"The night is dark, and I am far from home."
John Newman
***
The man and the two boys pressed flat against the wall of the motel room, waiting. Zack and Ben were tense, uncertain, but calm and competence seeped out of H like water welling up out of a spring, spilling over onto the others. He knew exactly what he was doing, and everyone there, including himself on some distant level, drew comfort from it. "As soon as they come by again and round the corner, we move." His voice was quiet but absolutely clear as he laid out the plan. "Head for the car as fast as you can. Ben in the back seat, Zack in front. The minute you get in the car, get down and don't stick your head up until I tell you. We'll have about 2 minutes to get a lead on them before they find out we're gone."
"Is that enough?" asked Zack.
"It will have to be."
"What do they want, H?" Ben couldn't understand it.
"I don't know." Actually, his mind had already started to narrow down possibilities. For Zack, something could have somehow been hidden in the car. For Ben, the notebook and the magazine stood out from his findings like a beacon. Later, when he had an opportunity, he would inspect both of them. As for himself, the possibilities were endless. He was surprised, too, at the contempt he felt for the gang. Why did he hate drug gangs so? Not just the damage they caused, but the gang members themselves, almost personally.
The car drove by again, slowly, the driver trying to look nonchalant. The instant it rounded the corner, H opened the room door smoothly. "Now." They ran straight to the car, and it was started and pulling out in only 30 seconds. H started down the street the same direction the car had vanished, of course, but at the corner, he turned the other way and sped up as much as he could. Right turn, left turn, always heading south for some reason, but laying a confused trail. Traffic was still not moving normally, but it was much better this evening. Many cars were now off the street, people simply not driving until the traffic lights were working again. His eyes scanned the rearview mirror, but there was no sign of the other car. Maybe they had made a clean getaway.
Even as he thought it, a screech of brakes was heard, and a car going the other way made a complete U turn, slicing across beeping traffic. Two more gang members, and one of them had a cell phone to his ear. They had run right into the reinforcements on the way, who had recognized the Pinto. "This is not my day," said H softly, but his body was already moving to deal with the emergency. He slammed the accelerator down, weaving in and out of traffic, once actually going up on the sidewalk to get around a log jam. His eyes scanned in all directions at once, though, marking the other cars and the pedestrians, and he never once came close to hitting anyone. They were increasing the gap. He coaxed every ounce out of the little car, handling it like a race car driver at Indy, but the whole time, he was wondering on some level why this car frustrated him so much. Whatever he was used to driving, it out performed the Pinto by a mile.
Zack's head popped up. "How are we doing?"
"Get down. Doing fine." He slipped through a major intersection between two cars going the other way, leaving the astonished officer staring after the Pinto. Their lead was building. Up ahead, he knew, was a parking garage, and that was what he was aiming for. He could see the whole city laid out in his mind like a road map. Left again, and there it was. He turned into the darkened garage and wedged the Pinto into a parking space on ground level between two much bigger cars. Then he leaned over himself, dropping out of the line of sight. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. He made them wait a full hour, although he knew after fifteen minutes that they had lost the gang. Finally, the three of them straightened up.
"Where did you learn to drive like that?" Zack was looking at H with an awed expression that made him appear far younger than 17.
"He doesn't know," Ben said matter-of-factly. "No point in asking him." Smaller, flattened closer to the floor, Ben had seen less of that chase than Zack had and wasn't as awed.
Where had he learned to drive like that? And what had he driven like that? He could almost feel the vehicle, much larger, sturdier, but responsive. Much better suited for emergencies. He wished he had it now. "Sorry, I really don't know," he said.
"What do we do now?" asked Zack.
"We've got to find out what it is they're looking for. Too many puzzle pieces are still missing, and that's a big one. First, though, we need to move. Get out of this section of town entirely. If we sit here long enough for them to look everywhere, we'll lose everything we've gained. Give me your wallet, please, Zack" He did not ask, in front of Ben, how much money Zack actually had, and Zack thanked him silently as he handed it over. H counted the money, his expression giving no clue to the amount, then tucked it back into the wallet and returned it. He started the car again and backed it out smoothly, entering the flow of traffic, blending in, just any other car in the stream. He still wanted to go south, though he didn't know why, and he let himself head that direction. Ben sat back in his seat, looking around the city curiously, but Zack's eyes never left the face of the man driving. Calm, absolutely unruffled, in control. Only the eyes moved, absorbing everything from all angles at once. This wasn't, yet somehow was, too, the same man who had just led a chase straight from the movies, putting Zack's own car through stuff he'd never dreamed it could do. "Who are you?" he said softly, and didn't realize he had spoken out loud until H glanced at him. The blue eyes were warmer suddenly, but sad.
