DATE UNKNOWN | LOCATION UNKNOWN
In the following two days after Spencer's captors meted out their punishment, the woman returned his deodorant and lip balm to him, and each time after his third bathroom excursion, she would request he lay prone on the bed to massage his muscles and put a soothing balm on his still-tenderized back, buttocks, and legs.
The first time she did it—when his wits had returned to him—she gave a simple demand that he remove his pants and underwear the moment before she bent down to remove the chain attached to his ankle. He had balked, and then his fear of punishment stayed his hand. She reassured him she was only to give him ointment.
He hesitated. Of all the times he'd been nude or semi-nude, it had never been while lying on the bed at full mental acuity. He pleaded with her to be spared this indignity.
'I've already seen you naked. I've raised you from a baby.'
Mother. Right.
His heart stuttered and he swallowed down his nausea, throat jittering as he let out an aborted hum of distaste.
'I care about you. It's nothing new, —-— boy.'
She then patted his bottom and tugged on the hem of his pants.
This woman's ire was fearsome. She may have been pleasant in that moment, but he knew that it was she who had whipped him with the belt and who had later poured vinegar on the raised welts. He didn't want to experience the moment when her kindness and patience ran out.
Without further prompting or hesitation, he'd done exactly as she requested of him, removing his pants and underwear before tugging down his sweatshirt and t-shirt in a vain attempt to maintain some dignity. He was urged to lay down, so he did, prone, head turned to the wall. In the next moment, the shirts were eased up for better access to his lower back, and she started.
He shook his head and curled his hands into fists when her warm, moistened fingers kneaded along his back. As she continued massaging lower—along his lumbar, his sacrum, and then his buttocks—he was overcome with tremors. How could anyone abide such a thing?
A mist wafted around his senses, one wherein he knew he might disengage from what was being done to him. Seeking to fight against it, he counted seconds and recalled the words from familiar text in his perfunctory and clinical manner.
It was over in less than eleven minutes, his clothes were returned to him, and he slipped them on. He had then been eased to his side, and he felt the woman lean over him before she kissed him on his cheek before pulling away.
No more than twenty minutes passed after the air pressure changed—signifying that he was alone—before he took the sleeve of his sweater and wiped the lingering sensation of her lips from his cheek. He needed to unfeel it.
That occasion besides, he long knew his daily schedule well—the every-other-day bathing and shaving, the brushing, what was done with the leather brace and the ear buds.
So this—the tape being eased off his cheek, the slithering, shiver-inducing removal of the NG tube from his throat, and then the rubbing of moisturizer on his face to sooth the irritated skin—was a break in the set pattern that they'd established.
She pulled away from him. He hadn't yet figured out how to call them to attention without the whole speaking part. So he cleared his throat and outstretched his hand.
A moment later, she tapped him, and a sweet scent surrounded her. "Did you need something?"
Despite his apprehension and fear of the answer, he would be direct. "Have . . . I done something wrong?"
He couldn't remember doing anything in the last two days following the previous punishment. He'd been cooperative. Perhaps he was supposed to have done something right and had overlooked it. So he added Mother and swallowed down the gag that sat at the back of his throat.
Her hands wrapped over his and squeezed. Before resting one on his jaw, she tucked his hand against her neck in laughter.
How calm this raging sea.
Tap tap.
"No. You haven't done anything wrong. You're very good. I'm giving you a rest from the tube. Do you understand tube? Tube."
"Yes, I know it. Thank you."
"Don't forget: if it stays too long inside, it can do a little damage."
"Yes," he agreed. This he knew and was glad that she knew as well. It wasn't good to go beyond about six weeks with an NG tube. He knew it hadn't quite been that long yet.
She drew a smile on his leg and patted his jaw. With another tap-tap against his hand, she said, "Eat up."
She took his right hand and cupped it. In it was placed a small, warm ceramic bowl, and he used his left hand to feel along its smooth rim until it was met with a utensil.
Why would she give me something that I could break if I dropped it?
Maybe it was a test.
If he dropped it, broke it, he would be reprimanded somehow. So it was his responsibility. More tests.
Nevertheless, he was eager to tip it toward his nose and inhaled its scent. It was a rich medley that he'd not enjoyed in weeks: cinnamon, nutmeg, and another spice he couldn't place—with a sweet, honey-like undertone.
Food. Physical food.
His stomach rumbled in anticipation, and his salivary glands pinched. He puffed out a breath, unable to quell the tremble in his jaw, the tongue that darted out to lick his lips in excitement as he tried to suppress the excited smile, or the tearful burning of his eyes.
He cupped the small bowl, dipped the spoon, met with resistance, and scooped, pressing his face closer so nothing fell. The moment the contents passed his lips and touched his tongue, though, his stomach rolled in displeasure, and he gagged, spitting the food back into the bowl.
He hadn't eaten solid food in weeks. Of course his body would object to the texture. It was oatmeal, he knew, which he didn't hate at all. But the solid consistency was something he hadn't experienced in so long.
He balanced the bowl on his thighs. "I'm sorry. There's no punishment needed. Just give me a moment." He would have to figure this out. Any kind of rejection on his part might be seen as a rejection of her, a complaint, and he couldn't—the mere thought of repeating what he'd suffered was horrifying. He couldn't—he couldn't—
His thigh was patted where his hand had begun to subconsciously rub rub rub. The bowl was taken from him, but then a cup was tucked at his hands. Relief washed over him, but he sniffed what the liquid was and reared his head back like a displeased cat, canting his head in curiosity.
Ugh. Healthy. Healthy and disappointing. Exactly like what he would burp sometimes.
He wouldn't deny it any longer: he needed sugar. And coffee. Preferably sugar with a little coffee on the side. Pizza. Chips. Donuts, bread, a burger with cheese and bacon for the love of god. Indian take-out with Derek. David's pasta. A handful of Jennifer's Cheetos. Penelope's cookies.
They all flashed before his eyes.
Penelope was going to bake him a batch just before they would come back from the case. Oatmeal cookies.
In the grand scheme, it was so unimportant, but these were simple things that he missed. And the sharp pang upon seeing everyone's visage caused him to groan.
The woman tapped him again, and his attention was brought back to the drink.
He took a tentative sip, and his taste buds were tickled with the rich, heady, and sweet flavor. Smacking his tongue against his palate, he gauged the individual flavors of beets, carrots, apples, lemon, and ginger.
He would never drink such a thing, but found that he enjoyed the change from just drinking water or—in the one case—tea. It was spicy on his tongue and burned down his throat, but he drank it in slow measures. He found himself wrinkling and flaring his nose a little from the tickling sensation it caused, but drank the rest of it, having missed the flavor of variety that wasn't blood, bile, vomit, or water.
