Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is amazing. However it is not from my own mind. I own it not.
Chapter 11: Tempers Rising
Reid woke occasionally throughout the night to switch positions, but never enough to be considered fully conscious. He finally opened his eyes groggily to the sound of more pounding. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table, 9:23am. He'd actually slept the full night? And more then 12 hours of sleep at that. That was a new development.
He focused his eyes, as the pounding continued and his name was called, and noticed the phial on the bedside table. Slowly he sat up, grabbing the phial and trying to remember exactly what he'd done last night. More slow movements as he sat on the edge of the bed. He felt something squish under his feet as he stood, the rubber tourniquet. He bent and scooped that up, then noticed the used syringe a few feet away. He tucked the two items he had into his bag, took two steps to grab the syringe, and tossed it into the trash bin.
The pounding grew more persistent. "I'm coming!" Reid finally snapped, as he walked toward the bathroom. He could once again come to the conclusion that he looked like death. With a sigh he let his sluggish movements take him to the door. Opening it he was greeted with a hesitant looking JJ, and a Morgan who looked like he was about to kick the door in. "What?" Reid asked, looking at the ground, his tone sharp, though his voice was rough.
"We're… no, correction, you're late. We should already be at the station. Finally decided to come drag you out of bed." Morgan sounded none too pleased.
Reid looked up and Morgan's face changed from one of frustration to concern, as did JJ's. "You alright man?" Morgan asked. "You don't look too hot."
"I'm fine. Just… give me 10 minutes, okay?" He pinched and rubbed at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, like he was trying to fight off the start of a headache. A headache that, for him, wouldn't hurt.
"Fine, 10 minutes, that's it." Morgan still wasn't overly happy, and it showed as he turned and walked back toward his room. JJ stayed, and stepped closer to the door.
Reid turned from watching Morgan leave to looking at JJ, "What do you want?"
"You look like hell, Spence." She stated simply.
"Hmph, thanks for the news flash, JJ. Already came to that conclusion, though, so if that's all…" He began to start closing the door.
"No, wait!" JJ put her hand out to stop him, "Look at me…" Reid did, though he wasn't sure why. "Reid, you're pupils are dilated, and you look like you're about to pass out. Are you sure--"
"Yes! I'm fine! Just leave it be, JJ!" Reid snapped.
JJ sighed, shaking her head, "I thought I knew you, but I have no idea who you are anymore." She gave him one last look before she turned to join the others in Hotch and Morgan's room.
Reid closed the door, and moved back toward the centre of the room. He opened his overnight bag and pulled out a comb and a change of clothes. Leaving the clothes on the bed he brought the comb with him to the bathroom. No time to shower, but he could at least make his hair decent. He studied himself in the mirror. JJ was right, his pupils were dilated. He'd have to monitor that. He quickly straightened his hair, and went back into the bedroom to change. Today's dress was brown cords, paired with a light blue checker shirt, light blue tie, and one of his favourite sweater vests, in brown. He didn't wear them as much these days, and now it was a comforting item, full of remembrance of better days. His socks were both plain, one orange and one green. He checked himself out in a mirror, and deemed himself suitable for leaving the room. Other aspects of his personal hygiene would have to wait for when he had more time.
He smiled at his reflection. He looked like he used to, before everything started going from bad to worse. It was just a ruse, of course, but it made him feel better, and forget, for the time being, that he was so screwed up.
Reid met everyone by the SUV, Morgan and JJ both glanced at him then looked away. Hotch and Prentiss stayed watching him, not bothering to hide the concern on their faces. Though none of them could ignore the picture of innocence he seemed to be giving off, just like they all remembered. Messenger bag and all.
The ride to the station was mostly silent, but it was short, so the silence wasn't long enough to become unnerving. They all avoided Detective Douglass as they piled into their work room, and sat down. The list of the day's missing employees had been faxed over and was already sitting on the table in the middle of the room, along with 2 reports. This gave Hotch a place to start, he picked up the reports, thumbing through them, and sighed. "Two more reported missing. That's seven total reported, and 2 still unknown."
He'd noticed the tension between Morgan and JJ to Reid, and sighed. "Reid, Prentiss I'd like you two to look through the missing employees list, same as yesterday, and find out who else in unaccounted for. Garcia couldn't give us much on commonality, but what we do know we can use. See if you can get her to find the same connection with anyone else you find missing, and these new two. Morgan, JJ, and I--"
"Wait." Reid interrupted, "When did we find out the victims commonality?"
"When you were still in bed, Reid." Hotch stated simply, not trying to be rude, just straightforward. "You missed the morning meeting." Reid looked down, embarrassed, while Hotch continued. "Morgan, JJ, and I will go to the company and talk to the employees. Maybe some of them will know something not on record." He looked to Morgan and JJ to see if they agreed and they both nodded and stood.
The three agents entered the office building and went straight to the front desk. Shirley, the receptionist, looked up at them with her usual smile, the same way she greeted everyone. "You must be more FBI guys. Kind of remind me of the other two but more… official." She scanned JJ shortly, then Hotch, and finally lingering on Morgan. "Official, and tough. What do you need?"
Morgan smiled at her, "We need to know a few things about the missing people, and the departments they were in."
"Talk to Janette. She's got everything at her fingertips. I just answer phones, and tell people where to go. Third floor, straight back." she sighed.
"Thank you." Hotch answered. They carried on to the elevator, pressed the up arrow and waited.
