After winning an annual dance competition, a popular street dancer, Jesse, is found murdered in his suite in a New York hotel and his girlfriend, Brooke, is barely clinging to life. It appears to be a robbery gone bad but the robbers didn't touch the prize money left on the bed. Jesse was shot but the killer used a simunition round instead of real bullets and Brooke received blunt force trauma to the head which leads the CSI's to ask the question – why did the killer not shoot her? Jesse's closest competition in the dance battles is who the team points the investigation toward initially, but the case takes a turn when we find the couple had been the victims of another robbery just three months earlier. The suspect in the robbery was never arrested for the crime because Jesse did not ID him; even though it was obvious he had a good look at him. Mac and the team question whether the robber came back for a second round. Forensic evidence shows the print found in the suite belongs not to the suspect of the first robbery but Jesse's best friend and business partner, Nate. In a sad twist, Nate admits to the murder but we learn that Jesse is actually the one who orchestrated the whole robbery. Jesse was ashamed that he did not stand up for Brooke during the first robbery and setup this fake robbery in order to redeem himself in his girlfriend's eyes. Nate was just following Jesse's wishes and neither realized the simunition could be deadly.