The Return

Chapter 2

Horatio, just finishing giving Calleigh a brief description of his childhood so she'd understand more about the man who suddenly reappeared in his life, turned around to find that her eyes were full of sorrow as she looked at him.

"Please don't pity me. I… I've never told anyone else about my family out of fear they'd run from me thinking I might be like my father. I'm not. At the very least, they'd feel sorry for me… and I don't want that."

Calleigh broke her silence, having recovered enough from the shock of hearing him describe the conditions, this compassionate, caring man whom she loved deeply, had grown up in.

Wiping away tears from her eyes that threatened to fall, she took his hand into hers and softly answered, "I don't pity you Horatio. I love you. I know you would never be like your father. I can't imagine what it must have been like, then being forced to shoot your own father, trying to protect your mother…" she shuddered. "If this man is your father, how did he survive? And more importantly, why were you led to believe that you'd killed him"

Horatio hung his head and squeezed his eyes shut and whispered, "I don't know Sweetheart. I don't know."

They sat in silence. Feeling the turmoil that raged within him, Calleigh wrapped her arm around his back and pulled him close, keeping his hand in hers. She wanted to comfort him. He was always so strong, always there for others and it pulled at her heart to watch him being tormented like this.

Finally, Horatio pulled his hand out of hers and stood. "We need to go Sweetheart." He turned back and offered his hand to help her up. "I know there's so much work that I could help with concerning the Johnson case, but I need to go find some answers. I'm so confused now... I don't think I'd be much help to the team."

"We'll be fine Horatio. But where can you find the answers you need, without going back to New York?"

He looked beyond her for a few moments and then answered, "I'm going to pay a visit to Miriam Humphries and ask her for an explanation. She would know what happened and why."

Al and Miriam Humphries had taken Horatio and Raymond into their home after the events at the Caine house. Al was a NYC police officer and he knew the boys old man, Daniel Caine. Al's wife Miriam was a housekeeper who took in sewing jobs. They were stable, loving people and in time, helped Horatio especially, come to terms with what had happened to his family. Horatio looked up to Al, not only was he a big man in stature, but in character as well.

As Horatio approached his last year of high school, he had made up his mind that he wanted a career in law enforcement with the NYPD, just like Al. Al tried to persuade him to go into another field, but the young redhead was determined. He told his mentor that he wanted to help people during the worst times of their lives… in other words; he wanted to give back what had been given him.

Horatio started as a patrolman and took a couple of classes at New York City University during the day. It was difficult, but he enjoyed the challenge. After he'd put in a couple of years on the graveyard shift, he was switched to day shift and so he attended classes at night. Upon graduation from college with a degree in chemistry, he made detective with NYPD. He enjoyed the work, but felt like with his degree, that he wanted to try to move to the crime scene unit. The work intrigued him. It was like putting pieces of a puzzle together, that pinpointed the ones responsible for committing crimes.

Raymond had taken two years of college, but quit and followed in Horatio's footsteps, signing on with the NYPD. Horatio worried about him. He didn't seem to have set goals. He wandered from one thing to another and Horatio felt like his younger brother was too eager to find trouble, a dangerous trait to have in police work.

One day when Horatio went by the house to visit with Al and Miriam, he found out that Al had applied for a position in the Miami Police Department's bomb squad. He'd just heard back that morning that he'd been accepted. It floored Horatio. He had mixed feelings. He knew that Al had wanted to leave New York, but Miami? That was so far away. Even though Horatio had been on his own for a several years, just knowing the two people in the world he could count on being there for him would be so far away, suddenly made him feel insecure.

Then Al suggested that he and Raymond go with them. He told Horatio how the Miami Police Department had a crime lab they were just getting started and needed trained folks to man it. Raymond could transfer to the detective division or at the very least, join him on the bomb squad. There were always openings.