"I wish I knew."
***
An officer on emergency traffic duty in the city was turning over his post at a major intersection to his replacement. "Watch out for idiots tonight," he said. "Earlier, some crazy guy driving a Pinto went barreling through a gap against the traffic that I wouldn't have taken myself. If things weren't so hectic right now, I would've chased him down. No one wrecked, at least."
"Can't catch them all," said the other policeman. "Someone driving that wild, though, won't just stop. Next time, we'll see that he gets his ticket."
"Well, I'm out of here." The first officer, tired from the extra efforts of the last day, trudged out of the intersection toward his own parked car, looking forward to a few brief hours of sleep before hitting the roads again. He was a new graduate from the Police Academy who had been on the job only a month, and he was one of the few on the force who did not know Horatio Caine by sight.
***
Calleigh squatted back on her heels, studying the ground. Just surveying a crime scene, like she did all the time with CSI, but her hands were literally shaking. She and Adele had started from the intersection where Clark had talked to Horatio, where Horatio had spotted someone out of place and headed off east in pursuit. They carefully scouted each turning point off the road east, feeling that whatever happened couldn't have happened far from the intersection. In the third alley, Calleigh found the spot, her trained eyes automatically assessing it.
There was blood here, not a lot, thankfully, but more than from a mere scratch. Blood not more than 12 hours old. And from the pattern, he had been bleeding while lying here for a while. There had been another man, hidden behind the dumpster, who had caught Horatio off guard, attacking from behind, as he chased the first one down the alley.
Adele spoke softly from behind Calleigh. "That's not a whole lot of blood. Not a critical wound, I'd say."
"He is hurt, though." Automatically, she pulled a swab out of her pocket - she always carried a few - and took a sample, capping the swab to be processed later. Just evidence, she told herself. You handle it all the time. When the power came back on and they could run their equipment, they could verify through DNA that this was Horatio's blood, although she already knew it was. She reached forward and carefully picked up the knife lying in the alley, using one of their ever-present Latex gloves to avoid blurring fingerprints. The sun was setting, and shadows stretched over half of the alley. She stood and walked a step to study the knife in the light. "Odd. There doesn't seem to be any blood on this. Of course, you can miss a lot with the naked eye, but still . . . " Her eyes went from the knife to the blood, weighing the two. There should be traces. Unless this wasn't the weapon. She forced her mind to work it out carefully, to miss nothing processing this scene. "He came down the alley, and he was attacked from behind by the second one. They hurt him, but then they left him lying there for a while, bleeding."
Adele frowned in concentration. "That doesn't quite fit. If they wanted to take him hostage, why leave him here for any time? The longer they stay, the more the chance of someone stumbling onto them. But if they just wanted to get away from him and left him here alone, then where is he?"
"Unless there were two groups," said Calleigh. "The first set tackled him. The second set took him hostage. And how does this knife fit into it? If this isn't the weapon, what is?" She turned back toward Adele and stopped suddenly. The setting sun, shifting across the alley, had highlit something at the edge of the light for a minute. She turned back to her former position, then repeated her move more slowly. There it was, a faint glint. She knelt and picked up a hair from the ground, holding it against the sunlight. A red hair. For one second, Calleigh thought she was going to lose it. Her shoulders shuddered, and Adele slipped one arm around her sympathetically. Then the chin came up, and the quivering lip stabilized. Calleigh pulled out an evidence envelope and slowly slipped the hair inside, sealing it tightly so that this much at least could not escape from her. She then carefully wrote the date and time on the front. Just processing evidence. Like any other day at CSI.
***
Guilt is hard to reason with. Eric Delko was sitting in the lab at CSI, carefully calling through his section of the list of emergency workers pulled in to help handle the blackout. His progress down the list was slow, though. His thoughts weren't on the task, and his body, left to perform without his mind, kept grinding to a halt.
