Oh my goodness, thank you for all the lovely reviews! I can't believe it! To Guest, since I can't reply to your comments any other way, thank you, I'm really glad you like my OC and how I write the characters, and to Joni, thank you for your lovely reviews, I'm glad you liked learning more about Ridley and that you like my EC action and yes interesting is the word for Speed and Ridley, it's more about Ridley's character at the moment.

It was super random but I just got the idea to do it and went for it, though I was a little afraid of some Mary Sue etc comments but so far none, it's obviously not a OC/romance fanfic but at the same time I just can't resist having some sort of romance in my fics and stories, I just like a bit of everything no matter the genre- action, horror romance, lol I just can't resist!

To the rest of you, obviously I've replied to your comments because you have accounts but many thanks again for the reviews! Please keep them coming they really do help motivate and encourage me! Hopefully I'll update again soon and welcome to any new readers!


It was just after six am when a determined Ridley finally tracked down Glenn Kinskey, his father had babbled about a false panel in Glenn's room that was used as a wardrobe but also a secret hideaway for the boy. They had searched there immediately of course but found no signs of their son. Horatio and Ridley however noted a space that indicated a missing pair of trainers, and the way clothes were crumpled in the area as if pulled down in a panic. They had begun their pursuit shortly after, leaving Alexx to the bodies, as they searched around the area. Naturally the local police had already been doing this since arriving on the scene several hours ago but with no success.

Ridley had gone with the logical that perhaps the dark, scary woods twenty minutes up the road was exactly where a young boy might hide if he was smart enough to realise people would never think a young frightened child would wander to such a creepy place. The police were certain he would have fled to a neighbour, Ridley was certain he was thinking only of evading the monster than had slaughtered his siblings and was probably terrified of leading said monster to more victims.

Now here she was under the long, grey shadows of the trees walking through Florida's speciality of swamp mud. The high heels were long abandoned and the red dress was hoisted up in both hands as she struggled on following the misshapen, small footprints that indicated a child trying to run through a swamp in sneakers. She paused upon seeing the end to her search, a small silhouette huddled on a half-sunken log trying to and almost succeeding in blending in with several bushes.

She continued on, deliberately letting her feet squelch so that he became alerted to her presence, fearing that sneaking up on him would just add to his trauma. "Hi," she greeted awkwardly. "Are you hiding from someone out here?"

Silence, well it should have been expected.

She reached the log and sat on the edge of it, maintaining a distance from him. "Well I am," she continued amicably, "think I could hide with you?"

He gave a grunt that almost sounded like a sob.

Ridley glanced about wistfully, the lightening sky was visible in patches through the trees, dawn was finally coming. "It's certainly secluded out here," she remarked calmly, "weren't you lonely?"

"All alone," he choked out.

Ridley nodded sympathetically. "You were I'll bet, all alone in the dark but you're not now Glenn, I'm here and the sun's coming."

"Who are you?" he croaked, suddenly nervous.

"I'm Detective Moon. You met someone scary tonight, didn't you Glenn? Someone who hurt your family? Well I'm here to stop that person, to make sure they're punished for what they did."

"They were covered in blood," he sobbed out as tears trickled down his dirty face, "there were bad noises, Abi screamed and...I hid."

"You were very clever doing that," Ridley praised him.

"I should've...Darcy and Greg."

"Glenn you did the right thing, you hid and that's good and important because you can help me, you can tell me about the bad person that came last night."

"Nnn...no, they'll come back."

"No Glenn," Ridley said firmly, "I won't allow that. Now look, your mummy and daddy are very worried about you, the sun's out so I think it's safe to stop hiding, can I take you back to them?"

He shook his head. "I hid and the bad man hurt Darcy and Greg."

Ridley reached out a hand to him and squeezed his left shoulder gently. "Glenn you were brave and because of what you did, your mummy and daddy still have you. Listen to me now, you are not to blame for what happened tonight." She paused for a moment, opened her handbag and plucked out the silver badge within. "Look Glenn," she said holding up the shield to him, "do you know what this is for?"

"Police men," he guessed.

Ridley grinned. "No, it's for brave, good people, people like you Glen. Why don't you hold onto it for a while hmm? You can show it to your mum and dad and they will know that you were very brave tonight." She held it out to him and he accepted it with a shaky, dirty hand. Ridley then reached out for his other hand. "Come on Glenn; let's show your parents how brave you are."

He accepted her hand reluctantly as she helped him down off the log. She tensed upon seeing a silhouette of a man just ten feet away, and gave a brief smile when she realised it was Horatio.

