A/N

Thank you, Hannah .grahamlecter, for your hard work and dedication. You've done a great job as Beta-reader on this and I am extremely grateful.

If you care to leave comments, reviews, or constructive critiques, I'd appreciate it. I'm thankful for all those who have given me ideas, and constructive reviews. And to those who have given me praise, I'm working hard, trying to be worthy of it.

To all, as always, please enjoy the story.

G-Girl

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Chapter 65 - Apartment 23, Farewell

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Looking around the empty apartment. One last time, Spencer thought about how much his life had changed since he moved in.

He and Andy took the last load of furniture to the house before lunch. The sofa, his desk, record player, records, and the shelving unit those sat on, were taken down to his office in the basement with a couple of the upholstered chairs, two desk lamps, two standing lamps, three of the smaller bookshelves, and a side table.

The books were boxed up, to be shelved during his paternity leave. Susan suggested setting up the wardrobe behind the sitting area of their master suite, moving the tapestry to the basement suite. His Apothecary dresser fit nicely in his closet, exactly as he knew it would, and his coat tree now stood by the front door, next to the coat rack. The rest of his furniture was taken up to the attic and covered, except for the bed, which came with the apartment.

He thanked Andy for helping move everything and for the use of his truck. Then Spencer went back to the apartment alone after lunch, to clean, make sure nothing was left behind, and to drop off the key at the manager's office. He checked each cupboard in the kitchen, each drawer, and then went to check the bookshelves. Everything already looked clean. Cleaner than he remembered, as he and Andy were moving furniture out earlier.

He noticed a small cardboard box sitting on top of the divider wall by the front door and opened it. There were a few odd items and several scraps of papers, a key he had no idea what it unlocked, and notes that seemed to make no sense. A folded piece of paper was taped on the top of the box. He opened it and smiled as he read it.

Spencer, while cleaning, I found these in the apartment and put them in here for you to go through. Enjoy the rest of your day with Suzie.

Frankie

So that's why Susan insisted on having lunch with me, Andy, and Lizette before I came back to the apartment to clean. He reminded himself to thank Frankie later. And Susan.

As he tucked the box under his arm, he glanced around the apartment. One last time. He opened the door, locked it and stepped out, closing it behind him, making sure it was locked. Walking down the stairs, he took the apartment key off his keyring.

Mrs. Jenkins said she was sad to see him move out, but knowing he was only a couple of blocks away made it easier. He had never hugged her before, but he did this time as he told her goodbye. It was weird to think Janelle would be moving in; living there, but after today, the apartment was no longer his.

Inside the house, everything was quiet. Too quiet. "Susan? Honey?" There was no answer. "Betty? Is Susan in the house?" He was still getting used to the idea of having Betty locate his wife, but it came in handy in this big house.

The AI answered, 'Susan is in the computer room'.

"Thank you, Betty." He set the box on the table by the door.

Betty answered, 'You're welcome, Spencer.' He smiled, set his keys in the bowl, and plugged in his phone to charge.

On his way down the stairs, he could hear Susan talking to someone; sounding extremely upset. Whoever it was, he couldn't hear a reply. She must be on the phone. The safe room door was open. It wasn't like he was trying to eavesdrop.

"This is crazy. Are you freaking kidding me? Phoebe, did you double-check this?"

Spencer stepped off the stairs. "Susan? Sweetheart?"

"I'm in here." Her voice sounded... strange.

"Who is Phoebe? Is she helping you with your project?" He walked in to find her sitting in front of one of the computers, a stack of papers two inches thick on the counter next to her.

Susan's eyes were wide; she shook her head, staring at the photos on the monitor. "This is crazy… unbelievable."

"What is? Honey?" He looked at her, then at the monitor. On the screen were digital feed photos of Linda Barnes with John Curtis, another with Barnes, and an agent he recognized from the office. His blood felt like ice in his veins, and he shivered. "What the fu—Are you telling me Linda Barnes… was behind all of that?"

Susan shook with rage. Still, her voice was quiet, practically spitting out the words. "That fucking bitch, whore-bag… cunt."

Shocked, Spencer's mouth dropped open, and it took him a long moment to speak. "I don't like her either, but—"

She looked up at him; her eyes, still wide, pain and tears brimming. "Linda Barnes is the reason my dad is dead." She gestured to the stack. "Not only that… look at the emails."

He leafed through the stack, reading email after email. Some names he didn't recognize, but the one constant name in each one was the same, Linda Barnes. She used her personal email address for most of them and a few from her work email account that seemed innocuous until you added in everything she did to the IRT and tried to do to the BAU. One email, from Barnes to John Curtis, all but promised him the position of Unit Chief of the BAU, once Agent Hotchner left. And that was before Hotch left. Another was from Border patrol, with information on the first two trips he made to Mexico. The next email was to Lindsey Vaughn, telling her his passport was flagged at the border. Another email to her included information from his personnel file. "Son of a bitch—are you kidding me?" He read in another personal email, Barnes was asking the agent in the digital feed photo to bug the phones in the office. He still had trouble believing it. The name was clear as day: Grant Anderson. "What? How... where did you get these?"

