Who Cried Wolf
PenPatronus
Chapter 1
Aaron Hotchner buckled the apartment door with one vicious kick. "FBI!" he bellowed, bursting into the living room with gun and flashlight drawn.
A body wrapped burrito-tight in blankets rolled off the couch with a startled yelp. It bumped the corner of a chess board on its way down, catapulting black and white pawns through the air. Floppy brown hair preceded wide, blinking brown eyes. "I s-surrender," the half-awake Spencer Reid stuttered. The doctor ran his tongue across his lips and squinted up at the light. "Hotch?"
The police captain sent his force through the apartment while Aaron waved at the paramedics to follow him. Gun sheathed and flashlight trembling, Hotch knelt beside Reid and started wrestling him out of the blankets. "Where are you hurt?" he demanded. "Reid, talk to me! What happened?"
"What do you mean, what happened?" Spencer tried to shrug off the blankets but kept getting in the way of Hotch's clawing fingers. Finally, he just held still and let the SSA strip away the afghan, the cotton blanket, and even his robe. Hotch grabbed handfuls of Reid's gray sweatpants and white t-shirt, twisting the fabric left and right like he was looking for something. "Hotch, what are you doing? I'm fine!"
One by one the lights went on as the police officers cleared each room. The captain shut the curtains tight across the windows. "Reid!" Derek Morgan entered the room like a tornado. Stray papers on desks and bookshelves went sailing in the wind. He rushed to Hotch's side and together the two men lifted Reid up onto his bare feet. "Oh my God," Morgan exhaled after he looked the young doctor up and down. "God, Reid, you're alive."
Fed up with the unanswered questions, Reid planted his palms against his coworkers' chests and shouted, "What the hell is going on?"
Hotchner and Morgan exchanged glances. Both men sucked air like they'd just run a marathon. "You got one, too?" Morgan asked.
"Yeah. Phone?"
"Phone."
"Reid, I thought you were…" Hotch suddenly crouched into a catcher's position and braced himself against the couch with both hands. "It looked real. The rug and the blood—"
The broken door had swung halfway shut when a new boot hit it. Rossi and JJ ran into the scene equally sweaty and out of breath. A sound part hiccup, part sob erupted from JJ. "Spence!" Before he could get a word out she flew into his arms, practically choking him with a hug.
Rossi gripped Hotch's shoulder with his right hand and held up his smartphone with his left. "I take it somebody sent you the photo, too?"
Hotchner stood up, unlocked his cell phone and checked the time tagged to the photo message. "Got mine at 3 am."
Morgan checked his. "3 am on the dot," he reported.
Spencer squinted over JJ's shoulder. "Is that…me?" he asked when he spotted the image on Morgan's phone.
The "Doctor Who" theme suddenly squealed from the couch. Spencer plucked his phone from between the couch cushions and read the name of the incoming caller. His lips pressed tight and he glanced up at the others before answering. "Garcia, I'm alive—" Garcia's shouts were so loud that Spencer had to hold the phone away from his ear.
Rossi and Hotch held their phones side by side. "I recognized it," Hotch said, pointing at the red and brown rug in the photo and the same one in the center of Reid's living room.
"Those are the same clothes he wore at work yesterday." Rossi gestured to the navy vest over a white button-down shirt. "Don't remember the blood, though."
"That's sophisticated photoshopping," said JJ. She blinked her eyes rapidly to remove the water hovering in them. "The light is right for this room. Even has the shadow the table would cast if the overhead light was on."
"The blood is the right color, too." Morgan swallowed before speaking again. "That pool under his head wound is dark and the slashes on his arms are bright red."
"Garcia, it's 3:15 in the morning, don't go into work!" Reid said into his phone. He was about to argue some more when Hotch plucked it out of his hand.
"I'll be there in twenty, Garcia. I want the bastard's name by dawn, you hear me?" With a final nod, Hotch canceled the phone call.
"Why would somebody want the five of us to think that Reid is dead?" JJ wondered.
"It's most likely a threat," Rossi hypothesized. "The unsub is showing what he'll do to Reid if he doesn't get what he wants."
Reid winced when he took a closer look at the image on Morgan's screen. "Am I missing a thumb?" Morgan scowled, shut the screen off and pocketed the device.
"Did any of you get a second message? Or text with the first?"
"Just the picture." JJ took a steadying breath. "I was sleeping. I heard my phone buzz and I rolled over and… God, I really thought you were dead," she whispered to Spencer.
He offered a kind smile and held up both hands to show that all of his fingers were attached. "I'm ok."
"And we're going to keep you that way." Hotch released the EMTs and, with Spencer's permission, ordered the police to search the apartment for any sign of a break-in or a camera. "Morgan, JJ, escort Reid to the BAU." Without another word, Hotch marched into the hallway and disappeared down the stairs.
Spencer rubbed his arms and stifled a yawn. "Really freaked out, isn't he?"
"He cares about you. We all do. You know that," said Rossi.
Morgan snorted. "How would you feel if a picture of his dead body appeared on your phone in the middle of the night?"
Spencer shuddered. "Guess I'll get dressed."
Morgan's eyes followed Spencer like a hawk as the younger man went into the bathroom. JJ wiped away the rest of the moisture on her face and followed Rossi to help the police officers. When he was left standing alone in the middle of Reid's living room, Morgan whispered to whoever might be listening, "If you hurt him, if you even touch him, I will eliminate you."
To Be Continued