"Alexx I can hardly hear you," Horatio called down his phone. "Yes, one body, no we haven't touched it yet. I don't understand why you weren't called first. Uh huh, I know it's bad out there, get here as soon as you can but drive safe, I don't want any lives risked for the sake of speed." He sighed as the static overrode the medical examiner's voice and the phone cut out.
"It's a bit sloppy not calling the examiner," Calleigh tutted from her position on the ground, head pressed against the tiled floor as she studied the odd wounds from a tantalisingly close proximity.
"It's a bit sloppy having all the potential suspects still here," Eric grumbled, "with no one watching them."
"Good point," Horatio remarked dryly as he looked to the swarthy man, "why don't you and Ridley get right on that? Find out what you can about our party players and what happened here and find out where exactly our lackadaisical officers have gone."
"It just seems odd," Ridley murmured as she glanced up from the body.
"What does?" Horatio pried.
She met his stare with a serious one. "The CSIs come after the crime but I can't help feeling we're here during it, and I know, down in Miami it's different you guys are cops too but still..."
Calleigh sat up sharply as a loud roar of wind rattled through the broken window sending the thin curtains in all directions. "That's just a little unnerving Ridley," she grumbled.
"Well think about it," Ridley continued in a serious tone, "the cops are called and their tyres are slashed so the killer or killers have to still be here, that or someone's playing a very odd prank."
"Maybe they slashed the tyres and escaped after," Eric suggested.
"Maybe," Ridley murmured but she looked like she doubted it. "Anyway, let's go the parlour and see if Miss Scarlett's waiting there with the candlestick, I mean Miss Red."
Eric gave a small smile at that before following Ridley back the way they had come.
"So Calleigh, bear claws?" Horatio quipped curiously.
"I hate to say it," Calleigh murmured as she continued to study the corpse without touching, "but it really does look that way. I mean the strokes number a bear's claws and the depth and spacing between each slash looks about right."
"You can't be serious," Tim commented sardonically as he lifted his camera and took a photo of the body. "Goldilocks killed by a bear."
"Well..." Calleigh sat upright on her knees and dusted her black trousers off. "Alright let's say the claw marks are just for effect or to cover up the real murder weapon," she suggested, "but I can't guess at what that was without a better examination and honestly, it's going to be Alexx who determines the cause of death. All I know is it looks like she was alive when she was dealt most of these wounds."
"So is this weird by your standards?" Eric queried dryly as several pairs of eyes rolled up to him and Ridley and the irate chatter in the room suddenly stopped.
The room was small, old-fashioned and crowded with eight people who in such minute quarters made the room seem packed. The parlour had a faded blue and gold brocaded three piece suite with mahogany legs and curved mahogany arms, a mahogany coffee table with an ovular top cluttered with fine crystal champagne and brandy glasses, porcelain dishes of crisps and chocolate that looked far too fine to be used for junk food, and fancy looking envelopes and cards. There was a fireplace against the back wall, appropriately tall and grand with an iron mesh guard resting on its black mantle and a huge mirror above it with a gilded frame. Adding to the aged appearance was a wooden globe that had numerous bottles of aged wines and fine whiskeys at its base and undoubtedly had glasses in its globe, a chess set with several pieces missing and a small bookshelf against the right wall with several leather bound tomes that looked like they were for decoration only.
There was one large, arched window which faced the front of the house and had its heavy crimson drapes drawn banishing the outside world from view. All the seats were occupied whilst one woman and man stood and another woman sat on the bearskin rug that was under the coffee table on the wooden floor.
"This is...unusual by my standards," Ridley mused as she tugged out a notepad and a pen. "Good evening," she greeted frostily as she took in each guest, purposely glancing past Serena who was giving her a mocking smirk, "I'm Detective Moon and this is Detective Delko, we're here about what appears to be a recent homicide on the premises."
"You mean murder," the angry looking Snow White who was sitting between a prince and a Pied Piper grumbled.
Ridley shrugged. "It seems that way. Now, firstly, where are the officers who responded to this call?"
"Officers Gray and Mason," Serena piped up as her grin widened, "I already told you, they're wandering."
"Why?" Eric queried. "What did they tell you?"
"To wait here," Peter Pan murmured as his green eyes darted about nervously, "while they searched the house."
"In case the killer was still here," a teary Rapunzel piped up. She was standing beside Peter Pan.
