Part four guys, its getting more and more
Alexx was standing just out side the faculty lounge. One of the boys had lowered the blinds and dimmed the lights so that Speedle could sleep for a while without being disturbed but Alexx was staring at the blinds anyway, nursing a cup of coffee.
Calleigh, dressed now in jeans and a blouse, her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail, walked over to her. "Hey" the petite CSI said warmly.
"Damn it Calleigh I have a bad feeling" the normally composed ME, Calleigh saw, was fighting back tears.
"Oh Alexx, sweetie it's alright!" Calleigh reached out and pulled Alexx into a hug "Why are you worrying?" she asked.
Alexx shook her head "I just have this…something bad is going to happen Calleigh, we're going to lose him for real this time" she whispered.
"No, Alexx, don't think like that, you're just shocked by everything that's happened" Calleigh said comfortingly.
Alexx pulled away from her "Don't tell me what I'm feeling Calleigh" she said, her voice not quite angry but getting there.
"Sorry" Calleigh said.
"I'm not mad at you baby…I just hate this whole damn situation. I've had to stitch him up twice already, I don't understand why we cant take him to a hospital and get him seen to, I don't understand why he still has to go back in with these awful people if the case had already been compromised, I don't see why we had to go through 'losing' him a year ago any damn way. I'm mad. No, I'm pissed and you know swearing is not what I do" she her voice grew lower and more irate as she spoke until she was hissing viciously.
Calleigh stood by and let Alexx rant.
"First everything with Ray…now this…and now I'm going to have to send my kids out of town, out of their home because some uppity little college boys got it in to their heads to take out their pathetic frustrations on everybody else instead of just drinking themselves into a stupor and ending up in hospital the way regular morons do!" Alexx took one long, deep breath and blew it out between pursed lips. "I feel better" she said, breaking into a watered down smile.
Calleigh raised an eyebrow and grinned at her friend. "Well you'll probably want to know...what you said, about me and" she nodded toward the window to the break room "Me and you need to have coffee and soon and talk over what you said" she admitted.
Alexx's grin grew bright "Oh for sure!" she stated.
Horatio approached them with Cassandra in tow. The girl looked better, refreshed from her shower. She wore a t-shirt, jeans and a new pair of sneakers. "Ladies" Horatio said as a greeting "Alright if Cassandra stays with you two? I have to make some phone calls" he told them.
"Course it is" Calleigh said cheerfully.
"Alright then" Horatio turned to Cassandra, talking to her without looking at her, his hands in place on his hips "You, have been very helpful to me, and I bet you're going to be even more help aren't you? Yes you are." He was still staring off to his left and as Calleigh and Alexx watched, Cassandra frowned slightly and looked to Horatio's left as if trying to see what held his attention so raptly. "Calleigh and Alexx will take care of you, if you need anything or if you think of any more to tell us about Drake and company, let them know and they'll get back to me" he gave her a curt nod then stalked away.
Cassandra watched him go, an amused frown on her face "Does he do that a lot?" she turned to Calleigh and Alexx, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb.
"Do what?" Calleigh asked.
"Talk to ya without looking at you at all?" Cassandra grinned slightly "It's…disconcerting" she cocked her head slightly.
Calleigh and Alexx laughed "Yeah, yeah he always does actually" Calleigh told her "And he doesn't mean to sound like he's talking down to you either, it's just his way sometimes" she started walking and placed a hand on Cassandra's shoulder to guide her with her.
"Timmy did that" Alexx told them both.
"What?" Calleigh asked.
"Timmy's first day, Horatio was talking to him, looking all over the place except at Timmy, like he does, and, god I remember because it cracked me up, Horatio was staring at the floor and Timmy just looked down, trying to see what was so interesting" she shook her head "Horatio had no idea, he was just talking away and there's at least a half dozen techs standing by trying no to crack too…I love Horatio but he has no idea sometimes" she seemed to have gotten over her anger from before.
