DATE: October 2009
AUTHOR: LosingInTranslation (losingntrnslatn,
Jennifer)
DISCLAIMER: Don’t own anything associated with the show… I just like
playing with the characters in it from time to time. Dance Monkeys! Dance!
RATING: T - Teen
PAIRING: General Team (with hints of Prentiss/Rossi)
SPOILERS: Through US Aired Episodes of Season 4
WORD COUNT: 20,348
SUMMARY: The BAU is asked to investigate an unusual missing persons case
that has a very personal connection to the team.
A/N: This is one of those monster epics I am so well
know for in the CSI fandom. It is completely written and I am going through the
edits with my betas as quickly as possible. There are a total of nine chapters,
and I will post them as I complete the edits. It is most definitely a case file
fic, with a lot of interaction between the entire
team. I hope you enjoy it.
REVIEWS: Reviews are the way I know if people are enjoying the work or
not. So, if you leave one, THANKS! And if not, I hope you found at least a
little something to brighten your day, and thanks for taking the time to read.
Promises
Chapter 1
Truth is the highest
thing that man may keep.
-Geoffrey Chaucer, The
J.J. waited
for everyone to file into the briefing room one at a time, each with a coffee
cup in their hands. It was just like any other morning, and most of the team
acted that way. Everyone but Prentiss.
Emily was
on edge, and J.J. knew it was because she was going out on a limb. After the
No one
could ever use up their credit on this team. They needed each other too much
for that to ever happen.
As Rossi
and Hotch walked into the conference room talking
about another case, Prentiss’ eyes jumped up from the folders she was fiddling
with and landed squarely on Rossi. J.J. suddenly realized what it was like for
the team to wait around for her to finally admit her relationship with Will.
While she
was pretty sure the rest of the team was still in the dark about the two, she
wondered just how long that would last. Moratoriums on profiling aside, they
knew about each other in ways no other co-workers ever could. Secrets were
practically impossible in the BAU. And no one knew that better than she did.
Hotch
took his seat last and nodded to J.J., “The gang’s all here. So what’s all the
mystery about?”
J.J.
shrugged nonchalantly and took her seat next to Reid. “No mystery… It’s a
suspected missing person case.” She glanced at Emily, who looked like she was
about to climb out of her skin, and smirked. “It just came to me
through…alternative channels.”
All eyes
immediately turned to Prentiss.
Suddenly
the focus of attention, Emily chuffed, “Thanks a lot, J.J.” Emily turned her
head to the side and ground her jaw closed. “No pressure here.”
Rossi was
the first to speak up. “What’s the case, Emily?” His tone was even and devoid
of any emotion or charm, which should have tipped off the entire team that
something was going on between them , but no one
seemed to notice.
“Yeah, Prentiss. What’ve you got?” Morgan threw out his question, almost as a challenge.
“An
acquaintance of mine, she’s been in
Morgan
rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we’ve had a little experience dealing with the
problem.”
The knowing
looks among the team members seemed to intrigue Emily, but she quickly shook
the idea out of her head and continued forward. “Anyway, she met her husband in
Reid took
the opportunity presented to him. “Actually, most of
“If you
would let me finish…” The irritated glare Emily shot at Reid was more than
enough to silence him, and she continued. “Six months ago, her husband’s father
stopped all correspondence.”
“Six
months? That’s a pretty cold trail for a missing person case, Prentiss. Why’d
your friends wait so long?” Morgan’s skepticism was exactly why J.J. felt it
was best for Emily to present the case.
“Because they were pinned down in the middle of a drug war in
“And she’s
only now alerting the authorities?” Hotch’s brow was
furrowed a little more than normal as he questioned Prentiss.
“No.”
Emily’s frustration showed on her face and J.J. had to try very hard not to
jump in and take over. “She’s been trying to get an investigation into his
disappearance started for the last two months, but she’s running into a brick
wall with the local authorities. No one there believes there’s a case at all.
He dropped off the grid a couple years ago, doing some soul-searching. Seems that he left his job, his home, everything, with nothing more
than a note then.”
“What has
her so convinced he’s really missing then? Grown men are allowed to disappear
any time they like, ya know?” Morgan once again threw
down with his conclusions. .
“Because of his son. Before he left everything behind two years ago, he made a
promise to his son that they would talk at least once a month. Even when he
went off the grid, and with all the communication problems, they still managed
to talk.” Emily pulled out a stack of folders and handed the first one to J.J.
“Finding
out there wasn’t a single attempt made while they were cut off in
Without
missing a beat, they all opened their folders to the first page and J.J.
actually felt the air leave the room.
Emily began
to list off the vital statistics, “Fifty seven year old white male. Last known
address; Osage,
Hotch
tried to finish her list, “Jason-”
“Gideon.”
Reid gasped the name.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Chapter 2
Emily knew
the case was theirs when every eye trained on her reflected back with shock and
dismay.
Hotch was
the first to work past the surprise. “Who is this daughter-in-law? I never knew
Steven had gotten married.” He began to flip through the pages in the file as
Emily nodded to J.J. to continue the presentation.
Clicking
the remote in her hand, a passport photo popped up on the screen. “Lorena
Gideon, psychologist and humanitarian worker, attached to the Global Rights of
Women Foundation out of
As J.J.
flipped to the next screen, Emily took over once more when the police report
from the Colombian authorities came up. “Steven was killed when he and Lori were
trying to help a small village outside of
The next
flip showed the deportation paperwork for Lorena Gideon. “Because she was
accused of conspiring to incite a riot, the Colombian authorities were forced
to deport her from the country once she surfaced looking for help to reclaim
her husband’s remains. That’s when I first became involved with the case.”
“Let me
guess,” Morgan asked dryly, “she figured with your State Department
connections, you could help her out?”
“Exactly…”
Emily could see the irritation in Hotch’s eyes, even
if he did stop short of actually rolling them. But looking at Dave was not an
option, because she knew he would be rolling his eyes at the mention of her
mother. “I passed the information on to my mother, who called a few people and
you know how it goes after that. The last I heard from Lori, she was headed
back from their place in
Quietly,
Reid finally spoke up again, “So, you knew where Gideon was all this time, and
didn’t say anything?”
“God no.
I had no idea he even had a kid, and it’s not like Gideon is such an uncommon name.
So, I didn’t put it all together until Lori contacted me this week about her
father-in-law.” She quickly put his fears aside. No one had taken Gideon’s
sudden departure harder than Reid, and Emily could only imagine how difficult
all of this was for him. “He did everything in his power to make sure almost no
one could find him. Even with the information Lori gave me, we had a hard time
tracking anything down.”
Garcia,
always with the best timing in the world, chose that moment to walk into the
briefing room. “And you know if I had trouble tracking his annoyingly, somewhat
endearing, idiosyncratic keister down, then it was
practically impossible.” She plopped down next to Reid and nudged his shoulder,
“He didn’t want to be found, pumpkin. Not by anyone, but especially not by us.”
Reid still
looked like a rejected puppy when he whispered, “He wanted at least someone to
find hi-”
“Don’t even
go there, my little factoid oracle…” Garcia wrapped a comforting arm around
their emotionally vulnerable teammate. “The man made a promise to his kid. And
you know all about Gideon and his promises.” When Reid gave her half of a grin,
she smiled brightly and turned back to Emily.
“What were
you able to find, Garcia?” Emily asked, deflecting the attention away from Reid.
“Not a
whole heck of a lot, my lovelies.” J.J. handed her the remote and Garcia got
down to business. “A small, by
After
cycling through a few land title microfilms, Garcia stopped on a satellite
image of the property. “The property itself is basically worthless. Too graded and rocky for farming, too isolated for irrigation, and
too remote to make even a decent marijuana crop worth growing.” Emily
held her laugh, but when Garcia looked up, she realized too late she had been
rambling again. “But, I digress.”
“Anyway…”
The satellite images moved in closer as she spoke, “No activity on that land
beyond fuzzy woodland creatures until just over two years ago, when a Steven Degault moved in, claiming to have rented the place from an
old friend. Lived solely on cash, only surfaced in town once
a month for supplies, every two months in the winter. Locals reported
that he was, and I quote, repeatedly
‘a quiet man, kept to himself, and minded his own business.’ Seriously, it was
like Stepford: The Lumberjack
Edition calling around up there.
Verbatim, everyone said exactly the same thing.” Garcia shuddered at the
thought.
Hotch
turned back to Emily with his next question, “What makes the daughter-in-law
think something happened?”
“He just
vanished.” Emily looked through her notes as she read off the list. “Not a
trace of him at the house, no mail, no shipments after about six weeks, his tax bill wasn’t paid, and he stopped trying to contact
his son.”
“They
weren’t close… They were estranged for a long time after his PTSD.” Hotch seemed to be having a hard time understanding the
nature of his relationship with Steven and it was odd for Hotch
to be confused about anything.
“I don’t
know what to tell you about that, Hotch. Lori just
said he and Steven had a very close relationship in the time she’s known her
husband, and that Gideon made a promise to Steven that they would always stay
in contact.” Emily handed him a copy of the letter showing exactly that. “They
even gave each other special access to a private portal with their information
and a protected messaging system. Gideon didn’t trust open email, or even phone
calls. Lori’s husband would only tell her that his father was a little on the
paranoid side, but that his past pretty much made him that way.”
“One of
those, ‘if they really are after you, are you still paranoid’ kinda things, huh?” Garcia could never stay silent for
long, and Emily shrugged to acknowledge her comment.
“And why
didn’t the local authorities investigate his disappearance?” Of course Dave was
the one to keep things all business in the briefing room.
Garcia
piped up again, “It’s
Pinching
the bridge of his nose, a hint of exasperation in his voice, Dave asked, “Okay,
what about the house?” He often had a hard time following Garcia and Emily
noticed Dave seemed to have appointed himself the traffic cop for her rambling
explanations. Garcia snapped back to the topic at hand and clicked over to the
next item.
“House
nothing; it’s more like a mountain guerilla compound. And anywhere else in the
country, this would seem out of place, but in militia man country, it’s just
the compound down the block, and keeping up with the Joneses.” Garcia rolled
her eyes as she put up a split screen of a dozen structures bearing a very
similar appearance to the first.
When the
screen transformed back to the original compound, she went on to explain, “But
this one was different from all the others. If for no other reason than because
there wasn’t a well-stocked armory on the premises. The rest of the town had
ammo and full auto kits coming in through their P.O. boxes, but Mr. Degault had regular shipments from book dealers and
specialized bird feed providers. Also of particular note, would be the super
intense, hi-tech camera and microwave jammer security system completely
encompassing the entire compound.” Images of invoices and product specification
sheets floated across the screen as she spoke. “As well as
the most awesome motion sensor system throughout the perimeter. And
lions and tigers and bears, Oh My!”
“So, what
you’re saying is there’s an almost obsessive level of security for someone
who’s reading old books and feeding the birds, but isn’t hiding a cache of
weapons for the coming apocalypse?” Dave gave her one of those raised eyebrow
looks that normally shut her down, but Garcia was on a roll.
“No almost
about it Supervisory Special Agent Rossi… This guy is over the top, balls to
the wall, out of his freaking gourd obsessive about his security system.
“Baby-girl…”
Morgan held both hands up to show her he was not threatening her assessment. “I
think we get the point now.”
“Right.”
