An End Has A Start / PG13 / thiscanbegin
Title: An End Has A Start (1/?)
rating: PG13
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Pairings/Characters: Speedle/Delko, Delko/Ryan
Seasons/Spoilers: Minor spoilers for S5 and spoilers for next week's episode.
Summary: An old face returns to Miami and trouble seems to follow.
Author's Notes:
He watched silently, hidden behind a row of trees as the guns went off. A ten gun salute just for him. Now he had an answer for that age old question "what would it be like to attend your own funeral". It was weird, extremely weird. It was weird to see the casket lowered into the ground with nothing in it. Weird to see all your friends and family standing around crying. But most of all, it was weird to see him standing there crying, and not being able to offer some sort of comfort, to shout "hey look I'm not dead!". But he couldn't.
A hand touched his shoulder and he looked away from the scene in front of him.
"Are you ready to go, Mr. Speedle?" the owner of the hand asked.
Speedle turned to face the man, dressed in a simple gray suite with sunglasses shielding his eyes from the ever present Miami sun. "I guess so," he replied. He glanced back quickly at the funeral and at him. "Yeah, let's go"
---
Three Years Later
[Orléans, France]
As the phone on the beside tabled started to ring, the seemingly lifeless male figure in the bed let out a muffled groan. Not bothering to turn on the light, a hand slapped around on the table until it finally came in contact with the shrieking object.
"Bonjour?" he said into the receiver. Even though he was speaking French, his accent was distinctly American.
"Hello Robert" came the reply of a man with an authentic French accent.
"Pierre, why are you speaking English? You never do," Robert replied, sitting up in his bed.
"Because you are needed," Pierre replied.
"Needed?"
"Yes, Timothy."
At this, Robert/Timothy, nearly dropped the phone but recovered quickly. "I'm on my way," he said, slamming the phone back onto the hook, before he jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom.
---
[Miami, Florida]
The sun shone brightly, cascading everything in a beautiful array of yellows and oranges. For the tourists, it was a beautiful thing, but for the residents of Miami, it was just another typical day. A typical day with the typical crimes ranging from a simple car jacking, all the way up to kidnapping and murder. Sometimes typical was overrated, or at least that's what CSI Eric Delko thought, as he was processing the scene of a murder/suicide.
"Why can't crime take a day off?" he asked his partner Ryan Wolfe, who was busy snapping pictures of an odd shaped blood stain.
"Cause then we would be out of the job?" Ryan replied, looking up from the camera to smirk at Delko. "Besides, you went damn near crazy those three weeks that you were forced to take off after you got shot. Do you think you could really handle not working?"
"Well, not for a long time. But just a couple of days wouldn't hurt," Delko replied, putting down an evidence marker.
"Maybe we can ask H for a couple days off after this case is solved?" Ryan suggested, taking pictures of the new marker Delko had just placed.
"You just got reassigned, wouldn't be a little soon to ask for time off?"
Ryan was quiet for a moment, lost in thought. He finally shrugged, "I guess you're right. In a way technically, I was still employed by the PD while my evaluation went through, even though I was working elsewhere."
"It'll probably be a while until you can get some real vaca time," Delko said, as he pulled out a swab from his kit to take a sample of a mysterious substance.
"So then you should ask H for a couple days off."
"What about you?" Delko asked, looking up at Ryan who was standing over him.
"We'll still see each other after I get off work, and when you come back," Ryan replied with a soft smile.
"Yeah, that's true," Delko said, putting the swab back into the box and labeling it before it was placed back into his kit. He then stood up, "I guess I'll ask H for some time then."
Ryan smiled brightly at this, "Good. And while you're off you'll stay at my place."
"Yeah right Wolfe, you just want me there so you won't have to cook or clean for two days," Delko teased.
For a brief moment, Ryan had the graces to look offended, before his lips curled into a devious smirk. "Or maybe I just like the thought of you-" before he could finish his sentence, the sliding glass door opened and Calleigh Duquesne walked in.