Susan answered, still in shock. "I didn't. Phoebe did."

"Who is Phoebe? Is she a hacker, like Penelope?"

"PHOEBE is the project I've been working on…. an updated version of Betty." She turned to him, eyes still wide. "If I had started sooner, I could have stopped her, maybe I could have prevented—"

He held her shoulders, looking into her eyes. "Susan… Love, please don't stress yourself. It's not good for you, or the baby."

"But I've been so focused on fixing Betty's issues, for what, so I could hear my favorite music? Why? You told me about John Curtis and Peter Lewis. More importantly, Dave told me about them. I should have done more. Phoebe, without my even asking, linked up with Betty and combed through who knows how many millions of emails and digital feeds, pulling out any with the search parameters when I wrote her programming."

He held her face in his hands and spoke slowly. "Honey, listen to me. Nothing would have prevented them from doing what they did. These emails go back several years. Why do you believe Barnes was responsible for your father's death?"

Her eyes watered as he sat in the chair next to her. "Hogan's Alley was booked solid for the week, so Dad took a group of field agents updating their certifications to an abandoned warehouse, in Dumfries. Dad, Barnes, and another agent were upstairs clearing rooms, and Carl, the other agent, heard arguing, and when he walked out of the room, he saw my father falling backward down the stairs; Linda was walking away, heading towards a nearby room. By the time Carl got down the stairs, my father was dead. Linda walked back out of the nearby room, acting shocked and surprised. She pushed him. I just know it."

"But there would have been a report filed. The other agent would have said something."

"Carl wrote a statement in the incident report, about the argument, but it disappeared. According to Carl, Linda told my father she wanted him; offered him… sex, and he rejected her. Carl heard my father saying he wasn't interested, that he was married, and that it was inappropriate. He said he was going to have her kicked out of the FBI. After Dad's funeral, a woman came up to me, told me it was an unfortunate accident. That's her." Susan pointed to Barnes' picture on the screen. "Carl told my mother Barnes had filed the incident report without his statement."

"But Sweetheart, how do you know that?"

"Because he gave my mom a copy of the original FD-302. I don't know what happened after that. I found it in Grandpa's desk, in the bottom of a drawer."

"And how long have you been working on Phoebe?

"Since March, after I finished fixing Betty's issues. Back in 2016, I was asked to meet with AG Lynch and Director Comey, asking me to develop a hack-proof system, for the BAU, after the Peter Lewis breech. They told me it was my work with computers, at MIT that caught their attention and gave me the outline and scope of the project. It wasn't meant to spy on anyone, but to keep others from breaking into the system. I didn't specifically set it up to search for Barnes, only anyone targeting the system, to gather intel on anyone targeting agents in the Bureau. If I wrap this project up now, it could backfire. What do you think I should do?"

"I don't know. She's tight with the current director, but the BAU has his support. I've heard she wants to be the FBI Director before she retires. If we lose support from the top and the Congressional Committee that oversees our operations, she could end the BAU, permanently. We need to talk to Dave, Emily, and Hotch. You're sure it's secure in here?"

Susan nodded and got up, still shaking. "Yes, Where's your phone?"

He stood and put his arms around her. "It's upstairs, on the charger. Let me call and ask them to come to dinner tonight."

"Thank you, Love, that sounds good. I'd like that."

They went back upstairs, and he called Dave first, to say they had not seen him in a couple of months, asking if he'd like to come to dinner, then did the same with Emily and Aaron, but used Susan's cell phone to call, in case his was tapped, asking them to park in the driveway by the garage door.

When they arrived, Spencer used the basement passageway to go to the garage, bringing them back through to the safe room, while talking about the weather; nothing particularly important. He held his finger to his lips, holding up his cell phone.

"I'm so glad you could make it, for dinner. Susan and I wanted to talk to you about planning a holiday get-together." He nodded silently; his eyebrows arched. They understood and, using that topic, talked until Spencer put all the cell phones in the safe down in the sub-basement. He came back up to re-join Susan and the others in the computer room.

Dave spoke first, as his forehead creased. "I have to ask, Kid, what's with all the Cloak and Dagger intrigue? You writing a book?"

Spencer explained what Susan, with the help of Phoebe, had discovered. "We couldn't do this at the office." He showed them some of the emails to and from Linda Barnes. The shocked expressions on their faces were exactly as he expected.

Aaron spoke quietly. "There are so many things that make sense now, looking back. Barnes has been at this for years, while she was moving up. Dismantling the IRT wasn't her first hatchet job. Let's put a plan together, between us and we'll fill in the rest of the team, one at a time if need be. When we meet here, all phones are to be put away before we talk about anything important. Suzie, are you sure there's no one else listening?"

"I'm sure." She nodded. "That's one thing I made sure to program Betty for. And Penelope is the only person besides me to have ever been in this system. If there was a bug or someone parked outside with a parabolic listening device, Betty would know about it... and tell me."