She took a moment to collect herself and then turned back to the screen. “As I
was saying, the whole thing pretty much screams Gideon, if you look under
enough rocks, that is. It also tells me not just anyone was getting into that
place without some serious work, unless…”
Reid
exhaled sharply, “It was someone he knew.”
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Chapter 3
The flight
to
The only
thing that kept the flight from being a total waste was Rossi losing his suave
façade with Garcia as she busted his chops about his lack of tech skills.
Baby-girl was always good for a laugh, but watching her goad Rossi into a
stuttering fit was well worth the price of admission. Of course, seeing
Prentiss try to rescue him without looking like she was trying to rescue him
was good, too.
As much as
he wanted to join in on the fun, he had other priorities on the flight. Right
after the briefing, Hotch had taken him and J.J.
aside and asked them to keep an extra eye on Reid for the duration. Hotch was worried the kid would be too messed up about
Gideon to think straight and would get himself in a world of hurt in the
process. The looks he and J.J. had been exchanging since getting their orders
let him know that they both agreed with Hotch.
Reid had
his nose buried in a book on Chaucer, which told Derek everything he needed to
know; Reid was struggling. “Whatcha got there, kid?”
“What?”
Reid glanced up, that dazed and confused look heavily entrenched on his face.
“This…oh…um…it’s a book… A, ah, book detailing the modern literary references
to Chaucer and an assessment on whether or not those references were accurate
or effective.”
Derek
nodded and asked, “Something from your mother?”
“Ah, no.
Though in actuality, she was one of the contributors to this particular work,
before she got, um, sick, that is.” Reid stumbled through his words, no
different than any other time he was nervous, but Derek could see there was
more to it when he finally admitted. “It was a gift…from a, ah, from a friend.”
That was
something new, but Derek was glad to hear there was at least a lady around him
at some point. “Must be a special lady… Ya know, to
know you that well.”
“Yeah…”
Reid nearly choked back the words that time, but he eventually ended the
conversation with, “She was.” Past tense: that said it all.
So much of
Reid’s life was about the past, and try as he might, Derek never could seem to
pull the kid out into the light of the present. Thankfully J.J. sat down across
from them to save him from anymore awkward conversation.
“Spencer,
we’ve gotten some documents faxed over from the crime scene unit at the
“Grasp on
the idiosyncrasies of his writing style and word usage. Yes, I would.” He put
the book down beside him and picked up his laptop. Flipping it open, he pulled
his glasses out of his shirt pocket and got down to work.
With the
two of them staring at him for several minutes, Reid looked up and asked, “Do
you mind? It won’t be long before we land, and I want to have these ready by
then.”
“Um, yeah… Sure thing, Spence.” J.J. got up tried to shake off his
dismissal. Derek quietly followed her.
Once they
were safely out of Reid’s earshot, he took J.J.’s
elbow and got her to face him. “Hey, don’t take it personal. The kid’s got a
lot going on in that big brain of his. So, you know, manners aren’t real high
on his priority list.”
Sadly, she
shook her head. “It’s not that, Derek. He’s closing himself off…emotionally.”
The look in J.J.’s eyes told him exactly what had her
so upset.
“Hey, now.
There’s no way. If he was using again, I’d know. And if I didn’t, Prentiss sure
as hell would.” They all lived in the fear that Reid would backslide into his
addiction, but with so many pairs of eyes on him, Derek was sure they would
spot it. “I’m serious, J.J… If I have to carry him around on my back, I am not
leaving him alone with this, okay? I promise.”
“Just…please,
don’t let him fall like that. I don-…” J.J. looked
like she was about to fall apart with only the thought, and it nearly broke his
heart. “I don’t think I could handle that…not again.”
Derek laid
a comforting hand along her upper arm and squeezed. “Trust me on this one.
Never gonna happen with me on the job.” She only
nodded and walked back toward the cockpit to take another call.
When Derek
turned around, he found Rossi giving him the head tilt, signaling that he had
his own concerns. Slipping in behind the table, right next to Emily, Derek
inserted himself into their conversation. In a voice meant to be heard by
everyone, he asked, “So, Dave, what’s your handle on the financial angle here?”
Once the
nature of their conversation was understood by everyone else, he dropped his
voice and continued, “All right, what’s the deal with this family, guys? And
why didn’t we know anything about it?”
Dave
shrugged in a non-committal gesture and explained, “Jason Gideon really was an
enigma, Morgan. He let so little of his personal life into the job, we were all
shocked when we found out he was even married, and the kid left us all bowled
over. But then again, the bureau was a different place back then. Most of us
kept our personal lives to ourselves, because we already knew too much about
each other as it was.”
Emily
rolled her eyes as Dave’s gaze flitted across her face. “Tell me about it. It
borders on claustrophobia sometimes.” She was careful not to make direct eye
contact with Dave, but not so much with Morgan. If not for trying so hard, no
one would have ever put two and two together. But for all of their smarts, they
really were bad at hiding this one thing, simply because they were that good at
it.
“Yeah, so
what do you make of this daughter-in-law?” Derek directly addressed Emily,
since she apparently knew the woman on some level.
“Oh, well,
she and I went to college together. Her father is a higher up with the Mexican Federales, and they sent her to school in the States. She
and I hit it off because she didn’t have to always speak English with me.”
Emily nodded when she got blank stares from both men. “Okay, I really don’t
know that terribly much about her since college, but she works with groups my
mother has sponsored off and on over the years, and so there’s been some
contact, whenever they needed favors to get someone out of jam. Mother worked
the State Department angle, and I’d do what I could with Justice. Nothing against regs, just a little
gentle persuasion now and then.”
Dave shook
his head and Derek watched as Emily’s spine straightened a little tighter. “I
think what Morgan wants to know is, do you trust her, Emily?”
“Oh, yeah.
She hasn’t got a dishonest bone in her body. And really, she’s got no reason to
lie, and every reason to get this thing sorted out and find
her father-in-law. Preferably alive.”
Emily’s
insistence begged Derek to ask about her reasoning. “Why would you say that? I
mean, if she’s the only surviving heir, and the
property and all is in her husband’s name, wouldn’t Gideon’s death be in her
best interest?”
At first
Emily stared at both he and Dave like they had grown a second head, and then it
was as though a light went off behind her eyes. She called out to everyone in
the cabin of the jet. “Um, hey guys...” With all eyes on her, and J.J. peeking
in from the front, Emily dropped the bomb. “I think I forgot to tell everyone a
really important detail.”
“What is
it?” Hotch’s brow was barely over the bridge of his
nose as he spoke.
“Lori wants
to find her father-in-law for two reasons. Not just to give him the news about
Steven…” She paused, working up the courage to leave them all speechless.
“She’s eight months pregnant.”
The silence
that fell over the cabin continued all the way to the field office. No one knew quite what to say, and they all
had to re-think their theories about the case. Derek realized nothing about
this one was going to be cut and dried.
No matter
which way it landed, it was going to hurt, and it was going to hurt bad.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Chapter 4
From the
word go, it was nothing but a bad case. Coming on board six months after the
fact was the least of their worries. The personal investment for the team meant
that no matter the outcome, it was not going to be easy. Not when their best
case scenario involved Gideon simply sliding further into his twisted sense of
paranoia and breaking free from his last remaining tether to humanity. Worst
case scenario…well, the worst case was not something Dave wanted to think about
just yet.
The fact
that no one in the town closest to Gideon felt there was a case at all
certainly added another layer of difficulty to it. He worried that without
cooperation from the locals there would be little chance of finding anything to
point to a cause for Gideon’s disappearance. And then there was the disappearance
itself. Was he really missing? Or was this daughter-in-law of Gideon’s merely
mistaken about his level of commitment to his son?
When he
worked with Gideon in the past, he was shocked to learn the man even had a
family, because he was so single minded in his work. Dave had a hard time
reconciling the two different Gideon’s; the man and the profiler. They were
simply two entirely different entities, and he wondered if keeping them
separate was ultimately what led to his fall from grace, when the two were
forced to occupy the same mind.
Many found
fault with his mix of the professional and the personal, but Dave also
understood his own mind. He was unable to shut off his humanity from his
reason, and instead chose to use that humanity to temper his reason with a
heart. Pure reason was a dangerous and lonely space to occupy, and Dave was not
a man who handled lonely very well. What little he did know of Jason Gideon
told him the man thrived on being alone.
With half
the team sorting through the items brought back to the
“Now, are
you really gonna sit there, trying to tell me that
absolute cheese-fest from the eighties is better than my amped up,
super-powered, Starbuck as a bad ass honey, Battlestar?
Woman, please!” Morgan’s laugh punctuated his ranting question.
“I’m
telling you…” Garcia was twisted sideways in her seat, waggling a finger in
Morgan’s direction as she debated him in a way only she could. “That the
original Battlestar Galactica
was a much better portrayal of the hero’s journey, showing all the qualities of
the myth and the legend of the hero. Whereas, your BSG
is closer to the style of the Greek epics, which include the hero’s journey,
but don’t focus on it. They show the grand theatre, all the drama and the
tragedy, and leaving the ending totally up to personal interpretation. It’s all
about the philosophy, and not the tale or the lesson. It’s just different.”
Morgan
shook his head and asked, “So, why’d you say my BSG sucked?”
Garcia
dismissed him with a shrug and turned forward again as she said, “Duh! Because I prefer my Starbuck as a sweet talking hottie
of the male variety.”
Normally
that would have been the end of the argument, but from beside him he heard
Emily jump into the fray. “I’m right there with you, Penelope.”
Her joining
the meaningless argument was just a way to pass the time, and under most
conditions Dave would simply have engrossed himself in the view, or looking
through the case file with an amused smile, but hearing the barks of
comfortable laughter being exchanged among his team members felt good. Seeing
Emily smile and laugh without reservation was like a balm. As hard as the case
was about to get, that laughter was his lifeline.
“All right,
Rossi…” Morgan called over his shoulder him to jump in. “I need some back up
here, man. Which Battlestar is better?”
“Sorry, I
can’t help you on this one, Morgan.” Dave had to do his very best not to look
beside him when he admitted, “Only time I watch TV it’s the Outdoor Channel or
the Food Network… Everything else depresses me.”
Garcia
twisted around to stare him down, and suddenly Dave felt like he was on
display. “Okay, Food Network I’ll buy… But the Outdoor Channel? Seriously? Next stop, Hooterville
TV?”
Emily
automatically blurted out, “For the Ducks Unlimited show.” The moment the words
left her mouth Dave could see the panic in her eyes, and as he looked at the
expressions on both Morgan’s and Garcia’s faces he knew that they had caught
the slip as well.
Emily
immediately took a defensive posture. “What? Like no one else has seen the
water dog pictures or the antique double barrel in his office? He’s either a
duck hunter or has an unnatural attachment to Elmer Fudd
cartoons.”
Dave smiled
when the others looked to him for confirmation. “Hmmm… Well, I have found
myself chasing a great many wascally wabbits over the years.”
The tension
in the car was immediately dispelled with the raise of his eyebrow after
delivering the fatal last laugh.
However, as
they pulled up to the front gate of the compound, all that tension, and more,
was back. Seeing the crime scene collection trucks and the armed checkpoint let
each of them know it was not just another case.
Once they
were cleared to drive up to the house, Dave decided someone needed to take
charge. “Garcia, you should check in with the tech team. I understand they’ve
been having some trouble cracking the rest of the security system.”
