Follows along with episode 3x11 - Birthright
Emily Prentiss was a force to be reckoned with.
I'd thought Hotch was intense with weapons training, but even he fell short of the woman who had just decimated the target in less than ten seconds. Even a few of the other agents at the shooting range had stopped to watch her kick ass.
As Emily turned to me, she paused at the look on my face. "What? What's wrong?"
"Just when I think you can't be any more of a badass, you go and bring a paper target to its knees," I laughed, shaking my head as she gave a small shake of her head. "What? I'm being serious! That was amazing!"
As she passed me back the rifle, she gave a small shrug of her shoulders and dismissed, "it's just practice. At the rate you're going, you'll pass me up on marksmanship. We've got time for one more round, if you're up for it."
When I'd first met Emily, I'd taken her to be as cocky and self-assured as Morgan. To my surprise, the more I got to know her, the more I'd come to realize she was the most humble of the team. Getting her to accept a compliment or acknowledge her serious talent and skills was as hard as getting Hotch to take a day off.
Which, ironically, is what I'd convinced him to do this morning. Well, I'd at least talked him into leaving my firearms training to Emily today so he could have a morning with his family. Now, I was determined to master this stupid rifle so when we met up next week, I could actually impress him with my improvement. Last week I'd failed miserably; so far it wasn't looking any better today.
"Let's do it," I agreed, stepping up to the firing booth and rolling my shoulders, ready to get it right this time. "Okay, so I take my stance…"
As I lifted the rifle up, Emily's hands came to my shoulders and she gently turned me to the side. "Remember, we want the same stance you used with the shotgun, not the pistol. This gun has a pretty decent recoil and if you don't angle yourself right, you'll lose your footing."
"Yeah, okay… forty-five-degree angle, right?" I asked, shifting my right foot back a little more. "And I bend the knees…"
I crouched just a hint and Emily's hand fell to my back, nudging me forward a bit. "Lean towards the target, putting your weight on the balls of your feet instead of your heels."
As I followed her instructions, she stepped back and let me lift the rifle to my shoulder. I took a couple steadying breaths, running Hotch's words on repeat as I shut an eye to take aim.
Focus on the front sight, not on the target. Control your trigger press and follow through.
The first shot was completely off the target, and the recoil hit my shoulder hard enough to shift me back a hint. Instantly Emily steadied me; I bit back a growl of frustration. I had the stance, I had the practice, I had two of the best weapons trainers in the FBI, so why didn't I have this down already!?
By the time I used up the rest of the magazine, I'd only hit the paper half a dozen times. The amount of shots actually within the lines of the target was significantly less than that. Emily called the target back as I irritably sat the rifle aside, pulling off the safety glasses and headphones and tossing them onto the bench.
We had a case briefing in fifteen minutes and even though Hotch would probably approve of me running late for target practice, I couldn't take more of the stupid rifle today. We gathered our things in silence – Emily knowing better than to poke me when I was grumpy – and made our way out of the shooting range.
When I noticed she was still holding onto my target paper, I frowned and tried to take it from her. She held it up out of the way and I huffed, tugging at her sleeve.
"Don't keep that," I whined; she smacked my hand down and pushed the target into the safety of her bag. "Em come on. I did terrible."
"You showed a lot of improvement. I know Hotch will want to see it," she told me as we made our way across the courtyard to the main building. That only got me scowling more. "Hey, you're doing really well. This is only your second week with the carbine, right?"
"Yeah," I sighed, badging in reluctantly and shuffling after her into the lobby. As we waited for the elevator I mumbled out, "But I only have two weeks left of firearms training and at this rate I won't pass the rifle qualification."
"You know, profilers aren't even required to carry guns," she pointed out. "Let alone a semi-automatic rifle."
I knew she was trying to tease me, but I was still so bummed all I did was slump back against the elevator wall. "I know, I just… I want to pass all the certifications. I don't want –" I don't want to let Hotch down. "I don't want to fail."
Emily looked back when I cut off, and her teasing smile softened into one of understanding. She moved back to stand beside me, copying my stance. "You know that there's no way you could disappoint any of us, right?"
"Of course," I lied. Which was totally pointless because Emily saw straight through me instantly. She bumped my arm with her own and chuckled,
"Realistically, kiddo, short of committing a crime, there's no way you'd ever let any of us down. And honestly, depending on the crime, I'm pretty sure even Hotch would make exceptions." She got a reluctant smile of out me and nudged me again to usher me off the elevator when we arrived on our floor. "I mean it when I say you're doing really well."
We made it three steps towards the bullpen doors when a voice directly behind me exclaimed, "so you killed it in training today, sunshine?!"
