The third chapter to my masterpiece. I have said this before, but I do truly hope that those of you reading this like it as much as I did when I wrote it. I like how I ended this chapter. Read on to find out what happens!
3
The silence that guards the tomb does not reveal God's secret in the obscurity of the coffin, and the rustling of the branches whose roots suck the body's elements do not tell the mysteries of the grave, by the agonized sighs of my heart announce to the living the drama which love, beauty, and death have performed. -- Kahlil Gibran - Broken Wings
The girl's body had been positioned directly beneath the oldest and most imposing of all the trees in the Main Street Park, the red maple. This particular tree towered over all the others. It was a fitting final resting-place for the daughter of the town's Mayor and arguably the most beautiful girl in all of Courtland. Sandra Clark's body showed no signs of decay. Her lovely sun-kissed hands held a tiger lily over her bosom, and her perfect blond hair splayed dramatically around her face. She was both absolutely beautiful and undeniably dead.
Dr. Reid stared down at the young woman and didn't see beauty. He saw yet another victim they had been too late to save. Reid was the genius, the boy wonder. He should have been able to figure out who was murdering young women and putting them on such disturbing yet resplendent display. How many more girls would fall victim to this careful butcher?
"Reid, pay attention," Morgan told the younger man. He looked at Reid with open concern. Morgan had apparently been trying to get his attention for a while.
"Sorry," the doctor muttered. He always seemed to be muttering, or mumbling, or murmuring. Reid was starting to get sick of being so pathetic in his own eyes, but he didn't quite know what to do to stop. Straightening up so he was able to look Morgan in the eye, Reid asked, "What were you saying?"
Morgan gave Reid one more uncertain look, then turned back to the case at hand. "I said, I think that this might be the UNSUB's new dumping ground."
"I don't think so," Reid replied as he bent to take the lily from the dead girl's clutches. "The UNSUB said that this girl wasn't a true victim. She was a way to grab the attention of the Mayor. If she was merely a tool, I know I wouldn't place her with the others just on a matter of principle."
Morgan stared at his young friend for a few seconds, then shook his head. "Why do I even bother with the boy genius around?" Morgan grumbled as he walked away to talk to Hotch, who was speaking with the children who had found the body.
Reid stared after the black man with complete shock on his face. Tilly, who had heard the entire exchange, chuckled and gave the doctor a grandmotherly pat on the shoulder before bending down to inspect the body. "I know that look," she chuckled.
"What look?" Reid sighed. He didn't even know what he had done this time.
Tilly continued to prod around the body. "You don't know what you did that made him angry. Truth is, he probably doesn't know either. People like you, Dr. Reid, have been treated like that through out history. So much knowledge comes with a great responsibility. Agent Morgan had a theory: that this was the new dumpsite for our serial killer. He was already making plans for a stakeout and undercover work and what not. Then you, who had not been paying any attention, dashed his theory and plans with one obvious and simple fact. A fact that he should have remembered, in his mind anyway."
Reid pondered the old woman's words. Taking the lily in his hand and placing it carefully in an evidence bag, Reid knelt on the other side of the body. "You said that you were related to the current M.E.?" he asked. He helped turn Sandra over.
"Yes," she replied. "And I can try and contact her when I get back to the morgue. I want her here anyway. I need her help with the autopsies, you see. And with Esmerelda missing, I want my Addy as close as possible. Don't you worry about a thing, Dr. Reid. We'll find this monster right quick when she gets home."
Reid smiled at the woman's faith in her niece. Everyone in the town so far thought of the 'Doc', as they affectionately called her, as the end-all-be-all of the universe. Her word was law and her opinion was fact.
"She appears to be just like all the other bodies," Tilly said sadly. It was true. The position of the body and method of murder were the same. "I'll know more when I get her back to the morgue. Why don't you go over and see what your Agent Hotchner has found out, and send me a scrapping young officer on your way."
Realizing what Tilly wanted the officer for, Reid's brow furrowed. "Should I warn them that you're having them move a body?" Reid asked seriously. Tilly gave him a mischievous smile, which he took for a 'no'.
