Ryan awoke the next morning with a dull headache. His eyes slowly focused on the room around him and he suddenly realised that he was lying on Natalia's sofa, covered in a huge purple duvet. He couldn't quite remember how he had ended up there.
Ryan shook off the last remnants of sleep and cast his mind back to the previous night. They had eaten pizza while Natalia had recounted her distressing day to him, then she had opened a bottle of wine and they had chatted through the night. Ryan and Natalia met up fairly regularly outside of work, but only very occasionally was it just the two of them, and never had either stayed at the others overnight.
He lay for a while, puzzling why that hadn't been the case this particular time, but his question was answered as soon as he sat up, along with why his memory was so hazy and why his head was still pounding painfully. Two bottles of red wine stood open and empty at the foot of the sofa, and Ryan realised he must have been way over the legal limit and crashed at Natalia's.
As he reached over to grab his discarded shirt from the floor, he heard the sound of running water from upstairs. By the time he had managed to tidy the room to the minimum his OCD allowed him to, the water had been turned off and Natalia appeared at the bottom of the stairs, fully clothed with not a hair out of place.
"Morning," she smiled, appearing like all her woes of the day before were forgotten, "coffee?"
Ryan nodded his enthusiasm. It hurt his head.
"I'm not surprised, only half of one of those bottles is mine." Natalia grinned over at him and bobbed her tongue out.
Ryan looked stricken. "I've not outstayed my welcome have I?" He asked anxiously.
Natalia started to laugh and her whole face seemed to light up. It sent tingles through Ryan but he wasn't sure why. And if he was, he wasn't ready to admit it to himself.
"It was me who made you cancel all your plans yesterday to come over," she reminded him, "seriously thank you Ryan; you did a great job of cheering me up."
Anything to make you smile, Ryan thought, but didn't dare voice. Instead he opened his mouth to tell her how few plans he had had for the evening anyway but her cell started to ring, making them both jump.
Natalia glanced down at the caller ID and frowned. "It's Horatio."
"Morning," she answered cheerfully.
"Oh, okay." Ryan watched as she listened to the receiver for several moments.
"Yes that's not a problem; I'll be with you ASAP."
She removed the phone from her ear with a worried look, and turned to face Ryan. "Looks like it's chucking out time, Horatio wants me to meet him in the Everglades. It's not even 8 and the body count is already up to three."
Ryan sighed, today was supposed to be his first day off after a 12 day stint, but with a body count so high it wasn't hard to predict what was coming. Sure enough, only seconds after Natalia had hung up, Ryan's phone began to ring.
XXX
As was very often the case, Horatio had been the first of the day shift to arrive at the lab in the morning, and subsequently was the first to arrive on scene after dispatch called through to report the finding of three bodies deep in the Everglades.
He surveyed the damage from inside his Hummer. The main focal point was a large upturned van, black from soot and still smoking slightly. The patrol officers who had found the vehicle had called fire and rescue, who had put out the fire but were unable to save any of the passengers. From his vantage point Horatio could see two charred corpses, both several metres from the van, the third he assumed to be still inside, the driver. He glanced over at the clock on his dashboard; it was nearly half an hour since he had called Natalia and Ryan. He felt guilty for pulling his youngest CSI onto the case when he should be enjoying his day off, but Eric and Calleigh were both expected in court until mid afternoon to give evidence for a case they had dealt with several months ago.
Horatio stepped outside into the Miami sun and flicked open his signature sunglasses. He was immediately greeted by an officer who held up the yellow crime scene tape for him.
"Thank you, officer. What happened here?"
"We aren't really sure, Lieutenant," the officer sighed, "the car was up in flames when we first saw it, looked like an explosion maybe. Then we saw the two the bodies outside, and there's a third in the back of the van, fire and rescue said. But no driver as far as we can tell. The van's just been given the all clear; you arrived at a good time."
Behind him, Horatio heard the sound of tyres crunching up the dirt track. The Hummer came to a halt and Ryan appeared from the driver's side.
"Morning H."
"Good morning Mr Wolfe, you made good time."
"Yeah and he probably got caught by half the speed cameras in Miami," came Natalia's voice as she stepped out of the car from the passenger side, rolling her eyes.
Horatio shot the couple an amused smile, as if he knew something they didn't. He proceeded to fill them in on what few details he knew.
"So let me get this straight," Ryan said once he had finished, "this guy just drives to the middle of the Everglades, ditches his van and his passengers, and then it explodes killing all three passengers?"
"Coincidence?" Natalia asked, trying to cover all possibilities.
"No," Horatio replied, "murder."
