"It's turned into a legal nightmare", Calleigh greeted Horatio at the door of the MDPD Crime Lab building. "I don't think there's a single high-priced lawyer outside these walls."

"They're all here, hm?" Horatio spared a look at the interrogation rooms where, like hornets coming out of a broken nest, rows and piles of men in expensively tailored suits and women in severe business outfits were making sure the MDPD found their job very, very difficult to do. They were entirely unaware of the infinite patience the MD CSI team could exhibit under the right circumstances.

"It's going to take forever to even get started processing them."

"Which is what Bradley and his partner were counting on, that their customers would keep us away from them." That was the one black spot in Horatio's day – the one boat that had gotten away, protected by its ranger ID. It was not, however, a spot he expected would last very long. He was certain the same cool and incredibly smug attitude that Bradley had exhibited would bring the other half of this equation to his door. "Where is he?"

"Hospital still, under very close watch. His father's here. And I've got something I thought you'd like to see before you went in to talk to him." She handed him a folder. "Hot off the press."

Horatio leafed through the folder as they walked. "Well now, this… this is interesting. Thank you, Calleigh."

"I need to run the rifle you recovered from the swamp boat as fast as I can before someone here comes up with a reason why I shouldn't-couldn't-wouldn't. Unless you want me here?"

"No, let's do that first." As she walked off he turned to the policeman watching the door to the interrogation room he was about to step into and gave him some brief instructions. He stepped in and closed the door softly, somehow seeming to leave the chaos outside behind it. There was a single man sitting at the table, tall and gaunt, with thinning silver hair and, he noticed, the Blox nose and sharp blue eyes. "Mister Blox, I notice you have no lawyer with you."

Alexander Blox stared at Horatio with patrician disdain. "I think there's enough of that going around out there already. And I thought I would give you a chance to explain why you seem determined to hound both my family and my company in one go."

Horatio cocked a brow at the man, and that familiar, feral smile came to his lips. He was silent.

"I understand you are directly responsible for putting my youngest nephew in the hospital."

"Your nephew is responsible for the murder of two young girls, Mister Blox." He laid down a few sheets of paper from the folder Calleigh had given him. "And by the time we're done with him, they won't be the only ones."

Blox barely dignified the printouts with a glance. "I won't belittle your expertise." He waved a disdainful hand over the documents. "I will simply accept that you've been given incorrect information."

Horatio stared very calmly, very coolly at the man. "Your nephew has been using Dream Hunt property, specifically your Benelli R1 rifles and your swamp boats, to hunt human beings in the Everglades in a very sick variation of a canned hunt, Mister Blox. He –" He threw on the table the pictures Ryan had taken once the tiny, metal door had been unlocked and Bradley work area had been revealed. "- even took a page out of your book, Mister Blox, and preserved the trophies for his customers."

Blox was apparently ready to, once again, barely glance at the photos, but this time one glance was all it took. He winced, shoving the photos away and looking aside. "Good grief, man –"

"Don't. You. Look. Away." Horatio's voice lashed out, black and cold. "Don't you dare look away from what he did to those girls."

They squared in a tense silence. Blox drew in a deep breath and seemed to brace himself anew. "At worst this… this…" Words seemed to fail him, so he moved hastily on. "This only makes him guilty of dealing with… with dead… bodies."

Horatio smiled tightly; he could feel Blox's armor of denial cracking, failing. "We can place him at the scene of the crash that killed Victoria Randall and Sarah Pierce." He offered the stills from the surveillance cameras on the freeway; like any good hunter, Bradley had used the surrounding traffic as cover until the last moment, but he had not been able to stay hidden when Sarah had failed to crash the first time, merely veering away from him when she'd seen the Benelli rifle slung at his back. He'd had to come out in the open to finish the job, to face down another girl with her wits about her and a fighting spirit, to terrify her into a deadly mistake. They would never know if he'd meant to shoot at them or not, the threat had been enough. The stills were grainy, they could be disputed, particularly by the host of high-priced lawyers in Dream Hunt's keeping.

But as he'd herded them, Bradley's bike and its unique paint job had struck Sarah's elderly Beetle.

That was why, when Alexander Blox stared at the gray stills and said, "That could be anyone!", Horatio was willing to let it go.

"Maybe", he said, taking out the printouts Calleigh had added to the folder literally as he'd come through the door. "But the rifle, the rifle that shot a girl to death last month, the rifle that shot at me and at a survivor while she was being taken into protective custody – that rifle was found in Bradley's possession, and it has his DNA well-worked into it, Mister Blox. You see, this time, he didn't have time to clean up after himself." There was a polite knock on the door. Had he known Horatio, Blox might have known it didn't mean the respite he thought he was getting when the CSI looked up at the officer guarding the door and nodded. "I believe Mister Gerler handles the hunting and legal interests of your company?"

