Chapter 10

Two months later

It has been two months since Jake had come back into Calleigh's life and after her talk with him, he did back off a little so it has been a joy for Calleigh to hang out with him again, and even though it did make him a little uneasy because of their history, Horatio didn't make a fuss about her and Jake becoming friends again, and things had been going better than expected, not realizing that things could take a turn for the worse at anytime.

When Horatio woke up, which was alone this morning, he ate, got ready for work and got his mail before going to the lab.

Once he walked in the building with the mail in his hand, him and the receptionist shared a friendly smile and a hi as he headed for his office. When he got in there, he walked to his desk while shifting through the mail, and the last one kind of made him pause a little because it was a document sized, yellow envelope with no return address on it, curious he sets his other mail on his desk and opened it before pulling out pictures, but these weren't just any pictures, it was Calleigh and Jake, some innocent ones like them in a park laughing, holding hands and looking at one another, but then he got to ones that weren't so innocent, they were in the bedroom, under the covers...

He shook his head as he tossed them on his desk with the picture side facing down, he kept thinking that this wasn't right, these were fake and it was a sick joke. It had to be because he knew in his heart she would never do something like this to him. Why someone would want to play with him like this? He didn't know, but he wasn't going to fall for it. He shook his head and grabbed the pictures again before walking over to his shredder to shred them.

Once he shredded the set of pictures, he tried putting the imagines out of his head, and for the most part it worked, but there was a small piece of him that couldn't let it go all the way, which nobody else wanted him to fully let it go either because every other day for a week he would get more pictures. He still tried to deny that it was happening, but the evidence was overwhelming and it didn't help matters with what he just witnessed.

He was walking toward the ballistics lab and had stopped just as he hit the corner and saw Calleigh and Jake hugging, he stepped back around the corner and started walking away as he mood was becoming darker.

Jake, who had seen a glimpse of Horatio before he had turned back around the corner did a little smirk, but as he was pulling back from the hug, he puts the sad face that he came here with back on his face, then she steps back and said. "I'm sorry about your heartache."

He sighed with a nod and replied. "Thank you Calleigh, you've always been a good friend and I knew I could come to you."

He had showed up with the façade of needing a friend's comfort, of course it was just a ploy to get even closer to her and have her trust him.

She smiled with a nod and asked. "I would love to stand around and chat with you, but..."

He cuts her off. "Work." Calleigh nodded as he continued. "I understand, hey how about lunch tomorrow?"

She smiled again. "I'll get back to you on that."

"Alright, I'll take it, enjoy your day."

"You too."

After another smile, he walked away while she goes back into her lab so she could continue with her work.

The next morning

Horatio was in the break room when Calleigh had walked in with a smile, but he didn't see it because he had his back toward her, then noticing that nobody was in the room, she walked up to the counter, stopped when she was next to him and spoke softly. "You had a late night last night and an early morning."

Since she had stayed at his place last night she was expecting him to come home, and when she couldn't wait up any longer she went to sleep, she wasn't worried though because during the night she woke up noticed he was there, but this morning he was gone.

He nodded and cleared his throat as he looked over at her. "Yeah, sorry, work has been keeping me busy."

She nodded in understanding, then smiled as she placed her hand on his shoulder, a little surprised she felt him tense, but didn't say anything about it. "Then you deserve a break, Mr. Caine, how about dinner?"

He stepped back, letting her hand fall from his shoulder. "I'm sorry, but I have another long night, so maybe you should go to your house tonight."

Calleigh looked at Horatio with curiosity and asked. "Is everything ok? Because come to think about it now, you've been acting a little distant lately."

Horatio looked into her eyes, still clinging on to the little piece that believed she would never hurt him despite all the evidence pointing that way.

But before he could reply, he heard Eric and Ryan talking as they walked into the break room, so he moved his eyes away from her and turned around to smile at the guys. "Morning, guys."

Eric and Ryan smiled in return at their boss before Ryan speaks. "Good morning H, any new cases?"

As he points to the table, telling them that they could pick their assignment sheets today, Calleigh looked at him still baffled by what's been going on with the man she loved.