“Righteo,
“I should
probably debrief the lead scene investigator,” Morgan added as they came to
stop in front of the house.
“After we
do a walk-through at the house, Prentiss and I will head back to town and start
on the interviews.” Morgan turned to regard him as he explained, “I want to
have a good idea of who we’re dealing with before we start asking questions.”
“It’s just
Gideon, man, and you already know him.” Morgan was sincere with his observation
and Dave had to answer him honestly.
“We knew him, Morgan. We knew the Gideon he
used to be, but this man…” Dave gestured at the plain, militaristic compound to
demonstrate his point. “He is not the Gideon we knew.”
Morgan
nodded. Dave hated to say it, but the team needed to understand where they
stood on this case. They were not looking for the man they knew, but the man he
had become. Or, from the looks of it, the shattered semblance of the man he had
become.
An hour
later, he and Emily were back on the road. There was really nothing there to
see giving them even an inkling as to the man who
inhabited that space. It was plain, non-descript and completely devoid of human
touch. It just felt wrong, and no amount of time standing in the vacant home
would tell Dave anything else.
Halfway
back to the small hamlet that served the area, Emily exhaled sharply and he
knew she was ready to speak. “That has to be the cleanest scene I have ever
seen.”
“You think
someone cleaned up?” Dave knew enough to only ask the questions that would keep
her talking. Emily was someone who thought things out on her feet, and it was
merely his task to keep her train of thought moving.
“It’s more
than that.” She drummed her fingers on the door panel a few times before she
spoke again. “I can’t imagine anyone has lived there in years. It’s like…” He
watched from the corner of his eye as the light came on in her face. “Like it’s just a front room.”
“A front room?”
“Yeah.”
Emily turned and asked him directly, “Didn’t your mother have a room that no
one actually used, except when you didn’t want people to see-”
“To see the rest of the house.” Dave slapped the steering wheel hard as Emily pulled
out her cell phone. “Call Garcia.”
“Hey,
Garcia… Yeah, I do think he’d look pretty silly in one of those earflap hats.”
Emily rolled her eyes at the obvious Elmer Fudd
reference from the irreverent technical analyst, but Dave could see the delight
lurking in them. “Look, I need you to pull the records for that property. See
if you can find any other structures having been built there, or any medium to
large scale excavations that may have taken place.”
She was
quiet for a while, but Dave could hear the analyst’s voice chirping out of the
phone as they traveled down the road. Eventually, Emily was able to speak
again. “Yeah, I understand, but just do what you can. We have some suspicions
about the cabin and if you can-”
Emily was
interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing again. “Hold on Penelope, it’s Derek… Then tell him to hang up and put me on speaker,
and I’ll do the same.”
Dave gave a
quick nod of agreement when she waggled the phone at him and she flipped it on
to speakerphone mode. “Okay, it’s me and Dave, and we just asked Garcia to do a
property records search to see if there are any other structures or any
excavations that have taken place in the last three years. What have you got,
Morgan?”
Morgan’s
voice came through the phone loud and clear. “Well, seeing as the scene techs haven’t recovered a single fingerprint from inside the
house, other than the sheriff’s deputy and the daughter-in-law, and there’s a
lot more than six months worth of dust on everything… I’m gonna
go out on a limb here and say, this is not where Gideon’s been living.”
Garcia left
no room for Emily to even breathe before she chimed in as well, “And I just
finished checking the heat signature readings and compared them to the land
survey, and guess what…no match! I’m going to feed the scene techs these GPS
calculations and have them find the actual house.”
“Good deal,
Garcia… Can you also give Hotch the heads up? Those
guys are sifting through bogus evidence, and the real stuff has yet to be
uncovered.” Emily was quick on the draw to get the whole team back on task.
“Already done, my sweet. Text sent to J.J. while I waited for you all to finish jawing.
She’s putting Hotch and Reid in a SUV right now and
hauling buns to Osage to meet up with you guys.” Garcia was always efficient,
but Dave never ceased to be surprised by just how well she was able to
anticipate their needs. “And my dark knight companion is not saying good bye
because he just took off like The Flash with the scene techs. Methinks they may
have found the grail, my lovelies.”
“Keep us
updated, Garcia, and we’ll get going on the interviews as soon as we hit
beautiful downtown Osage.”
Before
Emily switched off the phone, Dave distinctly heard the analyst say, “Happy
hunting, and don’t take that left at
Dave shook
his head in disgust. “I will never believe that woman doesn’t need a serious
psych eval.” Emily’s delighted laughter filled the
interior of the car. “Or at the very least a drug test.”
“You just
think that because Garcia is more woman than you could ever handle.” Emily
started flipping through the case file again when she looked away from him.
Dave
nodded, knowing that Emily was absolutely correct in her assessment of his
threshold for feminine wiles. “Yes, well, I’m fairly certain that I already
have all the woman I can handle…and then some.”
Her snort
of laughter was exactly what he needed to hear as they pulled into town. They
had several hours of interviews to get through, and knowing they were both
relieved from the burden of tension was of great importance.
When he
stopped the car in front of the sheriff’s office, he knew it was time to get
down to business. “Okay, small town in the middle of
“If you
wanted to tick off the sheriff, I’d do the talking…so, you’re gonna take point and make nice with the locals?” Emily
winked at him to show she understood the situation.
“Thank
you.” He was about to get out of the car when he turned quickly back and
touched her arm as he said, “Because…if this were anywhere else, I wouldn’t
have any prob-”
“Dave, it’s
fine, really.” She laid her hand over his, reassuring him. “Seriously, I know
what we’re up against, and without this guy’s help we’re screwed. You make nice
with the boys club and I’ll take your notes like a good little girl.”
The warmth
in her smile was sincere and he nodded.
As they
exited the car, the door to the sheriff’s office swung open and every cliché
about a backwoods lawman came strutting out of the building, complete with a
protruding belly and mirrored highway patrol sunglasses. Looking over the top
of his designer sunglasses, Rossi could see Emily struggling to keep her
laughter in check.
“Well,
well… If isn’t the world famous author, himself. Super
special agent Dave Rossi, here to set us backwater yokels straight on the ways
of the Eff Bee Eye.” In his youth, it would
have taken everything in Dave’s considerable power not to cut the over-stuffed,
glorified security guard down to a manageable size. With time and experience,
came wisdom, and so his only reaction was to smile politely.
“Sheriff.”
Dave nodded slightly to acknowledge the man, and to keep from calling him an
insufferable bastard.
Without
missing a beat, Emily stepped in and extended her hand to the man with a bright
smile on her face. “Sheriff Lauder… Thank you very much for meeting with us
today.” The man turned an admiring eye in her direction and awkwardly shook her
hand.
“I see
you’re already familiar with our Agent Rossi.” She afforded Dave only the
barest of glances before introducing herself. “I’m SSA Emily Prentiss, and I
believe our liaison, Agent Jareau informed you that
we’d be coming in, am I correct?” Emily slipped into the role of lead
effortlessly, and quickly set the sheriff on his heels. It became crystal clear
in their first exchange that while
“Ah, yeah,
she did.” The man’s rancor was immediately defused by Emily’s easy charm.
“Good,
good…then you know we’re only here to interview a few people as we investigate
the disappearance of Agent Gideon.” Dave had to hold back his smirk as Emily
used every trick in their bag to engage the sheriff, much as they would with a
suspect. That was where Emily shined the brightest, working the interrogation
room. “We’re not trying to step on any toes, Sheriff Lauder, but this is one of
our own, and we have to be sure that he’s gone of his own free will. You
understand, don’t you?”
“Yes,
Ma’am… But I hope you can understand why we haven’t taken any action on this
so-called disappearance.” The man was only trying to cover his own ass, but
Dave still had no use for sloppy work.
“Of course.
The circumstances led you to believe there was nothing amiss. Your conclusions
were perfectly understandable, given the information available to you.” Emily
was playing to his ego perfectly, but Dave also knew she was setting him up for
a fall. “But we have access to other
information, and it leads us to
believe we are dealing with something else entirely.”
Dave was
proud to see the sheriff shrink down all the bluster and escort the two of them
into the county offices. Emily had managed to subdue the prickly law
enforcement officer in under five minutes, and got his
support for the interviews at the same time. She was good. Following her into
the sheriff’s office, he silently remarked to himself, “She is very, very good.”
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Chapter 5
After
dropping J.J. off in town to help with the interviews and the locals, Aaron
drove the rest of the way to Gideon’s compound with Reid. It was a silent trip,
with Reid only staring out the window at the passing scenery. Aaron wanted to
inquire about his state of mind, but he knew Reid needed to make the first move
if he was going to maintain even the illusion of control over the situation.
Sometimes
being a profiler was a frustrating world to live in. Knowing so many of the
answers before the questions were even asked, understanding that the questions
themselves were meaningless, was a horrible burden. But knowing that at the end
of the case, regardless of the outcome, one of their team members was going to
be completely devastated was more than anyone should have to bear silently.
“Reid… if
things get too intense out there, I could send you back to the office with the
field agents.” Aaron took the supervisor route. Keeping things professional was
a common tactic for him when the job got to be too much.
“I’ll be
fine, Hotch. Honest.” Reid’s
voice was distant, and Aaron knew it was nothing more than a shield.
“Fine.”
Aaron left it at that. There was only so far he could push before Reid would
close himself off entirely. Unceremoniously changing the subject, Aaron asked,
“How much further until the next turn?”
Reid
finally turned away from the window and began scanning through the GPS
navigation system. “Looks like it’s approximately seven point three six miles until you
veer right at the fork in the road, onto U.S. Forest Service Road 78.”
Aaron was
unable to hold in his chuff of amusement. “Approximately?”
Normally
Aaron’s slip would have been enough to break the dam, but not this time. Reid
only shrugged and went back to staring out the window.
As Aaron
concentrated on the road, he thought about the result of Gideon’s previous
meltdown. It was Aaron’s responsibility to clear Gideon for field work again
and after his final departure, he was left to wonder if he had been wrong in
his assessment of the man.
Before he
had a chance to delve much deeper into his own competence, Reid’s cellphone started to ring. Reaching for the device in his
jacket, he activated the speakerphone.
“Reid,” he snapped.
“Welcome to
Reid
cleared his throat, “Ah, Garcia… You’re on speaker.”
“Of course
I am, Poindexter. But it’s just you and Hotch, so all
is right with the world, my darlings.” Garcia truly was like an acid laced ray
of sunshine in their lives, reminding them with only her presence that life
went on.
“What’s
going on, Garcia?” Aaron could tell Reid was anxious as he spoke.
“Just had
the two of you pop up on my radar and I wanted to warn you not to trust the GPS
for the turn. There’s no fork, it’s more like a spider web. You’ll actually go
forward through the intersection, with splinters to either side of you.” As
soon as she finished talking, they came upon the intersection. And exactly as
Garcia described, they proceeded forward, with splinters on either side.
“Thanks for
the heads up, Garcia…” Reid paused and audibly gulped before he asked, “Is
there anything new yet?”
“Sorry,
honey pie, but the field techs just got back from the bunker. I’m good, but
even I need a little more time to make the magic happen.” Reid was crestfallen
by her comments. “But don’t you worry, Dr. Re-delicious, if there is anything
to uncover, you know I have the right tools for the job.”
“Thanks,
Garcia.” Aaron watched as Reid switched the phone off and turned once again to
the window. There was nothing out there to see, but Reid was transfixed.
