Chapter 2

A few hours later, he was standing in a bedroom taking photographs of a naked male corpse while half listening to Calleigh get a rundown from Hagen. He couldn't tell whether their on-again, off-again relationship was on or off. It was a relationship he didn't particularly care for, but it wasn't his business. He was just glad someone else was there to deal with Hagen; he neither liked nor trusted the detective, and knew the feeling was mutual.

Nearly five years ago, Hagan had been Raymond Caine's partner in narcotics when Ray Caine turned up dead one morning. Tim had been on the investigation, albeit in an oblique way. Megan had wanted to shield him somewhat, on his first major IAB investigation, and so, he'd been kept in the background. He didn't think that too many people knew that he had been the one to call the case as inconclusive. The evidence just wasn't there- the trace just hadn't tied it together. And without the trace, everything else was circumstantial. Horatio probably knew that he had made the call, but Megan took the heat for it. And somehow, John Hagen had found out.

He'd been alone in the locker room, getting ready to go home for the night a few days later, when Hagen had stalked into the room. Tim didn't even look up until Hagen had grabbed him and pinned him to the lockers. The two men were much the same age- Tim might have been a year older, at the most. But even then, five years ago, as two young men who hadn't entirely filled out yet, Hagen had had several inches and a good forty pounds on Tim. He hadn't said anything, his heart pounding in his ears, but he had been very aware that if he fought, it would be a fight he would lose. Hagen had held him against the locker for a long moment, eyes wild, but then seemed to find some kind of control and let him go. Tim had sagged against the lockers as Hagen shot him a purely poisonous look and left the room. Since then, he'd always avoided being alone in a room with him. That was generally easy enough, since Hagen always seemed to want to deal with any CSI other than Tim.

Something other than Hagen was bothering him about this scene, though. It was too familiar, somehow. He'd seen it before, but he couldn't remember where. Dead man on a bed in an apartment that was too neat for it to have been an intruder, but not neat enough for it to have been a date. He shook his head as he watched Alexx do the preliminary exam.

"What?" Calleigh asked.

He looked up at her and shrugged. "I dunno. There's something familiar here, but I don't know what."

She frowned as she looked around the room. "Nothing's ringing a bell. Except maybe that case you worked with Horatio last year with the fabric designer who killed his rapist?"

"No, it's not that," he said, shaking his head. "Not the same MO. And besides, that was a revenge thing. This isn't. Not messy enough."

"True," she replied. "I don't know, then. It's not anything I've worked on, I don't think."

He shrugged again. "I don't remember. I just…I've just seen it before. I can't remember where. I…" he trailed off for a moment, and frowned. "It's a known assailant, and it's not…" He shook his head. "I don't know. It's not there,"

Calleigh looked at him with barely concealed concern. "It's ok, Tim. There's evidence. We'll figure it out."

He shook his head, frowning again at the scene. "I'm about done here, what do you think?" She nodded and led the way out of the house.

In the truck, he was quiet, turning the crime scene over in his head. Truth be told, he was grateful for the distraction, but the feeling that it was all too familiar nagged him. He stared out the window until Calleigh broke the silence to ask, "You ok?"

"Hmm?" he mumbled, puzzled by the question.

"I asked if you were ok," she replied.

"I'm fine," he said, turning back to the window.

He could almost feel Calleigh's hesitation, though, and wasn't completely surprised when she decided to push the matter. "Look, Tim, I know we don't talk about this kind of thing, but did your dad say something this morning? Something that's got you upset? Because you're just…off today. You were kind of out of it at the scene."

He shook his head, but didn't look at her. "I'm all right, Cal," he replied.

She sighed, but didn't push further, seeing as they were pulling into the parking lot. He escaped with his pile of evidence down to the trace lab without any further conversation.