Here is the final chapter; a little earlier than I anticipated but hey, that's good. To all those who reviewed, I can only say wow! Thanks! big grin

It's Never Too Late

'Turns out you may have overestimated this one, Horatio,' Calleigh said, watching a group of police officers escorting an angry looking man into an interview room.

'Where did they pick him up?' he asked, waving an envelope in a distracted manner.

She smiled faintly. 'At the airport. He was trying to leave the state, heading for Argentina.'

'Really?' Horatio also smiled. 'Think he was expecting us?'

'We found out something interesting,' she added.

'Do tell.'

'Mrs Moore left earlier today, also for Argentina. Sounds like she was expecting a police visit, too.'

'I think I need to have a word with Mr Tyler,' Horatio said.

'Go for it,' she replied.

Matt Tyler looked furious when Horatio entered the room. 'Who the hell do you people think you are?' he demanded loudly. 'What the hell do you think you're doing? Why am I here? I've done nothing wrong!'

'I would be inclined to disagree with you on that,' Horatio said, sitting down.

'How dare you! I'll sue you for this, Caine! I have done nothing wrong!' Tyler raged, waving a finger at Horatio.

'Recalling shooting any CSIs lately?' Horatio inquired politely.

Tyler stared at him. 'What? What are you talking about?'

'One of my officers was shot early this morning, Mr Tyler.'

'Not by me.'

'You're quite sure about that?' Horatio's voice was still level and calm.

'Yes, I'm sure! I was supposed to be going on holiday and your people just came in and dragged me out – the damage this will have done to my reputation – '

'You have more to worry about than your reputation, Tyler,' Horatio said coldly.

'I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm sorry one of your officers was hurt but you shouldn't be putting them in the firing line.'

'As I recall, the officer in question wasn't put in the firing line,' Horatio murmured, giving Tyler a frosty stare, 'you went looking for him.'

'You're talking crap, with all due respect.'

Horatio actually smiled. 'Let me see your hands.'

Tyler stared then held out his hands for inspection. Horatio nodded. 'What happened?'

'Got bitten by a dog,' Tyler said without hesitation.

'Really? You know, those marks aren't deep enough for a dog. You know what we call that? Fight bite.' He smiled. The marks on Tyler's hand were red, swollen, infected. 'The human mouth is loaded with bacteria. Hit someone in the mouth, you end up with all that bacteria in your wounds. Takes time to heal. But you're not going to admit to anything right now, so why don't I tell you a little story.'

Tyler gave him an arrogant smile. 'Go ahead. I've got plenty time now you made me miss my flight.'

'You were having an affair with Mrs Moore.'

'What?' Tyler laughed. 'I've never even met the woman.'

'Yet you were dining with her.' Horatio opened the envelope and pulled out a photograph. It was of a young couple, smiling at the camera, and in the background showed a very clear image of Tyler and Mrs Moore, arms around each other.

'Looks like you do know her, and rather well,' Horatio said. 'Plenty of people at this place saw you together. You've just been caught out, Tyler. Sure you don't want to come clean?'

'So, I know her. What of it? It's none of your business.'

'It is when you made it my business. But let me continue my story. You were having an affair with her. You conspired with her to kill her husband. We thought she had maybe hired a hit man, but she didn't need to, did she? Not when she had you. You were willing to kill her husband, weren't you?'

'You're crazy. Why would we do that? She could just get a divorce.'

'Too long, too messy, too painful and she'd get everything if he died. You would both get everything. So you killed him.'

'You can't prove any of this.'

'Sure I can,' Horatio answered quite calmly. 'You killed him, with the tire-iron you later used to beat the CSI investigating the case into unconsciousness. We matched the CSI's blood and Mr Moore's blood on the weapon. And we found fingerprints.'

'And?'

'And you gave us some trouble. You're not in the database, we couldn't find you anywhere. No trace on the fingerprints or DNA we found at the scene of Mr Moore's murder. We matched them to the ones we found at the scene where the CSI was shot and in his car. And we didn't find the murder weapon before because you still had it. No one else knew about your affair, did they? So we had nothing to link you and Mrs Moore. You were lucky.'

'I didn't kill him, why would I attack a CSI?' Tyler said angrily. He was getting agitated.

Horatio watched him for a minute, then said, 'You thought you were safe. We questioned Mrs Moore twice, her friends and family. We didn't find about you, so you thought you were safe. You went out to dinner together.'

'That's a crime now?'

'No, but murder is. Things seemed to be going well, didn't they? Until she spotted the CSI investigating her husband's murder in the same place you and her were dining. She thought he'd seen you together. She got scared, thought the game was up. You panicked, decided you'd make sure he couldn't tell anyone.'

'Look, this is crazy.' Tyler's voice was edged with desperation.

'You keep saying that, yet in light of the evidence, it makes perfect sense. You see, you left when you saw him leaving. Followed his car home, waited for him to come out. When he did, you attacked him, knocked him out and drove the car some place else. You thought that by doing that, he might not be found until you had managed to get out of the country.

'This is a really good story,' Tyler said sarcastically. 'Not very believable, though.'