"Don't let me interrupt, boys," she said with a smirk as she noticed their closeness and the slight flush on Ryan's skin. Delko was too tanned for a blush to be as obvious as Ryan's was, but Calleigh could tell he was blushing too.
"You weren't," Delko replied with a grin. "We were just talking about getting some time off."
"Oh really?" she asked, eyebrow arched playfully.
It was no secret among the group that Eric and Ryan were a couple and had been for the last year or so. Calleigh was the first person they told about their relationship and then Alexx. At both the women's urging, they told Horatio too, who was completely okay with it as long as their relationship didn't affect their work. In fact, most of the people in the labs knew that they were together and most were comfortable with it. There were a few bad apples in the bunch, Stetler for example, but he didn't say much anymore. Not after Horatio threatened that Delko and Ryan could file a discrimination lawsuit on him and the department. The thought of the labs being defaced in such a way, shut him up pretty fast and kept them mostly out of their way.
"Delko here was complaining about the job," Ryan said with a mischievous grin.
"Eric, how could you!" Calleigh smacked him playfully on the shoulder.
"Wolfe is exaggerating ," Delko replied, lightly pushing Ryan. "I was just saying that it would be nice to have a couple days off, is all."
"So why don't you ask Horatio?" she asked.
"I'm going to after this case, I think."
---
Half an hour later both men were back at the labs. Eric was busy dropping off his evidence to the right places, while Ryan headed over to AV to print out the hundreds of pictures he took at the scene.
Delko had just left the trace lab, when he saw Horatio walking down the hall. Figuring it was now or never, he yelled after him, "Hey H, gotta minute?"
Horatio stopped walking, and turned to face Delko, who was on his way over. With a tilt of his head, Horatio asked, "is there anything I can do for you, Eric?"
"I was wondering, if I could get a couple days off after this case is solved?"
"I think something can be arranged," Horatio said with a slight smile. He was about to ask about the case, when his cellphone rang. "Excuse me," he said to Eric, before he unclipped his cellphone and pulled it open. "Caine?"
Deciding he should give Horatio some privacy, Delko took stepped off to the side and watched his Lt. The look that passed across the older man's face wasn't pleasant.
When Horatio finally hung up his phone, Delko stepped up to him again, "something wrong?"
Horatio looked down at his shoes briefly, before glancing up at him. "Something I need to take care of. Come see me after the case, and I'll give you the time off," not waiting for the other man to respond, Horatio put on his sunglasses and walked off.
Delko just shrugged, and took off towards the AV lab to see what Ryan was up to.
---
A while later, Horatio's hummer pulled up to an abandoned warehouse at an undisclosed location. He waited a few minutes, until the back passenger door opened, and a body slid inside.
"It's been a while," Horatio said once the door closed.
"Three years," Speedle replied.
"Is it safe for you to be back in Miami?" Horatio asked, turning in his seat to face his former colleague. It was unnerving how he still looked very much as he did that day three years ago when he was shot. The only psychical difference was his hair was longer than it had been, but the ever present five o'clock shadow was still there.
"They're still out there," Speed said glancing out of the window, "but I'm needed here."
"New evidence?" Horatio asked.
"I think so."
A little over eight months before Speed had been shot, he had worked a solo drug case, during a time when the lab was particularly busy and no one could partner with him. Speedle had discovered that cocaine from a large drug bust four weeks earlier had some how found it's way out of lock up and back onto the streets. Eventually the evidence lead to the head narco officer who had executed the search warrant on that particular drug house. He'd been tipping off dealers and runners for years, taking a large cut out of their profits for his services. The officer even dished out corrupting evidence against a local FBI agent who had been also taking money and drugs in return for information.
After both the officer and agent were arrested and convicted, Speed started to get threatening messages at home and work. People didn't like the fact that their biggest connections within law enforcement had been sent to prison for thirty or more years.
It was only after an actual attempt had been made on Speed's life, that both the MDPD and FBI decided that something serious had to be done. They began working on how to make it look like Speedle had been killed in the line of duty, so he could safely and quietly be relocated without anyone, cops or criminals knowing. This was all done behind Horatio's back, which Speed wasn't aware of until after.
