First chaptered fic for CSI: Miami. Go easy on me because these characters are some of the hardest I've ever had to write with. I'm not sure how far I'll go with this, depends on how many reviews I get. Anyways, I'll add the disclaimer here, I don't own anything, except for a few made-up charries that will come along shortly. Thanks and enjoy!
Scuffed shoes crunched on gravel dirt as Horatio Caine climbed out of his car. Eyes, so rarely seen without sunglasses, scanned the area. There was an aura about this place that already had the tips of his fingers tingling. The peacefulness of it belied what he could already sense.
On the left side of the road was a long sloping field, grass turned gold in the evening sun, waving in the little wind. It was lined with a white fence, and a ditch that marked the edge of the road. Though it didn't look it from this angle, Horatio could tell that grass was at least four feet tall.
On the right side, after the near five foot drop that made the ditch was a copse of trees and thick undergrowth, all taken over by cudzoo. Telephone wires stretched over the teen feet wide space of untamed plant life. On either side of the copse were more fields of grass. Houses stood off into the distance, silhouetted in the setting sunlight. Behind them, he could see tall ears of corn slowly waving in the breeze.
The rural areas of Miami were less familiar to Horatio than the city, but it didn't change his purpose. Whenever a call came in, he had to answer, regardless of where.
At the sound of more gravel crunching, he turned around to see the vehicles of Calleigh and Eric pull up. Both climbed out and started to walk towards him.
"What was this all about, Horatio?" Calleigh asked, her sweet voice echoing over the still air.
"A call came in saying that strange noises and disturbances had been happening several nights in a row." He tilted his head to the house on the right of the cudzoo mess. "That is apparently the suspected house in question."
The three walked a few paces back down the road, walked across a small land bridge, and started up the grassy hill. Horatio looked towards the house and felt a small chill go up and down his spine. Something just didn't feel right.
As they approached the house, a large black and tan hound dog raced from the field and began to bark at the three CSIs. Calleigh gave a little jump in surprise, but Horatio respectfully ignored her startled expression.
The dog continued to bay and bark as the three approached the house. They were about to climb onto the front porch when a man dressed in torn jeans and a near filthy T-shirt came out.
"Shut the hell up, mangy dog!" the man yelled at the still barking animal.
Upon seeing the CSI's he ran a hand through his thinning sandy brown hair and stepped off the front porch.
"What are you doing on my property?" he sneered towards Eric, the tallest of them, and whom he assumed was the head of group.
"We," Horatio said calmly, "got a call about a disturbance at your residence." All three of them flashed their badges, and Horatio discreetly put a hand on his gun.
"Who called?" the man demanded to know.
"It's not important who called, but it might be relevant to get your name, sir," Horatio said. To the man, his voice registered nothing but calm curiosity, but Eric and Calleigh both could sense he was growing irritated.
"My names John Grant," the man said, his unshaven face turning towards Horatio. A bubbling dislike seeped within Horatio's veins, but for the time being, he'd ignore it. But the man's hard eyes did nothing to ease his disposition.
"All of this your property?" Eric asked, waving a hand towards the land around him.
"Yeah, the Clark's own all that land down that way." Grant indicated by pointing towards the next house's field and large yard in front of it.
"Alright, mind if we take a look around?" Calleigh asked, batting her blue eyes and laying on her sweet Southern charm.
Grant's eyes hardened, but with a somewhat stern look from Horatio he relented. "Fine, go ahead, just don't touch nothin'!" he yelled at the officer's retreating backs.
"What do you make out of him?" Calleigh asked Eric softly, but it was Horatio that answered.
"Watch your step. If he lets his dog run loose, I wouldn't be surprised if he's got a loaded gun somewhere around here."
Eric and Calleigh headed up towards the house, but Horatio wasn't interested in the near decrepit building. The caller had said that he'd seen two people struggling on the ground behind the house once, and then he'd heard smashing glass the next night within the house. Not all that descriptive, but it did seem unusual.
The ginger headed man passed the house by and slowly crept around to the back. The grass was much less green here, and looked like something had recently torn it up, revealing the dust earth beneath. About fifteen feet away, the corn field started. But twenty feet to either side, the ground was littered with trash and other worn down objects. A dog chain was tied to a post near the back porch, whose wood was fragmented. The base looked like it had been kicked in one place.
"Who are you!"
Horatio whipped around, but soon let his held breath out. The person who'd shouted was a teenage girl, thin, with dirty blond hair, and a dust covered face as if she'd recently been rolling in the dirt. Hazel eyes burned brightly from inside hallowed eye sockets. Her nails were chipped and filthy, and her bare feet looked like they were used to walking without shoes.
"Lieutenant Horatio Caine," the man said, pulling out his badge and showing her briefly.
"Horatio. Like the guy from Hamlet? Only one out of the main characters to survive in the play."
The man's eyebrows went up briefly, and he tilted his head towards her. "Yeah, like that," he said quietly. Apparently they weren't completely white trash if she knew about Shakespeare.
But as Horatio more fully took in her appearance, he noted she had bruises all across her arms, and one eye looked like it was healing from being blacked. White scars went across her wrists. And her cut off shorts revealed that she had bruises on her inner thighs, and fresh cuts down towards her shins. Her knees looked badly bruised, as if she'd been shoved to the ground.
"What's your name?" he asked, trying to ignore the squeezing rising in his chest.
"Charlie," she muttered, folding her thin arms across her chest.
"And how did you get all cut up?" he inquired, keeping his voice soft.
"Wrestling with the dogs. They don't know any better than not to bite," she said with a small shrug. But he could see a grimace flit across her face, and there was something other than casual observant hidden in her hazel eyes.
