“And the Burnetts,” Caine said, “were bleeding…. How was our response time?”

  “Not great, H. Mrs. Burnett never gave dispatch the address, and it was a cell phone. It took a while to figure out where they were.”

  He smiled grimly. “Until the neighbors finally got concerned.”

  No one said anything.

  Speedle came up the sloping lawn to them. He wore an untucked dark button-down shirt that had probably been ironed once, just not lately; his jeans were faded and baggy, his tennis shoes in fair to decent shape, though the days they could be called white were a distant memory.

  Caine’s occasional suggestions that a more professional appearance might be in order had thus far fallen on deaf ears; on the other hand, every other aspect of the CSI’s performance was professionalism personified. So even the tightly wound Horatio Caine had to say to himself, What the hell…

  Right now, for example, Speed held in his hand two good-size plastic bags full of 7.62 mm shell casings.

  “How many?” Caine asked.

  “Seventy-one—he was using a drum magazine just like he did on Ocean Drive.”

  “All right. Let’s get those, and the bullets, to Calleigh, get our photos developed, and see if there’s anything there.”

  “Sounds good to me, H,” Speedle said.

  Delko said, “Speed, if you take care of the photos, I’ll sweep the metal detector across the yard. Then I can take all the ammo we’ve found to Calleigh.”

  Caine said, “Sounds like you’ve got it in hand.”

  Speed frowned. “You goin’ someplace?”

  “To the hospital, with Tripp—to talk to our victim.”

  But Caine stayed long enough to oversee the loading of Joanna Burnett’s body into the ambulance. Just before he and Tripp headed out in their respective vehicles, Caine watched solemnly as the ambulance pulled away with its charge, its siren ominously silent, its flashers turned off.

  No hurry. No hurry at all.

  Half an hour later, a compact, blond nurse ushered Horatio Caine and Frank Tripp into a waiting room where the only other guest was Jeremy Burnett’s boss, Leonard Matthers, who’d beaten them there from the crime scene.

  Styrofoam coffee cup in hand, Matthers sat in the corner, a TV tuned to CNN nearby, though he wasn’t watching it.

  Matthers looked up when the two of them settled into the chairs across from him.

  “Anything turn up at the scene, Horatio?”

  “Not much.”

  “That’s not very specific. What about keeping us in the loop?”

  “Let me get the evidence processed first, Len. Don’t look over my shoulder, and I won’t look over yours.”

  Matthers’s eyes bore into him; then suddenly the man smiled. “That’s why I like you, Horatio—you don’t take crap from anybody.”

  Caine said nothing. He respected Matthers but had heard enough from Jeremy about the man’s micro-managing to know that establishing an arm’s-length distance right now would be wise.

  The silence was just getting awkward when Tripp put in, “Nurse said they’re still stitching him up.”

  “He’s lucky,” Matthers said, tossing the empty cup into a wastebasket. “Damn lucky.”

  “He lost his wife,” Caine said. “That doesn’t sound lucky to me.”

  Matthers rolled his eyes. “He should by all rights be as dead as she is. Either of the two hits he took in the vest could have killed him…and he busted a rib as it is. A few inches higher, his head would’ve been blown off.”

  “I’m told he was bleeding,” Caine said.

  “He caught one in the right arm.” Matthers pulled off his glasses and rubbed a hand over his face before he answered. “Little more than a scratch…but we both know Joanna meant the world to him. I don’t know what the hell he’s going to do without her.”

  “Time’ll heal that wound, too,” Tripp said.

  Caine said nothing. How long had Ray been gone? No sign of healing yet….

  The nurse ducked her head in again. “You can see him now, Officers…but only for a few minutes.”

  The trio of lawmen followed her back out to the emergency room and down a short corridor to the far end, where she pulled a curtain back and they saw Jeremy Burnett lying on a bed bare-chested, a wide white bandage tinged with pink around his right arm.

  His chest was bandaged, too, where one of the slugs that had hit him in the vest had broken a rib, no doubt; but an ugly purple bruise from another round was still exposed. His eyes were red from crying, and he had a look of helpless despair.

