in a coma in the room? Looking around the room, it took a few minutes of scanning the room for Horatio to realize that he was not the only person awake in the room anymore. Just as it dawned on him that she was awake, he felt her squeeze his hand. He had fallen asleep holding her left hand firmly and lovingly in his left hand. Renee smiled softly at her brother, her icy blue eyes met his ocean blue eyes, and they just smiled at each other.
"You're awake," he told her. "I know somebody else who is going to be happy to see you're awake." Before he could call her, Echo jumped back up on Renee's bed. Echo was sleeping on the floor for a change that particular morning. Echo was beside herself with infectious joy. Horatio found himself smiling and laughing before he could stop himself. When his sister attempted to talk, Horatio stopped her, "Shhh... don't speak until the doctor came in and check you, sweetheart." He then, without another word, pressed the nurse call button.

The doctors quickly came into the room and were surprised to see her awake and attempting to talk. They didn't think that she would be so aware.
Finally, after two and a half months, the two long lost siblings can talk. There was so much to say and so many questions unanswered. The most important question as far as Horatio was considered with was, "What happened?" Horatio asked his half-sister.

Now Renee completely understood why he was asking that vital question first. Catching up can wait until they solve her attack. She answered his question as quickly and concise as she could. With Echo curled up next to her on the hospital bed, she started to explain everything that happened to her in a whispery voice.
"Before I say anything between us, please call me Nae, my mom always called me Nae. Now that we have that out of the way, I had barely put the dogs in the panic room for the night when I heard something in the living room. I drew my service pistol and proceeded to investigate. I had just announced I was MDPD when I felt somebody grab me from behind. I back up quickly, slamming the attacker into the wall. Whoever it was they let go because I knocked the wind out of them. I pick up my dropped pistol and spin round to see another person come to the defense of the first person. I pull the trigger but miss him. The first person manages to get behind me again, and the second one tries to grab me from the front as well. This time I managed to hurl the first one over my shoulders and through the glass coffee table. He's knocked out for a little while. The second guy rushes me, but I shoot him in the shoulder. The first guy gets up, and I managed to shoot him in the heart. The second guy shoots me in the shoulder. I go down but force myself back up. I'm standing facing the second guy, but I suddenly experience a burning in my side, and I hit the floor out cold. I must have missed someone. I wake up tied and hanging from the ceiling of some warehouse. The people that attacked me kept asking me the same question over and over again. They wanted me to tell them where Echo and Charlie were. They kept saying that the price on my head was less than half the price on each of my partners were. I would sooner die than tell them where the dogs were but I was fighting to stay conscious. They hit me with a metal pipe breaking my arm then ask that question once more. I wouldn't answer so they broke the other arm still I wouldn't answer. They broke both my legs since I heard the snaps, they then bust all my ribs asking me that same question. In a rage, they start beating me in the head. I hurt everywhere. I never caved in I resisted their torture. I remember you coming in. I remember you talking to me, and the next thing I know, I open my eyes to see you sleeping soundly with your head on my bed." She completed her testimony with, "I know I could pick the two I saw from a lineup." Renee was not able to remain awake very long after she talked to Horatio. Waking up from a coma and giving her testimony was too much and she very quickly fell asleep rolling over to her left side.

Renee slept peacefully all through that first night that she was awake with her brother trying to comfort her in the only way that he knew how. When he started to rub her back softly, he felt long, deep scars from the base of her neck to the small of her back. Gently lifting the back of her hospital gown, he was shocked to see deep and massive scar tissue covering her whole back. He couldn't imagine what could have caused such deep tissue damage on his baby sister. When the nurse came in to check her vital Horatio pointed out the scars and asked her if she knew what happened to his sister. The nurse told him that she would send in the doctor to talk to Horatio and see if they could figure out what happened and if there was anything that they could do to relieve any discomfort or pain with his sister.

"Renee had full-thickness chemical or acid burns that went all the way down through her nerves. She couldn't feel anything on her back. All the nerves on her back are dead. Renee feels no pain from her back with that being said she could be shot in her back and she would not know so you need to keep an eye on her and tell the staff if he notices anything new on her back", is what her doctor told an anxious Horatio.

His baby sister had been tortured before with scars as deep and old as these were. Part of him didn't want to know what happened to her, but an even bigger part of him desperately wanted to make it all go away. Wishing he could erase all the trauma that she had gone through. "Nobody should have been through what she had to go through," he told himself. He sat on the edge of her bed and watched his sister sleep quietly, thinking to himself. Horatio was beyond angry upon discovering what happened, but he was also impressed with how strong she was. As soon as she woke up in the morning, he reassured her that Charlie was okay and safe as well as that Echo never left her side for very long the whole time that Renee was unconscious.

The doctors come in to speak to Renee about the severity of her head trauma. Her skull was permanently shattered by the beating she got through. The doctors had allowed the swelling to go down and they had hoped that her skull would heal but no such fate. Some of the bone fragments of her skull were dying. She needed to have most of her skull replaced with metal plates. They wanted to wait and see if she would ever wake up before they put the plates in her head. With her now awake, it was apparent that she is a fighter and is going to survive, so the doctors wanted to put the plates and pins in her skull.

