Here's a bonus chapter for this week, courtesy of the winter storm that changed my plans for tonight. See chapter 1 for disclaimers, etc. Don't expect it to get better yet. Nothing does until the very end.

***

"Lock me in any cell in any prison anywhere at any time, wearing only what is necessary, and I'll escape in a week."

The challenge (successfully answered) that forms the plot for a truly awesome short story, "The Problem of Cell 13" by Jacques Futrelle

***

It was unmistakably Otis. His hair had been dyed darker brown, but the whole demeanor of twistedness behind a polite front was the same. So were the eyes. Especially the eyes, almost faded in color, missing some vital quality when inspected closely, like the soulless man they belonged to. They surveyed his captives now with a restrained eagerness, like a cat choosing to play with its prey before eating it.

Calleigh and Horatio both stared at him. It was Calleigh who broke the silence. "Stewart Otis. What are you doing out? We hadn't heard anything."

"You should have been expecting it. I told you I'd get out again, Horatio. It's my nature. In fact, this way is much better to escape. Last time was Hank Kerner's plan, not mine. Too much show, too complicated. The only way to escape from prison is to do it so you won't be missed. I know that now." His voice, too, was the same, as calm as if he were discussing the weather.

Horatio, as always, shuddered inwardly looking at him, not for his own sake but for all the victims. Something that twisted should bear a visible mark, shouldn't appear harmless. Otis shouldn't be unobtrusive, and he was. "We'll just catch you again, you know," he said.

Otis shook his head. "I don't think so. This plan is perfect. You can't do anything, and your friends won't be looking. They don't know that I'm out, and they think you're both dead. So it's just us, Horatio. Nice and private."

Calleigh straightened up, feeling a stab of anger overlaid with pity for the team. "What do you mean, they think we're dead?"

"There was an unfortunate car accident. The car caught on fire, too. That happens when you douse the bodies with gasoline and throw a match. There's not enough left to identify."

Horatio and Calleigh forced themselves not to look at each other. Otis did not know forensics. They would back the team's knowledge against his any day. He could not stage an accident that would fool CSI. "An accident," Calleigh repeated. "Is that what happened to Horatio?" No point in denying that he was hurt. Otis certainly already knew that.

Otis smiled his twisted smile. "Yes, it was. I had to hurt you to make you cooperative. I was going to shoot you, Horatio, give you a flesh wound in the shoulder, like you did me. But then, I decided to put you in the car when it went off the road. That way, fate would tell me if my plan would succeed." His voice was absolutely earnest. Calleigh shuddered again. This man had a warped soul. His intelligence and patience made him even more dangerous. "Fate spoke, Horatio. This time, I have fate on my side. It hurt you enough to make you harmless, but not enough to kill you outright. You'll live long enough to see my plan." Otis' eyes tracked Horatio's leg. "Actually, you were ejected when the car rolled the first time. You weren't wearing your seatbelt. Didn't anyone ever tell you that you should always wear your seatbelt, Horatio?"

Horatio forced himself to channel his fury, not to let it block thought. The implications of being Otis' captive horrified him, not for himself but for Calleigh and, especially, Rosalind. The only answer was to wait for the team, though. Horatio trusted his people with his life. He had often thought it; now it would be put to a literal test. He touched Calleigh lightly on the wrist, sensing that she was near boiling point herself.

Otis was looking around the room, though the gun never wavered. "You should find everything you need here to be comfortable for several days," he said, almost like he was giving a hotel recommendation. Calleigh wondered now why she hadn't realized at once that Otis was behind this. The superficial veneer of consideration over the horrifying reality, the concern for neatness, even the sewing skills all screamed Otis now that she thought about it. "Have I overlooked anything?" he asked, sounding honestly concerned.

She wanted to ask for the handcuff key but wouldn't give him the satisfaction. "One thing," she said, forcing herself to sound entreating. "Could I have some Tylenol? I've been going through a lot of it lately. I get these backaches."

There was a glimmer of respect in his eyes as they met hers. "Nice try. You're good, Calleigh, but I'm ahead of you. If I really thought you would be the one taking it, I'd give it to you, but I'm afraid I'll have to say no. Blame Horatio."

The entreating tone cracked and fell away, leaving her true feelings on open display. "I know who to blame here, Otis. And when you get caught for this, you won't get another chance. If you killed two people to stage as us in a car accident, on top of your other crimes, you're already looking at the death penalty."

