Soo here we are - the last chapter before Hankel makes his appearance. But this episode was pretty key in season 2 - we just didn't know it until later on. So I present you with Chapter 49. I hope you all enjoy it - I'd like to hear what you think...
Thank you so much to all of you who review, favorite, and story alert this. When I first started writing this (this is my first fan fic by the way) I just wanted to write a story that I would want to read - because personally I believe there is not enough JJ/Reid out there - I didn't even really know if I'd be any good, so the fact that so many of you are reading this, enjoying it, and consider it quality work...well that's just fantastic. THANK YOU!
Also I noticed that some of you have checked out my embarassingly blank profile page - I promise someday I will actually think of something to put there, but for right now, I think I speak for all of us when I say my time is better spent writing new chapters - :)
I don't own Criminal Minds.
Happy reading - enjoy :)
JJ unlocked the front door and walked in the house. She dropped her keys, cell phone, and purse on the entry way table. She walked into the living room and dropped onto the couch. She leaned forward resting her elbows on her knees and dropped her face in into her hands. Her fingers pushed the fringe framing her face back away from her face as she broke down in tears. JJ sobbed as she thought back over the last several days.
JJ and Spence sat on the living room floor together in front of the Christmas Tree looking at the notes JJ had written down about their upcoming cases. JJ turned to face Spence as she watched him read over her notes. He turned to face her with a look of horror on his face when he finished reading her notes.
"JJ …" Spence said, not sure how to continue.
"I know, Spence. We have to make sure things change on this case" she said. "Too many people's lives depend on it. It made me physically ill last time that Rebecca Bryant died last time one year after we saved her, and that Tracey Bell, who we just saved a few months ago, had to go through a horrifying experience for any child. Not to mention Gideon's college friend Sarah, and Gideon himself. If we don't stop this from happening, Gideon will be broken." JJ said as tightened her grip on Spence's hand.
"We'll find away JJ …. We have to." Spence said as he stared down at her notes.
JJ wiped the tears from her eyes and stood from the couch. She walked into the kitchen an made herself a cup of tea, hoping that would help her relax.
"He's coming. He's coming back and there's nothing you can do about it. Do you hear me nothing." Crazy Jane said as she grabbed the lapels of Reid's jacket.
The Deputy pulled Crazy Jane off of Reid and began dragging her back towards the holding cell.
"NOTHING!" Crazy Jane yelled.
As he was dragging her away, she dropped something.
Emily bent over and picked up "Um excuse me, she dropped this." she called out to the deputy.
Reid stepped closer and lightly laid his hand on Emily's wrist. "Wait, Emily, let me see that." She handed it to Reid.
He turned it over in his hands. He looked up at the deputy holding the women. "Who is this?" he asked.
"This?, This is Crazy Jane." the Deputy said confused.
Reid looked at the item he held in his hands. He turned to face Emily and Elle "Guys, this is made out of a rib bone."
Elle and Emily sat down one either side of Crazy Jane.
"What happened to you?" Emily asked.
"My car broke down. The engine went out on me. And uh," Jane said looking down at her hands. She turned to look at Elle. "You know in those days, they didn't have cell phones. So I tied to fix it myself. Then I felt a presence. And then everything went white. Then I was in a spaceship and I could see myself." Jane stared up at the ceiling as she was swept away in the memory "It was like time was suspended. I could feel everything. There were strange maps on the walls. Diagrams of all the stars. It was cold, very, very cold."
Jane stood up and turned around to face Elle, Emily, Reid, and the Deputy, "And the alien, he did things to me. He touched me very softly and he stroked my hair. He drew lines all over my body. And the whole time he was standing there smiling down on me. And then I looked in his eyes, and I wasn't afraid anymore. I don't know why."
"Then what did he do?" Elle asked
"And then I was back in my own bed and it was the next morning." Jane said.
"How long ago did this happen?" Emily asked looking up at Jane from her seat on the bench.
"I was 19." Jane chuckled "It was 30 years ago."
"And did you ever see him again?" Emily asked.
"Oh I see him" Jane said as she lifted her head "I see him every time I shut my eyes."
The group except for Crazy Jane walked out of the holding cell.
"The strange maps on the walls could have been anatomical drawings." Reid said as they walked out of the doorway from the holding cell area.
"What about the fact that she could see herself?" The Deputy asked.
"A mirrored ceiling" Elle said.
"So his victims could see themselves being dismembered." Emily said continuing Elle's line of thought.
The Deputy closed his eyes and leaned back against the desk. His chin dropped to rest on his chest and he pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse."
"Her subconscious mind created a delusion that she was abducted by an alien because she wasn't able to cope with the truth." Elle said.
"It's possible that she's the only one who's survived." Emily said.
JJ finished her cup of tea and set the cup in the sink. She braced her hands on the edge of the sink and bent her head in thought.
"If they are connected, he's killed hundreds of people all over North America" Garcia said as the unsolved murders and photos scrolled across her computer monitor.
