A/N: Thanks for still catching up with this story :) Reviews are nice ^^ I hope you'll enjoy this one.
Chapter IX
Two days earlier
"Hey. They are looking for you." A voice with a familiar accent sounded from the other end of the phone line. The voice was just a whisper.
"What do you mean, they're looking for me? How do they know?" The voice belonging to Julian Peters sounded, more panicked than he wanted.
"The FBI. They asked some questions about you. I lied. I told them I didn't know anything. But they're looking for you. You have to hide." The voice sounded worried, concerned. The person on the other side of the line cared about the man.
"They won't find me. They don't know my name."
"You don't know what they're capable of. They tracked you down. I assure you." The voice grew more panicked, as if the person wanted to protect the man. "Please, hide. Go away from where you are. Hide, and don't move."
There was a long silence at the other side of the line. They both did not speak for a couple of seconds, minutes maybe.
"Okay. I will hide." He decided. "But only because I love you."
"I love you too. I'm just worried, okay? Just hide."
Back to the present
"Someone must have tipped him off, told him we were looking for him." Prentiss said.
"That would be the only explanation." Morgan added.
"Who knows were investigating these murders?" Hotch asked, looking for the rest. "We only talked to the sister, but it's not legitimate that she told our unsub that we were looking for him."
"So it must be one of our persons questioned." Reid concluded. "But that doesn't make sense, because none of them knew him for real." He narrowed his eyes, frowning, pondering. "Unless.. One of them lied. Of course."
"Who would do something like that?" Morgan asked.
"I'll call Garcia. Ask if she can pull up any phone records to the States of the people we interrogated." JJ said, before she walked away to make said phone call.
Prentiss thought of the people they had asked questions in the Netherlands. She tried to remember when her gut told her someone was not talking the truth, who had been lying. They were all very weird, but she had that behavior attributed to the fact that they were all a little autistic, if not really autistic at all. They all had in common that they avoided eye contact, but she figured that was just something mathematicians do.
A few hours later, Garcia called again, JJ putting her on speaker phone.
"Well, I checked all phone records of the people you questioned, and none of them made a phone call to the States. So I tried Stevens' phone, and he had an incoming call from the Netherlands two days ago. So I tracked that one down, but it belongs to a payphone."
"Did you f-.." Morgan started, but Garcia cut him off.
"The payphone is at least a mile from all of the houses of your persons questioned. This one knew what he was doing." Garcia said.
"Or she." Morgan added.
"Yeah, right, so I checked if some of them had purchased any tickets to the States the last months, and two of them did. But one of them went to California, with his parents. And the other went to New York by himself." She said.
"What's the latter's name?" JJ asked.
"Pieter Baan." Garcia said.
"That doesn't make sense. He was a friend of Van Vliet's." Morgan frowned.
"Maybe they'd gotten into a fight, or something." Prentiss suggested.
"Garcia, can you find out some things about Stevens' youth?" Hotch asked.
"I'm on it. Garcia out." And the line went dead.
"So, we've got nothing." Reid concluded. "Pieter Baan doesn't fit our profile, so we can rule him out." He paused, trailing off in thoughts again. "There must be something we've missed." He mumbled, looking at the photos, and the rest of the information they had. "Stevens grows up in the Netherlands, and changes his name as soon as he goes to the university. There must have been a reason. After, he moves to the same state as our fourth victim. And he knows about our investigation, and runs. I highly doubt he changed his name and moved to the States for two different reasons."
"We have to dig in his youth. We have to find out what made him change his name." Hotch stated.
They were sharing thoughts on the case, when JJ heard a familiar voice behind her. "JJ!" She turned around, and faced her boyfriend.
"Will, what are you doing here?" She knew she did not sound very enthusiastic, but that was how she felt. She was not enthusiastic.
"I thought I'd visit my lovely girlfriend." He grinned as he walked towards her, kissing her on her lips, which cut Emily to the quick. She had not liked them together before, but since they had kissed the night prior, she had become even more jealous than at first. And she hated that she was jealous, because that was a feeling she would do anything for to suppress. But she just could not. She felt guilty though, although she knew it took two persons to kiss. And JJ had not felt anything, had she?