"You still don't understand," Otis replied. "Why can't people ever understand?" He honestly sounded offended by society's lack of perception. "I'm not the one who's going to die, Calleigh. Both of you are. But not quite yet." His eyes assessed her condition, measuring the bulge at her middle, and Calleigh realized with a gasp what Horatio had realized several minutes earlier, Otis' true intentions. She gathered herself to tackle him and couldn't even do that subtly, her unwieldy body pinning her to the floor. Otis watched her struggles passively. "Don't hurt yourself, Calleigh. You're going to be useful. This time, Horatio, life won't be full of disappointment. Both of you are going to give me the one thing I've always wanted." With a final twisted smile, he kicked Horatio sharply in the leg, then turned and left, locking the door carefully behind him.

***

Alexx got out the instruments slowly, preparing to do her last service to the best boss - the best man - she had ever known. She thought of Calleigh, too, the smaller charred body waiting its turn. What a beautiful friend. Alexx's eyes welled up again, and she fought the tears back. Last night, she had let herself go completely, mourning them both. Today, the team had to get down to avenging them. Something was definitely wrong about that accident scene. Alexx thought of Speed and Eric out there in daylight now, putting the pieces together. She would do her part as well.

She approached the body and forced herself to examine it clinically. The charring was intense, but the fact that the body wasn't quite as burned on the back of the legs, the part that had been against the car seat, confirmed her guess that some accelerant had been poured over him while he sat in the car unconscious. The perp had leaned him forward to pour whatever it was over his back, too, after dousing the front, but he hadn't removed his victims from the car before pouring. The other body was burned even more badly, especially the abdomen. Alexx suspected that she had had a full container of gasoline placed in her lap. The attack on Rosalind had been the most severe, totally obliterating the visible evidence of pregnancy, at least to preliminary inspection. Alexx vowed to get every possible detail to help catch the monster who had done this. She would do tox screens, too, looking for any drug, as well as searching during the autopsies for injuries that could have caused unconsciousness or even death prior to the fire. She hoped they had been dead first.

She picked up the knife, held it poised over the blackened skin to start the Y incision, and put it back down. This was the hardest incision she had ever made in her life. Still, she owed him this. No one else was going to cut into that body, either. It would be her. She reached out to the head, charred beyond recognition, flesh cracked and bared to the scorched bone in places. "I'm sorry, Horatio. You know I have to," she apologized. She ran both gloved hands back from the face along the sides of his head soothingly, as if he could still feel it. "I'm sorry," she repeated.

Halfway through her turn back to the knife, Alexx froze. Her fingers were trying to tell her something, and after a second, the message reached her mind. She reached for the head again, and this time, there was nothing reluctant or soothing about her touch. It was purely clinical. She carefully, thoroughly explored the entire right side of the skull, then reached for the knife and eagerly cut through the remaining skin that clung to it, baring the bone completely. Her heart leaped into her throat as she repeated the examination carefully. The craniotomy site where a piece of bone had been cut out and then reset with bone clips simply wasn't there. There was no way a fire could make smooth, even bone out of what had been surgically repaired, and the clips would have survived, too. Alexx hurried down to the left ankle and cut into it urgently, finding her way down to the joint, where there should be several screws still in place. They weren't there.

Alexx felt a thrill of relief, followed by a even stronger thrill of anxiety. If this wasn't Horatio, he was still out there somewhere. She gave the body a pat on the shoulder. "Whoever you are, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to wait a bit." She stripped her gloves off and grabbed the phone, dialing urgently.

***

Eric stared at the shoulder of the road, trying to sort out the tracks. The car had gone straight off, moving at a fairly good rate of speed, with no signs of braking. It had rolled twice, then traveled on down a slight slope until its front bumper embraced the tree. There was a mark Eric couldn't explain, though. Right after the first roll, it looked like someone had been flung out of the car. There was even a bit of blood there. Eric knelt to take a sample. But if Horatio and Calleigh had both been in the car when it caught on fire at the tree, then who was this?

His cell phone interrupted his thoughts. "Delko," he said halfheartedly.

Alexx's voice was wound tight as a spring, pitched way above her usual calm range. "Eric, it isn't them."

Eric came straight up to his feet. "What? Are you sure?"

"Positive. Well, only positive about Horatio, but I'll be positive about Calleigh shortly. I'm running an HCG on that body. I'm willing to bet that woman wasn't pregnant, and that's why the burning was so severe on her abdomen, to try to hide it. But it definitely isn't Horatio. That old injury from the bridge collapse would be unmistakable, even after the fire. It isn't there."

Eric let out a deep breath, then immediately caught it again. "It is Calleigh's car, though. That means someone still has them."