If it hadn't been for me, he wouldn't have been out there alone. The chorus kept repeating through his head. He could tell himself that there was no way he could have known, that whatever had happened still might have happened anyway, but that didn't stop the nagging refrain. Eric was the one who had split them up, who had specifically told Calleigh not to bring Horatio with her. Because he had been ashamed to admit that he had been robbed, like probably a few hundred other people in the city last night. You jerk, he told himself, what did you think he was going to do? Blame it on you? It sounded ridiculous to him now. But this morning, he absolutely could not face the idea of telling H the gold medal had been taken. So, like a coward, he had split Calleigh off, to try to talk her into speaking for him, and Horatio had gone on to face whatever he had run into alone, with no partner for backup.
The gold medal. Eric had never been so touched by a gift in his life, not even from his family. Actually, the more he thought about it, CSI was like another family. And Horatio was like his father, only a father who was proud of him, encouraging his progress, instead of a father whom he had disappointed by refusing to go into the family business when he knew his heart wasn't in it. It was Horatio's opinion of him that really mattered to Eric. It was Horatio himself that mattered to Eric. The medal was only a symbol. Did you really think things would change? Did you really think he would be disappointed in you? You were robbed, Eric. You couldn't help it. But you weren't strong enough to tell him. "Calleigh probably hates me," he said to himself aloud.
"Why would Calleigh hate you?" Eric jumped a mile. He hadn't heard Speed come up behind him.
"Because it's my fault," he said flatly. His usual fun-loving expression had vanished.
Speed never showed much expression at anything, but this statement brought some confusion into his eyes. "Run that by me again. How is it your fault?"
"I split them up, because of the medal. He wouldn't have been out there alone if I hadn't told Calleigh not to bring him."
"The medal? You've totally lost me." Speed really didn't have any idea what his friend was talking about, and Eric saw it. And that confused Eric.
"She didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
Eric started from the beginning of the day, which seemed an eternity ago. Speed absorbed all of it. When he was sure his friend was done, he shook his head. "Look, Eric, I swear, it hasn't even crossed her mind. No one could blame you. If she's blaming anybody, she's blaming herself for taking his ID away from him and the captain for not reporting the escaped prisoners. All this morning, when we were checking over the house and making lists of people to call, she never even mentioned you calling her away from him. Not once."
"All right then, she probably -will- hate me, as soon as she gets around to thinking it through." Eric refused to be comforted. Speed gave up on it. No point in banging against a brick wall that he wasn't going to be able make a dent in. Calleigh would have to straighten Eric out herself.
"Look, man," said Speed, changing the subject, "I've got a lead. I've been talking with the phone company. Three calls have been made on H's cell phone today since 7:30, all to the same number. We have an address for that number, and I'm about to meet Tripp and head over there. Maybe it'll lead us back to the people with the phone. Want to come along?"
Anything beat sitting here kicking himself. "Sure. Let's go." The two friends left CSI.
***
Absolute darkness blanketed the city for the second night in a row. H sat in a motel room in another scruffy motel clear across the city from the first one. He had turned the chair around so he could see out the window, and he meant to stay there all night, keeping guard. The Pinto was parked way on the other side of the lot, tucked between two vans, nowhere near their room. Still, he couldn't relax, even though they probably wouldn't be found here. His mind had too many things to work through, jumping from one topic to another like a restless cat in a room of laps, unable to settle on just one.
Bedsprings creaked behind him, and Zack approached softly. "H?"
"What is it?"
"I just can't get to sleep." Zack stood next to the chair, looking out the window himself. "What's going on?"
"Is Ben asleep?"
"Yes." Zack dropped his voice a few volume levels. H had been speaking softly anyway.
"One of us has something that drug gang wants. Tomorrow, as soon as it's light enough, I'm going to search your car. Something might have been stashed in it somehow, ditching the evidence in a tight spot, and then you moved the car before they could retrieve it. Or Ben might have found something. I want to look at his collection in the morning, too. That notebook has possibilities. So does the magazine. I don't want to waste our flashlight batteries, though, looking at them tonight. We could need the light later. I think we're safe for the moment." He could barely see Zack in the darkness. "They also could want me for some reason. Maybe I've got information on them, and I can't remember it. Maybe I'm a rival gang leader."
Zack snorted. "You aren't a gang leader. You do know some interesting stuff, though. Maybe you do have info on them."
"If I could just remember . . . " The voice was edged with quiet but intense frustration.
"It'll probably come back in a day or two. It usually does in the movies."