"Hi there," Horatio greeted the boy with a small, disarming smile as he leaned down slightly, "you must be Glenn. Hmm you must have been very brave last night Glenn to have that badge."

'How long was he standing there?' Ridley wondered as she shot him a startled look.

Glenn looked equally surprised before glancing down at the badge in his hand and nodding dumbly.

"Well Glenn, I'm Lieutenant Caine and I'm here to help Detective Moon take you back to your parents, if that's alright with you."

Glenn looked up at Ridley questioningly.

"We'll be your honour guard," she informed the boy, "every brave boy gets one."

He nodded and together the three began their trip back through the swamp and back to the Kinskey home. Glenn's parents, who had refused to be ushered off by police, despite Mrs Kinskey being in clear need of sedation, spotted their muddy son and rushed at him with sobs and screams of both joy and grief.

"You're alive, you're alive," Mrs. Kinskey choked out as tears poured down her face.

Ridley went to release the boy's hand but he clung tightly to her, almost shrinking back from his mother. "I...I hid mummy," he confessed guiltily.

"Oh Glenn that was good," his mother praised as she fell to her knees and flung her arms around him, "that was right, you did the right thing."

It took twenty minutes before the Kinskeys could be persuaded to leave the scene and go to hospital so their son could be checked over and Mrs. Kinskey could be treated for shock. It was only thanks to Lieutenant Caine telling Glenn that he obviously was so brave no one needed a badge to tell that, that Glenn surrendered the badge back to Ridley.

After that they returned to Alexx and the bodies and examined round the crime scene before the bodies were finally packaged up for the morgue. As the morning wore on they worked on exploring the origin of the clown statue, agreeing that Glenn could be questioned later in the day after he had been examined and treated. The task of the clown statue was assigned to Speed who came and took several photos of it, pointedly ignoring Eric's jibes that he looked like he had a 'late one', and avoiding eye contact with Ridley.

When morning hit afternoon, Horatio finally called time on the crime scene, they had gathered all they could and could return to it if necessary. Whilst Calleigh and Alexx went to the morgue to investigate the potential murder weapon, Speed dealt with both prints and the clown statue with help from Eric, and Horatio took Ridley to a nearby diner for some much needed coffee.


"So Detective Moon what are your thoughts?" Horatio queried calmly as he peered at Ridley through his sunglasses.

Ridley leaned forward slightly, holding his gaze as she was determined not to look intimidated. She knew what was going on, this was no simple morning coffee break, this was an interrogation. She was in Lieutenant Caine's territory and he was her lift home, unless she decided to bolt and get a taxi they would be staying in the diner for as long as he decided.

"Glenn Kinskey is our best lead, since he hid chances are he didn't see anything but if we're lucky he did hear something," Ridley retorted coolly.

"And what about the clown statue?"

"It will be a red herring just like Mary's mirror," Ridley answered confidently.

"Maybe not, our killer placed it in the house. Something I'm wondering about, when did he put it there? The Kinskeys obviously didn't see it but it had to have been there the moment Abigail stepped into the room or she would have known there was someone in the house."

"Mrs Kinskey was sobbing about how Miss Mosley was such a sweet girl she even made cookies for her every time she babysat. The kitchen was near the front of the house, the living room was at the back, I'd say every time Miss Mosley babysat she would arrive and be taken to the kitchen by Mrs Kinskey, then she would follow the Kinskeys to the front door, lock up, check on the kids, and only then check the living room. There was a routine and our killer knew it, I warned you about this, he studies his victims and he plans everything out."

"You also said his kills were two weeks apart," Horatio pointed out quickly. "I guessed he might want to celebrate his six month anniversary, why didn't you?"

There was a spark of anger in Ridley's brown-grey eyes. "You also failed to prevent it Lieutenant Caine."

"Which I deeply regret Detective Moon," he retorted quietly in a voice that was still brittle calm.

"Do you regret all your oversights?" she quipped harshly.

Horatio hesitated in his response, taking in her fiery expression as he puzzled over her tone, it was as if she meant it to be personal and yet he did not think it was an over defensive reaction to his remarks, no, there was something more to it. "It was your oversight as well Detective Moon, you are meant to be the expert."

She resisted the urge to turn away from his intense stare and said quietly, "your right, it was my oversight, twelve cases now, twelve, I've heard all the accusations, and all the insults. I've had to answer to my superiors so many times it's lost all meaning. I've also had to answer to the families, the first three were upset but the rest, they got angry, I've been cursed at, spat at, slapped and threatened, I'm the name to blame in this, I've always been blame with Detective Silver and now I'm to blame for it all because I failed him too. So if you want a name to use when people start asking you why the body count is rising use mine, I don't care. I don't care what abuse I suffer over this or who breaks the case so long as it is solved and this guy pays for what he's done."

