Chapter 7

In which Wendell almost rivals Angela as gossip queen, a horrible truth is realised, and Reid remains oblivious to the truth.

Wendell was starting to think that Hotch was trying to get Reid out of his hair. The genius profiler was currently pacing up and down his lab. Emily Prentiss, to her credit, sat quietly; asking questions occasionally, none that disrupted his work process, and passed him tools whenever he needed them. She'd even called up the BAU tech when Wendell had asked, and was currently sifting through missing persons reports to see if any of them were likely matches.

Wendell was used to working around antsy people whose working patterns didn't always fit with the norm. He assisted Dr. Brennan, and she wasn't what anyone was going to call normal. He could only cope with Reid pacing up to a point though, and about the tenth time that Reid walked down the back side of the lab, almost knocking over another glass beaker, that Wendell finally had enough.

"Reid!"

Reid stopped, and turned to look at Wendell. "Yes?"

"Sit down," Wendell said. Reid didn't argue with him, just pulled out the nearest stool and sat down on it. He started drumming his fingers on the table. It was a bit of a pain but much less likely to cause damage than the constant pacing. "I know you're stressed, I know you want this over so that you and Zack can get back to playing happy families, but you destroying the lab will not make it happen any quicker."

Emily had to stifle her smile at the happy families comment, while Reid just raised his eyebrows and looked confused momentarily. Emily lifted hers back and gave him a look and then Reid sighed and went, "This is what Hotch was on about earlier, isn't it."

Well Wendell doesn't know about that but it looked like they might now at least be on the same page. "Look, Angela gossips man," he said.

Reid just took his head in his hands. Wendell appreciated the peace and quiet this provided, apart from the slam when Reid dropped his head onto the table.

"He still doesn't get it," Emily commented, keeping her voice down. "JJ keeps saying he does and she's won that pool we had going but I'm not convinced."

"Should have invited Angela, she's been trying to convince the rest of us to put money on it for what feels like forever now," Wendell said back. There was a groan from Reid, who probably could hear them despite their efforts to keep their voices down. "Can you call Garcia again?"

"Of course," Emily replied as she placed her phone on the table and hit the call button. "Garcia?"

"What can I do for you my delightful darlings?"

"Convince Reid to man up and admit his feelings?" Emily joked, noticing how Reid had pretty much buried his head into his arms and was almost definitely not paying attention right now.

It did have an effect on Garcia though. "Guess JJ doesn't know the boy genius as well as she thinks she does," she said back.

"Hey Garcia?" Wendell butted in because he knew Garcia's type and maybe just maybe they'd ribbed on Reid enough for the moment.

"Yes, oh blonde Jeffersonian one?"

"Have you found anyone who matches any of the descriptions I gave you?"

"They're still running, I'm afraid, and the others have called with another problem," Garcia replied.

"What is it?" Emily asked.

"They found a locker at Wellington station full of anti-masonic books and a whole string of letters," Garcia said.

"Hotch hasn't called us, are you sure?" Emily asked again. She glanced over at Reid, but he hadn't moved.

"Yep, Morgan's sending over the photos now," Garcia replied. "Is the boy genius actually there?"

"He's currently unresponsive," Emily replied, "but yes."

"Tell him he ought to get his butt over there," Garcia said. "I think this might be a lot worse than anyone currently thinks."

-x-

JJ watched the scene; she could see Morgan on the phone to Garcia whilst Rossi was flicking through a bundle of letters they'd found at the back of the locker. Mandridge was still trying to get something useful out of the station staff, but he was having no success. There was a steady crowd gathering, and they really needed to get out of there, before the FBI presence managed to spook the press.

"We should get this back to the station," JJ said to Rossi, who was quite engrossed in one of the letters.

"Of course," Rossi responded, but didn't actually make any attempt to go. JJ gave it a couple of seconds and Rossi then looked up. "I think Hotch needs to see these."

JJ just nodded and went to fetch a box from the SUV to pile the contents of the locker in. "Morgan," she yelled as she did so. "Give me a hand."

Morgan gave a solitary nod, returning to his phone call for a moment before joining Rossi and JJ in stacking books into boxes. Thankfully there weren't nearly as many as there were back at Maynard's house and it didn't take them very long, and Mandridge managed to keep most of the crowd back while they carted the boxes from the locker to the SUV. JJ expected she'd be fielding calls from reporters that evening though, wanting to know what the BAU's interest was.