"How many years do they go back again?" JJ asked as she stared at the map she had hung on Garcia's office wall.
"Thirty years" Garcia responded.
"Alright, keep going" JJ sighed.
Garcia started once again listing off the names of cities as JJ put push pins in those locations on the map.
"Want to hear the really bad news?" Garcia asked JJ with a look of shocked horror on her face.
"Can it get any worse?" JJ asked as she continued to study the map.
"Just did." Garcia responded.
"Early doxological investigations of the victims blood indicated high doses of Ketamine" Reid said as he handed the autopsy report to Hotch during the briefing.
The team continued to give the profile of the unsub. They shared with the local Sheriff's department the unspeakable horror the victims being alive while they were dismembered, the unsub getting off on the fear in their eyes. He either had medical training or he had honed his craft over the years. The unsub was mid to late 50s, highly intelligent, methodically and obsessively clean. His vehicle is most likely an RV, muted in color, neither old nor new, in perfect working order. It'll have a CB, radar detectors, and Police band radio. The vehicle is his killing room. It'll be sound proofed. Surgical instruments are on the walls. There's a stir-up chair or an autopsy table in it. All of his kills are recorded. If not on video, then in a journal that he carries with him in right hand inside jacket pocket. This man is void of all normal human feelings.
"We have road blocks on every Inter-state, track, or route, in or out of this town. We'll shut down this state if we have to." Deputy Silo said as he headed for the doors of the station.
"Stop every RV, truck, and trailer" Hotch said to the Deputies heading out to man the road blocks.
Gideon, Morgan, Elle, Emily, Hotch, and Reid circled up with George, the Sheriff, to fill her in on their working theory on Crazy Jane and that her abduction wasn't an alien abduction, but a near miss with death at the hands of this serial killer nearly 30 years ago.
George nodded "The profile you gave, it reminded me of her story. If you hadn't already heard the story, I'd have taken you to meet Jane now."
"We think the unsub may have stayed in contact with her" Reid said as he pulled Crazy Jane's whistle out of his pocket in an evidence bag. "Jane told us this whistle was a gift. It's made from a rib bone."
The Sheriff shuddered slightly as Reid handed her the evidence bag.
"We need to search Jane's house Sheriff. The unsub could have unknowingly sent clues as to who he is, where is, what we can do to find him, to Jane." Hotch said.
George nodded. "I'll take you over there right now."
JJ rolled her neck and shoulders, the stress of the last few days and carrying the weight of the world between her shoulders and Spence's was making itself known. She glanced her watch. She had time for a shower. God knows she could use one, close to 48 hours of sheer terror of what could happen, what might happen, had taken it's toll.
The team, Sheriff George, and her Deputies, approached the house as an unknown hostile entity, as they were unsure if the unsub might be lurking about. Hotch, Emily, and Reid cautiously mounted the stairs to the front porch.
As she took her place along the exterior wall as they prepared to breach the door, her eyes caught the wind chimes, much like Reid had noticed the whistle earlier that day.
"Guys, these wind chimes are made of bone" She said glancing at the guys to her left "I think it's human rib bones."
The team, and George led the Deputies on a search of the grounds after clearing their way through the house. They proceeded through the old barn on the backside of Jane's property. Reid, Hotch, Emily, led the way into the old barn, in a 'V' formation, guns drawn, with Reid as the tip of the spear. Morgan, Elle, and Gideon approached from the far side of the barn. Both groups were backed up by deputies.
When Reid reached the tarps hanging at the back of the barn, he peeled back one of the tarps to look behind it, finding non other than a silver trailer. He yanked down the tarp and he and Hotch proceeded to secure the trailer's entrance.
They waited for the rest of the team to secure the far side of the barn and round the corner. Once the whole team had rallied at the trailer, they lined up single file on either side of the trailer door, crouched below the window line.
They all made eye contact and nodded confirming they were prepared to breach the trailer.
Hotch crouched in front of the door and glanced at Reid who was positioned beside the door. Reid reached across opening the latch and pulling back the door.
Hotch entered the trailer quickly moving his line of sight and gun about in a 180 degree arc. After determining that there was not a threat, he called out "Clear!"
The rest of the team entered the trailer, their eyes horrified by what they saw. The inside of the trailer was just as they had described it not an hour ago. In the middle of the trailer was an autopsy table still covered in the blood of Kathryn Hale.
"I thought I'd seen everything" Hotch said as he moved about the trailer.
"Guys" Elle called out.
"What is it?" Morgan asked from where he stood in the doorway.
"It's a coffin." Elle answered she looked to Emily, they nodded at each other and then at Reid. He nodded back. He stood in front of the coffin with his gun at the ready. Emily and Elle each held their weapons ready with one hand while they flipped open the lid of the coffin with the other.
"It's empty" Elle called out.
"I've got another one over here" Hotch said as he braced his feet, gripped his gun pointing it at the lid of the coffin, and flipped back the lid. "This one's empty too."