"I don't know how things were done in New York Detective Moon but down here my team succeed or fail as a team," Horatio said firmly, "we don't let individuals become scapegoats. Your case is now my case too and we are going to solve it but you have to give me everything."

"Everything?" she echoed in confusion as she finally sat back.

"I've looked at your old cases and there are a few inconsistencies, Mary Violet's death was more violent than the others as was Detective Silver's, and he wasn't killed in his car where he was found meaning the urban legend his death was mimicking is still unclear but you know all that, so what's the explanation? Those two victims stand out Detective Moon and I cannot accept that no one in New York could learn anything from that."

Ridley gave a slight frown before brushing her right hand loosely against her coin necklace and then letting it fall to her lap. "Well we didn't, my conclusion was that someone killed Miss Violet, yes, but someone else cleaned it up, the kill was sloppy but the clean-up was professional, the area was sterile, no prints and the only evidence, the mirror, took us where the killer wanted it to take us. Look Lieutenant Caine, Justin and I reopened Miss Violet's case three times because it was an oddity, we were both convinced it proved that these urban killings were the work of at least two people, possibly more but no one wanted to hear theories. We looked at every shred of evidence we could find but it led us nowhere."

"And Detective Silver?" Horatio pressed her for information as he placed both his palms down on the table and continued to stare at her. "It's easy to assume the motive was either because he got too close to something or simply a mockery of the authorities chasing the killer but could it have been something else? This killer seems to go to a lot of effort to make these kills match up with urban legends, why was this different? I get the killer in the backseat motive but the evidence that he died elsewhere was clear and I don't think our killer is the type to kill someone in one urban legend fashion and then change it to another."

"I know," Ridley retorted quietly as she bowed her head, "and I thought that too. I looked hard into his case and it nearly broke me and in the end I was ordered off it because he was my partner and it was too personal. I don't where Justin was when he died, he was out of the city, his wife thought he was at work but that was a lie, it's why people think maybe he was onto a solid lead at long last but there was nothing about it, not in his home, his car or at work, nothing to suggest that he had finally learned something about this killer."

"He was wrapped up beneath a blanket and positioned to appear comfortable," Horatio continued, still calm and quiet, "is it possible someone else moved the body? Someone who knew him, someone who cared about him? Because that's what it looks like to me Detective Moon and I'm wondering why everyone close to him wasn't questioned more thoroughly over it."

Ridley looked up sharply and snapped, "I spoke to everyone who knew him, everyone Lieutenant Caine, an old college friend he met for coffee a week before his death, a cocktail waitress he'd flirted with one night, an ex-girlfriend who lived ten blocks away, I left no stone unturned with Justin but whatever secret he had he kept it from me and took to his grave."

Horatio nodded and glanced at Ridley's half-full cup of now cold coffee. "Do you want another coffee Detective Moon? I'll give you a moment to enjoy it this time."

Ridley shook her head. "I'd rather go back to my friend's Lieutenant Caine, wash, change and maybe have some form of breakfast if I have the time."

"You will have the time Detective Moon, I will call you when we know more about our crime scene and when Glenn Kinskey is ready to talk, I imagine if he's going to talk to anyone it will be the detective who promised to catch the monster that robbed him of his siblings."

Ridley clenched the edge of the table slightly with both hands. "Another family to try and explain things too," she said softly, "another set of faces looking at me and wondering why I don't know anything about this madman and how I've let it go on for so long."

"I will be with you Detective Moon, sharing those stares and answering those accusations," Horatio assured. "You won't ever be alone in Miami."

Ridley gave a grateful nod. "Thank you Lieutenant Caine."

He gave a flicker of a smile, interrogation over at last. "It's been a week and we are working together, I think Horatio will do."

'I must have passed his test,' she thought sardonically. "Do I know you well enough for that?"

Horatio lowered his shades with one hand exposing his intent stare. "If you don't Detective Moon I'm hoping you soon will and that I will know you quite well too."

Ridley wasn't sure why but there was something in his deep blue eyes that suggested his words were a threat. She chose not to react to it; instead she smiled back and retorted, "Ridley, if you get to be Horatio then I get to be Ridley."

"Well Ridley I think it's time we concluded our long morning and your long evening and I get you to back to whomever's house you happen to be staying in," he replied jovially.

