It's field trip time! Enjoy.
Hotch watched the police cruiser pull up to the curb behind his rental in front of James Hill's rundown house. It was located in an equally rundown neighborhood. All the houses were in desperate need of painting, what lawns there were had more weeds than grass in them and the residents were afraid to stay outside for long. Fear kept them inside peeking out through their drawn curtains like several were doing right now. If he tried to approach any of the neighbors, they wouldn't answer the door or say that they hadn't seen or heard a thing.
Cruz and another officer Hotch didn't recognize, helped Emily out of the back of the police cruiser and escorted her up the cracked and weed infested walk. They had draped a navy blue police windbreaker over her shoulders to disguise the fact that she was handcuffed. But the leg irons and the wide stripes of blue and white pants that no one in their right mind would wear in public, gave it away that Emily was one of the prisoners from the jail.
Hotch unlocked the front door with the key the police had provided and then stepped aside to allow Emily and her escorts precede him in.
"You can unlock the cuffs," he said once they were all gathered in the entryway.
"I can do the handcuffs, but not the leg irons and the chain," Cruz cautioned as he pulled out his keys.
"Understood," Hotch said as Emily held her hands out as far as the restraints would allow to give the young officer easier access to the locks. She nodded her thanks when her hands were free.
"Gentlemen, I need you to leave," he continued.
The other officer by the name of Simmons protested. "Sir, we can't do that. Our orders are to guard the prisoner and make sure she doesn't try to escape. I'm already uncomfortable with letting her out of her handcuffs."
"I understand but what we are about to discuss is privilege information so you can't be present. You can stand guard outside the front and back doors. You have my word and that of Agent Prentiss that no escape attempt will be made."
"I swear," Emily said solemnly, rubbing her wrists.
Simmons looked to Cruz for help. "Sounds good to me," Cruz said with a shrug. "I'll take the front and you can watch the back."
The other cop looked like he was going to continue arguing, but gave up and headed off to find the back door.
Cruz paused with his hand on the doorknob. "Don't make a liar out of me."
"I won't," she promised. "You're one of the few cops on the force that doesn't treat me like dirt. I appreciate it. It makes my forced stay a little easier to bear."
He gave her a small smile before stepping out and closing the door behind him. Through the dirty glass that lined both sides of the door, they watched him take an alert stance with his hand resting on the butt of his holstered gun.
"Making friends I see," Hotch said dryly.
"One is better than none," she said with a shrug.
"Very true."
Emily shivered. "Man it's freezing in here," she observed and slipped her arms into the sleeves of the windbreaker. She was still cold because of the thin material, but it was better than standing around in the short sleeve scrub top.
Hotch squinted at the thermostat. "No wonder it's freezing. The air conditioning is cranked as high as it will go." He donned and evidence glove out of habit and turned it down. "Hill must have been one of those people who are too hot year round."
She grunted in agreement and jammed her hands into the jacket's pockets. "So what do you want to look at first?"
"I want to examine the front and back doors for tampering. One of the charges against you is for breaking and entering."
"I could've illegally entered through one of the windows," Emily pointed out.
"Good. Now you're thinking like a criminal instead of just looking like one. We'll check those too."
Emily arched an eyebrow. "Was that an attempt at humor?"
"It was."
"It didn't work," she said blandly.
The corner of his mouth curled into a smile as he reopened the door. Cruz spun around, hand on the butt of his weapon with a suspicious look on his face.
"Just examining the door," Hotch explained.
He nodded and looked over the Unit Chief's shoulder to verify Emily's whereabouts. He was relieved to see that she was exactly where he had left her and nowhere near the door. Hotch quickly checked out the lock and doorjamb then closed it.
"Well?" she asked when he returned to her side.
Hotch shrugged. "The lock had definitely been jimmied at some point in time but none of the scratches appear to be fresh."
"I wouldn't have left any marks."
One eyebrow rose in surprise. "You know how to pick a lock?"
"Among other things," Emily said with a tight smile, jangling one of the cuffs dangling from her waist.
