Chapter 4. See 1 for disclaimers, etc. The final scene in this chapter is
my second favorite in Complications. It's as close to fluff as this story
gets. We haven't come to my favorite scene yet, but I'm sure you could
make a good guess at which scene that is. It will come, just not yet. Be
patient.
***
"No man can think himself out of a cell. If he could, there would be no prisoners."
"A man can so apply his brain and ingenuity that he can leave a cell, which is the same thing."
Exchange from the Problem of Cell 13, Jacques Futrelle
***
Horatio sat on the bed with his legs stretched out, his back propped against the wall. Calleigh had removed the towel bandage, and they both surveyed the wound, Horatio seeing it for the first time. It gaped open, and the edges were reddened and definitely inflamed. The leg looked swollen, too, when compared to the other one. Calleigh stared at it as if the sight would change. "I don't know what else to do with it," she said helplessly.
"There's nothing else you can do," Horatio reassured her. Anyone just hearing the voices would have assumed that she was the one injured. "It was already contaminated from the accident, you said. You probably helped a lot by washing some of the dirt out. So it isn't nearly as bad as it would have been otherwise. The team is working on finding us, and they'll get here soon. I'll just have to be on antibiotics for a while after they catch Otis, that's all." He didn't really think it was quite that simple, and the sight of that wound jolted him, too, but he was trying to stay optimistic for them, to steady her. She sounded closer to the edge of panic than she had at any point so far.
Calleigh switched from worrying about the infection to worrying about the obvious angle. "It needs to be set, too. I'm afraid it's going to start healing like that. But I didn't have the strength to pull it straight, Horatio."
"Easy," he said soothingly. She was wringing her cuffed hands together, and he reached out to capture them with his own, stilling her soul with a touch. "That's fixable too. They might have to rebreak it, but I'll survive that." His eyes met hers. "We'll win, Calleigh. We just don't quite know how yet. All three of us are going to be okay, I promise you."
Calleigh knew it was ridiculous, but she actually was comforted somewhat. Believing him was habitual. His steady hands still had their calm strength, even if they felt feverish. She took a deep breath and squeezed them. "I wish you were in a hospital somewhere, but I'm glad you're here with me, Horatio." It was selfish of her, but the thought of being in this alone was overwhelming.
"I'm glad I am, too. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else besides where you are. No matter where that is." He smiled at her. "Just think, when you're in the hospital giving birth after this is all over, I'll be a patient there, too. And we'll still be together."
Calleigh surprised herself by laughing. "I think family hospitalization is taking togetherness too far."
He grinned at her, the quirky smile that she loved, and managed to hide the effort it took. "It beats family abduction."
"Any day," she agreed. Bless you, Horatio, she thought silently. Five minutes ago, she could not have imagined laughing about anything, much less their current situation. She knew that he was trying to relieve some of her tension, but the knowledge didn't stop his efforts from succeeding. The ringing in her ears, which had been on a steady crescendo for the last 30 minutes, slowly eased back down to a low murmur.
Horatio gave her hands a squeeze after a few minutes. "Feeling better?"
"Yes," she said. "I'm the one who ought to be asking you that."
He smiled at her reassuringly but did not answer the implied question. She didn't push him. They both knew the answer, after all. He slid to the edge of the bed, wincing at the movement. "I might as well get cleaned up the best I can before you rewrap it." He stood tentatively.
Calleigh hugged him as far as the cuffs would allow, unobtrusively trying to support him a bit at the same time. His catlike neatness was still healthy, at least. "You're right. No point in letting Otis take our dignity away from us. I'll get cleaned up after you do."
He pulled away from her and leaned on the wall instead, then worked his way along it to the bathroom. He was still considerate as ever, fully aware of her condition. Calleigh weighed him against Otis mentally. He was right. They had to win. Otis simply didn't measure up to Horatio. She rested one hand on her abdomen, thinking of Rosalind. It will be all right, she promised her daughter silently. Your father says it will be all right, and he never lies.
She picked up some clean clothes for him from the pile and took them to him, helping him as much as she could. After he had cleaned up, he stretched out on the bed again, and she rewrapped his leg with a fresh towel, then helped him slip on another pair of pants over the bandage. He was trembling by the time they were done. There was simply no way to bandage the leg without moving it repeatedly. Afterwards, Calleigh sat there next to him silently, holding his hands, comforting him in turn until the pain-wracked body subsided into stillness. His grateful eyes never left her face.
