CSI Miami - Freefall - Episode Spoilers

[Jojo]

the episode begins with teenagers Wayne and TJ, who are breaking into an abandoned hotel called the Mayfair. They call themselves Urban Explorers, and their main objective seems to be breaking into abandoned buildings to collect antique artifacts. Wayne is excited about the possibilities the Mayfair holds, since the hotel once hosted legendary patrons such as Frank Sinatra and other members of the Rat Pack. TJ does not share Wayne's enthusiasm – it's getting late and the abandoned hotel is giving him the creeps.

TJ has reason to be hesitant. As Wayne continues to explore the area, appreciating everything from the phones to the walls, TJ hears the unmistakable sound of wood giving in. The teenager has no time to run before the floor beneath him gives in and he falls through the wood, down to the next floor and into a tub. TJ barely has time to get his bearings back before he realizes he's lying on a bed of maggots. In the tub, the teenager comes face to face with two putrefying bodies that are being devoured by thousands of worms. The experience couldn't possibly get more horrifying - until one of the bodies comes to life and desperately grabs TJ by the arm.

When Horatio and the team arrive at the scene, Wayne and TJ are being interrogated by the cops. The dead body has been identified as Manny Vargas and his brother Miguel, who gave TJ the biggest scare of his life, is being taken to the hospital. Both men were shot through the back of the head; Miguel was lucky, Manny was not. Both men were armed, but neither seemed to have the time to defend themselves. Could they have been ambushed? The cold blooded murder has the distinctive signature of a cartel hit.

Horatio talks to Nicolas Suarez, new owner of the Mayfair. Nicolas admits his advisor told him it would be a waste of money to invest on security before the renovations on the hotel begin, and that, regrettably, made it easy for anyone to break in. The man agrees to give Horatio a list of contractor employees. Just a couple of feet away, Ryan meets with reporter Erica Sikes, who already seems to know more about the case than the CSIs themselves. Ryan tries not to give the reporter too much information, but knows Erica would put her life on the line for a good story.

The detectives find Miguel's van and discover it was given a parking ticket three days ago in front of the Miami Mutual bank. They also find hundred dollar bills bitten to pieces by rats. Whatever killed Manny was definitely money related. Delko talks to Jason Adams, manager of the branch, who says nothing exciting has happened in the bank, except for a man whose car was stolen while he was using the ATM outside. Turns out this car was taken by none other than Miami's criminal duo of Leo Riggs and Sienna Stone.

Leo and Sienna were first seen in the episode "Fade Out," in which they stole 10k from a bank and were attempting to flee Miami. The couple was detained, but not before releasing the money into the air, making a few pedestrians very happy. Leo and Sienna have since them become media darlings, but it's obvious they learned nothing from their stay in jail. Leo and Sienna have not only stolen a car, but also the money Miguel and Manny were so interested in, and when the CSIs discover the money ultimately belonged to a Colombian drug lord, the detectives decide they need to protect these two naive criminals before they fall prey to bigger predators

[Jojo]

Tom Jennings and Wayne Leonard, two teen "urban explorers" who peruse abandoned buildings looking for loot, are shocked to discover two maggot covered bodies in the Delgado hotel. One of the men is alive, and the police rush to the scene. Tripp tells Horatio the men are Mariano and Garcia Vargas, and that they were shot execution style. Mariano is still alive, and is rushed to the hospital. Ryan joins them at the scene, but not before he tells reporter Erica Sikes, eagerly seeking a story, to back off. Alexx examines Garcia's body and determines the brothers were shot three days ago, and the maggots feasting on Mariano's head wound was what kept it clean--and him alive. While Calleigh ponders where the bullet might have gone, Horatio and Tripp interrogate the hotel owner, Nicholas Suero, who claims he didn't have the funds to hire security to guard the hotel. Horatio and Tripp demand a list of his employees.

Delko and Tripp head over to Mariano's apartment, which looks like it's been robbed. Delko spots a fat wad of cash in an air conditioning grate, and takes it back to the lab. Calleigh calls in treasury agent Peter Elliott to look at the money, but it's all business between them after he neglected to tell her he had a fiancée the last time she saw him ("Urban Hellraisers". He shows her the bills are at least sixteen years old and would have normally have been taken out of circulation. He's seen older bills used by drug cartels before, and notes the rat bites around the edges of the bills. Tripp has discovered a parking ticket issued to Mariano Vargas's van in front of the Miami Dade bank three days ago, so he and Horatio question the bank's manager, Jason Adams. They show him the bills, which he assures them would have been taken out of circulation if they'd come through his bank. He does recall an odd occurrence from three days ago: a bank patron's red corvette was stolen. Tripp searches the impound records and finds a record for a red corvette stolen by Leo Riggs and Sienna Stone, last seen being arrested in the corvette in "Fade Out".

