Author's Note: I was gonna hold on to this chapter until tomorrow night... you know, pace myself. But I can't, I'm too excited! :P Hope you like it as much as I do!


Chapter Six

Ryan squeezed his eyes shut, shook himself, then opened them again, blinking rapidly. All these tiny little letters in Kelly Pickett's medical records were starting to blur together as he read them in an empty layout room. Papers were spread neatly in front of him, covering almost the entire table.

Calleigh walked by the room, then doubled back and came in. "Hey, Ryan," she said. "How's your case going?"

He didn't look up when she came in, afraid he would lose his place. He sighed. "Not too great. I'm looking for any possible medical reason in Kelly Pickett's entire history why she might suddenly go nuts and kill herself. I got nothing so far."

"Right, Eric told me you guys got a suicide, too," she remarked. "When it rains it pours, I guess."

"Uh-huh..." he answered vaguely, his brow knit with concentration.

She frowned. She knew that tone of voice from him. "Something bothering you?"

He gave her a tiny shrug. "It's just weird... Two healthy, fairly young people with no history of psychiatric or drug problems both violently commit suicide in the same morning?"

"Yeah...," she said. "Well, Horatio's going back to our victim's clinic later to talk to the last doctor to see him. Maybe she noticed something about him that could give us a hint."

"Natalia have any luck isolating anything from his blood?" he asked.

"She's amazing," Calleigh said fervently. "She did manage to actually detect a foreign substance. It's biological, so that's why it took us so long to find it; it was hiding in his naturally occurring proteins. We have no idea what it is yet, though, or what it does. She's working on it."

"Maybe I'll send her a sample of Kelly Pickett's blood for comparison...," Ryan said thoughtfully.

Calleigh frowned. "You really think there's a connection between our two cases? It's not just a coincidence?"

"Cal, how often do we ever have a true coincidence in this job?" he joked dryly.

She smiled. They both fell silent, Ryan still diligently reading. Calleigh glanced down at the papers on the table in front of her. She skimmed it curiously.

Suddenly she frowned, leaning down closer to read the name on the paper. She looked up at Ryan.

"Ryan...," she said quietly.

He looked at her, saw the look of bewilderment on her face. "What's up?"

"Dr. Annemarie Franci," she said.

"Who?"

She handed him the paper she'd read. "Dr. Annemarie Franci drew Kelly Pickett's blood three days ago for mono testing. She was the last doctor to see Kelly before she died."

Her green eyes glittered. "Ryan, that's the same doctor that last saw Gabriel Marcelino."

Ryan immediately took out his cell phone. "You still think it could be a coincidence?"

"Hell no," she said flatly.

Ryan held the phone up to his ear. "Yeah, H, it's Ryan. You're going back to the clinic to talk to the victim's doctor, right? Yeah, I'm coming with you."

-|x|-

Ryan sat in the front seat of the Hummer, Horatio driving them to the clinic. Ryan's heart pumped his veins full of adrenaline, the excitement of the chase taking hold of him. He loved it when a case started coming together.

"So Kelly Pickett and Gabriel Marcelino both saw the same doctor within a day of each other," Ryan said.

"He went for a tetanus shot and she went to get bloodwork done to test for mono," Horatio added.

"It would've been fairly easy for the good doctor to dose them with something without their knowledge," Ryan pointed out. "I mean, if you're not a doctor, how do you really know what they're supposed to do? You're supposed to be able to trust doctors."

"And the doctor in question is a neurologist at Dade U," Horatio finished. "I looked at her profile online, and apparently she researches psychogenic illnesses, mainly schizophrenia."

"Maybe she's experimenting," Ryan said darkly.

"And the citizens of Miami are her lab rats."

Neither said anything for a moment.

"That's twisted," Ryan said.

-|x|-

Maya looked up when Horatio and Ryan approached her, putting her hands on her hips. "Oh no, not you again," she said sourly.

Horatio smirked. "Is Dr. Franci here?"

Maya waved an impatient hand toward the back hallway. "She was supposed to be here at 2, but she's late as usual," she told them. "Ask around, she should be here somewhere. And don't go flashing your badges around here. You'll scare my patients."

"Thank you, ma'am," Horatio said courteously. She grunted and bustled off to her duties.

"She seems... lovely," Ryan muttered dryly.

"Excuse me, miss?" Horatio said, grabbing another nurse's attention.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about Dr. Franci," he said.

Ryan wandered away from Horatio, leaving him to question the nurse. He walked around the admissions desk and made for the hallway Maya had indicated earlier. He walked slowly, taking in his surroundings.

The clinic was very small and quite shabby. Ryan was sure Maya and the other nurses in charge did all they could to keep it nice, but there was only so much they could do. Ryan wished people didn't have to come to places like this just to get decent healthcare. Clinics tried their best, but they weren't hospitals. They didn't have all the necessary equipment, staff, medication... Ryan made himself a mental note to donate part of his next paycheck to this place. It wouldn't be much, but it was something.

