Thank you all for the reviews! I'm going to try to get chapter five up on Wednesday.
Quantico, VA
12:30pm
Garcia sighed as she stared between her screens. One held Morgan's emails, and text message log, the other held Emily's emails and text log. Her two missing friends, whom she loved like family, but right now, she couldn't help but feeling a little betrayed. Their correspondence told her they hadn't been completely honest about their very secret relationship, even with just a few quick glances she could tell.
"Garcia? You okay?" She spun around at JJ's voice, and found the liaison hovering in the doorway. JJ walked toward her.
"Yeah, just a little confused I guess."
JJ frowned, and looked at the screens. "Is that Morgan and Emily's...?"
"Yeah, and aside from being the world's most normal, boring couple, they've been seeing each other a lot longer than they said."
"I'm not sure which part of that statement to ask about first."
Garcia smiled at her. "I went back three months, figuring that would be plenty, and I only needed a few glances to be able to tell that their conversation wasn't new couple flirtation. So, I went back further, four months, then six months, then eight months, and finally ten months. Ten months, Jayje. How didn't we see it?"
JJ rested a hand on her hip and inhaled. "Are you sure?"
"I may not read behavior for a living, but I know theirs well enough to say when it stopped being business as usual. Well, at least by these emails."
The liaison exhaled. "Okay..."
"I have to pick up dry cleaning, I'll meet you at your place. What do you want for dinner tonight? No, you can't come shopping with me, because you distract me. You want to rent a movie tonight? Have you seen my blue shirt?" Garcia rattled on. "That's the sort of thing they say to each other, Jayje."
"It sounds like normal couple talk."
Garcia could tell it was information overload for her, but pressed on nonetheless. "Yeah, but for Derek Morgan and Emily Prentiss is a relationship together? I guess I just expected it to be different somehow. Like monumental."
JJ smirked. "Well, with two people that strong willed, I bet you they had some pretty epic fights."
Garcia smiled and opened her mouth, only to be cut-off be her ringing phone. She noted it was an outside line, and clicked a button. "Penelope Garcia, FBI."
"Ms. Garcia, I'm Tom Sterling, Andrew Callahan's attorney. He told me you contacted him, and asked me to call you. Can I ask what this is regarding?"
"Mr. Sterling, it's very important that I speak with Mr. Callahan. It's an emergency, as I told him, his daughter has been kidnapped," Garcia explained.
The man's tone went instantly icy. "Drew doesn't have any children, Ms. Garcia."
"Yes, he does. He has a daughter with his ex-wife, Elizabeth Prentiss. Her name is Emily, she's 39, and she was abducted yesterday evening. Tell your client if he doesn't get to Virginia by 2:00 p.m., when her abductors call again, they will torture her boyfriend, and when they get tired of torturing him, they'll start on her. Understand?"
"Hold one moment, please." Then suddenly she was listening to an advertisement for a Canadian law firm.
"Unbelievable," she muttered. She looked at JJ. "The man had his lawyer call, and that idiot just put me on hold."
"Ms. Garcia?" A different voice in her ear startled her.
"Yes, and if this is another attorney for Mr. Callahan, you can shove it. I need to speak to the man himself, this is his child's life, and-"
"You're speaking to him."
She froze. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir, but it's very important you get to Virginia as fast as possible."
"You said Emily's been kidnapped?"
"Yes sir, Emily and her boyfriend, Derek Morgan. If you aren't here when the next call comes in, they'll begin to torture him. If you need the visual to understand that sir, their weapon of choice is a taser baton, and they've already used it on Emily." And, if you don't come, I'll track you down and remove your testicles myself, Garica said to herself.
"The visual isn't necessary. I have a friend with a private plane, but even with that, I might not make it by two. I'm in Canada...the flight time. Can you stall the kidnappers?"
She sighed with relief. "We'll try, sir, and if you give me a phone number, I can try to patch the call through to you."
He rattled off a phone number for her, and promised to get there as fast as possible. Garcia hung up, and turned to JJ, adrenaline pouring through her body faster, making her feel hot. "Tell Hotch we found Em's father and he's on his way."
The relief suddenly on JJ's face was enough to make Garcia feel like a rock star. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, maybe they could get through this okay.
And, then Derek and Emily had some serious explaining to do.
Washington National Airport
1:15pm
It was easy to find them coming though the gate, they were the only ones who looked scared to death. And, were escorted by security. They already had their bags, and Reid flashed his badge at the security officers, who nodded, and released their temporary charges to his care. Fran Morgan looked pale, and was holding tightly to Desiree's hand. Desiree herself looked afraid, but Sarah was more like her brother, wearing a mask of strength and anger. He imagined that demeanor came from their father, it would fit for a cop.
"Mrs. Morgan, let me get that for you." Reid greeted, and took her bag.
"Thank you...do you have any news?"
"Not much I'm afraid. I'm going to take you and your daughters to a hotel to check in, and then back to Quantico."
There was nothing comforting he could tell them, so he chose to tell them as little as possible. And, absolutely no statistics. JJ and Hotch had both reminded him before he left not to regurgitate a single statistic. It was rare numbers made anyone feel better.
