Disclaimer: I don't own anything CSI: Miami related… except for Season 3 and 4 on DVD … (rewatches Silencer XDD) SQUEE… XD

A/N: Just wanted to say, later on, during Horatio's phone conversation, the italics are the person on the other side of the line speaking, j.i.c. you couldn't figure that out. XD

Chapter 12:

The locker room was for the workers of the Miami-Dade Crime Lab. It was similar to any high school gym locker room in that there were rows and rows of gray lockers. Instead of a number, though, each locker had the surname of its occupant. Ryan still had the broken one on the bottom and it didn't smell too good either, which Valera was quick to comment on upon identifying where the horrible smell was coming from.

"It smells like…like vinegar." She scrunched up her nose.

"Well, you didn't have to come with me."

"Yeah, I did… I wanna see your sewing kit." She snickered at the thought of this man in front of her actually owning a sewing kit…and knowing how to use it. She just couldn't fathom it; it was just too comical.

"It's really not that amazing. I can't really sew that well."

"And I'm sure Horatio and Eric can't either, but do you see them hauling around a sewing kit?" She figured that it had to be somewhat related with his illness, and she was right.

"You never know when you might need a sewing kit. And guess what? Today, we needed one." He popped open the lock.

"Right…well if you don't know how to sew, and I certainly don't, I don't see how that's going to help Ella."

"The only reason I said I would was because I wanted that little girl to stop crying."

"And by further destroying her teddy bear, that's going to help? What on earth are you doing?" Ryan was grunting and turning purple as he strained to do something that was invisible to Valera.

"Trying. To. Get. This. Kit. OUT." With a defeated last grunt, he conceded, "Alright, I give up." He stood up and wiped his hands on his pants.

"What? That thing's stuck? You're such a wimp. Move out of the way, Wolfie." She loved teasing this guy; it was too much fun.

"You know what? For that, we're doing it together." He smirked at her as she laughed.

"That doesn't get rid of the fact that you need a woman's strength to help you out."

Ryan muttered a 'yeah, right' before bending with her to get the little sewing kit out of the locker. As they yanked on it, Valera realized that this little box really was stuck, but she refused to give up so easily and so yanked even harder.

Finally, with one last jerk, it came out, but with catastrophic results, catastrophic, at least, for the two unexpected victims.

The force from eagerly pulling at the sewing kit backfired onto them as it came out, making them fall back and bonk heads together.

Despite this, they, miraculously, were able to stay on their feet.

"OW! Ryan, you have a hard head," Valera complained as she rubbed the left side of her head, which had made contact with the right side of Ryan's head.

"My head's hard? What does that make yours?"

"In a lot of pain!"

Ryan shuddered at the recent memory. How could we BONK heads together? This day is becoming too ridiculous. They had finally been able to reach the morgue in one piece. A miracle. In spite of it all, Valera couldn't help but continue laughing, which bothered him.

"What's so funny?" I'm never going to hear the end of it. Wolfie, sewing kit, smacking heads. It's never going to end. It's because of those kids…ever since they've arrived I've been cursed… yeah, that's right, cursed. He was getting frustrated because JoJo's arm wasn't cooperating with him and kept getting lopsided whenever he attempted to sew it back to the main body.

"Nothing. It's just that you really do have a hard head." He's so cute. Whoa, Valera. Where did THAT thought come from?

"You're still at it." Ryan sighed. She like a little kid…I don't know which is worse…those little kids or her acting like one…it's kind of therapeutic, in a way, being around her. I feel…different.

"And you're way too uptight. You need to sit back, have a couple of beers, and relax."

"And how, Maxine, am I going to drink a couple of beers on the job." He was, in fact, not referring to his job as a CSI, but his job as the so-called 'Ishida.' Not that I'm doing any good. I think I've pricked myself more than the bear.

Valera scowled. I hate my name...I mean Maxine, what were my parents ON? "I was asking you out to have a beer with me after work." Go me, being bold and all. I must be getting pretty desperate if I'm asking the most uptight man around for miles. Seriously, even Horatio is calm, and it's Horatio, but that's what I like about Ryan, he's uptight, but at the same time spazzy and quirky. Whoa…did I just say, the words 'what I like about Ryan.' Oh man. What am I on? This day can't get any stranger. Maybe tomorrow my head will clear up. Hey, why is he staring at me? "What?" Is there something in my teeth? There's totally something in my teeth.

"I answered you and you completely zoned out." Maybe she's the type of girl I need to loosen up. Dating Natalia was kind of odd…a couple of minutes in, I knew she was just with me to make Eric jealous.

"Oh, what'd you say?"