'Oh, it gets better. You and Mrs Moore had decided that you were going to leave together, go somewhere until the fuss over her husband's death had died down. Not exactly a sensible thing to do, but understandable. You booked separate flights so as not to be connected to each other. She's on her flight now, but she'll be coming straight back to Miami to be charged and stand trial.'

'Whatever. Keep telling yourself that, Caine. Might make it come true.'

'It doesn't have to, Tyler. Don't worry, I've almost finished. You shot him, left him to die, and dumped the car. But you were panicking, never kidnapped before, you made mistakes. You left the tire-iron in the car where we found it. You left your fingerprints all over the car. You remembered to wipe the gun down.' Horatio fixed him with an icy glare. 'That's low, you know. Shooting a police officer with his own gun. But you left it there, gave us a match to the murder weapon. True, you wiped it down and removed all fingerprints, but it was there.'

'I don't even know how to shoot.'

'You know, I really don't believe you. Anyway.' Horatio gestured towards Tyler's face. 'Where did you get that scratch?'

'I own cats. They tend to scratch.'

Horatio smiled. 'You got that when the CSI fought back.'

Tyler scowled.

'You see, Tyler, CSIs are trained to catch criminals. That's what we do, it's what we know. He knew that if he got your DNA on him, we might be able to get something that would point directly to you. Blood, skin cells, all contain DNA. And he got plenty of useable DNA for us, blood and skin under his nails and on his clothes.'

'You can't match any of that to me.'

'We can, Tyler. We already have.' Horatio gave him a satisfied smile.

Tyler's eyes narrowed. 'You can't. I never gave my consent – you need a warrant - '

'When we confiscated your belongings when you were arrested, we had already secured a warrant for your DNA and fingerprints for when we brought you in. We got DNA and prints off of your belongings. We'll be wanting samples directly from you to check against and for trial, but you, my friend, are nailed.'

Tyler shook his head stubbornly. 'No.'

'Yes, Tyler.'

Tyler stared at him. Trying to explain, as if that would have made any difference. 'I love her. We wanted to be together.'

Horatio lent forwards. 'Divorce is painful, but ultimately, you would have both been free. One of my officers would not be fighting for his life and another man would not be dead.'

'I'll walk,' Tyler said angrily. 'I'm wealthy, influential. So is she. We'll never serve a single day.'

'We'll see about that,' Horatio said. 'You are going to jail on one count of murder and one of abduction and attempted murder. She is going to jail on two counts of conspiracy to murder. No matter how wealthy or influential you both are. And that is what we call closure.'

Tyler stared at hi, helpless and furious.

'By the way,' Horatio said, pausing by the door. 'There's something you know. The CSI you tried to kill? He hadn't seen you and Mrs Moore. If he had, he would have reported it straight to me and you would have ended up here sooner rather than later. He was only there with family for dinner. He never even saw you.'

'I guess I made a mistake, then,' Tyler said softly.

'Oh, you made more than one mistake,' Horatio told him. 'Your first mistake was committing murder. Your last mistake was to harm one of my team and in Miami, that's something we don't forget.'

'Heard you caught the guy,' Alexx said, looking up as Horatio entered the room.

He nodded, smiled. 'How is he?'

'Still not regained consciousness,' she said and then said to Ryan, 'You heard that, sweetie? They got him, they got guy who put you here.' She stroked his forehead. 'If news like that doesn't wake a criminalist up, nothing will.'

'Give him time, Alexx,' Horatio said with, sitting down. 'Give him time.'

'Thank God it's finally over,' she said. 'And that's he's alive.'

'Yes,' Horatio said with a weary sigh. 'You know, Alexx, I don't think this team could survive another fatality. Not losing another one of us in the line of duty – '

'They all know the risk,' Alexx said gently. 'All of them. They know they risk their lives for in this job, and they believe that risk is worth it. You can't blame yourself if something happens to any of your team, Horatio, because they are all totally aware that they're in the firing line.'

'But I put them there,' he said.

She reached over and touched his hand. 'You don't put them there, Horatio. You're not the one who shoots at them, who tries to kill them. Don't you dare blame yourself. You're not the one who fired the gun – not this time and not this time.'

He smiled. 'Thanks, Alexx.'

'Like I said, it all over,' she said, looking over at Ryan. 'Or will be,' she joked, 'when a certain person decides to wake up.'

'Yeah, wake up Ryan,' Eric said, entering the room, closely followed by Calleigh and Valera. 'We want to go for a drink and celebrate you not dying and we can't cart you there unconscious, can we?'

Horatio smiled. 'I'm sure he won't mind us celebrating without him.'

'We'll go out when he's recovered,' Calleigh said, carting with her the biggest bunch of flowers Horatio had ever seen. When he commented on this, Calleigh said, 'We got everyone to contribute. Valera ordered them.'

'Looks like you ordered an entire florist,' Alexx said, sounding impressed. 'Looks you might have put every florist in Miami out of stock for the day.'

Valera looked slightly embarrassed. 'I said we wanted something nice for a colleague who was in hospital, for the amount we got from everyone at the lab,' she said. 'They made up this.'

'It's great,' Eric said, grinning. 'Ryan's going to think this is hilarious.'

