Disclaimers: All characters from CSI: Miami are property of CBS. I own nothing connected with CBS or with CSI: Miami, I don't know anyone connected with CBS or with the show. I gain nothing from posting these stories save self satisfaction.

Title: Mutual Valor

Pairing: Horatio Caine/OC

Rating: NC 17 I know, 'M' is an accepted rating, but this is just in case you don't know, this is what 'M' means. This is not only for sexual content, but also for violence and references to sexual child abuse well.

Spoilers: There are references to previous episodes through fourth season.

Challenge: For you true experts on all CSI: Miami, the J's I use for story breaks, and the Sorority House, are references to one episode in particular. It will be up to you to figure out which episode and why I used the lines of J's.

Comments: Both negative and positive comments are always appreciated. I learn from the negative and enjoy the positive.

Thank you: Many thanks to my betas, Elena and Tonie. If not for you, this would have been a mess! I am truly grateful for your efforts.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Story: Sometimes the rescuer becomes the rescued.

Chapter 7: Wolfe investigates the mummy. Duquesne and Delko take on a new case. Manuela brings a new case to Horatio.

Chapter 7:

An hour after Horatio arrived at the lab on Monday morning, Ryan was enthusiastically filling him in on his latest discoveries of the mummy's life, as they strolled down the hallways.

"The guy was the owner of the condo, so it wasn't a body dump, but hardly anyone in the complex even knew him." Disbelief was reflected in the rising timbre of his tenor voice.

"Well, Mr. Wolfe, that's not unusual."

"Even the manager didn't notice that he'd disappeared!" Wolfe protested, as if he did not believe his own findings.

Horatio nodded, waiting patiently for some real information, recognizing that the young man had learned the job, but still needed seasoning to be able to maintain some distance between the cases and his personal feelings.

"The manager said the monthly condo's association fees were paid with the bank's automatic bill-pay service until about four months ago, so he never paid attention to whether the guy was around or not. It wasn't until after fees stopped coming in that he even thought about the last time he'd actually seen him." Annoyance brought Wolfe's finely shaped eyebrows deeper into the bridge of his aquiline nose.

"His bills were paid automatically, then?" That detail interested Horatio.

"At least the association fee was, but then it stopped. The manager was about to file collections papers when agents from the County Treasurer came around. Seems Mel hadn't paid his property tax, either. Together, they figured the property had been abandoned."

"Knowing a property is abandoned and legally declaring it abandoned, Mr. Wolfe, are two different things. It takes time to legally establish a property as abandoned, so I'm assuming no one entered the apartment until they had the legal right?" Horatio knew the answer but asked to be sure that Wolfe was aware of this particular legal procedure.

Raising his hands to his belt to hitch up his light gray Dockers, Ryan's head bobbed around as his gaze dropped to the floor, "Wel-l-l-l, of course, no one is supposed to enter the property until the paperwork on abandonment is processed, but the manager's girlfriend is a realtor and she wanted to get first look, so she got a key from him and went in to sneak a peek about a week after they started the paperwork. That's who found the body."

Wolfe couldn't help but notice that his boss could really get a 'holier-than-thou' look—the chin raised, a steady blue-eyed gaze down his nose—when told about someone bending the law. Wolfe, a stickler for the law as much as any other person subject to Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder, always tried to lighten up a little. He considered mentioning that this bending had, after all, led to an early discovery in a very serious matter, but knew that would be no excuse to Horatio, for whom the law was the law, period.

Letting the matter of how the law had been circumvented, pass, Horatio quested for more information. "No missing persons reports from friends or relatives?"

"No. Weird, huh? I mean, true, people in Miami come and go for months at a time, but still… The manager thinks that the last time he'd seen him he was taking bags full of personal records to the dumpster over a year ago. He only remembered that because it seemed unusual that the papers weren't shredded like this guy usually did."

"So. At last sighting, Mr. Watson was disposing of whole documents without bothering to shred them first, but was so careful to do it before that the manager recalls the difference. Hmm. Loss of meticulousness. Sometimes, that," Horatio recalled some of his psychology classes, "that could be a sign of depression." He was beginning to feel a personal connection to this strange case.

