My apologies for the delay. I mentioned at the beginning of the last chapter that I hate when people drag out their excuses. In that spirit, I'll try to keep this brief. I've been struggling with a series of minor medical issues lately. They're making it difficult for me to actually sit at my computer and write. Hopefully, they won't be awful, but I think it's going to take 2-3 weeks for each update. I'll try to keep the time between new chapters as short as possible though.
Disclaimer: I bought the show, guys. I mean, really. You totally believe that, right?
Hotch and Emily were silent during their drive back to London; neither knew what to say. Without really providing any detail, Natalie Price had blown to hell every theory anyone had ever had about The Collector. Both agents knew that any further revelations Natalie made would fundamentally alter their perceptions of the unsubs they sought. Her words had hinted at an unexpected and horrific depravity on a level no one had ever seen.
But there wouldn't be any more details from Natalie today. Shocked by the information she'd provided, neither Hotch nor Emily had been able to respond in the parlor. Natalie had seized the silence as an opportunity to ask them to leave, claiming fatigue and a headache. Hotch didn't doubt the assertion. The young woman had been pale and drawn, as if the unburdening of that single nightmarish secret had leached the health and vigor from while they watched. Hotch only hoped that Natalie didn't misconstrue either agent's shocked silence as censure for whatever she may have done to survive her captivity.
As Natalie escorted them to the door, the giant dog still hovering at her side, Emily recovered enough presence of mind to request to return the next afternoon. Trapped by the unexpected request, Natalie had not been able to find a way to refuse. She'd reluctantly asked them to return for lunch the next day. Both wondered if they would be let through the door tomorrow once Natalie had had time to collect herself. Certainly, Mrs. Adams would bar them from entering if Natalie told her not to let them in. The agents crossed their fingers and hoped that her manners and promise would prevent her from withdrawing her invitation to lunch.
The trip back to London was taking longer than anticipated. The pair had been waylaid by a serious traffic accident. Hotch wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but the radio announced something involving "lorries" and a resulting spill of some sort on the roadway. The pair was nearly idling their way back to London. For the most part, apart from the radio updates, the trip had been quiet and both Hotch and Emily allowed themselves to be caught up in their own thoughts on Natalie Price's disclosure.
Eventually, though, Emily needed to voice her thoughts. They were crowding too much in her head; she needed to get them out or they'd swim around in her consciousness until she was IN bed… when they'd conjure images that kept her awake long after she needed to be asleep. Slipping comfortably back into old, familiar patterns, she turned to Hotch.
"When Abigail was first recovered, did she ever mention anything that hinted at this?" she asked.
Startled out of the silence in the car, Hotch furrowed his brow in thought. He was caught off guard by the question, but was able to admit that he appreciated the distraction. "No. I was just building trust with Abigail when our conversations ended. She didn't talk much back then. I think the first time I talked to her, she didn't say anything at all."
"What did she say when she finally spoke?" Emily asked, curious at how a man like Hotch, who seemed so imposing and domineering in his professional life could win the trust of a frightened, traumatized girl like Abigail Lentz.
Hotch smiled a bit at the memory. Abigail's eyes had been enormous in her too-thin face, her skin pale and bruised. Her hair was still dirty and matted as she'd refused to take a shower and refused to let anyone bathe her. Hotch suspected that she didn't want to remove her clothes in front of anyone, that she didn't want to be caught so vulnerable. She'd been examined when she'd arrived at the hospital, but she'd been nearly catatonic at that point. Hotch wasn't even sure if she knew where she was or what was happening around her. But a mile-wide streak of stubbornness had started to emerge by the time Hotch was able to talk to her.
"Initially, she said she wanted something to eat – 'I'm hungry,'" Hotch remembered.
"That's it?" Emily asked, surprised. Generally, survivors of such crimes asked about their captors, wanted reassurance that they were finally safe.
"Yeah. Her stomach growled and she said she was hungry. I'm not even sure she was talking to me. It was my second visit with her."
"What happened?"
"I told her I might be able to get her a snack – but the doctors would probably want to talk to her first."
"What did they say?"
"Nothing. She stopped talking, refused to acknowledge or respond to them in any way. They started talking about using food as an incentive to talk."
"They weren't going to feed her?" Emily exclaimed in horror.
"Maybe. They never really got to make the call. I put my foot down on that and so did the nurses. Plus, I started sneaking in pudding. Abigail liked that," he recounted. There was an odd fondness in him for the memories of Abigail and the pudding he cups. On one hand, there had been an underlying sweetness and innocence to the girl's enjoyment of the dessert. On the other was the physical reminder of how horribly she'd suffered in captivity.
"Did she ever tell you anything substantive?" Emily wondered.
"Some. It was in small pieces."
"Like what?"
"That there were others, more girls than the ones we found in the woods."
"When did she tell you that?"
"Because she was talking to me, it was decided that I should tell her that we'd found the other girls in the woods. It was right after that. I had the file with me and she asked if I had any photos."
"You let her see photos of the bodies?"
"Yes. She asked to see them. She went through each picture of the girls, sometimes touching their faces. She was crying, but I don't think she knew it. When she got through the stack, she handed them back and told me there were other girls, ones that had died before she'd escaped."
"Did she know how many?"
