Title: Sniper's Song

Author: Sarah

E-mail: [email protected]

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters.

Summary: A gunman is terrorizing the people of Miami--- and leaving Horatio clues to his next move

AN: This is kind of a "throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks" fic. If people like it, I'll continue.

Chapter One

Miami-Dade Crime Lab

Friday, February 21, 2003                                                                                                                                                                                             2:05PM          

Horatio Caine sat down at his desk and flipped through the mess of papers and mail that had accumulated over the last few days. Lab report after lab report lay scattered in a disarray on the desk before him. Horatio set to organizing them, stopping when he noticed a small manila envelope stuck in the middle of a ballistics report. Neatly printed dark black letters stood out on the yellow paper: Lieutenant Horatio Caine. His interest peaked, Horatio unsealed the flap and pulled out a plain white index card with four words printed on it: Goin' to the chapel…

Horatio studied the index card for a few seconds, pondering the words before him.

"'Goin' to the chapel,'" Horatio muttered to himself, wondering what the phrase meant.

Horatio carefully set the card down, treating it as he would a piece of evidence. He wondered for a minute if it came from a coworker as a joke about his woefully inadequate social life, but quickly ruled that out when he realized that the handwriting was not familiar.

"What could this be? A threat?" Horatio asked himself.

He'd seen this type of behavior before, sometimes would-be murderers liked to play games with members of the police department before committing a crime.

Horatio picked up the phone that sat to his right and dialed the lab.

"Delko? I need you to come to my office right away, please."  Horatio looked down on the card and wondered its significance.

"What's up, H?"  a breathless Delko asked from the door of the office a few moments later.

Horatio looked up and beckoned for Delko to come closer. "I want you to come look at this." Delko looked down at the paper and then directed a questioning glance at Horatio.

"What am I looking at?" Delko asked.

"I found this in with my papers. In this envelope," Horatio gestured towards the manila envelope under the index card. "There are no post marks or  labels of any kind, which means that someone slipped this in with my papers. I have a bad feeling about this and until I'm proven wrong, I want the card and the envelope treated as evidence."

He pulled out a box of rubber gloves from the bottom drawer of his desk. "Put these on and then take the card and envelope down to the lab and process them. Look for finger prints, fibers, what brand of ink and paper these are… I want anything you can find."

Delko snapped on the gloves and carefully picked up the papers. "Do you think this means anything?"

Horatio nodded gravely, "I think it's a warning."

St. Peter's Church                                                                                                                                                                                                                        8:45PM

The newly married Jonathan Andrews clasped his bride's hand as they made their way down the aisle of the church towards the door.

"We finally did it!" he whispered excitedly to his new wife Heather.

Heather smiled broadly at Jonathan and squeezed his hand in response.  Jonathan glanced around the church, smiling as they made their way past friends and family.

The man in the navy t-shirt smiled too. He could hear the sounds of the recessional from his perch in an empty apartment building six stories above the street.  The man had always admired this church growing up; so much history, such beautiful architecture.

"Such an easy target," he muttered to no one. 

He straightened up as he saw the church doors opening. Lifting his gun, he smiled a little and sang to himself. "Goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get married, goin' to the chapel of love…"

The sound of his gun firing drowned out the rest of the lyrics.