New story. I'm going to tackle two at a time, both completely different than the other, since it is summer and I don't really have anything else to do.
This one is a lot darker than my other one, more faced on emotions around a relationship that has taken forever in development, and seems to have a lot of history.
Metaphorically inspired by Taylor Swift's "Safe and Sound", hense the title.
Disclaimer: If I owned Criminal Minds, the show would bomb. Not gonna lie. I do, however, own the story line, and the crime that took me forever to make sense of myself. Oh, and the Gerone family is mine. I dibs them. Nose game.
K enjoy!
Spencer heard a crash, which awoke him from his deep slumber. He looked at the clock, which read 11:34, and while his mother was well past asleep and for the most part, so should the reasonably quiet neighborhood this late on a Wednesday night. Faintly, voices could be heard from out the window, intriguing the 14 year old enough to get up and quietly tip-toe his way to the windowsill and lean out just enough to see the sources of the noise, from next door.
The house wasn't just any other house. Julia Gerone and her two parents resided in the house since he was two years old and she was just born, and the two were friends long enough just to know each other's secrets. Spencer always assumed his life was hard, and on a regular basis, it was. But when comparing it to the outwards happy family next door, it was like the contrast of heaven and hell.
'Julia might be in trouble.' the young boy thought to himself, placing his large glasses on his face. Usually he would pass it by and let it go, but he knew that his best friend may be in trouble. So with all of this strength, he lifted himself over the windowsill and onto the soft grass, sprinkled with fresh July rain, which splashed his lower legs as he darted across the field and over to her basement window, knocking slightly.
He waited patiently for the drape to be pulled across, and a soft, startled face came into view. Immediately, he saw her bruises which lined her eyes and the cuts surfacing on the flesh over her cheekbones. She looked terrified. "Julia!" he whispered, pushing the window open from the outside. Before he could pass to high, she slammed it back down again.
"Spencer, I need you to go away." she said sternly.
"What happened?" his voice was panicked, but it didn't matter. She shook her head and nervously crossed her arms.
"It's nothing Spencer, nothing that concerns you. I have this handled, now if you'd mind, I need some sleep." she started closing the drapes, but his hand slamming onto the cool window stopped her. "Spencer!" she hissed, glancing nervously behind her. "Go away."
"Not until I can help you."
"You can help me by going away, Spencer. I promise you, I'm fine." she turned her head and saw a large gash on the side of her cheek. He loosened the firmness of his hand on the window, and watched her terrified eyes hide behind the curtain and her light shut off, not effecting the loud screaming in the least.
There was terribly loud screaming from her room now, familiar screaming that Spencer knew was coming from the mouth of his best friend. He closed his eyes and sprinted back to his house, getting right on the phone and calling the police. "911, what's your emergency?"
"I would like to report domestic violence at 156 Fords Street."
=_OO_=
"We need someone new on this guy." Hotch said as he stormed out of the interrogation room. "I know he knows something, but we need the right person to get through to him." the powerful man glanced across the room, his eyes stopping and one individual. "Reid, can you give it a shot?"
"Sure." the six-foot-one man stood from his chair and placed down his documents. "I'll observe his behavior asking certain questions. This may lead to where his knowledge is greatest." Dr. Reid walked into the dark room, freezing at the figure in front of him. He could pick it out in a room of 10000 people. He was the man who had no heart, or soul, or anything in between.
"You're not going to break me." the voice taunted. Reid began taking slow steps towards the chair on the opposite side of the table, and slowly sat down.
"Gregory Gerone." the words were as venom on his tongue. He despised his man more than anyone he had ever formally met in his life. Gregory's eyes widened in recognition of the federal agent sitting with him, and a cocky smirk emerged on his face.
"Dr. Spencer Reid. Seems like you finally made a name for yourself, didn't you?" his words were dark and smooth. "A little genius boy like you, haven't you found a cure to save that animal you call your mother?" Spencer's fists clinched, and he gripped the side of the chair. He knew that there must have had the team watching from outside, because as soon as his mother was brought up, Agent Derek Morgan walked in, standing in front of the closed door with his arms closed. Spencer nodded to his partner before returning his green eyes to his subject.
"I don't remember the last time I saw you." the genius stated. "I clearly remember the last time I heard you, though. There was a lot of crashing, and screaming, and the next morning, there were two bodies in the house and you were gone." he leaned back and crossed his legs. "See, you are a monster. I can pin you for the murders of at least one person that night, and attempt at two. You are a dead man, Gerone, you have nothing to lose."
"There is not a chance that you can pin those on me." Gerone shrugged. "The only witnesses were a mentally insane woman and her 14-year-old son. It was late and nothing is reliable. And anyway, they were both suicides." Spencer leaned in and gripped the other side of the table.