After sending a poor unsuspecting Deputy McKenzie to help the elderly lady, Reid found Hotch and Morgan trying to talk to three little girls and two little boys. The children were all sniffling, like they had been crying. No little kid should have to find a body.
At a signal from Hotch as to which one, Reid knelt down infront of a little girl with high, matted curly pigtails. Her dirty face was streaked with tears and her sticky hands held a little doll clutched tightly to her chest. Typical four-year-old was not something Reid was used to dealing with. He stared at her for a while, and she stared back with scared sad eyes.
Finally, he thought of something to ask. "What's your name?" he asked brilliantly.
She sniffled, and replied, "I'm Dorothy Louisa May, but you can call me Dottie."
What a name, Reid thought. "What were you doing when you found Sandra?" he asked as gently as he could.
It apparently wasn't gentle enough. Dottie began to wail, "Mommy told me not to go out, but Hailey and Tessa and Sam came and said they was going to the park. They told me to come or they wouldn't be my friends no more. And then Tessa threatened to tell Ms. Doc I was being bad if I didn't come, so I camed here with them. Then we found Davie here playing with a frisbee and we wanted to play too. But then Sam threw it too far and it hit the lady in the face. We all ran over to say sorry, but she wasn't moving. And they made me poke her, and she felt weird. Lady's head plopped to one side, and then we knew she were dead!" The little girl gasped for air; she had said that all in one breath. After her tiny lungs were filled, she began to cry shrilly.
"It's okay, it's okay!" Reid tried to assure Dottie frantically. He reached out and put a hand on her small bony shoulder. Suddenly Dottie lunged foreword and wrapped her tiny arms around Spencer's neck. The doctor was shocked. HUMAN CONTACT! GASP! "Shh, it's all right. Please stop crying." He awkwardly rubbed her back.
She sniffled, and Reid felt snot on his shirt. He cringed, but held on to her any way. Once Dottie's crying subsided a bit, and she stepped back. Looking Reid in the eye she demanded with her arms crossed, "What's your name?"
"M-my name is Dr. Reid," he stuttered. That was what he could never understand about children: their minds were scattered and impossible to track. One moment she's crying, the next she's glaring.
"It's polite to say your name before you ask for mine," she informed him.
PAGE BREAK
"Sandra wasn't as lucky as the others," Tilly explained. The BAU team and the Sheriff were sitting in the latter's office, trying to make sense of what they knew so far. Tilly had finished her autopsy and had found something she thought they needed to know. "She wasn't killed with hemlock. Sandra ingested monkshood."
"Monkshood?" JJ asked. "Another plant?" All the many ways people used to kill each other secretly frightened the bubbly blonde. She did her job and did it well, but she did not envy the profilers. To be able to fathom the workings of the mind of an UNSUB, an individual who could do such abhorrent acts over and over, and then not flinch away from what they see made the team both staggeringly impressive yet terrifying to JJ.
"We might have something else to add to the profile," Hotch remarked. Plants were a unique signature. Using them both as the method of murder and as the calling card, the tiger lily, made these crimes even more particular to the UNSUB.
"That makes sense," Reid pointed out. Pulling out his copy of the note left for the Mayor, the doctor continued, "All of the other deaths were not violent and meant to preserve the beauty of the victim. Sandra's kidnap and murder almost seem impersonally angry. Maybe the UNSUB didn't like her. Not absolutely hate, but just a general dislike. She really was just a way to attract the town's attention."
Sheriff Jenkins rubbed his face with his hand tiredly. This case was exhausting because it was personal. "Mayor ain't goin' to like that," he finally sighed.
Tilly sighed as well, but for a different reason. "It don't matter what Tad thinks. Little Sandy suffered because we wrote the girls' disappearance as small town fever. Looks like Addy was right all along."
"Your doctor thought there was something going on and you didn't listen to her?" Morgan asked, puzzled. "I thought she was the apple of everyone's eye. Never wrong, if you need something find the Doc."
The Sheriff chuckled at the description. "That about sums it up," he agreed. "But the Doc left Courtland for a while when she was in high school. Took her mama out west to get her some help. Selena is a bit strange. There's no proper term for it. She's just a bit queer in the head. The genius kind of strange; seeing things in the universe that we have no right to see, I believe is how the Doc worded it once."