Ridley's eyes filled with a brief flicker of annoyance as Horatio stood, she knew he was mocking her, hinting towards her earlier activities with Speed, not that he could possibly know whom she had been with. She had been expecting it, in fact she had been expecting worse, perhaps scorn or questions, this was getting off lightly and yet somehow she felt uneasy, like the worst was still to come. Horatio was playing nice after his inquisition but he wasn't hiding the fact that he was still unsure about her. Well it was nothing she wasn't used to, after a while she and Justin had been treated like the plague amongst the CSI department in New York, the detectives there were afraid if they associated with Ridley and Justin they would be tainted by the press and public.

Ridley followed Horatio out into the warm golden glow of a late Miami morning and gave him Ruby's address. The drive took forty minutes and during it they shared yet another questionable silence, even Horatio felt the discomfort of it this time. He wanted to like Ridley Moon, he did, but there was something about her that nagged at him, that insisted something wasn't right and he could neither shake it off nor solve it. She had her secrets but everyone did, and she was a fish out of water down here, and by her own admission suffering from serious harassment and grief over this urban legends killer, never mind the grief and guilt that came with Detective Silver's murder.

'Justin,' the realisation sparked in Horatio's head suddenly as he turned into Ruby's street. 'She calls him Justin every time except when she was telling me his name for the first time, with everyone else it's strict protocol, surnames and titles only, but even when I call him Detective Silver she sticks with Justin and she says it so fondly. He was her partner for two years, so calling him by his first name would hardly be unusual but it's the way she says it. I'm going to need more before I go down this road but I'm starting to think Justin Silver was Ridley's partner in more than one way.'

He pulled up on the road outside the block of modest looking apartments Ruby called home. All white walls and glass like so many of the buildings around the city, except this one was in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint, several of the windows bore cracks and there were no wealthy women sunning themselves on balconies.

"Thanks for the lift," Ridley said politely.

'No invite, pity,' Horatio thought sardonically as he nodded, 'but she's too clever to encourage me to pry into her personal affairs.'

"I'll see you later Ridley."

"I hope it's with good news," she retorted before opening the door and stepping out of the car.

"I will be happy if it's just news," Horatio answered before she closed the door. He watched as she walked off, brisk and, he noticed a smile, barefoot with muck stains up to her knees. It was why she had gotten numerous looks in the diner and yet she hadn't been bothered by a single one. 'I do want to like her,' he thought wearily, 'but there's something stopping that. Ridley if you're holding back because you don't trust me that needs to stop, you're not alone in this anymore, I'll only give you to the wolves if you deserve it.'


"She's in your parking space again Horatio," Calleigh remarked cheerfully as Horatio entered the CSI Miami headquarters.

"I noticed," Horatio retorted dryly with a glimmer of a smile.

"Maybe you should have better time keeping H," Eric jested with a grin, "this woman seems determined to piss you off."

Horatio tugged his ever present sunglasses off and slid them by one stem into his jacket's front pocket. "Or she's testing me," he replied serenely, "because I'm testing her."

Calleigh looked mildly impressed at this. "Well you gotta like a girl who stands up for herself."

Even as Eric frowned at Calleigh's admiration for Ridley he couldn't help but show a hint of fondness in his brown eyes as he took in Calleigh's wide, white smile and the joyous spark in her own vibrant, cerulean eyes.

"There is a difference between asserting one's self and defending a secret in one's self," Horatio murmured, "I think I would rather find out which it is with Ridley before I show any admiration."

"Yet you're calling her Ridley now," Calleigh observed as she gave her superior an easygoing, jesting smile, "means there's something about her you like."

"Her stubbornness maybe," Horatio murmured. "Now I think we should join her and the others upstairs and see what we've learned."

Upstairs Speed was very much regretting being first in the main office especially now that Ridley was second and had been for ten minutes. Truthfully he wasn't one for being early, or even on time, but he already been at work wrapping up information on the clown statue so it was easy enough to head upstairs in good time. He had looked up when she had entered the room, just to simply see who had arrived, and had not looked at her since, though he had offered a half-hearted 'hi' to which she had responded with an equally brief and awkward greeting.

What was now annoying him was for the past ten minutes that she had been sitting in the room staring out the window wistfully and he had been laying out his information on the statue on the desk, was that instead of thinking about the ugly decoration he was catching himself thinking about her without meaning to.

'What is this, case number twelve?' he wondered in irritation. 'Surely no paycheque is worth chasing some creep all over New York and then down to Miami with no success, especially a creep like this. She doesn't look desperate for money, although her clothes aren't exactly brand new, pretty much every girl in that club last night had an outfit double the cost of her dress at least. I suppose her outfit was a little more tasteful that most of the rest but it's not exactly Miami club wear and I don't think she'd stand out much in New York either.'