Finally, she gave his hands a final squeeze and stood up. "I'll get cleaned up too, Horatio." He nodded and let his eyes fall shut. Calleigh got fresh clothes for herself and went into the bathroom. Amazing what just taking a bath could do for the human spirit, even if you were limited to working with a large sink and a spray attachment instead of a tub. Feeling a bit better, she went back into the main room.
Horatio was still on the bed and didn't look like he had moved in the last ten minutes. His eyes remained closed. She reached out to rest a hand on his forehead, judging his fever, and the gnawing bite of fear returned. He needed some antibiotics. Where was the team? How much longer would they be prisoners here? Horatio opened his eyes and looked up into her worried ones, and she could see the wheels turning. "What are you thinking, Horatio?"
"You're beautiful," he said simply.
Calleigh almost laughed. She knew that she looked far from her best. On the other hand, so did he, and she suddenly felt overwhelmed with love herself. "So are you," she replied. In every way, body and soul, her mind added.
He captured her hand again, and for a brief moment, they could almost forget the handcuffs and Otis. Then Rosalind shifted, kicking, and her movement brought them back to their predicament. "We will get out of here," he promised again. "All three of us."
Calleigh walked around the bed to lie down next to him. "I know," she said, and silently added, and it had better be soon, for the sake of all three of us. Where was everyone?
***
"That is not Stewart Otis." Speed's voice was definite.
"Of course it is," the warden replied. "Bracelet number, physical description. Everything in the paperwork matches."
"Then the paperwork is wrong," Speed insisted. "I'm telling you, it isn't him." It seemed perfectly obvious to him. The warden must be blind.
Speed and Eric were with the warden outside the visiting room, peering through the window at the man who had been pulled out of his cell and brought down for them. He sat at the table fidgeting, knotting his fingers together like a quitting chain smoker trying not to think about cigarettes.
Eric fought down his frantic urgency and tried to explain coherently. "It's a close resemblance, but the whole attitude is wrong. The eyes . . . " He broke off, trying to pin it down himself, but he couldn't quite get there. One of Otis' main advantages in selecting victims had been looking completely ordinary. This man was similar. Hair, build, anything found in a description matched. Superficially, it was there. But. . . Eric grasped it finally. "He's nervous. See how he's looking around? He's scared about something."
"We just pulled him out of his cell at midnight," the warden pointed out. "Anybody would know something's going on."
"Stewart Otis never looked frightened. Not even at his trial. Never nervous, either. I'm telling you, it's a prisoner switch."
"If Otis had switched with another prisoner and escaped under his name, we would at least know someone was missing. Everybody's accounted for."
Speed had had enough. "To hell with talking about it. Look at his hands. Otis performed surgery on himself to alter all of his fingerprints. His finger pads are scarred."
The warden consulted Otis' file, then nodded. "Okay, we'll look at his fingers. But you're on the wrong trail. No one has escaped from this prison."
Speed jerked the door open before the warden had even finished this speech. He plowed through the gap to the prisoner and grabbed his arm by the wrist, turning the hand over. "Hey!" the man protested. None of them paid any attention. Eric, Speed, and the warden were all looking at the hands, the pristine, unmarred fingertips.
The warden looked back down at his record, reading the fine print at the bottom of the description page. "Oh my God," he said, invoking not the deity but his supervisors. Heads would roll for this. His might well be one of them.
"Where's Otis?" Eric demanded.
"I don't know what you're talking about, man. I'm Stewart Otis." Any similarity ended at the voice. This man's was high, squeaky, and tense.
"Cut the crap," Speed said. "We know that's a lie. Where is he?"
The man ran his tongue quickly over his dry lips. "I'm telling you, I'm Otis."
Eric weighed the frantic fear in the man's eyes, a mirror of his own feelings for Horatio and Calleigh. "What does he have on you? Who does he have on you?"
"I. Am. Otis." Each word landed with desperate emphasis. This man was terrified, and it wasn't of them.
Speed took the easy way. "Fine, we'll run your prints. Anyone inside is in AFIS. We'll find out who you are."
The prisoner pulled his hand out of Speed's grasp, folding his fingers together, protecting his prints as the warden stepped to the door and called for a guard. Speed and Eric stood there watching the man. "He has my friends," Eric said fiercely. "If anything happens to them, you're an accomplice."
The man's eyes met his, with a sick fear behind them. "I am Otis," he repeated helplessly.
Speed and Eric gave up and paced the room in tandem while the guard was coming.