"But wait, it gets better." Ryan stopped, forcing the hall traffic to veer around the two while he made his point. "The manager also remembers that a month or so after that, a truck from some local charity was at Mel's place for an entire day, loading up. He had asked about it because he thought that maybe the guy was moving.

"And what explanation did the manager receive?"

"Watson told him he was just lightening up; it was like he was just giving away his entire house—clothing, kitchen items, furniture, all sorts of things."

Watching people passing around them, seeing it all, but paying attention only to Wolfe, he asked, "And did the manager have any observations about the man's appearance the last time he saw him?"

Wolfe, always needing to get the details correct, referred to a small notebook he pulled from his jacket pocket. "Yeah, he said the guy looked a little worn and haggard, like he'd been sick."

Gazing thoughtfully at one hand playing with the forefinger of the other, Horatio acknowledged, "Mmm-hmm. A haggard appearance is sometimes an early sign of extreme dieting. The skin loses its color and even starts to sag as the necessary nutrients are depleted. Not eating could be another sign of depression." His hands rose to his hips and his stance widened a step. "Mr. Wolfe, I know you said there were no missing persons reports from family or friends but did you find anything that could lead you to anyone at all? We need to find out as much as possible about this man's social relationships to see if this was the result of any foul play or entirely self inflicted."

"Nothing, Horatio." He thumbed through his notes. "We found only his fingerprints, and a few prints from the Realtor who found him, in the entire condo. There was no paper, no letters, no computer, nothing; and the place was scrubbed clean. Almost looked like the place had never been lived in.

"Hmm, yes, Alexx said the same thing when I asked her to describe the scene. I wonder if he had help erasing any evidence."

"And speaking of Alexx, tox screens came back on the tissue samples that she sent to them; there was nothing but the usual starvation wastes. There was no evidence of drugs, poison, or anything."

"Hm. And no preservatives, no chemical reasons for the lack of decomp." Horatio paused a second, considering all he'd heard about the case so far, and then started to rapidly talk. "Okay, here's what I want you to do: I want you to get hold of the utility records, all of them for at least a year, to see if there was anything unusual there as far as payments or usage. You need to call the manager and find out from which financial institution the automatic payments came, then call the bank for their records to find out why they stopped the bill paying service for the Association fees. You'll also get a time line of his last transactions, when he stopped making them in person. Call the phone company—same thing—for the last numbers he called or received and you'll be able to track them to people who knew him, maybe even doctors."

"I'm on it, H." Wolfe nearly sprinted off, fired up by all the follow-up ideas he'd been handed.

Checking the time, Horatio was about to head down another hallway, but encountered two familiar figures.

"And where are you two off to?" he asked Calleigh and Eric, seeing the large, metal field kits in their hands.

"Got a call out. Car in a canal; blood and bullet casings on the shore. We're guessing that there's probably a dead body in the car, so we're going to stop off and pick up Eric's diving gear. We'll probably call Alexx once we're there. Sounds way too easy, so it'll probably be the hardest case we pick up this month." Calleigh was almost perky, anticipating the possibility of studying more bullets.

Standing behind Calleigh, Eric signaled to Horatio with his dark eyes, pantomiming his amazement at how a seasoned veteran could still get so excited about another case. Shaking his head slightly, he urged, "Come on, let's go. These kits aren't getting any lighter standing here. H, you coming with?"

"Umm, no, I have a staff meeting to attend. I'll try to get to you when I can. Otherwise…"

Delko grinned, "Keep you posted. Yeah, we know."

Smiling complacently, Horatio stood aside to let the pair pass. That made seven cases his team was handling: three homicides, including M'Fuan's mother; the kidnapping, which would be closed soon; the 'mummy,' which was being labeled a questionable death for now; a mini-mart robbery, and now this, which would probably turn out to be at least a homicide and possibly more. He would be adding this last one verbally to the report he had to hand in at the weekly meeting with the chief.

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At the canal, Calleigh was picking up the first of two bullet casings she'd found, and was about to bag it as she called over to Eric, who was taking a shore break in his black wetsuit, "You know what? These are the same caliber as the casings we found at the scene at that mini-mart robbery a couple of days ago."

