Chapter seven

Washington Medical Center
Washington DC

Spencer

They lost every one of the Sisters, the Sheriff and his four deputies. That made it a very hard day. Thankfully no one on the team had suffered any serious injuries. Granted being that close to the shock wave had not been anyone's idea of fun, but no one got too dinged by the shrapnel. Still, Spencer thought, now I know what it feels like to be a soccer ball for an elephant.

He came out of the exam room as Morgan was leaving his. They caught up with Emily, JJ and Rossi in a quiet room just off the lobby. They had been at the front of the group, missed the worst of the blast. "Just about everyone is converging on the site, looking for evidence." JJ told them. "Hotch is getting his hearing double-checked. How's the Bishop?" She asked, looking at Rossi.

"He'll be all right. It's not the first time Tom's been blown ass over teakettle. But they want to keep him overnight just in case. He's given us blanket permission to get to the bottom of this, and he said the Diocese is covering all of the victim's medical bills resulting from what happened." The group nodded, it was a good start.

At that point Morgan's phone gave its distinctive ring. "Talk to me baby girl." He said to mid air as he answered it. "You're on speaker."

"Hey, how is she?" Garcia asked. "Are you guys all okay?"

"We're all fine, Garcia." JJ told her. "They said she looks all right so far, but they want to keep her a while to run some more tests. Did you find anything?"

"Okay, Helena Owens does not exist." Garcia told them. "No birth certificate, no school records, no record of her entering the convent, nada. And I can't help you with Margaret Owens, that's too far back to be digital. I did find a Samuel Owens who died in a car crash twelve years ago. Now Samuel went to school in the area, studied engineering at U of M at College Park, worked for the local hydroelectric company, and died in a car accident in the hills. According to the story in the very local paper he had an unknown female with him, and a little girl was found at the scene, but as a minor they didn't say anything more about her."

"Any marriage certificate for Samuel Owens?" Rossi asked her.

"Nope, nothing on file."

"Tom said he thought she was related to Father Paul's housekeeper, a live in, but he only remembers her as Kat."

There was the sound of keys in the background. "I have no record of a housekeeper of any kind, let alone live in, ever working for the parish. He might have paid her cash under the table."

"She has to exist, Garcia." Morgan protested. "She's here."

"Yeah, well, she is very much off the grid, so I cannot help you."

"Garcia what about that container we found?" Spencer asked.

"And that would be the ew icky creepy part. That container you found? It was from Fairfax Cryobank, right here in DC. They ship human sperm for insemination."

Okay, that stopped them all cold. "Mother Marion was trying to get her pregnant?" Emily asked, finally.

"That would explain the vitamins we found." Spencer pointed out. "And the calendar, she was trying to track her cycle."

"Could she even carry a healthy pregnancy under those conditions?"

"Probably not."

They could hear one of her machines beep behind Garcia. "And I just got the coroner's report from the accident and the notes from the first officer on scene and am sending them now."

"All right, thanks baby girl." Morgan rang off as JJ pulled the file open on her tablet, holding it so the others could see, "Anything."

Spencer was, of course, the fastest reader. "Yes, there," he manipulated it larger. "It says he couldn't determine the exact cause of death, the car burned after the accident although the injuries looked minor. But he also found what might have been gunshot wounds in each victim's head."

Emily had the responding officer's notes open on her tablet. "According to this the car was already on fire when the first unit arrived at the scene. There was another driver there who took off as soon as he saw the car; he was unable to get a full plate. A few minutes later a girl came out of the nearby woods and said her name was Helena that her Mom and Dad had died. They took her to the station where Father Paul arrived and had the paperwork to take custody."

"She must have been around twelve at the time." Spencer pointed out. "Did they interview her at a witness at all?"

Emily checked the file. According to this she said they were on their way home from a holiday play, they came around the curve, there was a truck in the middle of the road, her father veered off into a snow bank. Then her mother told her to get out of the car and go hide in the woods and not look back. A few minutes later the car caught on fire. When she saw the lights off the police car she came out of hiding. When they went back for a further interview Father Paul denied it saying that she had been traumatized enough and he had sent her to live with family out of state. CPS never followed up because they couldn't verify the existence of a child to open a case file."

Rossi considered, "That sounds like a deliberate hit to me. An accident to get the car off the road, shoot the parents, then burn the car to hide the evidence. As soon as the deputy came around the curve they took off."

"Then Father Paul hid her at the convent. He had to be close to the family for them to let him take her, especially if the paperwork was dodgy." Emily pointed out. "And he had to have known they were off the grid. Whatever was going on he was in it up to his neck."

"Yeah, but Garcia's not going to be able to get more on him than we already have." Morgan replied. "It's too far back to be digitized. So Father Paul uses the excuse of the great-aunt to hide her at the convent, maybe saying he was going to find her a new family or that other sister said something about school. Only he never does, maybe figuring she was safer there." He shook his head. "The lengths they were going to, they were looking at more than one UnSub. I know this isn't official Witness Protection, but that's what it feels like to me; mob, conspiracy, something big."

"Then maybe Marion Prestwick worked for the other side. Maybe they were able to sneak her in there to keep tabs on Helena, which was why she started poisoning people, eliminating the protectors and maybe witnesses and anyone who could help. And when Helena got old enough to leave on her own, she locked her up instead and started trying for a pregnancy." JJ finished, "Six years in that hole."

"If this was a conspiracy, I'd like to know if blowing the convent if they were discovered was someone else's idea." Rossi told them. "We have five dead officers and twenty innocent victims, all of whom have families who deserve something. And I know Tom will authorize us to keep going."

"If it was a conspiracy, maybe that's why the other women were hiding as well." Spencer suggested. "How far back does this go?"

"And why?" Rossi asked. "What makes those women so special? Because if they were protecting all of them, then it's not the specific woman, it's the family."

"I don't know." Spencer replied. "Hopefully she can tell us."

"Ask gently," Emily reminded them. "It doesn't matter if it's a body part or an object, that woman's been locked away and repeatedly raped over the past six years. And even before that she was extremely sheltered. Maybe JJ and I should be the ones to talk to her."

Morgan shook his head. "Yeah, but she was tortured by a woman. In this case maybe it should be the guys."

"Yeah, but you're more than a little intimidating." Emily pointed out. "So is Hotch. Rossi may be able to pull off the cuddly grandpa routine."

"Cuddly grandpa?" Rossi turned and gave Emily one of those looks. "She seemed pretty attached to Dr. Reid here back in the convent why don't we have him take the preliminary, Morgan can take the cognitive for when her parents died, and if she wants to talk to a woman, JJ, you're a bit less of the Alpha female type."

"Alpha female?" Emily asked.

"Cuddly grandpa." Rossi replied.

And so they turned to look at Spencer.

For once Spencer didn't mind. He didn't even get nervous; he so wanted to speak to her again. "All right," he said, before they headed in that direction.