The squeak of pure terror that left me wasn't a noise anyone in the FBI should've made. Emily barely caught me as I spun on my heel, clutching at my chest, glaring furiously up at Morgan. "Don't do that! Jeeze!"
He was laughing too hard to notice my anger and just threw an arm around my shoulders, towing me into the bullpen. Emily, though fighting her own smile, pushed Morgan's arm off me and pulled me to her side as she offered, "want me to beat him up for you?"
Before I could say yes, let me hold him down for you, Rossi sauntered up to our little group. He took a moment to look us over, then gave a heavy sigh as he asked, "what's got you threatening violence before 8am on a Wednesday?" Emily and I pointed simultaneously to Morgan; Rossi shrugged in acceptance. "Well, don't let me get in your way."
"I – hey!" Morgan huffed, abandoning his usual harassment of me to go after Rossi. "Why does everyone always gang up on me?! Pretty boy, help me out here!"
Spencer didn't even look up from his desk as Morgan and Rossi rushed by, calling out idly, "you changed my ringtone again. I condone any repercussions you're facing for whatever else you've done."
"Did he really?" I sighed, dropping my things onto my chair before I came around to his desk. For a few seconds, everything else slowed around us. The shouting from Morgan and Rossi disappeared, taking Emily's teasing laugh along with it. The rest of the bullpen faded out and it was just Spencer and I, smiling at one another, lost in our own world for just a couple heartbeats.
Easing up onto the corner of his desk, I held out my hand and instantly Spencer passed off his cellphone. I was fairly positive the literal genius and his 187 IQ could figure out the ringtone – I'd even showed him twice, just for this reason – but I liked that he still asked me for help.
Between helping me study, teaching me Russian, and all the help and support he'd given with Connor, I always felt guilty realizing there was hardly anything I could do for him in return. I mean, all I could do was occasionally fix his phone and throw together a cup of coffee. Compared to all Spencer did for me, changing back his ringtone wasn't that big of a deal. When I gave him his phone back though, he smiled up at me like I'd just personally solved world hunger.
"Grazie. Ti apprezzo," he said with one of his genuine, toothy smiles that got the butterflies in my chest scattering every direction. In my usual composed, eloquent manner, all I did for several moments was smile down at him as I fought a blush.
Finally, I at least managed to gather a couple braincells to remember the Russian he'd gone over with me last week. "Pozhaluysta."
"Your pronunciation is getting better," he praised, somehow widening that dazzling smile as he got to his feet. Again, fully and completely flustered by the praise I couldn't get enough of, all I gave in return was a smitten smile. He smiled back at me, confused at the look I was giving him but bashful nonetheless. He quickly tucked his hair back behind his ears (and I shamelessly followed the movement) as he glanced back at the conference room. "It looks like Hotch is getting ready to start. Are you ready?"
I hopped back off his desk as I shook my head, jamming a thumb over my shoulder towards the break area. "I'm gonna go grab the coffee and I'll be right in. You want your usual cup of sugar, or do you wanna mix it up and keep your teeth from rotting?"
He chuckled and shook his head, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he started backing towards the conference room. As he did every time, Spencer reminded, "you don't need to make my coffee, Aria."
"Hmm," I teased, tapping my chin as I rolled my eyes up. "I'm not familiar with that drink but I'll see what they have."
The giggle I got out of him sent the butterflies fluttering wildly once again.
By the time I joined the rest of the team in the conference room, everyone but JJ was already gathered around the table. I was admittedly a little disappointed to see both seats next to Spencer were taken, but hopefully that'd help me focus on the briefing.
I went around the table and sat everyone's drinks down, each one of them voicing something similar to what Spencer had told me. When I got to Hotch, he took his coffee and tipped his head back to catch my attention.
"Though you're an intern, we don't expect you to bring us coffee," he began, trying to drive home the point I'd ignored from the others. In answer, I gave his shoulder a squeeze before I circled to the open seat between Rossi and Morgan.
"Well, if you're not expecting it, it'll always be a surprise. That sounds like a good way to start the morning."
The others gave me playfully exasperated frowns as I flashed them a cheeky grin. Before they could keep going, the last of our team came rushing in.
"Good, everyone's here," JJ sighed in relief, all but tossing the files at us as she circled around the table. I nudged Rossi back out of my to slide JJ's coffee cup in her direction. She gave me a fleeting smile before turning back to the board and pulling out the controller.
Spencer and I shared a curious look with one another across the table as she glanced back at the group. Something told me this was gonna be an interesting one.
"Okay… Last night, about twenty miles south of us in Fredericksburg, a twenty-year-old woman named Molly McCarthy was abducted. She's the third to go missing in the last six weeks. All disappeared from public places, and no one's seen them since."