"Yeah? Let's hope the gun was thrown in the canal or dumped in the car. Maybe I can find it when I go back in."

"Wouldn't that be just too nice of them?" Calleigh's pigtailed hair bounced over her shoulder as her head turned. "There are footprints in the dirt beside the tire tracks here, too. It looks like someone walked up, stood about here for a bit, and then turned around and ran back." Standing up from her squatting position, she continued, "The prints go onto the pavement, so we lose them at that point."

Alexx, standing nearby, shouted over to Eric, "Now, tell me again why I'm waiting for the car to be pulled out of the water?

"I'm sorry, I jumped the gun on calling you, Alexx. I told them to call you when I saw the body, but that was before I took a second look. This part of the canal has a lot of sludge and stuff, a lot of particulates that will stay suspended in water for a while, once disturbed. When they pull the car out, the water's going to get too cloudy to be able to see anything. I need to go down and see if I can spot anything before they pull it out."

"Particulates, huh?" Alexx said, trying to sound unimpressed.

Eric returned her skepticism with a crooked grin, "Yeah, you know, particles that are extremely small, fine—particulates. It's what they're called." He liked teasing Alexx, even if he got snapped at sometimes.

"Okay, if you say so." She crossed her arms, turning away briefly to hide a fond smile, but then, losing patience again, she pleaded, "Hurry, can't you, Baby? I've got two posts to get done before I go home today,"

"You can go. We'll bring him in safe and sound." Eric urged.

"No, I'm here. I might as well wait." Alexx did not particularly want to add that she just plain enjoyed watching the handsome, well-muscled young man in his form-fitting wetsuit, ignoring Calleigh's smile in her direction. She knew her friend laughed at the 'look but don't touch' rule she had with her husband, which each took full advantage of whenever possible. Sometimes, when teased about her proclivity to thoroughly enjoy the sight of good-looking men, she'd say, "I've got a marriage certificate, Honey, not a death certificate."

"We didn't think you'd get here so fast, Alexx." Eric grinned lopsidedly. "Next time we'll take our time about calling you."

"Will you stop jawing and get into the water, child?"

Still grinning, Eric pulled on his hood, "I'm going, I'm going, already."

Fifteen minutes later, he resurfaced with a thumbs-down and then motioned to the tow truck operator to start hauling the car out. The winch squealed.

After a few minutes, heedless of the dripping water and the mud, Alexx was examining the body that was slumped sideways in the front passenger seat. "You were right, Eric, about how dirty the water is, he's already coated in sludge." She shook her head slowly as she peered into the body's face. "Mud bath wasn't quite as exhilarating as you'd hoped, huh, Sugar? Poor thing." She poked about the slumped figure a few minutes. "From what I can see so far, two shots, one to the right side of the throat, a through-and-through, and one to the right temple with no exit wound there. Looks like he was sitting upright in the seat and fell over when shot, but I'll know more at the post. Probably been in the water for twelve to fifteen hours. I'll have to get him back to the morgue and clean him up before I can tell more." She backed out of her crouch and motioned to the waiting body haulers. "Okay boys, you're going to get dirty on this one. Come get him."

Calleigh stared at the ground as she considered what Alexx had said. "So, he was probably shot by someone who was standing outside of the passenger side door, possibly through the window since it looks like it was open already. Hm," she paused, "a through-and-through to the throat means we probably have a bullet inside the car besides one still in the body. Two bullets will mean a better chance of identifying the weapon." Flashing a smile, she announced, "I like that."

Eric, pulling off a flipper, called over, "What about the driver? Think he got out, walked all the way around the car, and shot the guy? That doesn't seem right."

"No, I don't think so." She brushed back a stray lock of hair that had fallen into her eyes. "The gravel on the other side of where the car was parked is deeper, so it doesn't show the footprints. It does, however, show blood, and I'm seeing gravitational droplets indicating someone going away from the car. Over here, on the passenger side, where there's more dirt to show footprints, it doesn't seem like anyone came from around that side of the car."