***
"Thomas Pendergrass," the warden said, pulling the file. They were all in his office now. "Did time for drug charges and manslaughter. He got addicted and became a meth cook to support his habit, but he wasn't too careful of his ingredients. His drugs killed a bigwig's daughter. He served his time, no problems, and he was released on parole a week and a half ago." He looked back up from the file at Speed and Eric. "Same physical description as Otis, only the hair is a little darker. He must have dyed it to match Otis, and Otis dyed his to match Pendergrass."
Eric wanted to bolt out of the office and forced himself to stay seated, to hear all of the facts. His mind had taken up a chorus that echoed relentlessly. A week and a half. Otis was a week and a half ahead of them.
"What does Otis have on him?" Speed wondered. "Why would he cooperate?"
"Any family?" Eric asked, thinking of that fear in the man's eyes. "Who's next of kin?"
The warden flipped through the file. "A wife, Erica. And a 6-year-old son."
"That's got to be it," Eric said. "Otis is holding his family to buy his cooperation."
"Wait a minute," Speed put in. "If he had the family abducted before Pendergrass was paroled, so he could take his place, that means he's got someone working with him, someone already outside. He's got an accomplice. An accomplice who would abduct a 6-year-old kid to help out a friend."
Eric and Speed both erupted from their chairs then, unable to sit any longer. "I'll process Otis' cell, you process Pendergrass' house," said Eric.
"Right." They nearly collided in the doorway as they charged out of the office. Horatio and Calleigh were out there, and they weren't being held by just Otis but also by another like him. And the lead wasn't just a week and a half. Behind them, in the suddenly quiet office, the warden hesitated, then reluctantly picked up the phone to tell his superiors that a prisoner had escaped a week and a half ago, and he hadn't even noticed.
***
Calleigh came back to the bed holding their two cups, and Horatio accepted his. "Thank you, Calleigh." He sipped the hot tea appreciatively.
Calleigh climbed onto the bed beside him, sitting up, propped against the wall. He sat up himself and gingerly dragged his body back, joining her. "What day is it, Horatio? Do you know?"
He glanced at his watch. "7:30 PM, but I admit, I've lost track on days. Two or three, maybe."
"I'm losing track, too. It seems like forever." She took a sip of her own tea.
"It won't be forever," he replied. "The team is working on this. Right now, they're getting closer." The conviction in his voice wasn't any less. Calleigh studied him while finishing her drink. Other than the fever and the pain in his leg, he really didn't seem too much different from his usual self. He seemed to be being as honest with her as he was with himself, but she wished she could gauge how honest that was. His stubborn will might be deceiving even him about his true condition. They had to get him on antibiotics and get his leg treated. Another growing worry was how little he was eating. He did try to eat for her, but it was obviously an effort to force down every mouthful. Hot tea was about the only thing he really finished off.
He finished his cup now and looked over at her, gauging her in turn with a frown of worry behind the blue eyes. "How are you feeling?"
"That ringing in my ears is louder again," she admitted. "Sounds like a swarm of bumblebees. What about you?"
"I feel like I'm coming down with a virus, but it honestly isn't that bad, Cal. The leg hurting bothers me more. We'll get some antibiotics when we get out, and I'll be fine. Maybe it would help your blood pressure to think about something else for a while." Her expression changed, and he read her thoughts. "That's not letting Rosalind down. There's nothing we can do at the moment, not until the team finds us or Otis comes back in. We've covered all the possibilities in that situation. You accused me once of just running on a mental hamster wheel. I think we're getting close to that here. A break will do us both good."
Calleigh considered it, then finally nodded. "You're right, I guess. But it's easier said than done." She spread her hands slightly, and the cold clink of the handcuffs was heard. "This reality is a little hard to forget."
Horatio rose to the challenge. "What's your favorite memory?"
She smiled, her mind shifting tracks instantly. "It's hard to give a favorite, but the day I met you is right up there. I was looking for something meaningful to throw my life into, some purpose, some way to help people, and you walked into that PD in Louisiana looking for me. I saw you through a door even before I knew you were there for me, and it was magnetic. Partly physical, I admit. But the purpose set you apart. I knew instantly that you were a man who had a purpose. I envied you that, Horatio, before I even knew anything else about you."
He smiled in turn. "I remember when you came into the room to meet me. I couldn't help thinking that you were like a gun yourself, like a handgun. Small but efficient and even deadly when needed. And then the hair. You had it caught up, and I was overcome with this image of setting it free and running my fingers through it. I couldn't get the thought out of my mind. And believe me, I wasn't used to thoughts like that with people. Then, getting to know you through CSI, it was like a dream. It just kept getting better, Cal. Every new aspect of personality I discovered improved the whole picture."