He saw a bulletin board about halfway down the hall. He stood in front of it, a small smile spreading across his face. It was full of pictures of children and drawings they must have made for the staff here. There were also pictures of families, Christmas cards, and thank-you notes tacked up to the cork. He leaned in close to inspect a crayon-scrawled note on yellow construction paper. Thanks for fixing my leg! There was a lopsided picture of a stick figure in what looked like a cast. Ryan grinned. He had a couple of notes from people he'd helped, too, at home in a special shoebox he kept them in. Thanks was never necessary, but it always cheered him up to know people appreciated what he did for them.

Ryan suddenly heard a door click shut to his right. It startled him out of his thoughts as he gazed at the pictures. He looked down the hallway toward where the sound came from, but there was no one there. Warily, he slowly walked down the hallway.

A door on his left, the one he was pretty sure he'd heard close, was labeled "Storage." Ryan tapped on it with a knuckle. "Hello?" he called.

He tried the knob; it was unlocked. He pushed the door open slowly. "Hello?" he said again. "Miami-Dade PD, anyone in here?"

He pushed the door all the way open before stepping inside. The walls were lined with tall shelving units, stocked full of piles upon piles of medical supplies. He scanned the shelves as he took a few steps inside. Bandages, medications, syringes, stethoscopes, tongue depressors, cotton balls, rubbing alcohol...

In the far corner of the room, Ryan's sharp eyes caught a glimpse of red peeking out from behind a couple rolls of gauze. He walked to that shelf and nudged the gauze aside in curiosity.

A small, bright red box was tucked behind the other supplies at his eye level. He frowned when he saw it was labeled in stark black letters. "Biohazard – DO NOT TOUCH."

Overcome with curiosity, Ryan flipped open the top of the box. It was full of tiny glass vials, most of them filled with some sort of clear liquid. Ryan picked up one of the empty vials and held it up to his eyes so he could read the tiny label. It was handwritten.

S.I.N.

Three letters scrawled across each label. But other than that, there was nothing else written on the vials. Strange. If this was medication, there would have been an ingredient list or an issuing doctor's name or something.

Ryan's gut went cold. This was way too weird. These mysterious vials had to have something to do with...

Excruciating pain exploded at the back of his head. More slammed into him just above his eyebrow as his head crashed against the shelf in front of him, and Ryan suddenly realized he was falling. A loud metallic clang of something heavy being dropped to the floor. He collapsed to the ground, his senses reeling. The vial flew out of his hand, clinking away to roll under the shelving unit.

He landed on his stomach, the ground feeling like it was bucking underneath him. He could barely breathe. His sight was blurry and warped. He lay on the ground, forcing himself to keep breathing in gasps. His throat felt like it was closing up, his stomach threatening to expel its contents. His mind felt suffocated, as if he were drowning.

His thoughts spun out of control. What's going on?

His head throbbed in agony, trying to slip him into unconsciousness, but he fought it with all his strength. He tried to move. His appendages twitched feebly, but he couldn't force his muscles to get up.

He heard hurried footsteps somewhere near his head, but he couldn't see anyone. There was the sound of frantic rummaging as someone raced around the room, taking something off a shelf.

Then someone started to hold him down.

Ryan's instincts immediately began urging him to fight back, to move, but he just couldn't. Indistinguishable noise erupted from his throat, but it was so weak, he doubted anyone would be able to hear him outside.

"Shh..." came a woman's soft whisper from right above his ear. His blood ran cold at the sound.

The person pressed herself against his back, pinning down his right shoulder with their right elbow. Their left hand suddenly pressed mercilessly against the gash on the back of his head. It sent a sharp wave of stinging pain shooting up and down his body. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and gritted his teeth against the pain.

Just when he thought the pain couldn't get any worse, something bit sharply into his neck.

Ryan again tried to struggle, to get away from whoever was attacking him, but he was so weak they held him down easily. A strange sort of fluid pressure suddenly pushed itself into him sickeningly, through the area where the sting had come from. It felt utterly alien to him. He tried to cry out for help.

Horatio!

No sound would come out of his mouth. Through his addled mind, he finally grasped what was happening: Someone was injecting something into his neck.

Panic coursed through his veins, and still he couldn't make himself move.

HORATIO!

Suddenly, it was over. The needle was removed from his skin, leaving him with a strange ache in his neck and blinding agony pounding in his head. He distantly heard the sound of the person gathering something off the shelf, then hurrying away from him. The door opened and closed.

And then he was alone.

Ryan lay on the floor for what seemed like an eternity. Nausea roiled in his gut. His head... God, his head hurt so bad...

Someone... help...

He felt unconsciousness tugging at his mind. He was too weak to fight anymore.

...Horatio?...

His eyes flickered closed.