"Until now," Rossi guessed, and sure enough, the next slide that popped up was of a severed leg. Emily and Penelope met my grimace with ones of their own as JJ explained,
"A couple days ago, body parts with cigarette burns were recovered from a national park, which was once the site of the Battle of Chancellorsville."
"Were they able to make an ID?" Hotch asked; she hit the button for the next slide. A smiling young girl popped up to cover the pictures of her mutilated body. The contrast in images got my stomach churning and I dropped my eyes back to the papers in front of me.
"It was the first victim, twenty-one-year-old Jenna Frasier. She was taken six weeks ago from the parking lot of her college. Decomp indicated that she had been dead just over a week."
As the others started to discuss the timeline of the abductions and deaths, I couldn't look away from the girl smiling down at me on the screen. Twenty-year-old college kid taken in a parking lot. Though I tried not to, my mind instantly went back to the night I'd found Connor waiting for me at my school.
What if I hadn't noticed him? Would he have followed me, jumped me from behind? Would he have taken me away like he'd tried to do in the parking garage? Would I have been a victim just like Jenna Frasier?
I'm not a victim, I told myself instantly, actually taken aback realizing I'd called myself that. That wasn't me. I wasn't a victim. Was I?... I mean, technically, by definition, I was. But is that how the team saw me? A weak, helpless little girl that was just Connor's victim?
A hand rested over mine, and only now did I realize I'd been anxiously tapping the table. Rossi gave a light squeeze, staring down at me in concern as he asked softly, "you okay, kid?"
"Yeah, sorry," I murmured, giving him a small smile. He gave my hand a pat and pulled away as I forced myself to focus on the case. As JJ flipped through the next few pictures, the dates under the pictures of the abducted girls caught my attention.
"Hold on. If I'm reading these dates right, this UnSub's holding all the victims for over a month and it looks some of the abduction dates overlap, don't they?"
"They do," Emily confirmed. "Seems this UnSub keeps at least two women at a time, for at least a month, if not longer."
Propping my chin on my hand – mostly to keep myself from tapping the table again – I glanced around at the others and asked, "so, keeping them for this long would take a lot of effort and resources. Which means, it's possible the victims may have significance to him, right?"
Morgan nodded beside me and added, "could also be part of his preparations. Maybe finding the right victims is hard, so he holds onto the ones he finds until he's got a good replacement."
"If he spends that much time with the victims, there's a chance they could still be alive, isn't there?" Penelope asked hopefully, and Hotch gave a quick nod of confirmation.
"Which is why we need to work fast to piece this together," Emily agreed, and then motioned to the unattached body parts. "How'd she end up like that?"
"M.E. found microscopic tool marks on the bone," JJ reported, which surprisingly got Spencer sitting up in his seat, realization sparking on his face.
"I remember reading about a case like this a couple of years ago. It happened a while back, in Spotsylvania county," he told the rest of us; am unavoidable smile crept onto my face. I couldn't even remember what I'd had for lunch yesterday, and he could recall something as randomly trivial as this. "Multiple victims were taken at once, and body parts recovered had similar markings on the bone. But that case was from twenty-seven years ago."
"It was the winter of 1980, also in Fredericksburg," JJ confirmed. The rest of us all shared a communal look of uh-oh. If anyone other than Spencer knew details of a case from nearly three decades ago, there was a pretty good chance the similarities weren't just a coincidence. "Five women, sixteen to twenty-four. Buried in pieces, with same markings like Spence pointed out. Same civil war battlefield, too."
"Hold on, now," Rossi asked, sitting up as well now. "Killed the same time of year, and left at the same dump site?"
At JJ's confirmation, Morgan let out a low whistle and shook his head. "It's like an anniversary. This time and that location definitely have meaning to this guy."
"The UnSub from twenty-seven years ago was never caught. That case is still open," JJ revealed. "And right now, the biggest difference here is just in victimology. Back then, the women were drug addicts and runaways, all high-risk victims. Now, they've all been relatively low-risk college students."
"Wait…" I said slowly, looking up from my notes to glance around the table again. "Do we really think this could be the same killer?" The others nodded and I sat back, frowning at the file. "I mean, thirty years is one hell of a cooling-off period."
"BTK resurfaced after a twenty-five-year hiatus," Spencer pointed out. I quirked a small smile and gave him an agreeing shrug.
"A fair point, but when he popped back up he didn't kill anyone. He just taunted the police. To just dive back into your same M.O. after all that time? That's not very likely, is it?"
"It's not, necessarily. But the marks on the bone and where he dumps the bodies… that's a very specific signature," Rossi explained to me, following Hotch's lead and getting to his feet, shrugging as he added, "plus, it's pretty hard to copycat details that were never made public."
I opened my mouth to argue but paused realizing he had a pretty good point. "Okay, I'll give you that one."
