"We have to talk to her, Cooper."

JJ was leaning on her partner's desk, irritated already from having the same fight for the third time, and Cooper was valiantly trying to ignore her. The bullpen was unnaturally quiet, since half their colleagues were already gone and the other half were trying to ignore the fighting. After they had briefed him, Valenti had gone home to deal with a disciplinary problem with his teenage son. The Lieutenant had been torn, he wasn't convinced that the killer was after Haven, but he thought it might be too much for a coincidence. He left them to decide.

Cooper didn't want to bother his friend. He didn't want to lay all that guilt on Emily. But JJ couldn't shake the feeling that the good Samaritan who served as the patron saint of abused and destitute girls was hiding a lot of secrets. One of those secrets might just be the key to figuring out their killer.

Cooper turned to her, startling her into almost falling off the desk. "I agree that Emily's got secrets, Jareau. But we all have secrets. And I don't think that's reason to go pound on her door and demand answers from her."

She put a hand on her hip. "Cooper, I bet you, no, I guarantee you, that whatever secrets you might have are child's play compared to that woman."

"Well yeah, you get to where she is and you've probably got some dark shit in your past."

"What are you afraid of finding out about her?"

His face folded into a deep scowl. "I'm not afraid of finding out anything. I know a lot more about her past than you do, and that's why I know she's not hiding anything related to this case."

"Then tell me, Cooper. Convince me."

"You thought she was a pimp at first sight, and now you want me to trust her secrets to you?"

"Really, and what did you think of her at first sight?"

"That she was hot," a voice called from across the room.

Dale Turvey, a detective in their unit hadn't even looked up from his desk when he spoke, and didn't bother to apologize for eavesdropping. Did the entire freaking NYPD know Emily Berne?

Cooper cocked his head. "He's not wrong."

"Seriously?"

Turvey spoke again. "Men are simple creatures, Jareau."

"No, men like to pretend they're simple creatures because it's easy. But they're just as complex as women."

The two men exchanged a look and a shrug. JJ sighed at a volume that she knew would let them know she was irritated, and then grabbed her black blazer from the back of her chair. "If we aren't going to pursue any productive leads tonight, then I'm going home. You should too, Cooper. Go hug your kid and give your wife a foot rub."

"See you tomorrow, JJ."

She nodded and marched out of the bullpen and Manhattan South Homicide. She didn't get on the train that would take her back to her apartment in Brooklyn though, but one that would take her north to Alphabet City. Cooper was far too close to Emily Berne to feel comfortable interrogating her, but JJ barely knew the woman. She had no problem going down there and demanding answers, especially if it meant one fewer dead girl.

Emily would understand that.


"You're friends with her!"

Spencer shrunk away from his new friend's furious tone. Danni's eyes were flashing and her body was so tight, he feared she might actually pop from the tension. She had not taken the news well.

They were now on the ferry back to Manhattan, since clearly, they were not going to need to look up Emily's information. And Danni was far too upset with him to want to spend anytime sightseeing on Staten Island. As it was, he was just trying to keep from disturbing the people in their area of the deck.

"I'm in town to visit her," he said. He knew it would only piss her off more, but she deserved to know to whom his loyalties belonged.

"Are you sleeping with her?"

"What? Of course not!" Why on Earth would she think that? He'd never slept with Emily in all their years of friendship. "And I never have," he added, before she could ask.

Danni's face settled into a pout, and she crossed her arms under her breasts. "Why do you like her?"

He didn't expect that. "Uh, well she's a good person."

"A good person? The woman who abandoned me when I was a child, the woman who dropped me off with a woman I'd never met before, and left while I was sleeping, left me there like I was garbage to be tossed away, she's a good person?"

"I don't know who your mother was back then, but the woman I know, she's a good person." When Danni didn't object, he continued. "And she's smart. Uh, we play chess a lot, and Go, and poker. She's the only one that can beat me chess."

"But you're a genius. You said so."

Spencer shrugged. "She's very good at chess."

