Chapter one.
It was early morning on a bright summer day in Miami and Jessica Lopaz was going about her usual routine before heading off to School. Nothing unusual had happened or so she thought. Her Parents were usual up and had gone to work by the time she had got up.

Something was wrong her parents, as the family car was still in the drive, and the smell of burnt food drifted up the stairs.

Making her way downstairs she called out for her mother, saying worriedly, “Mama, Su ir a es tarde para trabajo.”
(Mama you’re going to be late for work). But she got no reply, as she came down the stairs she would soon learn why.

Entering the kitchen she stopped dead, because her mother was laying in a pool of blood, a gunshot wound clearly outlined in the middle of her forehead. Jessica screamed and beat a hasty retreat to her father's study, saying, “¡Papa, Mama Muerto, la necesidad de llamar a policía"!”

(Papa, Mam's dead. You need to call the police!")

She saw her beloved padre slumped heavily over his desk and pulled him up; only to issue fresh screams when she realized that he had been executed in the same way as her mother. She phoned immediately for help and in minutes a squad car arrived. When the patrol officer viewed the carnage inside the house, he called The Crime Scene team.

Lt. Horatio Caine stepped down from the department-issued Hummer, grabbing his kit as he strides into the house. He paused briefly while Calleigh Duquesne got out of the passenger side, pulling her metal crime scene kit from its spot in the back of the Hummer. Then she and Horatio walk towards the scene.

Alexx Woods’s busy at her tasks, looked up quickly as the pair entered the kitchen, and smiled tiredly at them.

“Alexx what do we have?” Horatio asked as he removed his shades and took his familiar stance.

“Horatio, honey, these two were gunned down while eating breakfast. It doesn't get any colder than that. The daughter found them this morning around 6:30, both got bullet wounds to the head , the liver temp suggest they were killed sometime late last night.”

Calleigh bent down and to examin the mother's head wound, and said worriedly,

“You know it looks like a 9 mil, but I can’t be sure until I get the bullet or the casing back to the lab for analysis. And it looks like he cleaned up after himself, cus I see no casings nearby. We've got a clever killer on our hands!”

“We’ll get Eric onto it, by the way where is he?” Horatio asks with a concerned look on his face.

Alexx looked up and smiled, answering, “He told you before he went off duty last night, Horatio. He has an appointment at the hospital today, to make sure the remaining bullet fragment hasn’t moved.” Horatio nodded and joined his young colleague Ryan Wolfe in the study.

“And I thought I was bad! This guy was an OCD freak!” Ryan exclaimed when he spotted Horatio's familiar figure in the hallway.

“Well it takes one to know one!” a familiar voice rejoined from behind Horatio. Ryan looked up and smirked at the source of the comment before saying, “Shut it Delko! Don‘t rub it in!”

“Hospital appointment go ok Eric?” Horatio asked his brother-in-law, a furrow etching itself deeply into his forehead. Eric nodded yes and bent down to retrieve something from the floor, shouting so Calleigh could hear him from the kitchen.

“Hey Cal, we got lucky. The guy missed a casing!” Calleigh skidded to a halt outside the study door, collected her dignity about her, and calmly entered the room.

“9 mil casing like what was used on his wife.” Calleigh said while she removed the metal object from Eric's fingers to get a better look at it.

“This one was a through and through,” Ryan said as he dug the bullet out from the wall behind the chair. The bullet had passed through Hector Lopaz's head, through the back of his chair, and had lodged in the wall behind him.

Horatio headed outside where Jessica sat very quietly in the back of a squad car. He opened the door, and said softly, “Miss Lopaz, are you all right? You seem a bit shaken up by all of this.”

“It’s Jessica Lt Caine!”

“Jessica, sweetheart, do you think you can tell me what happened last night?” Horatio asked, squatting down so he was at her eye level.

“Last night?”

“Yes Last night, just run through what happen from the time you got home from school, until you went up to your room for the night.”

Jessica gaped at him for a moment in shock-induced confusion, but then her mind cleared and she recited the previous evening's events, saying tiredly,

“I got home around 4:30 and went to papa's study to do my homework straight away. I usually finish it in my bedroom, but I needed papa’s help last night because it was trigonometry, which isn't my strongest subject. We had just sat down at the dining tabl, waiting for mama to serve supper, when papa’s cell phone rang. He answered it and took the call in his study.

Mama and I heard a lot of yelling and cursing in Spanish. Papa looked angry when he returned to the table, and hurried outside to deal with a waiting customer. Let’s just say my math homework didn’t get finished." Here she sighed in frustrated confusion and then continued with,

"Mama got dinner while I took my bookbag upstairs, washed up, and came back down for dinner. After dinner I want and played on my computer in my room until 9pm, and then went to bed. I didn’t hear anything Lieutenant. Mama says I would sleep though a hurricane and wouldn’t even wake if the house blew away.”

Horatio nods and motions for the car to take her to the crime lab. He'd learned just how deeply kids slept when he'd given his son a roof for a spell between court dates. There'd been gunfire on the television, but Kyle had't stirred a muscle until after he'd shut the dratted thing off and made him go to bed upstairs.

“Horatio, Calleigh said calmly, "she wouldn’t have heard anything because the killer used a silencer on the gun. See, the bullet has double striation marks!” Ryan stood quietly by until she was through speaking, even though his facial expression proved he was far from patient.

“H, we need to get this evidence back to the lab for processing. Is it alright if Delko gets a lift back with you?” He asked quickly.

Horatio nodded and added knowingly, “Yes I need to talk to him anyway, as I’m stuck on what to get Marisol for her birthday. Keep me posted!” Calleigh grinned, nodde, and gots into the Hummer with her crime scene partner for the return trip to the precinct. “Ryan, once we're back at the lab, you need to take this trace evidence to Speed, while I get examine these bullets more closely.”

“Why is Speed looking at the evidence?" Ryan asked peevishly. "I collected it, so I should be the one to process it.”

"Because you, Ryan Wolfe are still a uniformed officer and not a full CSI yet. It would be highly unusual for you to process evidence that normally goes to a more experienced officer." Cal explained to the young man.

Tim Speedle had been in court most of the morning on another case, so he hadn’t been available to go on the call out. Since his case ended more quickly then he had expected it to, he was gladly exchanged what he called his monkey suit for a simple t-shirt, jeans, and a lab coat. He was overjoyed to shed the garb, as wearing a coat, shirt, and tie simply wasn’t his thing!

He had just got his Lab coat on when Ryan walked in carrying the evidence bag he'd collected at the Lopaz residence.

"What you got?" Speed asked the new recruit as Ryan carefully placed the tightly sealed bag on the table.

"Evidence from a double homicide, the couple’s 13 year old daughter found them this morning when she got up!" Ryan answered while donning his lab coat and gloves. Speed shot Ryan a funny look that openly asked, "What do you think you're doing?" But Ryan ignored him and pulled on a pair of gloves before he opened the bag. Taking out the bindle bags he hands two over to Tim.

The bags contained hair and a fiber from the couple. Ryan immediately noticed that several of the hairs differed in color, texture, and feel from the three Lopazes. The hair was dark brown in color, whereas the Lopaz clan's hair was a deep, rich black. Speed sent it all over to Valera in DNA for a more complete analysis.

Meanwhile, Calleigh was running the bullets in the ballistics lab. She had just about finished processing the first slug when she realized that they were an exact match to a similar homicide case a few months ago.