There was
nothing left to say. Aaron would keep his eye on Reid while they worked the
house, and at the first sign of trouble, he would get Morgan to take him back
to the office. No one would like it, but it was often his job to do the
unpopular thing. He never took their anger personally, because someone had to
be the bad guy in order to insure their team’s survival. He was used to being
that bad guy.
When they
finally arrived on the scene, Aaron watched as Reid immediately walked into the
false house. Morgan had already briefed him on the first house, and he knew
there was little harm in allowing Reid that momentary escape. Instead, Aaron
went in search of the lead crime scene technician.
“SSA Hotchner.” The technician called out to him the moment he
entered the tent. “We’ve been expecting you, Sir. Agent Morgan’s been keeping
us very busy, though.”
“That’s
good to hear.” Aaron shook the man’s outstretched hand. “Also good to see you
here, Wally. Only the best, right?”
“Appreciate
you saying so, Sir. We all owe Jason Gideon a lot, so you pretty much had your
pick of scene techs on this one.” That was the reason Aaron wanted Wally when
he requested his crew. He was from the old school of thought, yet managed to
always keep ahead of the curve on techniques. Wally Hansen and his team would
literally be able to find the needle in the haystack, and pull a usable print
from it and the piece of straw next to it.
Aaron
nodded to show his appreciation and then asked, “What do you have so far?”
“Right…”
Wally pulled a clipboard off the table and started running down the list. “In
this place, we got nothing. No prints, no DNA, no nothin’.” He made a disgusted noise from his throat
and continued, “Other than about a year’s worth of dust and the
daughter-in-law’s prints on the outside of the door, we didn’t get a thing from
that place. You know how hard it is process the dummy house of someone this
familiar with forensics?”
“I can only
imagine, Wally. But at least it did tell us it wasn’t his real home. Can you
imagine now why the locals were so convinced it was nothing?” In his job, it
paid for Aaron to be good at communicating with people from all walks of life.
With Wally he was more familiar to make the man comfortable, which made it
easier for him to communicate openly with a superior.
“Yeah… I
bet they were scratching their heads, big time. But your agents immediately
spotted the trouble. And that Garcia…” Wally whistled softly to show how
impressed he was with Garcia’s prowess. “That’s one seriously well put together
technical analyst, Agent Hotchner.”
“Garcia is
definitely one of a kind.” Aaron had to work very hard to keep his normally
stoic expression in place as they discussed Garcia’s finer attributes.
“Thankfully, she’s one of a kind. Even better that she also works for us.”
“Oh yeah.
Wouldn’t want that one working against me, that’s for sure.”
He picked up another clipboard and handed it to Aaron. “She’s managed to crack
all the frequencies for the alarms, so we can at least hear ourselves think
now. And she got your Agent Morgan to that bunker out there. Plus she was able
to able to help my techs crack the passcode on the
door.”
“Have they
finished clearing the bunker?” Aaron reviewed the items on the clipboard as he
questioned Wally.
“Yeah,
Morgan and the other field agents entered, found nothing, and then released it
for processing. My techs are combing through that whole thing right now. There
won’t be an uncollected speck of dust when they get done.” Wally was quite
proud of his team and it showed.
“Anything of interest?” Aaron got down to business and Wally kicked it into gear.
“You could
say that.” He held up a stack of print cards. “We printed everything and got a
lot of usable latents. Your analyst is processing the
first half as we speak.”
“Excellent…
What else?”
“That’s
where it starts to get interesting.” Aaron looked up from the clipboard to see
Wally retrieve a large envelope from an evidence box. “We collected some hair
samples from the bunker.”
“If he was
living there, that’s to be expected.” Aaron was slightly confused about why the
hair samples would be interesting.
“Yeah,
well, what we found isn’t what we were expecting…” He pulled two evidence
bindles out of the large envelope and handed one to Aaron. “That’s the first
sample. Got it from the bathroom sink.”
Aaron
flipped the bindle over and found what looked like discarded whiskers from an
electric shaver. “Color is consistent with Agent Gideon.”
“Yup, and
we got this one from the bedroom.” He handed over the second bindle and
laughed. “Guy’s living in a bunker, but he’s got a giant antique bed bigger
than my first apartment in there. And overstuffed leather chairs, bookshelves
everywhere, as well as a fully equipped kitchen…in what’s essentially a couple
of government surplus pill-box bunkers.”
Aaron knew,
even before those hair samples could be sent for DNA testing, that bunker
belonged to Jason. No other person would live in such stark contrasts. “Okay,
so these both appear to be consistent with Gideon’s hair. Where’s the
intrigue?”
Wally
withdrew yet another bindle and handed it over to Aaron. “That would be this
one…also recovered from the bedroom.”
Aaron
turned the bindle over and found several long, dark strands of hair. “You found
these in the bedroom?”
“More accurately…in the bed.” Aaron looked up from the bindle and Wally handed him a
fourth one, which contained a tape lifted sample of mixed hairs. With crystal
clarity he had just learned the stark truth; there was a woman.
He was
stopped from asking any other questions when Reid came into the tent talking. “Hotch, there’s something in the house you should see.” Aaron paused for half a second, but it was
obviously long enough to alert Reid to a problem. “What’s wrong? Hotch…what is it?”
He was able
to give Wally enough of a glare to silence the man, and then he regarded Reid. “Just some conflicting samples. What did you find?”
Thankfully
Reid accepted his explanation and continued, “Well, it’s hard to describe,
you’ll have to see for yourself.”
He handed
the samples back to Wally, who quickly sealed them up in the envelope and
followed them into the house.
“It’s right
in here.” Reid led them into the kitchen. “I probably wouldn’t have noticed it,
but…I’m allergic to the stuff, so I can pick it out of any room. I can even
tell the difference between it and nutmeg.”
“What
Reid?” Aaron was confused by Reid’s rambling.
“Annatto…
It’s a spice, used as a coloring agent, much the same as Paprika. It bears a
striking similarity to common nutmeg, but has a slightly peppery flavor to
it. It is found primarily in the
tropical
When he
brought his finger up to show Aaron and Wally, it was colored red on the end.
“There’s not a lot of it, but obviously whoever cleaned up the place didn’t
think to get all the way down inside the stove.”
He took off
the glove, turning it inside out as he did, before he gave it back to Wally. “Hotch, someone
was living in this house…and they were cooking Cuban food on this stove.”
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Chapter 6
Too much
time in the cramped quarters of the FBI field service van with the tech team’s
supervisor breathing down her neck finally took its toll on Penelope’s nerves.
Completely taking over the tech room at the
Before
leaving the compound, Penelope scanned all of the print cards into the computer
and sent them off to the print analysis unit at
The money
was easy to follow, when you knew what you were doing. And no one knew that
better than Penelope Garcia. She tracked down the Mexican accounts Gideon
shared with his son, the Bahamian bank the money from his
The frustrating
part of the whole exercise was waiting for the evidence to be processed,
Penelope was used to instant information gratification, and patience was not a
word in her vocabulary. Penelope hated waiting for anything. She had already
gone so far as to get Kevin to use his CIA contacts to help speed up the DNA
analysis, but she was still left waiting for something to pop.
She was
rescued from the boredom by the sound of an incoming call. A quick check of the
caller ID made her smile. “You have reached the Queen of Information, speak and
you shall be heard. Talk dirty and you’ll also get an answer.”
“I don’t
know any other way to talk to a hot mama such as yourself.”
There was no doubt about it; Derek Morgan was good for a girl’s ego.
“Just for
that, you get two questions answered. Talk to me, sweet stuff.”
“We just
got done at the compound, and we’re on our way to meet up with Rossi and
Prentiss.” She could hear Reid and Hotch in the
background and knew that she was once again on speakerphone.
“This is
sounding decidedly un-naughty… What’s up, buttercup?” Penelope knew when it was
time to get down to business.
“Have you
had any luck with those unidentified prints?”
“Oh, that’s
a question you didn’t want to ask if you were looking for good news.”
Reid jumped
into the conversation with disbelief. “How is that possible? There were no
matches at all?”
“I said no
such thing, Junior Ranger, but so far, everything else has come back to Gideon,
the daughter-in-law or the cops.” Her
caller ID chirped with an incoming call. “Hold on, more subjects for the
Queen.”
Penelope
clicked the call from Agent Rossi’s phone into a conference with the others.
“The Queen of Information will take your call.
Speak, and share your knowledge with her minions.”
“Hey, Penelope.” It was Emily’s voice, which made Penelope smile. They must have mixed
up their phones again. “We just finished our interviews in the town and wanted
to check in with you for a status update.”
“As I was
just informing the delightful agents Hotchner, Morgan
and Reid… Wow, that sounds like a bad ass law firm,
doesn’t it?” Penelope used a split second to conjure up that scenario in her
head and then got back down to business. “So, yeah, the only prints to match up
are the cops, Gideon’s and the daughter-in-law’s. But I still have some that
are coming up empty. I have them running on two more databases, but so far
they’re still the guest star to be named later.” Penelope checked both monitors
to see if anything had popped yet, but to no avail. “You don’t happen to have a
suspect to compare them with, do you?”
“Sadly, no,
but Rossi and Prentiss got a description from the locals about a fine young
honey that started showing her face a while back. She hasn’t been seen since
Gideon did his latest vanishing act.” Derek always had a way with words, but
Penelope had no time to play with him.
“Seriously?” Penelope was shocked to hear that. “Wow, I never thought Gideon would
be swimming in the kiddie pool.”
“I wouldn’t
go that far. They just said she was younger, probably mid-thirties.” Emily
sounded a little defensive, but Penelope just chalked it up to a little
transference going on.
“Whatever…”
Penelope quickly changed the subject. “What are your plans for food? Because
I’ve been cooped up inside SUVs, vans and another analyst’s room all freaking
day and I need some social interaction and food that doesn’t come out of a
vending machine. Comprenez mes amours?”
“I’m feelin’ ya, Baby Girl. Why don’t
you find us a nice quiet out of the way place we can meet up and talk this
thing out.” Derek’s amused laughter filtered in through her headset, instantly
bringing a smile to her face.
“Already
done, my fine muscled friend… Sending the coordinates to your
GPS as we speak.” With several quick keystrokes, Penelope fed the
address into the navigation computers and activated the directions from their
current locations.
She had
just enough time to load everything they needed into her FBI issue laptop
before the troops arrived. And the time she spent waiting for the transfer
could be used having a nice little private chat with Kevin on her own laptop.
Penelope
arrived at the restaurant ahead of the team and secured the back room for the
group. While nothing in the case had reached the top of the squick
meter yet, there was no telling where the conversation could go, and it was
better for the other patrons not to be subjected to it.
The waiter
and the manager had just finished rearranging the tables and chairs when Derek
came strutting into the room. “When I said quiet and out of the way, I wasn’t
expecting anything like this.”
His arms
outstretched, gesturing at the private room brought a wicked smile to her face.
“Hey, you know I treat my baby right.”
They all
filed in after that, with Emily and Rossi curiously last to the restaurant.
Penelope checked her watch and asked, “What took you so long? By my
calculations you should have been here first?”
Rossi very
quickly dismissed her question. “Had to drop the interview recordings off at
the field office first, and then stopped for fuel.” Everyone nodded at his
explanation as the two took seats at opposite ends of the table and their
conversations soon filled with small talk as they waited.