"At the office, nothing about this gets discussed," Emily insisted, "until we know for sure it's secure, and according to this, it's not. This is how Cat got the information in Spencer's personnel file, and the feeling of being watched, how Barnes knew I deleted the recording of Spencer's first cognitive interview in Mexico and that I talked with JJ, when I had that meeting with Barnes, right before she suspended me."

Susan's eyes widened, and she took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "How has she gotten away with everything for so long?"

Emily shook her head, still shocked. "I don't know. No one knew to put the pieces together. Susan, is there any way of framing the discussion with the Director, to say this system may catch unintended persons from the original project outline? If you tell him Barnes will be implicated, he may bury the project, but if he gives you the green light to implicate any unknown persons who have targeted FBI agents, that may be the way to bring it to his attention and catch her in the net."

"I can try. I hate to say it, but if I were to bring this to the table now, in this current political climate, I have a feeling it will get buried. I have a meeting in two weeks, for a system status update but I can reschedule and stall for a few more months, using the baby as an excuse." She rubbed her side and winced. "I know the new administration will be more willing to see that it's investigated properly."

"Suzie," Dave added, "if Barnes finds out you're targeting her, you could be in danger if you have no concrete proof. She's not going to be a happy camper."

"Dave, I'm not a happy camper knowing I have evidence." She opened the cleanroom glass door, pushed in the panel on the top of the stack on the far end. It popped open, and she pulled a file out and handed it to Aaron. He read it, while Emily and Dave stood on one side, Spencer on the other, scanning the information in it.

Aaron pressed his lips together, breathing out through his nose; his eyebrows flattened low over his eyes.

Dave whistled, low. "Oh, I haven't seen that look in a long time. What are you thinking, Aaron?"

"Carl Bradley was a good man, left behind a wife and three sons. His death was ruled an accident, as Phillip's was, but now this throws a cloud of doubt over both. Suzie, do you realize the implications when this gets out? It would most likely involve you testifying before the Congressional committee."

"What am I supposed to do, leave it alone and let her get away with it? Again? Aaron, she's evil. Flat out evil."

He held his hand up. "No, I'm not suggesting that. Phoebe, was it? Susan bobbed her head quickly, and Aaron continued. "Let Phoebe find any additional information." His voice quieted to a whisper, as he lowered his hand. "Quietly, of course."

"I understand," Susan replied, also in a whisper.

Dave chuckled. "I have to ask, since no one else has brought it up. What does Phoebe stand for? Is it an Acronym? Anagram? A code, perhaps?"

"Oh, think simpler… phonetically." Her lips twisted into a grin.

Spencer's eyebrows rose quickly, and he smiled.

Dave looked over at him. "Hmph. I've missed working with that encyclopedic mind. Next book I write, I could use your help, for references. What is it, Kid?"

Spencer took a blank piece of paper out of the printer and wrote on it PHOEBE, then showed it to the others. "Right?" Susan nodded. He turned around and wrote on the other side, turned back around, and held it up.

Susan chuckled and nodded again. "Yep, you got it."

It had three letters: F B I.

Dave snorted and shook his head. "I thought perhaps you meant Fibbi, an old nickname for the Bureau. You took liberties with the 'e', kiddo. When does an 'e' sound like an 'i'?"

Susan gestured, making a circle in the air with her finger. "Other way around. The 'i' sounds like an 'e', as in Bucatini, Fusilli, Gnocchi…"

Aaron smiled, adding "Spaghetti, ravioli'..."

Spencer grinned and added, "Macaroni… Rossi…" The last one made the rest of them laugh.

Dave snickered sarcastically. "Oh, ha-ha. Yeah, I got it. I miss you people, too. Now, why don't we go upstairs and make dinner? You're making me hungry. Suzie, have you got everything you need to make a batch of Pasta Carbonara?"

"Sure, Dave. I'll even let you make it." She laced her fingers under her belly and smiled as Spencer slid his hand over her lower back.

They agreed to put the file back in its hiding place with the stack of emails until they could come up with a plan, then went upstairs to the kitchen to fix dinner…

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A/N

I always thought that plot holes in CM S12 and S13 should have been explained since they never said who the leaked info (Spencer's Personnel file in S12, Barnes knowing what she did, and the feeling of being watched in S13). This was my brain filling in those holes. It's the natural storyteller in me (though many times I have difficulty explaining it on paper). The fallout from this chapter will be in Side Stories and I'm still in the process of writing it. It's the most difficult chapter I've done so far.

I have a favor to ask of the readers out there. If I haven't already received comments from you, PLEASE, would you drop a line in the box? With only 7 chapters in S&B left to post (and 17 in Side Stories), I really (really, really, really) want to know what you liked about this story (if you liked reading it). Did I get the characterizations right? Did you like the relationship between Spencer and Susan? Did you like reading the growth shown in their characters? Or anything else about the story? Thank you in advance.

L (G0NEG1RL)

Coming up:

Secrets and surprises! The giveaway is in the title, so you'll have to wait and see. Don't worry, I won't make you wait too long. I'll probably post chapter 66 tomorrow (Monday, July 26th) after a few corrections are finished.