"Yes. But almost certainly alive. If they were dead, why bother to replace the bodies?"

"Right. You know, Alexx, we have Horatio's DNA in the database. From that case a year ago, when he was framed for his ex-wife's murder. I believe you, but a DNA sample would be double proof."

"Good thinking. I'll have Valera compare them."

Eric didn't even smile at his girlfriend's name, a tribute to the seriousness of the moment. "We're going to process every inch of this site. One thing, could you call the doctor's office? We know Horatio was going to take Calleigh to a doctor's appointment yesterday afternoon. Find out if they kept the appointment. It would help on the timeline. If we can find out where they were abducted, that's our main crime scene."

"You got it." Alexx hung up, and Eric turned toward Speed, who was a couple of hundred yards away on the road. "Speed!" He could have called him on the cell, but he felt like shouting. "Speed!" Speed straightened up numbly, looking down at his friend. "It isn't them!" Eric shouted. Speed broke into a run, coming down the road toward him, and Eric met him halfway.

***

Horatio's body had finally stopped trembling. He leaned against Calleigh, his head propped on her stomach, using Rosalind for a pillow. She held him, stroking his hair. His eyes were shut, but she knew he wasn't asleep. She had actually hoped he would pass out after Otis had kicked him and gain brief escape that way, but his stubborn will refused to let his consciousness yield, although it had teetered uncertainly in the balance momentarily. He was absolutely still now, eyes closed, his breathing even but rapid, as before.

"Any better?" she asked finally. She didn't ask if he was okay. The answer to that question was too obvious to both of them.

"A little," he said. "It's like waves. If I can stay on top of them, it starts to settle down some." One eye opened. "You realize what he wants, don't you?"

She nodded. "Rosalind. Horatio, what are we going to do?"

"Wait for the team. Nothing else we can do." Rosalind shifted just then, bumping against her father, and he sat up a bit. "You stay in there, Rosalind. You're safe there. You can't be born until we get out of this."

"I hope she's listening," Calleigh said. She tried to remember if she and her siblings had come early or late.

"How are you feeling? How's that ringing in your ears?" Horatio had made it up to a sitting position now, still slumped against her, but the concern in his voice was strong.

She was completely honest with him. They had to be open with each other in this. "It was louder when I first woke up and especially after I dragged you across the room, but it's settled down again now. I don't think the drug did me much good, but I feel better now that it's totally worn off." She squeezed him with her cuffed hands. "I wish I could have gotten some Tylenol or something for you. I'm sorry, Horatio."

He recognized the need for openness, too. "Honestly, Cal, I don't think Tylenol would touch it."

"Do you think you could get up? I hate to mention it, Horatio, but my back's killing me." She felt guilty comparing that to what he must be going through, but she would swear that the edge of the box spring had made a permanent impression into her skin. Besides, he would be more comfortable off the floor himself.

He once again gripped the edge of the bed and levered himself up. This time he made it, standing on one leg with the left foot just barely touching the floor for balance. He made a hopping turn, surveying the room completely himself for the first time. "Is that the bathroom over there?"

"Yes. There are all sorts of supplies here, actually. He really has prepared things. How do you suppose he got out, Horatio?" She pulled herself clumsily to her own feet.

"He must have switched places with another prisoner, so they don't realize it's Otis who's missing. The team will work it out. They'll find us." He sat down on the edge of the bed and slowly worked his left leg up onto it. The effort had him sweating again by the time he was lying down.

Calleigh sat down on the edge next to him and pulled his head over against her leg, holding him until the tide of pain started to retreat a bit. When he relaxed slightly, she got up and leaned over the bed, feeling along his wrapped leg as gently as she could. Nothing had soaked through. "I don't think it's bleeding. I was afraid Otis had set that off again."

His eyes opened. "Bleeding? It's an open fracture?"

"Yes. Really nasty looking. I stopped the bleeding and wrapped it, but there's nothing here to use as a splint, and the wound is wide open. It was full of dirt and such, too"

"We have got to get out of here," he said urgently, and for the first time, there was a slight acknowledgement of his own need, as well as the larger question of her own and Rosalind's safety.

"I know." Her concern was evenly divided between him and Rosalind. She let her eyes quest around the room again, looking for anything she might have missed to use as a splint. She spotted nothing new, but as she saw the cases of water again, she suddenly realized that she was thirsty. Horatio had to be as well. They had to keep themselves in as good condition as they could until the team found them. She fetched two bottles out of the open case. "Here, Horatio." She opened one and handed it to him. "We've got to keep our fluid intake up. I wish I had something stronger to give you, but I don't."

