Who was the father of Darby Sullivan's baby and why does Ray blame Christian?
Additionally, I received a PM about who I used as the physical inspiration for Christian Cavanagh. I feel like each reader can create how the OC characters look, but I used Brad Pitt in David Fincher's Se7en as my personal inspiration. If you like crime movies, and don't mind violent images, I would highly recommend it.
Morgan and JJ exited their car and made their way off the Dorchester street down to the grey triple-decker's walkway, buzzing for Carmella Flower's apartment when they arrived at the front door. After a few moments without reply, JJ noticed an intercom system, "Miss Flowers, this is Special Supervisory Agent Jareau and Morgan. We needed to ask you a few questions about Darby Sullivan." After a few more minutes of waiting, both agents were relieved when they were buzzed up, walking up the two flights of stairs to get to the apartment.
"Why you asking about Darby now?" They heard a woman in a thick south Boston accent call through the door. "She's been fucking dead almost eight years."
"We just want to know about her connection to Jackie Kane" JJ answered as she looked to Morgan who just shrugged. A few seconds later they heard the locks open and the chain slide off the door as the woman opened it.
Carmella Flowers looked to be in her mid-twenties and had medium length blonde curly hair with hazel eyes. She was wearing a tube top with a short skirt, not quite appropriate for the weather. Her apartment was old and dingy, but looked to be somewhat tidy. However, the agents did notice fragments of white powder on the glass coffee table, but opted not to comment on it.
"What you want to know about Jackie?" Carmella asked with a sniffle as she sat down on her worn sofa.
JJ slowly sat down next to her, careful not to spook the woman. "We need to talk about his connection to Darby Sullivan. Do you know how intimately were they involved?"
"They weren't fucking if that's what you're asking" Carmella stated bluntly as she brushed out her wrinkled skirt.
"Are you sure?" Morgan asked as JJ glared at him.
"Yeah I'm sure. She would have told me" she answered as she looked over to JJ. "If you were fucking a guy like Jackie Kane wouldn't you be fucking bragging about it to all your girlfriends?"
JJ gave the younger woman a small smile instead of replying and redistricted the conversation, "What about Darby? Do you remember anything that happened before she committed suicide? Anything that could explain why she felt she couldn't go on?"
Carmella nodded and wrapped her arms around herself, looking like she was searching for some sort of comfort to cope with discussing the subject. "She uh, she wasn't like the rest of her fucking family. She was a fucking good person. Her brother and dad were a couple of junk bags, you know? Darby wasn't into that shit."
"Carmella what happened to Darby? Why did she commit suicide?" JJ asked again in a gentle voice, sensing that Carmella was holding something back from her and Morgan.
"She, uh, a few days after her father's funeral, of all the fucking times, she gets, you know, raped."
"She was raped?" JJ repeated as the suicide began to make more sense.
"Yeah."
"Did she report it?"
Carmella scoffed at the question, "I tried to tell her to, but she wouldn't do it. She wouldn't tell me who it was neither. I didn't know what to do for her. It was wicked fucked up you know?"
"Did she know who it was?" JJ asked as Carmella nodded in reply.
"She said she didn't, but I could tell she was lying. She totally knew the scumbag that fucking did it."
Morgan cleared his throat and asked the one question that he didn't want to, but needed to anyway. "Is there any chance it was Jackie Kane?"
"Fuck no!" Carmella yelled before JJ patted her knee to calm her down. "I'm sorry it's just, Jackie wasn't like that. I know he was undercover and shit and I should hate him for being a rat, but he was a fucking good guy. He would never do that. He was nice you know? He wasn't like all those other guys that fucked Darby with their eyes and tried to grope her and shit. He was fucking classy like that. He told her to go back to college and gave her books and shit like that. Three days before everything went down with her dad, Jackie leaves her this note. It's some fucking poem, and we were all excited about what it meant, but it was about kingdoms crumbling. It was hard shit and he had to explain it to us. He told her to get away from her fucking brother and father. He warned her. He didn't fucking have to but he did, he did that for her. And, and" Carmella teared up before she went on, "Darby was so in love with him. Okay? She was in fucking love with Jackie, and if he wanted her, he wouldn't have to rape her or nothing."
