Story Notes: This is a bit of the introduction of Miranda. I realized later not only did I not exactly explain what happened to her mother, but that she could come off as too talkative. I'm chalking that up to her being stressed and nervous, because in my head, she's more reserved.

"Let's start with your real name," Horatio said after he sat her down in one of his chairs. "Because you are much too young to be Rosalind Franklin."

"Miranda Sauer. S-A-U-E-R," she answered. "Everyone tries to spell it Sawyer," she explained. Horatio smirked a little. He'd seen a fire spark in her eyes. If he could bring that out a little more, then maybe he could get her through this ordeal.

"Miranda? As in Miranda Prospero from The Tempest?"

"Yeah. One of my mom's favorite plays. Personally, I think the character is a bit hypocritical and lacks some spine, but Mom...my mom said my name means 'extraordinary' or 'wonderful,' wh-wh-ich is what I am tt-oo her. Or was." She paused and started tapping her feet, looking around the room. After a moment of gaining control of herself, she said, "I tell everyone I'm named after the Maranda vs. Arizona case, though."

"The Supreme Court case. Forgive me, but you seem a little to young to be taking criminology courses."

"My school offers a course called Modern American History," Miranda said, smiling. "It primarily focuses on the Red Scare, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam protests, legal cases, the war on drugs, and stuff like that. Technically, you have to be a senior to take it, but I needed another class. I talked my teacher to letting me take it along side the regular American History class."

"That must mean you're pretty smart," he commented. It was always good to know how smart the person was you were dealing with, even the victims, Horatio knew. Most criminals were stupid, and had stupid, selfish reasons for committing the crimes they did. But the few smart ones knew how to cover their tracks very well, and it was only by analyzing them that one could find the proof when the forensic evidence was lacking.

With victims, it was a matter of how to make a connection, of how to ask the right questions to find the missing evidence; whether it was something the perp did, wore, smelled like, or, in tons of cases, what they weren't wearing or didn't smell like.

"Smart like my mom." She lost the smile on her face. "Although, she always said I was smart like my dad. Doesn't matter though. Not smart enough, apparently," she answered solemnly. "I couldn't see what was in front of my eyes. With my mom. With everything."

He decided then to sit right across from her, to look her straight in the eye as he asked the tough questions.

"What was the name they gave her, and when exactly did you learn you two were in witness protection?"

"Martina, but everyone called her Mardi. Apparently her real name was Monica, like the saint," she said as glanced at the medallion on his desk. "I found out after she died. I think I was with police for maybe four hours, just sitting in a room, when the FBI showed up and citied jurisdiction. I mean, one of the detectives, Rouvin I think, asked me whether I knew anything, but what she asked me just wasn't making sense, you know? Then the FBI shows up and says I'm in their program and I'm coming with them. That my life was a complete fake. The agent explained it in the car, but he didn't give me any details either."

"Then how did you mom explain me?" Miranda pulled at the necklace around her neck. It looked like something she had made herself. It was a small key on a chain with a mixture of blue, green and red beads surrounding it.

"A couple of weeks ago, someone broke into our apartment."

Miranda was up the stairs with her mom, both carrying grocery bags when they got to the landing. They quickly noticed the door was cracked open.

"You did lock the door before you headed for the car, right?" her mom asked, putting down the bags.

"Of course! I swear it!" Miranda almost shouted. She was forgetful but not that forgetful.

"Okay, pumpkin, this is what I need you to do," her mom said calmly, gripping her on the shoulders. "I need you to call 911 while I check the house. Whatever you hear, don't go in, understand me?"

"But Mom—"

"In fact, I want you to wait in lobby for the cops, okay?"

"But what if someone's still in there?" Miranda whispered. Her mom cradled her face.

"That's exactly why I need you to go call the police, alright?" Reluctantly, Miranda shook her head and started making her way down the stairs to the lobby, pulling her cell phone out of her handbag. She watched her mom slowly open the door and enter their home.

"911. What's your emergency?"

"Whoever it was tossed the place but the only thing they took was my mom's laptop," Miranda explained. "It really freaked her out. Then, a couple of days later, she thought someone was following us."

They were in the car. Usually they drove straight through the light and then turned on the Commerce St., but today her mother signaled left and took it while Miranda was reading through her notes. It was because the turn was so unusual that she looked up from her book and stared out the window.