"So because she left town for a while, you automatically discredit her opinion on the reasons for the other girls' disappearance?" Emily asked. It was a stupid notion, and Emily was having a hard time wrapping her head around it. Having lived all around the world, Emily didn't understand small town ideas. It wasn't her job to understand the whole town, just the one bastard murdering young women.
Tilly shot the agent an admonishing look. "My niece likes to see the threads that connect the world get tugged and then watch the entire universe unravel. Her words, not mine. But running away was a far more likely scenario than a serial killer grabbing the girls up."
"Back to the monkshood," Reid announced, not so subtly bringing attention back to the case. "Monkshood grows from Pennsylvania all the way down to Georgia. All parts of the plant are poisonous and it can be absorbed through the skin as well as ingested. Its symptoms are instantaneous: burning and tingling feelings on the skin, numbness of the throat, tongue, and face, nausea, vomiting, blurred or dimmed vision, chest pain, giddiness, sweating, convulsions, weak pulse, low blood pressure, paralysis of the respiratory system, and finally the slow paralysis of the heart, which is the eventual cause of death. It's very painful, and victims are conscious until the very end. Death occurs within ten minutes of ingestion."
Tilly nodded. "As opposed to hemlock, whose death is much kinder and just as quick. I also tested the tiger lily. It contained no cyanide."
"He really didn't care about her at all," Morgan stated. Sandra's smiling photo stared up at the team from the open file.
Reid found himself this time in his own childhood home in Las Vegas. The sun was setting blazing orange across the sky to mix with the navy night was bringing. Cicadas thrummed in the few trees that surrounded the suburban home and a lizard could be seen sunning itself on the porch.
"Mom?" Little Spencer asked timidly. Older Spencer looked at the woman who had given birth to him and hoped that his was a good day. Little Spencer obviously hoped the same thing.
"Yes honey?" she replied. Diana Reid turned from the TV to look at her son, her pride and joy. "What is it?"
Both Spencers visibly relaxed. This was their mother, not the schizophrenic woman who usually inhabited her body. "I have a friend coming over to study. Is that okay?"
"Why of course!" Mrs. Reid said delightedly. Her son had never mentioned friends before, at least not that she could remember. "When will he be here?"
"Umm," Little Spencer scrunched his forehead in thought, trying to figure out how to tell his mother that the friend was a she. "She'll be here in five minutes."
"She?" his mother asked calmly, eyebrows raised. Older Spencer rolled his eyes. He remembered this night; it was a pleasant memory. "Why don't you tell me about her?"
"Her name is Adrienne Cain. She's in my grade, and she's a theatre student. Her grades are really high and she likes English. She's really nice and I eat lunch with her and stay after school in the library with her sometimes. She's given me a ride home before. She has her license because her mother has an illness and she needs to be able to take care of her," the little boy rattled off in one breath. There was so much more that could be said about Adrienne, Older Spencer thought, but that was all his mother had needed to know at the time.
"She sounds wonderful," Mrs. Reid agreed. Before any more could be said, there was a knock at the door. Little Reid leapt to the door and flung it wide open. There stood Adrienne, smiling her ironic smile with laughter in her eyes, laughter just for Spencer. He was like the little brother she never had.
Whatever Mrs. Reid was expecting, Adrienne Cain wasn't it. For the first time, Older Spencer looked at what his friend was wearing. When he was little, and even when he remembered her, Reid never focused on her clothes. He did now. Her slim frame was covered by what seemed to be a black crochet tank top, under which she wore another regular tank top. The top was laced with bright blue ribbon around the low V-neck and the bottom hem. Her jeans were long and gently faded blue with the bottoms flared just enough to have them barely fall into the category of bell-bottoms. Adrienne looked both comfortable and graceful. Her long black silk hair fell down to her hips like always, giving her a sort of a cape of midnight.