After considering the idea for a few days, Horatio decided that leaving New York and all the bad memories associated with it might not be a bad idea. He checked with the department in Miami, but learned there were no current openings in the crime lab, so he accepted a place on the MPD bomb squad under Al. Raymond chose to stay in New York, but with the intention of joining them later. He felt that he needed to build more seniority with NYPD before transferring. The rest, as they say, is history.

Horatio wrapped his arms around Calleigh and whispered in her ear, "Thank you."

Calleigh leaned back slightly and asked, "For what?"

Horatio smiled and tenderly pushed the long, golden hair back from her eyes as the wind blew it across her face.

"For loving me the way you do; for not running away from me."

Calleigh leaned in and placed a quick, tender kiss on his lips. "Always, and I'm not going anywhere."

In the tall shrubs, a few yards back, a young man smiled, as he snapped picture after picture of the loving scene. When the couple began walking toward him, arms wrapped around each other, he took one more picture, then secured his equipment and ran for his car parked near theirs to get away before they saw him.

After stopping at the vehicles, Horatio held the door of the Hummer open while Calleigh climbed in.

"I'll see you later Sweetheart. Be careful."

Calleigh responded, "Please come to my place. You don't need to be alone tonight."

Horatio smiled and answered, "Thank you Sweetheart. I will." She returned his smile.

After signing in at the front desk of the assisted living complex, Horatio walked down the hall with his visitor's badge clasped on his front coat pocket. Stopping at the familiar door, he knocked. After a couple of minutes the door opened and an elderly African-American woman, lips turned up in a beaming smile stood before him.

"Horatio… what a surprise this is, come in," she greeted as she returned his warm hug.

"Hello Miriam." She could immediately sense there was something deeply troubling the young man.

Walking toward her small sitting area in her apartment she began, "This is not your usual visiting day Horatio, but it makes your presence even more special." Sitting down on the couch, Horatio joined her. She asked, after noticing that he seemed to be struggling to act normal, "Is something wrong dear?"

Horatio chuckled, keeping his gaze on the floor as he leaned forward, his forearms resting on his legs.

"You always could tell when something was bothering me. Appears you still can. "

He didn't know any other way to approach the subject, other than straightforward. Finally he turned to where he could see Miriam's face and asked her,

"Can you tell me if there's a possibility that my father could still be alive?"

He saw Miriam's face reflect shock at his question, then sorrow. She covered her face with one hand and began shaking her head back and forth. Then she sighed and looked directly at Horatio.

"Yes, yes Horatio he could still be alive."

Her verification hit him in the gut harder than any punch from the largest of men. He rested his forehead in one hand as he tried to come to terms with her answer. Then he straightened up and looked back to her.

"How… can you tell me how he could be alive when I was told that I had killed him years ago?" He tried to keep the anger out of his voice, but was unsuccessful.

Miriam's eyes welled with tears and she pulled a tissue from a pocket and dabbed them away.

"I knew you'd find out one day," she began. "Oh Horatio, Al had no choice. It literally broke his heart, realizing the suffering you were going through after what had happened, mine too. And there wasn't a damn thing we could do about it."

Biting back his anger he retorted, "Why… why couldn't you tell me that I had not killed my father? All these years…" he stopped, unable to continue.

Miriam reached over and placed her hand gingerly over his.

"Horatio, high officials at NYPD swore Al to secrecy. If he'd told you the truth, you and Raymond would have been in grave danger." Horatio looked at her questioningly.

"What do you mean, what danger could we have been in knowing the truth?"

Miriam began, "Horatio, your father was a snitch for NYPD. He gathered information against the mob at the docks where he worked. Those involved in the investigation thought it best if it appeared that your father was dead. It was a way to protect both of you. We begged them to find another way, but our requests fell on deaf ears. Your father was taken to an obscure hospital upstate, where he recovered."

"He killed my mother… didn't they make him pay for that?"

Miriam turned away, unable to look at Horatio.

"Miriam… was he punished at all?"

The elderly woman looked down at her lap and shook her head slowly, telling him silently that his father had escaped retribution for the murder.