"Okay" JJ soothed as the other woman became more upset. "Carmella, who was Jackie closest to in Jimmy's crew?"
"Jimmy and Fendi" Carmella answered before closing her eyes. "And Darby's older brother Ray. Ray was fucking weirdly obsessed with Jackie."
"What do you mean?" Morgan asked as he crossed his arms.
"It was just weird. You know Jackie liked to quote from movies and always wore a blue Sox cap. So all of a sudden Ray starts doing that too. But even weirder was, okay Jackie had this St. Christopher's Medallion he always wore on a chain and then one day Ray gets one too. He never took it off. Like he was fucking in love with him or wanted to be him or some shit like that. Some of the other guys teased him about it and Ray would just say that they were brothers, that's what brothers do. But it was some fucking strange shit."
JJ glanced over to Morgan who just nodded in reply before speaking up, "One last thing Carmella. Do you remember anything else that didn't add up in the days leading up to Darby's death?"
Carmella wiped the tears from her eyes, as silence filled the small apartment. A few minutes passed before Carmella spoke up in a quiet voice, "It was mad weird. A few days before she died Darby told me she was pregnant. I said to get it taken care of, but she couldn't do it. But she also said she couldn't have it either. So I told her to give it to charity."
"You mean give it up to adoption?" JJ clarified as Carmella nodded.
"Yeah, but she said no one would want it because it would be retarded. I told her, 'Darby you ain't a fucking retard and you don't do drugs so why you think it's retarded?' But she said it would be and that's all she said before she killed herself. I guess the guy who did was a retard. Alls I know is the next day she sends me out to the packie and when I come back, she's fucking gone" she answered over a sob as JJ gave Morgan a pointed look.
"Thank you so much, you've been very helpful" JJ offered as she handed Carmella her card. "Please call me if you remember anything else" she added, rubbing the woman's back before the profilers left the apartment and walked into the hallway.
JJ waited for Morgan and turned to face him when he walked up to her. "So Christian wasn't the father."
"But Darby Sullivan knew who he was and she was probably protecting him."
JJ nodded at Morgan's theory before adding on to it. "Why would someone be so absolutely convinced that their baby was going to be developmentally disabled?" She asked knowingly.
"Because the child was a child of incest" Morgan surmised, shaking his head in disgust.
JJ nodded and sighed, "Darby Sullivan was raped by her brother wasn't she?"
"The St. Christopher's Medallion wasn't Jackie's only belonging that Ray had to have" Morgan answered as he took out his phone to call Hotch.
Night had fallen by the time the team had finally gathered at the hotel room. After re-reading their findings, the team had become less and less hopeful about the outcome of the case, especially after Hotch and Rossi worked out a preliminary profile. Ray Sullivan was an obsessive paranoid sociopath with a God complex. Additionally, because he had already been to prison and all of his immediate family had died, he had no reason to live, which made him exceptionally dangerous.
"James Raymond Sullivan Jr., otherwise known as Ray Sullivan is definitely our unsub" Hotch began as the team listened intently. "Cavanagh is his stressor because he represents everything that Ray lost…" Hotch continued as Reid cut in.
"It appears as though Ray Sullivan is a classic beta male masquerading as an alpha male. He desperately craves the approval of those around him, especially his father, which made the appearance of Jackie Kane difficult for him. Jackie Kane is an outsider, and outsider who gets everything Ray ever wanted instantaneously. Which, in turn, creates this twisted relationship with Kane. One of jealously and hatred, but also of adoration and love…"
"Which is why it's so painful that the man he considered his brother betrayed him" Rossi filled in.
JJ flipped through Darby's medical examiner reports before speaking up, "So where does Darby fit in?"
"Jimmy wanted Darby to marry Christian and you mentioned that Carmella said Darby was in love with him" Emily answered as she thought back to her conversation with Donny McElroy. "Darby and Ray's mother died when they were very young, Jimmy doesn't seem like the nurturing type, and because of that Ray probably formed an unhealthy attachment to his sister. To see someone he views as belonging to him reject him for someone else would have triggered him. That coupled with the jealously over Christian's relationship with his father would start to create an intense hatred towards him."
"So are we thinking that Ray killed Darby?"