It made him shiver after he finished it, and he let out an involuntary Hoo! before he ground out a grunt.
The cup was taken from him, and his hand was grabbed before being placed against the woman's neck as she laughed again.
"How was it?"
He paused, seeking to give a neutral answer. "Umm, fiery? How . . . How do I say spicy?"
"You can say spicey." She demonstrated for him, bringing her hand near her mouth.
"Spicey." Then he added, "But good. Can I . . . have some water, please?"
A moment later, a small cup of water was brushed against his fingers, and he drank it, swishing it in his mouth a little. After it was empty, he felt safe placing it down on the floor.
"What was the drink?" he asked in genuine curiosity.
"Detox drink," she answered, fingerspelling. "Detox," she then signed. "It's a complicated sign. You can say cleanse. Cleanse. Every Saturday morning, you'll get a cleansing drink . Pressed fruits and vegetables or smoothies. Smoothies. It's all for your health."
Of all she said, Spencer took away that it was a Saturday. He would try to keep the day in mind in the future.
He attempted to keep the conversation light and play along. "Always orally?" he fingerspelled and pointed to his mouth.
"You can say —-—. Orally. Orally."
"Thank you."
"Only when the tube is removed. Try to eat the oatmeal again."
The bowl was skimmed at his fingertips. He tried again to eat it, but it seemed like the solid food just couldn't get past his tongue. He hoped he didn't have to add oatmeal to his list of aversive textured foods.
Not that you need the mental list anymore anyway. You're to die here. There was an immediate rush. Stop thinking like this. He couldn't be fatalistic. They were coming. They were. And he was doing his part in lulling her and would continue to do so.
"I'm sorry." He was unsure of what to say, but he was overcome with dread. "I can't. Please, there's no punishment needed."
The bowl was taken from him again, his leg was given another pat, and he sat and awaited the next few minutes, fingers twiddling.
Soon, another cup was placed in his hand, and he smelled what it was before attempting to drink it. Ah. It was made into a smoothie. He was careful to drink it lest it come up. But, again, it was delicious.
He didn't know what she might have done if he couldn't take it in for a third time.
The woman took the empty cup from him and brushed his cheek with an open palm, fingers trailing into his hair.
He swallowed and waited.
—
The conversation that proceeded was long and slow, engaging and innocuous.
Some of the words she used had to be fingerspelled and then translated so he could learn them. Others that had no Sign counterpart were only to be fingerspelled.
But they had a dialogue—the longest yet. He kept everything on topic and didn't veer at all. Despite his desire to do so, he didn't ask her what her goal was, what was to become of him, and no mention of previous victims was made. It was still too soon after his punishment to broach subjects that might make her flip the switch from congenial to antagonistic or violent.
Conversation was good. Conversation meant that he and his captor were connecting on a more familiar level, that he was still on good terms with them—or at least with her.
Keep things focused on her for now; behave and they would continue to want to keep him in the picture.
To what purpose the following knowledge would serve him was unknown to Spencer, but he catalogued all the information into mental files, categorized them, and would draw what he could from them:
From the toiletries and ointments to the detergents used for the sheets and clothes to those used to clean the toilet and tub, her preference was for chemical-free items—likely excluding the drugs used to put him out on rare occasions. He had an inkling there was more than one. And even then, he was iffy about what was used. While he was positive that the drug of choice was ketamine, he couldn't attribute it to every drugging. As the conversation continued, he concluded that she might also use natural sedatives.
They probably used the other heavier chemicals when dealing with their victims' dead bodies, as Marion had been slathered in bleach. That, he suspected, was a manifestation of both a compulsion and a need to evade forensic discovery.
Of course, another exception to this was the chemicals used to color his hair.
In his further questioning, she confirmed that she had given him detoxes for the first full week of his captivity after they'd intubated him to—in her words—clean out anything impure inside of him and to get him started on his recovery. That explained his more violent bowel movements those first few days, his irritation and anxiety, his palpitations, and the occasional achy joints.
The diet was low cholesterol, low fat, moderate in carbs, plant derived, and protein rich, consisting mostly of fruits, vegetables, nut milks, and limited mixes of beans and lentils, seeds and nuts, and the occasional whole grains and oats.
Far too healthy.
She wouldn't feed him meat or animal byproducts with the exception of raw honey or bee pollen as it was—again in her own fingerspelling-laden words—nature's most complete natural source of everything he would need to nourish and boost his immune system. Though Spencer already knew the benefits of bee pollen, he abided her explanation.
"Nature always provides us with what we need," she added. "But aside from the riboflavin and magnesium supplements, it's necessary for me to give you more B12 and Vitamin D. You have to stay healthy."
It was the first part that Spencer again latched on to—her assertion about nature's provisions.
She then declared that none of his foods would have any artificial additives or cane sugar, and he wouldn't be given any caffeine except for the occasional green tea.
It was an overly restrictive, supercilious diet that on normal terms he would never, ever eat. He liked sugars, fatty snack foods, he loved coffee, and he liked milk and cheese despite his lactose intolerance. There was no balance.
Either way, this was good. She was looking at things with a long-term perspective, and as far as he could help it, he wanted to keep it that way.
Spencer didn't know about the man, but he had a distinct feeling that the woman was a body-temple, mother-earth, homeopathy-holistic type of person.
'He's releasing them to the forest.' Hadn't that been his observation when the team was on the case? That the victims were there to thrive and grow? That their bodies were like seeds?
With her regular earthy scent and the probability that she worked in horticulture, he felt that he wasn't far off with this comparison anymore.
Whether this was a psychological response to her son's sickness and subsequent death or was an ideal she had adopted long before, Spencer didn't know. He might find out in time.
Continuing to hope that they were still one unit, that Alex was still with them, he wondered how far the team had come to understanding these things about the unsubs. Did they know to look for two people? If he could release himself from his own body and put himself into the mind of just one of them, they could save him.
But conversation continued, and the woman was patient with him, taught him the proper translation for words he didn't know—if they so existed.
And so, he tried to turn the conversation on her and gain insight in the hopes that she might give something away that might assist him in an escape. He asked her what her occupation was, what her husband did, if they had any other children, her age—anything to get something out of this.
Her answer was guarded: "You already know these things, —-— boy. You're being forgetful. It's okay. It's because you're sick."
He was glad she couldn't see him roll his eyes. It was too controlled a flip. In this moment, this woman was under no delusion. She was manipulating him. He was admittedly late in catching it this time.
And she continued. "The cleaner you eat, the healthier you'll get. You can overcome your sickness. Clean eating releases a person from bad pollutants."
Release. It was a distinct word for her to use, and a powerful sentiment. She truly and whole-heartedly believed that whatever sickness befell her son had been like a prison to him.
