Thanks to everyone who reviewed. As usual, R+R!
One of my friends said that Lily seemed too intelligent. I suppose she might be, but as I'm doing a lot of it from her POV she has to notice most things or I'll never be able to tell the story. There are more scenes without her in this chapter, so maybe she'll be more normal.
---------------------------
---------------------------
They hadn't found her.
Mr Caine had been very nice about telling Lily, and had hugged her when she started crying, but that didn't change the fact her Mommy, the person she loved most in the world, was missing, probably dead.
Of course, they hadn't told her that. Mr Caine said they hadn't finished processing the evidence, and the kidnapper might have left some DNA behind that they could use to find him and her Mom.
Lily was sure that the scary guy- the one she had had to describe about a million times over the last hour or so- had killed her mommy already. Lily had no other living relatives, at least none that she knew about, so the only alternative was…
Temporary foster care. Though from the chance there was of her Mommy being alive, it would probably be permanent. Mr Caine was taking her there now, in the big CSI car.
"We're almost there," Mr Caine glanced over his shoulder. Lily was sitting curled up on the back seat, her long hair hiding her face. She could see him though. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Really, Lily was terrified. One of the girls in her class had been taken into care when she came into school with a huge bruise on her face for the second time. Her teachers would think Mommy was bad, and that Lily shouldn't be allowed to see her. If her Mommy was alive at all.
They pulled up in front of a small house only a few streets away from Lily's, with a blue door and a square lawn in front. It looked too neat to have any kids in.
The door was opened by a middle-aged lady with dark brown hair. She stared at Mr Caine for a few seconds before looking at Lily.
"You must be Lily. My husband and I will be looking after you. Won't that be fun?" The lady's smile seemed a little too forced. "My name's Anne, but you can call me Aunty Annie,"
Lily thought she didn't have any aunties, or that's where she'd be now. They must have found one.
"Thank you for taking her at such short notice, Mrs Gardner," said Mr Caine. He left after that, even though Aunty Annie tried to invite him in for tea or coffee about four times. Lily was all alone again.
"Now dear, you should come and meet the other children,"
--------------------------
"There were nearly thirty pieces of evidence, and you're telling me not one of them can be matched to our shooter?" Horatio had got back to the labs in time to hear the DNA report from Speed, which was not good news.
"All of the blood we found in that room didn't match anyone on CODIS, but was similar to Lily Hamlyn's. Almost certainly her mother,"
"Almost?"
"Well, it could have belonged to one of her other relatives, but she doesn't have any,"
"That she knows of…" Horatio trailed off. "Did we do a check on relatives?"
"Of course. No-one else called Hamlyn in Miami,"
"That's something, at least. Any leads? Anywhere?"
"Not yet. Working on it,"
"Good,"
Eric really hated jigsaw puzzles.
Sometimes it was necessary for a document or photograph to be pieced together for vital evidence, but usually he got Speed to do it. Speed had a tendency to get completely addicted and stay in the lab long into the night patiently matching up tiny fragments of god knows what. Eric had no patience for it.
But Speed was stuck sorting out at least twenty or so pieces of DNA evidence, and Calleigh had run off down to the firing range with the five bullets and six bullet casings they found at the scene. Most of them had been fired harmlessly into the floor or furniture, but there was one that was probably still in the shoulder of Christine Hamlyn, wherever she was.
There had also been several shredded and bloodstained photographs, and only one CSI left to do the dirty work.
----------------------------
"Lily, this is my son Kevin. Kevin, this is Lily,"
Kevin glared at her. He was only about ten but looked huge, with a shaved head and an earring. Lily wondered how it could be so neat with someone like him around.
"Well, I'll leave you two to make friends!" Aunty Annie beamed at them and went into the kitchen, cheerfully unaware of Kevin's barely disguised hostility.
"I don't want you here," said Kevin. I don't want to be here, Lily thought but didn't dare say out loud.
"Leave us alone," Lily was saved from having to talk to Kevin by Aunty Annie shouting 'Dinner!'
With a final glare, Kevin left Lily alone. For now.
-------------------------------
BANG.
BANG. BANG.
Calleigh Duquense was very happy. She had got a result and better yet, a really big gun. She only needed one bullet to test her theory but, well, what was the fun in only firing once?
BANG. BANG. Click…
The magazine was empty. Calleigh put the gun back on the table and went down to the other end of the range to check if she was right.
She checked, then double-checked. Yep. 100 accuracy. She picked the bullets out of the dummy she had set up. Perfect. She turned around, and nearly walked into Horatio.
"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that,"
"You shouldn't leave your earplugs in when you finish shooting,"
Calleigh's hand flew up to the side of her head, and she grinned sheepishly. "Oh. Yeah,"
"So, what have you got for me?" Horatio was looking at the gun she'd just put down. It was a fairly standard 9mm, and the type she was almost certain had been used in the Hamlyn shooting.
"Well, I checked the trajectory of the bullet to find out where it would have gone, and as we didn't recover it at the scene it must still be in Christine Hamlyn if they haven't pulled it out by now,"
"Why would they pull it out?"
"That bullet would have hit her shoulder. I checked with Alexx, and there's at least a 90 chance Christine Hamlyn's still alive,"
