A/N: I'm back again with another installment of Lilies of the Valley, as requested. Thank you for sticking with this story for so long, and for your continued reviews. I don't have too many opportunities to write, but reading your reviews encourages me to make more space for it in my life where I can.
CHAPTER 10
Eric navigated the car around the bend that led to the Remy estate, and his eyes immediately alighted on something that wasn't there when they left—an oversized, top-of-the-line, silver pick-up truck.
A crease formed between Calleigh's brows. She didn't recognize the vehicle, and she wasn't up for entertaining neighbors and well-wishers this evening. Her very soul felt drained.
Eric squeezed her hand. "We can stay in the car for a while if you want."
Calleigh shook her head. "I'm fine…really," she added at the look on his face. "I'll say hello, then head upstairs. I have some phone calls to make before dinner."
"Okay," Eric conceded, unbuckling his seatbelt to climb out of the car. "Ah, and I need to call H tonight. Thanks for the reminder."
He paused when he saw the guilt pass across Calleigh's features, because he knew exactly what she was thinking. "Calleigh, you have taken exactly two sick days since you started at MDPD. You deserve this week. Horatio is fine without us—he just asked me to keep him updated."
"I didn't say anything," Calleigh defended, her guilt fading to indignation and, if she admitted it, a little pleasure that Eric could read her so easily.
He grinned at her now over the top of the BMW. "You don't have to, Cal."
Calleigh smirked back at him before she rolled her eyes and shut the car door.
"C'mon," she said with a quiet laugh. "Let's get this over with."
Eric circled the driver's side of the car until he reached Calleigh, taking her elbows into his hands and drawing her close enough that she could place hers on his hips.
"You're the strongest person I know, Cal," he murmured. "You can handle a nosy neighbor."
Another quiet laugh escaped her, and she wrapped her arms around his waist, then leaned up to brush a kiss to his lips that inevitably deepened more than she intended. That was her fault, though; she just couldn't seem to get enough of him, and she needed the comfort, so she didn't stop herself from drinking him in.
"Thank you," she whispered when they parted.
"For what?"
Calleigh gave him a little squeeze. "For making me happier on a hard day."
Eric smiled and slipped his hand into hers, tugging her gently toward the house. "You're welcome."
Calleigh wasn't sure Eric truly understood. Just last night—was it really only last night that he found her there on the porch?—she sat lost and broken, stuck in her own personal hell, uncertain if she could find her way out.
The thoughts occupying Calleigh's mind recently didn't center on just her kidnapping, her assault, or the loss of her mother. She'd gone down a torturous, introspective rabbit hole, and she couldn't stop.
She contemplated the weight of the burdens brought on by her years as a CSI, and the heaviness of the tragedy constantly surrounding her.
She dwelled on the months she spent with Jake and the guilt she felt for lying to herself, for needing to fill the empty space in her bed— another mistake in a string of failed relationships.
She cataloged all the death and destruction that seemed to trail in her wake since she was a child.
The intrusive thoughts were slowly eating Calleigh alive…until this morning, when she woke and the cacophony of negative voices in her head had mostly subsided.
She knew that Eric, with his steady calm and heated kisses and words full of love, had reached to the stereo that was her brain and turned the volume all the way down, when she had struggled in vain to temper the noise for weeks.
Eric eased her pain, gave her purpose, caught her when she fell. He made her happy.
Calleigh held her ground and tugged him back in her direction. "I mean it, Eric. You and me…this all seems so…natural." She blushed as she said the words. "It's all so easy."
A warmth rushed through Eric as he processed Calleigh's attempt to express her feelings.
"You thought it'd be awkward?" he ventured with a crooked grin, running a hand down her back and using it to pull her a little closer.
Her blush deepened. "Didn't you? We've been friends for years. Partners…"
Eric chuckled, though his eyes were clear and serious as they locked onto Calleigh's. "I've wanted you for so long, it didn't matter to me how we started, as long as we did."
Her beaming smile sent a light straight to her eyes, but it vanished as soon as it appeared, and she bit her lips as she hesitated to say her next words.
"You don't think we're moving too fast, do you?" she finally asked.
Eric pondered that for a second. They definitely skipped the first date phase and went straight into something far more serious. But, then again, if he looked back on all their pizza dinners, movie nights, diving trips, and so on, he could argue that they'd had eight years of first dates already, and, therefore, had been moving at a snail's pace.
"Do you feel like it's too fast?"
Cal smiled sheepishly, but answered confidently. "No."
Eric leaned down to press a reassuring kiss to her lips. "Then that's what matters," he murmured, another deep chuckle escaping his own lips before he captured hers one last time, gently encircling her with his arms when he felt her melt against him.