A single event turned her into this. It froze her in time, kept her in repetition of her trauma like a skipping record. She may have been a pleasant person before the death of her son. An actual, loving mother. Again, it was sobering.
Attempting to keep things light, he said, "There are many health benefits of drinking coffee along with tea. I'm sure you know this."
"I know. It seems you're trying to convince me to let you have it."
Despite this comment, Spencer flinched and then relaxed when she brought his hand to her neck again. His lips straightened as he tried to gauge what to say. She was being genuinely benign in this moment—to the point of sharing laughter with him. He thought to keep things in this same vein, to reciprocate.
"I don't think I'll succeed in convincing you."
"No." Another press of his hand to her neck. "You won't take it in anymore. I give you an inch and you'll want a foot."
His shoulders tensed. He had no doubt that these two would suspect their victims might try to deceive them and have them make concessions.
But she continued, "Then you'll be eating all sorts of unhealthy things. When you get better, maybe we can introduce some of the other things back into your diet. But for now, I know that this is what is best for you. This is what I can do to help you."
He cleared his throat in uneasiness, and his chest tightened. She truly loved her son. A large portion of her identity may have been tied to raising and nurturing him. For him to have days ago rejected that identity after she'd taken the time to care for him when he'd been ill—true regret and a brief flash of sorrow swept through him.
"Thank you," he said.
And yet:
"Besides, I watched you drink so much of it almost every day with milk. You know that milk is bad for you. The coffee isn't good for your sickness, and you used so much sugar, too."
The whiplash was as powerful as the very collision that they'd staged to get him here.
The despondency was gone as the true reality of the situation punched through his chest.
She knew about his love for coffee and sugar, his lactose intolerance, and other things besides because he'd been stalked. Hunted.
He was being kept captive by this couple, and in this moment, just days after having been tortured by them, he had lost sight of his objective.
He had found the conversation stimulating, intriguing, more than just cataloguing. He'd felt bad for her. He allowed himself to become comfortable in her company.
Like he was comfortable around his own mother. Around Alex. Alex, whom they may have killed.
Horror lanced through him.
It was happening.
He folded his hands into his lap, awash not only in disgust with himself but also with guilt. He was lying to his own mother to protect her—if Penelope was fulfilling a wish he had discussed with her years ago. In the meantime, he was giving intimacy meant for his mother to some stranger. This wasn't that complex. He was their prisoner. There was no grey area in this. And yet, somehow, in this bizarre exchange, he overlooked this.
His jaw clenched and he was overcome with nausea, groaning. In another moment he gave a body-wracking shiver from an unknown chill as pain blossomed behind his eyes. He nearly doubled over from it.
She tapped his hands. He couldn't bring himself to lift them and instead clasped at his stomach. She tapped again and he didn't respond. Upon a third, forceful double-tap and with a painful pinch to enforce his cooperation, he finally lifted his hands.
"What's happened? Are you okay?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"Are you feeling sick?" And then her knuckles pressed against his forehead, his cheek; her fingers went to his neck and palpated his lymph nodes.
Each touch was like fire against his skin, and he flinched.
Yes. Yes, I feel sick. I'm going to vomit. But he wouldn't say it. He didn't know what she might do or try to give him, or how much longer she might extend her stay if she felt that she needed to make him feel better.
He didn't want that. He wanted her gone.
"I'm sorry. I'm . . . tired," he answered. It wasn't untrue, and he hoped that it might persuade her to leave.
She tapped his leg, squeezing his shoulder.
"Do you need to rest?" she asked. "Would you prefer to take your bath later?"
"Yes, please," he answered. At that, he curled into the bed and turned to his right side to face the wall.
She squeezed his shoulder again. The shadow of her presence hunched over him; her hair wisped and tickled against his face before her lips were upon his cheek below the leather.
Spencer waited for almost an hour after he knew she was gone before he used the sleeve of his sweater to rub at the lingering sensation of her lips.
During that time, he thought of his own mother, and he wondered how she was. She wouldn't be missing him if things were going according to plan. She should have about 22 to 24 letters by this time, by his calculations.
If he was rescued by a team he had no assurance still existed—or if he escaped—he would have Penelope stop sending the letters, if he was compos mentis.
And yet. He didn't know what might happen to him here. He might be here long enough that the strangulations could cause significant brain damage. He'd only been strangled three times. But it could take only one extreme event to alter one's life.
As brain damage was individual to each person, he couldn't foresee what he might suffer afterwards, and therefore he didn't know what kind of therapy he might have to undergo. Or he might be left in a vegetative state and never know anything at all again. Or he might be awake and unable to move—locked in his own mind, trapped—with the world continuing around him while he could do nothing but sit or lie there.
So Penelope might have to send all 365 letters. He might never be able to care for his mother as he had. Or perhaps his fa—
No.
He would rather die than be in those conditions for too long. This was why he gave his legally authorized representative specific directions on his medical care if anything were to happen to him and he were in either of those states.
But he was thinking idealistically. He was thinking about survival. He was thinking about possible rescue or escape. The other possibility—the greater possibility—was his death, either due to a medical issue while in captivity, or by his murder.
What would come of his mother if he didn't survive this? He'd been the one to care for her after his father's departure, able to run the household within months of the abandonment.
Financially, things were—they were strange and complicated, and he didn't have the emotional energy to think of those certain memories. If he did, then a particular conversation would be called to mind, and he couldn't dwell on it now.
When he had gone to Caltech, he called his mother every morning before his classes, and they talked. Sometimes she would recite poetry or a passage from a novel to him, and sometimes he would do it for her.
But he always used the opportunity to remind her to take her medication and encouraged her to bathe and exercise and make a simple breakfast, and she assured him every morning that she had. He would tell her not to smoke—"We already can't see each other because of my classes, Mom. Every time you smoke one, it's 6 minutes less that I get to spend with you."—and she told him that she was quitting that day.
He also called her every evening, and she always picked up. When she didn't, he worried. Once, his worry was well warranted; dealing with the situation had been precarious. He was taking courses at any time during the year—as well as winter and summer courses—so there was never an extended time that he could stay with his mother.
He thrummed with excitement on his first bus ride back to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving weekend, and when he arrived home, he was pleased to see how well his mother was doing. For those three days he spent with her, there was a warmth and a love there that he'd missed for months, and he slept by her bedside when she fell asleep. He tied one end of a scarf around her wrist, the other around his own, and he fell asleep at her bedside the night before traveling back to California. It was something he reserved the nights when her episodes were the worst and she had fallen asleep. That night, he wanted to be close to her before he would leave, for he wasn't going to see her for another while longer.
