A/N: I'm a lousy updater. And i'm sorry for that. It's taking by far too long to update these days, but i'm gonna blame school. So hopefully i'll start updating a bit faster during the summer holidays. Well... Happy readings.

Disclaimer: I still don't own a thing.

Chapter 3 – She didn't deserve this.

About half an hour after Horatio had started reading, he noticed that the young girl in his lap had fallen asleep. He laid her down in her bed slowly and very carefully, laid the book about the Little Mermaid on the bed-table, and then rose from the bed.

He walked to the door, but before exiting the room, he looked back at his niece. She was still fast asleep and he knew that the longer she slept, the better it was.

He walked down the short hall, and into the living room. The spot Suzie had been lying at before was now empty. Alexx had left the scene a while earlier, but Ryan, Calleigh and Eric were still working.

All three of them froze by the sight of their boss, but then they approached him, all of them looking at him with respect and sympathy.

Eric was the first one to open his mouth. "How's Madison?"

"Scared to death, but right now she's fast asleep."

"What about you?" Calleigh asked quietly with a look of concern at Horatio.

He wanted to smile, wanted to make them believe that he was okay, but he couldn't. Right now he wasn't even able to produce a smile. "All I want you to worry about right now is this investigation. There are no other crime scenes in Miami until we've caught the one who did this."

The three of them nodded, all of them having serious and worried looks upon their faces. Horatio had not- by a long shot- managed to convince them that he was okay.

"What have you found?" Horatio asked after a long silence.

Ryan glanced at the other two before he spoke. "Lots of fingerprints, obviously, but we hope they'll lead us to our killer."

"What else?"

Again the three CSIs exchanged glances. Eric was the one to open his mouth this time. "We're still working on it, H."

Their boss only nodded as thanks before he turned and walked back into Madison's room.

He sat down in the chair next to the desk and studied Madison for about half an hour. When she woke up, her eyes immediately focused at Horatio.

A warm smile spread across Horatio's face. "Hey, sweetheart."

There wasn't a trace of a smile on her face as she spoke. "Uncle Horatio?" He nodded and was surprised to see her leave the bed and cling her arms around his shoulders. First he froze, caught by surprise by the sudden movement, but he hurried to put his arms around her.

"Listen, sweetie, I need to get back to my work, but-"

"Don't leave me, uncle Horatio. Please," the small girl cried in his ear, her chin resting on his shoulder.

"I won't, sweetheart. You can come with me."

Madison let go of him, and since Horatio was sitting, and bending forwards towards Madison, his eyes were in the same level as hers. Madison nodded and looked into Horatio's eyes. Horatio rose from the chair and went out through the door. When they were just outside the door opening into the living room, he felt his niece's small hand slip into his.

He looked down at her, and saw her eyes directed into the room, her face pale. "Do you want to wait out here?" The girl shook her head violently, and started to walk into the room, her hand still clutching Horatio's.

Calleigh saw them entering the room and walked up to them. She gave the girl a small smile – something Madison seemed too frighten to even notice – before looking up at Horatio.

"I'm gonna get to the lab," Horatio explained. "I'll take Madison with me."

"Watch out for IAB."

"I'm used to that these days," Horatio replied gravely, and Calleigh couldn't help but smiling. With Rick in the lab every second day, looking for things he could get the CSIs in trouble for, Horatio had quite a lot of experience of Internal Affairs already.

"We'll keep going here," Calleigh assured him.

"Keep me posted."

A last smile crossed Calleigh's lips before she turned around and went back to her work.

The uncle and his niece exited the apartment and drove to the lab. Madison sat silent in the co-pilot seat, her forehead resting on the window as she watched the streets of Miami pass by.

"Why would he hurt her, Uncle Horatio?" the girl whispered so quietly that Horatio barely heard her.

He kept his eyes on the road as he replied. "I don't know, darling. I don't know."

"Did mom do something wrong?"

Horatio hesitated, and glanced at the small girl next to him. "Whatever she had or hadn't done, she didn't deserve this."

He returned his eyes to the road, and then let go of the wheel with his right hand to carefully stroke Madison's cheek. "She didn't deserve this," he repeated silently as the girl returned her gaze to the streets and all there was to see out there.

When Lieutenant Caine entered the Crime Lab a while later, the lab techs, cops and detectives couldn't stop themselves from staring at the redhead and the small girl next to him.

She was like a miniature of Horatio.

Lab techs bent forwards to whisper to their partners, not thinking of how obvious their movements were.

'Horatio Caine has a daughter?' was the whisper that now spread in the lab.

Horatio ignored them, letting the sunglasses hide the shadow of sorrow in his eyes. When the girl next to him tried to slip her hand into his, he didn't object but took her hand and squeezed it lightly.

The door to his office was soon shut behind them, and it was then that the Lieutenant took off his sunglasses.

He motioned to his niece that she could sit down in his chair, behind the desk, and she sat down in his chair that was by far too high. Her legs hung down from the chair, her toes barely reaching the floor.

That Madison was sad, shaken and lost was obvious, but she her curiousness was still there and she couldn't help but looking around in his office. It was the first time she was in there.

She glanced on the shelf, filled with folders and files. A United-States flag hung on the wall and a painting of the ocean hung next to the shelf. Her gaze moved from the shelf and painting, to the desk. The papers and folders lay in organized piles on both sides of the desk, while the centre was empty. On the right corner of the desk stood a couple of pictures, one of them with a woman she had met a couple of times in the building when she and her mother had been there to see Horatio. The woman held her arms around a brown-haired boy, whom seemed to be in Madison's age or a little bit older. Next to this frame stood a picture of Madison, taken a while back when she and Horatio were out to get her a new picture for the new passport. When they had been at the photograph, they had taken some other pictures, of which Horatio kept one of them, while Suzie was given the rest. At the last picture she froze. It was a picture of Madison and Suzie, about 6 months old, when they had been at the beach. A friendly woman at the beach had taken the picture, when the mother and her daughter had been there one weekend. Horatio had been given the picture as a birthday present from Madison.

Madison stared at the photograph of Suzie and herself, sitting together on a blanket on the beach, both of them smiling into the camera.

Horatio realized what she was staring at and walked up next to her and stood behind her chair.

"You alright, Madison?"

"Mom… mom didn't take me to the beach after that day."

A wrinkle could be seen between Horatio's eyebrows. "Do you know why, sweetheart?"

The question was ignored, and the small girl continued. "She acted strange. She… she was just like… like before you came to us."

"What do you mean?" Horatio asked as he bent down next to the chair she was sitting in. "What was she like before I came to you?"

"She forgot…" the small girl was whispering now, with her eyes focused at the photograph of her and her mother. She seemed lost in thoughts, barely aware that Horatio was there anymore. "She forgot about me… She forgot everything. And she was mad all the time."

Horatio stroked his hand over her cheek, seeing tears flow up in her beautiful sky blue eyes. He didn't know how to explain it to her. How should he explain that she had been using drugs before he came to them? "Well…" he stopped, sighed and tried to find the right words. "Your mother, she… she sometimes got sick. And she couldn't help it if she forgot things…" Horatio paused again. "She loved you, Madison."

Before the small girl had a chance to reply, Horatio's cell phone rang. He rose and flipped his phone open, pressing it to his ear.

"Caine."

"Horatio, I just wanted to say that we're heading back to the lab," Horatio heard Eric Delko say.

"Eric… did you find something in there?"

"We…" The diver took a deep breath and then sighed. "H, we found something you won't like… We found drugs."

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