A/N: Sixth Chapter up and I must leave this as a warning:

PLEASE DON'T BASH RYAN HERE! Better yet, DON'T BASH ME!! I'll explain his behavior soon enough!

Horatio and his team (c) CBS, Daikonran Kino and Secondet Lainhart (c) my sister (check out her online comic Nightmare's Tragedies!), plot (c) me

6

Tim mumbled under his breath as he typed in the socialites' data. He could've been at Porta Del Sol had a certain (possibly menopausal) Internal Affairs officer not caught him trying to leave the lab. Rick Stetler had warned Horatio early on that Speed was to never leave the sanctum of the crime lab or there would be consequences. Instead, the crime scene investigator was forced to acquaint himself with the other members of Aleysha's troupe; Ami Kousei and Rebecca Straight.

Both were already standoffish when he arrived with a manila folder. "My parents are going to close you down." Ami sniped contemptuously while fiddling with her Sidekick V.3 phone.

"Of course you are, considering each one of you and your friends are already in the system for something." Speed stated as he took out a list and read it out loud with a grin in his eyes. "Solicitation, driving under the influence, possession of marijuana, indecent exposure for a Miss Straight and for a Miss Kousei; racketeering, solicitation and DUI again, aggravated assault on a fellow bimbo and multiple counts of possession of an unregistered weapon."

The CSI reclined against his chair and looked directly towards the young women. "I don't hear any denials so I must be saying the truth." Rebecca rolled her eyes annoyed as Tim asked, "You get bored spending your parents' well-earned cash?"

"When you have the money to do anything, what else is there?" Rebecca replied, causing Ami to grin. "All we ever did were misdemeanors, I checked."

Speed sighed; these girls were walking headaches. He then took out a picture of John Doe and laid it on the tabletop. "Up until now. One of you or your little friends killed this guy by stabbing him. That's a crime punishable by prison or death, if you haven't checked."

Both girls paled momentarily but Rebecca quickly recovered. Her smile turned wicked as she returned the stare. "Mr. Speedle, my dad owns a manufacturing enterprise of about $350 million per year. How much money do you think it costs to buy people into forgetting little incidents?"

The CSI glared, disgusted at the proposition. "First off; if you're trying to bribe me, it isn't working. Second, that would've been the moment you should have asked what the hell I was talking about." He then signaled the police officer to take the girls away. Tim was satisfied but he had one more thing to say to Miss Straight.

"There isn't enough money in the world to buy yourself some dignity or my loyalty."

Rebecca's reply came as a surprise. "Of course there is."

Horatio was about to enter the interview room but something in his mind shied him away from Aleshya Barton. At least for the moment. There was indeed a package awaiting him, placed neatly in front of his office door. It was a bit bigger than his initial perception but regardless he picked it up and placed it on his desk. The handwriting was composed of carefully stroked pictograms, possibly Chinese or Japanese. The note attached to it was hastily written as if by a five-year-old but the message was clear:

This is a mere trinket compared to our community's gratitude for laying down our youngest daughters' killer.

Horatio's memory regressed to a possible source of the appreciation; it was the conviction of a man believed to have brutally sodomized and killed a thirteen-year-old girl named Sei Pinrang over at the Chinatown district. The perpetrator had been a resident of Liberty City who, after the arrest just a few weeks prior, confessed to have murdered three more adolescent girls from the same district. The lieutenant remembered the silent vigils that crowded the district attorney's office until a verdict was passed. It had been his case, his team, who worked it to the end.

Horatio tore the brown post paper cautiously, revealing a rather large white box covered in foam stuffing. With the same precaution, Caine lifted the lid and took a look inside but suddenly slammed it back. No freaking way…

With timely fashion, his cellphone rang; the number flashed belonged to the Coroner's office. Horatio quickly put the opened package away under his desk but not before taking another look to it. He then rushed next door, his surprise still in his face. Daikonran and Alexx, who both hid the John Doe under surgical napkin, greeted him with smiles.

"We have good news, H." The senior coroner commented as she removed the napkin to reveal a completely different corpse. Horatio could grasp the drastic change as he noted the pile of bloody parts and contraptions removed from the body.

"After removing all the face plates, abs molds and, to quote Dr. Woods, bum implants; we were able to match our John Doe to the license picture Speedle found." Kino looked the lieutenant as he stated, "Meet Jake Lai, age 21, son to Mary and Dan Lai."

Horatio quickly noted the grin in Kino's eyes and smirked himself. "But you have something else to say?"

The grin became mischievous as the doctor replied smugly. "Correct; upon closer examination of the fatal wound, Dr. Woods and I found small metal shavings around the second layer of skin. We also found what appears to be an organic compound reacting with the skin tissue."

"To summarize what's next, the murder weapon had a garnish of potassium and charcoal." Alexx concluded as she looked in the lieutenant's eyes. Like his expression, they smiled.

"Meet me at the conference room; I'll have a little show and tell for you."

Ryan was again pacing around his workplace when Speedle came out of the interrogation room. The CSI was now furious; someone had misplaced his folders and now the girls' contact information he had scrunched had disappeared.

Now what am I supposed to show to H?!

Tim grinned and sighed welcomingly. "You need some help there, Wolfe?"

"This is just perfect! A dead guy wants to help me find my evidence!" Ryan vented, unaware of Tim's benign expression and desire. The papers fluttered as he rubbed his eyes in frustration.

"Just thought I could help." Speed chided, snapping whatever verbal restraint Ryan had. His anger was random and the older crime scene investigator suddenly became the focus.

"You want to help? Go back into that hellhole you crawled out from and rot for all I care! You're a walking corpse anyways!" Wolfe lashed out. In that split moment, Speed's heart froze and a flood of doubts entered his mind, poisoning his stability.

Ryan stormed out of his lab, leaving an emotionally paralyzed Tim in his wake. Almost automatically, the man collapsed onto a chair, his stare blank but his mind hesitant.

A/N: So how was it? Reviews are welcome