Horatio knew it would be a long time before he would be able to get the children out of his head. The ones who were awake had the same story as Abby: a man had come in and started shooting and they had been too scared to look at him.

He paid his taxi fare, then headed up the steps and into CSI. He decided to see how Calleigh was doing in ballistics, but Speed ambushed him on the way.

"I just got off the phone with Jennifer Alvarez's sister. She says Jennifer moved down here from Orlando to get away from her ex-boyfriend. Said he wouldn't let go, kept calling her, following her around, sending her gifts. She says things were okay for a while after Jennifer moved, but then she got engaged and the ex followed her down here."

Horatio nodded; Speed's words made sense. It wouldn't take much to push an already unbalanced person over the edge.

"Jennifer's fiancé is Matthew Sanchez," Speed continued. "He was killed in the second shooting."

"Do we have a name for the ex-boyfriend?"

"Charles Reyes. Jennifer filed a restraining order against him up in Orlando."

Too bad pieces of paper couldn't stop bullets, Horatio thought. "Good work, Speed. See if you can get hold of someone at the Orlando PD. Jennifer's parents might be in danger too. We can't afford to take any chances with this guy. I'll let Adele know we have a name."

He reached into his pocket for his phone as he headed to the ballistics lab. The sooner he wrapped this case up, the sooner he could find out what was going on with Calleigh.

"Adele, it's Horatio." He peered through the window of the lab and saw Aaron counting out bullets. "Our shooter is Charles Reyes."

There was a sigh from the other end of the phone. "Charles Reyes? Okay. I'll put out an APB on him."

"Thanks." He hung up and entered the lab, smiling at Aaron. He had hired him as a temporary replacement for Calleigh, but Aaron had quickly become part of the team. When Calleigh had returned, he had decided to keep Aaron on. They had been shorthanded since Megan's departure, and Aaron had the endearing quality of doing things without being told to. It made life a lot easier when things were rushed, as they were today.

Aaron looked up when Horatio walked in. "H. what brings you down here? Looking for Calleigh?"

"You haven't seen her?" The first warning light went off in his head.

"Not since you guys dropped off the bullets from the school. Oh, in case there was any doubt, they match the bullets from the law firm."

"Thanks," Horatio murmured, his thoughts elsewhere. He knew he shouldn't have left Calleigh alone, not when there was something so obviously wrong. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen his Hummer in the car park. He doubted she'd even come back to CSI at all. So where was she?

His cell phone rang. Still thinking of Calleigh, he answered with a distracted, "Caine."

"It's John. I've got a body for you."

"I'm a little busy right now. I'll send someone."

"I think it's your shooter."

That got Horatio's attention. "What?"

"Looks like a single shot to the head," Hagen continued.

Horatio sighed. "Where are you?"

Hagen rattled off an address not far from Sanchez, Sanchez and Harris. Ten minutes later, Horatio and Alexx were on their way.

Hagen was leaning against his car when they pulled up. He tilted his head towards a dirty blue Ford Taurus three parking spaces away. Horatio pulled on a pair of gloves and opened the door.

Charles Reyes sat upright in the driver's seat, his head sagging to one side. A 9mm. pistol lay on his lap, the fingers of his right hand wrapped loosely around the trigger. An Uzi and a shotgun were on the back seat. Horatio went around to the other side and opened the glove compartment. He found a driver's license, confirming Reyes' identity.

Alexx began a quick examination of the body. "Makes you wonder why he didn't just do this in the first place," she said.

"Mmm," Horatio agreed. "There's not much consolation for those he left behind. John, won't you call Adele? Tell her she can stop looking for him."

They processed the scene quickly and silently. As they loaded the body into the van, Horatio asked Alexx if she knew where Calleigh was.

"I haven't seen her since this morning."

"Umm." Horatio bit his lower lip.

"I'm sure she's fine," Alexx continued. "You can't be with her every second of the day."

Horatio nodded. He thought about what Alexx said and realized he'd made a point of working with Calleigh on every case since she'd returned. Maybe he'd been crowding her, he wondered. Maybe the lack of space was part of what was bugging her.

Still, he decided, if she wasn't at CSI when they got back, he would look for her. He'd ignored this feeling once before, and Calleigh had ended up pinned to his couch with a sword through her.

* * *

There was a message from a Jake Stevenson waiting for Horatio. The name was familiar, but he couldn't recall where it was from. He sat behind his desk, tapping his fingers as the phone rang.

"Hello?" There was a lot of background noise; Horatio could barely make out what was said.

"This is Lieutenant Caine, I'm looking for Jake Stevenson."

"Hang on a sec. Jake!" Horatio pulled the phone away from his ear as the girl yelled. A few seconds later, the background noise quieted and a new voice spoke.

"This is Jake."

"It's Horatio Caine. You called earlier?"

"Yeah, I run a shooting range just outside of Miami. You were here a couple of months back when that sniper was loose, right?"

Now Horatio remembered. Jake Stevenson, ex-marine corps. Also Calleigh's ex-boyfriend. "Yes, I was."