The fact that he had gotten shot in the line of duty was just an extremely lucky coincidence. At the hospital, the FBI told Horatio about what was happening and why Speedle needed to be dead. When Horatio asked how they were going to get past the autopsy, they told him they already had a body ready to go to the morgue. It was scary just how much the dead man resembled the still living Speed, even down to the gun shot.
Horatio and the FBI also informed Alexx of what was going on, so she wouldn't been surprised when blood and DNA came back saying that the body she had labeled as Timothy Speedle, wasn't really him.
Despite knowing all of that, it still had been hard for her to do the autopsy, and Horatio who had watched.
"Do you have a place to stay?" Horatio asked.
Speedle nodded, "You know I can't tell you where."
"I understand," Horatio replied.
"I'm not really even supposed to see you," Speed said quietly as he looked out of the window again.
"Then why are you?"
"I know that things happened behind your back last time, and I'm sorry it had to be done like that. You should have been envovled form the start, not told last minute. I thought you should know what's going on now, and know that I'm back, at least for a little while."
"And I appreciate that, Speed," he said reaching into the back seat, to touch the man's arm.
"Anyway," Speedle laughed nervously trying to break the tension, "how is everyone?"
Horatio knew that what Speed really meant was how was a particular someone, but couldn't bring himself to ask. "Everybody is fine," Horatio replied. "There were some.... problems last year, but nothing that we couldn't work out in the end."
"How is..." Speed took a deep breath and let it out slowly, before finally continuing, "how is Delko?"
"Eric is well," Horatio replied with a tilt of his head. He looked down at the passenger seat, before looking back up to meet Speed's eyes. "He was shot in the line of duty last year."
Speedle couldn't help it and he let out a gasp as he sat up straighter in the seat. "What happened?" he asked, feeling tears began to burn his eyes.
"Clavo Cruz had escaped from prison. Eric was shot during a gun fight, once in the leg and then the head. He made a full recovery, except for some memory loss."
The tears burned more, but he didn't allow himself to cry. "Did you get the bastard who shot him?"
Horatio nodded, "Yes. Ryan and Calleigh caught him."
"Ryan," Speedle repeated, "my replacement?" the other man avoided his eyes again but nodded. Speedle wanted to ask if Delko and Ryan were close, but couldn't. Even if he wanted to know, he didn't want to know. It was killing him enough just to be in the same city as Eric and not see him. Knowing whether or not he was in a relationship, would just hurt more. "That's good."
"It is," Horatio said.
The two stayed silent for a few more minutes, not really sure what to say. There were a million things Horatio wanted to ask Speedle. He wanted to know where he was, how he was, if he would be coming back for good ever. He didn't though. Having already gone through this with his brother, he knew there were things Speed wasn't allowed to talk about and only a few things he was.
Speedle on the other hand, only wanted to know about one thing. He wanted to know more about Ryan. What he did before he became his replacement, was he nice, a good CSI, and so forth. Mostly he wanted to know if he was taking good care of Delko. Even though Horatio hadn't actually told him that Ryan and Delko were close, Speed could tell by his body lanuage and the things he left unsaid.
Finally, Speed broke the silence. "I need to get going."
Horatio nodded, "It was good seeing you again Tim."
"You too H," Speed said with a smile, before he opened the passanger door and left.
Horatio stuck around until Speedle was completely gone from his sight, before he turned the engine and pulled out of the warehouse lot.
---
Back at the labs, Eric was in the break room going over reports he'd gotten back from the case. So far all the evidence made it appear to be a standard murder/suicide, with the husband killing the wife before taking his own life next. But there was something off about the case. Delko didn't know what it was yet, but he was determined to find out.
"Hey, I've been looking for you everywhere," Ryan said coming into the break room.
Delko looked up from his files and smiled at him, "miss me that much?"