Renee's skull reconstruction surgery was a long one. In essence, the surgeon had to put two large plates in her skull and remove the bone fragments of her shattered skull. The crown of her head, both cheekbones, and both eye sockets were salvageable with plates to stabilize the bones, but the sides of her skull all of the way around it were beyond repair. Her cheekbones and eye sockets healed on their own as well as her shattered nose. When she came out of surgery, Horatio had Calleigh bring Charlie to the hospital so that the dog could reunite with her partner and his sister. Echo and Charlie were both just thrilled to greet their mom finally. Calleigh told Renee softly, "Don't worry sweetie, I will keep Charlie safe with me until you are back on your feet and ready to take her. But Horatio will probably want you to go stay with him until everything dies down and we catch the people who put a price on your head and the dogs head."

With physical therapy and her brothers help, Renee was on her feet relatively fast after she woke up. She was still at the hospital and was sitting up on her own. Horatio team still had a crime to solve since they had hit roadblocks, and the case went a little cold. While Renee was now awake and able to talk, the team had renewed hope to reignite the case. They had hoped that Renee could give a detailed description of the suspects that attacked her. When Renee told the team that she would be able to describe her attackers accurately to the police sketch artist, the team was more than thrilled.

When the sketch artist was sitting with Renee and drawing what her attackers looked like Horatio thought that one of them seemed very familiar to him, she was able to describe the two people that beat her, and one of them was the person who had shot her. Eric put the sketches of the suspects into the system for facial recognition. Horatio was not surprised by the results of one of them.

The one that shot Renee was the leader of the group of assailants. He was very familiar to the team since they have been trying to nail him for murder, assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder for quite a while. The team arrested him multiple times, but they never had enough to nail him with until now. This time he attacked the wrong person and made this case more personal to Horatio than any other case. Horatio tries not to let cases become personal, but in this case, he couldn't keep it from being personal. Nothing was going to stop him from solving this case.
The sketches of her attackers were shown to the news media in the hopes that the general public would be able to find her attackers. The team could wait and hope that someone called in a tip to the hotline.

With a start, Renee sat bolt upright when she remembered that at her house she had installed security cameras and had already turned them on for the night before she was attacked. The cameras would have caught it all on camera, and this could provide the team with some added detail and maybe identify some missing forensic evidence that they might have missed. Renee told her brother about the surveillance cameras she had put in a few weeks before she was attacked. Horatio said to his sister that the attackers shot the outside surveillance cameras before they made their entry, but she insisted. "You don't understand I installed hidden cameras inside the light fixtures. Equipped with low light resolution and night vision." Calleigh had Dave accompany her back to the house to have access to Renee's hidden cameras. It was a closed circuit system, so Dave needed to be at the house to get the footage. When Dave got his hands on the footage, he did indeed see the entire assault. Unfortunately, the footage was in night vision, which is all green. He wasn't sure he could get anything usable for the case.

With Renee medically able to walk but needing assistance and physical therapy to do it, Horatio insisted that she and the dogs moved in with him so he could help. She was very reluctant to do that but ultimately relented and agreed on the condition that he did not let her interfere with his work. When Horatio realized that he would never win the argument, he accepted her counteroffer. Renee was powerful in all aspects of the word. She didn't let her physical limitations stop her from doing as much for herself as she could; however, she did overdo it on occasion. The physical therapist would come over to the house every other day and give her exercises to strengthen her legs, but Renee's real motivation to get better was Charlie and Echo. Her dogs needed her there. They required her leadership to thrive.
To kill time, Renee started to teach Echo how to find and alert to forensic evidence. With her brothers help, she got Echo alerting to shell casings as well as finding evidence that would link a victim to the suspect. Echo's nose could detect amounts of blood and other trace evidence that no human could. Amounts so small only a microscope would be able to find. Soon she was alerting to 99% of the evidence that Horatio's team would set up on mock trials.
Renee wanted to thank Horatio for helping her through all of it and for being there for a person he never met who ended up being a long lost sister. She was going to get in contact with Echo's breeder in Louisiana and acquire a puppy to donate to the CSI team. She would personally train the dog to do all aspects of the work the team would need.

When she called the breeder, he told her that he had a little boy who had all the makings of a working dog. The breeder told Renee that the puppy was a little boy version of Echo. As soon as she heard that Renee agreed to buy the pup but when the breeder heard about what happened to her and why she wanted the puppy even though she still had many working years left with Echo he told her that he would not sell the puppy but would instead donate the puppy to the MDPD for use as a forensic evidence detection canine. After hearing that Renee was filled with gratitude and told him to thank you very much for your generosity. This gift would have to wait for a while since the pup was only about a month old, and Renee still needed to get well enough to be able to walk on her own without any assistance. They also needed to solve her attack.

Horatio was starting to get discouraged by the lack of forward momentum in the case. Renee, however, had a perpetually optimistic personality that very much matched Calleigh's personality. The two were becoming good friends. Renee would tell Horatio that they would get a lead soon and sure enough, the team got an anonymous call identifying a group of Serbian mercenaries who were bragging at a local bar about attacking a police officer and beating her to death when the cop wouldn't give up her partners location. This led to an entirely different predicament. This meant that even if they catch the mercenaries, they still won't give up the person who hired them since they didn't know who hired them. They were just hired, hitmen. The new development meant that the case just got a whole lot more complicated.