Ridley shot Eric a quick glance, the officers were meant to secure the area before the CSIs were called, if they hadn't done that why had they called for the CSIs?
"Right, we're going to need all your names and the details about what happened," Eric ordered.
"Is everyone here?" Ridley demanded.
"Of course not," Serena sneered as she leaned back against her chair and folded her arms behind her head. "Chris and Shannon are definitely making out somewhere, and Jade's sneaking a smoke I bet."
"Great," Ridley grumbled. "Okay, a quick list please of the guests and their costumes."
Snow White leaned forward to the coffee table and snatched up one of the cards before standing up and handing it out to Ridley with a glower like it was a prized diamond she thought Ridley would pilfer. "A list of the players," she said coldly, "I made it up myself, and it took a lot of time."
"I can see that," Ridley retorted dryly as she took in its purposely yellowed appearance and impressive calligraphy. It said at the top 'An Unhappy Ever After' followed by a list of names. Ridley accepted the card and started reading off the names- Hostess: Snow White (Lydia Bell), Players: Prince Charming (Niall Brooks), Pied Piper (Liam Jackson), Red Riding Hood (Serena Rivers), Rapunzel (Jessie Bingham), Peter Pan (Harry May), Cinderella (Amanda Fields), Woodsman (Greg Hernaz), Beauty (Jade del Sannio), Puss in Boots (Chris Takamo), Frog Princess (Shannon Woods) and Goldilocks (Sadie Pearlman).
"Right, we need to know who came here, when, in what order, who with, what time," Eric ordered, "and what happened from then right up until now."
Ridley nodded even as she glanced over at him. "We should get the others," she suggested quietly, "I mean they're suspects as well as witnesses."
"Suspects?" Rapunzel choked out as tears started pouring down her cheeks. "I can't go to jail!"
Serena let out a taunting giggle.
"Don't be so dumb Jess," the tired looking Prince Charming Niall scorned her, "none of us are going to jail." He turned a tired, blue look on Ridley and Eric. "We didn't do anything, Sadie went off on her own, probably to snort something," he shrugged off Snow White's disapproving glare, "you know it's true Lydia. Anyway, Jade found the body and we called the cops."
"Right, Ridley do you want to find our missing friends?" Eric queried as he gave her an exasperated look. "Make sure they haven't disappeared down a rabbit hole or off to Narnia."
Ridley nodded sharply before turning and hastening out of the room and away from the madness. She paused as she realised she didn't even know where to begin; the house was huge after all. She supposed outside around the open porch was maybe a good idea as it might be where the smoker Jade was, although she wondered if Jade was the type to care about smoking outdoors especially with such wonderful weather.
She headed up the corridor, back to the main front room, pausing and glancing to the stairs pointedly. 'Where in the hell are those cops?' she wondered, unsure if she was more annoyed about their absence or concerned with it. Why had they left a room full of suspects and potential victims alone? What could have lured them both away? She sighed and continued on her way, ending up in a long, wide kitchen that was a combination of country and modern with a wooden floor, warm, orange-red brick walls, copper pots hanging up that were most definitely never used, a black, marble breakfast bar in the centre with tall, black, leather stools around it and several modern utensils. Ridley eyed a wooden bowl with huge, plump, dark red apples in the middle of the breakfast bar with scorn and wondered if Snow White had put them out as an accessory. She peered closely at them, they were shiny, fresh and juicy looking, all too tempting, in a small pile though there was no prominent one sitting at the top, which might have added to the appeal. Ridley frowned a little as she studied round the breakfast bar, noting a few sticky looking fingerprints on both the bar and on the wooden bowl. She leaned forward and sniffed them curiously and detected a very faint odour of sugar, fruit and alcohol, and realised it was a stain from wine or champagne.
Continuing her hunt round the kitchen she spied a telltale champagne glass sitting in the silver sink, empty and looking like it had been rinsed briskly and abandoned. 'Why?' she wondered. 'The party's just started.'
She headed through the patio doors at the back of the kitchen that led not just to an area covered by a tiled roof and columns that was part of the wraparound porch but extended outwards to a golden tiled patio with steps leading down into a lit turquoise pool. Ridley moved out to the porch, stepping around the column to take in the pool. Her eyes widened and she broke into a run when she saw a telltale shape floating there. She ran down the steps that led into the pool without thinking, and was startled to find the water warm, a heated pool then. She reached out to grasp at the form there. She turned it over, revealing the pale, still face of a young woman, the face was smeared in makeup and at her bare neck were telltale bruises.