"How gracious of you," Rossie snickered, ignoring the side-eye I threw to him as I got to my feet as well. We gathered by the door, all awaiting orders, ready to dive into this case and figure out what was really going on.
"JJ, with this being local, I'd like you and Garcia to set up here and check the M.O against girls missing in other states," Hotch delegated; both women nodded. "It could help us explain the long absences if we are looking at the same UnSub, and other victims will help us narrow down a profile faster."
"We're on it," Penelope assured, and the two of them waved goodbye as they took off across the bullpen. Hotch led the rest of us down the walkway, heading for his office. He ducked inside momentarily as he called out,
"The rest of us will meet in the parking garage in fifteen minutes. Dave, Prentiss, Morgan, I'd like you to head straight to the station. See if you can coordinate with the officer that worked the disappearances in 1980. Reid, Aria, and I will meet the sheriff at the battlefield to go over the most recent crime scene."
When he reappeared, he had two sets of keys. Without thinking, he tossed one set to me, and the other to Morgan. The moment they left his hands, I could tell he regretted his choice of drivers. Morgan and I caught the keys and then instantly turned to smirk dangerously at each other.
"Fredericksburg is twenty miles away, hm?" Morgan started, wiggling his impressively-fluffy brows at me.
Before I could answer Spencer interjected, "twenty-three point five, actually. Twenty-two point nine if you take US-1 instead of the I-95 the whole way."
"This isn't a race," Hotch warned, looking between the two of us. Morgan was already halfway across the bullpen, rallying Emily and Rossi after him towards the elevator. Before he could get too far, I called after him,
"Oh, of course not, Hotch. It never is with Morgan. He couldn't beat me if he tried."
"I – hey! I could too!" Morgan argued back as he smacked the down button relentlessly, as if it'd make it open quicker. I paused at my desk, slinging my go bag and purse over my shoulder and giving him the most patronizing smile I could muster as he, Rossi, and Emily piled into the elevator.
"Suuuuure, of course you could, Morgie!"
The look on his face got Spencer and I laughing, his shout of "I told you not to call me that!" echoing around us as the elevator doors slid shut. Hotch pinched the bridge of his nose as he reluctantly followed us out of the bullpen.
Thanks to Spencer's traffic tips, I'd taken the marginally-longer route and shaved a couple minutes off his estimated arrival time. Which mean I'd managed to pull up to the stoplight where the two different routes intersected just a couple moments before Morgan had. My victory smirk was still in place as I wove us through the Virginia countryside, making good time on our way to the crime scene.
Hotch, at my side, had only just let go of the white-knuckled grip he had on the door handle the entirety of the highway. He spared me a brief glance before looking ahead again – like he didn't trust me not to crash without him constantly watching the road – as he prompted,
"What else sticks out?"
"Well… it's elaborate," I reasoned. "I mean, all the things he puts these women through… he'd need a lot of time and privacy to do all this to them."
He nodded along with me as he added, "seclusion, time, and patience. Back then, the theory was he was a seasonal worker on one of the farms."
Thankfully, Hotch's game of Twenty Questions: UnSub Edition had helped pull me out of my funk from this morning. Between him and Spencer, I hadn't had a moment to think of anything other than this UnSub the entire drive, and that was exactly what I needed.
"It's funny, he always dumps the bodies in this battlefield, no matter what the risk," Spencer murmured as he shuffled through the papers strewn all over himself and the backseat. Hotch looked to me again and asked,
"Why might that be?"
For a moment I was quiet, the only sound in the car was the drumming of my fingers on the steering wheel and the shffing from Spencer and his papers. "Well… to me, it feels like he's flaunting. It's an important landmark, it's out in the open, and he keeps getting away with dumping the bodies. It probably makes him feel important."
"I think you're right. He's going out of his way to show off, which means the reward he's getting is worth the risk," he agreed, before nodding towards the group of people gathered in a field just ahead of us. "The dump site's just over there."
I eased us off onto the shoulder of the road and grinned up at him as we all climbed out of the SUV. "See? Safe, efficient, and we earned bragging rights against Morgan."
"It was certainly fast," Spencer agreed as we fell into step after Hotch, heading across the field for the crime scene.
"Not so sure about safe, though," Hotch murmured, throwing me a brief, humored glance over his shoulder. I met it with an unamused frown before he turned back ahead and greeted, "Sheriff Ballantyne, I'm Aaron Hotchner. This is Aria DiMaggio, and Dr. Spencer Reid."
"Hi, hi. Nice to meet you all. Thanks for comin' down so quickly. Crime scene's just this way," Sheriff Ballantyne said, not even slowing down as he turned on his heel to march back the way he came. The three of us hurried after him as he rushed out, "I figured if this was the same killer like everyone's sayin', I didn't want to waste any time before I got your help."
