Chapter 8

T + 22 hours

BAU headquarters

Quantico, VA

Emily

She hadn't slept. It wasn't that Rossi's couch wasn't comfortable, or that it didn't feel like she was mending fences with Morgan, it was just that every time she closed her eyes she remembered the few times that Mandarin had come to the villa. She remembered her confident, good-humored cruelty. She even remembered the time she'd stayed at the villa while doing business nearby. Doyle had considered it good for business for them to go with her to the auction. She hadn't thought of that day in a long time.

After remembering that, sleep was impossible.

Now she was in the conference room with a large cup of the sturdy office brew, staring at an evidence bag. Sealed inside was a large, utterly familiar leather satchel. "Okay, I have to admit, I always wanted to know what he keeps in there, but this is so not how I wanted to find out." Garcia said. "It kind of feels like we're violating him or something."

Emily looked over at her and Morgan. "We have to. He might have left a message or something. And even if not, we have to figure out who has him. The only way we're going to do that is to learn as much as we can."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean that we have to like it." Morgan pulled the evidence bag over and broke the seal. "Okay, this strap doesn't look cut or damaged. They didn't pull it off him."

"Maybe Doyle took it off him while he was sedated. Garcia, you get to log it all as we go." Emily said as she rolled a yellow pencil over to that side of the table. I'm sorry little brother, she thought, but we have to. She pulled the bag back over and opened it up. She pulled out the first thing she found in there, "A notebook," one of those nicer, European ones no less. "Here, see if he left us anything." She passed that to Morgan.

"Some pens and pencils," they had been neatly tucked in the pen holders inside the bag, some disposable pens to hand out, she realized, and the ubiquitous yellow pencils they tended to use for notes and preliminary forms to be typed in later. "All right, um, his badge," she opened it up and looked. He looked so young back when his official photo had been taken. Well, he had been so young. And he still is, she thought, don't forget that. He has a lifetime ahead of him.

Morgan shook his head over the notebook. "This looks like it's all case and lecture notes. We'll have to look at it more closely, but I don't see anything here."

"His wallet," it was good quality leather, she noted. She passed that off to Morgan as well.

She pulled out a small, elegant wooden box, "A travel chess set."

Morgan had laid the contents of Spencer's wallet out in front of him so Garcia could make notes, "Eighty-nine dollars in cash, the usual kind of cards, a picture of his Mother and a picture of Henry. Nothing worth noting."

"Okay. We have a leather pouch with...his iPod."

"I wonder what kind of music he likes." Garcia pulled that over and looked, "All classical, of course."

'We have one…two…three Snickers bars and…two bags of gummi worms."

"Now that does not surprise me." Morgan remarked.

Emily managed her first smile since leaving Paris. "We have a case with…a contact lens kit." She opened the small container. "Hang on a minute." She pulled out her phone and dialed. "Hey Hotch, can you ask Jack if Reid had his glasses on or off when he left." She waited a moment. "All right, thanks. We'll keep you posted." She hung up then showed what she had found. "He took his contacts out."

"Why would they do that?' Garcia wanted to know.

"I don't know." Emily replied.

"Do you think they let him keep his glasses?"

Emily flipped down the other side of the case. Empty. "Looks like." She said, showing them the empty one. Yet there was another case in there…. "But not his sunglasses."

"At least he can see." Garcia said.

Emily went back in to the bag. "We have a small electric razor. Another pouch with…toothbrush, toothpaste and mouthwash, all travel sizes." By now she was getting to the bottom of the main pocket. "We have a roll of Tums, opened. We have his keys. And we have two speed re-loaders." She pulled the steel wheels out of the bag and held them out. "These look like they would fit his revolver."

"Any loose ammo down in there?" Morgan asked.

"Nope, that's the end of that side. No phone, no gun, and no ammo." She turned the messenger bag over, and opened the large, flat pocket on the back. The first thing she found was a leather envelope, tied with a thong. "What's this?" She opened it and pulled out stationary, thick and quality, with a Renaissance design. Inside there was a loop holding a fountain pen, and a packet of stamps. One sheet had been started. "Dear Mom, What did you think of the latest issue of the Medieval Literature Journal? I think Prof. Brixton was way off base with that analysis of Piers Ploughman." She looked over. "Think that has meaning?"

"Probably only to his mother," Morgan told her. "Speaking of, what are we going to tell her?"

"Nothing," Garcia replied. "Wouldn't that only get her upset? Her bill is paid through the end of the month. I vote we don't tell her anything, at least not yet."

The next thing Emily pulled out had her smiling, "Oh my God."

"What is it?" Garcia asked.