The anonymous caller did tell the tip line the bar that the mercenaries were bragging. Horatio and the team were all too familiar with this particular bar. Having busted several drug dealers dealing out of the bar. They couldn't just burst through the door and demand answers; they needed both a warrant and a lot of reinforcements. Reinforcements were easy enough for Tripp to get since Renee was a cop and cops take care of their own. The team didn't think that they had solid enough evidence to get a warrant, however. They needed more than an anonymous tip to who they were. The team required evidence that pointed to the attackers' identity.

When Renee told the team that she had shot one of the attackers and that she had trained Echo to alert to DNA evidence Horatio got a genius idea. He wanted to take Echo back and see if she could find some DNA evidence that they might have missed which would hopefully be the through and through bullet from the attacker that Renee had shot. He was hopeful since Renee loaded her gun every night and her DNA would be on the bullet as well as the DNA of the person that she had shot. He needed Renee's help to tell him how to ask the dog to search.

Renee had already taught the dog to listen to Horatio while she was recuperating at her brother's house. This would be a test to see if Horatio and Echo could work together to solve a case. With a few hours left of daylight, Renee handed Horatio a bullet from her gun inside an evidence bag and told him to take Echo to her house where he was instructed to have Echo take a good sniff with the command, "Seek." This would send Echo smelling around until she hopefully located the missing spent bullet. Horatio hoped that Ryan would be able to find usable DNA from the person who was shot as well as Renee's fingerprints since she loaded her gun.

Horatio's idea turned out to be pure genius. Within minutes of being at her house and with a scent to alert to Echo performed just as Horatio had hoped. She was able to pinpoint the exact location of the bullet ten times faster than any of Horatio's lab equipment would have been able to do it. The slug had somehow rolled into the heater vent on the other side of the room. The DNA that Ryan was able to get from the bullet that Renee had fired through the shoulder of one of her attackers matched the person that the anonymous tip had identified as one of the attackers.

This new evidence was able to secure Horatio the search warrant that the team needed to search the bar and the entire property since the suspect was reported to live in a trailer at the back of the property. Horatio wasn't expecting to find the suspect at the trailer but when the team approached it someone opened fire on the team. Thankfully whoever it was that was shooting at them missed. Horatio signaled to Eric that he was going to sneak around the back of the trailer and Horatio needed Eric to provide a distraction so Horatio could flank the suspect. Eric gave his brother cover fire to allow H to approach without fear of getting shot. Horatio got behind the shooter and kicked in the back door taking the shooter by surprise. "Put your weapon down and put your hands up," Horatio tells the shooter. This was immediately followed by a, "Don't do it... don't do…" Horatio was forced to shoot their only lead when the suspect attempted to shoot H and make a run for it.

Instantly Eric busts in the trailer hoping that it was Horatio who fired the gun and was not the one shot.

Horatio looks up at his brother before saying, "Why do they never listen."

After Natalia ran the suspect through CODIS, the team got some unsuspected news.
The person that Horatio shot was not who they thought he was. This person was one of the people who attempted to grab Renee, but he was not the person who had shot her and was therefore not the leader of the group. Now it was two down and one to go since the person Horatio had arrested at the hospital was not one of her attackers but was rather someone the leader had hired to clean up the mess. This case was not going to be an easy one to solve.

Walter was getting a little tired of going back and forth between the hospital and the crime lab, so Ryan took over being the team's go-between. Horatio understood and he did miss his co-workers but Eric was the one that Horatio missed the most was the team's leader while Horatio was out of commission. He trusted his team implicitly he would rather be at the lab, but he would never leave his baby sister at the hospital alone. They were all each other had. Ryan had called Horatio to see if his sister was awake enough to look at some photos and try to ID her attackers from the warehouse and her house. They wanted to find out if her attackers at both scenes were the same or if they were different.

When Renee looked at the photo array that Ryan gave her, she inadvertently held her breath. Horatio asked his sister if she recognized someone in the array. Without a word, she nodded yes. She was pointing out the person that the team had attempted to apprehend the night before at the trailer as her shooter. She also pointed out someone else that was not yet on the team's radar as one of her attackers at the warehouse. Renee told her brother that this person she remembered trying to get her to tell them where the dogs were at the warehouse. She had two people who were trying to get her to tell them where her canine partners were being held. She, however, would not say and her interrogators were getting very angry that they could not break her. Her interrogators, however, didn't know that she was a former Marine and she was trained to withstand even the worst type of torture. There was no way that these people would be able to get her to talk. Quietly she motioned to her brother that she wanted to tell him something that she didn't want Ryan to hear about. Horatio got close to her as she whispered in his ear. "That is the actual leader of the group," she said as she pointed to the second person, the one that was not yet on the team's radar. "He was the person asking me the question as to where Echo and Charlie were the other guys would hit me when he told them to and only if he told them where to hit me." Horatio was a little confused as to why would she whisper this? Why would she not want Ryan to hear the information?