Richard Gerler rushed into the room, not even acknowledging Horatio. "Al, what's going on? Why don't you have a lawyer?" Belatedly he seemed to notice Horatio, caught up to his questions. "I'm VP of acquisitions for Dream Hunt, and I do believe we need to leave."

He was a very tall and fit man, green-eyed with very black, very short hair. He looked, Horatio thought, trim, rich, and freshly showered. Not that it mattered. He smiled thinly. "That would mean that you're responsible for how those acquisitions are used, wouldn't it? When they're used? Who they're used on?"

"Now that's enough –" Blox started.

"I hired" Gerler gestured pacifyingly at his boss. "enough security to keep those weapons as safe from misuse as humanly possible –"

"Yes, you did", Horatio countered swiftly. "Which makes me wonder how they got out in the first place."

"Enough!" Alexander Blox snapped at Horatio in a tone that, likely, did wonders to shut unruly VPs and disobedient family members up. "I would think you've got enough targets without coming after Rick as well! Isn't Brad –"

"Brad?!" Gerler turned in alarm. "What about Brad?"

Blox gestured at all the documents on the table. "He says they have Brad's DNA –"

"Christ, Al, why didn't you bring Angela in on this?" He turned to face Horatio, snorting his disdain. "If you have anyone's DNA involved in this mess, it's probably Gary's, not Brad's!"

"Rick!" Alexander Blox apparently wasn't willing to trade one nephew for another, and he glared angrily at his VP.

Pity, Horatio thought as he saw Eric walking fast towards the room, that the choice was made for him. He gestured Eric in, who handed him a bulky manila folder. "Records confirmed our suspicions."

"Thank you, Eric."

"Oh, now what." Gerler rolled his eyes heavenward, ignored the, and turned back to kindly, but firmly, defend his point. "Al, I'm sorry, but where would Brad had even had access to the rifles? Gary had access to the keys, and he travels down here –" He suddenly realized he was the focus of attention in the room and paused.

"Actually, Rick, I believe everyone at Dream Hunt's main office could have had access to those keys, isn't that right?"

Gerler paused. Horatio willed him forward, willed him to believe himself safe. Willed him not to know about that single hair Ryan had found in the SUV. Willed that smug overconfidence into overdrive.

At last, the man shrugged. "Any VP, yes."

"Doesn't that include you?"

Gerler smiled and gave a long suffering, why-am-I-humoring-you, sigh. "I don't like Florida. Too many regulations."

"Yeah, you head to California instead." Eric stared hard at the man. "Must burn you up, though, all those fancy, custom-made guns sitting right there, and you can't even touch them."

"I'm a pro." Gerler stared coolly at Eric. "I have my own equipment. It may not be as fancy, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Name brand is what you give the customers to keep them happy."

"A pro." Horatio smiled tightly at that. "Yes, I guess you are, aren't you, Rick. You own a Weatherby Vanguard, a bolt-action rifle, rather than the semi-auto action of the Benelli/ The only real money you've spent on it was to customize it prior to a hunting trip you took to Africa – you had it customized to handle a larger caliber. That seems like an odd image to present to your costumers, Rick, such an important man with such a… simple gun."

"I prefer to think of it as a classic", Gerler replied through gritted teeth, sensitive as any man to a slight upon his prized possessions.

Horatio had turned to stare at the vast mayhem outside the clear walls of the interrogation room. He wondered if Calleigh was right, if every lawyer worth the name was already spoken for – he was banking so very much upon it. When he turned to face the two men at the table he had a battered cell phone in a clear plastic bag in his hands. "This classic of yours, it's cost you quite a bit of money, hasn't it, Rick."

Eric set a folder on the table. "Dream Hunt customers aren't the only ones shooting protected and endangered game."

Gerler didn't even open the folder. He shrugged, spreading his hands, smiling calmly – uncaringly. "Heat of the moment. And I've paid all the fines; what are you gonna do, sue me?"

"W are going to do a lot more than that, Rick, a lot more, because all those heat-of-the-moment bullets, all those little errant shots and fines, all of them to the last documented one, match the two bullets the Medical Examiner pulled out of Gary Blox."

Horatio opened the folder to the last photos added to it and placed it before both men, but he was not looking at Gerler; he knew the man was guilty, and he knew what part he'd played in the whole affair.

He was staring, ever so carefully, at Alexander Blox.

He saw the older man stare without understanding at the pictures of Gary Blox as he'd been photographed on the examination table, saw his armor crack like brittle china as realization seeped in at last, saw grief overwhelm him. He held pity only for the man who'd likely seen in the young Blox brothers the children he didn't have. Alexander Blox picked up one photo and stared numbly at it, his voice a whisper. "Gary…?"

