Merciless
Chapter
1
Breaking up
The Scars you can't see are the hardest to heal – Astrid Alauda
Six faces smiled down at him from the evidence board. The first case since he'd got back to work, and he felt tired and alone. He had thought that the relationship with Emily was going to go somewhere, they had grown close in the hospital while he recovered from the worst abuse he had ever suffered. It seemed to him that she would be there for him now he was back at work. But it wasn't to be.
He sighed as he recalled the conversation that they had had over dinner the day before.
'You are too intense, I can't handle it.' she had said.
'How can I not be intense?' he had countered. 'I'm in love with you.'
She had screwed up her napkin and stood up. 'I'm sorry, Aaron. I didn't want to hurt you, but I can't keep up with you.'
Hotch had stood up and watched her leave the restaurant. He had called her later on to try to talk to her, but she had made up her mind.
He wondered if he had slept with her if things would have been different, but he wasn't able to sleep with her, he was still traumatised by his experience. Did Emily expect him to be the same after what he had been through? Was it the old Hotch that she had fallen for, or was it simply the 'hurt/comfort' syndrome, and now that he didn't need the comfort (in her eyes), he didn't need her.
He was at a loss as to why the relationship had broken down. He had been worried about how she would react to him on a professional level, and he reminded himself why he never had a relationship with a colleague.
Which left Reid. How was he going to tell him that even though he was no longer with Emily, he could never be with him.
-0-0-0-
Reid sat in the motel room with both hands clasping a cup of coffee. He was fighting the urge to cry. He knew that he must not cry here and now. Aaron had asked him to come to his room for coffee after work, and now they were both back at the BAU he knew that there were issues to address.
Aaron watched him from his seat on the other side of the coffee table. He knew that he could never love him in the way Reid wanted, and since they had been back at work, Reid had behaved impeccably. But Aaron knew that the feelings ran deep.
'I am so sorry, Spencer.' he said. 'It could never happen. Please understand that it is no reflection on you.'
A tear collected in the corner of Reid's eye and overflowed down his cheek. Aaron wanted to reach out to Reid and brush it away, but it would have sent conflicting messages to him, so he sat there and looked into his face.
'And if I have ever done anything to make you think otherwise, please forgive me.'
'I'm s-sorry.' Reid stammered. He reached across the space between them. Hotch leaned back everso slightly, but Reid noticed.
'It's ok.' Aaron said gently. 'I am flattered that you want me, really I am. But it can't happen.'
Reid stood up and walked round the back of the couch he had been sitting on.
'I understand, Aaron. I just hoped....... ' He looked at Hotch, his eyes awash with unshed tears and misery.
Aaron sighed. This was awful. He was still reeling from Emily's disclosure that once again, she didn't want a relationship with him, but when he was hurt, she mistook her feelings for love. And now this.
Well, he had known of Reid's crush. And he truly was flattered. But he couldn't let it carry on with Reid building bridges of hope that would collapse and break his heart.
'I need to go back to my room.' Reid said.
Aaron followed him to the door.
'Take tomorrow off work.' Hotch said, opening the door. Reid stepped outside into the rain. His Volvo was parked next to Hotch's SUV.
'I might.' Reid said, and fled to his room, leaving Aaron on the doorstep, feeling thoroughly wretched.
Emily.
He sighed a shuddering sigh. Why could he not find happiness?
He thought that what he had with Haley was happiness, but he had since realised that it wasn't happiness, so much as comfort. It was comfortable to come home from the horrors of his work to find her waiting for him. But love? He didn't think so.
He sat on the couch where Reid had been sitting and put his face in his hands. He felt bereft. Not only had he lost Emily, but he had hurt someone who was very dear to him. He picked up Reid's coffee and tasted it. It was sweet and hot, and he drank it down. Then he picked up the phone.
'Dave..... yes I told him...... devastated I think...... I'll see you tomorrow than.'
He put down the phone, picked up the coffee cups and took them through to the kitchen area. He rinsed the cups and put them away.
'Damn it!' he shouted. He was trying too hard not to let the conversation he'd had with Reid affect him. He grabbed his coat. He needed to take a walk, let the rain wash away the feeling that tumbled over each other to be recognised , too fast for him to do anything about.
He locked the door behind him and set off to walk around the block. The pavement reflected the city lights and he felt relaxed as he walked in the rain.
Things looked different at night, and he glanced up at the sky. The lights of the city drowned out the stars, but the moon was bright behind the parting clouds.
He walked out of the city towards the surrounding woodlands and hills. There were more stars visible here, and he paused to look up. The rain had stopped and the stars looked almost too bright.
It was so beautiful, he rarely had the chance to look at anything beautiful. His work was filled with the ugliest side of humanity, and it marred everything else he saw.
He saw misery and distress almost daily. He saw the innocent beaten down and the guilty roam free; for every UnSub either killed or imprisoned, there were three or four more out there enjoying the evil that they did.
His thoughts went back to the seven faces, and he turned and headed sadly back to the motel. Even looking on a thing of such obvious beauty like the starry night was blemished by his experiences, as he thought the same stars were shining down on a brutal killer.
