Once she's calmed, she lets him guide her back to the conference room. She tangles her fingers together to keep from chewing her nails as anxiousness pounds through her blood.
"Oh good, you're back," Penelope says, with a triumphant, predatory smile. "Ian Doyle is officially on everyone's list. His mug is everywhere. He won't be able to get out of the District without sprouting wings himself."
Emily wants to smile, wants to feel as amazing and ahead of the game as everyone else does. The problem is that she knows Doyle, not only well, but intimately. She can't say she'd be surprised to discover he's already left their search area. If he's still in the District, he's here for a reason. She's probably looking at it.
"Not that I'm not happy we have his name," Ashley begins tentatively. "But how do we know who's on his list?"
Hotch's elbow squeezes hers. It's her cue to spill, to explain her role in Ian Doyle's arrest, but she can't. Ashley's question has sparked another revelation, this one settling heavily in her stomach. She knows who's on that list all right and fumbles in her pocket for her phone. Hotch's hand grips her wrist, a question and a warning.
"We comb through his life, check out every single person he's ever come into contact with," Derek says, utterly unaware of her growing distress.
"Tsia," she manages, drawing the team's curious gazes, but hers is fixed on Hotch. She hates the pleading note in her voice. She is better than this. She has more control than this, and she's going to need to draw on wellsprings of patience and reserves of her control to tell her story.
In the meantime, however.
"I need to talk to Tsia."
He looks back into the room, just a moment and just a glance. Then he's nodding and all but herding her out the door. "Make a list," he says to the team. "Every person Doyle's come into contact with."
"Hotch-"
Emily has no idea what Hotch does to cut Derek off, but the room falls utterly silent when he does. When Hotch does speak, the temperature plummets. "A list."
Then his hand is on her elbow again, the touch warm and reassuring as much as he uses it to steer her towards his office. She's already tugging her phone from her pocket, half way through dialling when he follows her through his door, closing it behind them.
"Emily, you're on speaker."
"Darling."
She doesn't realized she's reached for him until she's gripping the lapel of his jacket in her fist. She should let go, but she can't seem to gather enough willpower to do it. "Tsia, pick up the phone."
She hears Easter scoff. "Em-"
She glances at Hotch, at his utterly stone face and draws calm from it. Her next words are hard, harsh and uncompromising. Her eyes stay locked on his. "Pick up the phone, Tsia."
There's a beat, then a click. "Emily."
"Get out of there," Emily says, and lets the urgency and panic bleed into her voice. "Do you remember Ninth Street? Carelli's, how the door works?"
"Yep." And while Tsia's voice has no inflection, Emily has no doubt her friend is filing away the instructions. Good, because they both know that if Emily is freaking out, there's something to the panic.
"He's still there. You'll be in and out in five minutes."
Hotch grips her wrist, draws her attention from Tsia's response. "Tell her to come in." He squeezes Emily's wrist insistently. "We'll pick her up. Somewhere you think is safe. Somewhere she trusts."
No. It's all she can think. Involving him, involving the team had been bad enough, but housing two targets at the BAU? It's unacceptable and out of the question. Hell, Emily's not wholly convinced Doyle even knows Tsia's in the US, let alone in DC and she's not willing to take the risk of exposing her.
"You're safer on your own," she says into the phone instead, weathers the disapproval in Hotch's face.
"Got it."
Good. Emily closes her eyes, has to, to avoid the look in Hotch's eyes. "Tsia."
And the other woman must hear everything in Emily's voice, apology and strength and gratitude and bone-deep friendship. "I know."
Then she's gone and Emily's left relying on faith and her knowledge of Tsia's abilities to keep the woman who had been as good as her partner safe.
Meanwhile, she opens her eyes to Hotch's disapproval and irritation with the knowledge that now she has to shift her attention. She's put her team at risk and now she not only has to save her own life, but theirs.