Looking up at the stunned man beside her, a young man she's cared for, for so long she softly said,

"Horatio… all these years we wanted to tell you and Raymond the truth, but we couldn't. We were so frightened for you and Raymond. Then as time went by, you both seemed so happy with life, careers, that we didn't want anything to change that."

Horatio huffed, "To others perhaps I seemed happy. And I guess I was in a way, but Miriam the memory of what happened... and what I did has haunted me all my life."

"I'm so sorry. We never wanted to hurt you, or Raymond. We loved you like our own. Al did until the day he died, and I still do. In my heart, you're the sons I never had." Her frail hand squeezed his. "Please don't hate me or Al's memory because of what we did."

Horatio quickly and gently wrapped his arms around her and hugged her to him. Softly he whispered, "I could never hate you. You and Al were so good to us."

After a couple of minutes he let her rest back against the sofa again. Reaching over, pulling out a couple of tissues from the box on the table, he handed one to her and he used the other to wipe his own tears away. Giving her time to recover, Horatio glanced over at the table and saw a picture of him and Raymond together in their NYPD uniforms. Then scanning the room at the other pictures, including some of them all together, he recalled the happy times they enjoyed with the Humphries.

Miriam saw him looking around the room and softly said, "I just wish Raymond and Al were still here with us."

Horatio turned his attention back to her and answered, "So do I, Miriam. I miss both of them so much."

The memory of standing outside that house while Al went back in to disarm the bomb they'd found, came back to Horatio full force at that moment. That brief visit with Al before the bomb exploded would be his last. Then he recalled the day he found what was left of Raymond in that shack in Brazil, after the Mala Noche had left him for dead… at least he got the chance to tell his brother that he loved him before he drew his last breath.

After a few minutes, Miriam asked, "How did you find out that your father might still be alive?"

Her question brought Horatio swiftly back to the present. He winced and then answered, "He showed up at the lab this afternoon."

Miriam gasped in shock. "He what… oh, honey, I know that was a horrible shock. Why on earth would he do that after all these years?"

Horatio's lips turned up in a strained, mocking smile before answering, "Says he has something important to tell me, at least that's what he told one of my staff members. I ran out on him. I can't imagine what he has to say to me."

Miriam remained silent. Horatio noticed the concerned expression on her face.

"Miriam, would you have an idea of what he wants to tell me?"

She tightened her lips before finally replying, "It would be better if you heard it from him. But Honey, please be careful of that man. After he recovered from his injury, he changed. He became involved in the "family". The last Al knew, he had moved high up in the New York branch of the mob. He's a dangerous man. He's also smart; NYPD shadowed him for years, never able to tie him to any crime."

Horatio thought about what she just told him, and then commented, "He must have changed his name. I would have come across it at one time or another in my job."

"Honey, will you be ok?"

Horatio let out a long breath and gave her his best smile before he answered, "After the shock wears off." Pausing a moment he added, "Guess I need to meet with him after all, there are questions only he can answer."

"Do you need to stay here tonight? The guest room is always here for you."

Horatio smiled and squeezed her hand gently. "I'll be alright."

He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Thank you Miriam."

She smiled and lightly touched his cheek. "You're a fine man Horatio. Your mother would have been so proud of you, just as I am. I want you to bring your lady friend by to see me one day. I want to meet her, make sure she cares for you."

Her words took him by surprise, but then a smile crept across his face. There wasn't much you could hide from Miriam Humphries. He then replied, "She does. I don't understand why, but she does."

Miriam smiled, thankful that the young man had found someone at last. "I know why."

As Horatio drove toward Calleigh's, his cell phone chirped. Stopped for a light he looked at the screen, it was Calleigh.

Answering he greeted, "Hi Sweetheart, on my way."

"Horatio… you need to come to the Johnson house. Ryan is missing." Horatio detected the fear in her voice.

Grimacing, he answered, "On my way."

Turning on the Hummer's flashing lights and siren, he sped toward the scene as a sick feeling began growing deep in his gut.

TBC…