When Horatio noticed who she was pointing to the rage began to rise in him. This person had a vendetta against Horatio and was involved in both terrorism and drug smuggling. Horatio and his team have been picking at this mans organization for years trying to get him off a multitude of crimes but this person's subordinates routinely falsely confess to the crime effectively keeping their boss out of jail. This was the evidence that Horatio and his team have been praying for. They finally had enough evidence to nail him. They knew that Renee would be more than glad to testify against this person and that she would not be intimidated by anyone. She was just like her brother Horatio, not easily scared off of doing what is right.

Watching his kid sister sleeping peacefully Horatio thought to himself, "God she reminds me so much of myself. If I had only known she was my sister, she would have never been alone." He was quietly kicking himself for something that in no way was his fault.

Eric and the team were making headway but not as much as Horatio would have liked. Walter had an epiphany, the rest of the team had hit a dead end, so Walter realized that they just needed to follow the money if the suspects were not talking. Eric and Tripp had rounded up the bar patrons that knew who it was that were bragging about killing a cop. The suspects, however, could neither confirm nor deny they knew who it was that hired them to kill Renee and the dogs. The mercs were really after the dogs since the price on their heads was much higher than the price on her head. Since she was never going to give the dogs up, they just lost it and beat her to "death." They however really wanted the dogs too. Horatio was sure that the attackers were still after the dogs.

With Renee's permission, Horatio wanted to use the dogs as bait. Renee was not too sure about using her partners as bait to get the mercs, but they were running out of ideas, so she relented. Horatio was going to use the dogs to draw out the people who wanted her dead. Dave, the teams A.V guy went onto the dark web and responded to the price on the dogs head. "I know where the dogs are, I'll give you them for a price," was the message that he put up on the website. Renee was not thrilled about not being there to watch her dogs backs and protect them. She was going to have to trust this team that she didn't know. She trusted her brother with her life but was not sure about the others.

Before the undercover operation, Horatio pulled Renee aside and reassured her that the dogs would be in his vision the whole time. He knew how much she loved her canine partners and the length she would go to protect them.

Since was Renee was still predominantly resigned to a wheelchair and that the bad guys still thought that she was dead going with the team was out of the question. Renee was putting every ounce of trust that she had in a team of people that she had no reason to trust. The simple truth is that her brother trusted them and would have to be enough for her.

Horatio needed someone undercover to go as the seller. The only person to come to mind was Jake Berkeley. Jake was Calleigh's ex-boyfriend and an MDPD undercover cop who had worked with Horatio's team successfully one several occasions.

Horatio got Jake's location from his commanding officer and did a mock raid on the location. As soon as Jake saw it was Horatio he had to get separated from his group and be taken back under arrest so the people he was with wouldn't know he was undercover. To do this, he took a swing at Horatio. H knew what Jake was attempting to do and arrested him for assaulting a police officer. Once at the precinct, Jake was free to talk. When Horatio filled him in on the job he had to do Jake was all in. He knew Renee from his last undercover gig when he helped her bust a drug gang smuggling cocaine.

Renee and Echo were working a joint undercover operation with VICE. Jake was the undercover officer planted deep in a drug cartel's network. Renee and Echo were the officers who busted Jake and the crew. In fact Echo had saved Jake during the operation when the cartel leader had found out that Jake was undercover. The leader was getting ready to execute Jake when Echo and Renee busted in and the dog had taken a chunk out of the cartel leader's arm. Jake felt that he owed Renee and Echo a great deal so he was more than willing to whatever was needed to save her and her canine.

The job was simple; he just had to take the dogs to a warehouse and meet with the Serbian Mercenaries. Horatio would always be within eyesight of the dogs, but that was the only way to get the bad guys who were the actual people who attempted to grab his sister and the ones who tortured her to get information on the dog's location.

With both Echo and Charlie within eyesight and Jake on com's, Horatio had all the exits in control. Tripp, with the help of his most trusted MDPD officers, had the entire perimeter in lockdown. There was only one way in and out because Horatio was not going to put his sister Renee's canine partners Echo and Charlie at risk. Renee was living at Horatio's house while she recovered from her violent beating and attack so Horatio promised to call home as soon as the operation was complete so she wouldn't worry.

The Mercenaries drove up in a late model Black Ford Bronco. When all four doors open and five people get out Horatio was taken off guard. With two mercenaries already dead it brought the total involved to seven. Through the coms, Horatio tells the group of officers standing by to focus on the driver since he is probably the group's leader. The entire team of Horatio was waiting for Jake to receive the money but before he handed the dogs over to the Serbs. The instant that Jake had the money Horatio in his police issue hummer drive up with the lights on but the sirens off so the Serbs wouldn't hear them.

Stepping out of the Hummer, Horatio pulls out his Sig Sauer aiming it at the leader before telling him, "Put the weapon down and place your hands behind your head, don't move." To his complete surprise, the Serbian Mercenaries all dropped their weapons and came in quietly. Horatio was expecting them to get into a shootout. When they did not, he was able to breathe a sigh of relief as he called his sister to tell her that they had taken the mercenaries into custody without a single shot.
Simply having the mercenaries in custody didn't mean that they would be willing and able to talk. The leader of the group David Kolcheck was no stranger to Horatio and his team. When he saw that it was Horatio, he responded very directly to him. "Lieutenant Caine, to what do I owe the pleasure." "We have evidence that connects you to the brutal attack and murder of an MDPD canine handler," is how Horatio responded. When David asked a very cold question to Horatio, it took all of his strength to remain calm and not lash out at David. "What do you care about it, you would think that she was your actual family the way you are going on about her."