"Not really. She thought maybe three others, but that was just since she had been there. Abigail told me there were probably more from before?"
"Before?"
"Before she was taken."
"Did she tell you anything else?"
"That it was cold and dark. And damp… she said her skin didn't feel like it was sloughing off anymore."
"But no hints of what she told us today?"
"No. Nothing."
For a moment the car was quiet again as they inched their way into the city. But again, the silence made Emily uncomfortable with her thoughts.
"How do you want to approach interviewing Natalie tomorrow?" Emily asked.
Hotch wondered if she realized they were both switching back and forth between Natalie and Abigail. Abigail was the victim, the sweet girl who'd been stolen and brutalized. Natalie was the survivor, a young woman cobbled together from the ashes of a horrific past. She was someone who lived every day under the burden of long-kept secrets of her captivity. In a very real sense, Abigail Lentz had died after her recovery and Natalie had been born. It should have been an irreconcilable dichotomy, but Abigail had needed to be Natalie. Not just for personal protection and privacy, but to continue living beyond what had happened to her.
"Based on what we know about her, I think it's safe to assume that she's going to resist answering questions about what happened. To a certain extent it will be deliberate… but there's more that will be unconscious. She's lived so much of her life denying what happened, guarding secrets of what happened. I don't know that she's going to be able to voluntarily push past that wall."
"How much can we push her before she completely shuts down?" Emily asked. "The last time she was subjected to a rough interrogation, she essentially collapsed," Emily reminded him.
"We'll have to watch the tone of the interview. Before, the instructions were to get information from her by any means necessary, including accusations and threats. She'll be able to hold up to difficult questions, so long as we're careful not to seem like we're accusing her of anything."
"She'll expect that," Emily mused. "After what she told us today, she'll expect us to accuse her again."
"I know."
"Hotch…"
When she didn't finish her sentence, Hotch looked over at her. It was disconcerting. Emily was driving, but sitting in, for him anyway, the passenger seat. "What is it?"
"I just wonder if you realize… everything she must be feeling right now," Emily said quietly. "She isn't just a victim. She's a survivor and at this point we don't know everything that she did to live through what had happened. There's no way she put everything behind her, not really. But she was living well with her secrets. This is going to be more difficult for her than I think you know."
Hotch was quiet for a moment, absorbing her words, gauging how best to respond. The tension in the car built until both agents could feel it creeping up their shoulder blades.
"I don't want to hurt her, Emily. I've never wanted that. But the man who took her, who took and killed all those other girls, who's kidnapping and murdering young women now, he's never going to stop. Until he's caught or he's dead, he will continue to kidnap, torture, and kill women. As much as I want to let Natalie Price live the rest of her life in peace, I have to think about those women and girls who are dead and all the ones we could prevent from suffering the same fate. I can't let my sympathy for Abigail or Natalie interfere with that."
"This isn't your fault, Hotch," Emily told him.
"What?"
"Come on. I know you. I know what you're thinking. You're sitting there blaming yourself. You think if you'd have interviewed Abigail Lentz more, pushed harder, you would have gotten more out of her, that you'd have found The Collector and none of those women would be dead."
"You weren't there, Emily. I didn't push her at all! I let my pity for a wounded child overcome my sense of responsibility and look what happened! Another group of women are dead because I let my feelings get in the way of doing my job!"
Hotch's outburst was met with silence. He closed his eyes, attempting to regain control over his temper. He hadn't realized that the blame was so close to the surface. A dozen years ago, when their orders had come down demanding a harsh interrogation of Abigail Lentz, Hotch knew they were going to lose The Collector. And that, as a result, more people would die. All these years later, his nightmares about this case were proving to be terrifyingly real.
At the next exit, Emily pulled the car off the over-crowded highway. As soon as she found a spot, she parked the car and turned to her former boss. "Hotch, look at me." She waited until he opened his eyes and looked at her. "This is not your fault. What happened to that girl, what happened to all of those girls, is not your fault. The only person to blame is the man you took them."
When he didn't say anything, she continued, her voice was absolute assurance. "You did everything you could. You were the only one she trusted back then. According to her file, she wasn't even talking to her parents. But she talked to you. Do you think that if she didn't remember that trust, didn't remember how you treated her all those years ago, she would have talked to us today? Do you think we'd be talking to her again tomorrow? It's because of your work, the trust you built that we're even getting the opportunity to go after this guy again."
Hotch closed his eyes briefly, holding on to those earnest words. He prayed she was right, prayed he would be able to build on whatever trust still remained between him and the girl who used to be Abigail Lentz.
When he nodded, Emily put the car in gear and pulled back onto the roadway. Tomorrow was going to be a long, terrible day. They needed to get back to her office and plan how best to ease the information they so desperately needed from Natalie Price.
Hotch crawled into the bed in his hotel room at nearly 1:00 a.m. After a brief video conference with the BAU team, dominated mostly by everyone chatting with Emily, the duo had re-reviewed all of the case files associated with The Collector. They'd identified at least two more potential victims that they'd need to question Natalie about. Most importantly, they'd determined a plan of interrogation that they both hoped would get the information they needed without sacrificing Natalie's hard-earned peace.
He just remembered to set the alarm before falling asleep. Emily would be back to pick him up at 9:00 a.m. Hotch groaned aloud at the thought before giving up to exhaustion.