Once the
meal was under way, they started talking out the case. Penelope was always surprised
by the way each of their minds worked. Reid and Hotchner
were methodical and pragmatic, while Derek did his best to put himself in the
mind of the unsub. J.J.
always sat back and listened to the whole thing, taking it in, and only
speaking up when she had a question, which often helped everyone see it from a
different angle. Emily was more of a holistic investigator; observing,
learning, turning it all over in her mind, playing the devil’s advocate, until
she finally had the answer she needed to be able to act, because action was
what she wanted more than anything. Penelope was still trying to understand
Rossi, but even she could see that he was the most
well-rounded agent in the whole BAU. And yet, though he was getting
better, he was still handicapped by falling back into his reliance on the old
ways, and his sometimes desperate need to do things on his own.
These
incredibly diverse people, these wonderful minds, these brave souls, they were
more than her co-workers. As they sat around the tables, chewing on the facts
as much as the food, struggling to find the answers to Jason Gideon’s second
vanishing act, Penelope truly understood who these people really were.
They were
her family.
“Okay,
we’ve got two very distinct homes. One has been practically sterilized from all
traces of human existence, save for Reid’s little discovery and some random
household paperwork the field unit pulled from the office.” Emily worked
through her recap.
“A bunker
that screams Gideon on the inside, but the outside is right out of
Patriots-R-Us Surplus.” Morgan injected his brand of analysis into the mix.
“And all of his things left in place, like he just went out for a stroll in the
woods.”
Rossi
picked up from there. “A town that barely saw the man.
His monthly trips to the post office and general store were so uneventful we
couldn’t even get a consistent description from the store’s owners.”
“I found it
curious that there were prints left on the outside of the main house, but
everything on the inside was scrubbed down with an almost clinical efficiency.
And yet, the bunker clearly had not undergone any kind of rigorous cleaning.”
Reid began to drone through his own analysis, and Penelope distracted herself
with the latest results streaming into her computer from the field lab.
“It was
almost as though the first house had been vacated some time ago, and all
activity moved to the bunker. You can actually see the patched holes in the
wall of the main house where the bookcases used to stand. Like Gideon was
methodically pulling himself away from the last vestiges of civilization. The
excessive amount of security is a secondary indicator of his degradation into a
state of aberrant paranoia.”
J.J. asked,
“If that’s the secondary, then what’s the primary indicator?”
“The great
lengths he went to in order to completely disappear from sight. Breaking the
promise to his son was the final step in that process.” The despair in Reid’s
voice was evident to everyone around the table.
“Reid…do
you really think Gideon just walked away?” Derek asked,
his voice heavy with concern.
“I think
the evidence and his past behavior very clearly indicate that conclusion, don’t
you?” Reid’s face was carefully blank as he delivered his final analysis.
“Let’s not
forget that there is an unidentified woman, described only as white, though
possibly Hispanic, attractive with long dark hair. She was only seen once or twice by each
person and by no one in the months following Jason’s disappearance.” Hotch was all business.
“Where does the unidentified woman or the hair
samples fit into your theory?” Rossi was doing his best to counter Reid’s
argument.
“What hair
samples?” The surprise in Reid’s face made everyone cringe as they turned to Hotch.
“I was
waiting until the analysis could be performed…” Hotch
swallowed hard as he went on to explain the evidence to Reid. “The field unit
found several samples of hair inconsistent with any known person.”
“Where were
they found?” Reid was not about to let him off easy.
“They were,
ah… They were found primarily in the bedroom, Reid.” Reid’s face shifted from
shock, to disbelief, to understanding, all in the blink of an eye.
Eventually
Derek noticed that Penelope was not really paying attention to the rest of
them, and he used the opportunity to deflect the attention away from Reid.
“What’s got all your attention over there, Baby Girl?”
Penelope
shook her head as she continued to stare at the still unidentified prints.
“These prints, they just aren’t adding up.”
Derek wiped
his mouth with the napkin before asking, “What’s wrong with them?”
“Well, the
whorls, it’s like they’ve been jumbled up, or altered somehow.”
Reid
slipped on his glasses and moved closer to her when he asked, “How do you
mean?”
“Well,
look…” She enlarged the most distinctive print one hundred times and flipped
the screen around for everyone to see. At that level of magnification, even Mr.
Magoo could see what she was talking about. “Can you
see the lines? It’s like they’re cutting through the ridge detail on this one.”
“That’s scarring.”
Emily looked a little closer and then it appeared as though a light bulb went
on over her head. “Garcia, have the print lab isolate the sections between
those scars and run them as partial prints, instead of as a whole.”
When
everyone looked to her for clarification, she only shrugged and answered, “My
mother was posted to eastern Europe for a while… It’s
a common trick in the crime rings there. Slicing up their
finger pads repeatedly in order to avoid a print match. Interpol and the
local authorities finally figured out that if they ran the pieces of the prints
as partials, they got a hit every time.”
“Agent
Prentiss gets a gold star for that one!” Penelope immediately isolated several
significant portions of the unidentified prints and sent them back to her
friends at
The team
got back to their dinners and the post mortem for the day, forgetting all about
the print results for a while. Usually when someone said they would get results
in an hour, everyone knew that really meant an hour in government time, which
could equal three or four hours in real time.
Just as Hotch reached across the table for the check, Penelope’s
computer and his phone went off in sequence. She looked at the screen and found
only a security warning for an administrative password request. Penelope looked
up from the screen, “Um… This can’t be good, huh?”
Hotch
looked at the display screen on his phone and narrowed his gaze. “No, it
can’t.”
He flipped
open the phone. “SSA Hotchner… Yes, Ma’am… No, I
understand… I have a laptop right here…” He gestured for Penelope to get ready
to enter a code. “Capital echo, one, five, niner,
alpha, delta, ampersand, bravo, two, zero.”
After
entering the code precisely as Hotch called it out,
Penelope found another administrative screen glaring at her. “Now
where?”
“Secure
priority message center…” As she clicked on the screen she found a message
titled “Priority Flag Hit - Internal Investigation #SSA-EG0023-BAU.” Hotch was standing over her shoulder and she heard him say,
“That’s the one, Garcia. Would you excuse me, please?”
Penelope
did her best to hop out of the way and Hotch swiftly
slid into her seat to view the new message. After a few more keystrokes on her
computer, he was finally bringing the message into view. For a moment she
thought she needed to turn away from the screen, but then he asked her to look
closer. “Come in here… They’ve ID’d the partials, and
the ID came back to a high-priority flagged entry.” He turned to Penelope with
a stern expression on his face as he explained, “A file that was flagged by
you, for me.”
A huge lump
rose in Penelope’s throat, because she knew there were only two files Hotch had ever asked her to flag. One was Agent Gideon, and the other…
He twisted
the screen around to show everyone else as the file came into view. With a
gasp, she heard the name spoken softly in several voices: “Elle.”
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Chapter 7
Spencer was
still trying to put all of the pieces together when they decided to pack it up
and head back to
The entire
flight back to
Morgan and
Rossi were over in the booth with Emily quietly discussing the basics of a
missing persons case. There was nothing earth
shattering about the conversation, just a group of colleagues trying to
distance themselves from the truth with facts and figures.
“Well, the
majority of cases involve juveniles.
They represented ninety four percent of the more than nine hundred
thousand cases last year.” Rossi’s always even tone lent some stability in the
middle of the chaos swirling in Reid’s mind.
“Which means there were more than fifty thousand cases involving
adults last year. But you have to remember that number also includes
people who are missing as a result of mental or physical illness, as well as
transient lifestyle choices. A junkie stops showing up for methadone treatments
or a senior wanders off in confusion and that’s a part of those statistics.”
Emily, as always, tried to bring a human element into the conversation.
Morgan
nodded and then added his wisdom to the discussion. “Right, so with all of
that, you’re looking at a very small number of true missing persons when it
comes to adults;
especially when you factor in substance abuse and folks who
simply walk away from a bad situation.”
From the
other side of the jet, behind the folder he was reviewing, Hotch
injected another statistic. “In fact, out of all the missing persons
cases in a single year, there are only ten percent which can be classified as
truly missing. The other ninety percent are listed as located, with only one to
two percent of those actually resulting in a fatality.”
Spencer
tried to focus on the optimism in Hotch’s words, but
it was hard. With any case, the longer it drags out, the less likely a
satisfactory conclusion occurs. And although only ten percent of missing persons cases remained unsolved, with no investigation
beginning in Gideon’s case until six months after the fact, Spencer was still
pessimistic about the outcome. At the moment, the most he thought they could
hope for was that the case remained an open cold investigation.
However,
that was not the most troubling thing about the case for him. He often tried to
dispel the idea that he was a genius, because in his experience it made people
treat him differently. But it also came from the fact that in many areas of
human interaction, he knew he was greatly deficient. This case had proven it to
him once again, with perfect clarity. He simply did not understand how Elle
could have been involved with Gideon’s disappearance. But it was her apparent
involvement with Gideon himself that left him thoroughly baffled. Despite their
previous history, he had been completely blind to anything which might have led
to their involvement.
His hand
clutched tightly around the spine of his book, Spencer struggled to understand
the scenario as it presented to him. His imagination failed to give him any
insight for the justification of that relationship, and he suddenly felt like
the kid who just found out the stork was a lie and his parents were having sex.
Trying to
sort it all out in his head, he missed J.J. getting up from her seat and slowly
making her way over to him. As she slipped into the seat beside him, he knew
his silence was over.
“Spence…how’re
you holding up?” The tilt of her head and the tone of her voice told Spencer
just how concerned she was with his well-being. He hated to make her worry, but
his confusion made it hard to play it off. Dr. Spencer Reid was not used to
being confused…about anything.
He turned
to look into her eyes and then shook his head. “I can honestly say…I don’t know
how I am right now.”
J.J.
nodded, sighed and settled back into the seat, gently resting against his side.
It felt good to have someone feel that comfortable around him. But it was even
better that it was J.J.
His
relationship with J.J. was unconventional. He was a grown man and a genius, but
he came face to face with a serious schoolboy crush on her. Her personality,
coupled with her beauty, kept him tied up in knots for longer than he liked to
admit. Spencer was intrigued by a woman he could feel comfortable around, and
he confused that intrigue with true attraction. Thankfully for him, J.J. was
always gracious about his initial misconceptions, and their relationship
quickly transformed into a very close friendship.
In many
ways, J.J. became the sister Spencer never had. She looked out for him, and
tried to help steer him in the ways of normal, non-genius humans. J.J. was the
true source of his education in humanity. She showed him how to connect with
the emotions his pure reason and logic often obscured. As a result, she was
also the one person he could never hide his humanity from. J.J. always knew.
“Kind of out of the blue, huh?” He could tell she was trying to take his temperature
about the recent turn of events. He wanted to tell her that he understood what
happened, that he could make sense of it, that he was not completely devastated
by the news. But the truth was right there on his face, and not even his
mother, in her most delusional episode, could miss it.
“Yeah.”
His answer was plain, but its simplicity spoke volumes about where his head
was.
He felt her
head turn and Spencer knew she was looking at Hotch.
She was worried about him as well. J.J. worried about everyone, but for some
reason he and Hotch always seemed to be at the top of
her list. Knowing why she worried about him, Spencer assumed her concern for Hotch stemmed from the close working relationship between
them. But he also knew he was deficient in understanding the inner workings of
the female brain, outside the realm of sociopathy.