"I felt the same way, Horatio. I lived for working with you, learning more about you, and then I'd go home and dream about you at night. I just didn't realize for years that you wanted more, too."
He gave her an apologetic grin. "Sorry about that. I wanted more from the first second. I was just afraid you would get hurt."
"I know. You had decided you were a jinx on the world." His eyes went distant, remembering all the people close to him who had died, all the reasons he had come to that conclusion. "Don't think about the bad times, Horatio. That isn't much escape for us. What's your happiest memory from childhood? Tell me some of the good ones."
He considered it. "Hard to pick one. There were good moments." His mind seized on one. "Family reading sessions. We were happiest as a family then, I think. Even Ray. Mom liked to have us all read classical literature out loud sometimes in the evenings."
"Ray enjoyed that?" Calleigh wondered. It didn't quite match her picture of Raymond, the younger brother who had never quite felt that he measured up to his sibling, who had never quite found himself, not even through marriage and fatherhood.
"Very much, actually. Especially plays. He was a born actor, Calleigh. He could play a role so well, I think he finally lost himself in them." He hesitated for a moment. "I never could do that. I'm not an actor." He didn't have the ego for it, Calleigh thought. "Mom loved to hear me read passages to her, though."
Calleigh could imagine it. Actor or not, hearing that voice speak some of the world's great lines would be worth buying a ticket for. She suddenly wanted to hear it herself. "Tell me some of them."
He let his mind open the files of the past. "Shakespeare was always Mom's favorite. So much variety there. Love, beauty, ugliness. It amazes me now, working at CSI and seeing all I do, how much Shakespeare knew about human character. He had it all down, Cal. Let's see, the lines. Sometimes, we'd read the preparing for battle speeches. Henry V is the best play there. It has two wonderful pep talks that the king gives the troops. Ray loved those. That play was his favorite."
"What were they?" she prompted him. "Come on, Horatio, I'd really like to hear a few."
"The speech right before the big battle is my favorite in the play. 'He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart. His passport shall be made, and crowns for convoy put into his purse. We would not die in that man's company that fears his fellowship to die with us.' The other pep talk was the speech Ray really got into, though. 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.'" He grinned at Calleigh. "He would act it out. Mom and I would both be enthralled watching him. 'When the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.'" He broke off the recitation with a wince as he stiffened his own sinews automatically while saying it and jolted his leg.
Calleigh winced herself in sympathy. She quickly went on, trying to distract him, as he had been trying to distract her. "What was your mother's favorite love passage, Horatio?"
"That wasn't Shakespeare. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet #43. Since meeting you, I don't have any trouble at all remembering that one." He turned his head to feast his eyes on her, gaining inspiration. She waited with a thrill of delicious anticipation, like the moment before the curtain rises. After a second, that rich, velvet, incomparable voice began, with the eyes confirming the matchless words.
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height, My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life – and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."
Calleigh let out a sigh of pure appreciation. For those brief moments, they had both been transported far beyond their prison. "She knew what it was like."
"Yes. Her husband was a poet as well, quite a good one. Perfect soul mates. They had a remarkable relationship. We'd read his poetry sometimes, too. The night before Mom died, she read one of his poems. Then Ray did the 'once more unto the breach' passage, and she wanted me to read her favorite lines out of Hamlet. Hard to pick one favorite in all Shakespeare, she would say, but that passage was in her top five. She loved it. That was the last thing she ever asked me to read to her." There was pain in his eyes suddenly, emotional as well as physical now.
Calleigh at least could share that pain with him. "What passage was that, Horatio?"
His mind immediately tumbled off the past and landed with a heavy thud back in the present. "I don't really think you'd want to hear that one right now, Calleigh. It's a little too applicable." Concern for her had replaced his memories.
Calleigh suddenly resented his infallible consideration. "I want to hear it, Horatio. If that was the last thing she asked you to read, I want to share that with you. I want to share everything with you, no matter where we are. I refuse to let Otis put up barriers between us."
He gauged her sincerity and finally saluted her with a slight nod, accepting her equality in their situation. He gathered himself, and Calleigh was silent, giving him time. Finally, quietly, he began. "There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be."
The silence lengthened for a few minutes, and then Horatio's voice started again, stronger, defiant. "But there is a difference between accepting the will of providence and surrendering to Otis. We are not going to surrender to Otis, and he is not getting Rosalind."