"Funny," Ryan replied with a smile of his own. "I got the tox reports back from Carmen. You'll never guess what they say," he said handing them over. "The husband was too stoned to even use a toothpick, let alone shoot a gun."
"I knew it," Delko replied after he read the report.
"Back to the scene?" Ryan asked.
"Back to the scene," Delko nodded as he gathered up his files.
"Give me a couple minutes to get some stuff from my locker and I'll meet you by the car," Ryan said as he held open the door for Delko, who slipped pass easily, and stepped out into the hall.
"Don't take forever," he teased as Ryan walked off towards the labs.
As Delko neared the elevator, his phone rang. Not bothering to check the caller ID, he flipped it open and answered it, but there was nothing but silence on the other end. "Hello?" he asked again, but whoever it was, hung up. Curious, he went to his recent calls and checked the ID but it came up as unknown. Wanting to know who had called and why, he hit the send button and waited as it rang.
"Thank you for calling Mandarin Oriental Miami, my name is Jennifer. How many I help you this afternoon?"
"Uh, I think I have the wrong number," Delko replied.
"No problem Sir. Have a good day" she said before she hung up.
"Aw you were waiting for me," Ryan's voice broke through Delko's confusion.
"You wish," he replied with a laugh as he hit the elevator's down button. It pinged a few seconds later and the doors opened. "I just had a weird call," he said stepping in with Ryan behind him.
"Oh yeah?" Ryan asked moving to stand on Delko's right side, so he could hit the button for the garage.
Delko nodded, "yeah. Someone from the Mandarin Oriental Miami called me a few minutes ago." At this, Ryan arched an eyebrow, but before he could say some smart ass comment, Delko continued, "no I don't know who it was. They just hung up."
"Maybe you have a secret admirer?" Ryan asked with a silly grin.
"Maybe," Delko grinned back.
---
At the hotel, Speedle stared at the phone on the bedside table, silently cursing himself for being so stupid. He was doing everything he was told not to do on this trip. First he seeked out Horatio and met with him. Now he had just called Delko. At first he thought it was a good idea, that just to hear Delko's voice might make things easier. But now, he wasn't so sure.
rating: PG13
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Pairings/Characters: Speedle/Delko, Delko/Ryan
Seasons/Spoilers: Minor spoilers for S5 and spoilers for next week's episode.
Summary: An old face returns to Miami and trouble seems to follow.
Author's Notes:
He watched silently, hidden behind a row of trees as the guns went off. A ten gun salute just for him. Now he had an answer for that age old question "what would it be like to attend your own funeral". It was weird, extremely weird. It was weird to see the casket lowered into the ground with nothing in it. Weird to see all your friends and family standing around crying. But most of all, it was weird to see him standing there crying, and not being able to offer some sort of comfort, to shout "hey look I'm not dead!". But he couldn't.
A hand touched his shoulder and he looked away from the scene in front of him.
"Are you ready to go, Mr. Speedle?" the owner of the hand asked.
Speedle turned to face the man, dressed in a simple gray suite with sunglasses shielding his eyes from the ever present Miami sun. "I guess so," he replied. He glanced back quickly at the funeral and at him. "Yeah, let's go"
---
Three Years Later
[Orléans, France]
As the phone on the beside tabled started to ring, the seemingly lifeless male figure in the bed let out a muffled groan. Not bothering to turn on the light, a hand slapped around on the table until it finally came in contact with the shrieking object.
"Bonjour?" he said into the receiver. Even though he was speaking French, his accent was distinctly American.
"Hello Robert" came the reply of a man with an authentic French accent.
"Pierre, why are you speaking English? You never do," Robert replied, sitting up in his bed.
"Because you are needed," Pierre replied.
"Needed?"
"Yes, Timothy."
At this, Robert/Timothy, nearly dropped the phone but recovered quickly. "I'm on my way," he said, slamming the phone back onto the hook, before he jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom.
