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Don't believe in coincidences
"Morgan, stop it!" Emily warned him sternly, while pouring a cup of coffee, "You are becoming paranoid and you know that. So don't make me regret telling you about the rose."
Derek tried to voice his concern about her resolution to pass by her place before going to work, but the stunning vision of Emily wearing just his T-shirt considerably inhibited his ability to debate. He raised one finger in protest and found himself opening and closing his mouth repeatedly without producing any sound, like a fish. After filling his eyes with the view, he looked at her eyes, catching an amused and absolutely aware of the vantage point expression and commented "This is not fair play, Prentiss".
Emily laughed at his surrender and once sobered tried again to reason "Honestly Derek, even in the case she was monitoring me in some way, what can she do? It's not like she lives next door and she jumps on me as soon as I cross the door"
"Well up to now she proved to be full of surprises, so I wouldn't take the risk so lightly" he replied serious, noticing that both were accurately avoiding saying her name.
"Then what do you suggest? That I carry a babysitter around all the time, until we find her? Or maybe you can put me in a jail and throw the key away so you're sure she won't get to me" she objected stubbornly.
Finally Morgan gave up "Fine, but if I don't see you walking into the bullpen within a reasonable time, I'll come and look for you. Clear?"
"Yes, sir" she mocked him in return.
Trying to dissuade him from being overprotective was the only way to control her fear, and it was working; nonetheless parting from him was almost painful. Their relationship had experienced a lot of bumpy and complicated turns over the last months, but despite the difficult situation the previous night had been perfect and it seemed now that even a blow of wind could compromise again their fragile but precious equilibrium. She tried someway to seal their renewed commitment with a long, passionate kiss and left his house headed to her apartment to change clothes and get ready for the day, and for the second round of questions from the other team members.
Luke, the doorkeeper stopped her as soon as she crossed the hall "Ms Prentiss, Ms Prentiss wait!"
She turned with a smile, that boy was constantly in a good mood, never intruding and always ready to help, it was impossible not to like him "Hi Luke, how are you?"
"Oh, very good actually. Thank you for asking Ms Prentiss" he greeted her "Sorry for stopping you, but there's a letter for you. It came through yesterday with priority mail and I figured it was urgent.."
Emily grabbed the rectangular envelope and recognized the logo of the hospital; they had been really fast in turning in the results of her blood tests "Thank you very much Luke. It is important indeed so you did well in stopping me" she reassured him heading toward the elevator, but suddenly she had a second thought and went back on her steps "Hei Luke, maybe you can help me with something else"
"Sure" the boy wore a serious, professional expression.
"Did someone ask about me or try to enter my apartment lately? Some unfamiliar faces, maybe phone or internet technicians?" she knew Luke's discretion but also how good he was at remembering faces.
He didn't need time to think "No. Not to your apartment, but there was this one guy who went to fix Ms Bauerman's phone and yesterday at the news they said that he's dead. His wife killed him and then killed herself. I was upset because my friend Lily, who is also Ms Bauerman's nurse, walked him into the apartment.. The very moment I saw him I knew he was dodgy, with all those tattoos and his scruffy look…"
Was it another situation Emily would have pointed out that in most cases the scruffy look is not necessarily a good indicator of criminal behaviour, but this time she was too busy in keeping on breathing. How many homicide-suicides there can be during the same day in the same town? And how likely is it that the woman who tried to frame me, is the wife of the telephone technician who worked into my neighbour's apartment? This only question hammering in her mind.
"Did your friend Lily have trouble with this guy?" she asked then focusing again on Luke.
"Not that I'm aware of. She is a very nice woman, too bad you've never met each other, being neighbours."
"Is she at home now?"
"Ehm, no. She's taking the morning off. Ms Bauermann is sleeping and won't need her until lunch time"
Emily stayed silent for a moment, then she got closer and lowered her voice looking the boy straight in the eyes "Luke, what I am going to tell you needs to remain strictly confidential. You understand?"
The doorkeeper, his eyes wide in a mix of fear and curiosity, nodded and instinctively leaned toward her.
"The FBI is carrying on an investigation on that phone guy. He might be responsible for a series of crimes. I can't give you the insight but there's the chance that instead of fixing the phone he installed cameras in order to spy on the people living in their apartments."
"Oh my goodness!" he panicked "Poor Lily, and poor Ms Bauerman"
Emily knew that what she was about to request wasn't exactly by the book, and that strictly speaking there wasn't any open investigation on Brian Vernon, not yet at least, but all these coincidences were starting to get on her nerves "Please Luke, stay calm and listen to me" she continued "now, I could call my office and explain the situation; in that case they will send some experts from the lab, the police, the CSI and probably Lily and Ms Bauermann will have to move to a hotel room for few days to clear the house from bugs and cameras… Or…"
"Or?" Luke pressed, his face had turned pale and alarmed at the idea of the commotion that an invasion of cops and feds would have caused in the building, not to mention the complaints and the questions everybody would address him with.
"Or before jumping to conclusions and create troubles to the whole condo, you could open the door for me and let me check if everything is ok. If you want you can try to get a hold of Lily on the phone, I'm sure she won't mind giving up her free morning to do this.." For some reason Emily didn't have a good feeling about this Lily, maybe because the woman knew Bryan Vernon, or because she was becoming paranoid.
