Once a Hooker
a sequel to the fic To a Hooker,
both by TarnishedArmour
Timeline: We haven't gotten there yet; about 3-4 episodes in to season 7. By necessity, this is A/U.
Summary: Adrianna had left hooking behind, moved to a new life in Virginia, and renewed her friendship with Spencer Reid. So why is she giving hooker lessons again? *To a Hooker's sequel.
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The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.
~Leslie Poles Hartley
The rest of the weekend was quiet, pleasant. There was nothing urgent, no problems that came up, no case that disturbed the new equilibrium that Adrianna had found with Spencer. Somehow, they were even more relaxed with one another, now that a few things were out in the open. It seemed counterintuitive, that the team knowing about her, that she had been a prostitute, would make things easier between them. But it did.
Monday morning found her back in the clinic, talking to a man who had seen three wars and lived to tell about them.
"Well, Mr. Brady, you should be fine again in a few days. This weather seems to be getting to a lot of people," she said, finishing the injection and quickly disposing of the sharp.
"Hell, at my age, getting up in the morning is a good sign," he said with a laugh. The laugh became a cough.
"That's a good sign at any age," Adrianna said, rubbing his back until the spasms passed. "Would you like me to print the dosing instructions for you?" she asked.
"If you would, that'd be good." He took a shaky breath or two, but the congestion wasn't deep in his chest. She was glad he'd come in quickly. There had been two vets hospitalized in the last week, and she knew that the money wasn't going to be easy for them. Fortunately, they both had family close by. Mr. Brady was far away from his family, so he had been more careful than the others.
"Large print?" she asked, moving to the small computer station and clicking a few buttons.
"If it's available. I don't want to put you out," he said, a local term for making things more difficult that she had finally gotten used to.
"No trouble at all. I just click this little button…and voilà! Large print directions for your prescription and a few little tips on what will make the symptoms a little easier on you."
Mr. Brady gave her a smile, his dentures slipping just a little.
"Next time I call you Nurse Ratchet," he said, "you can just tell me to go to hell."
"Nah. I'll just ask the doctor to prescribe an enema," she replied, grinning. "And, speaking of prescriptions, yours are done and waiting for you at the window."
"Why thank you, Nurse Ratchet," he said, snickering. Adrianna reached into a cabinet and pulled out a pre-packaged disposable enema kit and brandished it at him. The old man cackled all the way out the door, careful not to laugh too hard.
Adrianna noted the chart, initialed for the injection, and slipped it into the file drop next to the door for the admin nurse to pick up. Without looking, she put the enema kit back where it belonged, took off her gloves, and went to the counter for the next chart. In three steps, she was at the door, facing a room full of people.
"Mrs. McIntyre?" she called, looking around the room. A younger woman stood up, about to pop with her baby, and waddled slowly toward the door.
Adrianna smiled and held the door open for her, wondering how she managed to move at all with the extra weight and inches.
The rest of the week was much the same.
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On Friday, Spencer called. Adrianna smiled as they talked. A few minutes later, she was heading over to see Spencer at his apartment. She didn't have to go in until Tuesday this week, so it was easier for her to go see him.
When she arrived, she let herself in, the key he had given her next to hers on her ring. She'd given him a key to her place as well, just in case. He was in the kitchen, opening boxes of Japanese take out, preparing chopsticks for them. She smiled. It wasn't if Spencer could understand and use something correctly, it was making the information and process accessible. Most of the time, he could do it on his own. Every so often, he needed a boost. Problem was, that since he could figure it out on his own so well, when he did need help, he didn't know how to ask for it.
Something on the table caught her eye. She took a look. The photo was of an incision, about three inches across, with a perpendicular cut about an inch across. The edges were clean and the work precise.
"Are you taking surgery classes?" she asked, lifting the picture to look at it a little better.
"What?" he asked, turning to look at her. "I didn't hear you come in-and that's a consult file," he said, hustling over to take the picture from her. He slipped it into the jacket and moved slipped it into his bag. "You're not supposed to see this." He seemed agitated.
"Is something wrong?" she asked, not sure what to do next. Should she apologize, or just move on?
"No, it's just…that file. There's something off about it." He shook his head, then stopped suddenly. "What was that about taking surgery classes?"
"That set of cuts, it's a classic surgical opening for the thoracic cavity. It's used mostly for transplants or removing cancers, sometimes for repair to traumatic puncture wounds." She thought for a minute. "That length and width isn't used much anymore, so whoever made it was trained old-school."
Spencer nodded, seeming to be in his own little world. He gave her a long look, considering something carefully.
"Would you be willing too look at some other pictures?" Spencer asked. "We'd have to go in to the office."
"Sure. Will that cause any problems for you?" she asked, knowing that he didn't want her to be part of the BAU group, but also knowing that she had something that he seemed to need.
"No. We can consult with experts as needed," he replied. "I can't show you the entire file, but the pictures, autopsy notes, things of that nature are readily available."
