Heart hammering, I follow Hotch as we both sprint around the corner towards the hotel room where the UNSUB, hopefully, would be. My doubts regarding her and her arrogant monster of a father evaporate with the adrenaline rush surging through me.
Victim at youth or not, she is still a threat. Pity wouldn't help either Hotch or me if she manages to shoot us both in the head. Facing Daddy-O, the man who started it all, is too much of a stressor that someone wouldn't snap under the pressure. I've never told anyone this, but when I faced Carl again, I was out of my mind both with fury and fear. Sure, I'm a grown man, but he's still my mentor.
Was, I correct myself.
We charge into the room, guns drawn and at the ready. As Hotch moves towards the left of the hotel room, my eyes are inevitably drawn to the gun sitting on the side table just in front of the door, barrel facing me. The gun is like a poisonous snake perched beside the bottle of champagne chilling in the ice bucket that decorates said table.
Why did she leave the gun?
And then, I spot the UNSUB on the balcony, calling Hotch's name to alert him. Laying my eyes on Megan Kane in the flesh for the first time, I lift my gun ever so slightly, keeping my finger on the trigger, and watching as a slim white hand gently sets an empty champagne glass down on the balcony table. Blonde, shapely, beautiful Megan Kane, delicate as a flower, fragile as glass – and deadly as a viper – the daughter that Kane has turned into a woman scorned. The ice in the crystal tumbler hasn't even had the chance to melt. She lays back down on the chaise set on the balcony, her fuchsia sweater making her movements easy to track.
"Easy," Hotch cautions me, his grave tone controlled, but there is a trace of disquiet in there I pick up right away. He gestures for me to hold back.
"You sure?" I question, my skepticism overcoming me, despite the conclusion that we've both made – suicide will protect this poor young woman from the media mastiff. And from us.
"It's over," Hotch replies. "She knows that." He holsters his gun, and I obey, lowering mine, but keeping it on hand. Hotch's instincts are never off, but UNSUBs, in their last moments of freedom, are unpredictable nonetheless.
"I'll call 9/11," I tell him, keeping my eyes on Megan.
Even as I dial away, Hotch approaches the young woman.
"Hello," she calls out, as if greeting Hotch at a dinner function. There is a weak, cornered quality to her voice – the sound of a child who has been hiding in the closet away from the fights between Mommy and Daddy. I shut my eyes and turn away, speaking to the operator in quick, clipped tones, to send an ambulance to the room. Yes, that's FBI Agent Derek Morgan. Ma'am, please hurry – rat poisoning, it might not be too late. Thank you.
I hang up, and hear Hotch's soft reply to Megan Kane. "It was Dashiell Hammett."
"It doesn't make sense," Megan answered plaintively. "The men always leave first."
Even as I turn towards my boss and the young UNSUB, unconsciously holstering my gun as Hotch has, I see Megan reach for Hotch's hands. Startled, he looks down at her fingers, and then he retrieves a SIM card from her grasp.
"I'll give anything to see his face right now," she states almost coolly.
She'd pick pocketed Daddy's phone, no doubt – managing to extract the SIM card from the phone. Ensuring that he wouldn't be able to run and hide behind his lawyers and escape justice. Retribution is such a pain in the butt. Despite the pain in my heart, I feel a small smile pulling at the corners of my mouth.
She's no longer the UNSUB standing before me, but a young girl, smart as spunk and bright, vivacious, beautiful – the child Kane should have been proud of, should never have deserted. He had shaped her – made her the killer she had turned out to be. Now she's regressed back to that child who possessed so much potential, who had the world as her oyster, and who had suffered because of her father's callous actions.
"How could your wife ever have left someone like you?" she now addresses Hotch. "You're the first man I've ever met who didn't let me down." Her smile, tremulous and trembling, tugs at her full lips.
Hotch, not for the first time, but certainly one of very rare times, stares gravely back at her. I can tell what she sees from his gaze – pain, certainly, at the memories of Haley and Jack, but also pain for this young child and who she's turned out to be.
Her mouth trembles visibly, and her voice turns quivery as she requests, tears in her eyes, "Will you stay with me?"
"Yes," Hotch replies without hesitation.
"Promise?" she asks again, the child obvious in her voice.
The scene is too much for me. I turn away, the stinging in my eyes almost too much to bear.
"I promise," Hotch says solidly.
I hear her shuddering breaths intensify and turn to quiet, racking gasps as the rat poison takes effect. Looking over my shoulder, I watch as she closes her eyes, her body convulsing with the pain of the poison spreading through her system. Her hand is in Hotch's, and his gaze is on her. The entire process takes roughly about thirty seconds, with both Hotch and I the only witnesses to Megan Kane's death throes.
It's so difficult watching a young person die – any person die. But to see that waste of potential and beauty right there, to ruminate on the causes of such merciless brutality, to regret the fact that family values, or the lack thereof, were the cause of death and mayhem – it's so hard to bear. We both see her head slide gently to her right shoulder, the muscles and will no longer keeping it upright and graceful. Her hand goes slack in Hotch's; the pulse in her throat dies. Her entire face stills and freezes, forever holding that beauty intact. Peace finally comes over the young, yearning countenance.
Hotch sags in the chair, and looks at me. His dark eyes are black with pain, and he looks back down at the hand he bears gently in his. Then his stony face cracks.
I face forward again, the tears pooling on my lashes before one drips down onto my folded arms.
Both of us can still hear the sirens and the pounding of footsteps as they race towards the hotel room – too late, too late, to save little Megan Kane and the woman she had become.