“Did you know they were, you know, communicating?” Spencer only stared into
the empty space across from him after J.J. asked the question everyone was
dying to know.
Long ago,
he deduced that everyone assumed Jason was keeping in contact with him. The
truth of the matter was Jason had cut Spencer off even before he left him the
letter at the old cabin. It was why he went looking for him. That was why Jason
knew it would be him to go looking. The letter was his last goodbye, thus
fulfilling his promise to Reid.
Knowing
Spencer’s issues regarding feelings of abandonment from his parents (both as
the one left behind, and the one leaving), Jason made a promise to him; he
would never leave him without a word. And true to his word, that was exactly
what Jason had done with his letter.
Spencer let
his silence be the answer to J.J.’s question. She
took the cue and only nodded.
Absently,
his fingers began to trace the spine of his book and J.J. looked down. He knew
she would understand the significance of the book on Chaucer, and he tried to
obscure the title with his hand. “You know, we really don’t have anything
conclusive, yet. So…maybe this time you don’t let that big brain of yours get
too far ahead of the evidence…okay?”
He nodded,
but it was already too late. He was already thinking about all the things he
might have done differently, trying to recount exactly what had gone wrong and
everything that would have led to such an outcome.
“Spencer…
I’m serious.” She nudged him to emphasize her point. “There’s no point in you
trying to find the blame in this, when we don’t even know what, if anything has
happened.” Her stern expression quickly melted when he turned to look at her.
“So, knock it off, all right?”
He tried
very hard to let it go, if for only a moment, to ease her mind. Spencer screwed
his mouth up into an awkward grin and nodded. “All right… I’ll try.”
J.J. bumped
him with her shoulder once again and smiled softly. “I guess that’s as much as
I can hope for…for now.” He did his best to return the smile, but she placed
her hand over his on the book and looked him dead in the eye when she asked,
“Just promise me one thing…” He was powerless to refuse her when she got
serious like that, and so he merely nodded. “You’ll let the team help you
through this one…no shutting us out?”
Spencer
looked away from her steady gaze and down at their hands. He thought for a
moment about how small her hand looked against his, and how much smaller still
Henry’s appeared in comparison. His hands were so much bigger than both of
theirs, even put together, but theirs were the hands that held him together
when things got rough. And he was so
very grateful to have J.J. in his life.
He placed
his other hand over hers and squeezed gently. Nodding his head, he whispered,
“I promise, J.J. I promise.”
When they
finally got back to headquarters, there was no time to collect their selves
before Director Strauss had them in the briefing room giving her the complete
rundown on the case information. She explained that there was a great deal of
pressure to reach a satisfactory conclusion in the case, and she was giving
them as much time as possible to achieve it.
As everyone
broke up after the debriefing, Spencer thought they would all pack up and head
home. But it appeared no one was ready to call it quits just yet. Morgan and
Emily were going through their notes together. J.J. was in her office going
through the written requests having arrived while they were in
He had no
desire to rehash the details of the case with anyone again. He was done.
Spencer wanted, more than anything, to completely forget the events of the past
few days, but it was all he could think about. Worse yet, he knew there was
only one person who would be able to answer any of the hundreds of questions
bouncing around inside his head. And she was not in
His bag
still resting on his shoulder, Spencer walked to Hotch’s
office. Without knocking, he stepped inside, interrupting Rossi in
mid-platitude. “Hotch… I’m leaving.”
Hotch
nodded at him as Rossi spun in his seat to look at Spencer. “Good… You need to
get some sleep. It will still be a while before we get any test results.” He
narrowed his gaze at Hotch as he rambled on, not
understanding what Spencer was trying to say. “Garcia should have some leads
for us to hunt down tomorrow.”
Spencer
shook his head as Hotch went back to the folder on
his desk. “No, you aren’t understanding me…” Hotch looked up from the paperwork that formerly held his
attention. “I’m leaving.”
Still
confused, they both stared at Spencer and waited for him to explain. Instead of
an explanation, he simply pulled his gun and credentials out of his bag and
stepped up to Hotch’s desk, laying them gently atop
the files there before walking out.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Taking a
deep breath, he straightened the bag over his shoulder and did his best to
steady his nerves. This was quite possibly the most difficult thing he had ever
done in his life, but he needed to know.
With one
more steeling breath, he raised his hand to the door. Closing his eyes, he
knocked three times, paused, and knocked one last time..
The door
was opened after a few short moments to reveal a familiar face wearing an odd
smile. “Dr. Spencer Reid… I should’ve
known it’d be you.”
“Elle…” He
swallowed hard, knowing that everything in his life was about to be turned
inside out. “We need to talk.”
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Chapter 8
Opening the
door with a push, Elle rolled her eyes and begrudgingly waved him inside. “You
came all this way…might as well come inside.”
Spencer
cautiously stepped forward and glanced around the room. “Thank you.”
Elle huffed
at his obvious curiosity. “Go ahead…look around. I’ll get us some drinks.” She
went to the kitchen while Spencer tried to decide if he should take her up on
the offer.
As the
sound of ice falling into glasses reached him, he chose to take a seat in the
living room instead. “I just came here to talk.”
When she
entered the room with two glasses of iced tea, Elle was shaking her head. “I’ll
admit I’m kind of surprised Hotchner didn’t just send
the marshals in first.”
“It’s just
me.” Setting his bag down in his lap, Spencer answered her attack. “Nothing official.” As he took the glass from her hand, he
concluded, “I came here on my own.”
She eyed him
suspiciously and took her seat on the sofa. With a faint smile playing on her
lips, she leaned back and crossed her legs. “You never told Hotch
you knew where I was, did you?”
“I promised
you I wouldn’t.”
“Promises.”
She sneered at his answer. “You people and your promises.”
Spencer
sighed with the weight of his knowledge and her insinuation. “In the end…the
only thing that’s truly yours is your word.”
Elle turned
and placed the glass on the side table. “In my experience…in the end…it just
isn’t enough.” When she turned back to face him, her expression had turned to
stone; cold, hard and completely devoid of human emotion. “Promises, like
people, never last.”
“What’s
happened to you, Elle?” If not for the deep sincerity in his voice, she might
have laughed at his question.
Instead,
she used her dark humor to deflect it. “You mean other than being gutted and
left for dead?”
“We weren’t
the ones who left you.” Her surprise at hearing his statement showed on her
face. “You left us.” Elle’s expression clearly demonstrated her desire to slap
him for that, but his follow up left her gasping. “You left me.”
“Spencer, I-…” The words caught in her throat.
“Don’t…it’s
not important now.” His dismissal was worse than his accusation. “I came here
to give you a chance to explain.”
The steel
was back in her gaze when she asked, “Explain what?”
“Don’t play
that game with me, Elle. I helped teach it to you.” Spencer was deadly serious.
“Tell me what happened with Gideon.”
And with
that, the real game was on. She relaxed into the sofa and kicked her foot in a
playful rhythm. “What would you like to hear first, Dr. Reid? The quiet nights on the sofa? Or how about the hot afternoons in his bed? Tell me,
Spencer, what exactly do you want know about me and Gideon?”
“Stop it…”
He shook his head, as though it would help dispel the graphic images she tried
to implant there. Elle was trying to deflect his attention by using his eidetic
and visual memory against him, but she forgot who she was dealing with. “I
don’t deserve that.”
She stopped
bouncing her foot and sat forward. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you,
Spencer. But these questions…they’ll only make it worse. Just leave it alone.”
Resignation
heavy in his voice, Spencer answered, “But I need to know.”
“No, no you
don’t.” Elle seemed to withdraw from him with her refusal. “You don’t need to know any of this.”
He nodded
carefully, knowing she spoke the truth. “Fine…but I want the answers anyway. If
for nothing else, so that I can understand what happened.”
“There’s
nothing to understand.” Her anger began to surface when he refused to give in.
“Let me be
the judge of that. Tell me what happened, Elle. Make me understand this
madness, please?” He was not going to let her off without the answers he had
come for.
She wanted
to lash out at him in anger; anger for making her think about it, anger for
bringing it all back. Elle knew it was only a matter of time, but it was still
making her angry. “Why do you need to know about how he turned hyper-vigilance
into a damn science; double checking every lock and never taking his eyes off
those awful monitors? That’s going to help you understand?”
“It won’t,
but maybe…I don’t know. Maybe it can help me understand why, so that I can… So
that I might be able to-” The words caught “in his throat and his mind
struggled to find a valid reason for his need to know.
“Knowing
Jason woke up screaming every night will put your mind at ease?” Elle grew more
emotional with each question. Will it make it easier for you to know how alone
he felt through all of it, even with his son…even when he was with me? How
nothing took away his guilt, nothing cured his pain,
nothing could give him peace, nothing but…”
“Why?”
Spencer was horrified by her anger soaked questions as he choked out the words.
“Why did you do it?”
Her answer
was preempted when the condo door burst open and a swarm of
After they
ushered her out the door, Hotch and Rossi filed into
the room.
Spencer
stood up and straightened his bag before speaking to the two men before him.
“You had me followed?”
Before they
could speak, J.J. came into the room holding his book on Chaucer. She looked
away from his pained gaze and opened it to the inscription. “‘Anger, sickness,
or planetary influences, wine, sorrow, or changing of disposition often causes
one to do or speak amiss. One cannot be avenged for every wrong; according to
the occasion, everyone who knows how, must use temperance.’ Spencer,
thank you for your patience. Maybe one day I’ll find the temperance in
that quote. –Elle.” She closed the book and woefully
returned his gaze. “When you left this behind, I knew you were in trouble. I
got the address from the letter you used as your bookmark.” His eyes fell at
her admission.
“But why the Marshals?”
Rossi
nodded and softly admitted, “They found the body this morning, in an unmarked
grave about a thousand yards from the first house. That was enough for an
arrest warrant.” When he saw the condition of the bunker house, Reid had known
Jason was gone, but it was hard to hear the words spoken aloud.
“How did-…”
He found it difficult to give voice to his conclusion. It was tough for him to
imagine Elle as capable of murder, but knowing she could be responsible for
Gideon’s murder was too much.
“We’re
waiting for the autopsy to confirm…” Rossi paused when he saw Reid was not
looking for a gentle explanation. “Small caliber gunshot wound in the back of
the head.”
Spencer
closed his eyes tight, Rossi’s words cut into him like a knife. “I just-… I can’t believe I was so wrong.”
“None of us
could have seen this, Reid.” Hotch put a hand on
Spencer’s shoulder. “It goes against everything we know as profilers. But the
evidence doesn’t lie.”
Nodding
solemnly, Spencer recited the same thing he had heard a million times before,
“People lie, evidence just is what it is.”
His words
struck home with all of them. After a few moments of silence, J.J. looked at
her watch and said, “We should get to the airport. The Marshals have to process
her at their facility here in
“Right…
Thank you, J.J.” Hotch moved as though he was about
to leave and then he reached into his jacket pocket before he turned back to
Reid. “I think you dropped this in my office.” He casually slipped Reid’s
credentials into his hand.
Spencer
felt his cheeks warm with his shame. With all his human deficiencies, he failed
to see that even without Gideon, he was never really alone. He promised himself
in that moment, he would never take the team for granted again.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Chapter 9
Elle was
unceremoniously dumped in an interrogation room she had inhabited more times
than she could begin to count. The same bare walls. The same two way mirrors. The same comm system. The same slick metal table. The only
difference? She was the one shackled to the metal bar beneath the bolted
down table. Looking down at the chair upon which she sat, she could not help
but muse to herself, For a hot seat, it sure is cold.