"I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm an expert, Spence," she said, frowning. "And if you're looking for surgical references and histories, there are several doctors and professors I can point you to-"
"It's not that. It's something else, but if I tell you, it might bias you." He pursed his lips.
Adrianna nodded her understanding. "Not a problem. You'll get my unbiased opinion tomorrow, for what it's worth."
"Okay." He looked around for a minute, then remembered something else. "Dinner," he blurted. "I got Japanese." He grinned at her. "With chopsticks."
Adrianna nodded. "Sounds good."
When she joined him at the table, she saw two pair of black and gold lacquered chopsticks on napkins. The smile she gave him showed exactly how much that meant to her: not just that he'd bought a pair of good quality chopsticks, but that he'd bought a pair for her to use as well.
It was as close to commitment as either of them had come. And that was just about perfect.
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"So, this is the BAU," she said, looking around. "It doesn't look like a fiendishly diabolical government office filled with experts in torture, dissection, and murder."
"You were expecting racks and St. Andrew's crosses on the walls? A few chains and a rack of blades?" The look he shot her gave her the answer.
"Well, no. But it's rather…institutional." She looked around. "And a lot like a fishbowl." She walked with him to his desk. "This is yours?"
"Yep. My little corner of the reef," he said, teasing her.
"Goldfish don't get reefs. They get fake coral and silly little pirate ships."
"Darn." He flipped through some files on his desk, then frowned. "They're not here. Hang on." She stood next to the desk, waiting while he left for a few minutes. Adrianna studied the desk. There wasn't much to it. This was clearly a work space, meant to be a work space, and the few personal items were difficult to place within any particular context. A minute later, Spencer reappeared, holding three other files.
"These are the ones I could find - oh, hey, Garcia. What are you doing in today?" he asked. Adrianna turned around and saw Garcia standing a few feet away. The blonde woman was quiet.
"I came in to see Morgan. He was working on something in a consult file, and he asked me to come in to look something up in my system." She gave Adrianna a look, then turned back to Spencer. "So, is this bring a friend to work day?"
"Huh? Oh, no. I wanted to check a few files, too. There was something off about them, and Adia mentioned that it looked surgical." He tipped his head to the side. "Since you're here, would you put a few things up on the screen in the briefing room?"
"Sure. Just give me a few minutes, then let me know." She nodded, gave Adrianna a quick smile, and turned quickly to walk to her office.
"She doesn't like me," Adrianna said, her voice soft.
"But you got along last week," Spencer said, a little confused. "Why wouldn't she like you now?"
"She wasn't too happy with me last week. Now I'm here…this may not work out well, Spence."
"If there's a problem, we'll deal with it," he said, dismissing her concerns.
"You don't sound concerned," Adrianna said, realizing how easily it had been for him to slip into a mode she hadn't seen before. This was work-mode. Everything else was secondary - even friendships.
"I'm not. We're here to work. If Garcia has a problem with that, we can deal with it later. Right now, though, we need to go up those stairs and into the briefing room." He started walking up the stairs. Adrianna shook her head and followed him.
This was a mistake. She knew this was a mistake. But here she was, ready and waiting.
A minute later, Morgan walked in.
"Hey," he said, nodding to them. "What brought you in on a Saturday morning? I thought you'd be cookin'," he added with a grin.
He got zero points for subtlty.
"This file. I wanted Adia to look at it, and a few others." Spencer was pulling photos from files and putting them on the glass board.
"Uh, can I see you for a second? Sorry, Adrianna," he added. At least he was being nice about wanting to tell Spencer to pack it up and take her home. That was going to be the conversation, but he was taking it just outside the room. As if she couldn't hear.
"What are you doing, bringing your girl in? What is she going to tell you about these files?" From the tone of voice, Morgan wasn't even pretending to keep it down.
"There's something that's been bothering me," Spencer said, and she couldn't hear the rest. It wasn't surprising. Spencer was more sensitive to sound than a lot of people were, so he tended to be quieter.
"I hope you know what you're doing," Morgan said, loud enough that Adrianna knew she wouldn't be summarily kicked out. The two men walked in, and Morgan blinked when he saw the pictures. "You were looking at these?" he asked.
"Yeah. Why?"
"Hang on a second." Morgan leaned over and tapped the phone in the middle of the round table. "You there, Baby Girl?" he asked.
"Ready and waiting," Garcia chirped back. "What kind of ickyness can I find for you today."
"I need you to pull up the following files, pictures only," he said, rattling off a string of numbers and letters that Adrianna supposed made sense somewhere in the world. Here was that place, and soon, several close-ups of the same two perpendicular cuts populated the screen.
Adrianna moved to the screen and looked it over carefully. The location of the cuts, the angles, the consistency…they were the same. She moved to the photographs. Again, the cuts were identical.
"These look like they were made by the same person," she said, "or by a really good student."
"What makes you say that?" Morgan asked, voice quiet. It was like he didn't really want to know the answer.
