Disclaimer: I am not making any money from this writing exercise, blah blah blah. Please don't sue. As usual, reviews are welcome and encouraged.
Author Note: Trying to wrap this up within the next couple of chapters. Thanks for sticking with me through this story. I appreciate all feedback, all of which makes my monkey very happy.
Special thanks again goes to my ever faithful beta reader, Tracy-Face.
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Forging Connections
By littlelights
Chapter Eleven
Lysowsky: In my world, there's no such thing as a control problem. There is controlled and there is dead.
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It was early morning when he'd finished his first cup of coffee. The welcome rush of caffeine had fueled him through the first profile consultation. By the time he'd forgotten about his half-empty cup, the cubicles inside the BAU bullpen were half full with agents settling into the towering paperwork stacked in their mailboxes. When the clock read 8:50 a.m., the consult paperwork was completed and ready to be delivered to Saginaw, Michigan.
Stretching his locked muscles, Jason Gideon tucked the envelope with the finished profile into his out going mailbox and reached for his frigid cup of coffee. He grimaced slightly, wondering if he should have taken up Penelope Garcia's suggestion of having a cup-sized hot plate on his desk. But he figured since he'd survived nearly 30 years without another fickle appliance on his desk, he could probably hash his way through another decade without one.
Gideon walked his coffee cup to the communal kitchen sink, his thoughts preoccupied with the semantics of his consult and a new psychology journal article. Snatches of conversation floated from the bullpen, but the voices of his team members caught his attention. Derek Morgan and Spencer Reid were sharing a few verbal parries regarding the cultural pronunciation of 'bombastic' when the conversation took an abrupt turn.
"Hey, JJ!" Morgan greeted. "How was your weekend?"
Gideon's gaze switched curiously to the entrance of his younger team member. She was especially striking today. Her smile was long and broad, and her trim bronze-hued suit was an attractive contrast to the long locks of her gold hair. Her poise, which was at her standard perfection, seemed to radiate a sense of grace and bone-deep joy.
Jennifer Jareau, Gideon observed, was happy and she was making sure everyone else could feel it as she walked through the room.
She smiled at Reid and gave Morgan a soft punch on the shoulder. "It was great, thanks."
"What, no details?" Morgan interjected, "JJ, you're going to have to do better than that."
"Not when I'm on the clock, Morgan."
"You've got ten minutes." Her co-worker replied. "Give us a little something so we can settle this betting pool Anderson started." He gestured to the tall red-haired man stuffing papers in a file box. "I've got twenty bucks riding on this thing. You tell us what happened, and I might cut you in for half."
That characteristic eyebrow raised slightly upward, not enough to kill the moment, but enough to get her point across. "I didn't know my reputation was worth a measly ten dollars, Morgan." She began walking away when she threw her last comment over her shoulder. "At least Spence would've offered up half the bet and volunteered to pick up coffee for me for a week."
Morgan chuckled when he looked at Reid, who had seemed to have gone a slight shade of red.
Gideon found the corners of his mouth curving upward in a lopsided smile. He watched as JJ walked to her office, a serene look on her face. For a moment, their eyes met. She flashed him a warm grin and a small nod. Jason returned the gesture, noticing how her cheeks pinked over as she continued her way through the bullpen. It was the blush of a woman who knew she couldn't hide her happiness from anyone, even her supervisor.
So, their JJ was in love.
It filled Gideon's chest with a welcome sort of parental warmth, which was in a way, could be slightly unprofessional. But it would be just as negligent, he reasoned, if he disregarded and cut himself off from some of the cares and concerns of his younger agents. His mentorship, which was as essential to his nature as it was to the well-being of his protégés, made him more of parent than most men would be comfortable with.
The knowledge that JJ was taking time out for herself, experiencing the world beyond the matrix of her professional life, made him quite pleased. He could see it as a victory of finding that difficult balance between who they were on the job and how they lived when their cases were finished.
It was going to be interesting, he mused, to see how it all worked out. And if his guess was correct, a couple of people might be able to see the same subtle effects it would have on her personality when each day came to a close.
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Six Months Later
Silence.
It was what she wanted, wasn't it?
To make the buzzing in her ears stop and make the world slow down for her once? The acidic smell of bleach and oxy cleaners assaulted her nose and her eyes again. Brushing aside the fumes, she slammed the empty refrigerator closed and threw the tepid dishrag into the bucket. In a rare display of frustration, poured the contents into the sink.
After abusing the dishrag with a few empty wrings, JJ threw to rag into the sink. She leaned against the kitchen counter, feeling the painful stings of anger, doubt and self-recrimination.
God, she was so tired.
She was tired and her head hurt, and she had too much frustrated energy to sit around her apartment and do nothing. Especially when one of her team members was laying in a hospital immobilized because of her.