  The confident Jeremy Burnett was suddenly a man who no longer cared what life held for him.

  Matthers went around the bed to Burnett’s left side. “Are they treating you right, Jeremy?” he asked awkwardly, patting his agent on the good arm.

  Burnett said nothing at first. He swallowed thickly and mumbled, “Thanks for being here” to his boss; then his bloodshot eyes travelled to Caine.

  Finally, he said, “Bullet just missed the brachial artery.”

  “Lucky,” Caine said.

  An awful smile came to the wounded man’s thin lips. “You think?”

  “Jeremy,” Matthers said. “You’re still alive. Losing Joanna…there’s nothing we can say to help. But you are still alive. That’s a place to start.”

  Eventually, Burnett nodded, but there was no enthusiasm in his movement, no real sign of agreement in his eyes.

  Caine asked, “I wish I could just tell you we’re with you, and leave you to your grief. But you know I can’t.”

  Burnett sighed, a catch of pain midway. “I’m your witness. We need to talk.”

  “Yes. Are you up to telling us what happened?”

  “No…but I know I have to. While it’s still fresh.”

  “Yes.”

  “Agent Burnett,” Tripp said, “With your permission, I’ll take notes.”

  “Please.”

  Tripp withdrew a small notebook and a ballpoint from his sportjacket pocket.

  The three visitors stood expectantly around the DEA agent’s bed. Burnett’s eyes slowly closed, and he seemed to drift off. Caine wondered if the man had passed out or gone to drug-aided sleep….

  Caine exchanged glances with Matthers—it showed in their eyes that they were wondering if they’d already overstayed their welcome, and if this interview just simply could not happen right now.

  But then, his eyes still closed, the DEA agent began to speak, as if in a trance.

  “I got home late from work tonight…the concern over the Wallace shooting, gangs and so on, dragged the day out…and we were supposed to go out to dinner.” His words came out slow and measured. “I was so late, we had reservations, I didn’t even take time to change…. We no sooner got out the front door than it started.”

  “The shooting?” Caine prompted.

  “The shooting…”

  “What did you see, Jeremy?”

  Burnett never opened his eyes; he seemed to be replaying the event on the movie screen of his mind. “First we heard the squeal of tires.”

  “From nearby?” Tripp asked.

  “Yes—east of the house. Sounded like the car was coming our way. We both looked up. It’s a quiet neighborhood; we don’t get a lot of that.”

  “You saw the car,” Caine said.

  “Yes. Silver Lexus. Could have been Manny Calisto’s. Anyway, just like it.”

  “Catch the plate?”

  “No. No, goddamnit.” The anger was aimed at himself. “Not even a partial. It was just a blur.”

  Caine leaned in and spoke in a measured manner. “That means, Jeremy…you looked at the plate. Think. Any numbers at all?”

  Burnett’s eyes, already closed, squeezed tighter as he thought about it. Finally, still not opening his eyes, he said, “Dolphins plate. L…D…sorry. That’s all I can remember. LD.”

  “That’s good,” Tripp said as he scribbled the letters in his notebook. “That’s a start.”

  “Notice anything about the car?” Caine asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Anything off or abnormal. A dent. Something custom.”

  Burnett shook his head.

  Tripp said, “Okay. What happened next?”

  “I saw a Hispanic man leaning out the car window. He’s maybe twenty-three, twenty-four. He’s got curly black hair, dark face, dark eyes, heavy mustache. He was wearing a white shirt.”

  Caine asked, “Had you seen him before? Did you recognize him as a gang member?”

  “I wish I could say yes, Horatio. No. I’ve gone through the mental file, running through Calisto’s crew…just can’t make the guy.”

  “A lot of turnover in that bunch,” Tripp pointed out.

  “You’re doing good, Jeremy,” Matthers said, leaning closer to his friend. “You’re doing fine.”