The
Marshals had done their level best to keep her awake and agitated during the
entire ordeal; from the arrest, to the processing, to the transport. They
wanted her tired. They wanted her frustrated. They wanted her on the edge, if
only so they could be the ones to push her over it.
They… Not
so long ago she was part of them. It
was we back then. She always felt
slightly out of place, not just because she was the newest member, but like she
was never meant to be there. It made her work twice as hard to prove herself,
but in the end, she found the truth. She had no business on that team.
Ambition
was thought to be her biggest downfall at the BAU, but in reality it was the
ghosts. The ghosts that had been her constant companions
since childhood. The ghosts that continued to grow and
multiply with every passing year. The ghosts that quickly took over her
world when she was finally forced to come face to face with them after Randall
Garner’s attack on her.
She tried to
fight her way back to the BAU, but she was really fighting herself. She should
have taken the time to heal, both physically and emotionally. She should have
listened to what everyone was saying, but just as she always had, she ignored
those other voices and forged ahead. And
then the Lee case came up.
The signs
were all there. Hotchner was right about that. She
was hyper-vigilant and she was on the edge. Reid catching her drinking should
have sent up a warning flare, but instead she bullied and manipulated him into
drinking with her. Everything she did during that time practically screamed at
her to stop and take stock of her mental status. Instead, she agreed to act as
bait for a sexual predator.
Before she
even realized what was happening, she had her gun out and in the face of their
suspect, completely destroying the case they were trying to build against him.
But she never cared about the case. She only wanted to know who he was. She
wanted settle the score alone. And that was exactly what she did.
After that,
the only option she had left was to walk away. Walk away from the team, walk
away from her work, and walk away from the only people to have ever shown her
the slightest bit of human decency.
Taking a
deep breath and straightening her back as she rounded her shoulders, Elle heard
the clank of metal on metal as her shackles shifted with the movement. Staring
into the mirrored glass, she tried to deduce exactly who was standing behind
that glass watching her. Hotchner, for certain. And Reid, observing in the shadows, hoping
not to be noticed, as always.
Would Hotch handle her interview? No, he would do what he always
did and merely observe, passing judgment from afar. Morgan might have been a
good choice, if not for the fact that she always bested him in a verbal
skirmish. Spencer was rarely an asset in interviews, unless the subject was
either completely out of their gourd, or too smart for anyone’s good. And that
left the two team members who joined after her departure: the unknown quantities.
Patience
was never her strong suit, but a lot of things had changed since she left the
BAU. Time to think used to be her enemy, but that was no longer true. The
longer they left her there, alone with her thoughts, the more she was able to
find her center. After more than an hour
alone, chained to the table in the bare room, the door finally snicked open.
David Rossi
she knew only by reputation. He was part of the original BAU team, and a card
carrying member of the old boys’ network at the FBI. She knew how to handle
someone like him in her sleep. Watching the two of them enter the room in
tandem, Rossi allowing the woman to enter first, she took in the silent
communication between them and she had a pretty good idea why they were both in
the room.
Elle kept
her gaze fixed on the mirrored glass behind them, but noticed every move. How
Rossi gave the woman space, nudging her chair away from the table without
actually pulling it out for her, granting her that respect and independence
from him, while still showing appreciation. She may not have been a profiler
anymore, but Elle knew better than anyone how to spot the signs of intimacy.
The woman
nodded at Rossi, and granted him the first introductions. “I’m Agent David
Rossi, and this is Agent Emily Prentiss. Do you know why you are here Agent Green-”
“I’m not an
agent. And you know that.” She hated being condescended to, and the sneer on
her lips was threatening to become a snarl. Using her previous position as a
way to connect to her was nothing more than a ploy, and she hated it. “But
yes…I know why I’m here.”
Rossi
opened the folder in front of him, pretending to read something. “I see here
that the Marshals informed you of your rights, and you waived your right to
have an attorney present during this intervi-”
“Interrogation…
Interviews don’t include shackles.” He spoke the lines as though they were
straight out of Suspect Interviewing 101, and Elle was not about to let him
play his coy little game.
He looked
up from his paperwork with a raised eyebrow and she knew he was irritated by
her interruptions, but he was not about to tell her that. “Do you still wish to
speak without the aid of legal counsel, Ms. Greenaway?”
“I have no
need for legal counsel.” She kept her posture firmly upright, but not rigid.
Her gaze was unwavering and she could tell David Rossi was not someone who
flinched from a mere look. Elle liked that, because it meant the man was true
to himself and his job.
Despite the
counterfeit niceties he exhibited before, his ability to meet her icy stare
told her that he was indeed the honest man she had been told about. “I think
we’ve already wasted enough time, so why don’t you just ask your questions and
let’s be done with this charade?”
Rossi
rankled for a split second, probably taken aback by her flat tone and the lack
of real emotion in her features. He stuck out his jaw a bit as he adjusted his
neck and then agreed. “All right then, if that’s the way you want to do it.” He
flipped a photograph across the table to land in front of her, but she kept her
eyes locked on the pair. “Do you recognize this house?”
She waited
for two more beats before moving her eyes down to glance at the picture. It had
been a while since she last walked across the threshold of that place, but it
still looked the same. “Yes, of course I do. I lived there, off and on, when I
wasn’t working, for about eight months.”
Agent
Prentiss slipped him another folder. As he opened it, she knew he was just
putting on a show. She knew how it all worked; question, pause, review
materials, question, gauge the response for continuation to question “a” or
question “b,” repeat. Maybe it was just habit for him, or maybe he was just
trying to irritate her, but either way, she was not about to give him the
satisfaction of allowing his behavior to provoke any kind of response. She was
there to answer questions, and nothing more.
“Your work…
It seems to consist of a lot of contracts and freelance work. Things that bring you in and out of the country.” Rossi
looked up from the pages to ask, “And yet your passport and your fingerprint
records show you haven’t left the country since your trip to
“The people
I work with, and the people I work for are not exactly angels, and I prefer to
keep my actual identity to myself. The places I travel wouldn’t think very
highly of any fed, regardless of my current standing, mixing with their
locals.” It was an honest answer, if not the entire truth.
Prentiss
finally spoke as she pushed an enlargement of a fingerprint across the table.
“Those are some pretty great lengths to go to, in order to maintain privacy.”
Elle felt
each slice of the razor blade as she thought about the night she learned the
trick from the other side of her
family. The side she never talked about at the FBI. “Well, my Uncle Osvaldo picked up a few things in his work, and since it
worked for him with Castro, I figured it would work for me.”
“These must
be dangerous people you work for, Ms. Greenaway.” Rossi’s condescending tone
was something she was far too used to dealing with in her life, but she knew
how to deflect it.
“Just business men and women who are in need of a little assistance in
dealing with the dirty details of Latin American politics and culture, Agent
Rossi.” She
paused before delivering the blow. “But especially when the government encouraging them to invest
down there leave them hanging in the wind at the slightest hint of trouble.”
“So, you
mostly handle the terrorist ransoms and plant security, then?” Agent Prentiss
seemed to be slowly entering the conversation with her confirmation questions.
“If that’s
what you want to call it, yes.” She purposefully kept her answers short and to
the point.
“Then why the need for so much secrecy? Those people could care less who
you are, or used to be, anyway, as long as they get their money.” Elle turned
slightly to regard the woman with a raised brow. She made a very valid point,
and for that she would be rewarded.
“Fair
enough… It would probably be for the part of my work that isn’t ransoms and run
of the mill security. And probably because I knew that the intrepid Supervisory
Special Agent Hotchner would flag my records. I guess
I just didn’t want him on my ass every time I turned around.”
“In other
words…” Agent Rossi flippantly tossed the accusation at her, “You were in
hiding.” Elle turned back to glare at Agent Rossi.
“If that’s
the way you want to look at it, then so be it. I file my tax returns, I have my
driver’s license renewed, my cars are registered and my mail all comes to Elle
Greenaway of
Agent
Prentiss was apparently playing the role of good cop in this exercise as she
tried to calm everyone down. “We’ve gotten a little off-track, here.”
She
shuffled a few papers and then looked directly at Elle as she worked to make
some kind of connection with her. “The reason for the questions about your
fingerprints is because we had difficulty matching your prints in the house to
those on file at the Bureau, and we wanted to know why you were obscuring your
identity.”
Elle
decided to let her continue the tactic and nodded at her explanation, waiting
for her to go on. “You say that you lived in that house for a period of
approximately eight months. When was that, exactly?’
“Well, I
was in
“We?”
Agent Rossi seemed to be intrigued by her answer.
“Yes, of
course.” She waited for him to ask the question she knew he had been dying to
hear the answer for.
“That would
be yourself and who else?” A faint smile tickled at the corner of her mouth as
he continued to dodge the real question.
“That’s a
ridiculous question, Agent Rossi, and one you already know the answer to. Maybe
you should try again.” Elle just wanted to ruffle his feathers for a change.
He appeared
to chew back the comment he obviously wanted to make and glanced very quickly
at Agent Prentiss. “Very well… Was Jason Gideon the other part of your ‘we’?”
“Yes, he
was.” Again, she kept it short.
“What was
the reason for cleaning out the house?” Agent Prentiss jumped in again,
possibly to help Agent Rossi maintain his cool.
“Jason
thought it was wasteful to continue keeping up both places. And after his son
Steven got married, Jason wanted a place he and his wife could stay in the
States between trips. So, we cleaned it out, top to bottom and made sure it was
ready when they got there.”
“And where
did you stay after that?” Again, Agent Rossi asked a vague question,
intentionally skirting around the point. It was obvious he was trying to lead
her by the nose through the interrogation, but she refused to grant him that
wish.
Instead,
she kept her answer short and just as vague as his question. “Same place I had
been.”
“Where was
that, Ms. Greenaway?” The amiable Agent Prentiss came in to calm the fire
again.
Elle was
tired of playing the game, so she simply launched forward. “You already have my
prints and who knows what else if Hotch brought in
his favorite field tech. So, please, stop with the games and just ask the
questions you want to ask me. I’m not hiding anything from you, and even if I
wanted to, what good would it do me?”
“None at all.” The tinge of anger was evident in his tone as Agent Rossi pushed the
open file in front of her. “Can you explain why we found Agent Gideon’s body,
with a bullet in his brain, buried on a hill in back of the main house?”
“Because you were looking for it.”
The barrage
of questions and answers that followed would have made even a Perry Mason
episode look real.
“How did it
get there?”
“Because I buried him there.”
“Who shot
him?”
“I did.”
“Where’s
the weapon?”
“In the safe in my condo in
Rossi shook
his head in disgust as he wrote on his little pad. “If you were so concerned
with convenience, then why didn’t you turn yourself in to begin with?”
“Because I haven’t done anything wrong.” Her answer made both of them shoot
incredulous stares at her.
“You took a
man’s life? And if Hotch’s suspicions are right, it’s
not the first time. So how can you even think about saying that?” Rossi was
downright indignant with his question. But she understood his frustration. She
had felt it herself, before coming to terms with the truth.
