Re: Until we meet again
*****
Yelina was not so easy to take as her would be abductors had hoped. They had entered the house easily enough, even maneuvered to her room well enough. It was as they had begun to approach her to bind her that her survival instinct had kicked in. They'd had to knock her unconscious. Nothing bothered them about that, except the scratches each one of them had received from her. After they had finished binding her, they took her out of the house and to a waiting van hidden close by. Someone walked behind the abductors, it looked like they were taking pictures. None of them were aware they'd had an audience, and he drove away. No one would be able to pin him to this, he would be able to deny being involved in whatever happened to her, but that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy the thought of the vindication he was finally going to get.
*****
Horatio waited impatiently through the remainder of the day and most of the next morning for information. When the doctor came in and saw him up, he decided it was time to begin therapy on his shoulder and arm. Horatio was glad for anything to do, especially anything that would get him out of that hospital room.
When Calleigh finally came back, she found him working on his arm mobility. She smiled a little, she knew that Horatio would push his discharge up as quickly as possible, regardless of what it took. It would be good to have him out of here.
Horatio looked up as Calleigh entered, ready to hear about what she had found. He was also curious why Yelina had not been by at all, and hoped she would know about that as well.
“What do you got for me?, he immediately asked.
“Well, Rick Stetler admitted to being the one who made the phone call to you. A practical joke gone bad, he said. And, we lifted his fingerprints from the photos. Maybe he still thinks he's being funny?”
Horatio shook his head, he didn't quite understand what was going on in Stetler's head. “And Yelina, you heard from her?”
“No, we haven't heard from Yelina. It's a bit off from what she said she would do, so we've been trying to get hold of her. We haven't been able to yet, seems her cell phone is off and isn't answering her home phone. Her car isn't in her driveway We checked at her mother's house, she and Ray are fine but haven't heard from Yelina. We'll keep trying her. “
Horatio nodded his head, sounded like they were doing everything he would be doing. Except, Yelina, he felt something was wrong there. He communicated that worry to Calleigh, who agreed. As they were talking, the nurse brought in more mail. An envelope of familiar size caught his eye. He glanced at Calleigh as he grabbed that first, noted that the handwriting was different and opened it. More photos were in it. .
Horatio felt his heart crash around in his chest and up into his throat as he looked at each photo. He watched as Yelina was bound in her room, carried down her stairs, carried out her and tossed into a van. These four he passed to Calleigh as he looked at more of them. Yelina was bound to a chair in a concrete room barren of any other furniture. She had a bloody nose, than a cut lip, her hair in more and more disarray, cuts on her cheeks, blood running down her face, unable to open her eyes for the swelling. Someone was beating her, for information? What could she possibly know that they would want? He passed these to Calleigh too and there were still yet more. Calleigh muttered something under her breath, he asked her to explain.
Calleigh explained to Horatio how Yelina had been stopped by Rick, he'd tried to find out where Raymond was and had said that people were looking for him. Maybe they thought Raymond had shared information with Yelina? Horatio shook his head, there was no way to know whether he had or not, but it seemed someone must think he had. Everything always came back to Raymond.
Horatio turned back to the photos, hoping that they would hold some clue as to where Yelina was. Each photo was worse, more heart wrenching. Apparently they had discovered she was useless to them for information, and began to use her to satisfy other needs. He wasn't even to the last photo and he wondered if she would be able to survive it all. It was that last photo that finally left a clue where they could look. She had been dumped in an area that looked like it was in or near the Everglades. He absorbed this one, wishing there was some way he could tell if she was still alive from the photo.