---
[Miami, Florida]
The sun shone brightly, cascading everything in a beautiful array of yellows and oranges. For the tourists, it was a beautiful thing, but for the residents of Miami, it was just another typical day. A typical day with the typical crimes ranging from a simple car jacking, all the way up to kidnapping and murder. Sometimes typical was overrated, or at least that's what CSI Eric Delko thought, as he was processing the scene of a murder/suicide.
"Why can't crime take a day off?" he asked his partner Ryan Wolfe, who was busy snapping pictures of an odd shaped blood stain.
"Cause then we would be out of the job?" Ryan replied, looking up from the camera to smirk at Delko. "Besides, you went damn near crazy those three weeks that you were forced to take off after you got shot. Do you think you could really handle not working?"
"Well, not for a long time. But just a couple of days wouldn't hurt," Delko replied, putting down an evidence marker.
"Maybe we can ask H for a couple days off after this case is solved?" Ryan suggested, taking pictures of the new marker Delko had just placed.
"You just got reassigned, wouldn't be a little soon to ask for time off?"
Ryan was quiet for a moment, lost in thought. He finally shrugged, "I guess you're right. In a way technically, I was still employed by the PD while my evaluation went through, even though I was working elsewhere."
"It'll probably be a while until you can get some real vaca time," Delko said, as he pulled out a swab from his kit to take a sample of a mysterious substance.
"So then you should ask H for a couple days off."
"What about you?" Delko asked, looking up at Ryan who was standing over him.
"We'll still see each other after I get off work, and when you come back," Ryan replied with a soft smile.
"Yeah, that's true," Delko said, putting the swab back into the box and labeling it before it was placed back into his kit. He then stood up, "I guess I'll ask H for some time then."
Ryan smiled brightly at this, "Good. And while you're off you'll stay at my place."
"Yeah right Wolfe, you just want me there so you won't have to cook or clean for two days," Delko teased.
For a brief moment, Ryan had the graces to look offended, before his lips curled into a devious smirk. "Or maybe I just like the thought of you-" before he could finish his sentence, the sliding glass door opened and Calleigh Duquesne walked in.
"Don't let me interrupt, boys," she said with a smirk as she noticed their closeness and the slight flush on Ryan's skin. Delko was too tanned for a blush to be as obvious as Ryan's was, but Calleigh could tell he was blushing too.
"You weren't," Delko replied with a grin. "We were just talking about getting some time off."
"Oh really?" she asked, eyebrow arched playfully.
It was no secret among the group that Eric and Ryan were a couple and had been for the last year or so. Calleigh was the first person they told about their relationship and then Alexx. At both the women's urging, they told Horatio too, who was completely okay with it as long as their relationship didn't affect their work. In fact, most of the people in the labs knew that they were together and most were comfortable with it. There were a few bad apples in the bunch, Stetler for example, but he didn't say much anymore. Not after Horatio threatened that Delko and Ryan could file a discrimination lawsuit on him and the department. The thought of the labs being defaced in such a way, shut him up pretty fast and kept them mostly out of their way.
"Delko here was complaining about the job," Ryan said with a mischievous grin.
"Eric, how could you!" Calleigh smacked him playfully on the shoulder.
"Wolfe is exaggerating ," Delko replied, lightly pushing Ryan. "I was just saying that it would be nice to have a couple days off, is all."
"So why don't you ask Horatio?" she asked.
"I'm going to after this case, I think."
---
Half an hour later both men were back at the labs. Eric was busy dropping off his evidence to the right places, while Ryan headed over to AV to print out the hundreds of pictures he took at the scene.
Delko had just left the trace lab, when he saw Horatio walking down the hall. Figuring it was now or never, he yelled after him, "Hey H, gotta minute?"
Horatio stopped walking, and turned to face Delko, who was on his way over. With a tilt of his head, Horatio asked, "is there anything I can do for you, Eric?"
"I was wondering, if I could get a couple days off after this case is solved?"
"I think something can be arranged," Horatio said with a slight smile. He was about to ask about the case, when his cellphone rang. "Excuse me," he said to Eric, before he unclipped his cellphone and pulled it open. "Caine?"
