A/N: As always, thanks to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter.
Chapter 28
There weren't a lot of students at Westborough Preparatory School who were picked up by a parent after school. It was one of a few select private high schools in the D.C. area with high tuition, which meant most of the students attending Westborough came from a family ranging from upper middle class to upper class. They were the sons and daughters of lawyers and doctors or politicians and business leaders. The student parking lot was filled with flashy sports cars and luxury SUVs. Many of the younger students either caught a ride from an older student or took the Metro home to an empty house because both of their parents were working professionals in a high-powered career. Instead of sitting in a long pickup line, Emily was able to idle right in front of the main entrance of the school, where she would see Hannah the moment the girl emerged from its doors.
While she waited, the agent scanned the perimeter of the old brick building, noting the location of the entrances and where the security cameras outside the building were located. From where she was parked, Emily heard the bell ring, signaling the end of class for the day. Within a matter of minutes, hundreds of teenagers, all of whom were wearing matching navy blue blazers with the school crest emblazoned on the top left-hand side over their chests, spilled out of the old brick building. Hannah was dressed the same as every other girl, but Emily was still able to pick her out of the crowd when she walked out with two girls who looked to be a year or two older than her. Emily thought they were probably friends from volleyball. Hannah had mentioned that she was the only freshman on the Varsity team. All three girls were tall and skinny and seemed to attract the attention of half the male population of the school. The older girls carried themselves with a sort of haughty arrogance that no high school freshman at the bottom of the proverbial food chain would possess. Compared to them, Hannah looked insecure, an overly eager smile on her face as the other two girls carried on a conversation that didn't really seem to include her, but they weren't excluding her either. Emily's first impression was that they knew Hannah looked up to them and might have even encouraged it. Maybe it made them feel important – or maybe she should say more important than they already did. The profiler could tell from the way other kids were acting around them that the two older girls her daughter was with were popular. Emily's eyes narrowed behind her sunglasses as she watched the interaction, not sure she liked how desperate her daughter seemed to be to fit in. Emily remembered being that age and wanting so badly to be accepted. And look where it got her – fifteen and pregnant because she was afraid she would lose John and Matthew if she said no. At least Hannah was dealing with girls, not boys, but there were other types of peer pressure that wouldn't result in teenage pregnancy.
Hannah spotted Emily's car and said goodbye to her 'friends.' The young teenager slid into the passenger seat of her birth mother's grey sedan, offering the woman an easy smile that was much more natural than the one on her face mere seconds before. "Hey, Emily." The teenager immediately took her blazer off and then buckled her seatbelt. "Is this curbside pick-up service part of my grounding? Because I could get used to this, especially if one of those is for me," Hannah said with a longing look at the two takeaway coffee cups in the cup holders.
Emily handed the untouched peppermint mocha to the girl. "This one's yours."
"You're the best! Thank you," Hannah said appreciatively, immediately taking a long sip.
Emily was glad her daughter's question about why she was picking her up didn't require an immediate answer with the way it was posed and how quickly the girl moved on. Deciding to temporarily table that topic, Emily asked conversationally, "How was school?"
"Probably not as exciting as your day," Hannah replied, hyper-aware of the gun holstered on Emily's right hip – a visual reminder of her birth mother's job, not that she really needed a reminder. Emily hadn't worn her gun in Hannah's presence since the night they met when Emily left work in the middle of a case to find her daughter. "Did you shoot anyone today, Agent Prentiss?"
It was asked good-naturedly, with genuine interest in her day, but Emily still bristled at that form of address from Hannah, however lightly delivered. "Don't call me that," Emily said seriously, referring to her professional title. It lacked familiarity and intimacy to the point that it was almost insulting and hurtful. Emily knew Hannah's adoptive mom had been 'Mom,' and had no objection to her daughter calling her Emily. She just wanted to be a mother to her child, even if she never got the actual title.
