Title: Sharkbait
Author: WriterKos
Rating: M
Parings: Reid/OFC
Characters: Reid, OC, and the gang.
Genres: Romance, Character Study
Warnings: Sex, mentions of rape and child abuse.
Summary: Reid is engaged to be married with his ex-thief now art student Moni. Things are just settling down, right? Nope. A Monique Reid story
Prelude: In Fish Loving Bird, Dr. Reid meets a thief aka painter named Monica Law. After a series of unfortunate events, she must officially disappear and as Reid and Moni are in love, they create a new identity for her as an art student in DC. She moves in with the genius, they are engaged to be married and things are slowly settling down, right?
Wrong.
There's more than meets the eye on the young thief as she holds a secret. She just has no idea what it is.
Chapter 1 - Settling down in DC
Sometimes God calms the storm. At other times, he calms the sailor. And sometimes he makes us swim. ~Author Unknown
Moving to DC was easy. Settling down was becoming a small nightmare for the ex-thief.
After they had flown in, Reid took Moni to his apartment, just to cringe at the mess of books and old collection of mementos he had all over the place. She looked at everything curiously, but not as curious as his teammates who had rarely visited his flat.
"Ah... I'm sorry for the mess. I wasn't expecting visitors." He took one of his used shirts from the sofa and folded it nervously, aware of the mess in his place. His teammates just looked at the impressive collection of books piled on every surface of the living room, but Moni's attention was fixed on something on a small corkboard hanging on the wall.
"You draw too?" She looked at him with a blinding smile, just to receive a blushing glance from Reid.
"Nah, that's just some…" Moni immediately went to a small pencil sketch of a stylized man with short hair on the wall, pinned to his corkboard with a small pin. "That's just a failed attempt to draw a suspect. I've failed miserably and… It doesn't hold a candle to what you do."
"Nah…" She studied the drawing of the young teenager who was a wannabe serial killer they had helped a couple of years ago when Gideon was still on the team. "It holds potential. You were able to capture the most important traces, the rest are details which are added later." She turned to him smiling. "I like it."
He smiled shyly, before throwing the shirt aside and glancing at Hotch, silently asking for his help.
"Why don't you have a seat here while I and the others fix the room so you can rest?"
"I'm not tired." Her statement is immediately contradicted by her huge yawn and her obvious tiredness as she blinks owlishly at him.
"Sure," he moves some books aside, freeing a spot on the sofa where he deposited her.
"I'll check the kitchen and prepare some tea, so you can have some liquid with your medicines." Said JJ, already leaving them alone.
The agents organized the bedroom and JJ fussed over Moni until she shooed her away and the older woman went to help them in the room.
When everything was set up, they returned to the living room and found Moni sleeping on the sofa, using an old thick calculus book as a pillow.
CM CM CM CM
Due to her still delicate state, Reid insisted that Moni should rest for a couple of days before going with him to meet the rest of the team, so she stayed in the small apartment while he went around finishing the paperwork so she could officially become Monique Reid.
She slept two entire days, just leaving the bed for eating or a shower and for the mandatory visits for the doctor Hotch arranged for her, who checked her sutures and her general condition.
Once she felt stronger, she slowly started to feel the itch she recognized as her usual need to draw something. She took one of her notebooks and pencils and, still lying on the bed, started to sketch something.
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
Meanwhile, Reid was drowning in paperwork back in Quantico, as the team had to finish the reports on all the arrests done during the taskforce to close down the human traffic ring Moni had unveiled.
Funny thing is, as she had officially died in the car crash, the agents involved nicknamed it Operation Moni, in honor of the thief who had died sacrificing herself to expose the criminals.
Hotch was in close contact with the SACs of the other teams acting in the other states. Chief Strauss, despite her usual sourness, was basking on the political upheaval, as the breaking of this case had brought a lot of good press to her Section. So she was milking it as much as possible, going to press conferences and praising the dedication of the team on their efforts to have the job done.
Watching one of those press conferences, Hotch paused in the middle of the bullpen staring at the TV once again– maybe he shouldn't feel like that, but he was – surprised at the galls of the old bureaucrat.
"Anyone who hears her would think that she was an active part of the investigation." Morgan glared at the TV, before lowering his eyes to another yet set of reports, detailing the crimes of one of the arrested in Connecticut.
"She is saying that the full pardon was her idea," said Reid, frowning at the TV.
Hotch unfolded his arms, shaking his head, "Any press is good press. It's been a while since the Bureau had such a huge profile case and it will take a while until it is forgotten." He turned to Reid, "Until then, keep your love life low profile. We don't need people connecting your new fiancé with a dead thief."
"Okay."
CM CM CM CM
Moni ripped the paper from the notebook, crunching it in a small ball, unsatisfied with the result in it. She put the notebook aside and turned on the bed, looking at the growing pile of ruined sketches on the floor.