"Mom, where are we going?" she asked, her voice rising. "We just turned onto Tuscany. School's the other way." She watched as her mom glanced at the rearview mirror and then back at the steering wheel.

"You'll get to school on time, don't you worry about it. I'm just trying to get out of the heavier traffic." Her mom looked at the rearview again. Suddenly, she decided to change lanes and takes another left turn.

"Ah, you do realize we just went back two blocks, right?" Miranda was starting to get nervous. Her English final exam was in less than half an hour and she couldn't be late.

Her mother briefly closed her eyes in frustration. "MIA! You WILL get to school, okay? Just let me do what I need to do without anymore questions." Her mom glanced at the rearview again. This time, Miranda couldn't help but look back herself. Leaning through the gap between the front seats, she peered back. There were several cars. None of them stood out.

"Don't do that!" her mom shouted, moving one hand off the steering wheel long enough to grab her and nudge her forward. "Look straight. Keep studying." Miranda, now puzzled, waited and watched her mom check the mirror again. Sure, Miranda had learned when her best friend's older sister was in Driver's Ed that you were suppose to check your mirrors continuously, but every five seconds? Her mother hadn't bothered before.

"Mom, you're acting weird. I mean, really weird." Her mother closed her eyes for a second again, sighing.

"I don't want you to get upset, alright?" she stated, looking her daughter in the eye. Miranda nodded.

"I think we're being followed."

"She later said everything was taken care of, but she kept triple checking all the locks and installing a new security system, and changing how we got to school. And once school let out, she wouldn't let me stay at home by myself." Miranda's voice had been rising and rising, going faster and faster until she was almost out of breath. She made herself stop and took a ragged breath, just breathing for a moment or two.

"Sorry," she said. "I--I--I had all--this--thought out in my head. What I was going to say, you know, and how I was going to say it and—"

"Miranda," Horatio cut her off, "you're a human being that has just endured a traumatic loss. No one, especially not me, will find fault for you being emotional." The girl nodded and took a shaky breath.

"My mom told me about you two days before she died," Miranda said in a rush. "Horatio Caine. Horatio, as in Horatio from Hamlet and Horatio Alger. My mom said she knew you from years ago and if anyone was really after her...that if anything happened to her to go to you. That you would know who to investigate. That I could only trust you. That even if it meant running from the police, the FBI, the CIA, MI6 and whoever else came after me, that I get to you. She gave me necklace to show you as proof of who she was."

She paused to catch her breath. "I know this all sounds crazy. I mean, it all sounds crazy to me and I'm the one living it. But it was the way Mom said it as much as what she said, you know? She was scared...and I...I tried to ask her stuff, but she wouldn't answer."

Then, just above a whisper, "She lied to me."

And that, Horatio realized, was what was upsetting her as much as her mother's death. The teen clearly felt that if she hadn't been kept in the dark she would have been able to stop the events from unfolding as they had. That her mother hadn't trusted her with the truth. He couldn't take the pain caused by her mother's death away, couldn't ease it yet, but at least he could make her see that couldn't blame herself for events that were out of her control.

"Sometimes," Horatio said slowly, "sometimes the people we love keep secrets from us because they're protecting us." Like he hadn't told Yelina the truth about Madison's paternity, letting her assume that Madison was his daughter, in order to protect her from more hurt. Learning that your husband was possibly a dirty cop was bad enough. Knowledge of an affair would have devastated her.

Crystal blue eyes met crystal blue. Miranda had the same oval face as her mother's, similar jaw structure and cheekbones, fair features. Yet their eyes were so different. Not just the color—he knew when he let Monica Sullivan Castenada walk out of his life that he wasn't going to forget those chartreuse green eyes that stared back at him longingly as she'd boarded that plane—but the tone within them. Monica's eyes, even in her darkest hours, were filled with a warmth and wisdom that came with having persevered through previous struggles. Miranda's eyes, however, held intensity in them, like burning blue flames.

It was again that he was suddenly struck that sense of familiarity, almost a sense of déjà vu. He'd looked at Madison in the Keaton home and had the same feeling. One look and he was sure she was kin: she has Ray's eyes, his mind had said. Why was he having that feeling again?

