As Reid had expected, the bathroom door was closed. He hesitated. It was going to be damned embarrassing if he walked in on her urinating, or vomiting. On the other hand, if he knocked and she was actually doing what his intuition said she was doing, it gave her time …
He heard the soft, distinct rattle of pills in a plastic bottle. Without knocking, he pushed the door open.
Constance froze, staring at him. She had the pill bottle in one hand; her other fist was closed, half-way to her mouth. A glass of water waited beside the sink. Reid moved swiftly and grabbed her wrist. Her skin felt like ice. Her pupils got bigger, but she did not speak.
"Open it," Reid commanded softly.
She continued to stare at him.
"Constance. Open your hand."
Her eyes never left his. Slowly, she opened her fingers.
A single pill rested in her palm.
Reid exhaled, surprised that he'd been holding his breath. He released her wrist. "I'm sorry, I …"
"There's nothing wrong with your instincts," she said gently. "It crossed my mind. But … to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there's the rub." She put down the pill bottle and took her single pill.
Reid looked away, though he wasn't sure if he was embarrassed for himself or for her.
"Two days ago," Constance said, still quietly, "passing comps was like the biggest thing in the world. And now it doesn't mean anything."
"It's an important achievement," Reid said. "You should be proud of yourself. Passing comprehensive examinations is a major accomplishment …" he managed to stop himself. "I'm sorry. Maybe … I mean … I'm sure you'll get to celebrate it. Soon."
"You're not sure of any such thing." She glanced at the clock. "In three more hours we'll be past twenty-four. And you know as well as I do that the odds we'll find her alive after that are …"
"Don't," Reid said. "Don't drive yourself crazy with the odds. That's a statistic, gathered from all the cases in the country for an unlimited amount of time. This isn't a statistic. It's one case."
She studied him for a moment. Those big green eyes, so serious, so sorrowful, and the hormones triggered again, as the earlier adrenaline rush faded, oxytocin took over, the drug of attachment, of caring.
Reid frowned, wondering if he would ever feel an emotion without automatically discounting it with the physiological explanation. Because, of course, intellectualizing the emotional experience was a way of distancing himself from the actual experience. He analyzed his own emotions to keep himself from feeling them. And he knew it.
He wished he didn't know as much as he did. Again.
"Can I tell you something stupid?" Constance asked.
"If you want to," Reid answered warily.
She picked up one of the pill bottles. "I don't take them all the time. I don't need them, and the side effects are so God-awful … but like a true schizophrenic, I always miss the decision point. The place where I'm sick enough to need them and still well enough to know I need them. You know what I mean?"
Reid nodded. He knew exactly.
"I always wait too long, and then even though I can't shut out the noise, I convince myself I can handle it, that I don't need the drugs. That I never need the drugs again, that I'm just fine. And I …" She paused. "I call my mom and I tell her I don't need my drugs any more. And she can tell by the tone in my voice that I really really need them. But she doesn't argue with me. She just tells me she's busy. Every time. Three in the morning, she says, 'You're probably right, you probably don't need them anymore, but I'm busy right now, honey, so just take one pill and call me back in an hour and we'll talk about it as much as you want.' And then she hangs up on me."
"Do you take your one pill?"
"Yes. And of course, in an hour I'm well enough to know I still need them."
"Good for you."
Constance shook her head. "Last night, in the middle of all these calls, in the middle of … I picked up the phone and tried to call her so she could tell me to take my pill. And I was really angry that she didn't answer her phone. How stupid is that? When she might be … when she might be … how juvenile and selfish is that?"
"Constance …"
"I hate myself. I should be thinking about her, and all I keep coming back to is what's going to happen to me."
"Don't," Reid said. "That's your mind's way of protecting itself from something it can't cope with."
She pushed new-forming tears away impatiently. "It's crap."
"No, it's not. You don't know where your mother is or what's happening to her. And because of your father, you know that the possibilities are pretty horrible. So your mind won't dwell on them, because it can't. Instead it's focusing on what it can control, on an outcome it can predict."
"It can?" Constance asked, surprised.
"Of course it can. You know, even if you don't want to admit it, you know, that if your mother is dead, your life will go on. You know how hard it will be, but you know you can get through it. Because you've gotten through it before."
She turned and looked steadfastly at the shower door.
"It's not juvenile, and it's not selfish," Reid said quietly, "to protect your own sanity. Especially when putting it at risk wouldn't save your mother anyhow."
She took a long shaky breath. "Okay, maybe I don't always hate profilers."