"We're here to assist you however we can," Hotch assured him. "The rest of our team is meeting with John Caulfield, the Sheriff from the original case, to see what we can dig up."
The Sheriff hesitated for a heartbeat before clearing his throat and nodding slowly. "Er, yeah. I'm not sure if that'll do us any good, truth be told."
"Do you know him?" I asked, scurrying a little faster to come up beside him. Darn these giant men and their long legs… the Sheriff glanced down at me and said slowly,
"Uh, no. Not personally, I mean, I've just heard stories."
"How do you mean?" Hotch asked, just as confused by the Sheriff's dismissive attitude as I was. The Sheriff looked between us, like he hadn't been expecting us to question his answer, and took a moment before he replied.
"Well, y'know, by all accounts, he was a decent sheriff, a good man. Still is. Truthfully, though, we don't get a lot of murders down here, and this case broke him."
As I fell back just a bit – needing to give my little legs a break – Spencer stepped up in my place and asked, "how so? What happened to him?"
"Ah, just the same old… y'know, he started drinking, marriage busted up, just kept obsessin' over the case 'til finally they uh, just kinda asked him to retire."
"Really?" I asked in surprise as the others finally started to slow down as well, finally at the beginning of the crime scene. "You mean the department pretty much kicked him out of his job?"
The Sheriff just shrugged again. "More or less, yeah. I mean, he really wasn't doin' much of anything there at the end. Just goin' over the files, drivin' himself crazy… trust me, we were doin' him a favor."
"Right," I quipped, admittedly a little sharper than I meant to. Hotch cast me a fleeting 'don't start' glance as he held up the crime scene tape, letting Spencer and I duck beneath it. I gave him an apologetic nod as Spencer segued for me,
"What do you know about the murder so far?"
"Well, there were about twenty kids partying a hundred yards that way," he explained, thankfully indifferent to my previous tone. Sooner or later, my attitude was gonna get me in trouble. He turned and then led us over to a patch of dirt another dozen yards away. "Molly McCarthy was taken here."
As I followed the others to the abduction area, I looked back at where the Sheriff had first pointed. "Hold on. She was this close to a huge group and no one heard or saw anything? No one was able to help her?"
"It was dark and the guy definitely had the advantage," the Sheriff sighed, shaking his head as he looked around the field. "Molly's boyfriend was the last person to see her. Said she was alone for a minute, maybe less, and then she was gone. No one noticed anythin', it happened so quick."
"If it's the same UnSub from the 80's, he's had twenty-seven years to perfect his M.O.," Spencer voiced, coming up beside me as he stuffed his hands in his pockets as he swept the scene around us. Though there were plenty of trees lining the bordering fence, and a handful sprinkled through the field, it was pretty open with minimal places to hide… even with his reasoning, something just didn't sit right with me. It hadn't since this morning, honestly, and I couldn't shake the doubt in my mind.
Hotch, knowing the look on my face, nodded at me to voice my thoughts.
"So, if it's the same UnSub… it was assumed he was in his late twenties back then, right?" All three men around me nodded. "Alright. So, this guy's presumably pushing sixty, and he managed to grab a young woman and book it out of this field in less a minute?"
"Well, I don't see why not," the Sheriff reasoned. I looked back at him, questioning frown on my face, and he elaborated, "I mean, Molly was an easy victim. Drunk, alone in the dark… some bigger guy decides he wants her, it isn't that hard for him to come take her."
His words hit my raw nerves and for a few terrifying few moments I was back in Quantico. Back in the dark parking garage in Connor's unrelenting hold, completely at his mercy as he tried to take me away. Again I lost myself to my thoughts from earlier. Is that all I'd been to him? An easy victim he could just take when he wanted? For a heartbeat I felt his hands tightening on my arms, felt myself being pulled back against my will, helpless in his hold, an easy victim…
"She would've fought back," I insisted softly, my eyes falling to the scuff marks in the dirt, the last place Molly had been. "Even if he was bigger, even if he had the upper hand… the moment she realized she was being abducted, she would've done whatever she could to get free."
The Sheriff didn't catch the tremor in my voice or the weight behind my words, but Hotch and Spencer had. I could feel both of their concerned stares on my back but I didn't turn around. It was stupid, so stupid, to be falling into this mindset in the middle of a case, but… how different was I from the women this UnSub had taken?
If my friends hadn't been there, would I have been able to get away from Connor? Had Molly managed to break away like I did, only to get caught when she couldn't move fast enough? Had Jenna fought tooth-and-nail to get away from her attacker, only to end up in pieces? What would've happened to me if things had gone just a little different that night? Would my team be profiling my abduction? Would they think I'd been an easy victim too?