It didn't take long to drive from the train station back to the police station, and JJ gathered from one of Morgan's phone calls to Garcia that Reid and Emily would meet them there. There was also something going on about how JJ had totally lost the bet, which JJ guessed was a reference to the betting pool they had going on about Zack and Spence.

Their SUV pulled in at the same time as the one which Reid and Emily were in, and JJ drafted Reid into carrying the box which she should have carried, while Rossi and Emily led the way into the station. It was mostly just to give Reid something to do.

There were a good number of phones ringing as the BAU made its way through the front, and they could see that Anderson had been put to good use answering some of them. JJ thought she might have to stop and deal with the press sooner than she thought; they'd managed to keep most of it all fairly quiet but if the press got hold of any of the pieces and put them together they were going to be in trouble.

It didn't seem that the press had made the connections yet though, or they'd have heard about it, angry phone calls from Strauss about what on earth they thought they were doing.

They made it through to the conference room without any problems; Morgan and Reid put the boxes down on the table and immediately started unpacking them. It was the letters that everyone was interested in, and Rossi handed Hotch a couple.

Reid slid into a seat beside Zack, grabbing one of the books while everyone else crowded the boxes. Zack shot Reid a questioning look, but Reid didn't really have time to answer.

"How many different authors are there?" Hotch asked as the team started sorting letters into piles.

"Four, at least," Emily said.

"Five," JJ corrected as she started a separate pile.

"Reid," Hotch beckoned, and Reid was forced to get up and examine the letters.

"Seven," he said, separating out one of the piles, and noting that Morgan had started yet another new one. "Seven different sets of correspondence."

"So the guy was communicating with people all over the country, I don't get it," Mandridge said, interrupting.

"Any of these people could potentially have been the source of the Gormogon information. If there's someone else out there who we don't know about who has this information, we need to find them to prevent what's happened here from happening again," Rossi said.

The team all looked at each other. Hotch was the one who broke the silence. "We need to start profiling these letters. JJ, can you make sure we're clear to fly back this evening? Someone tell Wendell that he needs to make arrangements to ship the Gormogon evidence back to D.C., I think we've done all we can here." Mandridge was about to speak but Hotch turned to him and continued before he could actually say anything. "We'll keep you updated as the case progresses but Maynard is dead, your case is solved, if you have any problems you know how to contact us."

-x-

Packing evidence for transport was one of the things Wendell was good at; mostly because since he'd convinced Cam to give him the extra hours at the Jeffersonian, a lot of what he did was packing up evidence for storage and transportation. It didn't make it any less dull. At least back at the Jeffersonian there were people bustling around, Hodgins barging in mid-shift to try and recruit Wendell for some sort of mad-cap experiment.

Here there was no one because the lab has been declared off-limits to the regular students while it was being used for a criminal investigation. And all the BAU have gone back to the police station to investigate whatever their latest find was, no longer concerned about the identities of the rest of the victims.

It wasn't like Prentiss or Reid had actually being paying much in the way of attention to what he was doing while he was there, anyway.

He was busy wrapping rib bones in protective film when the computer beeped; he'd set it up to link with the Jeffersonian network. Grateful for the distraction, he wandered over there.

"Hey Wendell, how are things going?"

It was Cam; no one else would check up on him – well Hodgins might but Angela was with him and if Hodgins wanted to know anything than he'd just call her.

"I'm packing up and preparing everything for transport; I presume it'll all be sent to the lab though I haven't actually discussed that with Agent Hotchner yet." Wendell would call him afterwards to check where everything was supposed to be sent.

"I haven't heard either, but we might as well have it seeing as we still have half the rest of the Gormogon evidence," Cam said. She looked tired. "We're all finished here, Seeley just brought the guy in an hour ago."

"Good," Wendell said, though he didn't actually know what case they were investigating – it wasn't his week.

"Have you got any closer to figuring out what's going on?" Cam asked. "Hodgins got the mass spec results back, the silver in the bones is an exact match for the old skeleton, but the silver screws were more recently cast," she added, knowing that Hodgins had passed that information onto Angela and presumably the BAU team, but Wendell looked like he'd been working alone for a while and might not have received the information.

"Well, they caught the guy behind this batch," Wendell started. "Brought him in, questioned him, didn't get anything out of him that they've managed to use yet, then he committed suicide somehow last night in his cell, there's was a partner somewhere and they've found a locker full of letters which seem to be immensely intriguing because everyone ran off to read them and apart from the call to say we're leaving tonight, I haven't heard anything else."