'Don't tease,' Calleigh told him in a low voice. He grinned even more at that.

'Where's the family?' Valera asked.

'Resting,' Alexx said. 'They've been taking it in turns but they're all exhausted. I said you would all probably be visiting, but they decided not stay since Horatio had words with them.'

'That's something, I guess,' Calleigh said. 'Or it might be a case of too late.'

'That's for him to decide,' Horatio said. 'You all want to hear about how we got the guy who did this?'

'Oh, a bed time story, the crime lab way,' Calleigh joked.

Horatio sat back, smiling. 'We got him,' he said, allowing himself to sound a little smug. 'We always get our man in the end, team.'

'No, we don't,' Eric pointed out. 'What?' he said as everyone looked at him. 'It's true!'

'Not this time,' Horatio said. 'Not this time.'

Some days later…

Horatio went to the hospital, having heard that Ryan was being allowed to go home. Eric and Calleigh had offered to go, but a case had come up so Horatio had gone instead.

He found Ryan in his room, in a wheelchair, waiting to go. He looked pleased to see Horatio, although he looked tired and very drained.

'How are you feeling?' Horatio asked him.

'Like I was recovering from being shot,' Ryan said dryly. 'Other than that, great.' He cleared his throat. 'Thank you for – for finding me.'

'I'm just glad you were still able to call for help,' Horatio said. 'You're lucky to be alive.'

'I know,' Ryan said. 'I tell you, that's twice having my phone has saved my life. From now on, it's my constant companion,' he added, joking. 'And thank you for catching him. I mean, thanks to everyone for catching him. Can you tell them that?'

'You can tell them yourself,' Horatio said, smiling. 'They want to know when you're going to be fit enough for us all to go out for dinner.'

'To celebrate not losing another person?' Ryan said, his smile faltering.

'For not losing you,' Horatio said bluntly. 'For not losing a member of the team. You might have felt like a replacement, Ryan, but you're a valuable member of the team. No one wanted to lose another team member, another friend.'

Ryan's smile returned. 'Thanks, Horatio.'

'Don't mention it,' Horatio said. 'Do you need a life home?'

'No,' he said. 'My sister is coming to pick me up. She just took my things out to her car.'

'You can take as much time as you need off,' Horatio told him. 'You've been through a couple of ordeals the past few months. You might need some time out of the job.'

'I don't think so,' Ryan said. 'I'll take some time off, but I'd rather get back to work sooner rather than later.'

'That's fine,' Horatio said, although he wasn't sure it was. 'Ryan, do me a favour.'

'What?'

'Whether or not you decide to come back sooner or later, see the counsellor. Not because I doubt your abilities to cope, but because you've been through a lot. You might find it helps.'

Ryan looked at him for a while and then nodded. 'It's a good idea. I'll think about it.'

'Please do.' He looked around. 'I see the flowers are gone. Did you like them? Eric thought you'd think they were funny, for some reason.'

'I was very impressed,' Ryan said, laughing. 'We actually split them up and gave them to the doctors and nurses who were treating me. They were kind of pleased, I think. Did you see the card I got sent?'

Horatio nodded. 'I think Eric chose it.'

'I guessed as much,' Ryan said and grinned. 'He wrote, 'we tried to get you a sorry you got shot, hope you don't die card but apparently there isn't much of a demand for them. Hey, maybe we could market that idea.' Tell him I thought it was funny.'

'I will.' Horatio looked out of the room window and saw Ryan's sister outside, waiting. She was obviously waiting for them to finish talking.

Ryan saw her too. 'They're all trying,' he said. 'I've seen more of them in the past couple of weeks than I have in the past couple of years, I think. I guess everyone's making an effort.'

'Almost losing someone can something change people,' Horatio said.

'Things didn't change much last time I was in hospital,' he replied. 'I don't know, everyone's trying, I should be grateful for that. But maybe it's too late.'

Horatio looked at him. 'If you're all willing to try, it doesn't have to be too late.'

'You really believe that?' Ryan asked. 'That's it's not too late?' He didn't ask if Horatio thought it was too late for him and his family, but Horatio knew it.

'All you can do is try,' Horatio said. 'Sometimes, just sometimes, it's not too late.' He went to the door. 'Take care of yourself, Ryan. Come back to work when you need to.'

'Thank you, Horatio,' Ryan called.

Horatio nodded and smiled and walked slowly out of the hospital. He stood outside, thinking. He hoped he was right.

His phone rang. He answered it. 'Horatio.' He listened. 'All right, I'm on my way.' He switched the phone off, put it in his pocket and smiled.

'Business as usual,' he said aloud. 'Back to work.'

It was sunny. Blue skies, no clouds in sight. The weather was normal, hot and bright and with relentless. Same as most days in Miami. Same as always. And some things change. And some things never change and one of those things is murder.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed; I was really worried no one was going to like it! You might be pleased to hear that I've just finished a short sequel in which lots more nasty stuff happens to Ryan. Again. I belong to the school of 'write about characters. Have nasty stuff happen to them,' in case anyone hadn't guessed. I should be putting it up in the next couple of days.