She'd always been tough. From the time as a toddler when she tumbled down the back porch steps to the moment she pulled the trigger on her first case, JJ Jareau wasn't a simpering poppet. But everyone had their low moments, their times of weakness. And JJ was scared, because even as she had stepped past these moments, this one wasn't going anywhere. Not for three long days and however long it took a review board to judge her actions.
I did what I deemed necessary at the time. I will not break down. I will not break.
Her hands were shaking when they reached for her cell phone. She wasn't thinking when she pressed the send button. In her head, something hideous was going to pounce on her in the dark. Something dark, something with fangs, four long legs and paws. The dial tone rang once. Twice. A third time.
On the fourth ring, a weary masculine voice answered her summons. "Calling this late is a punishable offence down here."
But JJ wasn't thinking anymore. She could scarcely breathe. Her chest expanded against her will, forcing oxygen and the heavy smell of detergent into her nose and lungs. Everything in her body hurt. Her eyes closed as her brain tried to corral every thought into neat compartments.
"JJ?" Bill LaMontagne's voice poured through the headset. "Are you there?"
The first tear poured from the corner of her eye. It fell unnoticed down her cheek. She exhaled, her breath hitching as it left her lips. After a long second, her chest expanded again, keeping her alive even when one person was already dead.
"Jen? What's wrong?" Bill's voice was insistent. In his apartment several states away, he was throwing the blankets on his bed aside, turning unencumbered to the bedside lamp. Switching it on, he felt a wave of overwhelming concern rise up in his chest. He could handle just about anything life could throw at him, but a silent and non-responsive JJ was more than he could bear.
"Baby, I need you to talk to me." He cajoled, praying she was safe and not making a last ditch call at the end of a cereal killer's gun barrel. "Are you ok?"
The line remained quiet on the other side.
He pushed his rising panic aside. JJ was logical. She would do anything to remain composed, especially in the ugliest situation. Bill waited a moment, took a breath himself, and schooled his voice. It was soft, simple and direct. "Where are you? Are you in your apartment?"
The rising tension in her throat gave way to a low sob of pain. When she spoke, it was as if she was being possessed by the ghost of another woman.
"I shot someone today." She took a breath. "I didn't even aim. I just-I just-squeezed the trigger and there was a body on the floor. I put them there. On the ground."
Bill rubbed his face, a flood of emotions washing through his system. Wishing he wasn't so far away, wishing she had called him when she had gotten home. Then she wouldn't have felt so alone.
"When did this happen?"
"Yesterday."
He waited an agonizing minute, for her to force another breath from her lungs and to keep her train of thought going. The most important factor of anyone dealing with a crisis of death, hinged on giving them the time and space they needed to tell their story. The only thing he could do for his girl was to shut up and listen, and hope that it would be enough to prevent her from doing something she'd later regret.
"I'm here, sweetheart." Bill clutched his other hand into the mattress. The action grounded him, kept his thoughts from rushing past him too quickly to observe tactically. She was going to tell him. Any second. Any second now.
"I'm not breaking down," Her voice was catching on the syllables of each word. "I'm not broken."
"Nothing about you is, JJ," He replied calmly.
Another two minutes slid by. Bill found his own emotions fraying under the weight of his girlfriend's turmoil. He wasn't too proud to beg, but pleading would only relieve his mind, and not hers.
Another minute.
"I shot someone yesterday."
When her voice escaped her throat, Bill closed his eyes in a silent prayer of thanks. She wasn't too far gone. She was sticking this thing out. "Where were you when it happened?" He asked.
"In a suburb of Boston. Our unsub was targeting a specific group of people within a college prep school." Her voice was stronger now, falling back to the facts of the case. It was something familiar, and she knew it all practically by heart. "The first two victims were high school seniors, two guys who ran with a small pack of athletes."
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"The victims knew each other," Derek Morgan stated as they ran through the files on each victim at the local police station. "They were involved in the same cross country races and wrestling weight class."
"Same after school activities but different class schedules," Their supervisor added. Hotch's sharp eyes flowed through the paperwork in his hands. "Has the school reported any recent activity with group rivalries between these students or ones from another school?"
Emily Prentiss shook her head. "Nothing that the school officials are reporting."
"They're scared," Gideon noted, his demeanor was focused on the illusionary far-away space, where his mind was free to see all the sides of the situation. "These schools thrive on the patronage of their students and alumni. There's a lot of pressure to keep these killings low key and as innocuous as possible."
"These could be attention killings," Reid offered. "To not only bring a sense of justice to the unsub but for everyone else to see how a wrong has been perpetrated. Look at the way the victims were killed. A handgun at mid range, that's about ten feet away. Enough distance give the unsub a sense of control but close enough for each student to see their attacker for a few seconds before they were shot."