"And Zack?" Cam inquired.

"He seems to be doing alright. I can't really say the same for Reid though, I had him with me this morning and all he did was pace up and down," Wendell said. "He's upset that this whole thing has been dragged up again, and I get that, but the last three years of Booth and Brennan going in circles round each other was quite enough so can someone bang their heads together and get them to realise it?"

"Mention it to Angela and she might take it upon herself to do it?" Cam suggested. "I'll have to call Hotch for the full case report anyway so we can figure out who's footing your bill, don't worry if you don't know everything."

"I do get paid for this, right?"

"Of course; the Jeffersonian budget probably stretches but I think we are supposed to be reimbursed by other agencies when they borrow staff like this."

"Thanks Cam."

"Not a problem," she smiled in reply. "Now I better leave you to sort all this out." A quick ping and she vanished from the screen, leaving Wendell once again alone in the big empty lab.

-x-

Usually when the BAU closed a case, there wasn't much more to do; they packed their bags and left, filing all their reports back at Quantico – someone might have to come back as an expert witness, but they left most of it to the locals. Here it was different though. They'd leave Mandridge to deal with the pedantries of the paperwork, sorting out victim's families and the press, whilst the BAU took the parts of the case which were linked to Gormogon.

There were the boxes from Maynard's house that they'd already brought to the police station, which all needed to be packed up and filed, taken back to the BAU and the Jeffersonian for further examination. Angela had made a very convincing argument that they should pack up the rest of Maynard's house. The Gormogon vault had kept revealing clues long after they had first found it, it was logical that there might be something more in the house that they were missing.

Hotch and JJ took care of the station and all the local police, smoothing everything over, leaving contact details and paperwork and making sure that they would be clear for take off that evening. Usually they got at least a bit of a break after a case, but this one they'd be in the next morning having to justify why they still needed resources on it, and Hotch thought most likely why no one had rearrested Zack yet. He was almost tempted to just set Reid on the first person who asked that.

The others all went over to the house to pack it up; they couldn't really demand any manpower from the locals to help with it. They'd technically got three extra pairs of hands – Angela, Anderson and Zack – but Reid threw a fit every time anyone attempted to make Zack lift a heavy box, and he was relegated to packing books into boxes.

After Reid snapped at Anderson for attempting this the second time, Angela steered the poor fellow away, shepherding him into the kitchen.

"Just look at them, they're practically sickening," Emily commented to Morgan as they stood in the doorway and watched as Reid handed Zack a fresh cup of tea.

"I dunno, Reid poured enough sugar in whatever he's holding to make anyone ill," Morgan said back.

"JJ said to remind you guys that you owe her money," Rossi said, coming up behind them, glad he'd stayed out of the stupid pool that the girls had set up on Reid's love life.

"I don't think we do," Emily replied. "I don't think he's got a clue, honestly. You should have seen him earlier. I think Hotch might have said something to him."

"Next time I get a chance and we're not horrendously busy, I'll ask," Rossi replied. "I'd like to get out of here before it gets dark though, so I'm going to continue." He gestured to all the boxes which they still have to move, and then wandered off.

Emily and Morgan stood watching though. Reid had sat down besides Zack now, pointing out titles in the library which he might find interesting, and they were both leaning into each other's personal space, shoulders touching, Zack had a hand gently atop Reid's leg.

"Someone really needs to give that boy a shove," Morgan commented.

"As much as I agree, this is Reid and Zack," Emily said. "I still don't know if it'd do more harm than good."

She hummed for a moment and then moved, grabbing a box and taking it down the hallway. Morgan followed her.

It didn't take them that much longer to get the house cleared, and there were no new exciting discoveries, though they never knew what might be important later on.

Wendell, over in Boston, had packed and labelled the last of the forensic evidence and had arranged for it to be shipped overnight to the Jeffersonian, and then had rejoined Hotch and JJ at the station once he'd thanked the BUSM department head for the use of their lab.

They actually managed to get everything together quicker than expected, and JJ negotiated for them to takeoff just a little bit earlier. Any extra time they could spend at home in their own beds was good.

It was a bit more of a squash to get everyone on the jet than usual, but Wendell and Angela were good natured and the food and drink and good company made up for it.

No one commented when Reid led Zack to the couch, or how in the space of five minutes they managed to go from sitting besides each other discussing mathematical equations to Reid sitting sideways, legs practically taking up the full length of the couch while Zack was curled into his side, head buried in the crook of Reid's neck.