Before he had gone off to college, her psychotic lapses had never been so bad as after his father had left. Once, a delusion wherein she was convinced his body had been taken over caused her to attack him in blind fear. It wasn't the first time she'd had that specific delusion. Later, when she was in her right mind, she asked him about the bruise. He convinced her that he'd hurt himself at school—an easy lie for her to buy into—and she, meek as a kitten by then, had read to him after taking care of the wound. It was the first time the moniker Crash was ever used.
The second and third times, she'd struck him more than once. He learned, in those days, how to use her old, crusting makeup to cover the wounds up. If he went to school with them, peers and adults might become suspicious, protective services might become involved, and he would lose her.
None of these things could cloud over his deep love for his mother. He had thought, just days before he was abducted, that he would visit her for a while, and now he might not ever see her again. He'd nearly allowed the punishment he underwent to rob him of that love. He couldn't let that happen.
He fell asleep thinking about his mother, but with a belly full, he dreamt, remembering Maeve.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 12, 2012
"Tell me about them, Spencer," Maeve requested.
It was just over two months after they had started calling each other after all of the many letters. The first time they had spoken with each other, the call lasted for nearly two hours. Today, on their ninth call, they were already on their fourth hour. Collect calls were a small fortune, and Spencer found that he had to get multiple rolls of quarters at the bank to accommodate them. It was worth it. Every penny spent speaking to her was a penny well spent.
"About my team?" Spencer asked, rocking on his toes before settling on his feet.
"Yes, please, tell me about them." Her voice was frail, tired.
"Um, you okay, Maeve?" Spencer asked in concern.
"Oh, don't worry about me," she responded. "Just a little . . . a little tired."
"Oh? You should try eating an apple. Due to their rich content of natural sugars and fiber, apples can provide a slow and sustained release of energy. Also, research has shown that their high antioxidant content may slow the digestion of carbohydrates, so apples release energy over a more extended period of time."
Maeve giggled.
"Oatmeal!" Spencer blurted. "Oatmeal, too, is good for increasing your energy if you have no gluten aversions! You can have apple cinnamon oatmeal and get the best of both."
Maeve laughed again. "Spencer, of all people to give me nutritional advice . . . you're hilarious. You have the poorest diet I've ever seen."
"I know the facts," Spencer huffed.
"And yet," Maeve chided. "Knowing and doing are two different things. Not everything's about the brainwork, you know. I wish you'd eat a little better. Remember what I've told you about genetics and diet. Either way, you're not wrong. And I have the ingredients at my disposal to make cinnamon apple oatmeal right now."
"Oh, I guess—I mean—I—I can hang up. We can—we can talk again next week?"
"No, no! You don't have to go, Spencer. Please." There was shuffling on the other line. "I can cook, and you can talk. You can tell me about everyone. I'd love to know them. Please, tell me about them."
Something panged Spencer. Maeve didn't sound well. She hadn't sounded well for the whole of their conversation. He couldn't reach into the phone and comfort her. It was physically impossible, and yet he found himself wanting to do such a nonsensical thing. It seemed like she wanted a distraction from something more than just her stalker. So he acquiesced to her wishes.
He told her about everyone: Jennifer—"She goes by JJ," he said—and by extension her husband, and their son—
"You have a godson!" Maeve declared in pleasure.
"I—I—yeah, yes, I do."
"You love him."
"Very much so, yes." It was a simple truth that he wouldn't deny.
"How adorable. Continue. What does Jennifer do?"
He continued telling her about Jennifer, of where she'd started as an amazing communications liaison who was taken away by the Pentagon but who returned and was excelling as a profiler now. "She's said that she never wanted to be a profiler," he babbled, "but her line of work required a good amount of profiling before cases would even be assigned to the team, so the path in her career was well paved." He prattled on, but he must have added more flourish because—
"Hm. Spencer, do you love her?"
He stammered. "L-Love her? I—well—"
"Mm. You do love her," Maeve said in assuredness. There was neither anger nor jealousy in her voice, but he wasn't to truly know over the phone.
It was difficult to relay. The betrayal he felt for her deception ached, but he knew it could heal if it were given proper attention. And yet—
"Spencer, those we love, we can't always explain. How we love is fluid and may not be easy for us to wrap our minds around, but it's enduring. Jennifer—can I call her JJ like you do?"
"Y-Yes."
"JJ sounds warm and nurturing, funny and spunky, and you've known her for so long. On a primal level, I think there's some attachment there. On an emotional one, there's no question. Love—loving someone—involves more science than people think; you know this. It's chemical and basal. The oxytocin that's released upon just seeing someone that you love, it's—oh, milk's bubbling over. One sec."
Spencer unstuck his dry mouth. "Milk will make you more tired." It was the only thing he could say in response to her words.
"Milk in itself doesn't contain a sufficient amount of tryptophan to induce sleepiness, Spencer. You know this. Either way, it's nut-milk. Also, I'm cringing at the very thought that you might eat your oatmeal with just water. Oof, how bland." She laughed again. "Tell me more? Tell me of the others?"
After clearing his throat, Spencer moved onto Derek. He told her of how the two had met years ago and of how their relationship transformed from something cool, distant, antagonistic to its durability today. Without delving into detail, he spoke of how Derek had helped him during a difficulty when he thought that another person would have stepped in to help, and he spoke of how indebted he was to Derek, and he began to stammer because—
"Spencer, I get the inkling that you love Derek Morgan, too."
"I—I trust him with my life, Maeve."
"Mm. No. That's not what I said," she asserted. "You don't just trust him with your life, you love him."
"I . . ."
"I meant what I said, Spencer, when I told you that we can't explain who we love, or how we love them. It's so intricate a thing that I choose not to argue against it. Life's a bit of a labyrinth like that. Love can be dangerous, and it can blind us to things we don't see about another person. I would know. Or. It can be just—I dunno—wrap us in safety. Love also makes it difficult for us to let go of things. It's the ones who we love most that seem to cut us the deepest. And yet. It isn't fickle if, for example, you get hurt by the ones you love. It tips the scales and works in such strange extremes, you know? And other times, when we truly love, we learn that there are difficult things that we have to do—not only for ourselves, but for others. You know—that self-sacrificing love."
"Mm . . ." Maeve seemed to speak from experience. Many months later, on the day of her death, Spencer would come to understand these words more fully.
"I think you just need to accept the simple fact that you love him instead of wading through muck that muddies it all up. You'll be much more fulfilled that way, I'm sure. Also, Derek sounds like a classic protector—you must feel a sense of safety with him." She was stirring her food, he could hear.
"I . . ."
Maeve giggled. "Speechless again. Continue. There are more, yes? In your unit?"
So he next spoke of Penelope, and he told Maeve of how her skills were utilized, of how upstanding she was, how wholesome she was despite the difficulties of her job, of her peculiar brand of humor, of how deeply he trusted her, and of how fun it was to be with her, and even to just hear her voice over the phone, and how she doted on him, and then—
"Spencer," Maeve sighed out. "You love her, too. That's a lot of love."
