Synopsis for
"CSI: Miami"
Rush (2007)

Shots ring out in an abandoned factory as two men wrestle for a gun. Punches and kicks are exchanged as the men engage in what appears to be a fight for their lives. The beatings are merciless as the fight kicks up a notch and the men leap down two floors to the ground. One of the men races to a car. As the tires squeal, he beats a path out of the building but misses a corner and slams into iron girds. The car's trunk flies open just as the vehicle explodes into flames. Over the din of the destruction a voice cuts through the air, "Cut!" The director is not happy-the trunk shouldn't have opened. She yells at the stunt driver, who swears he didn't pop it open. A crew member yells an alert: In the vehicle's trunk lies the very dead body of Hollywood superstar Brody Lassiter (Nick Steele). That certainly wasn't in the script.

It doesn't take long for the media to swarm to the movie set. Horatio (David Caruso) stands back from the circus as he speaks with stuntman Rod Vickers (Steve Bacic). He's cocky but it's an act to cover his real shock over the death of their star. On movie sets, nothing is supposed to be real, especially a death. Horatio moves on to the director (Jennifer Sommerfield). She informs H that Brody's call time wasn't until noon so he shouldn't have even been on set yet and that Brody was an actor who liked to stick by the rules. Every minute he was on set he was paid to be there, so for Brody to arrive early was unusual to say the least. As they talk, a young man, Eddie Corbett (Adam LaVorgna), tries to halt a gurney being wheeled over to pick up Lassiter's body. Horatio wants to know his interest in the body when Eddie tells him he is Brody's "babysitter." He says he grew up with the actor and now he's the guy paid to make sure Brody gets to places on time and in one piece. Brody's family will want an open casket at the funeral, Eddie says. Horatio smiles, telling Eddie they will probably also want to find out who killed him.

Alexx (Khandi Alexander) carefully processes Lassiter's body. He is covered in a whitish powder that glows in the light. Calleigh (Emily Procter) finds a broken glow stick in the trunk. Calleigh guesses that it probably came from a nightclub. But who put Brody in the trunk? The stuntman is the only one with a key. Calleigh has Delko (Adam Rodriguez) sit down for a more in-depth interview with Rod Vickers. Vickers admits that he and Brody took the car out to go clubbing the night before. Rod was drinking but Brody wasn't since he was still in rehab at the White Sands clinic. Brody drove them back to the rehab clinic before turning in. Rod stayed in the car in the parking lot so that he could sleep off some of the alcohol in his system before driving back to his own hotel. He didn't say anything earlier because he was afraid of getting in trouble for using an uninsured production car. He is adamant that he had nothing to do with Brody's death.

Back at the lab, Alexx has Lassiter on the autopsy table. She finds a ligature mark on his neck that indicates he was hanged. She doesn't think it's a suicide as there are scratch marks on his neck where he probably tried to free himself. Any screams would have been par for the course in a rehab center, so no one would have paid much attention had he called for help. Ryan is buoyed by the news though, as now he has probable cause, which equals a search warrant for White Sands clinic.

Horatio and Ryan meet with White Sands front man Peter Ashford (Phil Morris). He claims the clinic saved Lassiter's life as he was getting off his substance abuse and getting clean. When Horatio reminds him there have been two deaths in the center's past, Ashford points out they were suicides and besides, new rules have been implemented to ensure patient safety. The new rules include the removal of all dangerous items or materials. Ryan (Jonathan Togo) serves Ashford with a search warrant for Lassiter's room. Ashford's not happy but has no right of refusal.

Ryan and Natalia (Eva La Rue) process Brody's rehab room. Ryan finds groove marks in the wood rafters where Lassiter was probably hanged. Natalia examines the bed, finding a brunette hair on the bed covers. Ryan finds wet green paint on the book shelves, but the only green items in the region are exterior plant pots. Horatio tracks down fellow rehab patient Jerry Simmons. He had been painting the pots as a form of therapy for his alcoholism. Simmons is a ball of suppressed violence, but he claims he went into Lassiter's room looking for booze, nothing else. He refuses to let Horatio pin the murder wrap on him, and scoffs, "I've been in the hot seat before." Horatio's eyes narrow as he advises the man to get comfortable.

Natalia doesn't get a hit from CODISCODIS on the hair she found in the rehab room. Ryan hopes that Calleigh is having better luck and heads to the break room where she flips through a gossip magazine. They find a photo of Lassiter and a woman inside his rehab room. But who would have taken that shot since it was inside the compound? It's time to track down the girl in the photo, Holly Reese (Alice Greczyn), and ask her some questions.

Calleigh finds Holly at White Sands. She asks what the starlet was doing in Brody's room. Holly tells her that rehab can get really boring so she and Brody were having sex to keep entertained. The photos came from one of the nights when they hooked up. Last night Holly was the hall monitor on duty, she says, so she didn't see Brody. She admits to suffering a blackout sometime during the night and passing out while on duty. Calleigh is amazed at the girl's flippant approach to life and dismisses Holly as a suspect. Meanwhile, Ryan and Natalia are comparing the angle the paparazzi magazine photo was taken at. Ryan realizes that the photo came from a camera within the room and soon uncovers a lipstick cam hidden in the curtains. They take the camera to Dan for examination.