Miranda chuckled darkly. "That's what she said."

"Because it's true," he continued. "Parents try to protect their children as best they can from the evils in this world, especially the evils they know first hand. And, if I understand the message your mom was trying to convey, she knew that telling you the truth might put you in more danger."

He paused for a moment to let her digest.

"Miranda, you said federal agents took you into their custody...yet, you're here. Can you explain that?" He tilted his head.

"Someone killed them," she gulped.

She was laying in the motel bed, staring at the drab, peach ceiling, the hot pink light from sign of the bar next door beating through the window blinds. She was still dressed in her clothes, although they weren't the clothes she put on this morning--those were taken for evidence. Still had her tennis shoes strapped on, her satchel on the floor beside the bed.

Miranda was holding her mother's necklace, the golden chain wrapped around her fingers, stroking it with her thumb. She wasn't trying to sleep, knew she couldn't despite how tired she was. Her mom was... dead. Gone. Just that. Two shots. Miranda had been right beside her and she hadn't heard a thing. How could she sleep after that?

The two agents guarding her—who she'd dubbed Agent Smith and Agent Jones thanks to the non-answers they gave her—were in the other room. One was quietly watching TV while the other was doing...something. Well, not sleeping. They were supposed to leave Phoenix and go to an "undisclosed" location in the morning. So they would be guarding her all night. That might have been comforting if they weren't being so evasive about everything.

A knock on the door. The agents shuffling. Muffled voices. Maybe there would be a changing of the guard after all? Or maybe it was someone with dinner. Didn't they say something about ordering pizza? Not that she could eat. She felt like she could throw up. She'd had a soda at the police station, and even that was threatening to come up.

If she hadn't turned towards the door, she might have missed it. The "pish-pish." The sound of a silencer. Or, at least, how it sounds like on all those cop shows.

Crazy, but she didn't think the Feds shot people with silencers. BANG. BANG. Miranda scrambled to the other side of the bed, rolled onto the floor and covered her ears. More gunfire. More shots from the silencer. Ohgodohgodohgod. The guy who killed her mom was here. Ohgodohgodohgod. What was she suppose to do if he killed Smith & Jones? Ohgodohgodohgod. She had to get out of here!

Miranda grabbed her satchel and darted to the window, heaving as she opened it. Someone kicked the locked door that connected the two rooms. Not bothering to glance back, she climbed up the ledge and dropped down onto the alley below. And kept running.

"A couple of blocks away was a Greyhound station. I remembered what Mom said about you and got on a bus to Dallas, and from Dallas to Baton Rouge, and then from there to Miami. I used the money Mom gave me for shopping and the cash I already had from tutoring. I used all of it to get here. I didn't know what else to do," Miranda finished.

"So, when you said, you didn't think the killer was the only one looking for you..."

"I'm pretty sure the Feds are looking for me," Miranda said with a sideways smirk. "I mean, even if I wasn't somehow in the witness protection program being chased by a killer that shot two agents, I'm fourteen, although I'll be fifteen in less than a month. That's still in Amber alert territory, right? And there's that whole crossing-state-lines thing. I guess that makes me as close to being a piece of federal property as a person can be," she joked.

Horatio couldn't help but grin a little back. If she could joke after just recounting her ordeal, then he could get her through this. He looked at the clock. It was almost lunch time.

"Well, I'm claiming priority over the Feds. Now, tell me, have you eaten anything today?" He could tell what the answer was by the way her eyes suddenly shot down.

"I was so worried about making it all the way here, I didn't spend much. In fact, I kinda asked this lady for help. To pa-pay for the cab. And she actually let me ride with her and had me dropped off here." She rushed to finish. "I got her address on her driver's license to mail her the same amount back once I was settled."

Horatio felt a mixture of emotions. Happy that Monica had raised a good and smart kid. Amazement that Miranda had found a good Samaritan in this town.

"That's easy enough to settle. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to order us some pizza, if that's alright with you-"--she nodded her head rapidly--"and I'm going to let you nap in my office while we're waiting for it to arrive. After we eat, we'll work on repaying that woman back and dealing with any complications with the Feds."

"My mom's killer?" she asked timidly.