His throat was beginning to close up and heat built behind his eyes.
"You're silent because you know I'm right. I love it. Keep telling me about them."
So he told Maeve about Emily who was now in London—"I think you and she would enjoy literary discussions. And she could assist you with your Russian."—about Aaron and little Jack, about David.
"So they're your family," Maeve concluded. "I quite love them all, in your eyes."
"I . . . I quite like them too," he parroted mindlessly.
"Nah, you love them, Spence. There's no way around it. Oh, this tastes delicious. I wish you could taste it."
Spence. Something in him went aflutter. That—that was the first time she called him Spence.
"I . . ." Spencer flushed. "I—wish—um, well I would like—"
Maeve laughed. "Dr Reid, for an accomplished man who holds three PhDs and two baccalaureates, your oration needs a bit of refining," she teased. "I'm beginning to think that your credentials are a sham."
He couldn't help but smile. "I actually tend to do some of my best monologuing under intense terror," he huffed.
"Well that type of poise just might be situational, then, because you're certainly not talking with any confidence right now." Her tone was glib. "Explain your blathering," she teased.
"It's just that—well—"
She laughed again. "I'm just taking the mickey out of you, Spence. Just a little teasing." Her tone then switched, softened, took on a note of serious contemplation. "May I try?"
He paused. He thought on it. What could it hurt? "Yes."
"Hmm. So I think . . . the overarching theme of your relationship with your workmates, Spencer, is love. I think you're possibly afraid of it. They're not just your workmates—with each other or with you. You've all built a system of reliability and trust that's buttressed by love. You're all surrounded by a lot of darkness, and in the face of that, you spend a lot of time with people who brave against it. It's . . . sort of a balance created to cancel out what you all face. This unifies your purpose and your reliance on one another to keep being that stabilizing force. This is dominated by love."
Spencer paid rapt attention.
"That's speaking of you all holistically. Then there's a more individual level with this. For example, Jennifer—JJ, that is—she's entrusted you with a life, Spencer. She's done the same with Penelope. This is grafting you both into a more intimate unit. Don't take this lightly. She loves you both to insert you into that unit. I think you're struggling with something a bit deeper regarding these relationships. Perhaps it goes deeper than just love and has something to do with your attraction to these people? I include Derek and Emily in this as well, obviously. I think you might feel and want to share an intimacy that's beyond the bounds of what might be considered normal societally. I'm not suggesting sexually or romantically. Am I off the mark?"
His mouth was dry. "Um, I . . ."
"If I've offended you, I apologize. I could be wrong since I'm not to know it well yet. We're only a few months into having more personal conversation and we've not truly breached anything of this caliber yet. I'd like to say that I tend to have an incisive eye about these kinds of things, but there are so many factors that could throw me off. I'd like to continue knowing more about you, Spencer, and them, too, if I can. In turn, I hope you can continue to learn about me, too."
"I—mm. Oh." He thought to lighten the gravity of the conversation. "You sure you don't have a BA in psychology?"
"Hah! No, this is all twaddle, trust me. But I do like to dabble here and there. It's how I found you, isn't it?"
Spencer puffed out a little laugh.
"I'm a little jealous, honestly. Those I worked with were so distant with each other. We didn't form relationships quite like the ones you've formed. And you're so well balanced, too. There's a healthy mix of men and women on your team. The people at my university . . . they could make things awkward."
Spencer latched on to this in favor of not thinking of what she said before. "Awkward, why?"
"Well, I'm—I was—I am—the only woman in the department. I find that . . . well, when men are jealous of your success in the lab, they want it for themselves. But women want it so you can't have it. Sometimes this institution turns us against each other. This shouldn't be the case—we should be empowering each other where we can, especially in a field where we're so relegated just because of gender bias. If I had any place at all among you, I don't think I'd have felt that way. "
Spencer didn't have to think on it. "You wouldn't. We each have different skill sets that we bring to the team that makes us work as a cohesive unit rather than pitting us against each other."
"Eh, well, not sure what a geneticist would add to your dynamic, and honestly I think I'd be content skimming the perimeter of what you do instead of being involved with the chaos that it seems the field brings. You're a brave person, Spence, to battle against the type of people you do and save people, you must know that. It's valiant."
Spencer had never seen himself as valiant before, and in this very moment, guilt gnawed at him. Was he going about this wrong? Maeve had a stalker. He shouldn't be forming any kind of relationship with someone who was emotionally vulnerable. Was this only transference? The very same thing that had happened years ago on a case with Lila Archer? Austin Ford? Was this the same thing?
"I've said something wrong."
No. There was a distance here. There was a distance.
"Not at all, Maeve. I—"
"When all of this is behind me, Spence, I would like to meet every one of them, know them better. I want to meet JJ and her family, Derek Morgan, Penelope Garcia, Aaron Hotch Hotchner and his son, and David Rossi. And I definitely want to meet your little godson. How old is he?"
"Henry's three."
"How adorable. Children . . . children can be so adorable at that age. A little bad behavior, yeah, but just adorable, guileless little people." Her voice then became soft, wistful, even. "Do you . . . do you like children, Spencer?"
"Hmm, I—yes, now I do. Since Henry, I do. Even as Jack grew."
"Do you want children of your own?"
"I—" He had begun entertaining the idea. He swallowed. "I think that eventually I do. Not quite now." He cleared his throat. "Potentiality. The idea of it and, maybe—uh—also the p-p-paternal—"
"Paternal desire—that of passing things along to your progeny? It's basic human instinct, something that's greater than our thoughts. Primordial. Things passed on to us from our ancestors that stemmed from our basic need to survive and know that our progeny were surely of our tribe."
"Mm." It was quiet for a beat. "D-do you—um—like? Erm, children, Maeve?" Something in his chest beyond the beating chambers thumped, trailing in his stomach. He pressed a hand against his belly.
She let out a sigh. "They're precious. I like the idea of them growing from—mm—mushy, fresh-baked, wrinkly bundles of flesh to little toddlers and little adults. They're moldable and teachable, literally a new microcosm of this vast world. I think it's nice, though, that even if we don't have progeny directly from our lineage—if it's not a possibility—that children can be . . . can be, again, grafted into a family dynamic at any age, really. At the end of the day, though, I'm curious to know what it might be like to be pregnant. Just once."
Oh.
Oh.
There went that foreign thump again. "O-Oh."
Maeve giggled. "I wonder if we're of two different creeds, Spencer. But anyway, is there anyone else? Of all the things you were able to do with your life, Dr Reid, what was it that urged you to become a federal agent? Was there someone who influenced you? You mentioned that you met Derek through another agent."
Spencer hesitated. She had caught on to that. Of course she did. He was coming to learn that she was an incisive listener.
