Commencement

Chapter 16

It wasn't until morning twilight had given way to dawn that anyone noticed. He hadn't been symptomatic at all, or so it had seemed. In retrospect, they thought it could probably be attributed to adrenalin, to the fear he shared with the rest about what had happened to their missing colleague. But daylight showed them otherwise.

"What's that?" Rossi had just exited the wooded area, having completed the search of his sector.

"What's wha…" started Emily, who had been deep in conversation with their local office. Her eyes followed the direction of Rossi's index finger, and landed on Reid. Whose brown trousers were accented with a dark bloom over his left thigh. She ran over to Reid, who was leaning against the hood of their SUV.

"You're bleeding!" Stating what had now become obvious.

"I'm fine."

Trying to shake it off, as he'd done an hour ago, when the ambulance they'd called for had been redirected to what had been deemed a more emergent emergency. Looking at Reid's trousers, Emily regretted letting that happen.

"I thought you just had a sprain or something. I didn't realize you were bleeding."

"I'm all right. The tourniquet will help, as long as I'm not bearing weight on it."

Emily opened her mouth to argue, but closed it again as he raised big, soulful eyes to meet hers. Despite the size of his vocabulary, Reid's eyes had always spoken to her more clearly than his words.

Because there's not an iota of artifice in them, even when he wants it to be there. His eyes have always been the window to his soul.

She was hit with a momentary, and completely unexpected wave of sorrow, as a flash of memory reminded her of some of the things his eyes had revealed to her in the past.

There will be no more memories after today, good or bad, even if we make it through this day.

Reid's eyes articulated his desperation. Please don't send me away! I won't be able to live with myself if I don't try to help her!

Unit Chief Prentiss recognized the exhaustion in her agent, and the emotionality in his unstated plea. Unit Chief Prentiss knew that neither factor was likely to be helpful to the situation, and that she should send him for a medical evaluation.

But Unit Chief Prentiss would only own that title until her missing agent was found, and the team returned to Langley. It was not a thing to be defended, nor preserved. But friendship was, and especially one that ran as deep as the one she shared with the man in front of her. The man who was practically begging her…..

"All right. But I want you off your feet. No kicking down doors."

Morgan had returned in time to hear the last of it, and all three of them grinned.

"That's right, Pretty Boy. I've got that covered."

"Deal." Just let me stay.

The former profiler had some unwelcome news for the others.

"We finished a sweep of this whole wooded area." Using his arm to outline the expanse that had been searched. "She's not here."

Reid had already been through a mental algorithm.

"If she's not here, that has to mean she's alive. There would have been no reason to take her if….if…"

Morgan put a hand on his old friend's back. "She's alive, Kid. You're right, there would have been no reason to take her, otherwise."

Rossi had been talking with the head of the local FBI office, and now rejoined his colleagues.

"All right, who's got an idea? I need to hear an idea, because the last thing I'm going to do, on the last day of the BAU, is lose an agent to some bozo."

Emily gave the first response. "We've got Garcia looking into Linda's background, and her husband's. W know they don't own the building, but they rent space on the first floor."

Reid added, "But we still don't know who the third person is."

Which wasn't good. They could search any properties related to the unsub couple, but without knowing the identity of the third person, they couldn't identify any additional properties for searching.

"He's subservient to her, just like her husband is."

"Someone who works for her? Someone in her social circle?" postulated Rossi. "Or maybe someone from the court?"

Reid's eyes lit up. "That would make sense. I mean, she found her previous victims through the court. If she was willing to let him come to the building after the explosion, I think we can assume that he's been in on at least some of what she's done. Maybe he's been in on a lot of it. Maybe all of it."

Emily wasn't so sure. "Are you saying that she had two accomplices, plus her husband? The perp we have in custody, and then her husband and some other guy?"

She sounded incredulous, and Reid couldn't help but agree with her. But the facts pointed in that most unlikely direction.

"I know it's unusual. It's crazy, even, to think that this one woman might have three male minions accomplishing her evil deeds for her, but that's what it looks like."

Which comment prompted the three males gathered around the female unit chief to exchange glances. Emily caught the visual exchanges, and winced.

"Aw, c'mon."

"Don't worry, Princess. No one thinks you're evil."

"No, but it does prove the point," said Rossi. "It's entirely possible, and Reid makes a good argument for it. We have to look at this crazy dame as a ringleader."

"She's more than that," insisted Reid. "She's got an obsession with power, and the power ladder. Each prior victim was in a greater perceived position of power. I think that's why she went after JJ. Who would she see as more powerful than a member of an elite FBI unit?"

Rossi chewed on the idea for a moment, his face displaying the acrid taste of the place where it had brought him.

"You're right. She wouldn't aspire to go up the chain of command, because she would have no access to anyone at the paper-pusher level. A supervisory special agent is probably even more than she's ever hoped for."

"Which means….." started Emily, only to be interrupted by Morgan, who had lost none of his profiling skills.

"Which means that she knows she has her last victim. She'll want to prolong it."

Rossi's eyes were grave as he put into words what all of them already knew.

"She'll want to play."

Prentiss and Rossi had gone off to confer with the head of the local field office and a newly designated incident commander for the police, leaving Morgan and Reid alone in the SUV.

"How you holding up there, Kid?"

"I'm fine."

"Uh-huh."

"I am. I just….God, Morgan, on our last day! How could this have happened on our last day?!"

The man he'd long thought of as a brother stared Reid down for a long minute.