Deciding he should give Horatio some privacy, Delko took stepped off to the side and watched his Lt. The look that passed across the older man's face wasn't pleasant.
When Horatio finally hung up his phone, Delko stepped up to him again, "something wrong?"
Horatio looked down at his shoes briefly, before glancing up at him. "Something I need to take care of. Come see me after the case, and I'll give you the time off," not waiting for the other man to respond, Horatio put on his sunglasses and walked off.
Delko just shrugged, and took off towards the AV lab to see what Ryan was up to.
---
A while later, Horatio's hummer pulled up to an abandoned warehouse at an undisclosed location. He waited a few minutes, until the back passenger door opened, and a body slid inside.
"It's been a while," Horatio said once the door closed.
"Three years," Speedle replied.
"Is it safe for you to be back in Miami?" Horatio asked, turning in his seat to face his former colleague. It was unnerving how he still looked very much as he did that day three years ago when he was shot. The only psychical difference was his hair was longer than it had been, but the ever present five o'clock shadow was still there.
"They're still out there," Speed said glancing out of the window, "but I'm needed here."
"New evidence?" Horatio asked.
"I think so."
A little over eight months before Speed had been shot, he had worked a solo drug case, during a time when the lab was particularly busy and no one could partner with him. Speedle had discovered that cocaine from a large drug bust four weeks earlier had some how found it's way out of lock up and back onto the streets. Eventually the evidence lead to the head narco officer who had executed the search warrant on that particular drug house. He'd been tipping off dealers and runners for years, taking a large cut out of their profits for his services. The officer even dished out corrupting evidence against a local FBI agent who had been also taking money and drugs in return for information.
After both the officer and agent were arrested and convicted, Speed started to get threatening messages at home and work. People didn't like the fact that their biggest connections within law enforcement had been sent to prison for thirty or more years.
It was only after an actual attempt had been made on Speed's life, that both the MDPD and FBI decided that something serious had to be done. They began working on how to make it look like Speedle had been killed in the line of duty, so he could safely and quietly be relocated without anyone, cops or criminals knowing. This was all done behind Horatio's back, which Speed wasn't aware of until after.
The fact that he had gotten shot in the line of duty was just an extremely lucky coincidence. At the hospital, the FBI told Horatio about what was happening and why Speedle needed to be dead. When Horatio asked how they were going to get past the autopsy, they told him they already had a body ready to go to the morgue. It was scary just how much the dead man resembled the still living Speed, even down to the gun shot.
Horatio and the FBI also informed Alexx of what was going on, so she wouldn't been surprised when blood and DNA came back saying that the body she had labeled as Timothy Speedle, wasn't really him.
Despite knowing all of that, it still had been hard for her to do the autopsy, and Horatio who had watched.
"Do you have a place to stay?" Horatio asked.
Speedle nodded, "You know I can't tell you where."
"I understand," Horatio replied.
"I'm not really even supposed to see you," Speed said quietly as he looked out of the window again.
"Then why are you?"
"I know that things happened behind your back last time, and I'm sorry it had to be done like that. You should have been envovled form the start, not told last minute. I thought you should know what's going on now, and know that I'm back, at least for a little while."
"And I appreciate that, Speed," he said reaching into the back seat, to touch the man's arm.
"Anyway," Speedle laughed nervously trying to break the tension, "how is everyone?"
Horatio knew that what Speed really meant was how was a particular someone, but couldn't bring himself to ask. "Everybody is fine," Horatio replied. "There were some.... problems last year, but nothing that we couldn't work out in the end."
"How is..." Speed took a deep breath and let it out slowly, before finally continuing, "how is Delko?"
"Eric is well," Horatio replied with a tilt of his head. He looked down at the passenger seat, before looking back up to meet Speed's eyes. "He was shot in the line of duty last year."
Speedle couldn't help it and he let out a gasp as he sat up straighter in the seat. "What happened?" he asked, feeling tears began to burn his eyes.
"Clavo Cruz had escaped from prison. Eric was shot during a gun fight, once in the leg and then the head. He made a full recovery, except for some memory loss."