"More like," she backed up a couple of paces, thinking out loud, "walking up to the passenger side of the car from the opposite direction," she took two steps forward, pointed a finger miming a gun in her hand, "bang, bang, and then, turning back," she spun a one-eighty, "and running away. Hmm, but the vic has two gunshot wounds," speaking as she acted out, she turned back and looked around, "so, where does the blood on the ground come from? From the other guy, the driver? Maybe he was shot before getting into the car? Drove here, wounded?" She stared into space a moment, absently tucking the straying curl back into the elastic band. "I guess it could have happened."

Shrugging, she turned back to Eric, "We'll have to hope the car has some blood trace left besides the missing bullet. Whatever the case, at this point, I'm guessing it was the driver, bleeding, who's the source of the gravitational drops."

Alexx interrupted, returning from having made sure the body was safely on its way. "OK, I'm ready to go. I'll have more on the number of wounds and the angle of entry, maybe by tomorrow if no one else gets killed today." She didn't sound terribly optimistic; Miami was a busy city in more ways than one.

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Late in the afternoon, Calleigh was looking at the diagram she'd made of the crime scene and comparing it to the evidence spread out on the table when Delko came in with a 'look' on his face. Calleigh always knew that when his chin was lowered with a slack-jawed smile, and his beautiful brown eyes were gazing up, practically through his eyebrows, that something was up. Since he stood, just looking at her and not speaking, she felt compelled to prompt, "What?"

"You're never going to believe this. I did a prelim on the car from the canal, right? Knowing you'd want it, I looked for the bullet that went through the guy's throat. It's not there." He waved a hand to cut off her reply, "Yeah, I figured every angle possible. I checked the floorboards, both seats, sides, the backs of the seats, the driver's side door, everywhere. I thought that maybe the guy was shot from the waist—that the bullet went straight through the throat and out the driver's side window except for one thing—"

Calleigh finished the sentence, "The driver's side window was up, yeah I remember that. Only the passenger window was open. So, do you think the driver may have been shot with the through-and-through from the guy's neck?" Her green eyes widened as her face broke into a joyful grin. "That would explain the blood on the ground, wouldn't it?"

Delko smiled as much in appreciation of Calleigh's beauty as for reaching a conclusion similar to his own. "And, since the throat is soft tissue, the bullet would maintain enough velocity to still do damage at close range. Of course, we won't know anything for sure until we get Alexx's report on the angle of trajectory, but even so, we'd better issue a bulletin to emergency rooms to be on the lookout."

"You want to do that while I start cleaning up here? Oh, and thanks for thinking about looking for the bullet. Let's finish up, find Ryan, and go get a burger and a beer. I hear he's got an interesting case."

"Good. I'll check and see if anyone else is up. I saw Delmontes a bit ago. I'll see if H is around, too."

"The more the merrier."

But Horatio was not around. Two hours earlier, he had received a call from Manuela, who was at a hospital. "CPS called me a while ago about a child abuse case. Horatio, I think you'd better come and see," Manuela said in a strained voice.

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At first, when he saw the girl through a gap in the curtains, Horatio thought he'd been called on a wild goose chase because she looked to be a small young woman, perhaps twenty or twenty-one, who could have passed for sixteen. Sitting on the examining table with her head down, she had a hardened look that bespoke experiences best left unsaid, so typical of prostitutes, but then, as she lifted her head slightly, he suddenly realized that she was perhaps thirteen or even less. 'Oh, no,' he groaned inwardly, 'not another one. Not another child rape!' Yet, he realized, this was different because a child so young, yet so hardened, was almost unheard of in America. What, he wondered, had happened?

Remaining outside of the curtained area, unseen by the child, Horatio gently called, "Manuela?"

The sound of his voice, soft as it was, made the child jump as if a shot had been fired; the paper gown covering her rustled audibly, so violent was her start. Manuela appeared in his view and took the quaking form into her arms, hugging and shushing, reminding her that she was okay, that she was in a safe place and that no one was going to hurt her again.

Not hurt her again? He wondered if the SART nurse had already taken a rape kit, done a blood exam, all of the small and less-hurtful-than-rape hurts that had to be done. He only hoped Manuela's reassurances were true.

Manuela came to the gap in the curtains and stood so that she could be seen by the victim, but still speak to Horatio.

"I'm so sorry if I upset her, Manuela."