  Suddenly Burnett’s eyes popped open, as if he’d been jarred awake. “Then I saw the gun—automatic rifle, AK-47 or one of the clones. Drum magazine. Then he started shooting.”

  “I know this is hard,” Caine said, “but you need to tell it.”

  “I got in front of Joanna and took the first hits. Got knocked off my feet. That…that put Joanna in the line of fire. One went through her hand, into her shoulder.”

  “You were down.”

  “Yes. I tried to get up, but the bullets were faster than I was. Second slug hit her body, I don’t know where…stomach, I think. I had my gun out by then, and was going to grab her to throw her down, but I…I guess I blacked out. When I woke up, she was gone. I…I don’t think she suffered long. I sure as hell hope…”

  He covered his face with his left hand.

  “Isn’t that enough for now?” Matthers asked.

  Caine nodded, and Tripp put up no fight.

  Burnett lowered his hand and tears streaked his face, moisture matting down his eyelids. “Horatio—don’t let them take you off this case.”

  “I won’t, Jeremy.”

  “I hope…I hope I’m not asking too much. But Joanna deserves the best, and…you’re it.”

  Matthers said, “We’re not fighting jurisdiction on this one, Jeremy. Horatio and his people, and Detective Tripp, are on the front line.”

  “Good,” Burnett said. Then he managed perhaps the weakest smile Caine had ever seen. “Just be careful, Horatio…I found out the hard way…how dangerous the front line can be.”

  When he got back to HQ, Caine resisted the urge to go check on Delko and Speedle.

  He knew they’d be hard at it, and mother-henning would not improve matters any. The brother-officer aspect nagged at him, though. None of them ever gave less than one-hundred percent on a case, but when the case involved the shooting of another officer, the urge to give two-hundred percent was overwhelming. This could lead to poor judgment and hasty conclusions. The best thing Caine could do right now was set an example by his own patience.

  His office, like most of the building, was dark. Midnight wasn’t far away as Caine found himself standing in the doorway, looking at the ugly sofa along the wall to his left. More than one night had been spent there, but he decided against that, flipping on the light switch. He moved behind his desk, took off his jacket, draped it over the chair, and sat down.

  The chair wasn’t particularly comfortable. He liked it that way; the less time he spent in the office, the better. But tonight, after tense, long hours, the chair felt pretty good. Caine settled in, ready to dig through some of the paperwork he needed to catch up on.

  He wasn’t very far into the pile when he heard a tiny knock at the door. Looking up, he saw a weary-looking Calleigh standing there.

  “Little late for paperwork, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “I’m tired, but it’s that wide-awake tired. Come in. Please.” He waved toward the chair opposite his desk. “What’s your excuse for still being here?”

  Calleigh sat down, perching on the edge of the chair. “I wanted to work the casings that Eric brought back from the Burnett attack. By the way…how is your friend?”

  Caine twitched a non-smile. “Physically, he’s going to be fine. In no time.”

  “But emotionally…another story, right?”

  “He watched his wife die, right in front of him. Who knows how someone will react to that sort of thing?”

  Neither of them said anything for a few seconds.

  Then, delicately, Calleigh said, “She was your friend, too.”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “Different, isn’t it? When you know the people.”

  “Hard to maintain your objectivity, yes.”

  “But we have to, anyway.”

  “Right.” He looked at her—carefully. “Calleigh…are you all right?”

  “Sure.”

  She sat drumming her fingers on her knees, wearing a look of dazed exhaustion mixed with jumpy energy.

  “How much caffeine have you had, anyway?”

  She grinned. “Maybe I’m excited ’cause I found something.”

  “What did you find?”

  The grin disappeared. “But maybe what I found doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s…troubling.”

  When she didn’t elaborate, Caine met her eyes. “Calleigh. What…did…you…find?”

  She flashed a nervous smile. “For one thing, I got a match on the shell casings from the Burnett hit and the ones from the Archer Hotel.”

  Caine gave her an approving nod. “Good. We sort of figured they were the same doer, but it’s good to know we’ve got proof. Nothing ‘troubling’ about that.”

