According to CSI Files sources, “Friendly Fire” opens as crowds gather at the Quartz store to buy the latest, coolest phone. The walls turn into TV screens, and customers watch a video of Quartz founder Matthew discussing the revolutionary Quartz SP. He seems like a vibrant man, but illness has taken its toll on him since the video was filmed. He’s surrounded by technology in his penthouse, but even a billionaire genius can’t avoid getting sick. There are bottles of pills lined up on his nightstand as he struggles to get out of bed, and the light streaming through the window reveals that he is a shadow of his former self.
Matthew shifts from the bed to a wheelchair, rolling toward the balcony. As he looks out at the stunning Miami view, his phone buzzes to let him know he has a text message. He pulls out his own Quartz and looks at the screen. The first text message says “goodbye”, and Matthew receives several more messages in quick succession: “3″, “2″, “1″. Matthew’s eyes widen, and a red dot appears in the middle of his forehead. He slumps over, dead, and the Quartz falls to the ground and cracks.
Matthew’s girlfriend Amanda finds his body when she comes over for breakfast. She’s shocked to realize that he’s truly gone; even after he got sick, she was confident that he would get better. Matthew had plenty of enemies, Amanda says, but that comes with the territory when someone is brilliant, rich and successful. The team is going to have a hard time figuring out who is behind this murder.
Eric finds a wire hidden in Matthew’s home, and a fingerprint leads back to Jerry, the acting CEO of Quartz. He tells the team he had no choice but to keep an eye on his boss because the medication he was taking was affecting his mind. Jerry was just trying to protect the company. The CSIs point out that he had reason to want Matthew out of the way so he could take over, but Jerry insists that he considered Matthew a mentor and would never hurt him.
The team discovers that Matthew’s will has been removed from his safe, and a hair on the safe leads back to Amanda. She says she removed the will at Matthew’s request, transferring it to a safe deposit box. Sometimes the medication made him paranoid, and he said people were after his money. She thought the threat was all in his head, but she obeyed his wishes because she didn’t want him to worry.