chapter 1

Gone were the days of his youth. From early on Horatio had been a man of numbers. That was why he had studied so hard to become an accountant and now he was starting his first job, an office and a personal assistant.

Ray had been quite helpful in setting up his home away from home.

It wasn't more than a week when his first meeting with the execs was set and on that Monday at precisely 9:33am Horatio got a call.

"Hello"

"Hello"

Horatio called several times into the phone but there was no answer. He was about to hang up but though to listen to see if he could detect any hint of the person on the other end of the line. It wasn't more than a few minutes and a non descript voice said "wrong number" and hung up.

That was odd thought Horatio. And at noon he met with his managers for the first of many meetings.

When he got back from his lunch meeting he stopped off at Ray's desk and told him about the odd call he received this morning.

"How could that be?" Ray asked. "All calls have to come through my switchboard."

"Well then it must be someone somehow got the direct number bypassing you because I got that call. See if you can figure out what happened and we will discuss it again."

Ray was befuddled. He had no idea how to even start with figuring out what had happened.

A week had passed and Horatio was falling into his duties with ease.

Ray had contacted the phone company, he had checked out the vendor that installed the phone system. He had even tried several times to call into that number from an outside line but was unable to come up with a solution.

And at precisely 9:33am Horatio once again got a call this time not saying a word but listening in to discern any hint of the perpetrator of this amusement.

It was a full 5 minutes and another "wrong number" followed by a quick disconnect.

This confused Horatio and he quickly called Ray into his office and asked if a call had come in.

"Not a one" Ray responded.

"Well I got another one of those calls. See if you can get the number changed."

Ray went about his duties and within a few days the number for Horatio's office was changed.