"Well, we don't know if she did or not. No one heard any strugglin' or screamin'. I mean, she might've known she was outmatched, and she could've let him take her thinkin' it was the best option," the Sheriff dismissed, hauling me back to the case. Irritation instantly replaced my own panic and anxiety and I turned, ready to snap "do you really think she just sat back and let herself be kidnapped", but the look on Hotch's face had me swallowing my sharp remark.
"Uh, Sheriff," Spencer spoke up, catching the exchange between the two of us. "I've seen a lot of properties on unmarked dirt roads with no visible street signs, nothing on any maps. Is that pretty common for the area?"
"Yeah. If you don't live around here, it can be hell finding your way around," he confirmed. Spencer nodded and, after a quick glance and nod with Hotch, he asked,
"Could you show me the various entrances to this place?"
The Sheriff nodded and instantly started for the far side of the field. Before he left my side, Spencer reached out and took my hand for just a second, giving a soft squeeze. As quick as he'd done it he let go, skirting around me to follow the Sheriff.
For a moment I considered reaching after him to pull him back so I could bury my face in his sweater vest. A hug from Spencer was usually the fix for most of my emotional turmoil. My fingers actually twitched his direction, genuinely ready to do just that, but I was too late. In the next moment he was out of my reach, already ducking past the crime scene tape.
Once we were alone, Hotch stepped up to me and let his dark gaze sweep over my face, studying my expression for a moment before he said quietly, "ever since we had Jack, now that I know first-hand the love a parent can have for their child, I've always dreaded when JJ brings us cases involving kids. There will always be cases now that you'll dread, because you'll understand personally all that's involved, all that's at stake, and all that's lost at the hands of an UnSub."
Tears pricked my eyes and I blinked quickly, turning away to take a breath and settle my frazzled nerves. I studied the leaves on the tree beside us for a moment – Spencer will probably know exactly what this one is – before I finally looked back up at him. There was no judgement in his eyes, no frustration that I was essentially breaking down on a case. There was only concern, and a genuine desire to know what I was thinking.
"I don't care if she was drunk or not. She wouldn't have just let him take her, Hotch," I whispered, voice breaking as tears pooled in my eyes. "I refuse to believe she just let herself be a victim"
"No, I don't think she did. And…" His gaze had softened into the same gentle expression he'd given me in his office the night I'd told him about Connor. The same expression that reminded me Hotch was a dad, and dads always seemed to know exactly what their kids needed to hear. "I don't think you did either, Aria."
My lip trembled, and I hurriedly reached up to wipe the unexpected tear that had slipped down my cheek. I'd needed to hear that out loud, and of course, Hotch had known that. "Thank you," I managed, my voice catching again as another tear fell. His hand settled on my upper arm, giving me a comforting squeeze as I took a few deep breaths and hurriedly wiped the other tears off. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to just, well, kind of fall apart there."
"It's okay if you lose it every once in a while," he promised me. "Cases will get to you now and then, and there's nothing wrong with that. It reminds us that we're human."
"Yeah, but you never lose it," I pointed out as we started after Spencer and the Sheriff. To my surprise Hotch actually cracked a smile.
"Well, according to some people's opinions on my sleep schedule, I'm not human."
That got a laugh out of me, and I actually snorted as I rolled my eyes at him. "You're right. Humans don't willingly wake up at 5am to go for a run before work."
As he lifted the crime scene tape for me again, he nudged me under and told me in complete seriousness, "I only insist on early morning cardio to make sure you can outrun Morgan and keep his ego in check."
"You know exactly how to motivate me, I'll give you that," I laughed. As he fell into step beside me, I leaned against his arm for just a moment. I saw him sneak another small smile as he leaned back against me too.
By the next day, we had another dead body and no substantial leads.
Hotch, Rossi, and Spencer had left with the Sheriff to go examine the latest scene while Emily, Morgan, and I stayed back to gather anything at all to try and get us something to go off of. As Emily came up to the board, she nodded to the list in my hand.
"Got anything?"
"JJ sent me a bunch of violations in this county that precede the 1980 murders. DUI, petty thefts, rape, assault… a few of these are repeat offenders. Problem is, nothing matches the M.O. of this guy."
Emily let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand through her hair as she swept the board for what had to be the hundredth time. "I definitely think we're on the right track, looking further back before the first murder in the '80's… maybe we just need to go back further?"
"We could always try other counties too? Maybe even spread out to some bordering states," I added; Emily and I shared a heavy look. Sure, we could, but in the time it took us to dig through all that info, how many more bodies would turn up?
"Ay, ladies, Garcia's got somethin'," Morgan called to us, rushing up to the board and holding out his phone as we gathered around him.