"The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus, I haven't seen a copy of this since I took a medieval literature class back in Rome." She picked it up and thumbed through the well-worn pages.

"Okay, what is it?" Morgan asked.

"It's a 12th century guide to wooing and winning fair ladies in a medieval court." She told him.

"You mean it's a 12th century guide to getting laid." Morgan grinned back at her.

"Something like that," she looked it over carefully.

"You know, that explains a lot." Morgan was still grinning. "Someone needs to bring that boy up to the 21st century."

"Hey, do not knock what you don't understand. This sort of thing still works on some women."

"Right, that's why he dates so much."

Emily ignored that and finished looking through the book in question, "No messages."

Morgan held out his hand to take a look. "You know, he can remember everything he ever read, if he's carrying this around it must have meaning for him."

"Maybe his Mom gave it to him." Garcia suggested.

"Maybe," Emily turned the bag all but inside out. "That's it."

Morgan sighed. "Great."

T + 23 hours

Corner of 18th st and E. Capitol

Washington DC.

Emily looked around the neighborhood then back down at her tablet, open to Google Maps. Why use secret resources when the open ones work so well. Why do you come here Spencer? She thought. "It looks like we have the Armory to the east, housing to the west, parking lots for the stadium to the north. It says there's some kind of research library a block north of here."

"Yeah, but a library won't be open at this hour." Morgan walked over to some people waiting for the bus. He showed Reid's picture and asked a bit. After a moment he came back. "They recognized him. They said he heads west on East Capitol."

The two of them started walking looking for anything that might have stood out, that might involve their friend. It was a pleasant enough walk, but one side was apartments, the other construction. After a while Emily looked over at Morgan. "Are you still mad at me?"

"Maybe," he replied in a tone that said that he wasn't.

"You think this is all my fault?"

"What, Reid and the boys?" She nodded. "Nope. You gave it your best. Hell, you gave more than that."

"Yeah." It didn't feel like that. Not anymore.

After a while she felt herself growing impatient. Every moment they took was another moment that someone could… "Are we getting anywhere? I mean it just looks like they're renovating the old high school here. Why would he go this way?"

"That's not what I'm looking at." Morgan wasn't looking at the land side of the sidewalk; he was looking at the street. "One, two…why are there five undercover cop cars parked out here?"

"How can you tell?"

"If you know what to look for you can see the lights inside the grille. Let's keep going."

They kept going another half block. Then they spotted two cops in different uniforms walking in to the hall of the church on the corner. They looked at each other, and headed inside after them. Just inside they were stopped by a man who wasn't wearing a badge, not openly, but his stance and demeanor clearly said cop. "Can I help you?"

Morgan pulled out his badge. "I'm SSA Morgan, this is SSA Prentiss."

"Darryl Patterson, DC Metro, retired." He offered his hand. "Are you here for the meeting?"

Morgan and Emily looked at each other again as they realized just what this was. "Not exactly," Morgan told him. "Can we talk for a minute?"

They stepped over to the side. Morgan laid out the bare bones of the case for him, Doyle, what had happened. "Look, we've worked with Reid for years now. Off the record, we know he's had a problem. I'm guessing this is an NA meeting."

Patterson nodded, "A closed one, cops only. Off the record, he's been a regular member for a few years now."

If nothing else, Emily thought, that's a good thing to know. "We don't want to out a fellow cop, but we need to know if he had crossed anyone, had a problem with someone, you know the drill."

"Let me go tap his sponsor, he'd be the one who would know."

A few moments later they were talking to someone known only as Bob. "Whatever it is, I know it's not addiction related. Reid's been clean since he got here, and there wasn't any indication that he was having a problem with it lately."

"Good to know." Morgan ran him through the usual questions, all made easier because they were cops and knew what to look for. But there was nothing, all they knew was that Reid was a decent guy and a good cop, working the steps and doing all right. "Did he go to any other meetings? Maybe there was someone else we could talk to."

"Yeah, sometimes he went to a meeting over at St. Jeremiah's Mission. They have them there three times a day, and it's not a place someone would go looking for a cop." He gave them the address, which popped up on Emily's tablet as being a half a block away from the unusual Metro stop in the skeezy neighborhood. "We only meet here once a week, and given the cases you guys seem to get, sometimes he and I meet over there after, you know, head off any problems at the pass."

"I can understand that. Thanks man." Morgan and Emily started back toward the car. "Well, at least he's been keeping his nose clean."

"Yeah, but that doesn't help us figure out where he's gone. And that's two questions out of six knocked off the board with no help. So what shall we do now?"

"Head over to his apartment."