"You must be Mrs. Reid," the teenager greeted politely. Her voice was perfectly modulated, like a person used to speaking on stage. "I'm Adrienne Cain, a friend of Spencer's. I'm sorry for intruding upon your evening, but would it be alright if I studied here with Spencer?" Her voice even lilted up at the end in a perfect question. Her face betrayed nothing but polite hope. Older Reid looked down at her with approval, knowing his mother could tell an actress when she heard one; Little Spencer looked up at her with admiration, knowing that he would never be able to talk to any one like that.
Mrs. Reid recovered nicely. "Of course Adrienne," she said warmly. She pulled the girl gently into the house by the elbow and led her to the kitchen table. "Spencer was just telling me about you. So you're a theatre student?"
Adrienne nodded. "Yes ma'am. Spencer tells me that you are an English professor? I'm sure he must have told you that our current production at school is Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing."
The two students sat at the table while Spencer's mother bustled around the kitchen grabbing milk and cookies. "He most certainly did not. What part are you Adrienne? And do you have a nick name?"
Adrienne laughed her infectious bell laughter before replying, "You can call me Addy. Most people do. And I'm to play Beatrice." Adrienne pulled a notebook out of her messenger bag and placed it on the table with her blue pen.
"The leading lady," Mrs. Reid remarked. She was impressed, and it showed. "That is impressive for a sophomore." Older Spencer agreed, but to him Adrienne could do no wrong.
"Thank you," Adrienne said with a slight dip of her head. "But I asked Spencer to tell you. The actors are allowed three free tickets, you see, and I only need one for my mother. He was supposed to ask you if you would like to attend." Adrienne gave Little Spencer a nudge under the table with her foot. Only the fact his mother was scrutinizing him prevented the little boy from jumping up in the air.
"We most certainly will," Mrs. Reid assured Adrienne with a smile. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a few tasks to finish myself." After giving Adrienne an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder, Mrs. Reid excused herself from the kitchen.
The two sat quietly for a few minutes. Finally, Little Reid blurted, "She likes you!" Slapping his hands over his mouth, he stared at her with a mortified expression. "Sorry." Spencer had found it hard to adjust to having such a bright, beautiful, and in his eyes, perfect girl for a friend. Adrienne could be intimidating without even realizing it.
"Spencer, there is nothing to apologize about," she reminded him gently. Adrienne put her pen down and leaned back, clasping her hands behind her head. This was a familiar pose to Little Spencer. It meant that she was going to pick his brain with questions that had no real answer. Oddly, he had come anticipate this pose and the questions it brought along.
Older Spencer remembered those conversations fondly. Theories and hidden meanings along with a little conspiracy were the topics of discussion. Speculation and conjecture reigned supreme and there were no wrong answers, but there were levels of correctness that Adrienne seemed to revel in. She taught him to love it too.
"Why is it that we as humans pick and choose who we like and dislike?" Adrienne asked.
"Reid?" Emily asked. The doctor had fallen asleep again, this time in the morgue. It was starting to worry the rest of the team. Reid was the reliable one, the one who stayed at work late and was in first the next morning. He was consistent, and any break from said consistency meant there was something seriously wrong.
"Come on man, wake up," Morgan shook his shoulder gently.
"Reid, wake up," JJ said quietly, like she would talk to her infant son. She had often viewed Reid as the baby of the group, and though his age had a little to do with it, it was because with everything he knew and all he had seen on the job he was still the most innocent of them. JJ felt like she needed to protect him when she could.
Reid groaned, still mostly asleep. "We choose whom we like and dislike because it helps us protect ourselves," he murmured. The boy genius snuggled further down into the corner on the floor where he had wedged himself.
Suddenly Reid's eyes snapped open. It took him a moment to orient himself, but he stared up at the team hovering above him looking utterly bewildered. He tried to distance himself from their close proximity by backing up, but he was as far back as the wall would allow. "C-can I h-help you?" he stuttered, then mentally cursed himself for his faltering speech.
"Yeah," Morgan replied as he stuck out a hand to help pull Reid up. Reid ignored the outstretched hand and scrambled to his feet. Morgan scowled; he rarely did something nice without an ulterior motive toward Reid and the rejection of help was not going to help Reid's case. "You can tell us why you keep falling asleep everywhere."
