Salt Lake City- 5 am
Rossi lays on his back on what should feel like a soft, warm king size bed and stares at the ceiling fan whirring above him. In his daze, he can't hear the quiet noise that others who aren't on their second day without sleep would hear. He watches the each of the unlit lights that sit in the center of the fan and plays through the hundreds of scenarios of what the team's Unit Chief could be going through at the moment. The hell he could live with himself if they failed and Aaron spent his last few days freezing to death while Rossi and the team slept at a three star hotel.
Across from Rossi in the hotel's largest room, Morgan is laying on his stomach with his face in his pillow on the second king bed. Every now or so, he'll turn his head towards Rossi just to see if the team's eldest agent has had enough of Cruz's mandated rest time. After the last call from Hinders, Cruz had called in and directed the office's chief to put the team in a hotel for the night. Everyone had been too tired to talk about the obvious need to look into Hinders' request for Rossi to admit guilt. Now with that held over everyone's head, there is no way that Morgan is going to sleep.
"Damn it," Morgan mutters under his breath and pushes himself into sitting back on his knees. He scans the room to see JJ and Reid sitting next to each other under the window, both still dressed in their FBI gear they had worn on the helicopter ride to Salt Lake City. As soon as the press conference had ended, JJ, Reid and Garcia, who is now curled up on a cot next to Blake, had flown out of New Mexico knowing that Hinders' constant movement will cause them to leave Utah very soon.
"Are we getting up?" Garcia pipes, sitting up and reaching for her glasses. She accidently brushes the top of Blake's head and wakes up the team's newest member. Blake mumbles something incoherently and seconds later, JJ and Reid are awake. The only person who doesn't react is Rossi who still sits in a trance. Morgan decides to give Rossi a few minutes before trying to move the dazed agent into action.
"Yeah, we're getting up. We have two hours until we're allowed back into the FBI headquarters. Let's run through everything from the top," Morgan replies.
"On it…." Garcia reaches over to the small notepad on the dresser and begins talking and taking down notes. "At 5 tonight, our dear captain will have been gone for officially 48 hours. Last time we heard from Hinders was hours and hours ago here in Utah. By the way, Farmington back in New Mexico finally identified the missing car that was stolen after Hinders had dumped the SUV to be a Chevy Volt."
"Wait, when was this?" Blake exclaims. She scoots over to the edge of the cot where Garcia sits. "When did you find about this?"
"Hey, I know you're tired but that doesn't mean you get to be snippy, missy. I just checked my email a couple of minutes and saw that they emailed the FBI office here… and Cruz tried to delay me from getting the email, failing miserably. Every officer in the state is looking for a Volt as of a few hours ago."
Morgan starts pacing back and forth. "Hinders won't still be in that car after all this time. Do we have anything else to work on? JJ, Reid- did you guys get anything in particular from Farmington?"
"Besides Hinders being despondent from his co-workers the last couple of months, there's nothing more than what we found in the hotel about his plans. He either buried any evidence or took it with him," JJ answers. She digs through duffel bag and pulls out a photocopy of torn remnants of a notepad. "This is the best physical thing we could find in his desk at the station and all it has is chicken scratch handwriting of notes that make no sense."
"So basically nothing?"
"Not exactly," JJ's eyes trail over to Rossi. "Hinders claims that he has proof against Dave."
Five pairs of eyes fall on Rossi, who doesn't even blink in response. Rossi is running through every moment he had spent with Hinders in Port Gamble- nothing comes to mind that even could resemble proof against his actions. After Hinders had come accusing him of overreaching back in Port Gamble, another body had washed on the shore within a day. Is that what he's holding against me?
"Rossi, hey! Come back to us," JJ calls out to him. He blinks and sees that the blonde haired agent had crossed the room and is now sitting next to him. She places a hand on his shoulder and looks deeply into his eyes. "Is there anything that you can think of that Hinders thinks as evidence against you?"
"A dead body washed up on the shore that night," Rossi whispers, shaking his head slightly. "Janice McHenry….I remember her. Young girl that we believed to be wrong place, wrong time and unrelated. Her father disappeared off the face of the Earth by the time we left Port Gamble. I don't know about the mother….." Rossi trails off when he sees a curious look in Morgan's eyes, "What?"
"Why are you talking about the victim's father?"
"Why not? I can't get upset-" JJ squeezes his shoulder to calm down and Rossi relaxes.
"I'm not accusing you of anything, Dave," Morgan states calmly, " Out of all the things you could have brought up, that came to mind. Why?"
A face- an angry face- comes to mind and Rossi curses under his breath. " I don't why the hell this didn't come to mind earlier. Hinders claimed that the body was proof that Mic was in the clear even though Mic didn't have an alibi. Hinders' partner…Vance- no, Vaughn tried to rub in my face after….the whole event." Again, he decides to put the chaotic end result of the case to be revealed later. "We need to find him."
As the team scrambles to Garcia's side as she hunts for Vaughn, Rossi drops his head in his hands for missing a crucial step in Hinders' plan to run back to Port Gamble.
Hinders' allies.
With the way things ended, I wouldn't be surprised if Vaughn was aiding Hinders as we speak.