She closed her eyes frustrated, grabbing one of Reid's pillows and pressing her head against it, breathing deeply his scent trying to calm down. If she didn't find a way to break this funk, she would go crazy.
She slowly left the bed, careful with her stitches, going to the bathroom.
She was going to explore chez Reid.
CM CM CM CM
Garcia was staring at her computer, looking at what she had found and praying, begging to be wrong. She checked her data again and closed her eyes as her babies beeped doing its magic. When the program ran its course, the results on her search hadn't changed when she opened her eyes.
With a heavy heart, she took the phone. After the second ring, she got an answer.
"SSA Hotchner."
"Hotch, we have a problem."
CM CM CM CM
The team gathered in the BAU conference room, uncertain why they were called as they had to finish this case first before taking any new. Hotch and Garcia were nowhere to be found.
"Are we going back to the field so soon? Aren't we out of rotation until we finish this?"
Reid asked, glancing at Morgan who just shrugged and immediately grimaced, feeling discomfort with his stitches.
"I thought we were. But maybe Hotch changed his mind. I'm out of the field anyway until the docs say otherwise." He muttered, playing with his pen nervously as he glances at JJ, who also shrugs.
"I haven't approved any new case for us. I was ordered by Strauss to filter the cases to other teams until we finish this case, which doesn't seem to even near an end so soon. If Hotch took a new case, it came directly to his desk, not mine."
As she spoke, Hotch and Garcia entered the conference room with hurried steps, Garcia running to the computer and immediately typing something on it.
Hotch didn't even salute his agents, he closed the door of the room after himself and locked it, bringing concerned looks from all inside. He looked gravely at everyone, his eyes finally settling on Reid's and stopping.
"Moni's case is not over. It never was." He announced somberly, bringing surprised gasps to everyone.
"What?" Reid couldn't stop his surprise.
Hotch glanced at Garcia, who was twisting her hands nervously before her laptop. With his signal, she started pulling some images on the plasma TV.
A World map appeared on screen, along with red dots and yellow dots on almost all major cities in US and some in Europe.
Garcia looked briefly at Hotch, who nodded giving her the okay to explain.
"I was cross referencing Moni's red notebook, trying to ensure that we returned everything to their rightful owners, when I've noticed a certain pattern emerging."
Everyone's attention was on the computer tech, who went to the plasma and pointed to the yellow dots on it.
"I've pinpointed in yellow the places mentioned by Moni in her notebooks, but I've found out that all the places with red dots were robbed – again – approximately between six months to five years after Moni's visit to the place."
All agents stayed in silence for a moment, trying to absorb the implications of this finding. Reid was the first to figure it out, looking at Hotch horrified, who nodded silently at the younger profiler.
"Declercq knew that Moni would never become the master thief he expected her to be, as her Asperger would always deviate her from the task at hand to something pretty that caught her attention on the way. But she did become an expert in breaking and entering. So why not profit from her knowledge?"
"He was selling inside info on how to break into the places…" muttered Reid, glancing at the map again.
"…so someone else would come later, aware of all holes and failures on the systems and grab all the valuables that Moni would have no interest unless they were pretty." Morgan completed, finally seeing the pattern emerging on it.
"Oh, my God. He was using her all along." Prentiss said, horrified at what that kind of knowledge would do to the young woman, who she had become fast friends.
"That's not the bad news." Garcia clicked something and some purple dots appeared on the screen, overlapping one third of the yellow and red dots. Some were in Europe and others were in US soil. "These are the robberies which had at least one deceased during its progress. They were vicious, brutal and their stolen objects were art works, none yet retrieved. The oldest ones were in Europe but the last fifteen grand thefts… were in American soil."
"No one has ever connected them because they were organized in different ways, different systems were overcome to enter. Usually a burglar sticks to one system and chooses his future victim based on that, but this guy broke in almost all types of security and left no trace of himself." Said Hotch, receiving a speculative look from Rossi.
"Other than leaving a body behind." Said JJ, already thinking on the paperwork for this.
"A body or two." Completed Garcia. When everyone looked at her, "I marked with purple the places were people died, but I've never mentioned it was only one victim in each place."
"You mentioned," Rossi stood up, walking towards the screen and looking speculative at Hotch, "he left no trace of himself behind. Why are you so sure our unsub is a man?"
Garcia glanced worriedly at Reid and lowered her eyes, bringing everyone on alert that something was very wrong.
"What?"
Hotch glanced at Reid, his face impassive but not masking his worry, "If the person he found in his way in was male, he killed point blank. If it was female, he first raped the victim before breaking her neck."
Reid paled, thinking of the possible ramifications of it. He glanced heartbroken from Rossi to Hotch, who shook his head.
"We have to talk to Moni again, Reid."