Thanks for the reviews and follows to the first chapter.
Before some of freak out, yes, I took some elements from an episode of the original CSI. Let's pretend that ep didn't happen, ok because this is my fic, and that's how I want it. Lol
Enjoy
Eric stared at the puddle of blood on the floor of Calleigh's condo, their condo. It wasn't a lot of blood, but it was enough to be concerned Calleigh, if it was indeed her blood which Eric was fairly sure it was, had suffered some sort of an injury and she was down long enough for the blood to settle into a puddle. Unfortunately, the puddle didn't tell them where exactly on her body Calleigh had suffered the injury or the severity of it.
Shifting his gaze from the blood pool to the wall directly in front of it, his eyes had no issue discerning what might have cause the indentation in the sheetrock above it. The indent was in the outline of a small framed person, like Calleigh, deeper at the top than the bottom meaning the upper portion of the person's body made it. They'd gone into the wall shoulder or head first with the rest of their body following.
But the sight of what was probably Calleigh's blood on the floor or her body indentation in the wall, it was what was above it all that made Eric's stomach churn. Whoever broke in, assaulted Calleigh and kidnapped her had left them a message, written in her blood. Then again, Eric reasoned it wasn't really a message as much as it was just a name, Alicia Morrison.
He recognized the name immediately. Alicia Morrison, 32-year-old, blonde hair, blue eyed white female from Pincrest, last seen leaving her job at a Real Estate firm, also in Pinecrest with the intention of going to meet her fiancé for dinner in Coral Gables when she simply vanished into thin air and was never seen or heard from again. The only piece of evidence he had was the victim's car which had been found abandoned in a strip mall parking lot. The case had quickly gone cold which frustrated Eric to no end. Her disappearance was his first solo case since returning CSI and he wanted to solve it more than anything. Eric hadn't wanted to prove to himself, and to others, he belonged at CSI this much since returning from the gunshot wound, he suffered to his head almost four years earlier.
He'd suspected the fiancé, who really hadn't seemed too broken up about Alicia's disappearance but there had been no evidence he'd ever left Coral Gables that day and witnesses put him at his place of work around the time Alicia had vanished. Now though, staring at the woman's name scrawled in what he could only presume was Calleigh's blood, Eric had to wonder if whoever was responsible for Calleigh's disappearance had a hand in Alicia's as well? The two women were similar in build, height, hair color so could they be dealing with a serial killer who was simply taking credit for a case no one had tied him to, or was it something else?
Whoever did this had been lying in wait for Calleigh to arrive home, either inside the condo or just outside and rushed her from behind pushing her in where a struggle then ensued. Although Eric wasn't really sold on the push in because Calleigh's purse, which contained her gun and mail were placed neatly on the kitchen table indicating she had casually walked in, and the struggle occurred later on.
"Eric, what have we got?" Horatio took up his customary sideway stance, fingertips playing with his sunglasses as he observed the scene.
Eric turned to take in the concerned look of his boss and friend. Everyone loved Calleigh, but the only person who loved Calleigh more than him did was Horatio. He'd personally gone to Louisiana to recruit Calleigh and the two had a special bond, they had to in order to be first and second in command of the second busiest lab in the country. Horatio gave Calleigh a lot of leeway with the team as far as assignments and handling the day to day lab goings on so he could spend more time in the field as a cop. Everyone knew that the day Horatio decided to hang it up that Calleigh would run the lab.
"There are clear signs of a struggle, blood pool on the floor indicates…" Eric took a deep breath and scratched his eyebrow in order to collect himself, "it indicates Calleigh lay there for a time, but the uh broken lamp and overturned furniture also show she didn't go down without a fight"
"Alicia Morrison, why does that name sound familiar?"
"Missing woman from Pincrest. She left work and disappeared, we found her car abandoned several days later about five months ago. Case quickly went cold."
"Do we think this is a message about Alicia Morrison specifically, or a message from the person responsible for her disappearance and is claiming responsibility?"
Eric shook his head, "That's the question."
The two men fell into a heavy silence, the weight of the situation weighing on both them, when Ryan walked over.
"Looks like one of the back doors was jimmied and a neighbor said she saw someone jump a fence in the neighbors yard behind her just after dark"
"Ok let's get people in that yard and all adjacent ones, maybe our kidnapper left something behind."
"Walter's already on it"
"Good. Eric I want you to go back to the lab and pull Alicia Morrison's case file, somehow that case is connected to this one"
Eric nodded reaching into his back pocket for his ringing cellphone and quickly answering it, "Delko"
"Hello Mr. Delko"
Eric felt his blood run cold hearing the cold distorted voice, "Who is this?"