“‘For there
is one thing I can safely say: that those bound by love must obey each other if
they are to keep company long.’” She never understood the quote until all those
months ago. No matter how many times it was explained to her, she never truly
grasped it until she had known the bonds of love.
Agent
Rossi’s eyes narrowed and looked at her as though she was questioning his
faith. “You can’t possibly try to pin this to something motivated by love. Or
are you going for an insanity defense?”
“I’m no
less sane than anyone here.” She glanced at the glass behind the pair with her
statement. “And you can believe what you want… You asked the questions, and I
answered them honestly.”
Agent
Prentiss locked eyes with Elle for a few moments, as though she was trying to
find the answers in her eyes. When she broke the stare, she glanced at Agent
Rossi. “I have a few more questions, Ms. Greenaway, if you don’t mind?”
Elle
rattled the chain against the metal bar and said, “As if I have a choice.”
Agent Rossi
leaned back and ran a hand over his beard. He seemed confused for the briefest
of moments, but never once did he block Agent Prentiss from speaking. He only
exhaled and gave a small nod to Agent Prentiss before saying, “Answering them
is still your choice.”
“True
enough, but regardless, that’s what I’m here for, so please, ask your
questions, Agent Prentiss.” Elle’s tone never wavered. She was resolved to her
fate no matter what, and a few more questions were not going to make any
difference in the long run. She had made peace with the truth, but it was
obvious the members of the BAU were still searching for theirs.
“You said
that you lived in the main house for eight months, but had not been living
there for the fourteen months previous. This would lead me to believe that your
relationship with Agent Gideon started out as something other than romantic. Is
that true?” That time Elle allowed a small smile to ghost over her face.
“I wouldn’t
necessarily call my relationship with Jason romantic, but yes, it changed while
I was out there.” Elle was intrigued by her choice of words and waited to find
out where this line of questioning would lead.
“Then what
made you seek out Agent Gideon in the first place?”
“I’m not
sure exactly…” She paused to consider her answer. When she had heard about
Jason’s departure from the BAU it shocked her. She was convinced that Jason
Gideon knew better than anyone how to separate the different parts of his life
into little boxes, and detach himself from the work that they did. Learning he
had failed in that regard intrigued her. “I think I was still looking for
answers then, and I guess I thought he might have them.”
“What were
the questions?”
Elle was
impressed with Agent Prentiss’ ability to ask such concise questions. She
wished she had been given such a remarkable gift when she was with the BAU. “I
suppose I was trying to find out what I had done wrong. Maybe what had changed
in me that I still couldn’t see. Sometimes, you need to find old friends in
order to see yourself, so I guess that’s what I was looking for when I started
tracking down Jason’s location.”
“No hay mejor espejo que
la cara de un amigo viejo.” Elle focused intently on Agent Prentiss as the
other woman spoke in Spanish, the words of her grandfather. “There is no better
mirror than the face of an old friend.”
“Exactly.”
She smiled at the woman, grateful for Agent Prentiss’ insight into her family
background.
Agent Rossi
interrupted them to ask, “How did you find Agent Gideon? We know he didn’t make
it easy.”
“It’s my
business to find people who don’t want to be found,
Agent Rossi. It was my business even before I joined the BAU, and I’m very good
at it.” She waited for him to go back to scribbling his notes before
continuing. “Taking what I learned from Spencer, and from what I knew of Jason
and the team, I had a pretty good idea of how to track him down. It took a
little digging, and some unexpected family history research help from my
sister, but I was able to find the property in
“When you
left the BAU, it was under strained circumstances…what made you think Agent
Gideon would even want to see you?” Agent Rossi again interrupted.
“I knew him
well enough to assume it wouldn’t be a problem.” She tried to dismiss his smug
question.
“No one
knew Jason Gideon well enough to assume that. Not even his
own son. So, what gave you
this incredible insight about him?” With that question, Rossi sounded just like
every man who had ever questioned her worth over the years. It was
condescending, it was fake, and it made her blood boil, but she was not about
to let that kind of attitude win. Not when she could help it.
She
practically spit the words at him, “As my grandmother always said, ‘Porque una papaya hala mas
que una yunta
de buey.’” Agent Prentiss was forced to stifle a
laugh at the old Cuban saying.
Prentiss
turned when the words were met with silence and found Agent Rossi attempting to
will her to answer his unspoken question with his eyes. “Well, loosely
translated… Um, a, ah, a woman…has a
stronger pull than team of oxen.”
Elle rolled
her eyes at the sugar-coated translation. “Very loosely
translated.”
The look on
Agent Rossi’s face forced poor Prentiss to explain the vulgar saying further.
“In other words, she knew there was a, ah…physical
attraction.”
Rossi
quickly looked away from Prentiss, and narrowed his gaze on Elle when he asked,
“Did the two of you have a relationship prior to your finding Gideon in
“Not in the
physical sense, no, but it wasn’t for lack of attraction.” She looked at the
glass again when she admitted, “There were other mitigating factors.”
Prentiss
was not about to let her slide on that one. “Which were?”
“For
starters…he was a superior and a mentor, and we thought it best to keep our
relationship professional at the time.” Elle tried giving them the company
line, hoping it would be enough. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt
anyone else.
“What were
the other reasons?” Prentiss never lowered her gaze when she was addressing
Elle. It was a tactic she imagined served the agent well in normal
interrogations.
Agent Rossi
began to grow restless as she paused to contemplate her answer. Using his unease
to delay the answer, she asked, “Is there a problem, Agent Rossi?”
“Yeah…” He
got up from his seat, straightened his clothes and buttoned his jacket. “You’re
wasting our time.” He pulled out a folder from the bottom of the stack and
tossed it in her direction. “It’s all in your personnel file. Gideon made note
of every conversation. We know you had a thing for him. So, stop trying to play
it out as some star crossed lovers scenario.”
Elle was
not able to help herself, she actually smiled. Two years before and she would
have taken the bait. But she was not that person anymore. “You can think
whatever you like, Agent Rossi. I know the truth, and that’s all I need.” She
looked between both agents and shrugged, “Obviously you’ve found a way to
handle those problems in your own relationship, but Jason and I needed some
distance from the BAU to figure it out.”
They both
worked far too hard to not look at one another as she calmly outed them. Instead of waiting for the denials, she pushed
forward, “Regardless of what you might believe, I’m quite certain the physical
evidence is there to prove it. It wasn’t easy, but Jason and I managed to make
a life together.”
“Fine, you
had a relationship.” Agent Rossi returned to his seat at the table. “But that
doesn’t explain how he ended up with a bullet in his head, and why you just
walked away.”
“I did what
I had to do, Agent Rossi, and I’ve made peace with that. Everything else is out
of my hands.” Her answer was flat and emotionless. She was being honest when
she said she was ready to accept whatever fate had to offer, but she planned to
keep the rest locked away in her heart.
“We really
don’t need a motive. So, if that’s all you have to say, you’ll be arraigned in
the next opening on the docket.” Both Rossi and Prentiss stood up from their
seats and began collecting their folders. “You’ve been charged with the
deliberate murder of a federal officer, and given your business, I highly doubt they
will be granting bail.”
Agent
Prentiss stopped to offer one piece of advice as she carefully took the photos
from Elle’s sight. “Regardless of how you plan to handle the case, legal
counsel is your right.”
“Thank you,
for that, but it won’t be ne-” She was interrupted when the door swung open as
Reid slipped loose from Morgan’s grip to enter the room.
“Why, Elle?
Why’d you do it? You got it all, so why’d you have to destroy him, too?” Morgan
and Hotch pushed into the room to restrain the crazed
younger man.
“I didn’t
destroy him, Spencer. And we never took anything from you.” She wanted to
explain everything to him, but she knew the truth would hurt him more than
anything else.
“You’re
here, and he’s lying on a slab, and you never said a word to me, not once in
two years! How is that keeping your promise?” His anger rolled off of him in
powerful waves. “You promised me! You swore you’d tell me the truth, always.
Tell me now, why’d you do it, Elle?”
He was
right. She had promised him that she would always tell him the truth. When he
found her in
The power
of her simple statement silenced the entire room. It was as though everything
stopped in that single moment of time. The only way she knew they had not
frozen was when Spencer pulled out of Morgan’s suddenly weak grasp.
“He… He
begged you? Begged you to kill him?” Spencer’s every word dripped with hurt.
She
involuntarily pulled against her bonds and rattled the shackles as the tears
she thought had dried up began streaming down her face once more. “He… We had,
ah, just gotten confirmation about Steven’s death. I did everything I could to
get him out of there, including bribing the locals to hide them, until we could
hire a team, but…it was too late by the time we found out. Jason was barely
holding on by a thread most days, and just being with him wasn’t enough to ease
all of his pain. I tried, we both did, but he just didn’t have that much to
give anymore. All he had left were promises.”
The word
choked in her throat. Jason lived by the principle that a man was only as good
as his word. And his word meant everything to him. “He only had two promises
left keeping him alive; his promise to Steven, and his promise to me.”
“Lorena
told us about his promise to Steven.” Reid’s voice sounded infinitely smaller
than before.
“And it
died with him.” Elle remembered Jason saying those same words to her when she
tried to help him through the pain. “All Jason wanted then was to end the pain.
The pain of his existence was greater than any man could bear, and there was
nothing I could to take it away from him.”
Morgan
could no longer handle being a silent bystander. “Then why didn’t he just do it
himself? Gideon never needed anyone to do his work.”
She
swallowed hard, and got ready to answer him, but Hotch
beat her to it. “Because he promised her he would never leave.” Elle could only
nod at Hotch’s statement. “Everyone always left you,
didn’t they, Elle? And the reason you felt safe to go about your work was
because you made him promise not to leave you while you were gone.”
“And Jason
could never break his promise. So, he needed me to release him, to end his
pain…”
Agent
Prentiss was the one to find the last piece of the puzzle. “Because that’s what
you promised him.”
“And now
his pain is over. All that’s left is the rest of my life…however long that may
be.”
Spencer
stepped forward and moved around the table. He took a deep breath and then
knelt down beside her. Elle tried not to look in his eyes. She knew he would
see too much.
When he
wrapped his hand around her forearm she squeezed her eyes shut tight. “Where is
it, Elle?”
Still
refusing to look at him, she asked, “What?”
“It’s not
in his effects, and they haven’t found it at your place yet.” She swallowed
hard, knowing exactly what he was talking about. “And I understand Jason well
enough to know he wouldn’t do this.” Spencer paused, and squeezed her arm as he
said, “Not to someone he loved.”
Elle could
not bear to look at him. She shook her head and pleaded, “Spencer, please
don’t.”
He blew out
a nervous breath and she felt it brush over her arm. “I’m sorry, Elle, but I
have to, because I can’t do it either. Not to you, not to him.”
“Reid?” Hotch spoke from right behind Spencer, and she knew the
others were just as close.
Spencer
patted her arm tenderly and then turned back to the others. “Jason kept a
private journal. In it, he kept all of his suicide notes. He’d been fighting
the depression for years.” He stood up beside Elle and laid his hand on her
shoulder. “Jason wouldn’t want Elle to take this, not if he trusted her with
his life and his death. He would have left an explanation. He always promised
me he wouldn’t leave without an explanation, because he couldn’t bear anyone
else carrying the same guilt he did.”
His fingers
squeezed her shoulder as he said, “And Jason always kept his promises.”
What is better than
wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.
-GEOFFREY CHAUCER, “The