Danni turned to the ocean, and didn't speak for several minutes. He just let her have the time she needed, and focused on Manhattan, which grew larger and clearer as the ferry boat drew closer. She didn't speak again until they were almost at South Ferry terminal.

"Does she have kids?"

"No," he said. "As far as I know, she never had anymore kids. She's plenty busy with all the girls."

Danni looked at him. "Girls?"

"The floor above the club your mother owns, it's been converted into bedrooms and living space for 23 girls."

"Why?" She seemed to be settling, so he readily began to relay all he knew of Haven.

"The place is always full, and she's always got a waiting list," he ended.

Danni accepted his hand as he led her off the ferry. "Why does she do it?"

Spencer didn't quite know how to answer that; he had asked her that himself once. "She told me once that it was so the girls that stay with her don't have to make the same hard decisions she had to and don't suffer the pain she suffered."

"What hard decisions? What pain?" Danni's voice was thick with disbelief and contempt.

"I didn't ask, I didn't want to pry." He paused. "Do you want me to take you to see her?"

"What? No!" Danni shrunk from her own outburst. "No. I'm not ready to see her yet."

"Then we'll go back to my hotel." Spencer wasn't about to push her, and honestly, he didn't know how Emily would handle a reunion with her daughter.

It did make him wonder. Why had Emily just abandoned the girl?


Emily was in her office, her eyes fixed on the picture of five year-old Danni. It was taken only weeks before the last day she saw her daughter. She was sitting on one of the painted horses on the carousel in Central Park, her little hands wrapped around the pole. Her brown eyes sparkled and her smile-with two teeth missing-lit up the photo. She ran a finger over the little girl's sweet little face, and sunk her teeth into her bottom lip to hold back the tears.

Danni was missing. She hadn't been seen in days. She never made it back to D.C., and Emily knew far too well the dangers the faced a young woman traveling alone. She knew too well the monsters that lurked in the darkness.

She started at the knocking and her teeth scraped her lip, breaking the skin. "Come in," Emily called while grabbing a tissue.

She held it to her lip, as Wendy poked her head inside. She opened her mouth, but then frowned at Emily's bloody tissue.

"I'm fine, I just bit my lip," she said. "What do you need?"

"Detective Jareau is here to see you." Wendy paused. "Cooper isn't with her."

"It's fine, Wendy. You can let her in."

Wendy nodded and stepped back, allowing JJ to enter the office. The blonde thanked Wendy and closed the door. She sat across from Emily, and eyed her bloody lip. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, just bit my lip. What's going on? Where's Cooper?"

"He didn't come with, doesn't even know I'm here."

"Why?" Emily's red flags went up, something was not right with this visit.

"Because, we have to ask you hard questions, and he likes you too much to do that."

"What hard questions do you want to ask me, Detective?"

"What you're hiding for starters."

Emily dabbed at the last bit of blood, threw away the tissue, and leaned back at her desk. "What makes you think I'm hiding something?"

"You changed your name, and no one seems to know who or where that little girl is, including Cooper." JJ tilted her head toward the photo of Danni.

"You're one to talk about hiding things, Detective."

JJ smirked. "You think I'm hiding something?"

"JJ, I've had girls coming and going from here for a decade. You think I don't know that look in your eyes? You don't think I've seen that look in every abused and broken child that's come through here over the years?"

"I wasn't abused as a child." She looked smug, as if she'd won that point.

Emily smiled. "I didn't say you were a child at the time."

The detective looked away, her lips pressed together and eyes on the floor. Her knuckles were slowly beginning to turn white, as she gripped her hands fiercely.

"I didn't mean to upset you," Emily said.

JJ turned back, eyes hard and cold. "Do you know why I came to New York?"

"Escaping."

"Yeah, actually. But not what you think. He's dead."

