1At the hospital, Calleigh and Eric were taken directly to Christina's room. She was cut and scratched everywhere and her eyes were bruised and almost totally swollen shut. Her left arm was in a cast up to her elbow as well.
"Christina", Calleigh whispered. "Christina, sweetheart. Oh God. What happened?" She looked at Eric with tears in her eyes. He placed his hand on her shoulder. Christina barely acknowledged Calleigh's voice because she was very groggy from pain medicine and her eyes were almost totally swollen shut. She did however manage to move her arm that wasn't broken in Calleigh's direction.
"Christina, I'm here honey. I'm so sorry this happened. My partner Eric is here with me, he's going to check you out and see if the person who did this to you left anything on you that we can take as evidence, ok? You're gonna be okay. I love you." Calleigh said.
Eric began by scraping under Christina's fingernails. A still scared Christina jerked her hand away from him, still unable to really see much of anything. Calleigh, still by her side, reassured her that Eric was very good at what he did and that he wouldn't hurt her. After that Eric spoke gently to Christina telling her that he was going to look at some of her cuts to see if he could find anything.
When Eric finished processing Christina under the watchful eye of Calleigh, the two said goodbye and headed back to the lab.
While they were driving Eric said, "Cal, if there's anything you need just let me know. I am so sorry about your cousin. We'll do everything we can to find whoever did this." He then put his hand on hers. He didn't see it since her head was turned away, but Calleigh blushed and a smile crept onto her face.
The next day, Calleigh had to finish some things in the lab so Eric went back to the hospital to talk to Christina. He hoped to find her awake and alert. When he arrived, she was sitting up and though her eye looked horrible, she had it opened and was looking around.
"Christina," Eric started, "My name is Eric Delko, I work with your cousin Calleigh, I came with her yesterday to see you. Do you remember me?"
Christina vaguely remembered his voice but since she hadn't seen his face yet, she wasn't sure if it was the same person she had heard the day before. She shook her head no.
"Yesterday I scraped under your fingernails and took some other clues to find out who did this to you. Do you think you could tell me anything about what happened at your cousin's house yesterday?"
Trying as hard as she could to think about what happened her eyes filled with tears. "It's okay, Christina, you've been through a lot." Eric said. "I know this is difficult, but please try for me and Calleigh. Anything you can tell me will help us a lot."
"I... I remember getting out of the shower," Christina said with a raspy voice. "And then I heard a noise and then I got hit really hard and knocked down."
Tears started flowing, harder this time. "The man thought I was Calleigh, he was mad because she had put him in jail. He was after Calleigh! Please find him, I don't want anything to happen to her!"
"Did you see his face?" Eric asked.
"No...no sorry" Christina answered.
"That's okay, anything else?"
"He had brown hair and I think he had brown eyes. He was really strong and he was tall."
"Okay, Christina, thank you so much." Eric said, flashing a smile.
It was then that Christina put two and two together and for the first time realized that the cute young man in the picture with her cousin was the CSI who was asking her questions
Eric met Calleigh in the hallway of the lab when he returned from talking to Christina.
"Hey Eric, how's my cousin?" Calleigh asked.
"She's more alert today and she looks better." Eric answered.
"Thank goodness!, What did she tell you?"
"She told me she was getting out of the shower and someone attacked her. She is afraid that you may be in danger. She told me that whoever did this to her is after you because you put them in jail. I think she may have meant to say that whoever did this did it because you put their friend or relative in jail. If you put someone in jail, they'd more than likely still be there. Can you think of any case that you've had recently where someone threatened you or something like that?"
"Actually," Calleigh told him, "there is one that I can think of. Do you remember the road rage case we worked, we easily solved it but the man was adamant that he shot the other guy in self defense."
"I think so" said Eric. "Wasn't he the one who kept staring at you? H had to go with you to court because he feared for your safety. We need to figure out if he had a brother."
"That should be easy." said a different voice. It was Natalia who had overheard the last part of their conversation. "We found some hairs in Calleigh's house that obviously do not match Calleigh or Christina. Since we already have the one brother's DNA in CODIS all we have to do is see if there are any alleles in common to the DNA from this hair."
"If that doesn't work, I have the scrapings from under Christina's fingernails." Eric replied.
"Good, let's get going" said Natalia.
Later on, Calleigh got a call from the hospital letting her know that Christina could go home that day. Calleigh was able to take the rest of the day off and pick her cousin up and take her to her house. Eric caught her before she left the crime lab.
"Whoa there! You are not going by yourself, I'm coming with you. I've finished up what I need to do and H doesn't mind."
Calleigh smiled. "Well come on then." she said.
Christina's doctor met them as they walked to her room.
"Ms. Duquesne, I know your cousin is just visiting Florida for a few days, but she will need to stay a little while longer. Hopefully this will not be a problem. When the swelling goes down on her arm, she needs to come back here so I can put a shorter cast on her wrist. The swelling will go down in 3 or 4 more days."
"It won't be a problem" Calleigh responded.
"Calleigh!" Christina exclaimed. "Oh and hey... um.. I forgot your name, sorry." She said to Eric.
"That's okay, it's Eric", he said. "Calleigh and I are going to take you back to her house. Looks like your trip to Miami is going to last a few days longer than you thought."
Christina looked confused, looking back and forth between Eric and Calleigh. "What? Why" she asked.
"Your doctor wants you to stay a little longer so he can watch to see how your wrist is healing and put a shorter cast on it in a few days", Calleigh explained. "Also, we may need to ask you some more things about what happened."
Eric, being the gentleman, helped Christina and Calleigh take Christina's belongings to the Hummer and the three of them grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed to Calleigh's house. In the car, he asked Christina all kinds of questions about herself, where she lived, and other normal questions. Christina even told him about some of the things she and Calleigh used to do together when they were little. He stayed with them at Calleigh's house until late in the evening. Horatio had arranged for a police officer to stay outside Calleigh's house that night just for extra protection.