"Oh, there was. I can tell."
Silence.
"I take it there's . . . some bad history there?"
This time, Spencer's voice didn't waver. "We're not going to talk about him, yet. There are too many layers to unfold."
"I understand."
"But soon, maybe."
"Oh! Okay, then." Her voice then changed in timbre, not dwelling on the matter. "Spence, this was delicious. One day, if I could, once all of this is behind me, i-if it would be okay with you, I would like to make this for you."
And Spencer's demeanor shifted back to that stammering, flushing, unintelligible person he seemed to become when he sometimes spoke with Maeve.
"I—um—I would . . . like that, yeah. Um, I look forward to it."
Just like that. IQ of 187 is slashed to sixty. Damn it, Emily. You'd be laughing if you saw me right now.
Maeve never did have the chance to make Spencer her delicious apple cinnamon oatmeal. But Maeve had the time to meet some of whom he cherished in the mere minutes that she saw them before her face was pressed against her stalker and a bullet pierced through both of their skulls.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 2013 | WASHINGTON, DC
"Nothing's wrong, Will, it's just work," Jennifer spoke into the phone. "Yeah, I love you too. I'll talk to you as soon as I can." Jennifer picked up her go-bag from her desk after double checking that the essentials were in there. She turned, seeing Aaron and David walking in her direction. She gave a quick glance to Spencer's empty desk, then to Alex's.
One of them was returning soon, she knew, but she wasn't sure how much longer the things on Spencer's desk would be staying before they were boxed up. Aaron said weeks ago that he wasn't vying for a new agent to join the team, but she knew as well as he—as well as anyone else on the team—that it was going to be a matter of time before the higher-ups might want to see that empty desk be filled.
They had to continue keeping up the good results.
"What's going on?" Jennifer asked Aaron and David as they overreached her and she followed them. They, too, had their go-bags.
"There's been a mass sniper shooting in Dallas," Aaron confirmed.
"How many victims?"
"Still unclear; three confirmed deaths so far," David said.
Aaron turned bodily to the two behind him but didn't stop his stride. "We don't know much beyond that."
"Is it a terrorist attack?" Jennifer asked as they passed the threshold of the bullpen doors and headed toward the elevator.
From the hall to their right, Derek—who must have overheard the question—and Penelope both crossed the other group's path. "Well, if it is," Derek started, "they're happening more frequently. First the Boston Marathon, then the cleaver incident in London."
David thought for a moment as the elevator door opened. "It's a few months away, but we are also coming upon the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of JFK, which also took place in Dallas."
Jennifer raised her eyebrows in concern as she stepped into the elevator. "So we have to consider domestic terrorism." She held the door; Aaron was still standing outside, and Penelope was watching them all in concern.
"Right now," Aaron began, "we have to consider everything. Garcia, I need a list of all acts of civil unrest in Texas in the last few years."
Penelope was nodding before Aaron even finished speaking, grasping her notebook tightly. "Copy that."
"Local FBI's on the scene," Aaron said. "We'll take the lead when we get there."
Penelope, concerned for them all, made an exhortation. "Be safe!" She looked like she wanted to say something else, but the elevator doors had already closed on her.
—
With now five that were confirmed dead and a sixth victim in surgery, the team was concerned about the outcome of this case. The entire shooting was over within ten seconds, and the victimology was across the board, which was consistent with terrorist attacks. With a possibility of additional terrorist attacks, they might have to look at strange activity taking place in all large, high-population cities all over the nation under a magnifying glass. The whole bureau was on high alert, as well as Homeland Security.
Since the first victim was a hacker, Agent Hollins, who was originally heading the whole investigation, was starting with him, but David was also concerned about left- and right-wing extremists, what with the JFK assassination memorial date less than half a year away. There was a possibility of an overlap.
Simultaneously, with twelve shots being fired and only six people being hit, it was a rather low success rate—only 50%—whereas a trained sniper's success rate was in the high nineties. It seemed like an amateur was going at this.
Throughout the case, Jennifer often felt a niggling in the back of her mind, especially at the thought of how perfectly proportionate the murder victims were to the missed shots. It was she who had to go to the hospital to interview someone who was at the scene of the crime, and it was she who received news from the doctor that the sixth shooting victim—who might have been able to see everything—had died while in surgery.
Jennifer spent time with the surgeon and was told that Kyle Yates had a reversed heart, and the bullet had torn through major arteries, and they couldn't save him. In speaking to one of the MEs in the hospital morgue while examining the bullet wounds of the five other victims, that niggling returned.
"C'mon, Spence. What would you say about this?"
—
The shooting didn't seem to be connected to Kennedy's assassination, according to Penelope. Even the increased letters and threats sent to Dallas PD seemed to be clear of anything to do with today.
There was, however, some momentum with the civil unrest angle. It led them to a white supremacist, the head of the southern Aryans, named Adam Dawson.
In the meantime, Derek—along with Agent Mays—found the sniper's perch, factored in the time of the shooting, were able to conclude that their LDSK scoped out the area before hand—both where he would be shooting from tactically, and also which building would be best to do it from. This one was under renovation.
There were additional developments and calls were exchanged. There seemed to be a civil angle to all of this. One of the people murdered was a lawyer who was coincidentally prosecuting Adam Dawson for the murder of a black councilman. It was aligning in such a vein, so they had to pursue this angle.
While Jennifer was driving from the hospital, Derek called her.
"We need to unsettle Adam Dawson, JJ. He might not be forthcoming, but if we get under his skin he might preach about a grander scheme."
"Okay. What are you thinking we do?"
After a brief rundown, Jennifer turned her car around and met Derek at the penitentiary where Adam Dawson was being held. She was more than happy to play along.
Derek and Jennifer acted like an interracial couple, and Adam Dawson, who claimed to no longer have affiliation with his past roots as a supremacist, had shown his irritation. The man bridled when Derek put his hand on Jennifer's, and his fists tensed when Derek was dominant with her and gave what the inmate could perceive as a demand for her subservience. Adam's eyes followed the hands—how Jennifer placed it on Derek's bicep, how Derek covered hers with his own and rubbed it—and could only give a tightened response.
She wasn't ignorant of Dawson's disapproving gaze that settled on her and it filled her with disgust.
Maggot.
When they left, Derek was silent on his way to his car, jaw clenching.
—
Jennifer and Derek arrived back at the precinct in separate vehicles. As they walked into the building together, Jennifer peered at Derek.
"I'm—um—I don't really know what to say about what happened back there with Dawson. I hate it."
"Not in the mood to discuss it," Derek responded. "Don't worry about it." He stepped into the elevator, and Jennifer followed, clearing her throat.
"Sorry. He was . . . he was a piece of garbage, Derek. Just gonna keep it at that."