Luke reluctantly juggled with the idea of contacting Lily, then he looked at Emily "You will just take a look, right? It will be a question of minutes, right?" he nervously asked.
"Just come and go. It will be our secret" Emily reassured.
The apartment was silent and motionless when Luke opened the door "Wait here" she stopped him at the entrance.
"Ms Bauermann! Ms Bauermann, this is Emily Prentiss, your negihbour. I'm coming in"
No answer.
Emily remembered some conversations she had with the old woman, a skinny, frail lady but with very energetic and witty manners. She used to meet her a lot before she got sick, but just now she recalled she hadn't seen her in the past few months.
The house was dark and dusty, if this Lily lived there she was sure doing a crappy work as housekeeper. Emily inspected the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, the master bedroom. No signs of Ms Bauermann anywhere. Finally she got to the guest bedroom were Lily likely lived. There was an opened laptop on the desk, the desktop image portrayed a house into the countryside in autumn, surrounded by the warm colors of the trees turning yellow and red, enhanced by the golden light of the sun just before the dusk. There was a flashing icon on the right corner of the screen, Emily clicked on it and the house in the countryside was replaced by a window split into four parts, three of them being a view respectively of her living room from two different standpoints and her bedroom, the fourth part looked like a chat window but no one was online at the moment. She reduced the icon and focused on breathing for a minute, almost shaking with rage and horror. Inhale: all the sleepless nights, all the moments in loneliness and all the ones in company. Exhale: The satisfaction of seeing the effect of the drugs taking over, of controlling every step of someone else's life, of tearing apart someone else's life.
She looked around the room, beside the desk there was a basket full of prescriptions among which a recurring name hit her attention, Sinemet. She took a picture with her phone, as well as of the laptop and of the room. When she turned around she noticed a big white box near the window, it was covered by a stole and at first glance she mistook it for a sideboard. Getting closer she realized it was emitting a low continuous buzzing noise, it was a freezer. She moved closer, removed the stole and lifted the lid.
"Miss Prentiss" Luke tentatively called leaning inside the apartment but not having the courage to cross Prentiss' orders.
Right after Emily came out of the apartment with a dark face, "Miss Prentiss, are you okay?" he asked alarmed.
Emily didn't answer, her mind too busy in establishing connections, jumping backward and forward in the attempt to match the pieces of the puzzle and trying to make sense of the big picture despite several parts were still missing.
"Miss Prentiss, what happened? Is Ms Bauermann okay? Do we need to call someone, a doctor maybe? Or Lily?" Luke shyly tried again to have an answer.
"Miss Bauermann's not going anywhere, and there's no need to bother Lily " she suddenly stopped and turned to face him "nor to tell her about this" she moved her hand between her and him, referring to their secret intrusion into the apartment "I don't see any immediate risk for Miss Bauermann or Lily, but I would like you to come with me to the FBI and to answer some questions"
Luke froze "Do I need to call a lawyer?" he mumbled in a terrified expression.
"No" she smiled back, relaxing her expression "Luke, you see everyone who enters or leave the building and you have a great eye, I think you might have seen something relevant but you're not aware of it. This is the reason why I want to talk to you further, to see if you can help us out. Of course you can refuse, but I believe your contribution could be crucial to this investigation" she said delicately laying a hand on his shoulder.
"Well in that case, it's a pleasure to help the FBI, Miss, ehm Agent Prentiss" he replied flattered and proud at the idea of helping the FBI.
Morgan was pacing nervously in the conference room, while the rest of the team was gathering to discuss about Emily's attempted set up for murder.
"Hei, mon cher. What's the matter? You seem a caged animal" Garcia approached him, while the others where slowly taking a seat around the table.
"Hei baby girl. I'm just worried about Emily. She hasn't showed up yet and…"
"Uh, there she is" the analyst pointed the entrance of the bullpen, their brunette colleague entering with a guy in uniform.
"Well, it's about damn time" Derek addressed Emily with a withering look while walking toward her "Where the hell have you been? And.. wait a minute. Is that the doorkeeper of your condo?"
"Sorry. At home and visiting my neighbour's apartment. And Yes." She bubbled out in sequence, then directed to the young man "Hei Luke. I have to brief my team now, why don't you take a seat and wait for me. I'll be back as soon as I can"
Luke complied quietly.
Then again addressing Derek "Is the team gathered?"
"In the conference room, we were about to start" he followed her, his worry growing by the second.
As soon as Emily entered the conference room everybody greeted her with warm smiles and welcome-back hugs, "Welcome back stranger! Glad to see you again on the right side of the law" Garcia squeezed her in a prolonged hug, "You scared us this time" she commented cheerfully letting go of her, but her smile faded when she noticed the nervous expression on Emily's face.
"What's wrong?" Hotch voiced the curiosity and the concern of the team.
She went straight to the point "I think I'm starting to put the pieces together. The attempted set up it's Rose Lawson's work, maybe she's got an accomplice or it's just an alias. I also think I found her".
To be continued...
The editing on this chapter could have been better, sorry. But I really wanted to update the story now, and I've just moved to another country, apartment and time zone for the nth time.
Hence the poor writing. Hope you can enjoy it at the same ...