He walked briskly through the wet streets back to the hotel. He felt strangely un nerved as if some one was following him. His footfalls seemed to echo in the wet. He sped up, fighting the urge to run. He glanced behind him, but there was no body there. Just shadows and reflections.
He was glad to reach his motel room, and he quickly stepped inside and locked the door behind him. He realised that he had been holding his breath, and he sat on the bed and tried to get some control of his breathing.
He was suddenly very tired. He got his gun and held it in his hand as he fell asleep fully dressed on the bed.
-0-0-0-
Hotch was the first person in to work the next day. Likely this was because he had said six thirty to the others and it was only five o'clock when he went into the office. Some of his best ideas came when he was alone, and he wanted to think about the case before anyone else arrived.
He looked at the six faces. Nothing seemed to connect them. Three men, three women, taken off the road in no apparent order, kept for a week, killed and dumped by the road side as if pushed from a car. They seemed to be crimes of opportunity, the victims being snatched while they were alone, in the early hours of the morning. His mind flashed back to his unsettling experience the previous evening. He rubbed at his eyes as if that would make the feeling go away.
He wondered whether any of the victims had been stalked before their abduction. He wrote on the evidence board:
STALKER?
Maybe they had mentioned it to their friends or family. He would get the team onto that first thing.
His mind went back to the victims.
They had not been sexually molested, but most of them had broken bones or dislocated joints. The autopsies showed that they had all been tortured to death in different ways. One, a man, had deep puncture wounds on his chest and abdomen, several of which would have been fatal. The pathologist had said the wounds were reminiscent of those made by an Iron Maiden.
Hotch shuddered. For all that he had been through, he still couldn't understand the mentality of someone who would build a torture chamber, and then use the instruments on living people.
Every job he had seemed to surpass the others in sheer brutality, but in truth they were all the epitome of evil. They all ended up with dead people – people who had loves and likes and lives to live. What could be more evil that snatching this away.
He heard someone coming up behind him, and he jumped, hand on his Glock.
'Uh.... morning Emily.' he said, feeling a little silly.
'Good morning Hotch.' she answered. '"Stalker" is a good idea. Especially as there was a few days between the body dump and the next abduction. Could be that the abductions were not opportunistic after all, and the victims were watched for several days first.'
'That's what I thought.' Hotch said. He decided not to mention his own experience of the night before. Now in the cold light of day he felt a little embarrassed by it.
All the team were in by six, and they were sitting around the table, Dave with his note book out, waiting for Hotch to begin.
'I wondered', he said, 'if the victims were followed or stalked before the abductions. Dave and Emily, Reid and Morgan, take two each and go talk to the families. I'll take the other two. See if any of them mentioned being followed or stalked the days leading up to the abductions, where they were, et cetera. It could give us more to go on in the geo-profile.'
The pairs each took two folders off the table. Hotch looked to see what ones he'd been left.
Two men – Terry Raymond and John Stretton. Both in their forties, Both tortured to death and dumped on the highway leading out of town. Or into town maybe.
He went to Raymond's family first. Unmarried, still living with his father, mother dead several years. He had been pressed to death, and had a shattered rib cage.
He knocked on the door. Geoff Raymond opened it. Hotch's mind briefly went back to the first time he had met Mr Raymond. He had been a tall well built man, powerful looking with a slightly florid complection. Now he looked the shadow of that man. It was always a shock how grief seemed to sap people of their life.
'Mr Raymond,' Hotch said. 'I just need to ask you something about the days before your son's abduction.'
'Oh yes, yes, come in, please Agent. I will help all I can.'
Hotch followed him into the neat clean kitchen. Raymond sat at the table and Hotch sat opposite.
'Would you like a drink?' Raymond said, starting to get up again.
'No, no, I won't take up much of your time. I was wondering if Terry had said anything about being followed on the days leading up to his disappearance.'
'You mean someone might have been watching him? He never mentioned it to me.'
'Ok, Mr Raymond, that is all I wanted to ask.' Hotch stood up. 'I'll leave you now, but if you think of anything, anything at all that might help, please get in touch.'
'I will, Agent. I have your card.'
Hotch went back to his car and drove about two miles along the road to the home of Debbie Smith, Terry's girl friend. If he didn't mention it to his father, he might have told her.
'Terry didn't go out in the dark.' she said. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying. 'And you wouldn't really notice in the day light, would you?'
John Stretton had lived alone, and didn't have a lover or close friend. He was essentially a workaholic, and spent long hours at his desk. Hotch went to his place of work and briefly interviewed his colleagues. But he had not been close to anyone at work, and no one knew anything about his private life.
He hoped that the others were having better luck.
He stopped the car in a park on the way back to the office, and bought a hot dog from a street vendor by the gate. He wanted to sit on the grass, but it was still wet from yesterdays down pour. He sat instead on the wooden seat by the pond, and threw his some of his bread in the water and watched the ducks eat it.
Someone sat on the other end of the bench. Hotch didn't really take any notice of them as he ate the sausage and threw the rest of the roll at the ducks.
He went back to his SUV and got in, wiping his hands on a wet wipe he kept in the car for when Jack rode in it.
The man on the bench watched him go.