"Thing is, Calleigh pitched up a little while ago. I went over to talk to her but she ignored me and started shooting. Now she's just sitting there. I figured something was up, and I didn't know who else to call."

Horatio thought of the report he should be writing, and the autopsy he should be attending, and sighed. "I'll be there as soon as I can. Call me on my cell if she leaves."

* * *

Calleigh lay on the grass, her arm muscles aching. She let go of the rifle and slowly sat up, stretching her arms above her head. She looked down at the gun and thought of the kindergarten classroom. Guns had done that. And she had come out here to take out her frustration using a gun. She wondered what kind of person that made her, and thought of Abby Fox, watching her sister die.

She closed her eyes and hung her head forward, burying her face in her hands. Why this case? she thought. Why not the Harwood case? Why not any other case where people had been shot? Why had this case made her wish she had never touched a gun?

Someone sat next to her. She didn't need to open her eyes to know it was Horatio, and allowed herself to smile; he would find her anywhere. He didn't say anything and she was glad. She looked up, not surprised to find him looking at her in concern. There was so much she needed to explain, but she couldn't find the words.

"Sorry I disappeared," she said.

"That's okay. We all need to disappear once in a while."

She wished he wasn't quite so understanding. It only made it harder to keep things from him. "Abby's six."

He nodded and quietly waited for her to continue. She looked out at the target, at the grass, the sky, anything to escape his gaze.

"She's going to spend the rest of her life missing a part of her soul." She wasn't talking about Abby anymore.

Horatio reached out and placed his hand over Calleigh's heart. The contact, though not unwelcome, was unexpected, and she met his eyes. "No, she won't. She'll have the memory here." He wasn't talking about Abby anymore either.

She covered his hand with hers, and smiled.

"Tell me about Clayton," he said.

Her eyes filled with tears. Damn it, she thought. Not now, not here. "What's happening with the case?" she asked.

"Reyes, our shooter, is dead. He shot himself."

Calleigh scrambled to her feet. "We need to get back to the lab."

Horatio caught her wrist. "Calleigh."

Please, she begged silently.

Without breaking contact, he stood and pulled her into a hug.

"We're still on duty," she mumbled into his chest.

"I won't tell if you won't."

She looked up, and impulsively went up on her toes to kiss him. "Thank you."

He smiled, and she knew she wasn't completely off the hook, but he was willing to wait. Right now, that was all she wanted.

Arm in arm, they made their way to the Hummer and Horatio filled her in on the afternoon's events. "What kind of person could become so obsessed that they'd destroy all those innocent people just to kill their own pain?" Calleigh wondered aloud.

"The same kind of person who would hurt someone to exact revenge on someone else."

Calleigh stopped. "I thought we agreed that what happened to me wasn't your fault."

Horatio shrugged.

"If I blamed you, would I do this?" She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

"We're still on duty," he said, but he was smiling.

She laughed. "I won't tell if you won't."

When they got to the Hummer, she handed him the keys. "How did you get here?"

"I drove. Dictated my report to Speed on the way, let him drive back."

She was touched at the lengths he had gone to make sure she wouldn't have to drive home by herself. She squeezed his hand then climbed into the car.

* * *

Calleigh stepped out of the shower and wrapped a robe around herself. After living with her mother for two and a half months, it was strange to be on her own again. Alexx had made sure her house was fine while she was away, and she'd returned to find everything exactly as she remembered.

There was a knock at the door. Calleigh draped her towel over the railing and padded barefoot through the house. She saw Horatio through the peephole and smiled, then let him in. He was still in his work clothes and carried takeout cartons.

"Smells good," Calleigh said. She took the food from him and went to the kitchen for plates. "Mmm, Chinese. Yum."

He opened the refrigerator, quite at home, and took out a bottle of water. Her false cheeriness didn't fool him, and he leaned against the counter and watched her flit around the room. "Feeling better?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yep. I don't know what it is about this case that got to me. But it's over now."

He caught her as she walked past him and pulled her close. Pressed up against him, she realized just how little she was actually wearing. "Calleigh, what happened?"

"The food's getting cold."

"It doesn't matter."

She exhaled softly and leaned her forehead against his chest. "Alright. What did my mother tell you?"

"Only that you were very close, and that he drowned."

She was silent, trying to draw strength from him, at the same time hating him for making her tell him. In twenty-three years, she hadn't told anyone.

"You saw him die."

She nodded. When she spoke, her voice had a faraway quality. "We were at a party with my parents. Our babysitter canceled, so we had to go. There weren't any other kids there and we were bored. Clay wanted to play in the garden, but I wanted to spy on the adults. We were fighting. But I went with him; he always got his way. They had this big dog—I don't even remember what kind of dog it was—and it scared him. He tripped and fell into the pool. He never liked the water. I screamed, and everyone came to see what was wrong, but I couldn't speak. I kept screaming and pointing and by the time they realized he'd fallen in, it was too late."

Horatio raised her chin so she was looking at him. He cupped her cheek in his hand and smiled. "Thank you for trusting me with that."

He knew, she thought. He knew how hard it was. "Let's eat," she said, and this time when she smiled, it was genuine.