Taken aback by how quickly the light mood had turned serious and the sudden sharpness in her birth mother's tone, Hannah glanced at the woman in surprise and then looked down. "Sorry," Hannah offered quietly.
When she looked to her right to check for traffic before turning onto the busy D.C. street the private high school was located on, Emily saw Hannah's downcast eyes and subdued demeanor. Emily sighed softly. "No, I'm sorry. I just…I had a bad day. I shouldn't have snapped at you, honey, but please don't call me that. I'm not an FBI agent to you."
"You're my mom," Hannah acknowledged, increasingly comfortable with the fact. "But you're also an FBI agent. You know, most moms don't have guns when they pick their kids up from school. It's kind of badass."
"I came from work," Emily pointed out the obvious.
"To make sure I go straight home?" Hannah guessed. Why else would either of her parents leave work early to pick her up from school? When she was grounded, Hannah usually just had to call her dad from the home phone when she got home.
"No. I didn't want you riding the Metro home alone today. I'll explain why when we get to your house," Emily told her daughter as she checked her rearview mirror for probably the hundredth time, making sure they weren't being followed. On the off chance the person who took the picture didn't know where Hannah lived already, Emily wasn't going to lead him or her there now. The agent was on high alert and wanted to wait until they were safely inside Steve's townhouse to have this conversation because she couldn't afford any distractions, and an upset kid would be a big distraction.
Picking up on the fact that something was wrong, Hannah looked at Emily anxiously. "Is my dad okay?"
"Yes, he's fine," Emily assured the girl. She thought about telling Hannah that she could call him if she wanted but remembered Steve would be in a meeting.
The rest of the short drive was quiet with the exception of the radio, which was turned on with the volume on low.
Emily didn't want to make her young teenage daughter afraid to be in her own home. Going in with her weapon drawn to clear the house would make the girl think there was something to be afraid of so Emily didn't do that. Instead, she just stayed close to Hannah as they moved inside the townhouse, her right hand never far from her holstered Glock.
The dog heard Hannah's key in the door and was waiting by the door to greet them, wagging his tail excitedly. "Hey, Alex," Hannah said as she kneeled down on the rug to pat him and press a kiss to the top of his furry head, laughing and pulling back a little when he tried to lick her face.
While Hannah was distracted with the dog, Emily looked around to see if anything seemed off to her. It wasn't her house and she wouldn't necessarily know if anything was out of place, but she would notice signs of a break in.
When Hannah got up from the floor, it was only to clip Alex's leash to his collar. "You can go sit down," Hannah told her birth mother hospitably. "I'll be right back. I just need to take him out."
"I'll go with you," Emily said.
Hannah left the porch without bothering to lock the front door. She felt safe in her neighborhood, which was exactly how every kid should feel, but it wasn't helpful in this situation. Emily knew there was a fine line between scaring Hannah any more than was absolutely necessary and making her teenager aware of the danger.
"Hannah," Emily called from the front porch.
"What?" Hannah asked, stopping halfway to the sidewalk to glance back over her shoulder.
"Lock the door," Emily told her, waiting expectantly for the fourteen year old to comply.
"I'm just taking him around the block," Hannah grumbled lightly even as she went back to lock the front door. They wouldn't even be gone for twenty minutes. Did she really need to lock the door?
"Thank you," Emily said when the teenager complied, however grudgingly. "Do you walk him every day after school?" Emily asked. She needed to know her daughter's normal routine if she was going to keep Hannah safe. Emily was already a cat person, not a dog person, and she liked the idea of the dog even less now because it gave the fourteen year old a reason to leave the safety of the townhouse.
Hannah nodded. "He's my dog," she said simply in response. Well, obviously, he was her dog, but what she meant was that he was her dog, not the family dog. She realized she probably needed to explain that one a little more. "My twelfth birthday was, like, a month after my mom – my adoptive mom - died. I wasn't really in a celebratory mood. There was nothing I really wanted. But my dad…he woke me up that morning by putting a puppy in my bed. Alex," the fourteen year old said softly, smiling down at the golden retriever who was currently sniffing a patch of grass. "He was the best birthday present ever. He's my dog. I take care of him," Hannah finished proudly.