She turned away and bit her lip. "Hotch, if the prosecution learns of my CIA training and Doyle, my ass will be cooked. They'll argue that the training gave me all the necessary knowledge to pull off a near perfect murder. The jury will eat it up."
"They won't," he assured her.
"How can you be so sure?" she asked, worried.
"Everything regarding Doyle, your CIA and Interpol days are classified. No one without top security clearance can access them. The Director and I made sure of that. Only he, the team and I know about your past."
"And Strauss," Emily pointed out softly.
Hotch scowled. "Strauss has her eyes set on the Director's office. She's not going to jeopardized that by leaking classified information."
His reasoning sounded logical, but it did little to quell her now queasy stomach. Oh please, she slightly prayed. Don't let that be an indicator I'm getting another ulcer. It took forever to heal the last one.
He could see her discomfort and quickly changed the subject. "Okay. If you were going to break in, how would you go about it?"
"I'd enter through the back," Emily said immediately without a thought. "I noticed when they were bringing me in that the front was too open to the street. There was nowhere to hide."
"The backyard would give you more privacy." She nodded. "Would you try going through a window?"
Emily gave a slight shake of her head. "Only if I found one unlocked. Breaking in through a window is messy. There is a lot of broken glass that you could easily cut yourself and leave trace evidence."
"And noisy," Hotch said. "The houses are close together so the neighbors would have heard. Though I doubt in this neighborhood anyone would admit they had."
"Right," she said glumly. "See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil."
"And they probably didn't hear the gunshots."
"Or the UnSub used a silencer," Emily pointed out.
Hotch flipped through the file he had brought along. "No silencer was found in any of the dumpsters that had been searched."
She ran a frustrated hand through her hair. "That's something else I wouldn't do. I would have dumped the murder weapon in the Taunton River or Mount Hope Bay. I did that to the gun I had in Paris. I disassembled it and dropped the parts into the Seine."
He didn't let his surprise show. Since her return Emily hasn't spoken of her time in Paris. She still refused to listen to his reasoning for sending her into exile. Not that she would confide in him about anything personal. Yes, they were friends, close friends he thought, but he was still her boss.
"The UnSub wanted the gun found so that it could be traced back to you via the man who claims you bought it from him."
"It had to be a damn cheap gun," she said with a snort. "I don't carry that much cash on me and I hardly doubt he's a credit card type of guy."
Hotch nodded. "I'll have Garcia check your accounts for any unauthorized cash withdrawals. Now lets go check the back door."
Together they made their way down the short hallway that ran parallel to the stairs and into the kitchen. Emily remained standing in the archway, keeping her distance from the back door so that the other police officer wouldn't think she was trying to escape. Like Cruz, Simmons spun around at the sound of the door opening. His suspicious eyes latched onto Emily who gave him a small smile. Her little sign of friendliness only made him narrow his eyes further.
A quick inspection of the door and lock told Hotch all he needed to know. Neither had been tampered with. He explained that to Emily as he started opening and closing the kitchen cabinets.
Emily came further into the room and leaned against the table, absently picking at her fingernails. "So Hill had to have let his killer in…what the hell are you doing?" she asked in confusion.
Hotch found what he was looking for. He stepped back and started taking pictures with his phone. "Reid wanted me to take photos of Hill's glassware."
Her confusion deepened. "Why?"
"I don't know," he said with a half shrug as he continued snapping away. "All he said that he didn't want to draw any conclusions until he saw the photos."
It was Emily's turn to shrug. "Sounds like Reid being Reid."
As soon as he was done, the two agents adjourned to the living room where the crime had been committed. Hotch discretely matched his stride to Emily's slower shuffling walk, the leg irons forcing her to take small steps. They paused in the doorway to study the room; their eyes taking in the shattered coffee table and the large dark brown blood stain coating it and the carpet. Hotch held up the photo of Hill lying among the wreckage, his chest bright red in blood and his neck bent at an awkward angle as it rested against the side of the couch.
Emily tilted her head as she gazed at the photo. "He definitely wasn't caught sitting down."