"Mm."
"Kyle Yates died while he was in surgery," Jennifer announced after she and Derek crossed into the conference room, where David was seated with an array of pictures.
"Well that's not gonna help us any," David murmured. "How'd it go with Dawson?"
Jennifer and Derek discussed the interrogation with David, mentioning that despite Adam Dawson's obvious racism, he seemed to have been clueless about the whole shooting affair from this morning.
And Derek continued. "We found the other three bullets. They were all over the place—the café sign, planters, and a couple of trees."
"I don't understand," Jennifer murmured. "Six bullets in the surrounding area and six bullets in the victims, who all died."
"It all points to him being a lousy shot," Derek said.
"Mm." Jennifer crossed her arms and tilted her head. "Two shots directly to the heads of two victims," Jennifer began, "one to the base of the neck, and three to the chest of three other victims. You know, if Kyle didn't have a reversed heart, that shot . . . could have gotten him directly in his heart. The bullet damaged his major arteries, though, and he wasn't able to be saved."
"Six dead with kill shots, six misfired shots," David said. "Fortuitous?"
"What if . . ." Jennifer began, "what if it was a forensic countermeasure?"
"Organized and intentional," Derek drawled. "And it was done to make law enforcement believe that he's not specially trained."
"Then that would mean," Jennifer concluded, "that this wasn't coincidence. There were no random victims. He knew exactly who he wanted to kill."
"So if it wasn't the attorney," David began, "the question of the hour is, Who was the real target?"
—
Not even two hours later, there was another shooting at a gas station, less than half a mile away from a mall, a more effective target-rich environment for a terrorist who would want to incite panic and fear. Three more victims, and allegedly over seven shots heard—at a gas station. It couldn't be terrorism. There were specific targets, and the other victims were collateral damage.
Their unsub was better than good: he had been able to shoot three victims from across the street in mere seconds between traffic and gas pumps and still get away without detection. They were looking at a sharpshooter, an LDSK, and they concluded that he may have a military, law enforcement, or special forces background. Inevitably, there was a connection between a victim at each of the shootings. If there were remaining targets left, he wouldn't wait much longer to initiate another attack.
The four relayed these things to the officers and agents, and after an exchange of questions and answers, Aaron told them to let the public know that they would need to continue remaining vigilant.
They, along with Agent Hollins, poured over this for hours into the late evening, trying to figure out who the intended targets were, and it just didn't come to them. The team went to their hotels with unsatisfactory answers.
They needed statistics. They need facts. They knew who would have been at the ready with these things, and they knew he wasn't there to relay any useful scraps of information to them.
Forget scraps.
Spencer pitched thoughts and ideas that were sometimes so far out of their vision that they didn't even seem to be playing in the same field. It was the same field, they just weren't playing the same game. They were looking for a ball, and he had thrown a boomerang. These things always circled back.
What they were missing was something that he might have been able to perceive in little to no time.
Frustrated, they left the case to percolate overnight.
In the morning, they worked Penelope at multiple angles, and she then went digging into statistics about sniper shootings: the weather conditions, the distances covered, the times of day, the human traffic, and all sorts of other things, and late into the evening, she figured it out.
It wasn't until it came to Aaron when Penelope mentioned human traffic conditions being factored into the history of some of the most prolific serial shootings.
They were looking at it too myopically. They needed to take a macroscopic view of what had occurred the previous day. They had to assess the behavior of how people reacted whenever there was a such-like public shooting. It was all about the timing. The sniper was experienced and accounted for this.
Whenever a gunshot sounded into the air in a public place, there was a pattern of reactions that was consistent across the board: puzzlement, curiosity, understanding, cognitive processing assessment, physical response. It all boiled down to reaction times and the number of shots. If the unsub was smart, he wouldn't go after his target first. In the time it took to take the shots and the time it took for the people to react and with the fact that he didn't want his intended target to get away, they boiled it down to him intending to take out the third victim.
The third victim, Alice Emerson, was a social worker who worked at a women's shelter downtown. Derek volunteered to talk to the husband, who was distraught over his wife's murder. Jennifer volunteered to go to the shelter to speak to her boss, that which she came to regret as it unearthed far too many things.
"Working here does take an emotional toll," Alice's boss said.
Jennifer sighed. "Escaping an abusive situation can be incredibly difficult. I imagine your job's frustrating."
She nodded. "The victims are a mess—physically, emotionally—and they often go back to their abuser. The fact is . . . most employees burn out. They don't work here more than a few years."
Jennifer tilted her head. "Alice was the exception, it seems."
In further discussion, Jennifer came to understand how deep of an emotional toll this work took on. Alice was the point of first contact and would funnel women committed to leaving their abusers to what was called a community angel—someone who would provide these women with temporary homes and consultations, helping them to even create new identities. It involved an intricate network of dedicated people, some of whom weren't even aware of others further down the line or even at the beginning of the established contact.
The secrecy was nightmarish, stressful, and taxing. It reminded Jennifer of her secreting Emily to Paris on one hand and how that secret had ruined a treasured relationship; on the other hand, it called to mind her experience at the US Operation Camp in Afghanistan, where she was assigned to interrogate female suspects, specifically Nadia Mubari. These all took place concurrently.
The nebulous secrecy involved in the months-long operation was stressful. Nadia's murder upended everything she'd been working hard to accomplish. But on that, Emily had been able to assist her with understanding the reason behind Nadia's rape and murder.
Secrets were corrosive, and she had her fair share of those. She hoped to never have to deal with that event again, but the duplicitous Askari was still missing in action. The whole operation, her pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage, the fact that Will still didn't know of what he had both gained and lost—
She worried. While she and Mateo Cruz sometimes met outside of work to exercise and socialize, they didn't want their paths to cross in the workplace. If it ever came to that, then her team—the best profilers she knew—would draw conclusions about what she had done in the many months spent away from them. They couldn't know about things that happened there.
So, yes, secrets were corrosive. Spencer phased into her periphery.
It might be too late with Spencer to correct the wrongs of keeping secrets. She might never be able to smooth out the issue between the two of them, and the guilt gnawed at her. She didn't want this to be the last memory she might have of Spencer. If he never returned, she didn't want their relationship to have been so broken.
Somewhere, if he was still alive, in some secret place, he was being hurt in unspeakable ways. The sight of Nadia's dead eyes, her pale face, her beaten and bloody visage, her body sprawled, legs splayed open, her violation . . .
God.
She couldn't keep doing this. She couldn't keep seeing Spencer in every one of their cases. It wasn't healthy.
She had to do right by him, and that started with her son, who asked for Spencer constantly, and then with her husband, who didn't understand why she sometimes laid in her bed and wept as she curled her body, but who comforted her as best he could.