Reid nodded. For a moment, he was unable to speak himself. If someone had said those words to me, if only … Then he shook it off. He reached into his jacket and brought out one of his ridiculously formal Official FBI Agent cards. "I want you to keep this," he said, offering it to her. "If you need to call someone and your mom's not answering … I'll know the tone in your voice, too. And I'll hang up on you just like she does."
Constance looked at him uncertainly. Her eyes were full of tears, and she kept blinking them back. She took the card and crumpled it in her hand, not in distain but as if it were a lifeline that might slip away. "I can't …"
"Yes, you can." He took the pill bottle from her other hand and put it down. Then he consciously let the old caretaker pattern take over. "Have you eaten at all today?"
Though she couldn't know it, she gave the old standard response. "I'm not really hungry."
Reid nodded. He was on familiar ground now. He wasn't sure he wanted to be – part of him hated it, hated that he was dealing with this beautiful young woman exactly as he would have dealt with his mother on one of her bad days – but at least it was familiar and safe. "Come on. We'll find you something to eat."
Garcia glared at the desktop computer. It was crazy fast and powerful, but it still wasn't her baby. Now that she was trying to thread through the multi-layered security of the Bureau's own defenses, the cracks were showing.
It was loading, but not fast.
She turned to Miranda's computer while she waited.
Morgan came in and put a hot cup of coffee at her elbow. "Anything?"
"Not yet. Like slogging through molasses." She took a sip of coffee, then leaned to put the cup far away from the computers.
"You'll get there. You're the Source of all Knowledge."
"I am," Garcia agreed. She scrolled through Miranda's e-mails. There were 57 unopened spams in the junk folder. Six new messages. None very suggestive. She opened the older messages without much enthusiasm. "Hey, Morgan?"
"Yeah?"
"We got here before noon, right?"
"Right."
"And there haven't been any phone calls all day."
"No, except that crazy one. Why, you find something?" He moved closer, then backed away at her glare and put his coffee down before he came to lean over her shoulder.
"Well, maybe. This e-mail, from yesterday. 'Sorry to hear about your delay. Hope you don't get delayed again. No problem rescheduling.'"
Morgan took over reading. "'I have a little time tomorrow, I'll stop by and look at your garage door about noon. If that's too early shoot me an e-mail and I'll call for a better time.'" He leaned back. "She might have called him from her cell."
Garcia shook her head. "The only person she called all day yesterday was Zee."
"And there's no responding e-mail, either?"
"Nope."
"You're the genius, Baby Girl." He straightened. "Hotch, Gideon! We got something."
"You know Bob Cooper?" Hotch asked as soon as Constance came in.
"Sure," she answered immediately. "That's Old Smokey, the electrician."
"Have you heard from him today?"
"No. Why?"
"He said he was going to come by at noon to fix the garage door. He never showed up. Never called to reschedule. And we know Miranda didn't call him to cancel."
Garcia reported, "He's got no criminal background. Lives alone in a rental house, owns his truck. Pays his bills on time. Works as an independent contractor on a lot of construction jobs, some insurance repairs and some side work. Apparently pays taxes on all of it. His license is current. No complaints about him with the Better Business Bureau."
"Did he ever work at the airport?" Prentiss asked.
"Not directly, that I can find, but he works for general contractors, so we can't rule it out. I'm checking that."
Gideon turned towards the girl. "Would she have gotten in the car with him?"
Constance faltered. "I don't … I don't know. Maybe."
Angry, frustrated, hungry, in a hurry. Looking for a cab, not paying attention to much else. A friendly voice. "Hey, Miss Grail! How are you!"
The woman turned and looked at the man. "Bob, what are you doing here?"
"They called me out to do some work. Lighting. Hey, that looks heavy." He grabbed her rolling bag. "I just finished up, you want a ride?"
"I'm not going home, I'm headed to Bremmers …"
"That's right on my way, I'll drop you."
"I don't want to put you to any trouble."
"No trouble at all. My truck's right here." He opened the door, threw her bag behind the seat. "Hop in. It's not fancy, but it's a lot cheaper than them cabs would be …"
"Get me an address," Gideon snapped.
"Right here," Garcia answered, handing him a post-it note. "It's about ten blocks from here."
Gideon headed for the door. Hotchner grabbed his arm. "Where do you think you're going?"
"I'm going to get Miranda back."
"Without a warrant?"
Gideon shook him arm free. "I don't need a damn warrant."
"Yes, you do," Hotch said, very firmly. "If she's there we'll get her, but we've got to do this right."