Reid didn't see the refusal as rude; he saw it as a way to try and keep some shred of dignity. Sleep was a vulnerable position. "I don't see how that's any of your business," he replied amiably.
"Of course your well being is our business," JJ insisted. She looked at the doctor with wide concerned eyes. "We're worried about you Reid. You keep falling asleep, you're not paying attention to the case, and you've been acting really strange."
"Stranger than usual you mean," he chuckled unhappily. "I'm fine."
"We're making it our business," Emily snapped. "You haven't visited Rossi since he was admitted into the hospital. Do you even know how he's doing?"
Reid glared at her. "If I wanted to have scathing remarks hurled at me and be drilled on the progress we're not making, I'd go visit Agent Rossi. And if there was something wrong with him I assume someone would tell me."
"How are we supposed to tell you when you're spending all your time in the morgue?" Morgan demanded. "What are you doing down here anyway?"
"Helping Tilly," Reid replied, puzzled. How could they say he was doing nothing? He was following the only thing they had: the bodies. "She has no one else her to help her, and I figured since I'm the only one who can remember all the victims' names, faces, and files I should help make up the autopsy reports."
JJ reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "Reid, we're just worried about you. Morgan and Emily are just expressing it a bit more violently than usual," she said soothingly. Reid stared at her with his jaw dropped.
"I don't know what I've done to deserve this, but I would really appreciate it if you all just leave me alone," Reid snapped. Shrugging JJ's hand off, the doctor stormed out of the morgue leaving a very confused team behind him.
"Come on, pick up," Reid grumbled as he pressed the phone to his ear. So the team thought he wasn't focused on the case huh? He'd show them. They had no idea what they had unleashed.
PAGE BREAK
"Yes Dr. Reid, this is your better speaking," Garcia's voice finally floated over the line. "How may I be of service?"
Reid narrowed his eyes. He was so tired of people treating him like that. "Well Garcia," he began, his irritation leaking into his voice, "you can start by telling me where the local coroner is. No one seems to be able to find her."
"According to what I've found, she never made it to her mother's house," Garcia replied promptly. She realized Reid was in a foul mood. Since that rarely (cough, never) happened, she hopped to the point. "There has been no activity on her cell phone or credit cards, but I'm keeping an eye out."
"Are there any suspect for this so far?" he asked.
"Oddly enough, no," the techie replied. "No one in the area fits the description you guys gave me. But then again, there hasn't been a serious crime in the area probably since Columbus found this great land."
"Columbus found the West Indies, not Virginia," Reid replied distractedly. His mind was whirling. The Doc wasn't to be found and there was no suspect. He had been right all along; all they really had was a profile and the bodies. "Thanks Garcia." He snapped the phone shut.
PAGE BREAK
"Dr. Reid, I need a bit of help," Tilly sighed. Reid had retreated back down into the morgue. Let the team run around chasing whatever useless leads they DIDN'T have. If there were something to be found with the bodies, Reid was determined to find it. Tilly had been most gracious in putting him to use, so her request for help wasn't that strange.
"Of course," he replied. The doctor walked over to Tilly's table where the body of Rissa McKenzie lay. Her autopsy had already been performed and she had been stitched back up.
"No, not with the body," she told him. Beckoning for Reid to follow, he old woman walked over to a small room in the back of the morgue. Reid had assumed it was the ME's office even though it was strange for their office to be in the morgue itself. "Do you remember when I said that I was going to wait for the Doc to return so we could run a test together on the body? Well, she still isn't here and I think we need the results sooner rather than later. That's where you come in."
"What do you need me to do?" he asked almost eagerly. He opened the door for the old lady and walked in. "What are we testing for?" Finally, a chance to get some new information.
Tilly smiled at his enthusiasm. She closed the door behind them, like she was being secretive. "I've gotten old and my hands aren't as steady as they once were. I'll instruct you, but you are going to be testing all twenty-seven girls for belladonna poisoning the old fashioned way," she elaborated with a grand gesture at the old school chemistry set on the desk.