Horatio smiled although his heart wasn't in it. "That too." He went to the phone at his desk. "So the easiest way to get started is to find out what kinds of pizza do you like?"

"The kind with extra cheese and pepperoni," she shyly replied.

"You know what? That's my favorite kind too." He started dialing one of the local take-out places. "And drinks?"

"Whatever soda you've got here is fine. Except Pepsi. I think I had like, five cans of Pepsi at the last police station I was at."

Horatio chuckled. "Okay. I'll see what I can find. The vending machines are emptied rather quickly around here."

He placed their order as Miranda moved over to the couch and curled up against one of the armrests. She watched him through heavy-lidded eyes.

"I did say something about a nap," he hinted to her as he waited for the person on the other line to get back with him.

She blinked rapidly. "I don't want to waste valuable time..."

"You'll be able to tell me more once you have gotten a reprieve." He had only met her twenty minutes ago and she already reminded him of Monica. Her stubbornness, her persistence. The way she meticulously watched his every movement, even at the edge of exhaustion.

"If you say so..." Miranda removed her shoes and tucked them under the couch, placing her satchel along side them. She stretched out, one arm reaching under her head to cradle her head against the armrest. "Could you promise to wake me..."

"...as soon as it arrives, of course." Which was going to be in half an hour, or so he had just been told. She smiled lightly and closed her eyes.

He put down the phone and started on some of the paperwork that always seemed to pile up on his desk. He wanted to dive in to Monica's murder immediately, collect all the old case information and demand the Feds turn over whatever they had, but it would do no good to be hasty. He needed to curb the compulsion, or the Feds would sweep in and take Miranda away before he'd even begun to help her. It would be good for the lab for him to do a little bit of the reports done too, because he got the feeling that the lab's reports were going to be backlogged for the foreseeable future.

The next time he looked up, he could tell Miranda was dead asleep. Even though she had initially laid out across the couch, she had curled herself in a ball, making her look years younger. Slowly, his eyes drifted to the clock. Twenty minutes had passed. Now was a good time to grab the drinks, as it was still before the lunch-rush at the lab and they wouldn't cool off too much before the pizza arrived.

He almost went to tell her where he was going, but then did a brief calculation in his head. She hadn't slept well in three days, traveling across the country, probably terrified and grief-stricken every minute of it. Better to let her rest.

But that thought brought other unbidden ones as he walked to the vending machines. Monica had told her daughter that Horatio would know who killed her, indicating that it was someone connected to the Rafael Castenada case. Or so she thought. But the last time he had checked, Rafael was still in prison. Half of his associates were still in prison.

Even if he wasn't, how would he have been able to find Monica? Horatio had many complaints about federal agents, the Federal Bureau of Investigation in particular, yet they were generally good at keeping those in Witness Protection taken care of. Castenada or any of his associates couldn't have gotten the information without being caught.

If it wasn't Rafael though, who else would want her dead? If it wasn't about the case that had put her in witness protection, why had someone gone after the federal agents involved and attacked them as well? Miranda had only heard the events through a door. Had it been another agent or someone who appeared benign that was let in to the hotel room?

Then there was the murder. If there was an issue of the protected being in danger, the US Marshalls were well equipped at handling it. The situation shouldn't have become so dire that Monica could have been killed. Clearly, she had kept in contact with someone: the Feds rushed in and taken probably before the locals had gotten finished processing the scene and cataloging the evidence.

Lastly, there was Miranda. After all these years, Monica still had enough unwavering trust in him to send her child to him. That thought alone was a little overwhelming. He knew there was a couple of strings he could pull to keep the girl in his custody until the issue was resolved, but what about after?

While she hadn't told him much about her life, Miranda had only mentioned a father in passing. "Smart like my mom." She lost the smile on her face. "Although, she always said I was smart like my dad. Doesn't matter though." From the sound of it, her father wasn't in her life. Monica's family was a dead end, seeing as she wasn't close to them before she had gone into the Witness Protection program fifteen years ago.

Fifteen years ago. "I'm fourteen, although I'll be fifteen in less than a month. That's still in Amber alert territory, right?" That would make her birthday in July, her conception most likely…he counted back the months… in September. September 1988.

Horatio stopped in the hallway. That would have been around the time he and Monica were together.

That brought an altogether different unbidden thought. What if I'm her father?