Horatio watches as Dan (Brendan Fehr) scrolls through the footage and they see Peter Ashford adjusting the camera angle. The center director was obviously selling the images to the gossip magazines. Horatio confronts Ashford with the evidence as he is taking out his trash. He has a new search warrant that extends their search rights to include the trash bag. Horatio finds a long white rope inside the bag. Did Ashford adjust the camera angle to record the hanging? Ashford is adamant that he is innocent of the murder. He admits to moving the camera but only after he found Brody dead that morning. He didn't want the camera recording him removing the body. Dead celebrities are bad for business, he explains. Horatio pushes him on who would want Brody dead. Ashford reveals Lassiter had reached Level Six of his rehab: Confessions. Lassiter was going to have to apologize to everyone he ever did wrong by, meaning the suspect pool just got bigger. Horatio has Ashford arrested for accessory to murder.

Delko traces Lassiter's calls from the night before. His confessions were mainly made to people out of state. Delko heads back out to the clinic to find out who else Lassiter might have been planning on confessing to. He asks a group for information on Brody. Everyone refuses to talk except Jolene Kitt (Samantha Streets), another young patient. She tells Horatio that Brody once confessed to her during a session that he killed someone. She was stunned at the time, but never said anything as she wasn't sure if it was real. Delko takes the information and reports back to Det. Frank Tripp (Rex Linn). Frank starts going through the stars history for unexplained deaths. His first stop is Brody's childhood friend Eddie Corbett. Eddie scoffs at the idea that Brody would have ever killed anyone. But when Frank presses him on a missing girl, Angie Paulson, who disappeared while doing a film with Brody, Eddie tenses up, claiming the she was crazy and that they had nothing to do with her disappearance.

Calleigh gets an update from Ryan on the rope found in the trash. Ryan has found traces of heroin on the rope. Magazine reports had Holly in rehab for heroin addiction: could there be a link? They run a test on Holly's hair that shows no recent heroin use. In fact, her hair shows that she has never used heroin in her life. But then why is she in rehab? The answers can only come from Holly, so Calleigh heads out to White Sands. She confronts Holly in her room where the girl is watching news flashes on her "arrest." Holly admits that she is in rehab to research an upcoming role. Ashford knew about her role and allowed her to stay at the clinic. When asked about her hall duty "blackout," Holly admits she lied to avoid having to report what she saw: Jerry Simmons (Myk Watford) walking into Lassiter's room. Apparently Simmons went into Lassiter's room many nights. Holly didn't want everyone to know that she had been photographed in a compromising position with an A-List actor who obviously preferred men.

Natalia and Ryan sit down with Jerry and confront him with the knowledge of his whereabouts the night before. When asked if he and Brody were in a relationship, Simmons admits to stealing from the actor, not having sex with him. He saw an opportunity to make some extra cash by selling Lassiter's personal items, and even agrees to provide the CSIs with a urine sample to prove he is heroin free. He's a thief, not a murderer, he claims.

Delko has news on the rope used to hang Brody: It was made from dental floss. The rope would have taken a long time to make. Jerry has only been in rehab two weeks, so Delko checks into the records and finds Jolene as the longest patient at White Sands. When Delko confronts her, Jolene claims someone stole the rope from her room the night before. She had made the rope to hang herself, but she never found the courage to go through with it. Jolene is a lost and terrified young girl, too scared to leave rehab. The rope was her way out if she ever had to leave. Delko reassures her that her life will get better for her, using his own near-death experience as an example. He leaves Jolene with hope and a positive example to follow.

Meanwhile, Calleigh is flipping through Brody's journal. She finds his obituary, written by Brody the week earlier. It was part of his Level Six recovery. In the writing, he mentions an accident. But there's no record of the accident in his official bio. Calleigh heads down to the morgue to see Alexx. She's found a GCMSsubdural hematoma on Brody's skull. He was probably unconscious when he was hanged, that's why no one heard him scream. Alexx also reveals evidence of older injuries to his ribcage. Brody suffered multiple compression fractures years earlier, probably from a steering wheel impact during a car accident.

Calleigh has Delko check old reports of fatal crashes from Brody's hometown. Natalia flips through the reports, landing on one that fits the bill: A teenager ran her car into the telephone pole and was killed. The name of the victim: Diane Corbett. The girl has the same surname as Brody's assistant, Eddie Corbett. Could Brody have been the driver of the car and moved Diane into the front seat after the crash? Horatio brings Eddie in. The CSIs searched his apartment and found heroin-the same heroin that was found on the rope Brody was hanged with. It turns out Diane Corbett was Eddie's big sister. The night Lassiter died, he was trying to confess to Eddie the truth of the accident when Diane was killed. In a fit of fury, Eddie shoved Brody, who fell hard onto the slate floor. Eddie thought Brody wasn't breathing, so he tried to make it look like a suicide by hanging him. Horatio points out that Eddie ran from the scene, just as Brody had years earlier. Eddie claims it was different this time. Horatio agrees, "Yesthe difference is, you got caught."

Back at White Sands, one patient checks out while another checks in. Jolene bravely wheels her suitcase towards her waiting parents, Delko by her side for support. Upstairs, Ashford checks in their next celebrity patient (Ari Graynor), a hot young singer with a bad case of blow-addiction. As the singer takes her last hit of white powder, she shaves her head bald and stares blankly into the mirror. Another day and another shooting star lands in White Sands.

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi_miami/episodes/520/