"I see," Horatio said with a nod. "Mind if I step inside?" he asked, indicating to the back door.
"Dad won't like it. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to throw you out in a few minutes. He doesn't like cops," she added a small glare thrown his way.
"How old are you, Charlie?" he asked.
"Fifteen," she said, sweeping her ragged blond hair out of her face. It revealed to Horatio pretty bad bruising across her neck, and some old scars along her jaw bone.
"Does your dad have a history of being violent?" he questioned.
Charlie shrugged. "He's not here often enough for me to tell you that," she muttered.
Horatio nodded and slowly approached her. He withheld the look of pity for her state before walking past her and into the house.
The back door led to a very small, and very filthy kitchen. Grime had settled onto the dishes that were carelessly piled into the sink. What looked like the remnants of porcelain appeared to be smashed near the cabinets under the sink. There, Horatio found Eric slowly looking through the broken shards. And there was an overwhelming smell of alcohol on the air.
"Find anything?" Horatio asked, stooping down to be eye level with him.
"Some of the shards had a crust on them. Could be blood," he said, trying to sound nonchalant about it.
"Anyone else in the house?" the red-head inquired.
"Yeah, Grant's wife, Calleigh's talking to her right now.
"Have you seen Charlie?" Horatio asked quietly as Eric picked a few of the crusted pieces up off the floor and slipped them into a small plastic bag. He didn't have a lot of supplies with him, as it technically wasn't a search warrant they were here on.
"If you mean the near emaciated teenager, yes. I saw her briefly before she darted out the back door."
"She didn't seem like your average daddy's princess did she?" Horatio muttered, almost to himself.
Eric shook his head and Horatio left him to continue to pick through the shards. The red head slowly walked around the rickety kitchen table, through the door way and followed the sound of voices into what appeared to be the living room.
Horatio slowly leaned against the door frame and observed Calleigh talking with a tall woman with thick brown hair and an almost too thin frame.
"Ah, Horatio, this is Shanna Grant, Mrs. Grant, this is Horatio Caine, head of our CSI lab."
The woman whipped around to view the new officer. Her skin was near deathly white, the lenses on her glasses dirty, and the coldest green eyes Horatio had ever seen. Long fingered hands traced up and down her folded arms.
"Whish I could say it was a pleasure," Mrs. Grant said coldly. She turned back to Calleigh and sneered at her.
"If you have no business but snooping around our house, I would appreciate it if you left."
"Ah, ma'am, we can't do that until we've thoroughly checked everything out and make sure everything's all right."
"Why wouldn't it be?" Shanna snapped at Horatio.
"Your daughter seems to be a rough and tumble girl, which I find surprising for a fifteen year old only forty five minutes away from Miami." He said calmly, but as with John Grant, Calleigh could feel her friend was getting annoyed.
"Charlie's my step daughter," Shanna said matter of factly. She gave a little sniff of contempt and continued. "And she's a wild hooligan if I ever met one. It took a lot to straighten her up when I first moved in here."
"What was she doing wrong?" Calleigh asked.
"She'd sneak off at night and run wild in the city, getting rides from boys, partying and dancing all night long. She's come home drunk more than once, let me tell you!"
"Really?" Horatio pressed. "And how exactly did you, ah, straighten her up?"
"You'd have to talk to John about that. I tried and couldn't handle her." She said, giving another little sniff.
"How did you try?" Calleigh persisted.
"I tried lecturing, I tried yelling, I tried grounding, I tried to keep her on restrictions, but she went out of her way to defy me. I finally gave up on trying and gave it over to John."
"Does she still party?" Horatio's question was not sharp, but Calleigh could feel, more than hear its undertones.
"I think so, but she's to sneaky to give any sign of it. About a week ago, I thought I heard her climb in through a window."
Calleigh's eyebrows went up, but she didn't speak on it.
"Ok, thank you Mrs. Grant, if we need anything else, we'll be in touch." Horatio flashed his 'oh yeah, we'll be in touch all right' smirk and walked out, Calleigh just behind him.
"What do you make of it?" Calleigh asked quietly as they approached Eric who was just getting to his feet.
"Everybody knows more than they let on, starting with John," Horatio said firmly. "But they won't say a word. Calleigh, you stay here and try to talk to Charlie, see if you can get her to change her story. She said those bites and bruises came from wrestling with the dogs, but I don't believe her. Eric, come with me, we're going to the house next door, see what they know about Charlie's behavior, and how it was 'handled."
Eric nodded and followed Horatio out the door, but he could tell that the man was quickly getting livid. As they stepped back onto the grass, Horatio spotted a flash of dirty blond hair darting around the corner of the house.
"Sounds like Charlie isn't keen on talking," Eric observed.
Horatio slowly pulled his shades from his pocket. "Then its our job to find out why," he murmured before slipping his glasses on.
Eric knew the tone. Horatio was on the hunt now, and just like a wolf chasing its prey, he'd keep going until they found out what was going on here. Eric gave a small shake of his head and a sigh. He could almost feel sorry for Horatio, if it wasn't for his relentless ruthlessness. And those glasses went on because Eric needed the man needed a shield. So no one would see the emotions that he just couldn't hide.
"Do you think the father hit her?" Eric asked him softly as the started walking back towards the road.
"He'd best hope not."
Eric would have cringed. It wasn't pain hiding behind those shades now. It was anger, only barely reined in. Eric knew, beyond a shout of a doubt, this wasn't one of those that was going to blow over smoothly. And he feared for the day the storm broke. Because when it did, there would be no mercy.