"No," Hotch agreed. "He was standing in front of the coffee table."
She moved into the room and mimed holding a gun. "According to the reports there wasn't any GSR on Hill's shirt so the shooter had to be standing somewhere around here." Emily looked over her shoulder. "Directly in line with the front door."
Hotch took up the narration. "Judging from the amount of smashed glass Hill had a few beers. There is a knock at the door and he gets up to answer it. He lets the UnSub in and heads back to his drinking."
"I follow him in and wait patiently for him to turn around to ask what do I want. When he does, I plug him full of holes. Two to the chest and one to the shoulder."
Right," he agreed with a nod.
Emily frowned. "The one shot to the shoulder still bothers me. There was no need to shoot him there."
"To incapacitate him?"
"I guess," she said with a shrug. "Did the coroner happen to check the angle of the entrance wounds?"
Hotch consulted the file. "No, he didn't."
Emily sighed. "It would have been nice to know if Hill had been standing or flat on his back when the fatal shots hit."
"Agreed."
An oppressive silence descended on the room. Both knew there was nothing left to be said or examined at the crime scene. Emily's few hours of freedom was about to come to an end. She would be cuffed and returned to the jail and her sterile cell. There had to be a way to delay the inevitable.
"We haven't checked upstairs yet," he suggested. "Maybe Hill left a clue up there to who his real killer is that Morrissey and the crime scene techs might have missed."
"Sounds good to me," she said in obvious relief.
When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Emily realized she would have difficulty negotiating the steps in leg irons. "Uh…Hotch? I don't think I can manage it. Mind if I wait for you right here?"
Hotch looked at the steepness of the stairway and her shackles. "No problem," he said with a nod. "Just try to stay out of trouble while I'm gone."
"Believe me, I'm not budging from this spot."
He gave her another nod then ascended the stairs. Emily waited for him to round the corner before she sat down on one of the steps. Idly she reached down and adjusted one of the cuffs that were chafing her ankle as she gazed back into the living room. They had found nothing that would help clear her of any wrongdoing. In the eyes of the law she was still guilty as hell. Because Emily was law enforcement, she was considered guilty until proven innocent and not the other way around.
Hotch really didn't know why he was upstairs. They had learned all that they could from the crime scene, which unfortunately didn't add up to much. And he seriously doubted would find anything up here. All he was actually doing was buying Emily more time. With a sigh he opened the first door that he came to. It was the hall closet that held a bundle of twenty-four rolls of toilet paper and nothing else. The next door opened into a cramp bathroom with a medicine cabinet that held nothing of interest except for three different bottles of cologne and an unopened box of condoms.
Not getting much were you, he thought wryly as the third door revealed an empty bedroom. Hotch hit the jackpot with the fourth door, leading to Hill's bedroom. There wasn't much there: a double size mattress with stained sheets, a dresser that wasn't being used to hold clothes, but to hold up the old TV. Said clothes were dumped on the floor in messy piles that were scattered around the room. Hotch had no clue how the man had known which ones were clean and which ones were dirty.
He stood in the middle of the room and looked around. As messy as it was, Hotch could still tell that the crime scene techs hadn't come up here. And why would they? The murder had taken place downstairs. A thought occurred to him. The team had profiled Hill to be a typical stalker and they all liked taking pictures of their intended victims.
"Where would I hide them?" he wondered aloud.
Hotch settled on the closet as being the most likely choice since Hill had proven not to be the brightest bulb in the pack. As he moved in that direction, a floorboard under his foot groaned loudly. He paused and bent down to take a closer look.
"Could it be this simple?" he marveled as he pulled out his pocketknife and jammed the blade under the edge. The board easily popped out. "Yes it can."
Inside the small space was a fat manila envelope. He pulled it out and found it crammed full of photos. He quickly flipped through them. They were all of young beautiful women that had been taken from quite a distance. He immediately noticed that there weren't any of Emily so that meant he hadn't been stalking her. If the prosecutor tried to float the idea that Emily had offed him because she got fed up with him following her, he could easily shoot it down. For one, there weren't any photographs of her. And two. Emily wasn't his type; he preferred blondes.