  “And, uh…I got a hit on NIBIN, too.”

  He put down his pen and studied her. “Really? That doesn’t happen every day.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Tell me about it. It’s really kind of weird.”

  Caine grunted a laugh. “Weirder than when you got a hit on a fifteen-year-old murder in New Jersey?”

  She considered the question as if it had been a serious one, then said, “You know, I think it is.”

  He sat forward. “Tell me.”

  Her eyes narrowed, she withdrew a printout from her lab coat pocket, and crisply said, “NIBIN found the AK-47 in question had been used in a murder, a gang shoot-out actually…about thirteen months ago.”

  “Local?”

  “Local—Little Haiti, Eightieth Terrace.”

  They both knew she was referring to an area of northeast Miami that had become one of the fastest-growing parts of the city. Loaded with hardworking families and people who had come to a new country for a new start, Little Haiti was also the home of the Faucones and some of the bloodiest drug wars the city had ever seen.

  Caine was thinking back. Slowly he said, “The apartment house shoot-out…the one with the fire.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “Burned an apartment house to the ground—four dead, fifteen to the hospital…and that doesn’t include the gunfight. Eight more dead, there, on the two sides.”

  Squinting in disbelief, Caine said, “And our gun was in that shoot-out?”

  She nodded.

  Shaking his head, trying to make sense of this, he said, “Calleigh, I thought we caught most of those guys…and confiscated the weapons.”

  “We did indeed. The owner of this particular gun was a drug dealer named Julian Pelitier.”

  Caine didn’t like the sick feeling that was growing in his stomach. “And Pelitier’s gun was one of the weapons we confiscated?”

  She handed him her printout.

  As he slowly scanned it, she said, “Right now this gun…the gun used at the Wallace hit and in the drive-by at the Burnett household…is theoretically locked up securely in the evidence building. Pelitier is up on murder one in the state and a carload of federal drug charges.”

  “But the gun’s obviously not there,” Caine said.

  “I don’t see how it could be.”

  Caine’s first inclination was to call the head of the evidence division, roust him out of bed, and tell him to get down here, fifteen minutes ago; but this, he reminded himself, was a time for patience, and care.

  He said, “Let’s go look at the evidence log and see if we can find out what happened.”

  Calleigh yawned. “Good idea.”

  Caine had to admire the way this bone-tired young woman attempted to put on a chipper look.

  “On second thought, Calleigh…this is nothing I can’t handle. You go home and get some sleep.”

  She made her eyes pop open in an unsuccessful effort to seem alert. “I’m fine, Horatio—really!”

  “No. Home to bed. I need you here first thing in the morning, and I need you fresh and bright and sharp. Now, go.”

  “I’m fresh. I’m bright. I’m—”

  “Going home. We’ll talk tomorrow, and I’ll tell you everything that happened.”

  “Okay.” She got to her feet. “But I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said cheerfully.

  From the doorway, she said, “I’ll be a good soldier, if you get some sleep, too. Okay?”

  “Deal.”

  Half an hour later, Caine found himself waiting outside the new evidence building in the Doral complex on Northwest Twenty-fifth Street. He had already hit the buzzer and announced himself through the intercom to the officer on duty.

  In a way, Horatio Caine and his team were partly responsible for the existence of this concrete building, which had been erected to hold the evidence that was piling up at an alarming rate, commensurate with the improved arrest rate of recent years.

  Caine’s successes weren’t the only reason for the new building. The drug wars had always given them plenty of contraband to house, but with the new popularity of meth labs, the city had been forced to come up with some creative ways to store all the various chemicals—hence the new concrete evidence building known rather unaffectionately around police circles as “The Bunker.”

  Built with separate floors for drugs, guns, and other evidence, the structure probably should have been under heavier guard than several video cameras and one lone sentry. But Caine knew as well as any of the department heads that money was tight.

  No one seemed to be coming to the door, and Caine wondered if he’d been forgotten. He looked up at the video camera over the gray steel door, and the camera looked back at him.