Savior

"Francis?" Horatio exclaimed as he gently nudged the Texan Detective. Frank finished his conversation with a fellow homicide detective and turned his attention to his friend and boss.

"Yeah Horatio?" he questioned lightly. The Lieutenant's eyes motioned towards Interrogation One as he spoke.

"What have we got?"

"Name's Melissa Weatherly. Age sixteen, foster child. Patrol picked her up in Hialeah Gardens this morning. She's our number one suspect right now."

"Forgive me for questioning you, but surely she isn't the only foster child in the household?" The seasoned investigator flipped through reports as they were handed off to him.

Brian and Sarah Calbert, licensed foster parents. Shot to death inside their home located in Coral Gables. Guardians of two foster children: Weatherly, Melissa age 16, Declan, Timothy age 15.

"She's not. They have that in common, but there's one thing that they don't."

"And what would that be?" Horatio continued. The two officers looked toward the glass-walled room where the young girl sat.

"Timothy Declan has an alibi and a negative GSR test. She doesn't."

Horatio stood at the opposite end of the table in interrogation. As usual, his trademark sunglasses sat snugly between his fingers. He stood at full height and the wafting sunlight caught on the steel of his ultra-marine irises. With a small tilt of the head, he became engrossed in his own primal stance. Coupled with his smoky tone of voice and own brand of interrogation tactics, Lieutenant Horatio Caine was always a force to be reckoned with.

"Melissa, my name is Horatio Caine. I work for the crime lab."

She simply nodded.

"I'll be blunt, Melissa. It looks as though you murdered your foster parents."

This time, she looked up and into his eyes. Natural instinct prevailed and he read into her expression. He could tell that she was somewhat shocked by his suspicions, but any lasting signs of such feeling faded.

"Lieutenant, I didn't kill Brian and Sarah." Her tone was solid and certain. Horatio's eyebrows drew upwards and fell quickly, his act of uncertainty intentional.

"I have a positive swab for GSR that tells me otherwise." The Lieutenant countered.

"Gunshot residue. On my hands?" She questioned accordingly. The redheaded Lieutenant dipped his head downward in a sly nod. In turn, Melissa sat up fully and met his glare with a cold one of her own.

"Brian and Sarah waked around the house like me and Tim weren't even there. They weren't great parents, but I would never shoot them." Mel continued, breathing out in slight frustration.

"Tell me about Timothy, Mel."

"We were placed at the house at the same time. He'd only been in one other foster home in his life. This one was my third."

"Did he ever get angry or hurt anyone?"

"Never. You could tell he missed his first foster family though. Tim came from a family out of Kendall. They couldn't take care of him anymore so they shipped him here to Miami."

Horatio pay close attention as always, piecing a metaphorical puzzle together in his mind as she went.

"Sometimes he would ask me about where I came from and we'd talk for hours on end about it. He used to go, "How the hell do you do it?"

"And how did you do it, Miss Weatherly?" Horatio began to show ease in his words and in his facial expressions.

"I got used to it. It sounds more simple than it really is, Lieutenant. Other than what you see as a cop, I don't expect you to understand otherwise. No offense."

The redheaded officer had to hold back a wry smirk. Believe me, I understand, he thought. Within the deepest lengths of his own childhood, Horatio had been subject to his father's drunken abuse both verbally and physically. He knew to never get emotionally attached during a case, but he saw something in Melissa Weatherly that he'd seen in himself so many years ago.

Pure innocence.

Follow the evidence, Caine. A suspect is always a suspect for a reason. She's either innocent, or extremely guilty. Time to see what pieces of the puzzle we have.

For two hours, he poured through what evidence they had. Instead of sitting behind his desk signing paperwork, he read through crime scene reports and structured the scene bit by bit. Calleigh knocked lightly on the door frame, coffee and MDPD folder in hand.

"Missing lunch, Horatio?" Cal spoke kindly while setting the Styrofoam cup in front of her boss. He raised his head and offered her a grateful smile.

"Just getting up to speed. Is that your prelim report?"

"It is. I ran the striations through the system. No priors. I won't have anything other than bullet caliber until we find a gun to compare the rounds to."

His eyes scanned the page, the only major detail being that the recovered bullets were 9 mil. Calleigh was right. Until they found a weapon, they were at a halt with ballistics. Horatio cleared his throat and indulged in the smooth taste of black coffee as it ran past his taste buds and down the back of his throat.

"Thank you, Calleigh. Keep me posted, alright?"

"Always." Cal exited layout and left him to his work. The Lieutenant was glad to have the luxury of hot coffee to keep him alert. The past week had been an unforgiving one full of backlogged evidence and a heavy caseload. And with it, came an endless stack of paperwork and reports to sign off on.

Unlike the week prior, the start to this one had been utterly slow. Being condemned to his desk for almost an entire week made Horatio thankful to get out of the lab again.

Now, he had to do what he did best. Justice.

A/N: This begins a new series for me aside from my DuCaine work. I hope my loyal readers will stick with me on both journeys! I have a lot planned for this story, along with my other fiction, so be on the lookout!