"Don't worry, it's not contagious," Penny teased, getting amused smiles from the three of us as she pressed on, "so, the fantabulous JJ and I have dug across the whole state looking for this guy's sleazy work. We even spread out to West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, and Kentucky, and we found a sum total of zilch.
Well, there went my idea. Emily and I shared a frown as Penny continued on. "So, we went closer to home and I looked at the reports that were withdrawn or marked as solved, just in case, and I found a complaint filed by a Karen Foley in the next county over. The story's… awful. I sent a copy to your hand-helds. PG version, is that she was kidnapped in 1979, but then she escaped."
The three of us shared a hopeful glance as Emily voiced, "Sheriff Caulfield never mentioned anything like that when we went over the previous cases."
"It wasn't his jurisdiction, and it turns out Ms. Foley withdrew her report just a few months after filing it. I'm sure it never even reached him."
"You know what?" Morgan said slowly, looking back at the board and studying the crime scenes for a moment. "It hasn't sat right with me. All the murders, even from the 80's, they were all efficient and sophisticated. What if Karen Foley was his first?"
Emily and I both gasped in realization as I said quickly, "like a test run to make sure he had everything in order. He figured out who and where to hunt and learned what worked and what didn't with Karen."
"We've said he's careful, patient, and well-organized. Careful planning has always been a part of his process, so he'd have to have at least one victim to practice on," Emily added, on my same brainwave. "Garcia, where is she now?"
"Baby girl, work your magic and find us an address," Morgan told her, and a moment later all three of our phones beeped.
"Done and done, my sweet chocolate bear. PG over and out."
Emily had the keys before Penny had even hung up. "Morgan, stay here and coordinate with Hotch and the others. Aria and I will go see if we can get any help from Ms. Foley."
"On it. Stay safe, you two," he told us as we all but ran out of the station. I held out my hand for the keys and Emily snorted, pointing to the passenger side door.
"Nope. I already had years shaved off my life with Morgan's driving. I'm not going for cardiac arrest today."
I rolled my eyes, reluctantly getting into the SUV. "Honestly. You and Hotch are so dramatic."
Emily still got us across the city in good time, and we were pulling up to the address Penelope sent in just twenty minutes. As we hopped out and headed up the driveway, we caught sight of a woman getting groceries from her car.
"Ms. Foley?" Emily called out, taking the lead as we approached. The woman looked back in alarm hearing her name called, and actually took a half step back from us as we paused beside her car and showed her our credentials. "Hello. I'm Emily Prentiss, and this Aria DiMaggio. We're from the FBI. Do you have a minute?"
She looked between us, totally baffled as she asked us, "FBI? What do you want with me?"
"We're investigating the murders of two women and the abduction of a third in Fredericksburg," Emily started, and at the stricken look on Ms. Foley's face I prompted gently,
"Have you heard of them?"
"Yes, it's awful, but I don't know what that has to do with me," she answered, instantly closing off to us. Her arms folded over her chest and she shrunk down into herself a bit more. Defensive body language, avoiding eye contact, shifting her weight as she fought backing up further… she was lying.
"Ms. Foley, we think it might be related to what happened to you in 1979," I explained. She didn't say anything so Emily prompted gently,
"Your abduction?"
"I'm so sorry, you must be mistaken," Ms. Foley said quickly, turning sharply on her heel and quickly opening the trunk of her car, gathering her groceries at lightning speed. Em and I shared another glance; that was about as subtle as me opening ogling Spencer practically every day.
"Why would you say that?" Emily asked her. "You sound pretty certain –"
"I am. I made it up," Ms. Foley dismissed without looking back. She shut the trunk, but before she could make her getaway I said quickly,
"We read your report. You said you were held against your will. You were drugged, burned, beaten, and sexually assaulted… from the statement you gave police, it certainly sounded genuine. I don't think you'd make up all you went through."
As she turned, she met my eyes for a brief moment before dropping them back to the ground. "I was seventeen, Ms. DiMaggio. I had to have some kind of excuse for where I'd been. You're young, I'm sure you understand. I'm sure you've done the same thing."
"Yeah, but my excuses were never something like this," I argued gently. She still didn't meet my eyes. "Where had you been?"
She shrugged quickly. "Around. I was using back then. I'm sure a sweet girl in the FBI never had to lie to her parents about runnin' off to get high, so I wouldn't expect you to understand."
Before I could reply she'd turned and practically jogged up the rest of her driveway, headed for her front door. Emily and I scrambled after her. She already had her door unlocked and open by the time we got to the porch, so Emily rushed forward and said quickly,
"You called home, ma'am." Ms. Foley turned in surprise to stare up at her, caught off guard by her statement. "Some offenders force their victims to contact families to explain their whereabouts. I know you needed to tell your father whatever the offender wanted, and that's what he asked you to say –"
"There was no offender," she cut in sharply, turning from us again to start inside.