"Clean shots both times," Hotch added. "Calculated and uncomplicated. Both victims went down in a matter of seconds and could give nothing away as to who shot them."
"The team worked on a profile," JJ continued. "And they narrowed down their search. A person who was involved with the school in an official or auxiliary function, but the gender was hard to pin down. We interviewed staff, parents, volunteers. The information we were given wasn't adding up at first. Then the assistant principal was shot, and things finally became more concrete."
Hotch answered his phone. "Garcia, what have you found?"
"I found something of an anomaly." Penelope said, her fingers clicking away swiftly on the keyboard. "The school reported a DOA about three months ago."
"A DOA?" Hotch asked. "How'd that happen?"
"The police report is fuzzy, but the hospital record provided a bit more than the local cop shop. The local ambulance responded to a call regarding a student suicide. Here it is. Josh Lucas. The student was dead on arrival."
"What's the unusual part?"
"The police were already at the school responding to a gun scare at the school. Two students reported that they saw a gun on one of their classmates. The police record doesn't say who was accused, just that units were dispatched."
Hotch's brows furrowed with thought. "So where's the rest of the record?"
"It's been amended with information regarding the hospital response to the DOA suicide." Garcia stated. "A little strange that the police were called for a gun scare and then just happen to be around when a student commits suicide."
"What about the officers who responded to the gun scare? Where are they?"
Garcia's monitors flickered through multiple windows, bringing up the information she required for the new query. "Two officers, both transferred out of state two months ago. According to the record, school principal Edward McCall called in the gun situation."
"Who made the DOA call?" Hotch's stance told his team in the crowded room of the police station that some sort of action was imminent.
"Our latest victim. Assistant principal Ken Downs."
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"Gideon surmised the mother of the DOA victim might have a tie to the unsub. We knew that the mother had been meeting with a grief group facilitated by her sons' school councilor. Derek, Emily and Gideon were on their way to pick up the mother at her home. Hotch and I went to see the school councilor."
Bill cast a question out into the conversation. "Did she know anything?"
JJ's pause told him everything before she said another word. "She knew more than any of us gave her credit for."
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Hotch and JJ spotted their interviewee, Sally Wright walking stiffly down the far hallway of the school.
"Ms. Wright, we need a few more moments of your time." Hotch spoke first, the practiced ease of his approach allowed the school councilor the opportunity tighten her stance even more rigidly.
"I've already given your team my statement, Agent Hotchner." Wright stated flatly. "If I remember anything, I'll be sure to contact you."
"We need to know about Dora Lucas, the mother of the student who died here about three months ago." Hotch said, not allowing the younger woman to walk away from the conversation lightly. "She attended grief counseling sessions with you. Have you've seen anything unusual about her behavior lately?"
"I discontinued my work with that group some time ago."
"Why?" Hotch responded with his trademark bluntness.
Wright shifted the weight of her large handbag to the other side of her body. "I began working on an anti-bullying curriculum with three other school districts. The state board of education has considered it a priority for schools to take a stronger stance toward peer hazing and violence. The guidelines have to be initiated by each school before the next school year. I've considered it to be the school's highest priority at the moment."
"There should be more concern over the multiple deaths surrounding this school's students and staff," JJ countered, standing as Hotch's strong right hand in the conversation.
Hotch's voice never wavered. "What can you tell us about Mrs. Lucas' situation? She had to have confided or hinted at something regarding her son's death."
Wright's continence held firm, her eyes matched Hotch's characteristic coldness bite for bite. "Her son died. It was very tragic. The fact that he died while at school was heartbreaking to her."
The interview had become a battle of wills, and JJ calculated how long it would take her supervisor to slice through the broad information the councilor was feeding them. Then without warning, without any indication of conflict, the world turned upside down.
JJ saw Hotch's reaction before she heard the sound of a gun being fired. The impact of a gun slug ripping through the side of his lower back caused the senior supervisor to begin falling to the ground, his shirt acting as a poor shield from the blood exploding from the wound. Somehow, his stance faltered and the bulk of his weight fell on JJ.
In the millisecond before the two of them hit the ground, JJ saw an unassuming looking woman, a pistol in her hand, walking determinedly from an adjacent hallway. Then the impact of her body and Hotch's immobilized form meeting the floor took all precedence in her mind. Hoch was heavier and a good foot taller than JJ, and the crush of that weight made the younger woman's head bounce off the cold tile flooring with overwhelming force.
JJ's eyes watered. She saw stars, and went temporarily deaf. After what seemed like decades of silence and stillness, JJ surfaced from the momentary stupor.
"…conceited bitch!" Dora Lucas continued to hold the gun, her eyes focused on the now quivering school councilor. "You didn't do a damn thing about bulling when my boy was getting the short stick from you and the other sadistic bastards at this school!"
