Part 11
"Reid!" Outside, blinking through the glare of the afternoon sun, Morgan spots him. Standing just off the lip of the sidewalk across the street. Staring up at a simple sign. Standing so still Morgan's chest stutters, seized by yesterday's shadow, wondering if this is going to become that all over again. Then, Reid looks at him, and the emotion in his chest changes to something else.
Darting past a car pulling out from the curb, Morgan crosses. "Reid, you don't stay next to me, I'm going to put you on a damn leash, you understand?"
"It's an art store," Reid says absently, looking back at the sign.
"What?"
"It's an art store."
Morgan looks up. West Sun Gallery is carved in a basic font across a cedar plank looped over the door.
"This is where Gideon was when I saw him. He was coming out of an art store."
Morgan breathes, deep, trying to mute the anger in his reaction. "Reid, I thought we talked about this. It was a hallucination. You were drugged."
"I dropped the coffee because I saw Gideon."
"You dropped the coffee because you were drugged."
"I would have swallowed more if I hadn't seen him."
Frustration pulses to the surface of Morgan's skin, flooding the capillaries. "Reid," he says carefully. "You were poisoned. Lidocaine toxicity causes seizures, doom anxiety, altered memory, hallucinations…"
"And sometimes schizophrenic episodes, I know. But not… not typically that fast. I'd barely taken three sips."
"Lidocaine is fast acting," Morgan reminds. "You know it is. There was enough in that cup to kill you three times over."
Reid tips his chin away, hands shifting to his pockets. Breathing in and breathing out. When he looks back, it's not at Morgan, it's at the sign, and the expression on his face is unreadable. "Most hallucinations from toxicity are auditory-verbal," he recites. "Visual in only 40% of reported cases, most often occurring with the elderly or in those already prone to mental illness."
Frowning, Morgan takes a step forward. From the corner of his eye, he can see Rossi and the two police officers standing outside the coffee shop, watching them. Rossi's face is calm. His body language isn't. Spreading the fingers on his right hand, Morgan makes a subtle wait gesture and sees Rossi nod.
"It's one of the major symptoms of the disease," Reid continues. "Not being able to distinguish actuality from delusion."
"Reid," Morgan says cautiously, taking another step. "What is this about?"
"I thought the painting in the coffee shop was a real girl."
"You told Hotch she felt fake."
"But Gideon didn't." Reid looks over, eyes confused but steady. "That's… that's just it. Back when… when I was using, sometimes the dilaudid would make me forget. Sometimes it would make me dream. And sometimes it would make me remember things that I hadn't let myself remember for a long time. But I knew they were memories, or that they were dreams. I knew I was playing with fire but… when I came out of it, I always knew."
"Ah, Reid." Morgan closes his eyes briefly, rubbing fingers across his forehead, dropping some of the tension in his stance. It was hard to keep up with sometimes, watching Reid's mind run itself in circles, caught in issues that made too much sense. The fear of abandonment. The fear of everything else catching up to you.
"Kid, listen to me," he begins. "Gideon leaving hurt you pretty bad. You got poisoned and you thought you saw him. In my book, that's not that out there. He was important to you. I know you still think about him and you wonder where he is. Man, I do too. It doesn't mean you're going crazy."
Reid doesn't look over but Morgan can tell he's listening, and after a second, Reid speaks, words emerging with careful control over the visual emotion in his throat. "I just want to know if I could have really seen him," he says, gesturing. "It's an art shop. There are two paintings with birds in the window. Doesn't that… isn't it possible?"
Morgan slings a gaze across the street at Rossi, who is still watching them, and sighs deeply. "Okay," he concedes. "We'll go in. We'll ask. But if we don't find what you're looking for, you can't… You're not going crazy, kid. You never were."
Reid finally meets his eyes, giving what looks like a nod of agreement, but Morgan's always been a skeptic, even in the best of times.
\
The attendant in the store is skinny, older, with short-cropped black hair and dangling turquoise earrings. In the second room of the gallery, she stands surrounded by packing crates, distractedly leaning over one of them when Morgan walks up to her, showing his badge. "Excuse me, miss?"
Tipping her head up, the woman takes a moment to adjust the glasses on her nose. "Oh dear," she says. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I've been extra unfocused today. I didn't even hear you come in." Her voice is soft but it echoes. The floor underneath them is polished cement and they are surrounded by movable metal partitions. It makes the room seem larger than it is.
It gives Reid the impression of a warehouse.
It makes him feel like he is being swallowed.
"Can I help you?" she prompts.
Reid tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, a quiver in his fingertips he can't seem to get rid of. Next to him, Morgan pulls his wallet, slipping Gideon's picture from the back and ignoring Reid's surprised look. "Have you seen this man?"
The woman frowns, expression curious and slightly suspicious as she leans closer, studying the photo. "I don't think so," she says, glancing between them with a question in her eyes. "He doesn't look familiar."