"C'mon," he said, eventually breaking away. "You have company."
"Ugh, don't remind me."
He swung her around until she walked in front of him and guided her up the stairs and through the front door with a feather light touch at the small of her back, the laughter lingering silently in the air between them as they walked through the door.
When they entered the foyer, they heard voices carrying from the living room, muffled but distinguishable. Eric noted three—J.J., Derek, and a third male voice he didn't recognize.
Calleigh must have known the owner of the voice, though, because she stopped dead in her tracks, and Eric nearly toppled over her. He had to wrap his arms around her to keep from doing so, and in the process, he felt her entire body go rigid and a violent shiver course through her, an abrupt turnaround from her playful demeanor moments before.
At first, Eric thought he had startled Calleigh with his unintended physical contact, but then he realized her reaction had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the mystery man in the next room.
"Cal?"
She didn't respond. Instead, she slowly turned toward the adjoining room, took the few steps required to reach the doorway, and she stopped cold again. Eric had followed her in lock-step, and he came to a halt slightly behind her to the left.
He could feel every one of her muscles vibrating, and the only other time he remembered Calleigh reacting so viscerally to someone was years ago, right after she arrested Hank Kerner for assassinating District Attorney Janet Medrano, one of her closest friends. Eric had found her alone in the break room, hands on the counter, head down, and even from the doorway he could see her shaking with rage.
This was no different. A switch had instantly, and dangerously, flipped inside Calleigh. Eric trusted his partner's instincts implicitly, and the fact that she would respond to this man the same way as a murderer who threatened to kill her in cold blood forced the hair on the back of Eric's neck and arms to stand on end.
From their position under the archway leading to the living room, Eric surveyed the scene before him over Calleigh's head—she had taken a quick step sideways to shield him and surreptitiously reached for his hand behind her back.
To the left stood J.J. and Derek, facing a tall, overly-good-looking man to the right, situated to one side of Duke, whom they hadn't heard speak earlier.
The man's dark, barely salt-and-pepper hair was swept perfectly to the side, his nose just the right amount of crooked and his eyes sky blue. And when he flashed a wide grin in Calleigh's direction upon seeing her enter the room, Eric made a mental note of the too-white, too-smug smile.
"Hey, Cal," the man said smoothly.
Calleigh did not return the greeting. Eric couldn't see her face, but he did see the color drain from Duke, J.J. and Derek's at what he presumed was a death glare in her eyes.
"What are you doing here?"
Her voice was low and sharp, and it set off alarm bells in Eric's head that had him gripping her right hand a little tighter. He lifted his left hand to rest on her shoulder in silent support, and Calleigh recognized it as a protective, slightly possessive move that she didn't totally mind right now.
Her blood had turned cold and her skin hot, and air struggled to find its way in and out of her lungs.
The man laughed. "Is that any way to greet me after, what…two years, Cal?"
Calleigh seethed at the sound of her nickname falling from his lips. "Don't call me that," she spat.
J.J., foreseeing the impending explosion, sought to head it off, and he took a beseeching step forward. "Andrew was just leaving. He came to drop off mom's legal documents."
Then, Calleigh remembered. Before they left for the morgue, she'd called the office of Caroline's attorney, requesting her mother's original will, power of attorney, and other important papers. Calleigh only had copies, and she remembered Caroline saying she'd updated a few things, so Cal knew the versions in her possession were most likely outdated.
Susan had answered the phone, the same ancient woman who'd worked the front desk and refilled the coffee cups of the attorneys at Tate and Swanson, LLP for as long as Calleigh had been alive, and she spent a good ten minutes filling Calleigh in on local gossip before Calleigh could even broach the purpose of her call.
Susan promised the packet would be delivered to the house before the end of the day, but she failed to mention who, exactly, would be doing the delivering.
"I expected Roger to be here," Calleigh replied icily.
Since before Calleigh was born, Roger Tate and Judge Swanson had constituted the two pillars of the oldest remaining law firm in West Carroll Parish, but apparently Susan left out more than one important detail on the phone earlier. Since when did Andrew join the firm?
The man shook his head and fixed Calleigh with another smile that Eric felt a strong urge to wipe off of his face.
"He retired last November, and with dad gone, it's just me in the office now…which you would know if you'd grace us with your presence more often. We miss you."
J.J. took another step forward just as Eric felt Calleigh start to do the same, the tension radiating outward from her body in waves. He tightened his grip on her shoulder and threaded his fingers through hers, and, surprisingly, she didn't fight him.