The team exited the trailer and regrouped out in the fresh air, glad to be away from the acrid smell of several days old blood.
"We need to put everything back the way it was and set up a team to stake out this trailer." Gideon said "He'll come back here at some point. We need to be ready for him when he does."
Morgan and Elle stayed at Jane's barn with eight Deputies. They hid themselves at various lookout points in the woods and the barn, strategically placed so that all ingress and egress points were covered and every team had a line of sight on at least two other teams. They were all wired with communications equipment. They weren't taking any chances with this unsub. Elle and Morgan volunteered for the most precarious position. The unsub would have to walk right past them to get to the trailer, but they also knew that when he showed up, they would be the first to have the drop on him.
The rest of the team and the Sheriff left to follow up with deputies manning the road blocks.
"Morgan" Elle whispered from her position next to him "It's been hours, are we sure Gideon is right about this and that he's going to come back?"
"Gideon isn't usually wrong. I hear he won a bet with Hotch over JJ and Reid" Morgan said with a grin.
"You know I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation" Elle said.
"Isn't that the truth" Morgan whispered back.
Just then he and Elle both raised their hands to their earpieces as they heard rustling in the woods and a twig snap.
"Look alive people - we've got company" Morgan whispered into his mike.
JJ bent her head and let the water wash over her. The beating and pounding sensation of water as hot as she could stand it combined with the steam worked to cleanse the horror and disgust of the last two days from her skin, and began to help her forget so that she could move on.
"Mark's away at his Mother's, took Tommy with him." George said as she entered her dinning room.
"Come on in, safe here." she said as she took off her gun belt.
"Well, you said you didn't want to go home, and I couldn't leave you in jail." She turned to hang up her guns as Jane walked into the room. She hit the play button on the answering machine and turned to look at Jane.
"I'll make up the guest bedroom. Can I get you something? Soda?" George asked as she moved into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.
"Thank you for being so kind." Jane said from where she stood in the dining room.
Jane startled and glanced back towards the front door when she heard George's husbands voice on the answering machine.
She tilted her head and smiled slightly as she listened to the message "Is he good to you?" She asked George.
"Ever since I met him. We were both 15. Grape juice?" George asked as she pulled the pitcher of juice out of the refrigerator and stood up. She turned expecting to see Jane still in the dinning room.
"Whoa, what the hell?" George exclaimed as the pitcher of juice slipped out of her hand and crashed to the floor.
"He's here George." Jane said from the other side of the refrigerator door.
JJ wrapped her bathrobe tightly about herself and leaned against the bathroom counter. She wiped her hand across the foggy surface of the mirror. Looking into her eyes in the mirror, she began to tear up and break down again. She faltered on her shaky legs and tightly gripped the counter top to remain up right.
That's the position Spence found her in a few minutes later when he got home and went through the house looking for her.
"Oh God, JJ, baby …. Ssshhhh" Spence said as he stepped into the bathroom and pulled her into his arms. "sssshhhhh" he murmured in her hear stroking soothing patterns over her back with one hand and through her hair with the other.
Elle, Morgan, and all of the Deputies tensed as they heard someone moving through the clearing and approaching the trailer. They all watched as the unsub approached the trailer carrying what appeared to be a body.
"Hold your positions. Wait for the signal from Agent Greenaway and myself" Morgan hissed into his mike. They couldn't afford for a cocky Deputy to blow this.
They watched as the unsub strolled up to the trailer casual as you please. He clearly did not know that he was being watched. They watched as he sat his victim's body down slumped against the trailer as he stood to open the door.
"Son of a bitch" Elle hissed under her breath as the moon light caught the victim's face and she saw that it was George the Sheriff.
"Now" Morgan said into his mike.
"FREEZE!" Morgan yelled as he, Elle, and eight armed Deputies revealed themselves to form a half circle perimeter around him.
"Hands above your head and no sudden moves" Elle called out.
They threaded the needle, and drew the noose tighter about him as they all progressed closer towards him.
Suddenly he made a move towards the Sheriff as if to grab her and use her as a shield. One of her ever faithful Deputies pulled the trigger.
Frank fell where he stood, landing across the legs of the Sheriff, who watched on, unable to move, stuck in a 'K Hole' by the unsub.
Morgan and Elle reached the body first. Elle stood above the body of the unsub covering Morgan with her Glock as he flipped the body over. There was one bullet wound dead center in his forehead.
Spence tightened his arms around JJ "Ssshhh it's over JJ, it's over. Why are you crying baby?" He asked as he slipped one of his hands up to wipe the tears off her cheeks.
"Relief Spence, relief" JJ said as she snuggled deeply into his chest and took a deep calming breath. Relief that Frank was dead and that this case did not have a bitter sweet ending of a bus full of children saved, but having to let the most prolific serial killer to ever cross paths with the BAU walk away. Relief that so much tragedy had been avoided.
