&/&/&
Horatio Caine was still uncertain as what awaited him and his team as he slipped into the passenger seat of his Hummer. In an uncharacteristic gesture, he rested his head against the window and allowed himself to get lost in thought as Speed drove them to the crime scene.
A sharp whistle draws Horatio's attention outward as Speed parked the Hummer in front of a stately mansion that had seen better days.
"Talk about old modern," Speed quipped.
"Old money," Horatio specified as he climbed out into the early afternoon sunlight. "Claude and Gertrude Joseph."
"Joseph?" Speed inquired. "Didn't he get his start in the recording business?"
"Yes, but marrying into money also helped."
Speed snicker. "Yes, that can be helpful."
"Let's go see what Alexx has for us," Horatio remarked. "And Speed?"
"I know. Keep the commentary to myself."
&/&/&
Alexx Woods was kneeling next to an older man giving him a precursory examination when she heard footsteps. She looked up in time to see Horatio and Speed enter the mansion's foyer.
"I'm only going to say this once," she told them as they joined her. "This case reminds me of the last act of Hamlet."
Horatio rolled his eyes. Ever since Belle King drew his attention to it, it seemed like there had been an almost everyday reference to the melancholy Dane and his play.
"Please tell me they didn't name the kid Hamlet," Speed remarked as he knelt next to the cooling body of a twenty-something male still grasping a hunting knife in his right hand. There were several bullet holes in his upper torso that still leaked blood.
"Worse."
"Oh?"
"Yorrick," Alexx replied.
"Alas, I knew him well," Eric quoted as he walked in from the patio.
Horatio barely restrained a groan. "Where's Calleigh?"
"Out at the pool," Eric explained. "We just found the daughter. It looks like she stumbled upon this and ran for help only to trip over a deck chair and fall into the pool."
"Did you pull her out?" Alexx asked.
"Yeah," Eric answered. "The initial report said that several gunshots were fired and Calleigh found a gun next to the overturned chair. She's hoping that if the girl used the gun that there still might be some GSR on her."
"There's no if about it," Speed countered.
"Speed,' Horatio cautioned the younger man.
"Tell me she at least has a normal name."
"Olivia," came from Frank Tripp as he entered the room.
"That could be considered fairly normal, but why do I feel like we've walked into a comedy of errors," Horatio observed, feeling the beginnings of a nasty headache forming behind his eyes.
&/&/&
Horatio sighed as he read over the autopsy reports Alexx had compiled for the Joseph family. His head was killing him.
"Unbelievable," he muttered.
A black coffee cup and a bottle of aspirin appeared next to him forcing him to look up. He softly smiled when he saw Speed standing next to his desk.
"The truth can be stranger than fiction, H," the brunette remarked returning Horatio's smile.
"Strange doesn't begin to describe this case," Horatio reasoned as he signed off on Alexx's reports. "Yorrick discovers that Claude murdered his real father so he could marry Gertrude. In a fit of pique, Yorrick makes Gertrude drink poison and watch him murder Claude by stabbing him multiple times in the chest and abdomen. At which point the daughter comes home and sees this. She finds Claude's gun and shoots Yorrick. She runs to get help only to trip into the pool and drown because she didn't know how to swim."
"Yeah," Speed drawled. "That about sums it up."
"Then I'm going to need something stronger than aspirin." Horatio tossed the pen onto his desk. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes as he tried to will away the pain.
"I've an idea," Speed said quietly. He stepped behind Horatio and began to knead the knots from the redhead's shoulders.
"Oh?" Horatio tried to say, but it turned into a moan.
"I take you home and have my wicked way with you," Speed whispered into Horatio's ear.
Horatio felt a shiver of desire course through his body and the pain in his head was forgotten. He stood up and followed Speed from his office. "Lead on McDuff," he murmured.
"Wrong play," Speed teased.
"Shut up," Horatio growled before he pulled Speed into a tight embrace and fiercely kissed him.
&/&/&
Calleigh and Eric watched Horatio and Speed leave the lab for the night.
"I'm glad you stopped me from going up there and telling Horatio who is going to inherit the Joseph's estate," Calleigh wryly said.
"I don't think he could take knowing that a couple of clowns named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would be getting all that money," Eric surmised.
"So we tell him in the morning, if Speed lets him come to work?"
"Good idea."
"What do you want to do?"
"Me, you and hot monkey sex?" Calleigh proposed with a twinkle of lust in her eye.
"You're on."
&/&/&
The curtain draws close on another day in a place called Miami.