Reid gave her a puzzled look. "But I thought we had determined it was hemlock that had killed them," he asked. "Why do you think that there's nightshade present?"
"As you probably know, hemlock causes a wide range of painful symptoms. That leaves the chance for the victim to get hurt as they writhe in pain. Belladonna is a hallucinogen, but it also causes convulsions. The convulsions are counter acted by the hemlock, which deteriorates the muscle. Adding the belladonna would make the death quieter and more peaceful," Tilly explained. The pulled a chair over form behind the door and sat in front of the desk. "I already have everything set up. All you have to do is run the tests."
Walking slowly around the desk, Reid stopped next to the office chair. It belonged to the coroner. Sitting in her chair in her office didn't seem right without permission, but Tilly seemed to want him to. Reid sat down and carefully pulled the chem. set closer. "What do I do?" he asked, his face set with determination.
After what seemed like several dozen hours but was really only two, Reid leaned back from the Bunsen burner and ran a tired hand through his hair. "Finished," he said with a yawn.
Tilly shook her head in disbelief. "The bastard knows his botany all right," she declared. "Twenty-seven girls killed with a belladonna and hemlock salad. All of them except Sandra who got an ungodly dose of monkshood."
Reid opened his mouth to respond, but his phone began to vibrate. Fumbling in his pocket for a moment, the young doctor flipped the cellular device open and demanded, "Garcia, tell me you found her."
"Unfortunately I did," she replied. The tone of her voice was off; it was the one Garcia used when she had found something exceptionally horrid. "She never left Courtland. Her cell signal is saying that the good doctor is about twenty miles outside of town in an abandoned Southern mansion. You know, the kind wealthy slave owners had in the Civil War? I did some digging, and no one has gone in it since Lincoln was shot."
"Thanks Garcia," he said as he snapped the phone shut. Turning to Tilly he said, "The Doc never left Courtland. She's in an old mansion about twenty miles outside of town."
Tilly gasped, putting a hand up to her mouth in horror. "That bastard has them both," she whispered. Tilly closed her eyes, trying to stem off the tears that threatened to flow. She failed. Looking at Reid with angry tear filled eyes, she ordered, "Go get your FBI people. I'll find Silas. We'll meet back in the station."
PAGE BREAK
"Garcia found where the Doc is," Reid announced once everyone had assembled in the police station. "She never made it out of town. She's been kidnapped by the UNSUB like all the other girls, along with her cousin Esmerelda." Reid added Esmerelda's picture to the board. Emerald was a pretty thing: long bleach blonde hair, fair skin, and the brightest green eyes anyone had ever seen. No one had a picture of the Doc.
Hotch sighed. "Do we know where they are?" he asked. He hoped Reid wouldn't be insensitive enough to declare that the town's beloved Doc was missing and then not have a plan to find her.
"According to you all's tech specialist person, the bastard has them out in the old Bouville-Revett Mansion," Tilly announced. All local eyes turned to her, shocked. "Yes, I said the Bouville-Revett Mansion. I don't give a damn if you think it's haunted or not, you all are going to get my babies!" she yelled. The townsfolk lowered their eyes, ashamed that they had let superstition in the way of the safety of two of their young women.
"We need a plan of attack. There may be more victims in there than just those two," Hotch told the Sheriff. "Do you have a diagram of the mansion?"
Jenkins ran off to find the old map of the mansion. The police officers scrambled to get ready for a raid they had never practiced for. Tilly turned and, after giving Reid a brief smile, went out of the room presumably to get her medical kit. And the BAU? They turned their eyes toward Reid in unison, apologetic and amazed.
"Dude, we are so sorry," Morgan began, but Emily cut him off before he could continue.
"Reid, we were only trying to help," she said. He opened his mouth to reply, but she held up a hand. "But it seems that you didn't need our help. We're sorry for doubting you."
JJ gave Reid a very brief hug and told him with a small laugh, "I have to start remembering that you're an adult, not my infant son. You don't need mollycoddling."
"Thanks, I think," Reid replied. Looking over at Hotch, the doctor said, "I believe I need to check that email."