"Right," said Calleigh. "You said it yourself. We'll win." She reached out, closing the distance between them to grasp his hands, and jumped as her fingers locked around his. His fever was steadily rising.
***
"No man can think himself out of a cell. If he could, there would be no prisoners."
"A man can so apply his brain and ingenuity that he can leave a cell, which is the same thing."
Exchange from the Problem of Cell 13, Jacques Futrelle
***
Horatio sat on the bed with his legs stretched out, his back propped against the wall. Calleigh had removed the towel bandage, and they both surveyed the wound, Horatio seeing it for the first time. It gaped open, and the edges were reddened and definitely inflamed. The leg looked swollen, too, when compared to the other one. Calleigh stared at it as if the sight would change. "I don't know what else to do with it," she said helplessly.
"There's nothing else you can do," Horatio reassured her. Anyone just hearing the voices would have assumed that she was the one injured. "It was already contaminated from the accident, you said. You probably helped a lot by washing some of the dirt out. So it isn't nearly as bad as it would have been otherwise. The team is working on finding us, and they'll get here soon. I'll just have to be on antibiotics for a while after they catch Otis, that's all." He didn't really think it was quite that simple, and the sight of that wound jolted him, too, but he was trying to stay optimistic for them, to steady her. She sounded closer to the edge of panic than she had at any point so far.
Calleigh switched from worrying about the infection to worrying about the obvious angle. "It needs to be set, too. I'm afraid it's going to start healing like that. But I didn't have the strength to pull it straight, Horatio."
"Easy," he said soothingly. She was wringing her cuffed hands together, and he reached out to capture them with his own, stilling her soul with a touch. "That's fixable too. They might have to rebreak it, but I'll survive that." His eyes met hers. "We'll win, Calleigh. We just don't quite know how yet. All three of us are going to be okay, I promise you."
Calleigh knew it was ridiculous, but she actually was comforted somewhat. Believing him was habitual. His steady hands still had their calm strength, even if they felt feverish. She took a deep breath and squeezed them. "I wish you were in a hospital somewhere, but I'm glad you're here with me, Horatio." It was selfish of her, but the thought of being in this alone was overwhelming.
"I'm glad I am, too. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else besides where you are. No matter where that is." He smiled at her. "Just think, when you're in the hospital giving birth after this is all over, I'll be a patient there, too. And we'll still be together."
Calleigh surprised herself by laughing. "I think family hospitalization is taking togetherness too far."
He grinned at her, the quirky smile that she loved, and managed to hide the effort it took. "It beats family abduction."
"Any day," she agreed. Bless you, Horatio, she thought silently. Five minutes ago, she could not have imagined laughing about anything, much less their current situation. She knew that he was trying to relieve some of her tension, but the knowledge didn't stop his efforts from succeeding. The ringing in her ears, which had been on a steady crescendo for the last 30 minutes, slowly eased back down to a low murmur.
Horatio gave her hands a squeeze after a few minutes. "Feeling better?"
"Yes," she said. "I'm the one who ought to be asking you that."
He smiled at her reassuringly but did not answer the implied question. She didn't push him. They both knew the answer, after all. He slid to the edge of the bed, wincing at the movement. "I might as well get cleaned up the best I can before you rewrap it." He stood tentatively.
Calleigh hugged him as far as the cuffs would allow, unobtrusively trying to support him a bit at the same time. His catlike neatness was still healthy, at least. "You're right. No point in letting Otis take our dignity away from us. I'll get cleaned up after you do."
He pulled away from her and leaned on the wall instead, then worked his way along it to the bathroom. He was still considerate as ever, fully aware of her condition. Calleigh weighed him against Otis mentally. He was right. They had to win. Otis simply didn't measure up to Horatio. She rested one hand on her abdomen, thinking of Rosalind. It will be all right, she promised her daughter silently. Your father says it will be all right, and he never lies.
She picked up some clean clothes for him from the pile and took them to him, helping him as much as she could. After he had cleaned up, he stretched out on the bed again, and she rewrapped his leg with a fresh towel, then helped him slip on another pair of pants over the bandage. He was trembling by the time they were done. There was simply no way to bandage the leg without moving it repeatedly. Afterwards, Calleigh sat there next to him silently, holding his hands, comforting him in turn until the pain-wracked body subsided into stillness. His grateful eyes never left her face.
Finally, she gave his hands a final squeeze and stood up. "I'll get cleaned up too, Horatio." He nodded and let his eyes fall shut. Calleigh got fresh clothes for herself and went into the bathroom. Amazing what just taking a bath could do for the human spirit, even if you were limited to working with a large sink and a spray attachment instead of a tub. Feeling a bit better, she went back into the main room.