"We don't even have an open case yet," JJ said quietly.
"And we can't go through the local police," Prentiss added.
"I don't think we have enough for a warrant," Morgan agreed. "If we can put him at the airport last night …"
"Tie him to the other missing woman," JJ suggested.
"We don't have time for that," Gideon snarled. "If he's got her, he already knows we're looking for him. He won't keep her long. I'm going."
Hotch grabbed him again. "Jason, you can't just go rushing in there blind."
"Let go." Gideon's voice was icy, commanding.
Hotchner did not obey.
His own voice dropped to a near-whisper. "The last time you rushed into something, Jason, her father died." He barely gestured with his head towards Constance. "Are you willing to risk the same thing happening to her mother?"
"I got him," Gideon announced jubilantly, holding Bale's coat while they cuffed him. "Go get the hostage."
Ford was the first one to the door. "Let's go, guys …"
Gideon stared at him, speechless with hurt and rage. The room went dead silent. Then Constance was between them. She took Hotchner's hand and pushed it firmly away from Gideon. "Stop it," she said. "That's not fair."
"No," Gideon said. He paced swiftly away from her, awash in uncertainty. "No, he's right. We could … if she's still alive, if we spook him, we could …but if we wait, he could … " He shook his head. "We've got to get into that house."
"Agreed," Hotch said. "But we need to think it through."
"I could go," Constance said. "Smokey knows me. If I knocked on the door, told him my mom was missing and I was just looking everywhere could think of …I'm just a girl looking for her mother. Not someone with a badge."
"He might let you in," Reid agreed. "Let you take a look around."
"No," Gideon said flatly.
"We could put her cell phone on," Morgan contributed. "Speaker it, put it in her pocket. Listen to everything the guy says, and if there's any trouble …"
"No!" Gideon repeated. "I am not sending her into that house alone to find out if the man's a psychotic killer."
"Not alone," Morgan agreed. "With you. Friend of the family. Uncle. Whatever. Still nothing official, nothing to set him off."
"No."
There was a moment of silence. Gideon walked to the far side of the room and glared out the window.
"We could put the house under surveillance," Prentiss offered. "See if we can get enough to get a warrant."
"That could take days," Morgan answered. "We may not have days."
There was silence again. Then Constance crossed to Gideon and stood between him and the window. Took his hands. And twisted the knife. "My dad would trust me to do this."
He spun away from her. "Don't."
"You know I'm right."
"Tony's not here. I am. And I am not going to risk your life."
"We'll be right outside, Jason," Hotch said quietly. "We'll kick the door at the first sign of trouble."
"He's not an aggressor," Reid offered. "He didn't confront Miranda and drag her away. He waited, he planned, he lured her in. He's not likely to attack without warning."
"Unless he's cornered," Gideon snarled.
"You'll be right there with her," Morgan said. "And we'll be right behind you."
Constance spoke to his back. "We both know what my life will be if we can't find her, Jason. Please. Please trust me. I've got to do this."
He turned and looked at her. Spread his hands helplessly. "I could lose my girl."
Her eyes filled with tears again. "You're already losing me. A drop of hope at a time." And then, again, "Please?"
Gideon considered for a long moment. Then, finally, he nodded. "All right. We'll go together."
As the woman rushed into his arms, Reid cleared his throat regretfully. "Ah … that won't work."
"Why?" Hotch demanded.
Reid gestured towards the study. "The wall. The electrician hung all the pictures back up for Miranda. There are four of Gideon."
"He still might be a family friend," Morgan argued.
"Maybe," Reid said. "But …"
"There's one in his office," Garcia said, pointing. "Nameplate and seal on the desk."
Constance said something against Gideon's shoulder. It was a language none of them spoke, but the inflection left no doubt about its meaning. He held her very tightly.
"This could still work," Prentiss said. "We'll send her with someone else. I could go."
"No," Gideon said.
Garcia moved further into the room. "Reid could be her boyfriend."
The young genius sputtered. "Me? I can't … I can't …"
"Just for pretend," Garcia clarified. "He's young enough. And he'll remember everything he sees."
"I … but I … of course, I'll go, but …"
Hotchner held up his hand for silence.
In the center of the room, Constance lifted her head and looked at Gideon. What passed between them, between her huge green eyes and his deep brown ones, wasn't meant to be witnessed by outsiders. The doubts, the fears, the guilt, the grief. The hope. And the trust. "Reid," Gideon said, never looking away from the young woman.
"Yes?"
"Don't let anything happen to my girl."