He propped himself up on one elbow, accepting it. "Water is fine, Cal. I wouldn't want alcohol if we had it." He took several gulps.

"It might numb your leg out a little bit."

"Numb my mind out, too. I'm not leaving you to deal with this alone." It was a fierce promise. She leaned over and kissed him.

"Thank you, Horatio. But when we get out of here, once Otis is captured, you're going to the hospital, and they're going to give you enough painkillers that you can't see straight, even if I have to hold you down while they give you the shot."

He smiled. "Believe it or not, no arguments. But we've got to get out of here first."

"Yes." They finished off the water, and she threw away the empty bottles, then walked around the bed to the other side and lay down next to him, careful not to jolt him. He turned gingerly onto his side, facing her as she faced him. They lay there in silence with Rosalind protected between them and let their minds stretch beyond their prison to the team's ongoing investigation, as if they could send out a beacon by thought alone.

***

Speed and Eric stood about 300 yards from the point where the car had left the road. Speed knelt and pointed to the stains on the pavement. "There was a second car with slight oil and transmission leaks. It sat here for a while. Then, it sat on the other side, just around that curve, for several minutes. Nice lonely road for staging an accident after dark." He straightened up, looking down toward the accident site. From this perspective, what had happened was obvious. The other car had pushed Calleigh's car from this point, building up speed down this long straightway, then backed off as Calleigh's car failed to make the curve and went off the road.

Eric nodded. "That explains the scuff marks on the rear bumper, too. The other vehicle will have scuff marks on the front bumper."

"Between the bumper and the leaks, I think we could identify the car if we found it."

"Yes. I printed Calleigh's car as well as I could, the surfaces that weren't scorched or melted, but most of the fingerprints are old, jumbled. I think the perp wore gloves. Two things we can use. The car was in neutral, and the windows were all rolled down."

"In late February?" This was Florida, but still.

"Right. He had to roll them down to lean in and pour gasoline or whatever on the bodies. One weird thing, though." Eric jogged down the road to the curve where the car had gone off. "Look at these marks. It went off and rolled twice, but I swear, somebody was ejected on that first roll. Look at this scuff mark and the rock." He pointed out a jaggedly sharp rock protruding slightly from the ground. Blood was on it and on the dirt around it. "I took a sample of the blood. There was a dark fiber caught on the rock, too. Looked like it was from a suit, top quality, too. Footprints come up to it, then are deeper going away, like he was carrying something. I got a cast of the footprints. Looked like tennis shoes, just off the shelf. They were around the car, too. Some deeper, some not."

Speed studied the marks himself, trying to piece it together. "We can guess height on the perp from his shoe size and stride. You think that one of them really was in the accident and that the perp put the fake bodies in at the tree?"

"I hope not, but it looks like it. We can run the blood. We've already got Horatio's DNA in the computer, and we can get a sample of Calleigh's from the house. Speed, we need to check out their house. It could be the primary crime scene."

"Good thinking." Speed gave a final glance around this scene. They had spent hours processing and photographing. "We're about done here, I think."

"Yeah." The car had already been towed away for closer inspection at CSI. "Alexx is checking on the doctor's appointment yesterday. She called me back a while ago to tell me the DNA and the HCG were both negative. It definitely isn't them."

"Somebody has them, though." Speed hesitated. "Let's grab a bite to eat on the way over to their house, too."

"How can you think of food at a time like this?" Eric couldn't believe it. "Don't you even care what's happened to them?"

Speed forced himself not to react to his friend's tone. "Look, man, neither one of us has had anything to eat all day, and it's 5:00 PM. We won't help Horatio and Calleigh by running ourselves into collapse."

Eric sighed. "I guess you're right. I am hungry, now that I think about it." He almost felt guilty for it. "Let's make it fast, though. We've got to find them before something worse happens."

Speed studied his friend's intense, burning eyes. "You know, back on that sniper case, H told me something one day I've never forgotten."

Eric looked at him curiously. "What's that?"

"I was worrying about catching that sicko before he struck again, and I asked H how long he thought it was going to take. He said he didn't know, but that it would take longer if the perp could make us change the way we do things."

Eric nodded slowly. "I know. We can't get too rushed on it. But this is H and Calleigh out there."

"And Rosalind," Speed reminded him.

"And Rosalind. And at least one of them is hurt." Eric looked at the blood again. At least it wasn't much blood.

"Let's go eat, Eric." They walked back to the second Hummer allotted to CSI and turned urgently toward Miami. Horatio and Calleigh were waiting for them somewhere.