"You are not welcome in this house," Calleigh pronounced angrily before J.J. could interject with something more patient or kind.
Andrew paused. He pursed his lips and bowed his head like he wanted to say something, but he just shook it instead. Then, he gestured at a file box beside him on the floor that neither Calleigh nor Eric noticed previously.
"Let me know if you have any questions, Calleigh," he drawled. "The new paperwork is in the front; Susan's getting up there in years, but she still keeps things in pretty good order, especially for family."
Eric somehow managed to keep the shock from showing on his face at the word, "family," a feat which he could only credit to hours spent in the interrogation room. This man was related to Calleigh?
"You know your way out," Calleigh said in lieu of thanks.
"I do," Andrew sighed. "Sissy's waiting for me at home, anyway. I'll see you at the funeral."
Calleigh's stomach dropped, and she felt sick at the thought of seeing him again soon, or any time at all, especially at her mother's funeral.
As he passed by the pair in the archway, he locked his gaze with Calleigh's one more time, then he gave Eric a lightning quick look of appraisal that only someone as keen as a CSI could detect. Eric noted a gleam of something in the stranger's eyes that he couldn't identify, but he didn't like.
Calleigh didn't turn to watch Andrew leave, but as soon as she heard the door click, she released the air she'd been holding captive in her lungs. A silence descended on them for a beat before all three siblings spoke at once.
"How could you--?"
"Are you--?"
"What the--?"
Calleigh abruptly tore her fingers from Eric's to hold both of her hands in the air. "I go first!" she demanded in a raised voice.
Her brothers quieted, each looking like they knew a brewing storm was about to let loose its fury.
"Fury" was the right word. It currently coursed and bubbled through Calleigh's veins in a way she wasn't sure she could control and didn't know if she wanted to.
Years. Years later, and her brothers and father still didn't understand her wishes or respect them.
"How dare you let him step foot into this house," she said, her voice shaking.
She looked directly at Duke. "You know better."
Duke averted his gaze and tried to come up with the words to defend himself, but he could not. Derek advanced a pace forward, shaking his head.
"Do we really, Cal? Because you never gave us a straight answer about what happened. If—"
"And I'm not going to," Calleigh interrupted harshly. "God, Der. You know how I feel about him. How could you invite him to mama's funeral?"
"He's our cousin, Cal. How could I not?"
"He's not our cousin. He's married to our cousin. And, very easily!"
"Is that what this is still about, Calleigh? Sissy stealing your boyfriend?" Derek huffed in disbelief. "That was high school. You need to let it go."
"Let it go?" Calleigh whispered, sudden tears filling her eyes under the weight of the day.
She flashed back to swing sets and skipping rocks, bike rides and long talks and nights under the stars. Her first kiss…her first everything.
And Caroline's voice resonating again and again.
Calleigh, he's such a nice young man. Calleigh, boys will be boys. Calleigh, this is all your fault…
Before she could stop them, the tears began to fall. "Do you really think this is about a childhood crush?"
"Derek, listen," J.J. tried to interrupt, knowing that this tension had been building for years, rearing its head every so often, but never fully reaching a boiling point. He also knew Derek had been in a heated argument earlier in the day with Leah, and his brother was now taking his anger out on Calleigh. "This isn't the time to—"
"What else am I supposed to think?" Derek spoke loudly over J.J., refusing to let him cut in. "You won't tell us anything. You shut down and run away and keep a million secrets!"
Calleigh barely kept herself from yelling back at him, the tears burning her cheeks now and fueling her anger. Why couldn't he see?
"If I have secrets, it's for a reason, Derek! I'm trying to protect you! I've spent my entire life trying to protect you!"
That was the wrong thing to say to a younger brother always striving to be seen as a man not a boy, to carve his own path, to break out of his sister's shadow. She knew it wouldn't help to say it, but it was the truth and she had to be honest, even if she struck a long-held, deep-seated chord in him.
And she was right; Derek immediately lost his temper.
"When will you stop?! We don't need your protection anymore! You aren't God, Calleigh. You can't control everything!"
Eric and J.J. both interjected at the same time, but it was no use. Derek had pushed his sister over the edge now, too, and they all watched as flames ignited in her teary green eyes, and red heat crept up her neck and flared in her cheeks.
Calleigh, he said he was sorry. Calleigh, it's our little secret. Calleigh, he won't do it again…
"You have no idea what he's capable of!" she shouted at Derek. Her tone was desperate and full of deep hurt, and her anger had even Eric taking a miniscule step back from her.
"No, he doesn't, Lambchop," a small voice sounded from the side of the room, where everyone had forgotten Duke stood. "But maybe it's time that he does."