"Now I know you're off your game. The Spencer Reid I know would have been able to tell me that the odds of something happening on one day versus another are negligible. It's just….what do you call it?"

"Perception bias. But even odds presume something."

"What?"

"That you're not me."

That the world, fate, karma, numbers, astrological signs…whatever…aren't really out to get you. But they're out to get ME.

"Come on, now. Think positive. We'll have local and state police out blanketing the area, and any minute now, Baby Girl will be calling with the locations of their other properties."

Reid leaned forward, his head in his hands. To Morgan, he looked more than troubled. He looked frail.

"Are you sure you're okay? Maybe you should sit it out for a while, like Prentiss says. Let the hospital patch you up, and join us in the field."

Reid's head shook back and forth ever so slightly.

"Look, I know you want to help find her. I get it. But…."

If he hadn't been in such a weakened state, maybe he wouldn't have admitted it, even to Morgan. But Reid had little reserve left, and whatever he spent in resisting his colleagues' good intentions wouldn't be available for saving JJ.

"They won't be able to just 'patch me up'."

"What? What does that mean?"

"It means that I'm going to need surgery, not just a few stitches. The wound is deep, and the bleeding is coming from a pretty big vessel."

Morgan quickly exited the vehicle, intending to force the issue of Reid getting medical care. But he was held in place by the pleading in his younger friend's voice.

"Morgan, please! Please. I can't know she's in danger of her life, and not try to save her! Please. She's where she is because of me. She went on ahead, because it was so hard for me to walk, and…."

"Whoa, listen to yourself, Pretty Boy. JJ is in trouble, and none of us are giving up until we find her." Seeing something pass over Reid's features, Morgan altered his language. "We're not giving up until we save her. But none of this is your fault. By your count, we already have four unsubs to blame this on. Let's keep it at that."

Reid's nod acknowledged that he'd heard. But he'd not been dissuaded in one aspect.

"Please don't tell Emily. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't help JJ. You know how important she is to me."

As he spoke the words, Reid's mind flashed back to a thousand small moments, to shared laughter, and tears, and worry, and the facing of danger. And then it flashed back to the night they'd spent in the rubble, and their sharing of memories, and feelings….and a kiss.

"I can't leave her alone out there, Morgan."

The former profiler was torn. The practical side of him knew that an injured Reid could quickly become a liability in the field. The emotional side of him related to his young friend's dilemma, to the compulsion to protect, and the depths of the bonds of friendship. He was, himself, deeply bonded in friendship with the man pleading with him now.

Morgan smiled to himself, remembering a time when he'd considered Reid to be more 'boy' than 'man', to a time when it had been inconceivable to both of them that Reid would argue to be in the field. But that had been a long time ago, and 'Pretty Boy' and 'Kid' had become terms of endearment, not derision, and Reid had more than proven himself in the field, and gained the respect of his older friend.

Morgan sighed his resignation. "All right. But I need your word that you'll tell me when you need help. I don't have to say it to you, Kid, but I will. JJ's life is going to depend on us being able to focus on her situation. If your condition becomes a distraction, you've got to go to the hospital. No argument."

Relieved, Reid nodded his assent. "I promise."

Not quite satisfied, Morgan added, "Did I mention that you're passing out falls into the category of 'distraction'?"

Rossi and Prentiss returned to the SUV to share the plan they'd negotiated with the newly created task force.

"Garcia found one other property owned by Linda and her husband, and a second owned by their company. The field office will take one, and we'll take the other. State and local police have a BOLO out for Linda's car, but they don't have a good ID on the other. There are cameras on the parking lot, but they record to a server inside the building, and it's not responding. So, we only have the one vehicle to look for. We'll go to the properties and the police will be on rapid response standby for us if we find anything at either of the locations."

Reid was anxious to leave. "Which one are we taking?"

Emily surprised him. "I thought I would run it by you, first. Between the two, where do you think they might have taken her?"

The genius profiler began deliberating aloud. "They would probably know their own property best. That would make them more comfortable there. Unless….do we know when they acquired each of the properties? It might be that they'll be more familiar with the area where they've owned the longest."

Morgan pulled Garcia up on his phone, and put her on speaker.

"OMG, this is so déjà vu! Just like old times! What can I do for you, my favorite ex-profiler?"

Morgan shook his head, a smile on his face.

"I see nothing has changed in my absence."

"Au contraire! Everything has changed, except my love for you. Purely platonic of course."

"Uh…Garcia?" Reid wanted to get down to business.

"Oh, my sweet genius, I heard you were injured!"

"I'm fine. I was just wondering if we could find out when our unsubs acquired those two properties." Then, as another thought occurred to him, "And if there are any other names on the contracts."

"Bien sur, my sweet!"

They heard the clickety-clack of Garcia's fingers flying across her keyboard, followed by an exclamation.

"You are a genius to the very end, Dr. Reid. There is a third person, on both contracts, same guy, Bert Landing."

The team on the other end of the call all exchanged looks, as Rossi made the formal request.

"See what you can find on Mr. Landing, please."

"Already underway, should have something in a sec."

Very shortly, they heard the sound of an alert, and then Garcia's voice again. "Aha! Okay, Bertie has had a wee problem with embezzlement in his prior business, as in prior to the four years he did in state prison. He's got those two properties and…yes, and a third one, about an hour from where you are. Looks like a hunting cabin."

Four sets of eyes met. A hunting cabin would be remote, and isolated. The ideal spot for doing someone harm without being heard.

Emily gave the order.

"Send us the location, Garcia….we're heading there."