"Your husband?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I was only 21 when I got married. It wasn't meant to be like that, but I…I completed fucked up my Achilles tendon while I was at college, and I couldn't play anymore, so they took my soccer scholarship. Without the scholarship I couldn't afford to go to school, so I went back to the smallest town in the world. I lived with my parents, got a job as a deputy, and took night classes. He was a deputy too, Brent. We dated and got married young, and bought a little house. That's when it started. He was the greatest guy in town, everyone loved him, but when he was home, I was in Hell. We were together for five years when he got promoted to Sheriff, and it got really bad after that, because he knew he could do anything and I couldn't stop him. One night, he came at me, and I was still wearing my service weapon. I killed him with one shot, but I kept firing until it was empty."

"And the town didn't believe that he was abusive."

JJ scoffed, but her eyes were glassy. "Not even my parents. Though the county attorney did, so I wasn't arrested. But I still became the bitch that killed the best guy in the world. So, I left."

"I'm sorry."

"I hated that damn town anyway."

Emily inhaled and passed JJ the photo of Danni. "That's my daughter. Danni. She was five there, and that was almost 15 years ago."

JJ looked up at her, mouth agape. "Jesus, how old were you when you had her?"

"Almost 16."

JJ glanced back at the photo, but not for long. "What happened to her?"

"Shortly after I took that photo, my mother got custody of her, and I haven't seen her since."

"But how?"

"My mother had lined up people to adopt Danni after she was born, so I ran away days before my due date. I changed my name so she couldn't find me. I had Danni here in New York, but the money I had didn't last long. When you're a 16 year-old mother it's hard to find work."

Something seemed to click for JJ. "You became a prostitute."

The way she said it, it sounded like a transformation, and maybe it was. Once you do that kind of work, you can never really go back to the person you were.

"Yeah. I needed to buy diapers and clothes and food, and keep a roof over our heads. I worked on the streets mostly, until I got a job as a escort. It didn't last long though, because that's hard to do when you have a kid. One week, Danni was sick, really sick and I had to be home with her. But after a few days, I couldn't not work anymore, we needed the money, so I invited some of my regulars to my apartment. I kept Danni in her room, and told her not to come out until I said she could. That worked for the first day, then a regular sent over a friend. He saw Danni coming back from the bathroom." Emily felt her entire jaw grow tight. "He asked me how much. I told him that she wasn't for sale, and he decided he'd just take what we wanted. I fought him off, and threw him out, but that scared the hell out of me."

"I bet."

"I realized that I couldn't protect her in the life we were leading, so I decided to go home. I packed our bags and went to my mother's house. Everything was fine until I told her what I'd been doing for money. Then she told me that I couldn't stay. Danni could, but I couldn't." She inhaled. "So, it was either I take my daughter back to a life that wasn't safe for her, or I leave her with my mother until I could give her a better life."

"You chose to protect her."

"Yeah, and my mother made sure that I haven't seen or spoken to her since."

"I'm sorry, Emily. You must miss her a lot."

"There is no pain comparable to losing your child." She shook herself. "But none of that will help you find the person killing these girls."

"But, if he's targeting Haven and you, it does give me important information. It tells me why you built this place."

"You think he's targeting Haven?" That was the last thing she needed right now, for a killer to be targeting her girls.

"Maybe. Can you think of anyone this place has seriously pissed off over the years?"

"What, you mean besides the pimps, drug dealers and abusive boyfriends, fathers, uncles, mothers, and others?"

"Well, do any of them in particular stand out?"

Emily frowned as she thought. "Well, there was one pimp who threatened to rape me to death a couple years ago."

JJ's eyebrows kissed her forehead. "He sounds charming."

"Oh very. He goes by Ro-Me-O."

"Seriously?"


So finally some answers that I know many of you have been waiting for, though it's still going to be a little while until the anticipated reunion between Emily and Danni. However, I believe Morgan/Prentiss shippers will enjoy the next couple chapters. :) Do to the holiday there might not be an update next weekend, and I plan to start posting another chaptered story soon (that I had promised to someone), so updating on this one will likely slow down. Thank you all so much for the reviews on the last chapter and thank you for reading and whoever does, reviewing this chapter. And Happy Thanksgiving to my readers in the US.