"Every one of these cuts is the same size. The angles are the same, but it's not the usual incision. This is to remove or repair." She mimicked the motion of retracting the skin. "This is something you'd see in oncology, maybe, or trauma. I worked in the university hospital, as part of the program. I learned about each of the areas of nursing, and this reminds me of those two sections. The biggest difference is that these cuts are too big, and the location on the torso, right over the pancreas in each instance, no matter the difference in size and shape. Well, that's not common, not anymore. For that matter, it's not common at all, and neither is this particular cut. This is something I've seen on a lot of the older vets, mostly from field hospitals and quick-and-dirty repairs. It's a cut used to remove shrapnel, tumors, even organs. Now that there's more in the way of robotic arms-there's less trauma to the thoracic cavity. This, even with a hospital, would be a nasty incision." She paused. "How deep did it go?"
"Through all layers and into the protected areas of the abdomen," Spencer answered. "The perpendicular cut wasn't as deep, it stopped before penetrating the muscle."
Adrianna nodded. "I don't… Was anything removed from the bodies?" she asked, turning to face the two men. "Organs, muscles-even layers of fat?"
"Nothing," Spence replied, and that wasn't what he was looking for.
"Was anything implanted?" she asked.
Morgan shook his head, but Spencer paused before speaking. Morgan noticed.
"What is it, man?" he asked softly.
"There was something…" he shuffled trough the files and fished out an autopsy report. "Hey, Garcia, are you still there?"
"Always, mon ami," she replied.
"Can you pull up the pictures from the autopsy report on Jenna Kerry?" he asked.
"Ask and you shall receive," she said, the sound of tapping keys loud in the background. "One Jenna Kerry coming up."
Adrianna thought that sounded rather like ordering oysters on the half shell, but didn't say anything. She didn't want to be disrespectful.
"There," Spencer said, pointing to the lower corner of the photo. "Do you see that? The report says it was mostly destroyed, but there was a corner of some paper between the cuts. The bodies were found about 56 hours or so after death, so decomposition had already started. Combine that with local wildlife in the area..."
"And you got a signature that's been mostly destroyed by the time we see it," Morgan said, shaking his head. "It looks like newspaper," he added.
"Yes," Adrianna said, studying the picture. "It..looks…no. It couldn't be."
"What?" Morgan asked, seeing the blur, but not recognizing it.
"It looks like part of an ad from one of the bachelor rags," she said. She turned to look at them, saw the confusion, and added, "How prostitutes in Nevada advertise. It's how a lot of the business gets done."
"Right," Morgan said. He left it there. Either he had accepted her past as over, or he wasn't considering personal lives.
"Look," Spencer said, "There's the same shadow in this picture." He turned to look at Adrianna. "How can you tell it's from a classified ad?"
"I've seen a lot of those ads. That," she pointed to the part of the picture that was visible, "is part of a silhouette of a breast. It was a pretty common ad. Some of the girls I got along with would ask me to look over their ads, see if they were…good. And a friend of mine had all of the working girls she knew keep ads on file with her." She took a breath. "I thought about going that route, but I didn't."
"Why not? Was it more dangerous?" Morgan asked. He seemed genuinely curious.
"I charged too much," Adrianna said frankly. "And the life is always dangerous. I wound up in the hospital a few times, and I was very, very careful." This time, she didn't touch her chin. Morgan nodded slowly. That wasn't pity in his eyes. It was more like...sympathy? Garcia, undoubtedly still present on the line, didn't say anything.
"Can you see any names on the ad?" Spencer asked, nose almost touching the photograph.
"No, and it's useless to try. The names and pictures are generic. The chances the girl looks anything like the silhouette or picture are slim." She shook her head, looking at the pictures again. They weren't really disturbing, but the consistency was freaking her out a little. No doctor would do this - would they? "These are just weird. Is this the kind of case you get all the time?"
"No," Morgan said. He was still watching her carefully.
"Normally, we already know that there's been more than one murder with the same signature," Spencer added. "All of these came in as separate files. Only two are from the same state, and those are miles apart."
"Where are they from?" Adrianna asked, curious.
"Reno, and about sixty miles outside of Las Vegas," Spencer replied. "Adia," he said slowly, "did you know either of these girls?" Spencer showed her the pictures of the faces, and Adrianna felt her blood pressure drop.
"That's Candy - I don't know her birth name, but she was called Candy because her hair looked like butterscotch lozenges, and she was so sweet…" She pointed to the other picture. "That's Pepper." The Latina looked hot and wild, even though she was sallow with the pallor of death. "She was a pistol, but she was careful. These girls were high-end. They didn't advertise."
Spencer and Morgan looked at each other.
"I'll call Hotch," Morgan said. Spencer nodded and went to sit next to Adrianna. Morgan walked down the way to his office, leaving them alone.
"Are you okay?" Spencer asked, taking her hand.
"Yeah," she said, nodding. "Or no, but I will be." She looked at Spencer, eyes wide. "Candy was leaving the life. She got out a month before I quit. She was out of it, Spencer." Adrianna couldn't shop the shiver.
"Spence, that could've been me."
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