"Why can't we go straight to Quantico?" Sarah asked, tone harsh.
"Well, the Bureau doesn't want to lose the reservations, and I'd actually like to ask you a few questions before we get to Quantico." He'd conferred with Hotch, and they both agreed that it was unlikely Morgan's family knew anything, but it was procedure, and being thorough could only help, not harm.
"You don't actually think we have anything to do with this?"
He almost winced. "No, of course not, it's simply standard procedure to talk to the…family."
Thank god, he stopped himself from saying "victim's". He stowed their bags in the trunk, and held the doors open like the gentleman his mother taught him to be, until all the Morgan women had settled themselves. Reid was not a fan of driving, he didn't do it very often, but as circumstances warranted...
They asked him a few more questions on the way to the hotel, which he artfully dodged, and he helped them get checked into the rooms the Bureau reserved for them. They collected themselves into Mrs. Morgan's room, where Reid took a seat at the table and chair set across from the bed, and addressed all three women.
"Were you aware that Mor-uh Derek is seeing Agent Prentiss?" He asked first.
"Yes, she was in Chicago for Christmas." Fran Morgan supplied, looking slightly confused.
It took all his willpower not to let the surprise register on his face. He hadn't known they'd been seeing each that long, or that it had been that serious. Then again, he tended to miss what most other people caught. He pressed on. "Has Derek mentioned anything lately about any concerns he might have had? Anyone bothering him or Emily?"
She glanced at her daughters, who both shook their heads, then back at Reid. "No, he never mentioned anything like that, and neither did Emily."
Reid's brow furrowed. "You speak to Emily regularly?"
Desiree answered. "Sometimes she answers his phone and we talk a little while, she likes to tease him that she's keeping mama updated on him."
The other two women nodded in agreement, and Reid had to take a breath to think. "Alright, did either of them seem distracted or stressed unusually to you?"
He watched the girls shift around, glancing at each other and their mother, who was looking away, eyes unfocused as if trying to decide something. There was something there, something the Morgan women weren't sure they should divulge. Suddenly, Reid had to wonder, could Morgan and Emily have known this was coming?
Quantico, VA
1:50 pm
The ambassador was pacing and getting more impatient and angry as the deadline crawled closer. Hearing her ex-husband was on his way seemed to bring her instant relief, followed closely by extreme agitation. Though, Rossi supposed, if it was one of his ex-wives coming, he'd have probably crawled under his desk by now.
With a bottle of scotch.
The team though, seemed to be handling things pretty well. Of course, they'll all switched themselves onto cop-mode, which made it easier to pretend their guts weren't turning inside-out. Reid was still out with Morgan's family, questioning them before they got here and things got crazy. JJ was running around trying to do seven things at once, as usual for her. Garcia was glued to her screens, and already worked one miracle in getting Emily's father on his way. And, he and Hotch were going over every ounce of information they got from the ambassador and from Garcia's research.
Elizabeth's list of people with grudges wasn't short, but it was also typical for a politician, and not a single name stuck out as capable of abducting two people. It was made up of other politicians and political organizations that she'd pissed off, neither group of which tended to turn to abduction to get results.
Garcia suddenly hurried into the room, and sat at the computer she'd manned earlier, checking on the cell phone, and preparing herself to do what she did best-technical wizardry. She'd brought a second computer in with her, and worked on, well, Rossi had no idea what she was doing with it. JJ wasn't far behind her, cell phone out in one hand, and a legal pad and a few folders in the other. The team seemed suddenly very small.
A knock on the conference room door startled all of them. A young agent poked his head in. "Excuse me, there's a man downstairs asking to see the Ambassador?"
"You can send him up, Agent Thorton," Hotch instructed, sighing with relief. They had only four minutes left until their deadline.
Elizabeth straightened her back, and stopped pacing, choosing instead to stand by Garcia. The tech smiled gently up at her, trying to offer reassurance. They all continued to wait anxiously in silence, only the sounds of shifting paper and clearing throats disrupting it.
The young agent knocked gently again, and gestured a man in. He looked like he'd aged hard, and not a damn bit like the picture they'd tracked down of Andrew Callahan.
"Travis?" The ambassador walked up to him, studying his face.
"Ambassador, it's been a long time," he greeted.
"I wasn't sure Bill would be able to track you down."
"He managed." The man then turned to the curious FBI agents. He was probably in his late fifties, and he hadn't aged well Even without knowing his exact age, Rossi could see that. His skin was thick and worn with a hard life, and his bright blue eyes were somehow trembling with life at the same time they appeared subdued with a 'seen it all' look. Old as he was, his body still bared signs of muscular definition and the young man he once was. This strange man held out a hand to Hotch. "Travis Buchanan."
Hotch accepted. "SSA Hotchner. I think we'll need more than a name, Mr. Buchanan."
Buchanan turned to Elizabeth. "You didn't tell them anything?"
"I thought it best to leave that up to you." In seconds her eyes went from showing visible pain to being completely shield over, not unlike he'd seen in her daughter.
Buchanan looked back at them. "I brought Emily back home the first time this happened."
"First time," Rossi blurted, turning to Elizabeth. "Emily's been kidnapped before?"
She didn't get to respond. The phone was ringing.