Calleigh and Ryan examine the evidence from Leo and Sienna's case. The couple were caught with a 9-millimeter gun, which could have been the weapon used to shoot the Garcia brothers, but Calleigh needs a bullet to compare striations. The money seems to be from the same source--there are rat bites on the bills Leo and Sienna were caught with. Calleigh and Ryan go to intercept the couple, who have just been released from jail and are being glamorized as a modern day Bonnie and Clyde by Erica Sikes. Leo and Sienna blow off the CSIs questions and Erica is equally dismissive of Ryan's attempts to warn her about the dangers of pursuing this story. The CSIs turn back to the gun; the bullet in Mariano's head can't be removed as it's keeping him from bleeding to death, but the CSIs are able to track the bullet that killed Garcia down in one of the objects Wayne stole from the hotel--an old typewriter. Calleigh fires the gun at the lab and compares the striations, but they don't match, forcing the CSIs to try their luck with Leo and Sienna again.

Ryan and Calleigh find the couple at the Fairmont Hotel, where Erica is working on a glamorous segment featuring the couple in the hotel's penthouse. Ryan and Calleigh interrupt just as a sniper takes aim and fires at Leo and Sienna on the balcony. The pair survives, but Erica's arm is grazed and Ryan sends her off to the hospital. Horatio tries and fails to put Leo and Sienna under police protection while Tripp tracks down the corvette's owner, Danny Harper, who admits to leaving his keys in the car hoping someone would steal it. Danny couldn't make the payments, but he figured if the car got stolen, he could collect on the insurance. Danny also recalls seeing Leo and Sienna grab a back of money out of a van before jumping into his car and driving off. While Delko goes over the car again and fines the drug money in the door panels of the car, Calleigh determines the rounds from the penthouse apartment are from the same gun the Vargas brothers were shot with. Calleigh and Ryan turn to footage from the state of the art Photo Violation Meter and find a shot of Garcia Vargas loading moneybags into the van. The bank was involved somehow. Horatio interrogates Jason Adams, who admits that he was storing drug money for Nicholas Suero. He claims Suero threatened his family. Suero denies the charges when Horatio talks to him, and says he didn't kill the Vargas brothers.

Delko finds Jason Adams is in deeper than he claims when he finds UV ink used to sign documents in banks on Garcia Vargas's shirt. Horatio arrests Adams only to have Peter Elliott step in and claim federal jurisdiction over the case because he's found evidence that the bank was giving fraudulent loans to developers. Horatio has hit a major dead end. Meanwhile, Leo and Sienna are back to their old tricks--they robbed a convenience store and a civillian helped them escape. Erica Sikes wastes no time in interviewing the man. The CSIs are surprised to learn that Leo and Sienna have escaped in a silver BMW registered to Nicholas Suero. Peter Elliot brings Horatio a 9-millimeter gun from Adams' briefcase, which proves to be a match to the one that killed Garcia Vargas. Horatio gets Adams in the interrogation room--after Leo and Sienna stole the money, Suero came after Adam for it, and he believed the Vargas brothers had stolen it. He got them to meet him at the Delgado hotel and shot them execution style. When he realized that it was Leo and Sienna who stole the money, he went after them. He claims he was trying to set up Suero, who was threatening his family.

Ryan and Calleigh have tracked the car Leo and Sienna stole to a bridge, and along with a police unit, locate the thrill seekers and cut them off. Leo and Sienna decide to go out in a blaze of glory, jumping over the bridge to their deaths rather than being taken into custody again. Erica looks on horrified as the couple jumps. There's one more shock in store for the CSIs when Calleigh opens the trunk of the car and finds Nicholas Suero's dead body inside. Leo and Sienna killed the drug lord. Calleigh dismisses Peter Elliott, angry that he took the case out from under the lab and certain she can't trust him again. Erica Sikes thinks she's finally gotten her story, but Horatio takes the video footage from her of Leo and Sienna's final jump.