Ridley tugged her to the shallows quickly, pushing her against the steps and up onto the patio before she checked for a pulse. There was none. Ridley let out a curse as she tugged out her gun and glanced about the area quickly. The woman was dressed in a gown of green velvet velour with a thin, silver tiara pushed into her brow, held in place by silver combs that were burrowed in her limp, black hair. Ridley took note of a golden ball dangling from a gold chain at her waist, the frog princess she realised as her frown deepened.
She flinched as the rain started to fall again, coming down in heavy fat drops without warning, prompting her to drag the body beneath the porch before hastening for the patio doors. Though she was reluctant to simply leave the body she had little choice. She hurried through the kitchen and into the corridor when suddenly everything went dark as the power cut out.
"You've got to be kidding!" Calleigh exclaimed in despair when the lights suddenly cut out.
Tim tugged out his phone, using its light to find his box in which several torches were. He tugged them out and flipped them on before giving one to Calleigh and one to Horatio. "This sucks," he grumbled.
"This is straight out of a horror story," the blonde grumbled, smiling when the men gave her a wilting look, "well it is! Creepy house in the middle of nowhere, a storm, a body, slashed tyres, missing cops and now this."
"It is very theatrical," Horatio commented with a hint of approval in his voice that earned a disgusted glance from Tim.
"Are you saying someone's trying to put on a show?" Tim quipped sarcastically.
"It does seem that way," Horatio answered calmly. "A rather distracting one."
Tim glanced towards the shut door they had come through, his mind immediately jumping to Ridley. She had always been uneasy in the dark but lately her fear had been a lot worse. He reminded himself that she was with Eric but then he considered that she and Eric were now in the dark in a room full of murder suspects and his own concern suddenly worsened. "I don't think we should be separate," he murmured, "not until we find those cops and some back up arrives. I mean how many suspects are in this house? More than us probably."
"You're right," Calleigh murmured, "at least if we get them all in the one room no one can tamper with anything but the longer we wait to study the evidence the colder it gets," she countered.
Horatio sighed. "If we can find Officers Gray and Mason and have them watch our room full of suspects and witnesses like they should be doing until backup comes to escort them off the premises then we can do our job."
"Right, well in the mean time can we head to Eric and Ridley?" Tim retorted, his irritation slipping into his voice.
"Alright," Horatio gave in, knowing full well where Tim's concerns lay.
They moved together, using their torches to guide them. Unfortunately it wasn't easy and they soon found themselves in a large dining room with an interesting appearance.
"What the fuck," Tim remarked bluntly as he shone his thin torch beam onto the scene. All six of the dining chairs had been stacked on top of each other, some upside down, on the table.
"I really don't like this house," Calleigh murmured as she felt a shudder run through her.
"This was probably just part of the atmosphere created for the party," Horatio assured.
"A haunted house for a murder mystery?" Calleigh queried in disbelief. "Not how I remember my fairytales, when did everything get so messed up?"
"This house is going to take forever to process," Tim lamented as he continued on.
Eventually they found themselves back in the main front room and headed to the left where the parlour was. Tim wasn't exactly surprised when his turning of the door handle caused someone within to scream.
"Who's out there?" Eric called out boldly.
"It's us!" Calleigh answered brightly.
Tim opened the door to a room lit by Eric's torch and several phones and their installed torches. 'Thank God for modern technology,' Tim thought sardonically. 'And what the hell is everyone wearing?' His eyes scanned across the room quickly as she shone his torch about before he turned to Eric accusingly. "Where's Ridley?" he queried in a brittle calm voice.
"There are three guests missing," Eric explained, "Ridley went to look for them."
Tim turned without a word, walking past Horatio and Calleigh, swallowing down several curses as he did. Of course she was on her own in the dark, of bloody course or worse, she was in the dark with a potential murderer, even better! 'Damnit Delko,' he thought angrily, 'you just couldn't stay together, too bloody sensible.'
