Off the Hook

Brad Webb is fishing from his boat in a Miami river when he spots a young man about to jump from a bridge. As Brad calls 911, his boat is suddenly hit by a hail of bullets and he’s lucky to survive. Horatio interviews the supposed jumper, Shane Newson, who claims he was just after an adrenaline rush, and the team eventually find the shooter’s rifle on a nearby rooftop. Brad, meanwhile, is brought into protective custody.

In the lab, Calleigh recovers the shooter’s DNA from the gun’s scope – he’s gang member Dario Aguilar who’s quickly picked up. Then Tripp hears of a noise complaint at Shane Newson’s place and he and Horatio find him trashing his own home. Suspicious, they question him further about the morning’s shooting and learn that he’d overheard Brad’s phone calls from the bridge. It seems he’s a bookie – perhaps one of his clients wanted him dead.

Horatio confronts Brad, who’s about to storm out of the station when bullets smash through the windows, narrowly missing their target. Brad has survived again. Of the shooter there’s no trace but the CSIs do find the remnants of a homemade rifle. Horatio realises that parts have come from Newson’s home and brings him in, though he’s not talking.

Then Tripp realises that Newson and Aguilar share the same probation officer, Neal Perkins. Dario soon cracks and explains that Perkins was over his head in debt to Brad Webb and had threatened to frame the two young men if they didn’t kill the bookie. When Dario had missed, Perkins had provided Newson with plans for the homemade gun, remnants of which are soon recovered and on which the probation officer’s handwriting can be identified.

Horatio heads out to arrest Perkins and arrives just in time to prevent him from raping Newson’s sister, Tracy. He’s going to be put away for a long time…