A/N: Hey all: been a while since I last did any writing as life sort of caught up to me. I had a beautiful baby boy in early November and this is the first time I've really had a chance to sit down and get any writing done. Let me know what you think and thanks for reading.

Chapter 1

In the DNA lab, CSI Ryan Wolfe studied the small gold cross in the sealed evidence bag. It was a nice-looking piece, and probably as old as hell, if he was hearing right. The cross was decorated with hammered gold and small, polished emeralds at the points and in the centre. According to CSI Eric Delko, who had some experience in ancient gold jewelry, the cross looked like it could have come from the Colonial Spain era, when Miami was getting settled by the Spaniards. A piece like that should have been in a museum, being studied and evaluated by a historian, rather than sealed in an evidence bag at the Miami-Dade Crime Lab. Unfortunately, despite all it's beauty, there was one big thing wrong with it, it was covered in blood. Hence the evidence bag.

The cross had come off of a small, but local, drug dealer who'd been found dead in a back alley. No one on the streets was naming names but word was a rival drug-dealing gang had decided to remove the 'competition' permanently. Who the killer was, MDPD didn't know at this point, and finding out was going to prove to be a bit difficult, as usual, since gangs tended to take care of their own with little regard to the law or innocents caught in the cross-fire.

As far as Ryan knew, the victim had been a father with two sons, neither one of which had been seen since the victim had been discovered. Ryan had seen the mother and the look on her face had been one of emptiness, a woman who had pretty much given up. He felt bad for her, especially knowing she was going to have her hands full trying to raise two boys, both of whom were a handful to begin with, if he'd heard right.

One question the mother hadn't been able to answer was how the victim had gotten ahold of such a valuable piece of jewelry in the first place. Her answer had been simple and straightforward.

"With him, who the hell knows?" she'd said.

Indeed, who the hell knew? Only the victim, and last time Ryan checked, he didn't know anyone who communicate with the dead on a one-on-one basis, and if the victim's boys knew, well, they weren't talking.

"It's a beautiful piece," DNA technician Maxine Valera commented, also looking at the cross. "Probably worth a fortune." She would be testing the blood on the cross to determine whose blood it was.

"Too bad the victim didn't realize that; he could've sold it and gotten out of the drug business," Ryan said. "A piece like this, it belongs in a museum, not in the lab."

"Any rush on it?" she asked.

"Nah, the guy's not going anywhere and the blood's probably his," he replied. He handed the cross to Valera, nodded once, and left to attend to other matters.

Valera put the cross to one side, where she would get to it as soon as she took care of the dozens of other requests on her table. But first she had to take care of a minor personal problem. As she left the lab, a cold breeze suddenly blew around her, causing her to shiver involuntarily and rustling papers in its wake.

"Air conditioner must be on the brink again," she muttered, rubbing her arms as she continued on her way.

In the silence of the lab, a cold breeze blew again, gentler than the first but still just as cold. And at that very moment, amid the pile of DNA testing requests and sealed evidence bags, something glowed brightly, giving off a sickly greenish light, before fading away just as quickly as it had begun.