18.

"Horatio?" A soft, deeply concerned, voice said near his ear.

He felt a warm hand on his arm.

"Sugar?"

Horatio was crouched, with one knee bent and resting on the rock under him, just above the three-quarters flipped BMW and was staring down at the body of Lionel Harrison. His arms were crossed over his other knee, his sunglasses dangling between the fingers of one hand as the other dangled loosely over his leg. He was utterly lost in thought.

Alexx set her kit down and looked at him with open worry in her eyes. The paramedics still at the scene had said that he had been sitting there staring down at the body in the car since the helicopter had left the scene. That he had circled around the wreckage once, made a phone call on his cell, then crouched where he was presently, and hadn't budged since.

Even Calleigh, when she had arrived, had noticed that Horatio was in another world entirely, and that his normally pale features were even more so. She made it known to everyone at the scene; he was not to be disturbed.

"Horatio?" she asked again.

The look he gave her when he turned his head reminded her of that day, that hideous day, not more than a year ago when their companion, Tim Speedle, had been killed in a routine investigation. The look of absolute dread that haunted his eyes, and aged him past his years, was back with a vengeance. She'd also seen it the day that Rachel Turner had been fished out of the Tamiami River.

"Horatio," she said softly to his ears alone. "I've been in touch with the hospital," she reached up to set a hand on his face. Her dark eyes were full of compassion. "Schell just got taken into surgery and they are very optimistic. I told them they were to call you as soon as she came out."

He blinked, then he frowned as he focused on her. "How…" he started to ask, and was stopped by Alexx's friendly smile.

"I commissioned her to do a work for my husband," she said simply. "I introduced myself to Lionel," she paused and genuine grief flickered across her face as she looked down at the man in the car below them. "I introduced myself to Lionel the night of the party and met Schell the next day."

"The Mary Celeste?" he asked distractedly.

Alexx nodded. "Yeah, sugar, have you seen it?"

He finally saw her, he gazed at her a moment, seeing the grief mingled with concern on her exotic features.

"Yeah," he said, giving her a slight smile, his voice sounding small and far away. "I saw it just this morning…"

"Sugar, I know you. Don't go blaming yourself for this," Alexx murmured, studying his face. "Are you going to be all right?"

He paused a long time, staring at her before he said, "I don't know."

Alexx nodded, smiling sadly at him. "She's a sweet girl, Horatio. She's gonna need someone to help her while she recovers," she raised a hinting eyebrow at him. "And she's going to need someone who isn't blaming himself for what has happened here."

"I should have known, Alexx," he said. "Seattle never answered the question about the .22 rounds on their cases. I should have known…."

"That's bullshit, Horatio," Alexx said to him, simple and to the point. She stroked a thumb on his cheek. "I've talked to Calleigh; she didn't make the connection between the guns found at the Parnell home and the Seattle cases until this morning. You aren't a magician, you couldn't have known those guns were tied to those cases until Calleigh finished running them through IBIS."

Horatio just stared at her for a long time. She gave him another smile, patted his cheek and twisted around to open up her kit. Snapping on a pair of gloves, she started to rise, but he was rising ahead of her, and offering her a hand.

"Thank you, sugar," she said as he handed her carefully down to what small portion of space was available for her to stand in. There was barely room for two as Horatio stepped down next to her. She turned and set a restraining hand on his chest.

"If you plan on staying, all I want you to do is hold the flashlight. Calleigh already warned me that she has point on this case, that means you aren't involved." She looked him in the eye, and waggled a warning finger at him. "I can take of Lionel, Horatio, now hand me my kit and let someone else take responsibility for a while."

He ducked his head and smiled slightly as he nodded. "All right, Alexx," he conceded. He turned and got the kit for her, then climbed back up onto the rock he'd been kneeling on. "I'll have one of your boys come down and help."

"You do that," she said, already kneeling and looking at Lionel's bloody face. "Then you help get the rat bastard who did this." She couldn't help but see the neat, nearly bloodless hole right between Lionel's eyes. "You didn't even feel the crash, did you Lionel?" she said to him. "Thank God for small favours."

Horatio clambered his way to back to the top and spotted Calleigh wearing gloves, standing quite a distance down the road, holding a pair of binoculars in her hands. All around her were evidence markers, with her camera sitting on top of her kit. She was standing at a spot just past the start of the skid marks where Schell had tried stopping the car.

Slipping his sunglasses on, Horatio began walking down the road towards her. He turned before he joined her, seeing where it was she was focusing the binoculars. Of course, his mind reasoned, if you're a sniper shooting at an approaching car, use the overpass. He saw she had a pair of uniformed patrolmen taping the overpass off as a crime scene.

"Horatio," she said, lowering the binoculars and looking at him. She studied his grim pale face as he set his hands in their customary places on his hips. "Any news on our victim?"

"Alexx said that she just went into emergency surgery."

"If I'm not prying, how well do you know her?" she asked, carefully.

"Well enough," Horatio said simply, causing her to frown slightly. Just how well did he know this girl? She was about to ask when he turned his gaze away, studying the placement of evidence markers. "Walk me through this?" he asked.

"Sure," she said, eyeing him a moment before pointing towards the overpass. "Judging from what I could see of the bullet holes in the windshield, the shooter had to be on that overpass. I'll be heading over there shortly to process it. An impact from that distance, had to have come from a very powerful .22 From what I saw around the car already, there will be one bullet inside the victim, maybe two, but he may have fired a shot to weaken the windshield, first. I am thinking he used either a Kimber .22 Classic or a Cooper 57-M. Both are very powerful. I'd lay odds on the Kimber."

Calleigh turned, holding out her hand flat, gesturing towards an area on the road before her. "Considering the tire tracks, I estimate the car was struck here. The driver may have been going over the speed limit, but she lost control, ther,." Calliegh turned again, indicating the initial skid marks with her gloved hand, while the other held the binoculars. "She lost control right about there, going, I'd estimate, about 60 miles per hour. Somehow, she crossed the yellow line, just missing a Chevy Malibu parked up there," Calleigh turned and indicated the car in question, the occupants of which were giving statements to a State trooper.

Calleigh sighed, turned back, and held her hand out flat, "The BMW hit the curb just right or just wrong, depending on your view, but it helped launch the car up," her hand tilted up, finger tips in the air, "And twisted it just enough to send it spinning," her hand turned over to the right. "The car started coming down immediately and impacted into the sand, next to the rocks like this," her palm was tilted up at an angle, all the fingers pointed down with the little and ring fingers towards the bottom and the index and thumb up top.

Calleigh looked at Horatio. "If the car had tilted any further before hitting the sand, the driver would have been crushed to death. As it is, it's amazing she survived at all."

Horatio nodded, appreciating Calleigh's candor and thoroughness.

"The recovery crew will be here shortly to retrieve the car, once Alexx gets through with our male victim, did you know him, too?" she asked, looking at him, sympathy in her green eyes.

Horatio shook his head, glanced down at his feet and sighed. "No, I hadn't met him."

Calleigh nodded and gazed back up the road at the overpass. "Once I get the car back to the lab and process it, I'll have a better idea of what took place out here."

"Take your time, and be thorough," Horatio said, dropping his hands and nudging his sunglasses back up his nose. He turned to go.

"You know it. Where will you be?" Calleigh asked. Horatio, smiled slightly and began walking away.

"I'll be talking to Lionel Harrison's widow," he said softly.