Chapter Twelve
Horatio got out of the Hummer and ducked quickly under the crime scene tape, heading toward the storage unit. Frank was outside it, waiting for him.
Tom appeared around the corner of the building, helping two of his orderlies roll a gurney with a body bag on it. Horatio walked up to it.
"Let me see, please," he ordered quietly.
Tom unzipped the bag for him.
It was definitely her. Dr. Franci. The woman he'd seen running out of the clinic that afternoon with his CSI's blood on her hands. Horatio's blood ran cold with hatred for this woman. He was secretly pleased to see her corpse.
He nodded to Tom, who moved the gurney along to go load it into his van, then walked over to Frank.
"Tom said cause of death was probably blunt force to the back of the head," Frank growled. "Said her skull was crushed. Someone was pissed off. Can't say I feel sorry for her."
"None of us can, Frank," Horatio said quietly.
"Calleigh got here a few minutes before you did," Frank said. "She's inside with Delko."
"Thank you, Frank," Horatio said, walking past him to enter the storage unit. He saw Damien hadn't been kidding when he said Dr. Franci had "tricked it out." There were microscopes, filing cabinets, chemistry equipment, Bunsen burners and medical supplies spread all over the place, on tables and on metal shelving units.
As he entered the room, he saw Eric and Calleigh standing together in a corner, next to what looked like a metal barrel. They were talking in low voices with worried expressions on their faces. They looked at Horatio as he came in.
"How's Ryan?" Calleigh asked.
"He's hanging in there," Horatio said. "What do we have here?"
Eric and Calleigh glanced at each other. "You'd better come take a look at this, H," Eric said quietly.
Horatio walked quickly over to where they were and looked inside. There was a pile of black debris inside, coated with a white substance. He looked at them questioningly.
"When we got here, this was on fire," Eric explained. "It's a firing barrel. I put it out before more evidence was destroyed."
"Evidence?"
Calleigh handed him a charred piece of paper, which she'd obviously pulled out of the barrel. He took it carefully and held it up to his eyes. He didn't know what he was looking at for a moment. Then he recognized the letters O and H, and then a dash.
It was a piece of a chemical formula.
"Have you looked at the other material in there?" Horatio asked, his voice strangled.
"We poked around a little, not very deep," Calleigh answered quietly. "We found mostly paper, but there was also a lot of glass and Eric found a piece of red cardboard."
"Red cardboard," Horatio echoed hollowly. "Just like the box she kept the S.I.N. in."
They all fell silent, looking at the ground.
Horatio said what they were all thinking.
"She burned her research," he said tonelessly. "Her notes, the drug samples, even the box she kept them in."
Eric sighed, rubbing his eyes. What the hell do we do now?
"She destroyed our last shot of saving Ryan, didn't she?" Calleigh whispered.
"Whoever killed her did," Eric pointed out, his temper flaring.
"Maybe not," Horatio suddenly said.
Eric and Calleigh looked at him, surprised.
"What do you mean?" Calleigh asked.
Horatio looked at her with a strange glint of excitement in his eye.
"I think it's time we went back to school."
Author's Note: Another short one, I know. Sorry. But I think the next chapter is going to be so awesome, you won't begrudge me for it... ;)