The woman left, and so did Jennifer, enlisting Penelope to investigate Alice's texts and emails.
—
Alice had texted a single name—Rebecca Schroeder—to an unknown number. That name happened to match one of the victims killed at the gas station.
They determined that she might be a community angel, and after David went to her home and interviewed one of her neighbors, he confirmed the theory.
Penelope's delving had led her to Maya Carcani, and her husband Eric, the vice president of a private quasi-military security firm. He fit the profile, and he assaulted Maya on two separate occasions. The charges were dropped both times, and then she was reported missing six weeks ago, by Eric, before he recanted just last week because she called him from the East coast, where her family lived.
"So he panicked when she left," Aaron began, "and then he came up with a plan to hunt her down and killer her. And now he wants the cops off the case."
Jennifer and Derek went to his workplace to speak to him, they were informed that he'd been in Houston since yesterday morning, and were ready to leave, but saw their prime suspect, who took off the second that Derek identified the two of them as FBI.
They chased him, splitting off before rejoining in an underpass, where Jennifer attempted to shoot him before he returned the shot and ran directly into the street. Before they could pursue him, he was hit by a city bus.
It was not what they wanted at all. It was a loss they couldn't take.
He was behind the whole affair. Even while bleeding to death and still halfway under the bus that had smashed into and then drove over him, he grinned in triumph when Derek asked him where Maya was and took his secret to the grave with him.
—
It was Agent Hollins who asked what everyone was thinking. "So the question is, Why did he run?"
"He didn't need to," Penelope began, speaking to them from her office. "Eric Carcani's alibi totally checks out. He was in Houston at a training seminar during the time of both shootings, and several witnesses verified that."
"Well, Black Cross is known to be shady," Aaron stated. "He knew that a visit from the Bureau wasn't gonna be a good thing."
Derek was pacing.
Jennifer was incensed. "A guy who works for a paramilitary company probably thinks he's invincible." She couldn't suppress a roll of her eyes.
Agent Mays was looking at files and files on the table.
Derek, still pacing, shook his head. "I don't know. He knew something about his wife. The way he smiled at me before he died"—he paused his pacing, looking at Aaron, Jennifer, David and Agents Hollins and Mays, the latter of which stood straight and stared at him—"he was smug . You saw it, JJ."
"Mm." Jennifer ticked her eyebrows, watching as Derek resumed the brooding back and forth.
"It's like he was trying to say, You're not gonna find her in time."
Agent Mays shook her head, exasperated. "He'd rather die than let her live."
Derek shook his head. "Well, it's the classic psychology of the narcissistic abuser." He then sighed. "You know, we may be . . . looking at two unsubs."
Jennifer stared at Derek, then said with disbelief, "He hired someone to kill her."
"He's smart enough to distance himself," Aaron said.
It was exactly what they were looking for and led them—Penelope—to their LDSK, someone who Eric had called a month prior named Colin Bramwell, a Kenyan native. They also found out, through the courier service, where Maya had been hidden, and headed to her direction. She had two more weeks to continue following the protocols of the women's shelter. By this time, Bramwell must have also known where she was, too. It was only a matter of time before he got to her.
—
When they arrived at the complex of condominiums before the sun was setting, Aaron devised where Colin would be shooting from tactically, and he sent Derek and Jennifer to that location. He, however, had tactical training as well, and he would go inside of Maya's apartment. He approached her door, identified himself immediately to her, holding his FBI badge up to the peephole, and she was unable to open the door due to her fear. After some convincing words, after confirming with her that her husband was dead, she allowed him entry, and he told her that he needed her to enact a ruse in order to distract the sharpshooter.
It was a game of chess, wherein Bramwell wouldn't be able to resist such an obvious target. The inside of her apartment was dark, and Colin never saw Aaron, who was aiming an assault rifle at him just between her partially drawn blinds.
The aim was true, the bullet pierced his skull, and Colin Bramwell, the hired sharpshooter, was dead.
Maya was free.
Aaron—who saw that bone-deep relief flood her and the muscles in her body twitch—caught her as her knees buckled, and he held her before she collapsed in wracking sobs.
The immediacy of her trauma was over, but it would take her months and years to truly overcome all that led to an FBI agent in her apartment, lurking in the shadows with an assault rifle, and how it had all started with saying I do to a man who had once charmed her before he began to abuse her.
It was another successful case without Alex and without Spencer.
But on the flight back home, Jennifer couldn't help but think of how Maya had been able to escape her abusive situation and how Spencer, Noah, Zachary, and others had been trapped in a cycle of suffering.
—
When Jennifer arrived home, she and Will discussed how they would approach telling Henry about Spencer. She still wanted to protect him; she still didn't want him to be afraid of monsters. Will felt that being direct would be best. In the end, they compromised.
After Henry's bath, the two tucked him under his blanket and sat by his bed.
"Henry," Jennifer began. "You miss Uncle Spence, don't you?"
Henry brightened, sitting up. "Yeah! When's he coming again?"
She sighed and swallowed. "We might not see Spencer for a little while."
Henry pouted. "Does Uncle Spence—is he—is he still busy? Doesn't he wanna see us?"
Jennifer glided her hand through his hair. "Henry, Spence loves you. He loves you so much. Of course he wants to see you."
"Then why's he not coming back? Where did he go? When's he coming back?"
Jennifer breathed out a sigh, and Will squeezed her shoulder.
"He wants to come back, little man," Will answered. "But right now, he's somewhere we don't know. We're tryin' to find him."
Henry tilted his head. "Ohh . . . he's lost?"
"He's a little lost, buddy," Will answered with a nod.
Henry shuffled from his blanket, eased himself to the other side of his bed, and leaned over the edge, feet flailing.
"What's goin' on there, bud?" Will asked, peering.
"My—the flashlight—" Henry answered, voice lilting with the obvious answer.
When Henry's feet slumped over and a little thud followed, Will stood. "You okay?"
"Mm-hmm." Henry popped up and pushed his hair out his face. He held what he was looking for in his hand, pressing the button again and again in bursts of light. "Uncle Spence gave me it."
Jennifer tilted her head, expression softening.
Then Henry went to his window and shone the light in flashing bursts again.
"Whatcha doin'?"
"So Uncle Spence can see me. So he can come back and get not lost."
Jennifer's face heated and she bent forward, standing and walking to the window. She cupped her hand over her eyes as she pretended to peer for Spencer outside, directing the beam of light towards the tops of the buildings instead of through neighboring windows.
"I think Uncle Spence will see it, Henry. I think he'll find his way back." She didn't know the truth of the words. Despite this, she rubbed Henry's hair as Will walked over and stood behind him. She leaned her head against her husband's shoulder and the three looked out the window. "When he's asleep, Will," she whispered, "we need to talk."