The silence lengthened for a few minutes before H broke it. "What about you? Who are you? Who is Ben? And what are you doing alone here?"
Zack started to shut him off and couldn't. Something about H invited confidences. And this man had probably saved his life and Ben's today, had definitely saved Ben this morning. He was glad it was dark, though. Somehow it was easier to talk in the darkness, when you couldn't see the other person's face. "We're from upstate a bit. A small town. My parents were killed in a car accident three months ago. Ben and I were put into a home. No other relatives. But the man who ran the home didn't like us. He said we'd been spoiled too much, no discipline. He was a Marine. He runs that place like boot camp. Last week, I couldn't take it anymore. So I thought I could get a job in the city, take care of Ben. We ran away. I'll take care of us somehow."
H was riveted. Why did this story touch him so much? The boy left totally alone at 17, trying to cope, trying to take care of his brother. His heart went out to them. But at the same time, he knew that it wouldn't work. "Zack, you've got to have some help."
The boy's entire body went stiff with denial. "I can take care of us."
"Not alone. And you shouldn't have to. It's too much for a 17-year-old to deal with."
"I can handle it. How do you know it won't work, anyway? You don't even know your own name."
How did he know? Suddenly, with blinding intensity, a picture flashed on his consciousness. A room absolutely torn apart in a struggle, with a body torn apart even worse in the floor. His mother. She had been murdered. And he and his brother had been left alone. When he was 17. He was certain of it, but he still could not recall the names.
Zack heard his sharply indrawn breath. "What is it?" He edged back a bit closer, forgetting his annoyance momentarily.
"I do know. My mother was killed when I was 17. And I had a younger brother. I tried to take care of us." I had a younger brother, he thought. Yes, the past tense was correct there. What had happened to him? What was his name? "Zack, it's too much for a 17-year-old kid. I've been there myself. You can't do it alone."
"Did you remember that? About your mother?"
"Yes. Just now. But I can't get the names." The edge of frustration was back in his voice. "Listen, Zack, you don't have to go back to that town, especially if you don't have any relatives there. You could stay in Miami. Not all homes are bad. You do need help with things, though. For Ben's sake, as well as yours. And in Miami, I'd be here. I could keep in contact."
Zack dropped into stubborn silence. He wasn't convinced. Rather, he knew that H was right, but he didn't want to be convinced. They stood there for a while in silence until Zack surprised himself by yawning. "Are you going to bed, H?"
"In a bit. Why don't you go on?" He had no intention of it. He would stay on guard here, in case the gang found them. Besides, he had slept for several hours earlier in the day.
Zack hesitated. Having just declared his independence, he hated to go off to sleep and leave an adult in charge. But he was tired. And it was comforting, somehow, to have H in charge. "I think I will," he said finally. "Good night, H."
"Good night, Zack." The boy padded off into the dark room, and again the bedsprings creaked. He sat there alone looking out into the blacked out city. His mother. His brother. His wife. He could remember all of them now, but not the names. He had wished for his wife earlier, when they were running from the gang. A good person to have with you in a tight spot. He was sure they had been in several together. If he had only had her with him, and a gun for each of them, and the vehicle that he missed driving so much on that chase, he would have turned around and taken the gang down right there. They could have done it, he knew. The two of them against the gang. No contest.
But there had been the kids to consider. That was his biggest concern at the moment. If the gang was after one of the kids, he had to protect them. But if the gang was after him, his presence was endangering them. Tomorrow morning, when he had enough light, he would find out what they were after, which one of them they wanted. If it was him, he would have to split off and deal with it himself. But he knew Zack needed help, too, even apart from the gang. A 17-year-old kid, left alone with his brother and with the weight of the world on him. He absolutely remembered that feeling. Being alone. Even after there were friends, helpers, even after he had acknowledged that it was too much and accepted help with the situation, he had still really been alone. Until her.
He tried to call her up in his mind's eye again. Small but dynamic, golden hair, a voice with a slight southern accent. He still could not quite see her face. He knew that she liked guns, that he liked them himself, hardly surprising given how violent many of his returning memories were. Had they been a team of outlaws, like Bonnie and Clyde? No, that was totally wrong. He knew it. But every time he tried to latch onto a name, a face, some exact detail, he was left grasping at shadows. The night grew old as he sat there on guard, watching the darkened city, chasing his own darkened memories into dead ends. There was absolutely no light.
