Erica and Callie watched intently as two of the officers returned. They went directly into the main office and to Garcia. Callie could feel Erica physically shaking as she gripped her arm where they sat on the chairs Callie had drifted off on. She put an arm around the older woman's shoulders and pulled her to her, holding her close as much to anchor herself as to comfort Erica.
In her office, Garcia spared a quick glance towards Callie and Erica. Reid caught her glance and followed her gaze. "They've already been more involved than most, Garcia. If this leads nowhere it'll hurt even more."
"But we finally have something concrete. A car, an address…" she tried to reason, knowing he was right. Knowing he was never anything else but.
"Do you think they could handle it?" he asked, and suddenly he was looking right at her.
She paused before answering. If they got their hopes up on this, and it fell through, would they recover? "They've been through every up and down up till now, and they haven't complained."
"You really think we should have them in here?" JJ asked. She had seen Erica's reactions at the house. Another blow might bring about similar reactions from the woman.
"They already know we have something," Garcia sighed. "So it's either they learn what happened with it for themselves, or one of us has to tell them."
JJ paused, the thought hitting her how she would hate to be on the other side of the glass if it was her kid. She knew some of her views had changed since becoming a mother, but so far she wasn't sure of it was for the benefit of the people she worked with, or the breaking of them. "I'll go and get them."
Erica and Callie had agreed to stay out of the way, and relatively quiet. In reality neither could probably have put together a coherent sentence anyway. Still close together they leant against a spare desk at the back of the room while the agents worked. In the moments while the agents in the field were still arriving at the address, Callie thought of all the moments she had ever been nervous in her life, her driving test, her medical exams, her first operation, her first day as an Attending, working up the courage to kiss Erica for the first time, their first date…and decided that even adding all of them up, they didn't compare to how she felt now. Erica meanwhile, gripped Callie's arm, looking down at the rings on her finger. The ones on her left hand that were Callie's promise of love, and also the one on her right hand, which Jess had forced Callie to buy so that she could give it to Erica, after Callie had explained that her mommee always wore the same ring because that meant that Callie loved her. Jess had wanted her to have a ring from her, because she loved her too. Neither of them knew why Jess demanded that Erica be bought an extra ring and not Callie, even although Callie had shown her the ring that she wore which meant Erica loved her. It was just something that Jess had decided was necessary. And Erica treasured them, always wearing the rings, if not on her fingers, as was the case when she was at work, then they would hang on a chain around the cardio-goddess's neck.
Both of them were plucked from their thoughts from an incoming call. "Hey babycakes, we're here but it looks like we got something wrong. Car was stolen last night, after a break in and returned this afternoon while the family was out. They didn't report it because they realized their insurance was out, didn't know how that would affect things."
"Why return the car?" Reid thought out loud. "If you have two kids, why would you return the thing you had that could contain them and transport them? They have to be changing vehicles." He shook his head. Something wasn't right.
"Or be close by," JJ suggested.
"Morgan can you describe the street?" he asked.
"I got satellite," Garcia added, showing him the screen as Morgan spoke.
"Nice houses, respectable area, not the sort of place you could just walk into unnoticed."
"Anyone see who dropped the ca-" Reid's sentence was cut short by a shout from Morgan.
"OH HELL NO!" From the sounds that followed no one in the room could be quite sure what had occurred. But the one sound that chilled everyone was the sound of gunshots.