Her heart in her throat, JJ saw the expanse of blood flowing on her suit and on the floor. Hotch was barely conscious from the unexpected wound and the impact from falling. In a second, he had gone from the leader to becoming completely incapacitated. He hadn't worn his Kevlar vest. They rarely wore them for interviews.
JJ pressed on her supervisor's pulse, relived he alive and still breathing. He was heavy and it took a moment to push him off to see where he'd been hit. But that was as far as she could get in the process. There was still a gun wielding woman to contend with.
Dora Lucas noticed JJ's recovery. "You!" She exclaimed. "I don't need you trying anything."
"I won't." JJ sat up slowly and tried to point out the obvious, putting down a glossy layer of calm and subtle guilt for the man bleeding next to her.
The gun fired again, a bullet catching Sally Wright in the shoulder. JJ flinched, the well schooled phrases of appeasement and sympathy dying on her lips.
As the councilor sank to her knees, Dora Lucas approached the trio with a guarded wariness, keeping her attention heavily split between her quarry and the two federal agents on the ground.
"They've all lied. From the very beginning. To everyone. To me. To my son. Telling me everything was fine. That kids will be kids and they've dealt with the problem. My son never brought a gun to school. He didn't even know where to get one. Two of the other students, a few of the larger group who ganged up on my boy; they cooked the whole thing up. Josh told me how he called both of them out to his guidance councilor and the principal a week before he died. The principal finally did something about the taunting, and the brutal treatment all the rest of the staff was turning a blind eye to. He called their parents. That was the best he could do. Not a conference, not a mediation. Just a phone call."
Her voice was shaking with a potent mixture of grief and anger. "I talked to the officer, the one who wasn't drinking himself under the table four states away. He told me my son never had a gun. The students told Mr. Downs that my son had a gun in his jacket pocket. After he called the police, Ken called Josh out of class to a back entrance of the school. When the officers arrived, my son had no clue what was happening."
JJ could see Dora Lucas' scenario playing out like a movie in her head. She could picture seventeen-year-old Josh Lucas being confronted by the assistant principal. Alone and without another witness, the young man had probably threatened to call his mom or the front office. But when the officers arrived abruptly, they mistook Josh's movement to his jacket pocket to be a threat.
"They shot my son! Twice in the head! Twice!" Her voice was full of vehemence. "When they searched his coat all they found were his cell phone and a pocket calculator. Ken Downs knew he'd been pinned in a corner by his students. And he couldn't allow anyone in the school or the community to know what happened."
JJ pulled herself from the woman's story, her hand shielded inconspicuously near Hotch's jacket. She had to bide her time for a change in the dynamic to go for the gun her supervisor kept in his holster.
Dora Lucas's control was slipping. Her breathing was erratic and the small muscles in her wrist were pulsing from the effort of keeping her weapon locked in place like a vice. "The administration used its connections to have the officers gagged and transferred. The assistant principal falsified a statement. The hospital took my son's body. The school and the little bastards who caused all this, they all pretended it never happened."
Hotch groaned, his head was cocked at an uncomfortable angle on the floor. He shifted, pulling his body up to his side and into a fetal position. Whether by fate or training, he was giving JJ the opportunity she needed to get them all out of a volatile situation. JJ's hand snaked to the holster, the object she needed was just within reach.
Sally Wright was sobbing. Her eyes makeup was a murky river on her face and her shoulder was bleeding profusely. She didn't even look up when the mother of her deceased student readied her handgun for another shot.
"My son is dead. My Josh. My boy. What good are you if you can't even help the kids who need you the most?"
JJ's hand found the weapon, and with perfect form and without a thought, her finger squeezed the trigger. The bullet broke free of the barrel, and made hit its killing mark.
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JJ was quiet for a long while. Her breathing was better, but she still hadn't broached the crux of her worries or her concerns.
Bill digested what she'd told him, rubbed his forehead thoughtfully and didn't wait for her to tell him anything else.
"I'm coming over." He rose up, and headed for his closet. Yanking his reliable travel bag from the side hook, he tossed the object on the bed and began filling it with the few items he needed. "I'll catch a flight from the airport and take a cab to your place."
The female voice over the phone took on a shaky tone. "But, your work. Your job…" She couldn't seem to finish her own sentence.
Bureau drawers opened and closed with efficiency, and within ten minutes he was throwing on a clean pair of jeans and one of his button down work shirts.
"I've got time coming to me," he responded with an odd sort of finality. One shoulder kept his ear to the phone as he rammed his feet into a pair of shoes. "I'm going to the airport right now." Taking a last look around, he grabbed his bag and headed toward the apartment door, picking his keys up off the counter on his way out.
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