John Newman
***
The man and the two boys pressed flat against the wall of the motel room, waiting. Zack and Ben were tense, uncertain, but calm and competence seeped out of H like water welling up out of a spring, spilling over onto the others. He knew exactly what he was doing, and everyone there, including himself on some distant level, drew comfort from it. "As soon as they come by again and round the corner, we move." His voice was quiet but absolutely clear as he laid out the plan. "Head for the car as fast as you can. Ben in the back seat, Zack in front. The minute you get in the car, get down and don't stick your head up until I tell you. We'll have about 2 minutes to get a lead on them before they find out we're gone."
"Is that enough?" asked Zack.
"It will have to be."
"What do they want, H?" Ben couldn't understand it.
"I don't know." Actually, his mind had already started to narrow down possibilities. For Zack, something could have somehow been hidden in the car. For Ben, the notebook and the magazine stood out from his findings like a beacon. Later, when he had an opportunity, he would inspect both of them. As for himself, the possibilities were endless. He was surprised, too, at the contempt he felt for the gang. Why did he hate drug gangs so? Not just the damage they caused, but the gang members themselves, almost personally.
The car drove by again, slowly, the driver trying to look nonchalant. The instant it rounded the corner, H opened the room door smoothly. "Now." They ran straight to the car, and it was started and pulling out in only 30 seconds. H started down the street the same direction the car had vanished, of course, but at the corner, he turned the other way and sped up as much as he could. Right turn, left turn, always heading south for some reason, but laying a confused trail. Traffic was still not moving normally, but it was much better this evening. Many cars were now off the street, people simply not driving until the traffic lights were working again. His eyes scanned the rearview mirror, but there was no sign of the other car. Maybe they had made a clean getaway.
Even as he thought it, a screech of brakes was heard, and a car going the other way made a complete U turn, slicing across beeping traffic. Two more gang members, and one of them had a cell phone to his ear. They had run right into the reinforcements on the way, who had recognized the Pinto. "This is not my day," said H softly, but his body was already moving to deal with the emergency. He slammed the accelerator down, weaving in and out of traffic, once actually going up on the sidewalk to get around a log jam. His eyes scanned in all directions at once, though, marking the other cars and the pedestrians, and he never once came close to hitting anyone. They were increasing the gap. He coaxed every ounce out of the little car, handling it like a race car driver at Indy, but the whole time, he was wondering on some level why this car frustrated him so much. Whatever he was used to driving, it out performed the Pinto by a mile.
Zack's head popped up. "How are we doing?"
"Get down. Doing fine." He slipped through a major intersection between two cars going the other way, leaving the astonished officer staring after the Pinto. Their lead was building. Up ahead, he knew, was a parking garage, and that was what he was aiming for. He could see the whole city laid out in his mind like a road map. Left again, and there it was. He turned into the darkened garage and wedged the Pinto into a parking space on ground level between two much bigger cars. Then he leaned over himself, dropping out of the line of sight. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. He made them wait a full hour, although he knew after fifteen minutes that they had lost the gang. Finally, the three of them straightened up.
"Where did you learn to drive like that?" Zack was looking at H with an awed expression that made him appear far younger than 17.
"He doesn't know," Ben said matter-of-factly. "No point in asking him." Smaller, flattened closer to the floor, Ben had seen less of that chase than Zack had and wasn't as awed.
Where had he learned to drive like that? And what had he driven like that? He could almost feel the vehicle, much larger, sturdier, but responsive. Much better suited for emergencies. He wished he had it now. "Sorry, I really don't know," he said.
"What do we do now?" asked Zack.
"We've got to find out what it is they're looking for. Too many puzzle pieces are still missing, and that's a big one. First, though, we need to move. Get out of this section of town entirely. If we sit here long enough for them to look everywhere, we'll lose everything we've gained. Give me your wallet, please, Zack" He did not ask, in front of Ben, how much money Zack actually had, and Zack thanked him silently as he handed it over. H counted the money, his expression giving no clue to the amount, then tucked it back into the wallet and returned it. He started the car again and backed it out smoothly, entering the flow of traffic, blending in, just any other car in the stream. He still wanted to go south, though he didn't know why, and he let himself head that direction. Ben sat back in his seat, looking around the city curiously, but Zack's eyes never left the face of the man driving. Calm, absolutely unruffled, in control. Only the eyes moved, absorbing everything from all angles at once. This wasn't, yet somehow was, too, the same man who had just led a chase straight from the movies, putting Zack's own car through stuff he'd never dreamed it could do. "Who are you?" he said softly, and didn't realize he had spoken out loud until H glanced at him. The blue eyes were warmer suddenly, but sad.
