Chapter One: Forensics
"I never planned on becoming a CSI," I admitted to my children. "In fact, it was the hand of fate that I did become one…"
I seemingly thrust myself into the past, and suddenly I am back in the humid night air of Miami. I am sitting on my bed, playing with my new doll, and my mother comes into my room to tuck me into bed. Mother has just gotten off her second job, so she is exhausted, but she still manages a smile and kisses my forehead. Mother works hard to earn money for us, since father left long before I was born. She puts all of her money away, for my education, she says. I think to myself that I have a wonderful mother.
A few years later, I smooth out my black dress and say goodbye to my mother. There is a man who stands on the outskirts of the cemetery, I notice. He has red hair and is wearing a pair of sunglasses. He uncrosses his arms and walks toward where I am standing. He has a young face…that I can remember. He takes off his sunglasses and looks at me with sympathy in his eyes.
"A tragedy," he tells me. I nod, and watch my mother's casket being lowered into her grave. Eternal rest. The man, whose name was Horatio, told me that he would find a good home for me to stay in. "A nice family to live with," he promised. I nodded, the air of grief still lingering. That's when I asked him.
"Horatio, what happened to my mommy?"
Horatio knelt down to my eye level, and wiped beads of sweat from his head. "Your mommy did nothing wrong, I want you to always remember that. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are bad guys out there, and I will make sure that I get them."
"I wanna catch the bad guys too," I said, looking at him with determination. Horatio smiled at me, and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Someday you can sweetheart, but for now, I just want you to promise me that you will make sure you get good grades in school…that's what your mommy wanted for you. Promise me that you will, okay?"
I looked at his face, and it has remained in my mind ever since. I knew that from that moment on, I wanted to be the one to catch the bad guys. I didn't want anyone getting away with killing someone else. It's not that I wanted revenge; I wanted justice.
I ended up finding a home with some distant second cousin of my mother's in the outskirts of Miami. Every day, I got up and when I didn't feel like going to school, I would just remember my promise to Horatio…my promise to my mother. She had spent all of her life trying to save up enough money so that I could go anywhere that I wanted, and be anything that I wanted to be.
I wanted to be a CSI. I suppose that I had known that after I met Horatio, and after the tragic murder of my mother. But when my teenage years approached, I dug through my drawers to find Horatio's card. I called him up. I knew it was a long-shot, but even if the only thing I could do was bag or label piles of evidence, I would be thrilled because that would be one step closer to catching a criminal. In the end, Horatio agreed that the only thing I was allowed to do was bag the evidence. And that was my job…after school, on weekends, in the dead heat of summer; I would sit and bag evidence. A couple of times I caught Horatio studying me, as if he was looking for a long-lost soul.
"Your mother would be proud of you," Horatio told me as I bagged and labeled a bloody towel. I looked up at him, and nodded silently, but I wondered what my future would hold.
Little did I know that my future would take me into the heart of New York to become a CSI Level Three…
"Okay kids, so that is how I got to be a CSI," I replied, yawning and stretching.
"Wait, wait…that wasn't an adventure! Where are all the stories of murders, dead bodies, and catching the bad guys?" Baron asked, thoroughly disappointed in the lack of gory details in my story.
"You didn't let her finish the story," my husband said to his son, "She still has to tell you about what happened after she left for college in New York." I rolled my eyes at him, and he continued to smile.
"Well, I don't hear you sharing any of your adventures in crime-solving Mr. Sanders!" I retorted with a playful smile. The kids turned on him.
"Woah, hang on a second: you were a CSI too?" Leala asks with wide eyes. Baron nearly jumped up and down from his excitement as Eva leaned in closer to listen.
"Oh, don't you turn this on me Anna," he said wagging his finger at me with his playful little smile--the one that made me fall in love with him. I merely grinned.
"Greg, you know you have interesting stories to tell the kids," I said with a snicker. He shook his head at me, with feigned disapproval. I knew that I had backed him into a corner, but that's what he gets for making me tell these stories in the first place.
"Alright, here's the deal everyone: I will tell about how I met your mom, but first she has to tell about her stories from New York. Danny, Lindsay, Mac, Stella, Flack, and Hawkes…you can't leave them out," Greg said, trying his best to compromise.
"Hold on," Eva said, clearly trying to concentrate on organizing her thoughts, "I've heard of some of those people. Didn't we meet Danny? But I thought the girl he was with was named Montana something-or-other…"
I let out a little laugh.
"Yeah, you did meet Danny a few years ago when we were up in New York. Baron, you were too young to remember him, but he was with Lindsay when we met up with him. His nickname for Lindsay for—wow, years--has been Montana…in fact, I remember when I first met them…"
