Chapter 3

Once again Belladonna's coven was in the limelight as the whole place became a crime scene. Calleigh went around hunting for gun casings while Eric went looking for evidence. Horatio coaxed the coven members to give statements, though everyone said the same thing. Even Horatio and his CSIs were questioned as witnesses and they basically repeated the story.

"H, Calleigh said she found gun casings," said Eric. "By the mailbox."

Horatio nodded and joined Calleigh by the mailbox, where she was placing gun casings into evidence envelopes. "Calliegh," he said and she looked up at him.

"We've got at least twenty of these babies," she said. "All of them are nine-mils, and from the looks of it the gunfire was sporadic."

"Sporadic is right." It was Ryan Wolfe, holding up a small automatic. "Found this in the bushes. I'll get it to the lab."

"Please do, Mr. Wolfe. Thank you." The lab hadn't had any luck with the letters so Horatio hoped that they would find prints from the gun. He looked to the coven members and immediately his heart sank. Where was Belladonna?

A fleeting moment of panic caused Horatio to run back into the house and he almost collided with an officer. "Where's Miss Llewellyn?" he asked, trying to keep the terror out of his voice.

"She's in the backyard, Lieutenant," replied the officer. "We've tried getting her to go outside but she won't budge."

Horatio sprinted out the sliding glass doors leading to the backyard and almost breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of Belladonna standing by the pool, wrapped in a green-white Celtic poncho. The light blue of the pool water played about her face, giving her an almost elfish look.

She must have must heard him for she began to speak.

"When I was a girl, I used to think that all people accepted Wicca and knew all about it," she said as Horatio neared her side. "It wasn't till I got older when I found out it was all a big joke. Thousands of innocent people were tortured and executed because they followed the Goddess…and even though that happened in the Middle Ages, the idea that witches are evil survives to this day."

Horatio gently took her hand and she looked down and smiled. "You're the first person to do that," she said softly. "People were always too afraid to touch me for fear of dying or going to hell."

"Belladonna…"

She met his gaze openly and he almost winced at the intense pain and tenderness in her eyes. "You have a pure soul and great heart, Horatio Caine," she said. "The Goddess has blessed you with it. And though you may not see it, others do." She smiled. "I see it. And I think it's the most beautiful thing I've seen in a person in a long time."

Then it happened.

It was as if someone had pushed them forward at the same time, for they gently came closer and closer together and when Horatio felt her arms go around him and her lips touching his it was as if that piece of his heart, that one piece that taught him to love again, had suddenly come back to him in an instant. This wasn't simple desperation. This was comfort, desire, need, and friendship all mixed together in a wonderful and unexplainable emotion that people experience when they had been in love for a long time and not realizing it till that one second.

Time seemed to slow down into nothing as the two of them stood in locked embrace and everything wrong with the world was forgotten. It was just the two them, together in a space of their own, shut away from the harsh trivialities of the world. It felt, and Horatio was ready to admit this now, magickal.

"Hey, H…"

They broke apart the second Eric came through the glass doors. He looked surprised for a moment. "Ooops," he said. "Sorry."

"It's all right, Eric," said Horatio, mentally kicking himself for being caught. "What is it?"

"Valera just called. She said that she found a match on the prints from the gun, and there was some DNA on it to boot."

"I'm on my way." When Eric had gone Horatio looked back to Belladonna, who smiled.

"You've got work to do," she said softly. "Go on. I'll be all right."

Giving her hand a reassuring squeeze, Horatio left her by the pool and told the nearby officer to keep close watch on her. Then he climbed into the Hummer and drove to the crime lab, his mind still reeling from her kiss.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Maxine Valera smiled when Horatio entered the lab and he saw concern in her eyes. "Are you all right, Lieutenant?" she asked. "You look abit….flustered."

"I'm OK, Valera. What do we have?"

"You're not going to believe whose DNA I found on the gun," said Valera giving him the results. "Apparently it's a match to someone close to Belladonna."

Horatio looked at the results, and a smile crossed his face. Someone close to Belladonna, indeed, someone who sneered at her and mocked the loss of Pyewackett just to give himself a kick.

Jared Michaels.