"He would have been in the store yesterday," says Reid.
"Oh. Well that explains it. Unfortunately, I just got into town last night. My husband would have been manning the gallery yesterday. He's out right now, trying to get the rest of the festival art safely off to where it's supposed to be, but he should be back in few hours."
"Festival art?" asks Morgan, sliding the picture back into his wallet. Reid isn't sure if it's a genuine question or just meant to be polite. Either way, it grants a reprieve, keeps him from having to say anything, allowing the rest of his thoughts to stay stilted in silhouettes. Swallowing slowly, he steps back and lets his eyes wander, scanning the walls for birds, but there aren't any. Not in here.
"We donate part of our space for the Breckenridge Art Festival," he hears the woman explain. "There were a record number of participants this year and it's left us with a bit of chaos."
Reid sees the chaos. To his left is pure disorder. There are paintings propped on easels next to ventilated packing crates. Some paintings in frames, some not. All in various states of wrapping.
"Art isn't the easiest thing to transport," she says, when she sees him looking.
"It requires regulation of environmental elements," Reid quotes absently, continuing to look around. "Maintaining air circulation, a temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit, and control of humidity levels."
For a moment, there is silence.
"Yes," she finally responds. "Yes, that's… very correct."
"Uh, annual event?" Morgan questions.
"Bigger every year," comes the answer. She says more, but Reid doesn't focus on it, letting her voice play in the background as he turns towards the wall on the right. It's an organized display, abstract moods and colors, the name Simon Francis written delicately above the layout—a sharp contrast to the disarray in the rest of the room.
The painting in the center captures him. Oil on canvas. Blue and green and muted red. It's a landscape, conceptually. A prairie view with no defining features. It feels like a storm. Like wind and approaching fire. Like uncertainty and no answers.
"When your husband comes back," he hears Morgan say, "please have him give us a call."
\
Back out on the sidewalk, Rossi is waiting on their side of the street, wearing a wry but reserved expression. "Find anything?" he asks knowingly.
"Some impressive Simon Francis, and a slew of student displays," Morgan says. "But unless one of them is our killer, nothing that helps us."
Rossi opens his mouth, a flicker in his eyes, a subtle frown appearing between his eyebrows.
"What?" asks Morgan.
Reid looks over, squinting as his vision adjusts to the contrasting brightness of daylight.
Clearing his throat, Rossi glances at Reid, then turns his gaze skyward. "I don't suppose you found out what was above this place, did you?"
"Didn't think to ask," says Morgan, looking up, following Rossi's lead. "What are you thinking?"
"The unsub would have prepared for us early," explains Rossi. "In order to not draw attention to himself, he would have needed somewhere besides the coffee shop to wait for us. Someplace where he could see us come into town, keep watch on our locations, and head into the coffee shop at the right time. Nearly the entire front wall up there is made of windows. From there, he would have been able to watch the whole street." He gestures around. "No other building gives the same vantage point."
Reid looks up and sees what Rossi is talking about. Large windows, arched and wide. No lights are on inside and what he can see of the space looks empty.
"Doesn't look like anyone's home," says Morgan.
To the side of the art gallery, set into the slim alley before the next building are an ascension of wood steps towards the space they're talking about. Stepping around the block of the building's edge reveals a blue door at the top.
"What do you think?" asks Rossi.
"I think we should find out what's up there," answers Morgan.
\
In front of the blue door, holding the key given them by the woman downstairs, Morgan hesitates, feeling uncomfortable for reasons he can't explain.
Delia Poe—they'd finally learned her name upon their second appearance in her store—informed them that she and her husband owned the whole building, and rented the upstairs on a month by month basis. She told them it held a studio apartment and a space for painting. She told them that while there had been a few temporary tenants during the art festival, they had no renters now, unless her husband had forgotten to tell her.
In all likelihood, they would find nothing. Even if the unsub had been here yesterday, he would have covered his tracks like he did everywhere else. He was likely long gone.
Still.
"Reid," says Morgan, sliding the key into the slot. "Hang back."
Reid looks like he's about to say something, but doesn't. After a second, he moves several steps down, then turns to face them.
Getting a nod from Rossi, who draws his weapon, just in case, Morgan twists the key. He sees a sliver of dull emptiness as he starts to push the door open. A few inches in, it catches, a scratching noise grinding softly below. Morgan pauses, hand frozen on the knob. A second later, he hears a roaring silence, like all the air has been sucked from his ears. Then a phantom punch to his chest slams him backwards, tumbling, vision covered over in a cloud of grey.
tbc
Author's note: As far as I know, Simon Francis has never displayed his artwork in Breckenridge, Colorado. And the West Sun Gallery, though loosely patterned after a gallery in another small Colorado town, does not exist.