"I wish I knew."
***
An officer on emergency traffic duty in the city was turning over his post at a major intersection to his replacement. "Watch out for idiots tonight," he said. "Earlier, some crazy guy driving a Pinto went barreling through a gap against the traffic that I wouldn't have taken myself. If things weren't so hectic right now, I would've chased him down. No one wrecked, at least."
"Can't catch them all," said the other policeman. "Someone driving that wild, though, won't just stop. Next time, we'll see that he gets his ticket."
"Well, I'm out of here." The first officer, tired from the extra efforts of the last day, trudged out of the intersection toward his own parked car, looking forward to a few brief hours of sleep before hitting the roads again. He was a new graduate from the Police Academy who had been on the job only a month, and he was one of the few on the force who did not know Horatio Caine by sight.
***
Calleigh squatted back on her heels, studying the ground. Just surveying a crime scene, like she did all the time with CSI, but her hands were literally shaking. She and Adele had started from the intersection where Clark had talked to Horatio, where Horatio had spotted someone out of place and headed off east in pursuit. They carefully scouted each turning point off the road east, feeling that whatever happened couldn't have happened far from the intersection. In the third alley, Calleigh found the spot, her trained eyes automatically assessing it.
There was blood here, not a lot, thankfully, but more than from a mere scratch. Blood not more than 12 hours old. And from the pattern, he had been bleeding while lying here for a while. There had been another man, hidden behind the dumpster, who had caught Horatio off guard, attacking from behind, as he chased the first one down the alley.
Adele spoke softly from behind Calleigh. "That's not a whole lot of blood. Not a critical wound, I'd say."
"He is hurt, though." Automatically, she pulled a swab out of her pocket - she always carried a few - and took a sample, capping the swab to be processed later. Just evidence, she told herself. You handle it all the time. When the power came back on and they could run their equipment, they could verify through DNA that this was Horatio's blood, although she already knew it was. She reached forward and carefully picked up the knife lying in the alley, using one of their ever-present Latex gloves to avoid blurring fingerprints. The sun was setting, and shadows stretched over half of the alley. She stood and walked a step to study the knife in the light. "Odd. There doesn't seem to be any blood on this. Of course, you can miss a lot with the naked eye, but still . . . " Her eyes went from the knife to the blood, weighing the two. There should be traces. Unless this wasn't the weapon. She forced her mind to work it out carefully, to miss nothing processing this scene. "He came down the alley, and he was attacked from behind by the second one. They hurt him, but then they left him lying there for a while, bleeding."
Adele frowned in concentration. "That doesn't quite fit. If they wanted to take him hostage, why leave him here for any time? The longer they stay, the more the chance of someone stumbling onto them. But if they just wanted to get away from him and left him here alone, then where is he?"
"Unless there were two groups," said Calleigh. "The first set tackled him. The second set took him hostage. And how does this knife fit into it? If this isn't the weapon, what is?" She turned back toward Adele and stopped suddenly. The setting sun, shifting across the alley, had highlit something at the edge of the light for a minute. She turned back to her former position, then repeated her move more slowly. There it was, a faint glint. She knelt and picked up a hair from the ground, holding it against the sunlight. A red hair. For one second, Calleigh thought she was going to lose it. Her shoulders shuddered, and Adele slipped one arm around her sympathetically. Then the chin came up, and the quivering lip stabilized. Calleigh pulled out an evidence envelope and slowly slipped the hair inside, sealing it tightly so that this much at least could not escape from her. She then carefully wrote the date and time on the front. Just processing evidence. Like any other day at CSI.
***
Guilt is hard to reason with. Eric Delko was sitting in the lab at CSI, carefully calling through his section of the list of emergency workers pulled in to help handle the blackout. His progress down the list was slow, though. His thoughts weren't on the task, and his body, left to perform without his mind, kept grinding to a halt.