Without thinking, Horatio heard himself respond with, "She's my baby sister you son of a bitch." He didn't mean for the information to slip, but it did, and there was no way to take it back. "You killed my sister, and you are going to pay."

David demanded his lawyer, so all questions stopped. Horatio stepped out of the room he didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize the case and get David Kolcheck released.

As Horatio and his team go over the evidence making sure to cross all the T's and dot all their I's they realize that David's lawyer might be able to argue away some of the evidence but not all of it.

Ryan found Renee's DNA on David's watch, and at the bottom of his boots. He had walked through her blood at the secondary scene. A shell casing from the attack at her house was found embedded in his shoe tread. His fingerprints and blood were found on and in the gun found on the dead body at Renee's house. The final piece of evidence was that the team found David Kolcheck attempting to buy the police dogs from an undercover police officer.

No matter how much it killed Horatio, he was willing to give Kolcheck a deal for the person who had hired him to kill his sister as well as her canine partners. Horatio was willing to take the lethal injection of the table since Kolcheck was facing the death penalty for killing a cop. Horatio never told Kolcheck that the cop he was being charged with was NOT Renee but rather a different cop from a few years before since David's DNA matched DNA from a case that was closed when his subordinate confessed to the crime that Kolcheck had committed.

One of the mercenaries were very quick to turn on David Kolcheck. He was only hired to help get information from Renee. Charles Canaan confessed to being the one who held the rope when they were using electrocution on Renee to get her to tell them where the dogs were. Before then get to the electrocution stage, they tried "truth serum," which she only gave vague answers. When they asked her where the dogs were, she answered, "they are somewhere safe," We asked again, and she said, "They are locked away where they are supposed to be." "We weren't getting anywhere with the serum. So we tried electrocution, but again she would not tell us what we wanted to know. When we tried to take her off the wire and attempt something else, she slipped and fell about 25 feet. I was quite scared that she was dead until I heard her moan in pain. We then hung her by her wrists and attempted to get her to tell us where the dogs were. The price on her head was $500,000 dead or alive, but the price on the dog's heads were $1,000,000 each alive. We wanted the two million for the dogs, not just half a million for her. Kolcheck never told us that she was a cop, but I never asked because I needed the money. I'm so sorry. If you need me to, I will testify, and you don't need to offer me a deal." This was a valuable weapon to keep in his back pocket for Horatio.

When Renee was in the hospital, she was so drugged up with pain killers; she didn't have any dreams. Now that she was at home in Horatio's house, she was starting to have nightmares. Nothing too bad but she would wake up in a sweat or twitch herself awake. Over time, however, the dreams got worse and worse. She was too stubborn to talk about them with her brother even though Horatio repeatedly asked her about her dreams. Eventually, her dreams got away from her when she had a terrifying flashback to her assault when early one morning Renee was slowly shuffling barefooted through the carpeted hall into the kitchen when she reached out and touched the refrigerator door giving herself a good static charge. That little jolt sent her into a flashback. She was tied up somewhere in a warehouse. She didn't recognize where she was, but she was hanging over a large pool of water. Someone somewhere was talking to her, but she couldn't understand what they were saying. She felt a shock of electricity it hurt so bad. She wasn't aware she was making any noise but she was yelling with a blood-curdling scream because Horatio who was still asleep at the time and the dogs came running to where she was. Renee was in a deep trance, so she never heard them come. Horatio was very frightened by the noise he heard and reached out to touch her to bring her back to reality. The way that she responded was shocking.

When Horatio reaches out to touch his sisters arm, she spins wildly around fists flying. In her horror driven trance, she makes contact with her brothers face. He doesn't move away but rather brings her into an embrace. Holding her close and allowing her to fight as long as she needed without hurting herself or him. After about three minutes of her fighting, she collapsed sobbing in her brother's loving embrace. It took a good ten minutes of her crying for her to be able to say anything. Between the sobs, she managed to tell her brother what she just went through in the painful flashback. This new memory sent Horatio and the team back to the warehouse to find this new crime scene that they had no idea about.

When Eric found the new crime scene, he was shocked by what he saw. There deep inside the warehouse was a water tank with a wench that was supposed to be used to move large crates of fish was attached to a metal chair. Eric found an exposed live wire making the water and chair electrified. No one could get near the tank with the power still on. Calling the electric company to cut the power off was a quick phone call but took about ten minutes to do. Once the power was out, Eric and the rest of the team were able to get to the new scene.

Putting the scenes together revealed a whole new timeline of events. First, Renee was attacked in her house and abducted against her will. Then her assailants tied her to a chair and electrocuted her to get information from her. When that didn't work, they went more hands-on, taking her to a different area of the warehouse to beat the answer out of her. Unfortunately for them Horatio and the police force were approaching with their sirens on so the assailants fled through a trap door that the police never found. How they got out of the warehouse was not important enough for the team to spend any time figuring it out yet.