***

Alexx met them at the house. They had called her with an update from the fast food place they stopped at, and she said she had a key herself. She was already waiting in the driveway when they got there. Horatio's Hummer sat parked next to her car.

"Nothing looks wrong with it." Speed circled it once slowly. "We ought to take it back to CSI, though, and process it, just in case. There are spare keys back at the lab."

"I didn't want to unlock the house until you got here," Alexx said. "You did both eat something?"

"Yeah," Eric assured her, although he still felt guilty for taking the time.

"We all need to get some sleep tonight, too." Both of the others looked at her in disbelief. "I know it sounds impossible, but we were up all night last night. The minute we get into bed, we'll crash. We can't let ourselves get run down on this. We won't be able to think straight that way."

"What about the doctor's appointment?" Speed asked.

"They kept it, but the doctor was running very late. They left there about 7:00. The perp may have been waiting for them here when they got home."

"Or there, if they left that late," Eric pointed out. "The parking garage would have been almost deserted. If someone was following them looking for an opportunity, he could have taken it then. Did they have security cameras in the garage?"

It was Alexx's turn to feel guilty. "I didn't think to ask."

"You don't usually deal with that end of it," Speed reassured her. "We'll check on it." He studied the door, which looked unmarked. "Doesn't show anything. Let me dust the knob for prints before you unlock it." He did so, lifting several sets, but it looked like only two contributors, probably Horatio and Calleigh. Alexx then unlocked the door, and they stepped inside.

The house looked and felt absolutely normal. They divided it into quadrants and started looking for anything out of place. Alexx took the bedroom, turning back the carefully smoothed bedspread and studying the sheets meticulously until she found a long, blonde hair. She captured it and put it in an envelope, sealing it carefully. They could now doubly rule out Calleigh as a body, but Alexx still worried about that blood the boys had found. She crossed the hall from the bedroom and stopped in the door of the nursery. Everything had been set up in confident anticipation. The yellow and blue color scheme drew the room cheerfully together. A rocking chair sat in the middle of the floor, ready for use, and in the crib against the wall there was a large stuffed cat, one of Alexx's gifts to them at the baby shower a month ago. It all looked so normal, and so empty. Again, she felt tears well up and forced them back down. They're alive, she reminded herself. If they were dead, they would have been in the car. But the cold, metallic taste of fear was still in her mouth.

"Anything?" Speed spoke from behind her, and Alexx jumped. "Sorry. Find anything?"

"Nothing seems to be disturbed. I did find one of Calleigh's hairs in the bed, so we can get her DNA. What about you?"

"Absolutely nothing. I don't think it happened here. No sign of a fight at all, and it would be hard to take them both down without a struggle."

"Unless there's more than one perp," Eric suggested as he came up to join them. "There only seemed to be one set of footprints at the accident scene, though."

Alexx shook her head. "If there is just one, how is he keeping both of them prisoner? Calleigh couldn't do much right now, but Horatio wouldn't be cooperative."

They looked at each other in helpless silence. They had learned a lot over the course of this day, but they were left with even more questions than when they had started. Alexx finally broke the silence, firmly taking charge. "We all need to go home and get some sleep. We'll pick it back up in the morning."

They reluctantly agreed this time. This case wasn't going to be solved tonight. As they relocked the house securely and left, though, they hesitated beside Horatio's Hummer as it invoked even more strongly the presence of its master. Their mentor, their friend, both of their friends were counting on them. They silently promised that they would not fail them.

***

Calleigh was asleep, uneasily, restlessly asleep. Horatio lay beside her watching her, his mind absolutely racing. Calleigh had warmed up soup and hot tea earlier for them, although he didn't really feel like eating. They had stretched out on the bed then, silent but touching, desperately reconsidering the situation, looking for anything they had missed. Finally, she had drifted off. He could not sleep himself, but in between surfing on waves of pain, his mind ran over the options. If Otis got close enough, he might try tackling him, but Otis had kept a discrete distance so far. There was also the gun. Getting shot wouldn't help their situation, but if he got a chance to knock it out of Otis' hand, Calleigh could pick it up. He would trust his life to her marksmanship. He kept coming back to the team, though. The team was the best chance by far. They would know it was a staged accident. They would find out about Otis' escape. They would track them down at wherever this prison was. Horatio shifted slightly, trying to find a more comfortable position, and stared at the industrial ceiling. Please, he thought, hurry. He lost track of the hours as he lay there waiting for anyone, either Otis or the CSIs, but no one came.