"No" Hotch answered the blonde as he crossed his arms. "Ray would have wanted to have the child with Darby. This is something he would have been excited by, but Darby's rejection of both him and their child pushed him over the edge. Unable to face rejection again, he probably justified that it was their father's death which caused her to kill herself, not the rape or pregnancy. This way he could blame Cavanagh for everything, everything meaning the loss of his former life, father, sister, and unborn child."
"I would guess that all along Sullivan never planned on living. His entire desire is to make Christian suffer as much as humanly possible. He wants him to suffer like he did, probably even worse. He'll probably be using torture to do so" Reid added as the team glared at him, making him shoot an apologetical look to Emily. He had forgotten that this was no ordinary case, he just tried to look at it unbiased. It was something that Emily didn't fault him for, but the new line of thinking still made her feel sick. As the rest of the team continued on in creating the profile, Emily tried to inconspicuously slip in to the bathroom, only to be followed by JJ.
"Fuck" she groaned as she emptied the contents of her stomach while JJ sat down on the floor behind her and began rubbing her back.
"Are you okay?" JJ asked as Emily merely waved the other woman off before vomiting again. "It's okay honey."
"Yeah this is pretty ideal" Emily replied sarcastically with a smirk.
JJ smiled as she got up to get Emily a glass of water, "Well at least the snark is still here."
The brunette laughed humorlessly as the comment, "It'll be here until the day I die."
"We're going to find him" JJ assured in a tender voice.
Emily covered her eyes with her hands and took a deep breath to calm her nerves, "I just need five minutes. Okay?"
Understanding that Emily was still, well, Emily, JJ nodded and went to check the rest of the empty apartment.
Emily remained on the bathroom floor, unsure what exactly was making her sick, the smell of Morgan's hot dog, the baby, or the entire situation at hand. All she wanted was for Christian to be home, not his home but hers, theirs. She couldn't believe that she had been so idiotic. That she had been so worried about his judging her that she allowed herself to end the only relationship in her life that ever made her happy. All she wanted was a second chance. But the thing about second chances is that they are never certain, there are sometimes you get them and sometimes you just don't. Emily took a deep breath as she shook the thoughts from her mind and headed back to the team. This wasn't the time for self-pity. This was a time to find him.
"Okay" Hotch began as he stood up to address the team again. "Let's summarize what we have so far and try to establish where Ray would have taken Cavanagh."
Rossi glanced over to Emily before answering, with the brunette giving him a tired smile. "Christian goes undercover after graduating from the Academy. He is sent to Cedar Junction Prison, where he first makes contact with Jimmy Sullivan's gang."
"He rises in the gang and becomes Jimmy's right hand man, working only under Donny McElroy" JJ added.
"Ray starts to become obsessed with him and Darby Sullivan begins to harbor feelings for him. This simultaneous infatuation from both his father and sister leads Ray to become even more compulsive in his obsession with Christian, which causes him to imitate his habits" Reid cut in as the team nodded in agreement.
Morgan rubbed his eyes before he also added to the conversation, "Eight months before the operation ends a few federal agents try to make a deal with Jimmy Sullivan. In doing so they use an undercover asset as a selling point for their deal. However, Jimmy takes it upon himself to find the undercover, outsourcing it to Christian, who begins to have panic attacks and begs for the operation to end as a result. But his bosses don't comply and he has to sell it to Jimmy as the FBI lying to get their deal…"
"But in an effort to gain his father's trust and adoration, Ray fingers Fitzgerald "Fitzy" Bryant as the undercover trooper. After which, Jimmy kills him in front of Christian to make a point. But even though Christian made a mistake and it appeared that Ray found the undercover, Jimmy still favors Christian" Hotch cut in as he furrowed his brow.
Emily bit on her bottom lip before speaking up, as the team turned to face her. "It still didn't work, so Ray comes up with another plan when the mafia from Providence makes a move on their operation. The plan backfires when he accidentally kills Antonio DeMarco, Fat Tony's only son, Dominic Leonardo DeMarco, which causes a problem. Jimmy doesn't want to fight a turf war, so to make peace he has to prove that he didn't order the hit on Dom DeMarco, which means that he has to kill whoever stepped out of line, his only son. But he can't bring himself to do it so he asks Christian to."