When Renee had her flashback, she remembered that after she was questioned with electrocution, her attackers accidentally dropped her onto the ground. She remembered falling through the air, and she remembered hitting the ground hard. Renee told her brother about the memory elaborating with "I remember hearing a loud snap of what she thinks was her vertebrae breaking. Horatio was again shocked by what his little sister had gone through. He was very angry and eager to catch whoever it was that had tortured her. He wanted someone to pay of doing that to his baby sister and someone that over the last two and half months has grown to love and admire for her strength, tenacity, and sheer will.

While she was lying unconscious and fighting for her life, Horatio had his team do a deep dive for her military and customs and border protection personnel files. What Horatio read was nothing short of incredible. Renee graduated top of her class in the Marine Academy. She didn't allow her drill sergeant to let her do anything different than any of the boys. She told them that if she graduates, she'll do it at the same level as the men. She could lift over two hundred pounds despite her only weighing 110 pounds. She could do five hundred men's push up's, and one thousand pull-ups. As well as running ten miles carrying a hundred-pound backpack in less time than the men carrying a fifty-pound backpack. She was stronger and tougher then all the boys combined. The bulk of her military records were heavily redacted though.

While with the marines she was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Navy and Marine Corps Medal, Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. Renee had a spotless record. She only left the Marine Corps when she had a price put on her head and the head of her dog. It was her second canine since the Taliban had killed her previous canine partners. When she got stateside Renee was reunited with one of the first military working dogs she trained "Charlie," who's previous handlers were killed in action. Charlie would not listen to anyone but Renee. Renee tried to match Charlie with a new handler, but she couldn't do it. So when Renee was discharged from the military Charlie was allowed to retire from the service too. The two of them then joined Customs and Border Patrol. Her record with the Border Patrol was no less impressive.

When she was on patrol, she routinely stopped every shipment of drugs, explosives, money, people, and firearms that smugglers tried to get through the border. Whether it was by sneaking under cover of night or attempting to throw the dogs off by masking the scent with gasoline or other scents, she and her canine managed to stop 99.9% of activity through her port of entry. Her record was perfect. She only left the Border Patrol when she had another price put on her head by the drug cartels in the area. Renee had transferred to the Miami Dade Police Department two years before she was attacked. She had tried to keep a low profile in Miami but was not succeeding at it. She was too good of a canine handler she was too good at her job.

If Horatio thought back, he could vaguely remember working a case with her. Ryan confirmed that they had worked a few cases together. The cases had been closed, and they got the bad guy. Both cases were missing child cases where Renee's dog had successfully tracked the missing child through the city and exposing a child trafficking ring and a kidnapped child in both cases. From what Horatio could remember, the cases were solved in record time.

Horatio started back at the lab as soon as Renee was released from the hospital. His sister only agreed to move into Horatio's house with him on the condition that he went back to work. She would never allow herself to interfere with his work. Renee knew that the city of Miami needed him just as much as she needed him. She needed her brother but would never admit it. He was more patient and supportive than she could have imagined. Always ready to help her when she needed it.
Renee, however, was a little too stubborn to accept any help. Being the Marine she was, she was doing more harm than good when it came to rehabilitation. Her physical therapist wanted her only to work the exercises for half an hour, but she was doing a full hour. She was overworking her muscles. Renee continued this behavior until she collapsed in the hall. Luckily it was when her brother was at home.

Eight weeks into her 10 weeks of mandated physical therapy Renee's body finally caught up with her overworked muscles. Her therapist had told her to do her exercises for half an hour everyday but Renee had not been listening to her doctor. Renee completely disregarded what her doctor said and would do her exercises for at least an hour everyday. Renee would overwork her body and not eat or drink. She possessed an obsessive personality and when she would hyper focus on anything she would forget to eat or drink from a very young age. This was the only time in her life that this personality quirk was actually very dangerous. Eventually her body caught up with her personality and she collapsed in Horatio's house. Luckily it happened when her brother was home with her. Renee and Horatio had just finished watching a movie in the living room when Renee got up to walk down the hall to get something from her bedroom when her legs buckled out from under her. She never had a chance to catch herself since it was at that exact moment she lost consciousness and falling back slammed the back of her head into the corner of a thin marble console table that Horatio had in the hall. Horatio had not noticed that Renee had left until he heard a very loud noise and it startled him. Looking over to where she had been sitting he had noticed that her walker was still standing there where she had left it. Seeing her walker where it was and not seeing his sister he started to panic. Rounding the corner of the bedroom hallway his heart stopped. There right in front of him and too far away from him to do anything he watched his sister fall slamming her head into his marble console table.

Rushing over to his sister's side he tried to wake her up but he was getting no response from her. Holding his sister's head in his hands he tried shaking her awake and he tried patting her cheeks too but nothing was working.

"Nae...sweetheart wake up. Come on open your eyes sweetie. Wake up Nae come on wake up," he begged his sister.

By this time Horatio realized that his hand that was holding her head was all bloody. Cautious he slowly and carefully turned her head to the side and his heart dropped because blood was already starting to pool under her head. While holding her head in his left hand Horatio reached for a penlight that he always kept in the bottom drawer of the console table he had to check her eyes response to light as a way to check for possible brain damage. Realizing that her eyes were fixed, dilated and unresponsive to light he knew he had to get her to the hospital as fast as he could and that he couldn't wait for an ambulance to get there since time was of the essence.

