Innocent Sickness

Chapter 1

It was just another standard day in Miami. It was a Friday morning and Horatio was just waking up. He woke up and went for his usual morning jog and then jumped into the shower. He had a headache this morning, which wasn't usual for him. He didn't often get headaches, but he decided to ignore it and forget about it. He got to work early, like usual and began to sort out paperwork. He rubbed his neck as he sat back reading a case file which was just about to be closed, just to double check on it. Zoë knocked on the door and entered when Horatio answered.

"Good morning Horatio." She said with a fresh smile as she strolled over to the desk.

"Good morning Zoë, how may I help you?" He asked as he looked up at her with heavy, tired eyes, but she'd managed to make him feel a little better. She seemed to brighten up the room.

"I was wondering if you had the case file from yesterday? I just want to check something out." She said as she stepped closer and smiled down at him.

"Yes of course, here it is." He said as he lifted a file from his draw and handed it to her from behind his desk.

"Thank you." She said with a gleaming smile as she leant over and took it. He nodded at her with a small forced smile as his headache was beginning to get considerably worse. "Are you okay?" She said whilst lowering her eyebrows, sensing that something wasn't quite right. Horatio never usually looked exhausted.

"Yeah, I'm good." He said with another forced smile as he looked up at her.

"Horatio… what's wrong? Are you feeling okay?" She asked as she put her hands on her hips tilting her head at him with a mild frown.

"There's nothing wrong, I just have a little headache, that's all. It'll go away soon." He said with raised eyebrows trying to brush it off as he gave her a fake, reassuring smile as he blinked a few more times at her.

"Hmm, well if you need anything, I'll be in the AV room." Zoë said as she took her hands off her hips. He nodded and she turned around to walk out. She looked back and raised the file.

"Thanks again." She said as she walked out and then watched him slowly nod.

Over the past few weeks, Horatio and Zoë had become really close friends as had Alexx and Zoë and Ryan and Zoe. Zoë was fitting in so well and all the staff loved having her around. She was such an easy going person that it was hard not to like her, but people knew that she liked her space and that it was easy to get on her wrong side.

She was in the AV room looking over a few tapes when Ryan walked in and joined her.

"Hey there, what are you looking at?" Ryan asked casually as he leant against the desk with an easy smile.

"I'm just going over these tapes from the Annabelle case, I just feel like we perhaps have missed something." She replied while she intensely concentrated on the case as she was sat leaning over the desk and lightly bit her lip.

"What are you looking for?" Ryan asked curiously as he glanced down to the case and moved closer.

"I don't want to bias you." She said while concentrating and then pointed to the frozen screen. "Look, what do you see there?" Zoë said as she sat back and looked up to Ryan. Ryan looked at the screen and analysed it with intensity too.

"It's the killer touching the wall briefly, but he was wearing gloves. We can't get any prints." Ryan said as he stood back and crossed his arms then looked down at Zoë.

"Look closer, he doesn't have his gloves on yet. I'll bet money on that that is our suspect down in the holding room." Zoë said still looking up at Ryan. Ryan took a closer look.

"Oh yeah! Why didn't we see that before?" Ryan asked questioningly.

"Perhaps we were too caught up in trying to get the killers face?" She said as she crossed her arms.

"Yeah… I'm going to drop by and try and get those prints." Ryan said as he slowly moved for the door.

"I'll join you." She said as she got up and they walked out of the AV lab together. Eric was in trace working another case. Ryan and Zoë walked down to their hummers. They drove over to the crime scene and pulled the prints with ease. They were on their way back to the lab before they knew it. Ryan ran the prints against the suspect.

Meanwhile, Horatio's headache was getting worse, he was finding it a lot more difficult to concentrate and was starting to get very tired. He went to get a coffee and sat back down at his desk and carried on with his reading and paper work.

Zoë walked into the prints lab and found Eric running the prints against the suspect. The screen showed a match so they interrogated the suspect again who eventually gave the confession, along with all of the evidence against him he was going to get life imprisonment. He seemed happy enough about the murder and began gloating about how easy it was.

"Well Mr. Hitcher, I hope you're just as happy with your cell for the rest of your life." Zoë said with a smirk.

"I'll be out before you know it, and I'm going to get you." Stanley Hitcher said with venom.

"We'll see about that Mr. Hitcher, take him away." She said as she looked at the officers. They took him away and she turned to Ryan and sighed with a smile, happy that they had caught him.

"Coffee?" Zoë said with a smile walking out of the room.

"Definitely" Ryan said as he followed her, they walked in to the break room and Ryan sat on the sofa. Zoë passed him a coffee as she leant against the wall. Eric walked in and asked them if they had seen Horatio as he needed to speak with him.

"No, I've not seen him; perhaps he's just nipped out? If I see him I'll tell him that you're looking for him." Zoë replied and then sipped her coffee.

"Yeah, same." Ryan said looking up at him from the sofa.

"Okay, thanks." Eric replied.

"Do you want a hand?" Ryan asked.

"No, I've got it, thanks." Eric replied as he walked out of the room. Eric picked up his phone and phoned Horatio. But he didn't get and answer so he walked outside to see if Horatio's hummer was gone. It wasn't.

Zoë and Ryan got back to work on different things.

Eric pulled his phone out again.

"Hey Zoë it's Eric, Horatio's hummer is still here, he's not answering his phone." Eric said concerned as Horatio usually always answered his phone.

"Okay, I'll give him a ring; you know what he's like. He's probably gone on a wander to think the case through."

Zoë pulled her phone out of her pocket and gave Horatio a ring. The phone rang but he didn't answer.