Horatio was still on the bed and didn't look like he had moved in the last ten minutes. His eyes remained closed. She reached out to rest a hand on his forehead, judging his fever, and the gnawing bite of fear returned. He needed some antibiotics. Where was the team? How much longer would they be prisoners here? Horatio opened his eyes and looked up into her worried ones, and she could see the wheels turning. "What are you thinking, Horatio?"
"You're beautiful," he said simply.
Calleigh almost laughed. She knew that she looked far from her best. On the other hand, so did he, and she suddenly felt overwhelmed with love herself. "So are you," she replied. In every way, body and soul, her mind added.
He captured her hand again, and for a brief moment, they could almost forget the handcuffs and Otis. Then Rosalind shifted, kicking, and her movement brought them back to their predicament. "We will get out of here," he promised again. "All three of us."
Calleigh walked around the bed to lie down next to him. "I know," she said, and silently added, and it had better be soon, for the sake of all three of us. Where was everyone?
***
"That is not Stewart Otis." Speed's voice was definite.
"Of course it is," the warden replied. "Bracelet number, physical description. Everything in the paperwork matches."
"Then the paperwork is wrong," Speed insisted. "I'm telling you, it isn't him." It seemed perfectly obvious to him. The warden must be blind.
Speed and Eric were with the warden outside the visiting room, peering through the window at the man who had been pulled out of his cell and brought down for them. He sat at the table fidgeting, knotting his fingers together like a quitting chain smoker trying not to think about cigarettes.
Eric fought down his frantic urgency and tried to explain coherently. "It's a close resemblance, but the whole attitude is wrong. The eyes . . . " He broke off, trying to pin it down himself, but he couldn't quite get there. One of Otis' main advantages in selecting victims had been looking completely ordinary. This man was similar. Hair, build, anything found in a description matched. Superficially, it was there. But. . . Eric grasped it finally. "He's nervous. See how he's looking around? He's scared about something."
"We just pulled him out of his cell at midnight," the warden pointed out. "Anybody would know something's going on."
"Stewart Otis never looked frightened. Not even at his trial. Never nervous, either. I'm telling you, it's a prisoner switch."
"If Otis had switched with another prisoner and escaped under his name, we would at least know someone was missing. Everybody's accounted for."
Speed had had enough. "To hell with talking about it. Look at his hands. Otis performed surgery on himself to alter all of his fingerprints. His finger pads are scarred."
The warden consulted Otis' file, then nodded. "Okay, we'll look at his fingers. But you're on the wrong trail. No one has escaped from this prison."
Speed jerked the door open before the warden had even finished this speech. He plowed through the gap to the prisoner and grabbed his arm by the wrist, turning the hand over. "Hey!" the man protested. None of them paid any attention. Eric, Speed, and the warden were all looking at the hands, the pristine, unmarred fingertips.
The warden looked back down at his record, reading the fine print at the bottom of the description page. "Oh my God," he said, invoking not the deity but his supervisors. Heads would roll for this. His might well be one of them.
"Where's Otis?" Eric demanded.
"I don't know what you're talking about, man. I'm Stewart Otis." Any similarity ended at the voice. This man's was high, squeaky, and tense.
"Cut the crap," Speed said. "We know that's a lie. Where is he?"
The man ran his tongue quickly over his dry lips. "I'm telling you, I'm Otis."
Eric weighed the frantic fear in the man's eyes, a mirror of his own feelings for Horatio and Calleigh. "What does he have on you? Who does he have on you?"
"I. Am. Otis." Each word landed with desperate emphasis. This man was terrified, and it wasn't of them.
Speed took the easy way. "Fine, we'll run your prints. Anyone inside is in AFIS. We'll find out who you are."
The prisoner pulled his hand out of Speed's grasp, folding his fingers together, protecting his prints as the warden stepped to the door and called for a guard. Speed and Eric stood there watching the man. "He has my friends," Eric said fiercely. "If anything happens to them, you're an accomplice."
The man's eyes met his, with a sick fear behind them. "I am Otis," he repeated helplessly.
Speed and Eric gave up and paced the room in tandem while the guard was coming.