"People can lie", Horatio pointed out, ever so quietly. "Bullets never do."

Richard Gerler had twice started to argue, or to excuse himself to his boss, or to say who knew what, but at that he closed his mouth and very blandly stared at Horatio and Eric for a moment. "I think this conversation has gone on long enough without the Dream Hunt legal team here."

"No." It was only the one word, ragged with grief, but sure and cold, and it was the one word Horatio had been hoping to hear.

Gerler turned to Blox, blinking. "Al –"

Alexander Blox had laid a hand over the pictures of his nephew in a vain attempt to blot out the truth. "Rick…" His voice failed him, but only for a moment; he leveled a wounded gaze on a man that, Horatio guessed, he'd thought of as a best friend until that moment. "Rick, get your own damn lawyers."

"Good luck with that." Eric had the smug smile Horatio was not quite allowing himself to show. "Looks like all the good ones are already spoken for."

Horatio put the bagged cell phone on the table. "Rick, do you know what this is? It's a phone we got from Allan Palmer, one of the people you hired to keep an eye on all those guns. Then, you hired him to ferry your equipment around. See, Bradley had the idea, and you had the equipment, but you both are used to having someone else do your heavy lifting – and he, Rick, he is being very cooperative. When we found him, he was on the phone with his boss – should we see who it was?" Before Gerler could reply Horatio pressed the redial button.

Hidden somewhere in the pockets of Gerler's expensive business coat, his own cell phone began to chime.

"Go ahead, Rick", Horatio dared the man in a very quiet tone. "Pick it up."

---------------------------------------------

Horatio felt Eric's anger as they left the interrogation room where Richard Gerler was being arrested and Alexander Blox stood amidst the ruins of his life. "We got lucky with Gerler", Eric said darkly. "Everyone else is going to tie this up as long as they can manage, it's a feeding frenzy out there."

"Not everybody", Horatio said calmly as he nodded at the two officers he'd sent on their hasty return errand, and who were at the door of another interview room.

Natalie Ancherge looked up at him at once. "Did you – did you get them, the people – whoever did this?"

"You know, Natalie, I think we did." He sat down slowly in front of her and measured her very calmly.

"What?", she asked uncertainly.

With a quiet sigh, he fished a single piece of paper from his folder. "Natalie, you… You're doing very well, for an administrative assistant." He showed her the printout, a list of her bank account activity.

"I don't understand. What's that got to do with Tabby?"

"I was wondering what all these deposits are." He pinned her with a steady gaze.

She skittered away from it. "I… I've just been doing a little mix-and-match."

"Mix and match."

She sighed, staring at her hands. "I just... You know, rich people, just because they're rich doesn't mean they don't go looking for houses and apartments and beach condos the same way everyone else does. I just… got them the information."

"Which you took from records of the realtor where you work."

"I know it's illegal" She said sharply. "You need a license and all, and I'm getting mine – I am! This was just a little –"

"This is by no means little." Horatio let the numbers speak for themselves, as they had to him.

"They're just commissions –"

"I am sure they are, Natalie, but they are not for any kind of mix and match, are they? You were looking for very specific information on realtors' databases, and you… you were selling that information, information on girls living alone, girls who wouldn't be missed. You… You were the one who found the girls these people were hunting."

"No." When she saw his expression her tone grew angry. "No. I –" Her voice broke and tears spilled and Horatio saw the veneer of whatever ignorance she'd cloaked herself with fade away. "Oh, God, I thought –"

"Natalie." Horatio slowly placed before her the pictures, beginning with Sarah Pierce. "You sold these girls' lives, including your foster sisters, for a few thousand dollars."

"Not Tabby!", she shot at him, her voice shrill. "Not her, I wouldn't -! It – No! He s-said he was from a-a-a roommate service…!"

"You knew he wasn't, though, didn't you."

"I d-didn't, Ididn'tididn't -!"

"You knew every time you found a girl who fit their requirements, you knew, Natalie, that you were putting them in harm's way."

"I didn't give them anything on Tabby!", she shrieked at him. "Just the other girls!"

"How many?" When she hesitated, he leaned closer, a very angry predator. "Natalie. How many?"

"I don't know", she sobbed brokenly. "Maybe twenty or so, I d-didn't… I don't –"

"You know, Natalie, I do believe that you wouldn't have given them any information on Tabitha." Horatio spoke with calm finality. "But she came to see you often, often enough that you fought at least once a week over her heroin addiction, and I'm betting she came by to see you at work, and I think, Natalie, that at your work is where they saw her. You… You were useful to them", he said implacably into her wide, wounded eyes. "She… was just prey."