While the rest of the team watched, Reid opened his email and scrolled down to the only unopened file. He double clicked on it, and up popped the letter from a woman he had not seen or heard in years. The letter read:
Dear Spencer,
I hope that you are well, but that unfortunately is not the reason I took the pains to find you. I will get straight to the point and hope that you might be able to help me. There have been a series of strange disappearances in the town where I live. I believe that local women between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five are being kidnapped and murdered. The only evidence to this is a letter our mayor received stating just what I have already said. The Sheriff will not listen to me and the Mayor is still grieving for his daughter. They refuse to believe there is a serial killer in such a small town as Courtland Virginia.
I know that you work for the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI in Quantico. I hope that my invitation for you and your team to come find this maniac is sufficient. If not, I fear or my life and the lives of the other women in this town. Please send me a return missive as soon as you have read this.
Ever Yours,
Adrienne Cain
"Oh my god," Reid whispered, his voice barely audible. The team had been reading over his shoulder and watching his face change from puzzled to horrified and finally landing on terrified. "What's the name of the town coroner?"
"It's Addy," Emily replied. "That's what Tilly called her."
"Addy can be short for Adrienne," Morgan pointed out.
Reid slammed his laptop shut and sprang to his feet. Calling out to a group of cops near the door he demanded, "What's the Doc's name? Her whole name, not just first."
"Her name is Adrienne Cain," one of the men replied.
Reid slumped back into the chair in shock. "He has her," he whispered. "He has Adrienne."
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Adrienne lay slumped on an old rotten floor. She was vaguely aware that she was only clothed in a thin silky white camisole and a white silk slip that stopped above her knees. Having neither eaten nor drank anything for several days at the least her strength was quickly leaving her. Her only hope was that Spencer had gotten the email.
Adrienne turned her head slowly toward the only other person in the room, her cousin and best friend Esmerelda. The poor thing wasn't even conscious. She was wearing a black silk camisole and slip exactly like what Adrienne was wearing. She chuckled weakly. The kidnapper had gotten it wrong; Adrienne always wore black and Esmerelda was the one in white.
The door creaked open slowly. In walked their captor. Who ever it was wore a ski mask, gloves, and long sleeves. He probably hoped that Adrienne wouldn't be able to recognize him. Lucky for her that he underestimated her observational abilities.
"Hello Adrienne," the captor purred. Adrienne's eyes widened almost enough to make her look comical. The captor was a woman. "I see that Esmerelda is already unconscious. Pity for you both."
Adrienne sat up cautiously. "What do you want from us?" she asked levelly. Her voice was raspy from lack of water and disuse, but still perfect. That seemed to piss the UNSUB off.
"What do I want Adrienne?" she yelled. "The same thing everyone wants: love. But this town frowns upon that. I can't have love the way I want it. So I have to take it!"
"You're a lesbian," Adrienne said slowly. It made sense. The flower, the method of killing. It was far too feminine a method for a man to have done it.
"You are too smart for your own good, Adrienne Cain," she spat. The UNSUB began pacing back and forth, working herself into a frenzy. "Adrienne Cain, the smartest of everyone in Courtland. Adrienne Cain, the one everyone goes to with their problems. Adrienne Cain, the one who can control anyone simply by being her charming self. Adrienne Cain, who could have any man she wanted but chooses to remain single. Why? Because she's too good for any of us normal people. Adrienne Cain went to Las Vegas for highschool. Adrienne Cain has more degrees in more subjects than your average community college offers. She's 'The Doc', and her word is law."
Adrienne glanced at her cousin. "What do you plan on doing to her?"
Though she couldn't see it, Adrienne felt the chilling smile uncurl on her captor's face. "Why, the same thing every male kidnapper does if they're smart."
Adrienne's jaw dropped. "You can't!" she shrieked.
"Oh, but I can," she assured as she pulled out a dildo. "Rape is the closest thing I'll ever get to love. Sad, but true. I'm not inhumane though. Once I'm done fulfilling my twin fantasy with you two, you won't live long enough to feel ashamed of it."
Adrienne looked down at her cousin. Please Spencer. Find us soon, she pleaded silently as she scrunched her eyes shut.
All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams. ~Elias Canetti