***
"Thomas Pendergrass," the warden said, pulling the file. They were all in his office now. "Did time for drug charges and manslaughter. He got addicted and became a meth cook to support his habit, but he wasn't too careful of his ingredients. His drugs killed a bigwig's daughter. He served his time, no problems, and he was released on parole a week and a half ago." He looked back up from the file at Speed and Eric. "Same physical description as Otis, only the hair is a little darker. He must have dyed it to match Otis, and Otis dyed his to match Pendergrass."
Eric wanted to bolt out of the office and forced himself to stay seated, to hear all of the facts. His mind had taken up a chorus that echoed relentlessly. A week and a half. Otis was a week and a half ahead of them.
"What does Otis have on him?" Speed wondered. "Why would he cooperate?"
"Any family?" Eric asked, thinking of that fear in the man's eyes. "Who's next of kin?"
The warden flipped through the file. "A wife, Erica. And a 6-year-old son."
"That's got to be it," Eric said. "Otis is holding his family to buy his cooperation."
"Wait a minute," Speed put in. "If he had the family abducted before Pendergrass was paroled, so he could take his place, that means he's got someone working with him, someone already outside. He's got an accomplice. An accomplice who would abduct a 6-year-old kid to help out a friend."
Eric and Speed both erupted from their chairs then, unable to sit any longer. "I'll process Otis' cell, you process Pendergrass' house," said Eric.
"Right." They nearly collided in the doorway as they charged out of the office. Horatio and Calleigh were out there, and they weren't being held by just Otis but also by another like him. And the lead wasn't just a week and a half. Behind them, in the suddenly quiet office, the warden hesitated, then reluctantly picked up the phone to tell his superiors that a prisoner had escaped a week and a half ago, and he hadn't even noticed.
***
Calleigh came back to the bed holding their two cups, and Horatio accepted his. "Thank you, Calleigh." He sipped the hot tea appreciatively.
Calleigh climbed onto the bed beside him, sitting up, propped against the wall. He sat up himself and gingerly dragged his body back, joining her. "What day is it, Horatio? Do you know?"
He glanced at his watch. "7:30 PM, but I admit, I've lost track on days. Two or three, maybe."
"I'm losing track, too. It seems like forever." She took a sip of her own tea.
"It won't be forever," he replied. "The team is working on this. Right now, they're getting closer." The conviction in his voice wasn't any less. Calleigh studied him while finishing her drink. Other than the fever and the pain in his leg, he really didn't seem too much different from his usual self. He seemed to be being as honest with her as he was with himself, but she wished she could gauge how honest that was. His stubborn will might be deceiving even him about his true condition. They had to get him on antibiotics and get his leg treated. Another growing worry was how little he was eating. He did try to eat for her, but it was obviously an effort to force down every mouthful. Hot tea was about the only thing he really finished off.
He finished his cup now and looked over at her, gauging her in turn with a frown of worry behind the blue eyes. "How are you feeling?"
"That ringing in my ears is louder again," she admitted. "Sounds like a swarm of bumblebees. What about you?"
"I feel like I'm coming down with a virus, but it honestly isn't that bad, Cal. The leg hurting bothers me more. We'll get some antibiotics when we get out, and I'll be fine. Maybe it would help your blood pressure to think about something else for a while." Her expression changed, and he read her thoughts. "That's not letting Rosalind down. There's nothing we can do at the moment, not until the team finds us or Otis comes back in. We've covered all the possibilities in that situation. You accused me once of just running on a mental hamster wheel. I think we're getting close to that here. A break will do us both good."
Calleigh considered it, then finally nodded. "You're right, I guess. But it's easier said than done." She spread her hands slightly, and the cold clink of the handcuffs was heard. "This reality is a little hard to forget."
Horatio rose to the challenge. "What's your favorite memory?"
She smiled, her mind shifting tracks instantly. "It's hard to give a favorite, but the day I met you is right up there. I was looking for something meaningful to throw my life into, some purpose, some way to help people, and you walked into that PD in Louisiana looking for me. I saw you through a door even before I knew you were there for me, and it was magnetic. Partly physical, I admit. But the purpose set you apart. I knew instantly that you were a man who had a purpose. I envied you that, Horatio, before I even knew anything else about you."
He smiled in turn. "I remember when you came into the room to meet me. I couldn't help thinking that you were like a gun yourself, like a handgun. Small but efficient and even deadly when needed. And then the hair. You had it caught up, and I was overcome with this image of setting it free and running my fingers through it. I couldn't get the thought out of my mind. And believe me, I wasn't used to thoughts like that with people. Then, getting to know you through CSI, it was like a dream. It just kept getting better, Cal. Every new aspect of personality I discovered improved the whole picture."