"That 14 year old boy was wide awake, sitting outside your house trying to save his best friend, also known as your daughter who was never enough for you. Even at 12 years old she was never has loved as Madison. They were both great girls who would have amounted to great things. Yes, your oldest daughter committed suicide, and it was you and your drinking that brought it on, and you loved her enough, and felt guilty enough that it made you go insane and kill your wife. Now tell me, where's your other daughter?" Spencer's voice was quick, and angry. Morgan could tell he was ready to burst at any moment, so he was ready to step in if either one of them snapped.
"You're wrong. I was yelling in panic. Both my wife and my only daughter committed suicide." Spencer shook his head.
"Only daughter?" he nodded. The sly smirk reappeared, and Spencer hand to imagine nails keeping his attached to every part of his chair in order to keep him from pounding the old man into mud. "Where. Is. Julia?" Gerone leaned in close, and whispered to Spencer.
"I killed her, too." the young agent could feel his blood boil, and gripped the table until his knuckles were numb. "First I kept her at the barn behind my house for a while, just to shut her up, then she ended up dead. Don't worry, it was quick though." Gerone smiled, and leaned looked straight into Reid's eyes. "Just a single shot... Pow... right to the head." the statement was finalized with the action of making a gun with his fingers and shooting it at Spencer, who flinched lightly. "Left her there to rot afterwards. I only had to deal with the damn girl for two months." Spencer had enough, he leaned in close and whispered.
"Rot in hell."
The two FBI agents stormed out of the room, Spencer so enraged that he walked right over to a wall and punched it as hard as he could, nearly breaking it in the process. "Reid!" Morgan yelled, snapping his friend out of the fit of rage.
"I hate that son of a bitch!" the young agent yelled. "He made my best friends life a living hell for 12 years!" Rossi urgently walked over after hearing the interview.
"She's out of her misery now." the older man urged, trying to calm his friend down. Reid took a seat and placed his head in his hands, shaking for a few moments before sitting up.
"I think I got it." Reid snapped up. "Our missing girls... they all look like Madison did. Green eyes, 17 years old, light brown hair and around five-foot-five." he walked up to the board.
"You're the only one who's following." Emily sighed, sitting at the computer and quietly overhearing the entire thing.
"I just have to think of who was close enough to the family. Gerone mentioned a barn, which is where Julia was killed... now who would have enough rage to take girls who look like Madison?" Spencer paced as the rest of the team stayed silent, and he got on the phone. "Garcia. Can you look up residency of Gregory Gerone 16 years ago?" there was clicking, and then Garcia's voice rang through.
"156 Ford Street, Las Vegas." she said.
"Okay try 15." she typed again, this time coming up with a different answer.
"Grayers Ranch, Mississippi." Spencer wrote it down. It was the crime scene that they were called too just three short days ago where the most recent owner found two bodies lying in his field.
"Okay, so he obviously doesn't live there anymore, but who's he sell it to?" more typing, and a different answer.
"Joshua Gerone." she said nervously. "Gregory's brother." Spencer nodded his head, and turned to his team.
"That's our unsub! Thanks' Garcia!" he hung up the phone and went to the whiteboard. "It all makes sense now! Gregory Gerone came drunk to find his daughter, Julia, and wife, Claire in their home. After a little searching he found that his oldest daughter, Madison, had hung herself after so many years of verbal abuse. Because he was drunk, he went on a rampage. Julia suffered from the first round of abuse from her angry father who seemed to be blaming everyone, logical cause, and locked her doors. That's when I came over and went to see her after being awoken by something breaking. She sent me away after I saw her beat up face and that was the last time I ever saw her. I ran home and called 911, and I heard their family car drive away and the cop cars came two minutes later, revealing his dead wife and daughter. He then took off to Mississippi, where he bought a ranch, and then allegedly killed his daughter after holding so much hatred towards her for no reason at all, and then moved a week after and sold the ranch to his brother. Now, Madison and Julia's uncle was around all the time, and was always with Madison. Julia always said how the two were unseparatable. My theory now was that the killings were some sort of demonstration for Joshua to show his brother time and time again what he was doing to these poor girls. I think it was the hatred to Gregory." everyone had a clearer understanding now, and nodded in agreement.
"So it's not Gregory?" JJ asked.
"No. I can pin him for the murder of his wife, but that's it." Reid concluded. "Gregory was a good man when he was sober, just was angry when he was drunk. One night he had too many beers. This work was done by a man with much more hatred. And anyway, why kill your daughter over and over and over again? It makes no sense."
"You think that all these missing people are the work of this man?" everyone looked at the list of 47 missing people over the span of 16 years.
"I do, and sadly, I know we aren't going to find a single one alive."
Evil is always devising more corrosive misery through man's restless need to exact revenge out of his hate. -Ralph Steadman