"I said, 'OK, why not?' I'm not getting drunk though." Ow. Stupid needle. I hope Ella doesn't mind if 'Unky Wolfie's' BLOOD is on this bear! It wasn't so bad that actual blood was coming out, it was just that he had picked off a lot of skin with the needle. Well…I'm not diseased…oh…this bear better be clean…it's not clean…don't fret Wolfe…gotta whole bottle of Purell back in your locker…

Valera laughed mischievously. "We'll see about that." The whole point of getting unwound is to get a little drunk.

"What's that supposed to mean? Wait, where are you planning to go?"

"It's a surprise." She laughed again.

"But I don't like surprises." He was serious. The idea of spontaneity freaked him out.

"Too bad." She let a series of giggles escape her.

Ryan groaned inside. Oh great. What did I just agree to?

"Horatio, check this out." The usually chipper blonde called over to the head investigator, who was hovering over the medical examiner and the corpse.

"What is it, ma'am?" The scene leader pulled off his dark shades and he walked over to where she stood. "I'm meant to say so before, but I'm sorry I had to call you in on your day off."

"Oh, you know it's not a problem." Calleigh flashed him a huge smile. "Well, I followed these sets of shoe prints. They're nothing special or out of the ordinary, but they're the only set running away from the body. And, I found this; they were in the bushes." She held up what appeared to be a scrunched up orange cloth ball.

"That, ma'am, that is a prisoner's jumpsuit."

"Yeah, but why is it all the way out here?"

"Good question… don't these suits have names on them?"

"Yeah. Let's see, a Luke Litano? Does that ring any bells?"

"It does. I want you to bag and tag it. I need to make a phone call."

"OK. Uh, Horatio?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"The blood spatter pattern is compromised because the culprit crumpled the suit."

"Make a note of that, but I want you to still follow standard protocol; there may still be a unique blood pattern to go by."

Calleigh nodded. "And if it's destroyed, at least we have the blood to do a comparison with the victim."

"That we do." Horatio smiled before walking away and taking out his cell phone.

Alexx signaled over to the ginger-haired man as he made a phone call to one particular person back at MDPD. He held up a finger to tell his M.E. that he would be with her in a moment.

"Yes, Frank? We've got an unusual situation down at the Everglades. Would you be able to pull up a list of prison workers who work here?"

"Yeah sure, what's the problem?"

"Something just doesn't feel right." Why would Luke Litano be here, of all places? Horatio was concerned for the well-being of his CSIs.

"Anyone in particular?"

"Luke Litano."

"Um, let's see…he was released on good behavior, but still needs to contact his parole officer every few hours to let him know that he's still in the area."

"Frank, his parole officer was found dead."

"Yeah, Yelina and I noticed that."

"We also found Litano's jumpsuit discarded in the bushes."

"Well, it's possible that if he needed some extra cash he would-could be hired to work with fellow inmates, even if he wasn't one of them anymore."

Horatio smiled. "Is the witness talking?"

"Nah, we're not getting squat from this fella, but we're not stopping until he talks. He's hiding something."

"Good. I have a distraught ex-wife who needs some answers." They hung up and Horatio turned his attention back to his coroner.

"What do we have, Alexx?"

"Liver temperature suggests that he was killed recently. In the past 24 hours."

"C.O.D.?"

"C.O.D. seems to be a direct hit to the back of the neck, severing the connections from head to spine." She turned her attention to the body. "You weren't even given much of chance, were you honey?"

"Killing him instantly?"

"Exactly, but I'll find out more back at the post."

"Could this have been the murder weapon, Alexx?" The two turned around to see their ballistics expert heading over with a bagged and tagged iron pipe, which she found a little bit over from where the orange jumpsuit had been found.

"It's possible."

"I swabbed the outside and inside separately both tested positive for blood. I'll bring this back to the trace with the jumpsuit and see it was a false positive or not."

"Are we done here, then?" Alexx asked as she placed the body in a bag onto a gurney and signed it out.

"We've only just begun." Horatio smiled with pure amusement as he placed his sunglasses back on.

Ella was, yet again, repetitively puffing her cheeks with air and blowing the air out. She was impatiently waiting in front of the men's bathroom. This is SO boring…and I can smell the stinkiness from outside!...Maybe Unky Frank used the potty recently? The five-year old giggled at the thought.

Two men walked past the bathroom and down the hallway. Ella recognized one of them to be 'Mr. Cooper.' She knew that her father kind of disliked this man. That's why he's not an 'Unky.' A no-no from daddy is a no-no for me too. Mr. Cooper was muttering something really fast to the other man that seemed to entertain them both. Ooh…it's like girl-y gossip…'slutty mole'? What does THAT mean? I'll ask daddy later.