'Right it's just a power cut,' Ridley attempted to reassure herself as she moved slowly with her gun out in one hand and her phone in the other. 'Don't get jumpy there's a whole bunch of people here, you wouldn't want to shoot the wrong one...' She forced herself to take several deep, slow breaths and tried to work out her surroundings, thinking several curses when her foot banged against a stair. 'Well at least you know where you are now,' she thought sarcastically.
There was a loud, horrific scream from upstairs prompting Ridley to jump slightly as she turned up to the gloom.
Her heart was pounding and her breaths were coming out too quickly. 'Ridley you're the frigging cop here,' she attempted to order herself into action. 'You can not be the one panicking!'
Another scream.
'Shit, shit, shit.' She made herself move, one step at a time, as slowly and quietly as she could manage all too aware as to how vulnerable she was. She held her phone pointed down so she could see each time, and cursed mentally when a few steps gave telltale creaks beneath her heels. The journey up seemed to take forever and she knew she should move quicker. 'Someone could be getting killed right now, damnit Ridley move!' She made herself go quicker but she couldn't run, it would be a dead giveaway; caution over haste might save more lives than haste.
She made it up to the second floor and another scream gave her a clue as to which gloomy path to follow, down to the left. She could see a light flickering up ahead and moved a little quicker. "NYPD!" she shouted it out instinctively before she could help herself and kicked open the door. Ridley spotted two cops who she hoped were unconscious on the floor before she turned to the sobbing a woman who was standing holding a candle tightly in one hand as if it might protect her.
'Jade the smoker,' Ridley thought dryly as she took in her attire. She had long dark hair streaked turquoise and was dressed in the classical Disney styled golden dress of Beauty. "I'm Detective Moon," Ridley introduced quickly, "what's going on?"
"Chris has gone mad!" the woman cried out dramatically. "I caught him in here, he did this!" she gestured out to the cops wildly with her free hand.
"Chris, Puss in Boots?" Ridley echoed.
"Right! He was just here! Please, I think he's done something awful, you need to catch him!"
"Which way?"
"Right."
"Wait here," Ridley ordered before she turned and hastened back out into the gloom. She hurried down to the right; her feeble phone her only light source. She let the adrenaline override the fear though she realised he could easily have hidden in a room and so made herself slow down and attempt to look for telltale signs to suggest where he had gone. There to the left, a knocked over table. Bang! She tensed and looked ahead, that had sounded like a door being shut, just ahead on the right. She forced herself to press on. 'It's Miami-Dade,' she reminded herself, 'not NYPD. Shit does it matter? Does he need a frigging warning? Guy's probably armed!' She made it to the door and didn't bother with a warning; instead she pushed down on the handle and forced it open.
Hands came out of the gloom. Something slammed into her stomach and she was in instant pain. Hands grabbing her, pushing her, restraining her. Hands in the dark. He pushed her back hard and she hit the ground. Her gun and phone pointed up at the same time catching his startled face, Asian, somewhere in his early twenties.
"Shit!" he cursed. "You're not...I didn't do anything!" He ran for it.
In the dark, trapped in the dark, alone, vulnerable, in pain. What had he done? She dropped her phone and her hand felt for the wound, there was none, it had been a blunt object, she would have bruising at the worst. 'It could have been a knife,' she thought as she started to shake. 'Through the stomach...' Her hand slid up to where a familiar scar resided. 'Oh shit no one knows I'm up here, fuck who else is up here? It could be anyone...I could be trapped for hours up here! No one will know!' Her hands started trembling and hard as she tried she couldn't stop them and was forced to sheathe her gun.
Fifteen minutes later the lights mercifully came back on and Ridley staggered to her feet just as Jade slipped out into the hall. "Did you get him?" she demanded, a little more sharply that Ridley would have expected. Her brown eyes narrowed as she noted how damp and bloodshot the detective's eyes appeared.
"No," Ridley answered bluntly, "I found him and he said he didn't do anything and ran. What about those cops? Are they alright?"
Jade shrugged. "I don't know, you need to get him, he's gone mad."
"You need to go downstairs to the others," Ridley ordered sternly as she pointed down the hall.
"Alone? What if he's there?" Jade snapped back.
Ridley rolled her eyes before hastening past her back to the room where the cops lay. She was relieved to hear one groan and see another move. She leaned down to them both, doing a quick check for injuries; they both had minor swelling on the back of their skulls from identical looking singular blows. "Guys are you okay?" Ridley demanded.
