- While investigating a homicide at a seedy motel, CSI discovers that Delko has been staying at the hotel and may have been the target of a shooting himself.
- Miami. Day. Salsa music. Eric is staying at a cheap motel. But why? The ominous music playing on the soundtrack tells the alert viewer that it can't be for a good reason. Sure enough, Eric is about to open a mysterious manila envelope when he hears SHOTS FIRED! His window shatters. He rushes outside to find a body floating in the pool. It's sunny out -- so sunny perhaps sunglasses are in order ...
Sure enough, Caine is soon on the scene. The victim had a single gunshot would to the chest. Odder still, the dead man was wearing a blindfold. "Why are you here, Eric?" Caine growls. Eric explains that his condo is being remodeled. "Just an excuse to get away from it for awhile," he says. Growls Caine: "I guess that didn't last long."
YEEE-OWWW! We don't get fooled again and so on and so forth!
Back from a too-long commercial break, Frank and Calleigh investigate the dead man's hotel room. They discover buckets and burnt matches on the ground. Also, the killer apparently escaped through a window in the back. Calleigh notices fabric in the shards. "It's a start, she says." Indeed, it is.
Back at the lab, Caine and Tara examine the body. The victim was tortured -- whipped and burnt, to be exact. "Maybe someone had an S&M appointment there," Tara theorizes. She then finds a fraternity pin embedded in the young man's chest. "This was a hazing," Tara says. Hazing. S&M. What's the diff?
Seconds later, a frat bro named Neil Scofield is under the hot lights. Not surprisingly, he denies any involvement in the murder. Yes, the victim was a pledge, but that doesn't make preppy Neil a killer. Or does it? Natalia says that the fabric found at the scene matches Neil's jacket. The older boy explains that he left the pledge holding buckets of water while he went to urinate. And that's when the shooting began. "I don't know where the shots came from," he says. Caine, apparently never Greek, oozes contempt.
Calleigh, in the meantime, returns to the scene and uses a laser trajectory to discover where the shot came from. Eric notices a broken bottle nearby. He remembers a long-haired, drunk dude dropping a bottle shortly before the shooting. Faster than you can say "transition," long-haired drunk dude Carl Reston is under the hot lights along with his wife, Molly. Not surprisingly, the couple denies any involvement in the murder even though Carl has a mile-long history of violent crime. Her husband is "past that," Molly insists.
Too many commercials later, Ryan corners Caine. "It's about Eric," he says. "Something is just not right." Ryan shows Caine a note he found in Eric's hotel room mentioning a meeting with a "Enrico Moldano." Caine promises to look into it. And by promises, we mean growls. Sure enough, Caine confronts Moldano at a nearby bar. Eric gave the man $1,000 in exchange for "documents." Moldano refuses to say anything more.
Back at the scene, Calleigh and Frank continue to snoop around. Calleigh notices that a vent near the ceiling has been unscrewed. She crawls through the vent into the next room and discovers a man dead in a bathtub and packed in ice. Seconds later, the second victim's pregnant girlfriend, Linda Bowen, is under the hot lights. Not surprisingly, she denies killing anyone. "Air conditioned stopped working," she says. "He went up into that air duct and found something blocking the flow." Later that day, the victim collapsed and died. So why the ice? "With no wedding ring, I have no claim to Joe's disability checks," the young woman explains.
Ryan, in the meantime, confronts Eric with news. The bullet fragments found in the agent's motel room came from a different gun. "A second shooter," Ryan says. "Is there somebody gunning for you?" Eric admits that he suspects as much -- which is why he was staying at the motel. Eric immediately heads out to confront Enrico. It's a dead end, though -- literally. Moldano lies dead in the trash outside the bar.
One excruciatingly long advertising break later, Ryan discovers a .38 at the scene -- the gun used to kill the first victim. One excruciatingly long montage later, Ryan discovers fingerprints on the gun matching Carl Reston. Seconds later, Carl is back under the hot lights. "Your fingerprint is connected to not one, but two murders today," Frank says. Carl explains that he came into a lot of money and hid it in the air-conditioning vent. When he came back later, the money was gone (the work of Linda's dead husband, perhaps?). He pulled a gun and began arguing with Molly. In the scuffle, the gun went off. "I didn't mean to hit the kid," Carl says. He then tossed the gun.
Sure enough, Ryan and Natalia find the spot where they believe the gun landed. The question, then, is who took the firearm? They discover tire tracks and Ryan takes a few photos. Calleigh, meanwhile, tells Linda that her husband died of a heart attack. "You had mentioned to me that he found something in the air vent," Calleigh says. Sure enough, the agent discovers a sack of cash hidden in the ice dispenser.
Back at the lab, Eric confronts his mother. "My birth certificate is a fake," he says. He got the real one from Enrico Moldano. Mom explains that Eric's real father was her boss at the factory. "It was a mistake, Eric," she says. "Please, let it go!" But you and I and mom all know that Eric can do no such thing.
Back from break, Calleigh interrogates Molly Reston. "Why am I here?" the woman asks. Simple. The bag of money belongs to Molly. But where did it come from? The uniform bills would make it appear that it has something to do with drugs. "I must have misheard you," Molly says. "I've never seen that bag before in my life." Says Calleigh: "That's what I thought." Oddly, the agent seems pleased.
And we soon find out why. Calleigh heads back to the motel to talk to Linda. "Here, this is for you," Calleigh says. "It's the money Joe found in the vent." According to Florida law, whoever finds the money has the right to claim it if the real owner never comes forward. And since Calleigh just convinced the "real owner" not to come forward ... well, you can fill in the rest. Linda hugs Calleigh. "Thank you!" the pregnant woman exclaims. Legal? Yes. Ethical? Meh ...
Back at the lab, Natalia finds a match on the tire marks found at the first murder scene. Caine tells Natalia to look for a woman since lip stick was found at the Moldano scene. Among the 56 owners, only three are woman. Caine recognizes a face: Kate Hawkes, who was spotted at Moldano's bar when Sunglasses first visited the man. Hawkes has now been placed at both scenes. "Thank you," Caine growls.
Seconds later, Ryan and Caine confront Hawkes. A FLASHBACK shows us that the woman shot Moldano. But what does this have to do with Eric? "I shouldn't have missed," the cold-hearted woman sneers. Another FLASHBACK shows us that Hawkes had been aiming for Eric when Carl Reston's accidental shot went off. The distraction made her miss our boy. Hawkes then picked up Reston's gun and used it to kill Moldano. "It was a job," she says. But who hired her? Caine has one guess: Eric's real father. "Where is he?" Caine growls. The woman doesn't know. She is handcuffed and led away just as Eric arrives.
"He's not going away," Caine growls at his friend. "This is just the beginning."
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