"I felt the same way, Horatio. I lived for working with you, learning more about you, and then I'd go home and dream about you at night. I just didn't realize for years that you wanted more, too."
He gave her an apologetic grin. "Sorry about that. I wanted more from the first second. I was just afraid you would get hurt."
"I know. You had decided you were a jinx on the world." His eyes went distant, remembering all the people close to him who had died, all the reasons he had come to that conclusion. "Don't think about the bad times, Horatio. That isn't much escape for us. What's your happiest memory from childhood? Tell me some of the good ones."
He considered it. "Hard to pick one. There were good moments." His mind seized on one. "Family reading sessions. We were happiest as a family then, I think. Even Ray. Mom liked to have us all read classical literature out loud sometimes in the evenings."
"Ray enjoyed that?" Calleigh wondered. It didn't quite match her picture of Raymond, the younger brother who had never quite felt that he measured up to his sibling, who had never quite found himself, not even through marriage and fatherhood.
"Very much, actually. Especially plays. He was a born actor, Calleigh. He could play a role so well, I think he finally lost himself in them." He hesitated for a moment. "I never could do that. I'm not an actor." He didn't have the ego for it, Calleigh thought. "Mom loved to hear me read passages to her, though."
Calleigh could imagine it. Actor or not, hearing that voice speak some of the world's great lines would be worth buying a ticket for. She suddenly wanted to hear it herself. "Tell me some of them."
He let his mind open the files of the past. "Shakespeare was always Mom's favorite. So much variety there. Love, beauty, ugliness. It amazes me now, working at CSI and seeing all I do, how much Shakespeare knew about human character. He had it all down, Cal. Let's see, the lines. Sometimes, we'd read the preparing for battle speeches. Henry V is the best play there. It has two wonderful pep talks that the king gives the troops. Ray loved those. That play was his favorite."
"What were they?" she prompted him. "Come on, Horatio, I'd really like to hear a few."
"The speech right before the big battle is my favorite in the play. 'He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart. His passport shall be made, and crowns for convoy put into his purse. We would not die in that man's company that fears his fellowship to die with us.' The other pep talk was the speech Ray really got into, though. 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.'" He grinned at Calleigh. "He would act it out. Mom and I would both be enthralled watching him. 'When the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.'" He broke off the recitation with a wince as he stiffened his own sinews automatically while saying it and jolted his leg.
Calleigh winced herself in sympathy. She quickly went on, trying to distract him, as he had been trying to distract her. "What was your mother's favorite love passage, Horatio?"
"That wasn't Shakespeare. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet #43. Since meeting you, I don't have any trouble at all remembering that one." He turned his head to feast his eyes on her, gaining inspiration. She waited with a thrill of delicious anticipation, like the moment before the curtain rises. After a second, that rich, velvet, incomparable voice began, with the eyes confirming the matchless words.
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height, My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life – and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."
Calleigh let out a sigh of pure appreciation. For those brief moments, they had both been transported far beyond their prison. "She knew what it was like."
"Yes. Her husband was a poet as well, quite a good one. Perfect soul mates. They had a remarkable relationship. We'd read his poetry sometimes, too. The night before Mom died, she read one of his poems. Then Ray did the 'once more unto the breach' passage, and she wanted me to read her favorite lines out of Hamlet. Hard to pick one favorite in all Shakespeare, she would say, but that passage was in her top five. She loved it. That was the last thing she ever asked me to read to her." There was pain in his eyes suddenly, emotional as well as physical now.
Calleigh at least could share that pain with him. "What passage was that, Horatio?"
His mind immediately tumbled off the past and landed with a heavy thud back in the present. "I don't really think you'd want to hear that one right now, Calleigh. It's a little too applicable." Concern for her had replaced his memories.
Calleigh suddenly resented his infallible consideration. "I want to hear it, Horatio. If that was the last thing she asked you to read, I want to share that with you. I want to share everything with you, no matter where we are. I refuse to let Otis put up barriers between us."
He gauged her sincerity and finally saluted her with a slight nod, accepting her equality in their situation. He gathered himself, and Calleigh was silent, giving him time. Finally, quietly, he began. "There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be."
The silence lengthened for a few minutes, and then Horatio's voice started again, stronger, defiant. "But there is a difference between accepting the will of providence and surrendering to Otis. We are not going to surrender to Otis, and he is not getting Rosalind."
"Right," said Calleigh. "You said it yourself. We'll win." She reached out, closing the distance between them to grasp his hands, and jumped as her fingers locked around his. His fever was steadily rising.