He picked at his nails, chewed on his lip, shifted nervously side-to-side, waiting for the elevator to let him out at his stop. The doors opened on the main floor and he glanced up at the 3 figures who entered. FBI, he could tell, he just knew things like that. He looked warily at the two men, and began to sweat. Had they figured it out so soon? No, impossible, he was careful, meticulous, they didn't know yet. If they did they'd already be arresting him. The female gave him a small smile, and he smiled back, before sliding out of the elevator. Leaving them to their business, and him to his.
Hotch, Morgan, and JJ looked at each other each raising a brow at the strange little man once the door closed. "Weird." Morgan commented, and pushed the button for the third floor.
JJ nodded, "Yeah, probably just shy though. A lot of people are uncomfortable around people of authority."
Hotch silently agreed, and Morgan sighed, "Yeah, I know. Still gave me the creeps though."
"This whole town has more than it's fair share of creeps, in my opinion." JJ countered.
"True." Morgan sighed again, thinking of the psychotic man who was now in an institute, and of what the dear Detective did, or almost did, to JJ, and what Reid denied had happened in the bathroom. Top all that off with this serial kidnapper, and this town was certainly messed up. Probably more so than any other town of the same size.
The doors binged open on the third floor and they moved through the isle, and the people going about their day, to the back section. Janette was just getting off the phone again, and she smiled up at them standing up to greet them. She was in red today, and it sparkled. Again she wore matching way too tall heels, for her way too short dress. She smiled at Hotch, and then Morgan, staring at him as she spoke. "What do you need, boys…" then she noticed JJ, "…and, girl?" She looked back to Morgan.
Hotch directed her attention away from Morgan and on to him, "We now have seven missing people, Miss. Can you bring up which departments they worked in? We need to talk to the people in the same department."
Janette nodded, "Of course, just give me two sec's." She glanced at Morgan again with a sly smirk, and sat back down, clicking her nails on her keyboard, then hitting print. She rolled her chair a foot to her left, over to the printer and waited for the page. Once printed she handed it to Hotch. "Need anything else, just let me know."
"Thank you, we will." Hotch replied and they all left the reception area to congregate outside the door, deciding who would go where, and what they needed to find out.
Prentiss and Reid called number after number, getting a reply after each one. They sighed, not sure if they should feel defeated, or relieved no one else had gone missing, and wasn't being missed by anyone. Next on the agenda was finding out if these 2 new victims had anything in common with the others. Prentiss called up Garcia and gave her the names, one was a druggie, like a couple of the others, and the other was a small time prostitute. It seemed she worked the streets on her days off, had been picked up a couple times, doesn't have a pimp. Just needed extra cash on the side. Supposedly wasn't into the drug scene though, so no connection there.
They had nothing to connect these two, and only minor things to connect them to the other victims. Even worse, there were still a few who had no record of any illegal or illicit activity, and seemed to be fine, upstanding citizens. So what was the connection? There had to be more to it than being simply random.
Reid and Prentiss sat and discussed, and argued, and agreed, trying to work it out. They needed more than just their brain power to figure this one out. So now it was simply a waiting game until the others returned.
After a some silence, Prentiss turned and looked at Reid. She had luck yesterday trying to get him to open up, maybe she'd have more luck today. "So," she started, "what exactly happened yesterday at the club? Morgan didn't tell us, just said it was bad. I think he told Hotch, but I'm not sure." Reid mumbled and Prentiss leaned closer. "What?"
"Whatever Derek said to Hotch is wrong. Nothing happened." Reid repeated.
"Are you sure? I mean you looked--"
"Of course I'm sure, Emily! I think I'd know if something happened to me." Reid snapped, a nasty habit he had these days.
"Okay!" Prentiss raised her hands, palms facing away from her, "It's just you seemed really depressed, and… not quite all there this morning."
"I told you yesterday I hadn't been sleeping well. I'm just tired."
Prentiss frowned, had he been unable to sleep he would have been at their morning meeting, so this didn't make sense. She went out on a limb, "You slept well last night though, didn't you?"
Reid glared at her, "So what if I did? Since when are my sleeping patterns any of your business, anyway!?"
Prentiss lost her professional edge, and glared right back. "When it starts affecting how well you do your job, it's my business. It's all of our business because we're a team! You know the saying, we're only as strong as our weakest link. It's true, and right now, I think that's you!" She regretted the words after she said them, but didn't deny the truth in them. She kept her gaze focused on Reid, gauging his reaction.
Reid shook his head and looked away as she spoke, then slowly, deliberately turned his head back at the end of her accusatory sentence. His glare was more intense, his teeth were clenched, and his jaw set tight. He spoke through gritted teeth, "You. Know. Nothing. Nothing, Emily! Nothing! You're the new one here, not me." He stood and Prentiss stood to match him, this had definitely backfired on her, big time. "You think you know what I'm going through, you all think you know, but none of you have any idea."
"So tell us!" Her voice was now pleading, and no longer full of rage.
"You haven't earned it. None of you have earned it, especially not recently."
"Reid, come on… Please… Stop acting like we haven't even tried! We have! And you've shot us down each time, so don't blame this all on us." She tried to stay calm.
"Right, so now this is all my fault?"
"That's not what I said, Reid! We're all to blame in some way, and yes that includes you, but--"
"Oh, just shut up! I can't listen to your logic, or lack thereof, right now." He turned away.
"Reid--"
"I said, shut up!" He spun, like he had the day previous when he smacked her hand away, but this time the flat of his palm connected with her face. He didn't even seemed phased by his actions, not like yesterday. Now he just turned and walked to the other end of the room, placing his palms flat against the wall, and leaning on it. Head down, hair hiding his face, as he worked to control his breathing.
