Character study on one: Calleigh Duquesne, part of my CSI50.

Prompt 9: Be All Right

The house looked like any other from the outside. Spanish art deco style architecture, well-tended garden, two expensive cars in the drive…a nice place in a nice neighborhood.

Inside, as always, was a different story.

There seemed to be too much blood for only two bodies. There were trails of it all through the lower floor of the house, handprints smearing long, horizontal stripes over the custom-designed wallpaper, pooling on the kitchen tiles and soaking finally into the plush white carpet where Richard McKesson and his wife, Julia, were found by the maid.

It was most likely Julia who had made such a mess in her dying. She had been shot twice—once in the abdomen and once in the forehead. Ryan and Eric were re-enacting her likely path from the kitchen to the living room to confront her killer—her husband, who had shot her again—finishing the job, this time—and promptly turned the gun on himself.

Murder-suicide. Open and shut with the exception of one, small problem.

Actually, three small problems.

Darla, Andrew, and Jake McKesson—twelve, nine, and six, who hadn't been seen or heard from all day.

Calleigh studied the cluster of family photos on the fireplace mantle closely. There were pictures of a happy, young couple proudly holding a beautiful baby girl, that baby girl a few years older with another baby, the two small children with the third child, and so on and so forth. Posed on the beach, in a portrait studio, in front of a Christmas tree—almost all of the pictures were of these three, missing children. She noticed that in the few snapshots of the whole family, Richard and Julia were on opposite sides of their brood, never interacting in any way. Basic knowledge of body language would suggest a problem of some kind.

Of course, so would a glance at their bodies sprawled on the living room floor.

Patrol was swarming, Amber Alerts had been sent out, local residents were clustered on the lawn, setting up community call-centers for anonymous tips. As was usually the case, the neighborhood had jumped right in, getting in the way and telling everyone they were only trying to help.

Still, something was nagging at Calleigh. Something that told her that all of the hoopla going on outside might not be all that necessary. Something that Ryan Wolfe picked up on.

"Whatcha smelling Cal?" he asked, looking over to her after snapping a picture of the gun still clutched in Richard McKesson's hand.

"Something's not right," she commented softly, examining the pictures closely. "These kids…this family…"

"What about them?" Eric asked, entering the room through the cleared pathway.

"They weren't happy," she decided finally.

"Well," Ryan motioned to the bodies. "Obviously."

"No," Calleigh shook her head. "I don't think this was something sudden." She picked up one of the recent pictures of the whole family. "Look at Julia's right eye in this picture," she brandished it under Eric's nose.

He squinted his eyes for a moment. "What about it?"

"There's a shadow under it that's darker than the other...looks like she was covering up a bruise."

"You think she was abused?" Ryan connected the dots, snapping another picture.

"I don't know, we'll have to wait for Alexx to be sure but," she looked around the house. "There's still a lot of tension in this house, I can tell."

"How can you be so sure?" Eric asked as Ryan left the room again.

Calleigh met his eyes for a moment. "It's not a feeling you forget."

--

The familiar sound of shattering glass drifted up the stairs and into Calleigh's bedroom. She pushed the pillow down harder on her ears, trying to block out the noise. The creaking door didn't register, but the beam of light from the hallway did as it fell across her floor. Calleigh's eleven year-old heart stopped beating for a moment until she realized the person standing in the doorway wasn't her drunk mother or her raging father. It was Jackson…and he looked terrified.

She sat up in bed and waved him in, a sympathetic smile coming to her face as the five year-old climbed into bed with her. "Why won't they stop?" he asked tearfully, cuddling into his big sister.

"Because if they did, the neighbors wouldn't have anything to talk about tomorrow morning," she answered, trying to keep things light.

Before he had a chance to respond, the door squeaked open again. This time it was Owen who slithered through the opening. He shut the door behind him, muffling the fight, and perched casually on the edge of Calleigh's bed. "I just wanted to make sure Jack was okay," he said finally, shrugging his shoulders.

Calleigh nodded, not calling him out on his tough guy act. "He's okay," she assured him, smoothing Jackson's blonde hair away from his tear-stained face. She moved over and motioned for Owen to get under the covers with her. "Let's just try to get some sleep."

"I can't sleep in here," the youngest boy complained, not unclamping his arms from around Calleigh's waist. "It's too loud—they won't stop yelling."

"They'll stop eventually," Owen muttered in a tone far too dismal for any nine year-old. "Just as soon as they pass out."

"It's too loud," Jackson said again, moving his hands only to cover his ears.

Calleigh sighed and shoved off the covers. "Come on," she waved her brothers on to follow her and led them out the door, quietly down the hall, and into the upstairs den at the far end of the house. She pushed the ugly plaid sofa down from the wall to reveal the crawlspace and hustled the boys inside. It had become their secret hideout years ago—where they'd hole up and wait for the worst to pass, snacking on Hostess cupcakes and bags of pretzel rods sneaked from the kitchen along with boxes of warm grape juice. Once the three were settled among their old blankets and pillows and the sounds of their warring parents were farther away, Calleigh managed a smile. "See?" she said after a moment. "Safe as houses."