Suddenly there came the sound of a ruckus directly beneath him. "Shit! Emily!" he swore.
Hotch leapt to his feet and raced for the stairs, stuffing the envelope into the pocket of his suit jacket as he went. He thundered down the steps and skidded to a halt at the bottom, scowling at the scene in front of him.
"What the hell is going on?" he demanded.
Emily was kneeling on the floor with her hands on her head. Morrissey was standing in front of her with is gun aimed at her, a pissed yet triumphant look on his face. The other two cops also had their weapons drawn but appeared to be confused and uncomfortable.
Emily glanced over her shoulder. "This idiot," she managed to point a finger at Morrissey without moving her hands off her head, "barged in through the front door. He took one look at me and yelled that I was trying to escape. Then he waved his gun in my face and ordered me to assume the position."
"You were going for the door," he growled through clenched teeth.
She turned back to him and smiled sweetly. "Now how could I possibly do that from my seat on the stairs where I was minding my own business?"
"Sir," Cruz tentatively spoke up. "I saw her on the steps just before you entered. She wasn't anywhere near the door."
"Shut up both of you!" He roared then rounded on the hapless Simmons. "And why the hell aren't her hands cuffed? You know dangerous prisoners are to be kept in full restraints at all times."
"Am I that much of a threat to you, Teddy?" Emily asked with a smirk.
Hotch didn't ask her to quiet down. He was rather enjoying the show. Emily seemed to know what buttons to push to get a rise out of him. The detective was already turning a lovely shade of red.
"I'm the one who had requested the handcuffs removed," he replied in a cold voice.
"Oh? Now you're taking orders from the Fed's?" Morrissey sneered at Simmons.
"No…no, Sir," the young officer stammered.
"Then why did you?"
Officer Cruz stepped into the fray. "I'm the one who did it and I didn't see the harm in it. Agent Prentiss has been a model prisoner. She hasn't given me any trouble."
Morrissey rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "My god! She's got you wrapped around her little finger. What's next? You going to start serving her meals on fine china?"
Cruz bristled at the insult, but wisely held his tongue.
The detective turned his scorn back to Emily. "Get to your feet, but keep your hands on your head."
Emily locked her cold eyes on him and took her time getting off her knees just to annoy the hell out of him. And it worked beautifully. The detective was shifting from foot to foot in irritation by the time she was standing.
"Now slowly lower your hands to your waist," he ordered.
She did as she was told, but not before asking sweetly, "Would you like me to cuff myself while I'm at it?"
Morrissey's face turned a deeper shade of red. "Cruz!" he barked. "Cuff her and make sure they're damn good and tight. Can't have her slipping free."
Cruz stepped up and secured her hands back to her waist. "Sorry," he apologized in a low voice that only she could hear as he ratcheted the cuffs tighter than he normally did. Emily nodded once to show him that she had heard and understood.
When he was done, the detective holstered his gun and double-checked the handcuffs, tightening them even more. Emily had to fight to keep the grimace of pain off her face as the metal cut into her wrists. Then he shoved her at the two surprised cops.
"Get her the hell out of my sight and back in her cell where she belongs."
The two officers caught her before she stumbled to her knees. They each took an arm and guided her to the open door.
Emily looked back over her shoulder. "It's been fun as always, Teddy. Lets do it again soon," she taunted. Morrissey glared at her.
To Hotch she said with a smile, "Thanks for the mini vacation, Hotch. I needed it."
"You're welcome, Prentiss. I'll see you back at the jail."
"I'll be there," she said and let the officers lead her back to the cruiser.
Morrissey turned and sneered at the Unit Chief. "You better get yourself a lawyer, Agent Hotchner. I plan on charging you as an accomplice to the prisoner's escape attempt by the end of the day."
Oh no! Will Hotch soon be joining Emily in jail? And will he look just as good in stripes as she does? Check in next week to get the all important answers to those questions. Until then.