The tears burned more, but he didn't allow himself to cry. "Did you get the bastard who shot him?"
Horatio nodded, "Yes. Ryan and Calleigh caught him."
"Ryan," Speedle repeated, "my replacement?" the other man avoided his eyes again but nodded. Speedle wanted to ask if Delko and Ryan were close, but couldn't. Even if he wanted to know, he didn't want to know. It was killing him enough just to be in the same city as Eric and not see him. Knowing whether or not he was in a relationship, would just hurt more. "That's good."
"It is," Horatio said.
The two stayed silent for a few more minutes, not really sure what to say. There were a million things Horatio wanted to ask Speedle. He wanted to know where he was, how he was, if he would be coming back for good ever. He didn't though. Having already gone through this with his brother, he knew there were things Speed wasn't allowed to talk about and only a few things he was.
Speedle on the other hand, only wanted to know about one thing. He wanted to know more about Ryan. What he did before he became his replacement, was he nice, a good CSI, and so forth. Mostly he wanted to know if he was taking good care of Delko. Even though Horatio hadn't actually told him that Ryan and Delko were close, Speed could tell by his body lanuage and the things he left unsaid.
Finally, Speed broke the silence. "I need to get going."
Horatio nodded, "It was good seeing you again Tim."
"You too H," Speed said with a smile, before he opened the passanger door and left.
Horatio stuck around until Speedle was completely gone from his sight, before he turned the engine and pulled out of the warehouse lot.
---
Back at the labs, Eric was in the break room going over reports he'd gotten back from the case. So far all the evidence made it appear to be a standard murder/suicide, with the husband killing the wife before taking his own life next. But there was something off about the case. Delko didn't know what it was yet, but he was determined to find out.
"Hey, I've been looking for you everywhere," Ryan said coming into the break room.
Delko looked up from his files and smiled at him, "miss me that much?"
"Funny," Ryan replied with a smile of his own. "I got the tox reports back from Carmen. You'll never guess what they say," he said handing them over. "The husband was too stoned to even use a toothpick, let alone shoot a gun."
"I knew it," Delko replied after he read the report.
"Back to the scene?" Ryan asked.
"Back to the scene," Delko nodded as he gathered up his files.
"Give me a couple minutes to get some stuff from my locker and I'll meet you by the car," Ryan said as he held open the door for Delko, who slipped pass easily, and stepped out into the hall.
"Don't take forever," he teased as Ryan walked off towards the labs.
As Delko neared the elevator, his phone rang. Not bothering to check the caller ID, he flipped it open and answered it, but there was nothing but silence on the other end. "Hello?" he asked again, but whoever it was, hung up. Curious, he went to his recent calls and checked the ID but it came up as unknown. Wanting to know who had called and why, he hit the send button and waited as it rang.
"Thank you for calling Mandarin Oriental Miami, my name is Jennifer. How many I help you this afternoon?"
"Uh, I think I have the wrong number," Delko replied.
"No problem Sir. Have a good day" she said before she hung up.
"Aw you were waiting for me," Ryan's voice broke through Delko's confusion.
"You wish," he replied with a laugh as he hit the elevator's down button. It pinged a few seconds later and the doors opened. "I just had a weird call," he said stepping in with Ryan behind him.
"Oh yeah?" Ryan asked moving to stand on Delko's right side, so he could hit the button for the garage.
Delko nodded, "yeah. Someone from the Mandarin Oriental Miami called me a few minutes ago." At this, Ryan arched an eyebrow, but before he could say some smart ass comment, Delko continued, "no I don't know who it was. They just hung up."
"Maybe you have a secret admirer?" Ryan asked with a silly grin.
"Maybe," Delko grinned back.
---
At the hotel, Speedle stared at the phone on the bedside table, silently cursing himself for being so stupid. He was doing everything he was told not to do on this trip. First he seeked out Horatio and met with him. Now he had just called Delko. At first he thought it was a good idea, that just to hear Delko's voice might make things easier. But now, he wasn't so sure.