She shook her head. "It can't be helped. Thanks for coming." She looked over her shoulder at the child and tried to smile encouragingly. "We're waiting for the nurse to come back with some of the results."

"Okay, tell me about this. Was she raped?"

"Worse. Far worse."

Observing that the permed, blond haired figure showed no signs of physical violence, no bruising or swelling, and about to ask what she meant, he looked down to see that Manuela was close to tears. "Hey, it's getting to you, whatever it is, but I can't help if you don't tell me what this is about," he said, his head tilting, a concerned look for her in his blue eyes.

Speaking quietly, Manuela filled him in on what she had learned from the girl so far. "I think she's in a sort of… well, a system—a practice—very common in Asia, Europe, and South America. Young girls, even as young as eight or nine, have long been used for the sexual pleasure by men who can pay the price. Now, it seems, they're doing it in this country. Girls like her are taught, forced, to have sex with men."

"We've dealt with men who have kidnapped a child and allow other men to use her."

Manuela shook her head. "These are like prostitution houses, only all children, all under the age of sixteen or seventeen." Manuela swallowed with difficulty, her voice faltered. "Her description is pretty clear."

Horatio's face went blank as he tried to comprehend what Manuela was saying.

"I'm thinking that many of the girls who are abducted are ending up in these places, now. I was—they used to be taken to foreign countries, but now…

"Yes, I know that some kidnapping victims are taken to foreign countries for sexual abuse, but I didn't know it was happening here." He was desperately trying to contain the rage that was welling up. "Why do you think this isn't an isolated case?"

Looking to one side, back at the child, and back to Horatio, Mannie didn't seem to know where to put her eyes for any length of time. "Because I was—I just think it is." She shook her head as if trying to clear it, "Just things I've heard about this sort of thing, you know?" She gave Horatio a hard, desperate look. "Something has to be done!"

"We'll look into the idea, I promise. But, for now, I think we need to find the rest of the girls she lived with. How was she found? Where was she?"

"She was at a bus stop. From what she says, the driver who was taking her home was angry about something, and he just stopped the car, picked her up from the back seat, put her on the bench, and left her there. Someone at the stop called 9-1-1. The man was described as a chauffer. Paramedics said she was barefoot and in some sort of see-through shorty-nighty. That was at ten this morning."

Lips curled back in a snarl, his hands on hips, Horatio whispered, "And, of course, there are no witnesses left, because by the time the paramedics arrived, they had all caught their bus." Glancing thoughtfully at the little girl, he continued, "Hmm, I'll bet, if the man was a chauffeur, he's currently unemployed, too. Either he was told to drop the child off as his last duty, which made him mad enough to abandon the child, or he was fired afterwards because he didn't deliver the goods." His thumb absently stroked at his bottom lip. "So, we'll be looking for an unemployed chauffeur who thinks nothing of dropping off naked little girls in public. Unfortunately, that's not enough information to go on."

Putting her hand on his arm, Manuela looked like she didn't really want to continue, but she did anyway. "There is something else you should know. Her physical exam showed signs of severe sexual abuse as recently as a few hours before she was picked up. She was bleeding when they brought her in."

Horatio flinched as if struck with a blow; it just kept getting worse and worse. In an effort to keep his mind on the purpose for being here he simply replied, "No doubt there will be blood in the car as well as on the chauffeur if he carried her as she says."

A nurse came up and whispered very urgently into Manuela's ear. The two women seemed to hold on to one other for a moment, each in need of support, as Manuela's face blanched to the color of plumber's putty. When the nurse went into the examining area, Manuela slowly walked over to one the chairs lining the wall across from the curtain opening and sat so that she could keep an eye on the girl who was now talking with the nurse.

Sitting beside her, Horatio braced himself for whatever bad news she'd heard.

"The nurse just got the results from the tests. Horatio, that child is pregnant." Wrapping her arms around herself, she bent over, put her head down into her lap, and softly moaned.

The two sat quietly for nearly half an hour; Horatio thinking dark thoughts of what he would like to do to the creatures who could so terribly hurt children, while Manuela, in complete empathy with the child on the exam table, mourned this little girl's loss of innocence, and the loss of her childhood.