"Will, I'm working on a case." JJ said, a little indignant. She did not want the Southern cop here. She felt a little ashamed of what she did last night. She betrayed the man. She betrayed his trust. Although, she did not feel guilty. And that made it even worse. Did she really doubt her love for this man? Did she really think she did not want to be with this man? Raise a child together? Her eyes caught a certain brunette at the other side of the table, but she could not read her mind. The walls around her did not let her through.
But this time, she did not have to. She knew how the older BAU member thought about her relationship with Will. She had not downright admit it, but she did not approve. JJ could see that. She did not approve of Will. Or did she approve of Will, but just not her relationship with him? Not the fact that she was having his baby? And if that was true, why would she not tell her? Even better, why would she not approve? The two of them had been friends for a year or so, but it was not that they were best friends.
But yet, she asked her about her relationship, and in return Emily had told her she was bisexual, so apparently, there was this kind of bond of trust. She did not know what that meant. Friends mostly did not kiss. But this was just for experimentation, right? JJ thought. She had always wondered what it would be like, and Emily was just there at the right time. Or the wrong time, depending on the point of view. But she did not trust herself in this. She had liked it more than she should have.
When she was a teenager, she had more than once felt something for female friends of hers, but she had just thought it was friendship. She had thought that was normal when you were close. And she dated guys, handsome guys. And she kept telling herself it was the guys she liked; not her friends. Not the cute girl next door. And not some girl that asked her out when she was in some club. She had never tried something with a girl, because she thought she was straight. Or actually, supposed to be straight.
Some part of her kept telling her no, but she always suppressed that feeling. She had learnt to live with the fact that she dated guys, although she thought women were much more attractive to her. But it always felt that something had been missing. She could love a man, but not like a lover. More like a brother, or a good friend. Never more. That was probably why she had never been in long-term relationships, until she met Will. The man she had been seeing for over a year and a half now. The man whose baby she carried.
The distance had made her stay with him. She was not smothered by his presence. The biggest of time, he stayed in New Orleans, and she would be wherever she were. That worked for her. The thought of him living with her made her want to flee, run away as far as she could. She would fly to another continent, if that made her problems go away, but she could not. She could not hurt the man. Somehow, she had the decency to stay with him, for him. She did not want to break the man's heart. And she did not want to break the heart of their unborn child.
"JJ, what's wrong with you? I've been talking to you, and you're just ignoring me." Will squeezed JJ's hand to draw her attention. She snapped up from her thoughts.
"What?"
"Why are you so absent-minded?" Will asked her, looking into her eyes. She could not lie to him. She could not. But she could not tell him the truth either. She could not tell her she was worrying about her relationship with him. Not in front of her colleagues, her family. In the corner of her eye, she saw Emily eyeing her, as if she was assessing the situation.
"We have a hard case." Emily said. "Little sleep, long hours." Emily noticed Morgan eyeing her suspiciously. This case had not been harder than others, or particularity difficult in any other way, than the fact that they could not find the unsub.
"Yeah, I guess I'm just tired." JJ took up the lie, sighing, trying to feign fatigue. She got on her feet to make her statement.
"Hey, but I have a room in a hotel a few blocks away. Aren't you coming with me?" Will asked, frowning, and a little disappointed.
"But all my stuff is upstairs." JJ uttered, not wanting to come with the man. She did not want to be in his presence. Not when she had so much to think about. She just did want to be in the same room with him, alone, not without Emily. Wait, what? She thought. Well, it was only logical to think this way. Emily was her friend, who just helped her out of a situation, she did not want to confront.
"I'll get them. You just wait here." Will suggested, averting his gaze of his girlfriend, and facing the brunette. "Can you show me your room?" He just assumed that they were sharing a room. Emily did not want to, but she owed to the man, so she nodded, rising to her feet herself. From the corner of her eye, she saw JJ eyeing her concerned. She wanted to join the twosome, in all their awkwardness, but she could not tell to go with them, because that would raise suspicions with the Southern man. So Emily found herself walking the man upstairs, mostly in silence.
If only he knew. She thought. If only he knew he was walking the woman who kissed his girlfriend last night, to the room where the whole thing had taken place. He would kill me if he knew. He loves her. He truly does. And JJ chose Will. It would not be fair to him to let JJ cheat on him. He did not deserve this. She felt sick to the stomach. She felt so guilty for letting the blonde kissing her. Not only in her favor, but also in his. She could not lock out her dreams about the blonde, and the man next to her deserved to be treated better than this.
She had to talk to JJ.
