At Calleighs apartment, Eric looked around. The one good thing about Calleigh, everything had it's place. Everything looked so pristine; almost like no one lived there at all.
Eric went through her mail, just bills and ads. Next he rummaged through her trash and found something that caught his eye. It was a brown envelope with the all to familiar evidence tape on it.
"Evidence?" Eric thought, "why would Calleigh have an envelope of evidence in her garbage? Or even her house?"
He put it in another evidence envelope looking very disgusted that someone he trusted with his life was hoarding confidential evidence.
He continued on through the apartment. Bed was cleanly made, nothing out of place. He walked into the kitchen. This room looked different than the others. There was still a half eaten plate of food and half a glass of orange juice sitting on the table.
It wasn't like Calleigh to be in such a rush in the mornings. She was always the first on the scene. He took a few pictures around the apartment and was walking towards the door when he noticed something. He saw her badge sitting on an end table. Beside it was her gun holster with no gun inside.
"This can't be good. Calleighs out there with no gun and no police badge," Eric thought to himself getting more and more worried by the minute, "I need to call Horatio."
He picked up the phone and told him everything he saw, he was a little hesitant on whether he should tell Horatio about the evidence envelope and decided Horatio didn't need to know if he could sneak it back into the evidence locker.
When Eric arrived at the crime lab, Horatio was waiting at the front desk for him.
"So Eric, I have the two other bullets from the girls back. I was about to go to the lab and analyse them when I saw you coming. How's the investigation going? You told me that she left in a rush this morning. That is highly unusual for Calleigh but not enough grounds to arrest someone for kidnapping her," Horatio stated calmly.
"Well, yes. She did leave in a rush. I can't tell why though. I brought some of her stuff back with me to see if there was anyone else in the house with her that made her be in such a rush," Eric replied.
At the lab, Eric laid the envelope with the evidence envelope inside on the table in front of him still trying to figure out what Calleigh was doing with it.
Horatio walked in. "I'm here to help," he stated, "I want to find her just as much as you do."
He studied all the objects that were laid out on the table. Trying to piece together why Calleigh would be kidnapped by a bunch of junk mail and rotten food was very difficult. Then he noticed the unopen envelope.
Horatio opened it with a very confused look on his face after seeing yet another evidence envelope, "Eric, why did you double wrap the evidence in this envelope?"
"Um," Eric hesitated, "I didn't. I found that envelope in Calleighs garbage can. I never opened it to see what she had taken though."
Horatio opened it. Inside was a picture of a woman sitting on the ground of what looked like an empty storage facility. Her back was propped up against the wall of a crate. She was blindfolded and had lots of blood pouring out from the top of her head along with, from what Horatio could tell, hundreds of scrapes all over her body. Through all the blood you could still see one thing, she had a very worried look on her face. It was Calleigh.
Another piece of paper fell out of the envelope. It looked like a handwritten letter. The letter read:
Dear Lieutenant Horatio Caine,
Calleigh is a very beautiful person, isn't she? I am definitely going to have fun with her. Although I would be able to settle down and make a trade with you. 1 million dollars should suffice. Bring it to the empty lot on Flagler Street and you can have her back, a little shaken up maybe, buy alive.
I must also warn you, if you can't make this switch by midnight on Thursday, I will have to kill her. It will be a very slow and painful death, but all the means will reach the same end. You could take your chances if you wanted to and hope that I don't kill her to quickly for you to be her hero.
Don't forget.
The Ace Kidnapper
Horatio put down the letter.
"This is a ransom notice. It says we have until Thursday at midnight until they kill her. We need to hurry up," Horatio said looking astonished.