The next day the BAU were combing the city for any trace of William Reid, beginning at his office at the Kierschenbaum, Wieder and Moore law firm. Everything seemed normal enough- the files were in place, the computer wasn't harboring anything suspicious. The only red flags they found was his cell phone still turned off inside of his desk drawer and his car still in the parking lot.
"Whoever took him did it quietly." Prentiss remarked. "There aren't any signs of a struggle and nobody heard anything unusual."
Morgan noticed that the picture of him with his family (which he had added to his desk a few days earlier) was positioned oddly. He got the distinct impression that it wasn't that way by accident.
"I think the unsub threatened his family to get his compliance."
"Makes sense. But how did he get him out the door with no one noticing?"
"He didn't have to." Morgan replied, moving the blinds to reveal the half opened window. "So he pulls out a weapon, threatens the family, has him tell his secretary he's in a meeting, and gets him out through the window."
"Except the secretary would have noticed a meeting that took that long."
"Don't be so sure- the last time I was here we found out he worked longer hours than we do. Maybe it was normal for him and that's why she didn't notice anything different."
Prentiss nodded. "I'm going to call Garcia and see if we can get the names of his appointments from yesterday off of his computer."
"Okay." He took out his own phone to call Hotch.
"Morgan. What have you got?"
"It looks like the unsub threatened the family and had him tell the secretary he was in a meeting before taking him out through the back window. Prentiss is getting Garcia to look through the computer."
"Good. Meet back at the station in an hour."
"You got it."
Hotch hung up with him and turned to Rossi. Both of them were at the police station, where both of them were looking at a map of Las Vegas on a cork board. The abduction site and home were both flagged, but they were missing the crucial third point that would narrow down the geographical profile. Hotch sat down in a rolling chair.
"It doesn't look like we're going to get anywhere with the geographical profile, so let's focus on victimology. Why this man?"
"He was a lawyer. He's guaranteed to piss people off with every won and lost case in his history."
"So one of his clients might be out for revenge. What else?"
"He's a very low-risk victim. He was a workaholic who only traveled to work and back according to his wife and the GPS in his car."
"There's something we're not seeing here. Some piece is missing from this puzzle." Hotch murmured. Rossi stared at the picture of William Reid, subconsciously willing it to tell him something. When he looked at it, however, all he could see was Spencer.
Wait.
"That's it!" He said, out loud. "This isn't an attack on William. This is an attack on Reid."
Hotch blinked.
"Think about it," Rossi continued, "The unsub is recreating his father's abandonment by taking him away. It's all intentional, designed to systematically take away his family."
"But Reid doesn't remember that." Hotch argued.
"The unsub doesn't know that. In his mind he's breaking Reid apart piece by piece."
"If he's trying to break him down, what else is there to take away?"
In response, Rossi took a photo off of the board and handed it to Hotch.
It was a picture of Diana Reid.
Garcia had chosen to stay with Diana and Spencer. Operating off of her own laptop she was certainly slowed down in her speed of finding things, but her determination to help her friend never wavered. She was able to watch the interactions between Diana and Spencer and was heartened by what she saw. The clear love between them was a definite bright spot in this mess.
An anonymous tipster had informed the media that William Reid had gone missing, and his face was plastered all over the news. Diana had never been big on the news anyway, but now she avoided it at all costs- especially near Spencer. She wasn't all too sure of how much to tell him about what was going on, but she had to tell him something. Every time he asked her where Daddy was it jarred her heart a little more. Finally, she sat him down and told him that she didn't know where Daddy was, but that she was sure Daddy still loved them and that he would be home as soon as possible. Although he was too little to understand everything that was going on, he could tell that it was very serious.
Diana decided that there was one other thing she needed to explain to him. She was very hopeful that he would never have to deal with this possibility, but thought that she should tell him anyways, just to cover her bases.
"Spencer, there might come a time where Mommy might gone for a while. Not anytime soon, I hope, but I might have to go away to get help for some things that I can't get help for here. And if that ever happens, you need to listen to whoever is taking care of you, because they will keep you safe. Will you promise to do that for me, baby?"
He nodded. "I promise, Mommy."
Not long after that, Diana put Spencer down for his afternoon nap. The team had gathered back at the Reid home, hoping to drive the media circus away with a few official statements. Neither Diana nor Spencer needed to deal with that right now. JJ was dealing with them one by one, slowly clearing the otherwise empty cul-de-sac. She was finishing up with the last of the reporters. Once the others were finally gone, she went inside just before an ambulance pulled into the driveway. The personnel got out, and knocked on the front door.
Diana opened the front door to see two men in white uniforms standing there, along with her Psychiatrist from the sanitarium.
"May I help you?"
Dr. Norman's face was saddened as he said the sentence he'd been dreading.
"Diana, I'm here to take you back to the sanitarium."