Calleigh was giggling "That's so like Tim" she nodded.
Cassandra grinned "So you guys are Them the huh?" she asked.
"'Them'?" Calleigh frowned.
"You're…his family, here in Miami I mean" they found an empty lay out room and sat down "you know, he hated what he did" Cassandra told them "Having to con you all like he did…it screwed him up for a couple months"
Calleigh looked down "It screwed us up too" she stated.
Cassandra nodded.
"So you said you left home young?" Alexx asked out of the blue "Cos you're parents where…" she left the question open.
"Dad thought Connor was a walking punch bag. And mom just…didn't care. Me and my twin brother…well, we wheren't wanted by mom or dad…he…forced us on her. Then when we where eight months old he shook Caleb, he was my twin, to death. Connor got us out of there when I was about four, he was…fourteen, fifteen" she said, her voice devoid of emotion.
Calleigh shot Alexx a look "Did your parents ever look for you?" she asked the young woman.
"Don't know. Don't care" Cassandra shrugged.
"And you met Drake and everybody?" Alexx pushed.
"We where living with…anyone who would take us in. It was kind of fun sometimes actually, if we could find the right kind of people…one guy, he lived in this loft in New York, he had been in a circus…he was so cool. Other times they would be these creeps…which was shit but Connor never let anything happen to me….then, we where in this diner by a college one day and one group was hassling another group and Connor being Connor steps in trying to help, next thing, we're hanging out with Drake. Four months after that Timmy shows up for similar reasons, trying to be helpful, and he and Connor realised they didn't really buy into all the bullshit Drake would always be spewing about how people deserved to be punished for their sins against…well, against Drake. He's angry about everything, I mean everything. Every bad thing, even if it's the most meaningless slight ever, personally offends him in some way. Seriously, he could stub his toe on a…rock buried under the sand at a beach and he would get the guys and burn down a life guard tower in a protest that the life guards caused him physical and emotional turmoil by being neglectful. This thing he's doing now, I don't even think it has a real reason. He's a psychopath, he just wants to kill people. But he's claiming that its God's wrath for peoples ignorance"
"Ignorance of what?" Alexx frowned.
"Ironically enough, I don't know" Cassandra shook her head "he just rails on about the 'ignorant masses' and how 'they'll pay'" she began chewing a nail, once again a similar action to what Speedle had done earlier.
"He was pretty scary" Calleigh stated "And that Adam guy…yeesh" she shuddered.
"Yeah, Adam. Scum bag" Cassandra spat.
Eric walked into the room, holding a manila folder "Who we talking about?" he asked.
"Adam" Calleigh and Cassandra said in unison.
"Creepy rapist guy?" Eric asked.
"Yup" Cassandra rested her chin on her hands.
"He bothering you tonight?" Speedle spoke as he walked into the room, rubbing gently at his eyes.
"What happened to you sleeping?" Eric almost scolded.
"I kept thinking of Cassandra and you guys all out here together and it gives me nightmares" Speedle joked caustically.
"Closer to day mares now, it's almost six am" Eric told them.
"Damn" Cassandra groaned "I hate when I lose so much time and don't know where it went" she shook her head.
Calleigh nodded "Reading my mind" she told the girl.
She gave Speedle a small smile as she caught his eye and he matched it with a glint in his eye.
"Nice walmart gigs Cass" Speedle gave Cassandra a smirk as he regarded her clothes.
"Shut up frizzo, you seen your hair lately?" her accent was odd, a mish mash of regional dialects from all over the country, a dead tell of her nomadic upbringing.
"I haven't had a good day" Speedle reminded her.
"That's true. So what's your excuse for every other day of your life?" Cassandra asked him, mock seriously.
Speedle gave her a dirty look, but there was something in the way they both spoke, the looks they where throwing, that reminded Calleigh of how she was with her own siblings as a kid. Speedle clearly saw Cassandra as a younger sibling, and she, the same in him.