Fearing the worst and knowing that he could get her to the hospital faster than the ambulance could Horatio gathers her up in his arms, resting her head on his shoulder and carries her to his car. The drive to the hospital seemed to take forever. Before Horatio left his house, he laid his sister down on the passenger side of the Hummer with the seat flattened out. Quickly buckling Renee in and slammed the car door careful to keep her hands and feet clear of the closing door. Rushing around to the driver's side, he jumps in and revs the engine. Putting the portable police siren on the roof and turning it on. Horatio drove to the hospital like a bat out of hell; he just had to get to the hospital fast. Peeling out of the driveway, Horatio was thankful that he didn't park his Hummer in the garage that night.

"Nae... Nae... Sweetheart stay with me. Please stay with me, Sweetie. Come on fight Nae," Horatio pleads with his sister.

Holding her hand the entire time Horatio was driving a little recklessly, but since it was a little after midnight, the Miami side streets were relatively quiet. Driving at 70 miles an hour it only took a few minutes to get to the hospital once there he ran inside carrying his sister in his arms with her head hanging backward lifelessly grabbing the first nurse he saw.

When Horatio got to the hospital with an unconscious Renee he carefully gathers his baby sister in his arms and carries her into the emergency room. Her head was hanging backwards limply but he didn't want to waste time resting her head on his shoulder when time was of the essence and she didn't have any time to spare. Renee didn't weigh a lot for Horatio to carry only about 110 pounds and she was not tall only 5 foot 1 inch and since he was six foot nothing her tiny body was fairly light for him. With his sister in his arms he rushes into the E.R. and grabbed the first nurse that he saw.
"Help, I have a female in her late thirties she fell at home slamming her head into a marble table. When I got to her she was unresponsive with pupils that are fixed, dilated and non-responsive to light. She hasn't regained consciousness. She's an MDPD canine officer," he finished explaining to the nurse.

"Get me a gurney we need to get her into trauma room 3 stat," the nurse ordered the other medical staff.

Horatio tied desperately to stay with his sister as the emergency staff wheeled her into the trauma room but the staff stopped him. "only medical staff are allowed in the trauma room NO exception, we will come and get you when we have her stable," is what the nurses tell him.

With the doctors wheeling Renee into the emergency room Horatio himself flashed back to the night of her attack. Horatio didn't hear anything from the nurses for close to an hour. By the time a doctor came out to talk to him he was beyond nervous. Relief flooded across his face and he just prayed it was not bad news.
"What happened to her was her blood pressure was dangerously low, and her blood sugar had gotten so low she lapsed into a coma. Not to mention her head was bleeding, and her brain was swelling so they needed to put in a borehole in the back of her head. She had broken her Occipital bone when she hit her head on the console table," is what the doctor told Horatio.

While the doctor was telling Horatio what happened to his sister, a nurse came up and whispered something in the doctor's ear so quietly that Horatio couldn't hear. When the doctor who was talking to Horatio heard what the nurse was saying he left with her and didn't say a word to Horatio. Leaving Horatio confused and not knowing what was going on in the trauma room with his sister.

Inside the trauma room, a nightmare of a different kind was transpiring. When the surgeon removed the drill bit after they had drilled a borehole in her skull Renee began to crash. With fresh head trauma, Renee had a seizure, and her heart stopped before the doctors had a chance to give her Phenobarbital to stop the seizure. Her seizure started in her left hand and it quickly sent her into grand mal convulsions. The doctors were trying to restart her heart anyway they could. The doctors shocked her heart at 200 joules and got no response. Gradually they started to add more and more power to the defibrillator trying to restart her heart. 250 joules was the next amplitude and again they got zero response. Cranking it up to 300 then 350 joules they still were unable to get her heart beating. The continuous monotone beep of her heart monitor flatlining was a constant reminder that she was dying. Shocking her heart countless times and even putting Epinephrine and Atropine into her I.V, but nothing was working. After half an hour of trying a doctor came into the waiting room and told Horatio that if she didn't respond in the next five minutes the doctor would have to call time of death and nobody wanted that. Horatio begged them to keep trying there had to be something that they haven't attempted yet. There was one thing that they hadn't tried yet. It was intracardiac adrenaline. If she were going to respond to this drug, it would be fairly immediately.
When doctors stabbed her heart with the intracardiac adrenaline, Renee offered no response. Renee was out of options, and the trauma room fell silent; the only noise was the sound of her flatlining heart. None of the doctors wanted to call it, but they had to. Alexx was forced to make one of the hardest calls she's ever had to make, "Time of Death 02:46 AM." Now she had to tell Horatio that the only blood family he had left was gone. Horatio jumped to his feet as soon as Alexx walked into the waiting room area. "Tell me she's going to be fine, please tell she's okay," he pleads with his friend. Alexx was unable to relieve her friend's fears. Slowly shaking her head, she tells him, "I'm so sorry baby she's gone, we lost her."

Horatio responded the way that Alexx had thought that he would. He just lost it by punching a hole in the wall and by throwing a waiting room chair through a window. One nurse was going to call security, but Alexx stopped her.

"He just lost the only blood family he had, and he was venting. Leave him be," Alexx whispered in the nurse's ear.