He frowned down at a photograph of the statue angrily as he realised he was doing it again. 'Damnit I did a stupid thing, if Eric found out he would never let it go. Well there are plenty of other women in Miami so there won't be a repeat.'

The door opened as Horatio entered followed by Calleigh and Eric. Horatio took in the scene swiftly just as Ridley turned away from the window and banished the unsuited peaceful look in her eyes.

"It's a beautiful sunset out there," Calleigh observed.

"It is," Ridley agreed as she stood up. "You don't get them like that in New York, too much smog and our summers just aren't as golden."

"Well Speed," Horatio turned on the trace expert, "what can you tell us about the statue?"

"It was originally a decoration in Harlequin's Joke and Costume shop in the mall downtown on Red River Street before that place went into administration and shut down five months ago," Speed explained dryly, his voice weary and his expression sullen. Truthfully this case was nothing but a problem to him, a long, weary problem that was too complicated and unfulfilling to justify his paycheque and yet it was somehow better being on this case at last than chasing up after heroin addicts overdosing and models being accidentally drowned in a selfish form of sex gone wrong with would be playboys. "Anything that wasn't sold or moved on to another store went into storage out of town, with a storage company called 'Creek Storage', this particular item was in number 556, forgotten until I made many, many dead end calls about it. Seems no one knew or cared that it was gone.

The serial number is 32, only 34 of these things were made, can't imagine why," he continued sardonically, "the company that made them, is a small business in Florida called Green Doves Ltd, catchy right?" He glanced up at Horatio briefly before continuing on. "They were the ones who were able to tell me where this model went, straight from them to Harlequin's, they still had the paperwork showing the request and the payment, which they faxed to us." He gestured down to the sheets below with one hand. "Creek Storage by the way operates with the policy that you look after your own stuff, they provide the space not the protection, they have only three cameras on site, one of which, the main gate's incidentally, is broken. My guess, there's probably a lot of illegal stuff in those storage containers. Also, their opening hours are 10-4 and they are as helpful as a bank."

"That's a bitter analogy," Calleigh teased. "Still, good info, a lot better than I did with our murder weapon, or weapons rather."

"Oh?" Horatio raised a golden-red eyebrow at that.

Calleigh nodded. "Uh huh, one for the babysitter and one for the twins, Alexx is eighty percent sure the twins died first, hard to tell though since there can only have been twenty minutes or so in it, but the time of death for all of them was somewhere around the time Abigail phoned to complain about the statue watching her at 11:45 p.m."

"Yes, she was in the house a good three hours before she did that," Horatio murmured, "meaning the statue itself didn't initially alarm her, at least not enough to call the Kinskeys."

"Four years old," Ridley commented quietly as she folded her arms, "no one under three yet but four...four's getting close, they hadn't even started school."

"Seems futile doesn't it," Speed remarked grimly, "we spend all this time trying to catch this guy and he goes and kills two kids. What's the point?"

"The point Speed is to stop him before he ruins anymore lives," Horatio commented sternly, "and to bring him to justice for the lives he has taken and we will, believe me we will because he will slip up, everyone does eventually."

"Surely eventually was five kills ago in New York," Speed grumbled bitingly.

"I thought so too," Ridley retorted coolly as she gave him a brief glower, "but if he did slip up we missed it and I don't see how but the evidence is there for all of you to look over, believe me after all this time I would be glad for something to jump up even if it made me look incompetent, getting this guy caught would be worth it.'

'Martyr,' Speed thought disapprovingly.

"Well there's been nothing concrete with our first case," Calleigh commented wearily, "the cameras from the King's household didn't show us much and Miss Greene's mother says the lantern was broke by Mr Blair when he was drunk and that he had a habit of forgetting to lock the door all the time, meaning our killer didn't have to commit breaking and entering to get access to Miss Greene's diary."

"Something will lead us to this guy," Horatio insisted, "now, Ridley, you and I need to go and speak with a very traumatised boy."

Ridley nodded slowly, it wouldn't be the first child she'd spoken to in regards to these disturbing murders, not even the second or the third. She tried to steel herself for the tears, the pleading looks, the burning horror in the eyes that she knew was never going to leave and worse the sobs and shakes but it was hard, no matter how many times kids were involved with crimes it was always that little bit harder making yourself numb to their pain than it was making yourself numb to an adult's pain. Yet to openly sympathise or empathise would be worse, it would make things too personal, and make you too emotional.