If it hadn't been for me, he wouldn't have been out there alone. The chorus kept repeating through his head. He could tell himself that there was no way he could have known, that whatever had happened still might have happened anyway, but that didn't stop the nagging refrain. Eric was the one who had split them up, who had specifically told Calleigh not to bring Horatio with her. Because he had been ashamed to admit that he had been robbed, like probably a few hundred other people in the city last night. You jerk, he told himself, what did you think he was going to do? Blame it on you? It sounded ridiculous to him now. But this morning, he absolutely could not face the idea of telling H the gold medal had been taken. So, like a coward, he had split Calleigh off, to try to talk her into speaking for him, and Horatio had gone on to face whatever he had run into alone, with no partner for backup.
The gold medal. Eric had never been so touched by a gift in his life, not even from his family. Actually, the more he thought about it, CSI was like another family. And Horatio was like his father, only a father who was proud of him, encouraging his progress, instead of a father whom he had disappointed by refusing to go into the family business when he knew his heart wasn't in it. It was Horatio's opinion of him that really mattered to Eric. It was Horatio himself that mattered to Eric. The medal was only a symbol. Did you really think things would change? Did you really think he would be disappointed in you? You were robbed, Eric. You couldn't help it. But you weren't strong enough to tell him. "Calleigh probably hates me," he said to himself aloud.
"Why would Calleigh hate you?" Eric jumped a mile. He hadn't heard Speed come up behind him.
"Because it's my fault," he said flatly. His usual fun-loving expression had vanished.
Speed never showed much expression at anything, but this statement brought some confusion into his eyes. "Run that by me again. How is it your fault?"
"I split them up, because of the medal. He wouldn't have been out there alone if I hadn't told Calleigh not to bring him."
"The medal? You've totally lost me." Speed really didn't have any idea what his friend was talking about, and Eric saw it. And that confused Eric.
"She didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
Eric started from the beginning of the day, which seemed an eternity ago. Speed absorbed all of it. When he was sure his friend was done, he shook his head. "Look, Eric, I swear, it hasn't even crossed her mind. No one could blame you. If she's blaming anybody, she's blaming herself for taking his ID away from him and the captain for not reporting the escaped prisoners. All this morning, when we were checking over the house and making lists of people to call, she never even mentioned you calling her away from him. Not once."
"All right then, she probably -will- hate me, as soon as she gets around to thinking it through." Eric refused to be comforted. Speed gave up on it. No point in banging against a brick wall that he wasn't going to be able make a dent in. Calleigh would have to straighten Eric out herself.
"Look, man," said Speed, changing the subject, "I've got a lead. I've been talking with the phone company. Three calls have been made on H's cell phone today since 7:30, all to the same number. We have an address for that number, and I'm about to meet Tripp and head over there. Maybe it'll lead us back to the people with the phone. Want to come along?"
Anything beat sitting here kicking himself. "Sure. Let's go." The two friends left CSI.
***
Absolute darkness blanketed the city for the second night in a row. H sat in a motel room in another scruffy motel clear across the city from the first one. He had turned the chair around so he could see out the window, and he meant to stay there all night, keeping guard. The Pinto was parked way on the other side of the lot, tucked between two vans, nowhere near their room. Still, he couldn't relax, even though they probably wouldn't be found here. His mind had too many things to work through, jumping from one topic to another like a restless cat in a room of laps, unable to settle on just one.
Bedsprings creaked behind him, and Zack approached softly. "H?"
"What is it?"
"I just can't get to sleep." Zack stood next to the chair, looking out the window himself. "What's going on?"
"Is Ben asleep?"
"Yes." Zack dropped his voice a few volume levels. H had been speaking softly anyway.
"One of us has something that drug gang wants. Tomorrow, as soon as it's light enough, I'm going to search your car. Something might have been stashed in it somehow, ditching the evidence in a tight spot, and then you moved the car before they could retrieve it. Or Ben might have found something. I want to look at his collection in the morning, too. That notebook has possibilities. So does the magazine. I don't want to waste our flashlight batteries, though, looking at them tonight. We could need the light later. I think we're safe for the moment." He could barely see Zack in the darkness. "They also could want me for some reason. Maybe I've got information on them, and I can't remember it. Maybe I'm a rival gang leader."
Zack snorted. "You aren't a gang leader. You do know some interesting stuff, though. Maybe you do have info on them."
"If I could just remember . . . " The voice was edged with quiet but intense frustration.
"It'll probably come back in a day or two. It usually does in the movies."