Horatio knew it was early in the morning, but he needed his brother-in-law there with him. He couldn't get himself to go into her room by himself.

When Eric saw who was calling him at 3:00 in the morning, he just knew in the pit of his stomach that something was wrong. Before Horatio could get the words out, Eric asked his brother, "H what happened? Did something happen to Renee?"

"It's bad; she's gone Eric, my sister is dead." Was how Horatio answered Eric's question in a quiet and shaky voice.

Quickly Eric told his brother that he'd be at the hospital as fast as he could. It took Eric close to half an hour to get to the hospital. With Eric there for support, Horatio was finally able to go and say goodbye to the sister that he never got to know. He could not understand why he cared so deeply for her, despite only knowing her for more than a few months.

Walking into her hospital room and seeing her for the first time since he carried her into the E.R., he thought to himself that she looked so peaceful. With Eric staying by the door to the room, Horatio approached her bed. He remembered thinking to himself, "God Renee you survived five tours of duty in Afghanistan, a decade in the Marines, three years at the border and two years here. Not to mention a physical assault and torture that would have killed anyone else. But a fall in the house is what killed you." Shaking his head, he quietly approached his sister's bed and leaned over to gently kiss her forehead. As soon as his lips touched her forehead, her ice blue eyes opened wide, and she gasped for air and sat bolt upright, almost hitting her brother in the nose in the process. To say that she scared him would be an understatement. But he looks at her and only sees someone who was confused and scared. Her eyes were wild darting everywhere looking desperately for something unknown to both him and her. Gently touching her face, Renee jumped out of her skin lashing out at her brother in sheer panic and fear. He didn't know why, but his baby sister was terrified of something.

"Get away from me, leave me alone I don't want to go. I want to stay here with my brother," Renee screamed in complete terror. She was fighting an unseen force when Horatio instinctively pulled her close and tried to soothe her.

"Nae... Nae... Sweetheart... Baby... shhh... you're okay. Your back I'm here, and I got you. Your safe and I'm not going anywhere," Horatio was repeatedly whispering until she fully came back to reality, but that was not happening.

When she finally made eye contact with her brother Horatio realized that she was in a delirium. Renee seemed to be looking through him, not at him. She was alive, but she was not there. He was very scared for his sister he'd never seen her like this before. "She's fighting an inner demon," was the only thing that Horatio could think of as to what was happening to his sister.

As Horatio pulled her close, she fought her brother like her life depended on it because to her it did. "Did touch me. Get away you monster." She continued to scream as she struck her brother in the face leaving a deep gash on his cheek. Wiping the blood away everything in Horatio told him to leave her alone, but he knew that she needed him to be there and not to leave her.

"Eric get a doctor, she's back. I mean she's alive, but she's delirious." Immediately after Eric left the room to get a nurse, Renee again lost consciousness. When she collapsed in his arms at first, he was relieved that she finally calmed down. That relief quickly turned to horror when he tried to talk to her but got no response.

"Nae... Nae... Wake up... Open your eyes…" Terrified that he lost her again, he desperately checks her for a pulse. He breathed a sigh of relief when he felt a strong pulse.

Eric who at the time was standing in the doorway was very confused, but he obeyed and ran and grabbed one of the nurses and told her what Horatio told him-Causing the nurse to run into Renee's room. Before the nurse got to Renee's room, however, Renee had collapsed in Horatio's arms and slipped into another coma.
Her brother didn't know what to say since Renee didn't tell him that her physical therapist told her to work for half an hour every day, but she was doing at least an hour, so she was overdoing her physical therapy. Sitting by his sister's bed, watching her sleep, he couldn't help but wonder why she didn't do what her therapist had told her. I mean, why did she not take care of herself when she had him ready and willing to help her.

When she woke up a few days later, she got the chewing out that she deserved. "What were you thinking sweetheart, you can't overdo your therapy because you are not helping yourself at all. You are doing far more harm than good. You have to take care of yourself. You need to eat regularly and drink plenty of fluids too." Horatio had to check himself because he was getting too worked up. He loved his sister and was trying to look out for her like any big brother would.

Renee was not used to having someone she could count on since her mother had died a few years before. She was so used to doing everything for herself. She relented to her brother's admonition. When she was released from the hospital a few days later Horatio insisted that she accompany him to work and with her walker Horatio put her to work helping in the lab just to keep her busy and make sure he could keep an eye on her at all times since the last time he left her alone she ended up in a coma and needed to have a borehole drilled into her skull. The last time he left her, she has declared dead but came back to life. He was not going to risk losing her permanently.

Horatio and his team still needed to find out who put the hit put on his sister and her dogs. The Serbian Mercenaries were being very cooperative to Horatio. They wanted to avoid the death penalty. Horatio needed to very careful not to let them see that Renee was very much alive since they were only cooperating with him because they thought that they had killed a cop. Canaan was the most helpful, even offering to wear a wire and get the person who hired him to confess on tape. To say that Horatio was surprised by this mans desire to be of help would be a gross understatement. Horatio knew that they only had one chance to catch the person who put a hit out on his sister and to do it, he would have to use the dogs again as bait. He knew he couldn't ask her again to risk her dog's lives. They would have to find another way; maybe they just needed a little help from the outside. Maybe some fresh eyes would be nice.