Curiosity got the best of her as she decided to leave the spot she stood at and followed the two men. Seconds later, she found herself in a different section of the crime lab. Uh-oh. Where am I? She turned around. Over there's boring. I wanna keep going.

This isn't fair. The windows are always too high and I'm always too short! She jumped up and down at each window before stopping at one. Wait…there's Unkie Frank! And Auntie Yelina! She gleefully bounded for the door, but found that she couldn't open it. It was unlocked, but she couldn't turn the handle. Where's Jem when I need him? He's tall enough and he can open the door AND he owes me. Suddenly, the door opened. The two detectives were exiting. Ella took advantage of this chance and darted in.

Outside of the interrogation room, Detective Frank Tripp was complaining. "Why won't this guy talk already?"

"He's must be hiding something or protecting somebody."

"And doesn't want to be labeled 'rat'."

"Oh." Detective Yelina Salas was chuckling at something behind her partner, occurring through the window of the room they had just exited from.

"What?" Frank turned around and did a double take. Oh. OH. That's. Just. GREAT!

Ella was sitting on her knees on the chair in front of the witness and was interrogating in the a similar fashion to the way she had seen her father and 'unkies' question witnesses and suspects.

Tripp went to door to retrieve the child. What the heck? Who is that? Whose is that? What should I do…send her with Salas to Missing Persons…or Child Services? He was stopped from opening the door by a hand on his arm.

"Wait, let's see what happens," said his partner.

"Whatever information we get, won't be admissible in court."

"We're only trying to figure out what happened. We can question him again later."

Frank raised his hands in defeat and Yelina smiled because she knew she had won.

"Okie. First order of business." Ella got off the chair she was kneeling on and began to pace back and forth with her arms folded behind her back. I think this is how Unkie H and Unkie Frank do it. "What's your name?"

The man chuckled. Questioned by a minor. That's new. May as well humor the kid. "Name's Norman McFinley. Yours?"

"Ella. Chloe. Delko." she said clearly and proudly. The eyes of the two detectives outside bugged out. "And why are you here?"

"I witnessed a murder." I wonder if she even knows what that means.

The little girl gasped. "You saw what happened to JoJo?"

"Who?" JoJo? What the heck?

"Oh. Nevermind." Ella's tone was one of disappointment as she tried to figure out what to say next. Hmm. What would daddy say? Her father hated to bring her with him, but she begged him so often that he would let her sometimes. She just wanted to learn. "We…we know what…we know what you saw…we just wanna…confer…mayshun. We just wanna know what happened." She nodded, mostly to herself, to confirm what she had said.

"We?" This kid is really cute. Reminds me of my baby-girl Julie Anne.

"Huh? Oh…I. I wanna know…Please?" She looked at him in the eye and smiled widely, epitomizing her innocence. Norman chuckled once again.

"You know what? Since you asked so nicely, I'll let you know." He looked up at the window behind Ella and in a slightly louder voice proclaimed, "And I'll sign a statement as proof." He couldn't see through the one-way mirror, but he figured that the two officers from before were peering in. Why not? The kid reminds me of how much I want to go home and see my Julie-Anne…

"Really?"

"Really." This kid is really something. "See, I found a body."

Ella gasped in wonder. "A body?"

"Yeah, basically this guy killed another guy."

Ella gasped again. "Why?"

"Apparently, it was something he hadda do."

"Unky H says that killing someone is something that should never be done because it's bad. I don't like bad things."

Norman smiled at the simplicity of the child's mind. "You wanna know a secret?"

"A secret?" Ella beamed with happiness. Secrets are fun!

"The man who killed him was named Larry Miller."

Ella frowned with disappointment. That's it? That's SO BORING. Norman laughed. This girl, Ella was it? She's something all right. Ella scrunched up her nose in disapproval. "Why is that a secret?"

"Because, he's pretending to be Luke Litano."

Ella shrugged. "Oh." Whatever. This isn't fun anymore. But how am I supposed to open the door? "Why is he pretending? Isn't that like lying?" Pretendinglying…I think…

"It is. But there's a rumor going around that Luke's got some unfinished business."

"So? Why is someone lying to be him?"

"So little Lukie doesn't get into any trouble."

"But that's stupid." I don't get it…I wanna go eat…I'm hungry…

"I don't know about that." The guy smiled distantly. You gotta do what you gotta do when you want something.

A/N: LOL… yeah…XDD … I know, all you readers are probably like minors can't question criminals. PERIOD… LOL...sorry, but bear with me… it's got a purpose… XD … somewhat… XDD …it's random too…XDDD

Anywhoo, reviews are fully appreciated! XDD