As Speedle walked past Cassandra to get to a seat, he pulled the back of her hair affectionately but hard enough that she pulled a face.
"Well, I was gonna say, we got a hit back…the guys who killed your feds left some fingerprints on the scene, took us a while but we got a name 'Sheldon Murray'" he looked over at Cassandra and Speedle who shook their heads slowly, almost in unison.
"No body I know" Cassandra said aloud.
"Nope" Speedle agreed.
"Looks like Mr Murray has convictions for assault, disturbing the peace and was suspected in but never convicted for at least three murders in other states. Same MO as the feds" Eric explained.
"Any known affiliations?" Calleigh asked.
"Adam Zeeman" Eric read aloud.
"Son of a Bitch!" Cassandra banged her hand on the lay out desk.
"Fuckin A" Speedle agreed "it has to be Adam who's been in his ear" he surmised.
"Maybe, we got another hit though, from our second killer" Eric continued "a dude named Wilhelm Roe?" he looked at the pair.
"There's a Will" Speedle looked at Cassandra who nodded.
"This guy?" Eric passed the folder across to them.
They looked down at the mug shot and nodded, almost in perfect unison "That's him. Damn, I always thought he was a decent guy…considering what he spends his days doing" Cassandra wrinkled her nose.
"Well Wilhelm is another one with some scary priors for assault…he actually did serve time for his role in a manslaughter fifteen years ago. Seems he and a friend 'accidentally' ran over a mother of four while DUI" Eric explained.
"What!" Cassandra paled "Son of a bitch" she repeated as she shook her head.
"According to these files these guys have been MIA for a while now…I guess we know they're back in Miami" Eric finished.
"I know where Wilhelm hangs out here. There's a bar downtown where he's spent most all of his time" Speedle informed them "Called, uh Max's"
Horatio ran into the room "We just got a call…a dozen joggers down near the beach just collapsed" he said gravely "called in by a photographer off shore on a boat who was trying to get dawn shots. He told the operator he might have seen something land in their midst, then the twelve of them dropped"
The assembled group froze.
"You can't let anyone near them, you have to evacuate the whole area, now" Cassandra said, her voice hollow.
"Already made the call" Horatio told her "EMS in bio hazard suits are being mobilised"
"Twelve people" Calleigh's voice relayed her disbelief.
"The area isn't densely populated, its mainly empty beach, a handful of house holds" Horatio explained.
"He's testing it on people" Speed said.
Horatio looked at the ground "It seems that way" he agreed.
"Tim, we have to go" Cassandra slid off her stool "He's gonna know we'll have heard about this, he'll be expecting everybody to report in…if we don't he'll know" she ran her hands through her hair a few times.
"She's right, and Calleigh maybe you ought to come too" Speedle told the blonde haired CSI.
"I was about to suggest that" Horatio nodded "Work out the full cover story on the way, and be careful, if he's released on of these bombs he's clearly not wholly stable"
Speedle, Cassandra and Calleigh all headed for the door. "What should we do?" Eric asked.
"Go get some bio hazard gear and head out to help out at the scene. Be as careful as you can" Horatio told Eric and Ryan. "And you too, get bio hazard gear on, get down the morgue…its gonna get busy" Horatio told Alexx wearily.
"Sure thing" Alexx headed out, wishing Speedle, Calleigh and Cassandra luck as she passed them.
"H," Eric asked once Speedle and the others where out of sight "Is sending them back a good idea?"
"If Drake suspects they're with us, there's no telling how he'll react. Look at what one doubt has already caused" Horatio told him.
"You think he set the bomb off because of what happened with Speedle tonight?" Ryan frowned.
"Yeah, yeah I do" Horatio shook his head "I don't like this any more than you do, but we can't afford to be wrong"
"But what about what did happen tonight, Drake and his psycho buddy tried to kill that girl once already, and set Speedle up to hurt him worse" Delko snapped.
"Speedle knows what he's doing" Horatio said calmly.
"H, for his sake, and for the people of this city, I hope you're right"