"Not this house," Owen said under his breath, pulling his old sleeping bag up around his ears. Calleigh shot him a warning glare. "What, Cal? How many kids do you know who have to hide out in their own house?"

"How many people would think that's what we do every night?" she countered. "You don't know everything, Owen—stop acting like you do."

"I'll stop when you stop trying to act like everything's fine and normal."

"Do you think Daddy's gonna kill Mama?" Jackson asked suddenly, a fresh sob in his voice.

Calleigh turned to see her little brother's ear pressed to the floor, listening intently. She gave another heavy sigh and felt much, much older than her eleven years. "Of course not," she said softly, pulling the small boy up from the floor and holding him close to her. "That's never going to happen."

"Besides," Owen added with a smirk. "Mama would kill him first."

--

"Did anyone check for any crawlspaces?" Calleigh asked her two colleagues, searching the immediate area.

"What do you mean?" Ryan asked.

"In the house—does it have any secret rooms or cupboards? I think the kids might still be here."

"I don't know," Eric said honestly. "I can take another look, if you want."

"No," she shook her head. "I'll do it."

A search of the bottom floor of the house proved fruitless—all empty cupboards and closets. Still determined, Calleigh headed upstairs, checking each empty room until finally, she stumbled upon something of interest. A door at the back of Julia and Richard's walk-in closet. The knob turned easily and opened to a set of stairs leading upward.

Calleigh stopped and listened for a moment. There was whispering coming from the top of the stairs.

"Surely His salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." the hushed voice of a young girl floated down the stairs.

"Darla, this is stupid. I don't want to read the stupid Bible," another whisper interrupted the passage.

"Andrew, shut up! It's all we have to read."

"I wanna hear more," a child's voice Calleigh could guess belonged to Jake, the youngest, chimed in.

Calleigh smiled to herself, feeling a flicker of fellowship with these three, abandoned children. She climbed the stairs as quietly as she could and within moments, reached the top, unsurprised to find herself face to face with three sets of large, frightened blue eyes. "Hey guys," she said softly, taking a few cautious steps toward them.

"Hey," Darla said, her voice betraying any confidence she had attempted to muster. Her eyes regarded Calleigh carefully; her brothers tightened around her.

"Is it over?" Andrew asked with a hard swallow.

She pursed her lips and nodded. "Are you guys okay?"

"We're fine," Darla answered quickly for all three of them.

Calleigh looked around the attic. Similar to the crawlspace, it was littered with retired blankets and pillows, an orange beanbag chair, and a plastic bin of non perishables. She gave an appreciative nod. "Pretty cool place you've got here."

The kids were silent, still appraising this intruder. Finally, it was Darla who spoke again. "How did you find us?"

Calleigh crouched down to be at eye level. "I have some experiences with secret hiding places myself." She met Darla's eyes. "Psalm 85?" she guessed, pointing to the open Bible on her lap. The girl nodded. "It's one of my favorites too." She held out her hands. "Why don't we go outside? There're a lot of people who have been pretty worried about you guys."

Slowly, they rose to their feet and dusted themselves off, leaving behind the blankets and the snacks. Darla held tightly to the Bible as she followed her brothers down the stairs. She turned back to Calleigh as they left the walk-in closet. "Psalm 85?" she asked, holding up the book. "I like it because it feels like God's telling me everything's going to be all right."

Calleigh patted the girl's shoulder. "It is, Darla, I promise."

--

Horatio offered a smile back at the lab much later that day. "I heard about the McKesson case," he said, a hint of pride coloring his words. "Well done, finding those children."

"It was nothing," she shrugged modestly and returned to her paperwork.

"What gave you the hint?"

Calleigh looked up and allowed herself a pensive moment. "I know what it's like to live in a house like that," she said softly. "Nothing of that caliber, of course, thank God. But, I don't know," she shrugged again. "Every kid has a place like that attic. Somewhere they feel safe, like nothing can hurt them."

Horatio digested this with a slow nod. "It's not just kids who need places like that, ma'am," he said after a few long moments. "Why don't you go home and get some rest?"

Calleigh smiled. "I'll see you tomorrow, Horatio."

She couldn't help but take her Bible from its dusty shelf that night and finish the psalm she'd heard that afternoon.

Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase. Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps.

She set the book aside and thought of Darla and Andrew and Jake and then of her own two brothers. Despite her longstanding strained relationship with God, Calleigh couldn't help but feel like He'd been helping her out that day, telling her that she, like those children, would be all right too.

AN: The God angle totally came out of nowhere—maybe I should start going back to church… eh. Whatevs. Anyway, I'm back writing Calleigh fics when the mood strikes me. I've got about a million more prompts to finish, so we'll see where my new, un-clogged imagination takes us, shall we?