"The person who has Miss Duquesne."
Eric's demeanor went from worry to anger in half a second. "Where is she? What did you do to her?" He was practically yelling now but he didn't care, all that mattered was finding Calleigh.
"Check your email."
Eric's brow furrowed in confusion, what the hell did his email have to do with anything? "My email…what the hell do you want?"
"Alicia Morrison"
Spinning on his heel Eric sent his attention straight to the bloody letters painted on the wall, "What about her?"
There was no reply.
"What about her?" he yelled before hearing the tell tale "click" of the line being disconnected.
Without another word Eric rushed out of the condo and headed back to the lab.
Her head hurt. It hurt a lot in fact. Were the first thoughts that flowed through Calleigh's head as she drifted back towards consciousness. Attempting to lift her hand to touch the area of her head where the pain was emanating from, Calleigh cursed when her knuckles and fingers smacked against something hard. "Ouch, damnit" Shaking her hand out to ease the ringing in her fingertips, she tentatively reached out her hand again to see exactly how close whatever her hand had come into contact with was, and it then she realized she was shrouded in complete darkness.
Deciding it was best to take stock of her injury first and worry about her surroundings after, Calleigh maneuvered her arm best she could in the tight space she winced as her fingertips probed the wound on the side of her head. She couldn't reach back too far given her tight confines, but she was able to determine the wound wasn't too deep, however judging by how matted and sticky her hair around the wound was, there was little doubt it had bled pretty heavily at one point. Head wounds always seem to bleed heavy and fast then, if not too deep, clot up. Calleigh hoped that was the case with her wound.
She tried to recall the events that caused her to get such a wound, a lot of it was hazy and distorted, but some of it she recalled with near perfect clarity. The last clear thing she remembered was arriving home.
***Flashback***
Closing the front door behind her and setting the deadbolt, with a weary sigh she removed her heels, kicking them aside before walking to the kitchen table set her purse and mail down. It had been a long day of looking at shell casings and bullet fragments from a 35-round shooting between two rival drug gangs in downtown Miami. Even with all the rounds that had been expended it was nothing short of miraculous in Calleigh's opinion the only people injured or killed were the members of the gangs. Doing this job for al long as had it never ceased to amaze her the levels of depravity, and stupidity, people would go to get something they wanted.
Checking her cell to see if there were any messages from Eric or anyone else, she was relieved to find none, well not none from Eric but none from the lab. Sighing heavily, she set the phone back down on the table before crossing her living toward the kitchen to pour herself a nice size glass of wine. Suddenly as she crossed over the threshold into her kitchen, Calleigh had the overwhelming sense she wasn't alone. Pausing her movement she strained her hearing, listening to the darkness of her condo for any creek or sound that would be out of the ordinary.
Hearing nothing Calleigh scoffed at herself, "Really Duquesne, you're home alone one night and suddenly you're hearing monsters in the hallway?" Shaking off her embarrassment she continued into the kitchen and just as her hand reached out for the knob on the cabinet where she kept her wine glasses she heard a noise, a real noise. Taking a tentative step toward the living room, Calleigh glanced down the darkened hallway in the direction of her bedroom, the soft light emanating from the living room was just enough for her make out the doorframe of her room.
Shifting her eyes from the doorway to where her purse lay on the kitchen table, she mentally cursed herself for taking her gun off her belt while berating herself for not stashing one of the multitude of guns she owned in her kitchen. Looking back she eyed the knife block on the counter before shifting her gaze back to her bag, both equal distance from where she stood. Deciding she felt more comfortable with a gun in her hand than a knife she started towards her kitchen table when the side of her head exploded in pain.
Grabbing her head, she stumbled out of her kitchen and right into a small table, her weight sending the photos and a vase crashing to the floor. Even though dazed from the first blow, Calleigh's cop instincts still worked, and she was able to get an arm up in time to block her assailant's next attempt. Unfortunately, her unsteadiness coupled with her assailant's weight sent the two careening into the wall behind her. Feeling the sheetrock give under weight sent Calleigh further off balance giving her attacker the upper hand, but she wasn't about to go down without a fight.
Calleigh kicked and clawed as best she could against her attacker's onslaught but already being off balance coupled with her waning strength because to her head injury it was a losing battle. Then she heard it, the tell-tale crackling sound of a taser and before her mind could register a defense her entire body exploded in white hot agony. The massive surge of electricity took her breath away, made her body taut and uncontrollable causing her to collapse to the floor at the foot of her attacker. Calleigh's final thoughts were of Eric as her body finally succumb to the pain.