The silence lengthened for a few minutes before H broke it. "What about you? Who are you? Who is Ben? And what are you doing alone here?"
Zack started to shut him off and couldn't. Something about H invited confidences. And this man had probably saved his life and Ben's today, had definitely saved Ben this morning. He was glad it was dark, though. Somehow it was easier to talk in the darkness, when you couldn't see the other person's face. "We're from upstate a bit. A small town. My parents were killed in a car accident three months ago. Ben and I were put into a home. No other relatives. But the man who ran the home didn't like us. He said we'd been spoiled too much, no discipline. He was a Marine. He runs that place like boot camp. Last week, I couldn't take it anymore. So I thought I could get a job in the city, take care of Ben. We ran away. I'll take care of us somehow."
H was riveted. Why did this story touch him so much? The boy left totally alone at 17, trying to cope, trying to take care of his brother. His heart went out to them. But at the same time, he knew that it wouldn't work. "Zack, you've got to have some help."
The boy's entire body went stiff with denial. "I can take care of us."
"Not alone. And you shouldn't have to. It's too much for a 17-year-old to deal with."
"I can handle it. How do you know it won't work, anyway? You don't even know your own name."
How did he know? Suddenly, with blinding intensity, a picture flashed on his consciousness. A room absolutely torn apart in a struggle, with a body torn apart even worse in the floor. His mother. She had been murdered. And he and his brother had been left alone. When he was 17. He was certain of it, but he still could not recall the names.
Zack heard his sharply indrawn breath. "What is it?" He edged back a bit closer, forgetting his annoyance momentarily.
"I do know. My mother was killed when I was 17. And I had a younger brother. I tried to take care of us." I had a younger brother, he thought. Yes, the past tense was correct there. What had happened to him? What was his name? "Zack, it's too much for a 17-year-old kid. I've been there myself. You can't do it alone."
"Did you remember that? About your mother?"
"Yes. Just now. But I can't get the names." The edge of frustration was back in his voice. "Listen, Zack, you don't have to go back to that town, especially if you don't have any relatives there. You could stay in Miami. Not all homes are bad. You do need help with things, though. For Ben's sake, as well as yours. And in Miami, I'd be here. I could keep in contact."
Zack dropped into stubborn silence. He wasn't convinced. Rather, he knew that H was right, but he didn't want to be convinced. They stood there for a while in silence until Zack surprised himself by yawning. "Are you going to bed, H?"
"In a bit. Why don't you go on?" He had no intention of it. He would stay on guard here, in case the gang found them. Besides, he had slept for several hours earlier in the day.
Zack hesitated. Having just declared his independence, he hated to go off to sleep and leave an adult in charge. But he was tired. And it was comforting, somehow, to have H in charge. "I think I will," he said finally. "Good night, H."
"Good night, Zack." The boy padded off into the dark room, and again the bedsprings creaked. He sat there alone looking out into the blacked out city. His mother. His brother. His wife. He could remember all of them now, but not the names. He had wished for his wife earlier, when they were running from the gang. A good person to have with you in a tight spot. He was sure they had been in several together. If he had only had her with him, and a gun for each of them, and the vehicle that he missed driving so much on that chase, he would have turned around and taken the gang down right there. They could have done it, he knew. The two of them against the gang. No contest.
But there had been the kids to consider. That was his biggest concern at the moment. If the gang was after one of the kids, he had to protect them. But if the gang was after him, his presence was endangering them. Tomorrow morning, when he had enough light, he would find out what they were after, which one of them they wanted. If it was him, he would have to split off and deal with it himself. But he knew Zack needed help, too, even apart from the gang. A 17-year-old kid, left alone with his brother and with the weight of the world on him. He absolutely remembered that feeling. Being alone. Even after there were friends, helpers, even after he had acknowledged that it was too much and accepted help with the situation, he had still really been alone. Until her.
He tried to call her up in his mind's eye again. Small but dynamic, golden hair, a voice with a slight southern accent. He still could not quite see her face. He knew that she liked guns, that he liked them himself, hardly surprising given how violent many of his returning memories were. Had they been a team of outlaws, like Bonnie and Clyde? No, that was totally wrong. He knew it. But every time he tried to latch onto a name, a face, some exact detail, he was left grasping at shadows. The night grew old as he sat there on guard, watching the darkened city, chasing his own darkened memories into dead ends. There was absolutely no light.