"A lot of the details in your report are consistent with what happened to those women in 1980," Emily continued, and this time, Ms. Foley turned to level a cold, defensive stare at both of us.
"You callin' me a liar, Ms. Prentiss?"
"We're not, Ms. Foley. Not at all," I said softly, stepping forward and meeting her harsh gaze. "You're right. I've never had to lie to my parents like you said, but I did file a report, just like yours, and I know how hard that is to do."
She was quiet for a few moments, studying my face, looking for any sign I was lying. I held her stare without moving, keeping the genuine care and understanding on my face, hoping she'd take my word. After a couple moments she just cleared her throat and dropped her eyes once again.
"Well, I'm sorry to hear you went through that, but –"
"I know it took a lot of courage to get to the police station and tell someone what happened to you, and I know you wouldn't do that just as an excuse," I pressed on; she swallowed hard, turning away from me just a bit more. "I understand if you're trying to protect yourself from that memory, I really do. I know how hard it is to have to relive what you went through, but right now you're the only person alive who can help us. No other women have to go through what you did. Please just think about it, and when you're ready to talk –"
Ms. Foley looked up once more, and I saw the defenses go up between us. She was closing off, protecting herself, and as frustrating as it was, I couldn't blame her. She glanced to Emily briefly, and then put her back to us as she dismissed, "I'm not a lead, Ms. DiMaggio. I'm sorry. I hope you find whoever's doing this."
The door shut hard in my face and my heart sunk. I'd really thought we'd made a connection, that I'd managed to reach her and convince her to help the other girls… Emily stepped up beside me, tucking one of her business cards into the door jamb before resting a hand on my arm.
She nudged me off the porch and we trekked back to the SUV. The first few miles were silent. My elbow was propped on the door, chin in my hand as I stared out the window, running over the conversation.
"The moment she heard we were FBI, she'd made up her mind not to open up to us," Emily finally spoke, a hand settling softly on my knee. There's nothing you could've said that would've changed that."
With a dejected sigh, I slumped back in the seat and nodded along with her. "I know. I mean, I get why she denied it. Who knows how many people didn't believe her back then, you know?" Emily nodded; my heart twisted painfully in my chest. How much had she gone through, how many people like my Uncle or my dad had called her a liar? How much had she suffered through before she finally retracted her report? "I just… I wish she could help us. There are other girls going through what we – what she did and we're still not any closer to helping them."
Emily had caught my slip up; I knew she had. As we pulled up to a stoplight, she gave my knee a squeeze and I looked up at her slowly, almost embarrassed at what I'd accidently said. At the look on her face, though, my breath caught in my throat.
There was nothing but pure, genuine empathy in her gentle gaze. Just like the day we'd found out Connor's sentencing, I could see she truly, completely understood the turmoil in my heart. I wasn't the only one that knew the pain of what Ms. Foley had gone through.
"Like you said… it takes a lot of courage to speak up about what happened to you, Aria," she said softly, the hand on my knee tightening just a bit. "I know it was hard opening up like that, and for what it's worth, I think it did mean something to her, realizing you could relate."
The light turned green, and though she had to look away, her hand didn't pull away. I wanted to ask her. I wanted her to confide in me about why she could empathize with me with Connor, about why she had her own defenses she refused to let fall, because I wanted to help her carry the burden.
If she had been hurt, if she was still suffering from the scars someone had left on her soul, I wanted to help them heal. I wanted to reassure her, to comfort her and promise her that she was safe and loved, like she did with me the moment I started to slip back into my own self-loathing, my own crushing guilt.
She wasn't willing to open up just yet and like with Ms. Foley, as much as I hated feeling helpless, I understood. As much as I wanted to help, I knew for now all I could do was wait until she was ready.
For now, I'd do what I could. I took hold of the hand she had on my knee and laced our fingers together. She held tight to me, giving a squeeze that I returned instantly. I knew I had Emily to guide me through my dark moments, and she knew I was here do to the same when she was ready.
For today, that would be enough.
Happy Monday, everyone!
I hope y'all had a good week! I wanted to thank you guys for all the love and support you've shown me in the last seven days. I'm totally blown away by how caring and compassionate you all are, and I can't say enough how much I appreciate your understanding with all that's been going on. That said, I'm so glad to be back in the swing of things! I hope you guys are too!
I can't wait to hear what you guys thought of the chapter! Aria and Emily are one of my favorite friendships to write and I hope you like seeing them together more! What about Hotch's words of advice, or her talk with Emily? Let me know your thoughts!
As always, you sweet little gumdrops, I hope you have a wonderful week! Your support of the story truly keeps me going and I love knowing how much you like Aria and SLAS! Thank you guys so much!