"Who are you?" one, a blonde somewhere in his thirties queried sleepily as he attempted to push himself upright.
"Detective Ridley Moon," she retorted briskly. "What happened?"
"A girl...said there was someone trapped up here," he grumbled as he finally made it into a sitting position. He touched the back of his skull and winced before his soft, grey eyes fell on Ridley. "That's the last thing I remember," he confessed.
"A girl?" Ridley arched an eyebrow at that.
"Gold dress," the other cop mumbled as he tried to sit.
Ridley hastened back out the door. Jade was gone.
BANG! BANG! Tim only just managed to stop himself from jumping as the front door was knocked right when he was five feet from it. He looked at it in instant suspicion and approached it cautiously, gun drawn. BANG! BANG!
"Miami-Dade!" a familiar voice called.
Tim lowered his gun slightly before he tugged open the door and gave a small grin. "Welcome to the party Alexx."
"Evening Timmy, sure is a nice night for a party," the medical examiner enthused as she stepped into the house flanked by two helpers and followed by two police officers.
Tim glanced out into the gloom, it was pouring down from the heavens again. "This is going to be a long night," he grumbled. "Horatio and the others are with our suspects in the parlour to the left," he explained hastily. "Head down there, I'll catch up." He turned away from them quickly and looked to the stairs. Would she have wandered up there? His suspicions were answered when she appeared in sight, looking just a little frazzled. "Ridley!" he called out to her.
She glanced from him to Alexx and the others almost blankly before recognition filled her gaze and she hurried down stairs. "The two cops are upstairs," she babbled out too quickly, "they were knocked out but they're fine. There's another body in the pool, was in the pool, and I have a guy dressed as a cat running about who a girl dressed as Beauty claims hurt the cops but the cops say she lured them up there."
"Slow down Ridley," Tim urged as he looked at her eyes, they were wide and the whites were showing and he could see how she struggled to control her breathing.
"Two bodies?" Alexx remarked with an impressed look.
Ridley nodded and Tim took note as to how she suddenly had her arms folded, as he recalled it was a common habit of hers a few months ago to try and hide the trembling of her hands. The dark haired male glanced over at the two cops that had come in with Alexx. "Go upstairs and find the other two cops," he suggested.
The pair nodded before hurrying upstairs. Tim gripped Ridley by her right arm, frowning when she flinched and pulled back from him. "Ridley what happened?" he queried.
"Nothing," she muttered as she shook her head, "what I said, a body in the pool, apples in the kitchen, Beauty and a cat and cops and darkness, all that endless fucking darkness."
Alexx frowned slightly before turning away quickly to face her co-workers. "Let's go to the parlour," she said softly, "and Horatio can take us to the body."
They headed off leaving Ridley and Tim alone awkwardly staring at each other as Tim's hand remained up, his fingertips barely touching Ridley's shoulder. Her eyes were watering now and her lip was trembling, the traces expert realised she was just seconds away from losing it. "Why did you go off alone?" he demanded.
"There were three people missing," she shook her head frantically, "they could have been trapped in the dark, lost for hours before we knew," she swallowed hard as she felt a lump in her throat. "I could have been...I was..."
"Ridley you're only back on the job," he reminded her sternly, "you shouldn't be going off on your own no matter the reason."
"I kept it together!" she snapped back viciously. "I didn't shoot anyone! He was right there, he pushed me but I didn't shoot! He could be innocent, I don't know! It was so dark, I was up there, with him, could've been trapped...I kept it together...Oh God I could have been trapped." She bowed her head as the tears started trickling down her cheeks. "It was so dark, and it just kept going, there was space this time but I couldn't tell, I couldn't see anything...he didn't want me to see!"
Tim finally put away his gun and pulled Ridley close with both hands, his frown deepened when she went stiff and almost resisted. "This was too soon," he murmured into her right ear.
"No," she argued as she tried to pull back from him and failed, "no, I need this. Don't you tell him again, please Tim! I can't have anymore time off, it's tor-" She fell silent and a sob escaped her. "Fuck it's not torture, not even close, I can't use that word but God it gives me all the time in the world to think of the torture. I've had three months down here just remembering, I don't want any more time!"
"Okay," Tim murmured, "okay. Deep breath Ridley, you need to keep it together for a few more hours."
"Don't tell him," she begged.
"I won't," he gave in with a sigh.