***End Flashback***
After that she vaguely remembered hearing sounds and feeling the vibrations of a moving vehicle but past that everything was a blank until she woke up in her current situation. No wonder her head hurt like hell, she thought.
Once she determined she didn't have massive hole in her head, Calleigh set her attention to her surroundings. Unable to see an inch in front of her face, Calleigh set about using her other senses to get the answers she sought.
Running her fingertips along the surface above her, she determined it to be extremely smooth, with no knicks, bumps or divots which said to her whatever was above her was not wood or even metal as those materials would have imperfections her fingers could feel. "So most likely plastic or glass." Testing her theory she knocked confirming the material to be hard plastic. What caught her attention almost immediately though was the sound she heard when she knocked. It was a heavy thud like something was on top of it, otherwise it would've been felt and sounded slightly hollow.
"Hello Ms. Duquesne"
Instinctively Calleigh scanned darkness around to her in an attempt to discern where the distorted voice was coming from, but with no light source someone could be right next to her and she wouldn't know it. Still it felt as though the voice was right next to her head.
"What do you want from me?" Calleigh shuddered as her mind conjured up the memory of the last time she'd asked that very same question of a kidnapper. Thinking back on it now that situation somehow felt far less dire that her current one if that was even possible.
"From you nothing. I'm getting what I want from you, it's Eric Delko who needs to get me the answers I seek."
"Eric, what do you want from Eric?" To say Calleigh was confused was an understatement and the constant pounding in her head did little to help the situation. Her breaths becoming heavy as she fought against the pain and confusion.
"If he does not get me the answers I seek then he will find out what it is like to hurt as I do."
Maybe it was the total darkness, the enclosed space, or the incessant pounding in her head, either way Calleigh's patience was quickly wearing thin and it wasn't lost on her captor.
"You should really take shallower breaths Ms. Duquesne. I'd hate to see you use up all your oxygen so quickly."
Calleigh's breath hitched in her chest at her captor's chilling words. Use up all her oxygen what the hell was that supposed to mean? She thought. Also, she was in total darkness and could see nothing but was it possible her captor could see her? "Can you see me?" she muttered.
Calleigh wasn't really asking her captor as much as her CSI brain had gone into overdrive in an attempt to sort out the situation. Blindly running her fingertips along the sides of the enclosure as far as she could reach, she searched for any type of opening where a camera or speaker could be mounted. But given her limited reach she was left to simply deduce the items she sought were somewhere above her head.
"In your right-hand pocket, you will find something that will help illuminate your current predicament."
Her heart pounding in her chest and between her ears, Calleigh tapped the outside of her right pant leg pocket and heard the all too recognizable sound of crunching plastic. Her brow scrunching, she reached inside her pocket extracting the object, which was easier than it sounded because she couldn't bend her elbow to properly pull it out. Forced to use her fingertips to grab the edge of the object, Calleigh grunted in frustration as she slowly dragged the object out enough to fully grasp it before bringing it up to lay on her chest. Unable to see what it was she twirled the object between her hands. Even though she was God knows where Calleigh wasn't about to blindly trust her captor that whatever was in her pocket wasn't dangerous to her.
Palpating it in the dark she could tell the object was hard, elongated and tubular in shape and if her brain hadn't been so fogged with pain, she probably would've figured out what it was quicker than she did. Taking a chance the object was harmless, Calleigh tore the plastic casing open and pulled out the object. As soon as she pulled it out she knew exactly what it was, a glow stick. But even without seeing she could tell it wasn't a normal, buy at a party store glow stick as it was much thicker and much longer than anything you would purchase at the store.
Snapping the stick releasing the phosphorescence material within, Calleigh shook it back and forth and slowly it came to life bathing her in a bright greenish hue that after being in total darkness temporarily blinded the CSI. Blinking away the darkness, Calleigh's eyes adjusted to the ambient lighting and when it did she almost wished she stayed in the darkness.
"Oh my god" she exhaled as she moved the stick up and down and all around her body, her neck painfully craning to take in her surroundings. If her captor thought giving Calleigh her sight would calm her down, they were gravely mistaken. Her breaths became ragged again as her brain struggled to interpret what her eyes were seeing because Calleigh wasn't simply locked inside some kind of box or closet, no she was entrapped inside a clear plexiglass that was covered in dirt on all sides.
She was buried alive.
I know, I'm so mean to leave it there.
Let me know what you think