"Christian can't, he ends the operation and warns Darby. Jimmy is killed in a shootout and Ray blames whoever set up his father. He has a hunch of who might have set him up and tries to take back what is rightfully his from the man who ruined everything, and rapes his sister. However, she rejects him and she kills herself, opting to die than have his baby. And he blames Christian for that too. He then finds out that Christian was supposed to kill him and he spends all his time in prison trying to find Jackie Kane's true identity" Morgan added as Garcia came on to the computer screen.
"Well my superstars I have a lot of information for you" Garcia began as she pulled up the various windows on her computer screen. "First, Ray Sullivan did not have the best time in prison. And by that I mean he was in the infirmary a lot and it seemed like a lot of inmates had grudges against Sullivan Sr. and took it out on Jr. So after still receiving death threats in solitary confinement, Sullivan was moved to Sing Sing in New York. But before he moved the prison records indicated that he had his first tattoo done. A scorpion…"
"Symbolically scorpions often mean transition in life but they can also mean death. It could be his new lease in life, transitioning into a new role as an agent of death" Reid filled in as Emily thoughts drifted to Christian's tattoos. The phoenix tattoo, which like the scorpion tattoo, symbolizes a rebirth. But in completely different ways, perfectly illustrating the difference between the two men. And then there was Christian's beloved Chinese proverb, 'He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves; one for his enemy and one for himself.'
"Well" Garcia continued on, "Ray Sullivan was let out of prison almost a year ago. He requested to have his parol moved to Providence, Rhode Island which was declined so he stayed in New York until ten months ago. And that's when he drops off the face of the earth. There are no records of him, no way to track where he would taken Christian. But because I am the Oracle of Knowledge I found out that Fat Tony DeMarco and his mistress, Lorraine Delvecchio, were both killed eight months ago. Lorraine Delvecchio was shot in the bathtub execution style, but Fat Tony was shot in the chest and the head" Garcia informed the team before grimacing. "According to the police reports, Tony's left ring finger was missing from his body and a King of Diamonds playing card was found in his shirt pocket, which was Jimmy Sullivan's signature interestingly enough."
Emily ran her fingers through her hair as she responded in an assured tone, "He's cleaning house, getting revenge on everyone he thinks betrayed him. Christian is his stressor and he's going to take him where he feels the betrayal began. He's going back to Providence. This has always been about what happened in Providence."
Hotch nodded as he walked over to the computer screen, "Garcia I need you to find any Providence real estate that Ray Sullivan would have access to. It would have to be either a warehouse or a single family home. He would need privacy."
"Gotcha" Garcia replied as she began typing on her computer as the rest of the team just had to sit and wait, hoping that she could find something before it was too late.
The minutes passed by at an excruciating slow pace, with Emily nervously picking at her nails. She winced in pain as one began to bleed, the sound garnering the attention of JJ, who handed her a tissue and moved to hold her hand. JJ knew exactly how Emily was feeling, she was feeling the same way the team did when she was missing. Except, it was somehow worse, because there was so much unsaid that Emily needed to tell Christian and she may never get the chance.
"I have something" Garcia excitedly remarked, cutting into the silence.
"What is it baby girl?"
"Ray Sullivan has an eighty year old great-aunt who lives Providence's Washington Park. The house has a large yard, a garage and a basement."
"Send us that address and the floor plans to our tablets" Hotch ordered as the team started strapping on their Kevlars. The unit chief quickly glanced over to Emily, who just nodded in response. It was an unspoken agreement. She would head out with the team, but stay in the SUV. She would not be entering into the home. "Garcia make sure that you have an ambulance on stand by" Hotch concluded as he led the team out of the room, with JJ giving Emily a discrete reassuring squeeze on the hand as they headed out to the single black SUV. They had found where Christian was being held. The only question was, what state would he be found in?
Congrats to the reader Sera who figured out the little twist on who was the father of Darby's unborn child. Now as for the Penn Station hint, the subtext I was referring to was how Ray seemed infatuated with the ticket taker who resembled Emily, who in turn, resembled Darby, as Sergeant O'Rourke pointed out. This pointed to Ray's unhealthy obsession with his sister. Also the beeping connected to the fact that Ray was in prison, where the inmates are often directed by buzzing and beeping noises.
Will Emily find Christian in time or will this be my first major character death fic?
Predictions?