Okay, that made it hard for Emily to continue being annoyed by the dog's existence. Impossible actually. She could see how much her daughter loved the golden retriever and was touched Hannah shared that story with her. The girl was being more open with Emily than she had ever been - at least not without a lot of prompting. It was a true testament to her increasing comfort level with Emily and the growing closeness between them.
"Did you choose his name?" Emily asked curiously.
Hannah nodded again, a nostalgic expression coming across her face. "Alexander Hamilton," she offered in explanation. "We saw Hamilton on Broadway. I was kind of obsessed with it when we got Alex." She didn't mention that the trip to New York was her last trip with her adoptive mom.
They continued talking as Hannah walked Alex until he finally found the perfect spot to go to the bathroom, with the young teenager dutifully picking up after him.
"Make yourself at home," Hannah told Emily once they were back inside the townhouse. "I'm just gonna change out of this stupid uniform and then we can talk." Having attended public school in Bethesda where she could wear jeans, Hannah hated wearing the required uniform for her private high school and complained about it any chance she got. Despite her protests, her dad had insisted on private school once they moved to D.C. from Bethesda. Hannah didn't know if she'd ever be comfortable in the blazer that made her feel like she was playing dress up in an adult's clothing and the ridiculous plaid skirt she had to wear even when it was freezing outside. She never stayed in uniform any longer than she had to.
Emily chuckled softly at the girl's disdain for the school uniform. "Aw, I think you look cute."
"I look like a porn star," Hannah corrected, making a face. The fourteen year old didn't actually know what a porn star looked like, but the idea of the sexy schoolgirl was a part of pop culture, and Hannah knew a plaid pleated skirt like the one she wore as part of her uniform was a key component of the look. "Pervy old men like girls in plaid skirts, but I don't think cute is the word they would use."
If she was trying to get a reaction out of her birth mother with the provocative statement, she succeeded marvelously.
Emily stared at her in complete and utter horror, her mouth hanging open even though she had no words. There weren't many people who could leave Emily Prentiss speechless. Hannah was now on the very short list of people to accomplish that feat.
The image of her young, impressionable daughter in a school uniform was forever ruined for Emily now. It didn't help that the fourteen year old had grown since the start of the school year and the uniform didn't fit quite as well as it did back in August. At just under five foot seven inches, Hannah was almost as tall as Emily now. The white button-down shirt covered her long torso, but once untucked as it was now, it rode up a little every time the young teenager moved, momentarily showing off the pale skin on her lower abdomen until she pulled it down self-consciously. She also had long legs, which made the skirt appear shorter than it really was. Emily could only conclude that Hannah had a point. All the girl needed was a black lacy bra and heels to complete the look – a cringeworthy thought for the mother. She really hoped her fourteen year old daughter didn't have a black lacy bra.
Hannah left her completely scandalized birth mother standing at the bottom of the stairs and went up to her room to change into a Northwestern sweatshirt and black yoga pants.
After Hannah changed her clothes, they finally sat down on the couch in the living room to talk.
Emily started the conversation with her daughter the same way she started the conversation with Steve. "Something happened today. Several of the agents on my team received pictures of their loved ones in the mail."
"Is everyone okay?" Hannah interrupted, showing a surprising amount of concern for the people she barely knew but knew were important to Emily. She really was a sweet and caring kid underneath all the snark and sarcasm.
"No one was hurt," Emily replied carefully.
"That's – that's good, right?" Hannah questioned, her birth mother's unusually somber demeanor scaring her a little. When she wasn't mad at her, Emily was usually all smiles and laughter, wit and sarcasm.
"It is," Emily agreed hesitantly. "But the pictures were just a message. It was intended to scare us. I received a picture of you."
"Are you…scared, I mean?" Hannah asked quietly, her dark eyes never leaving Emily's. It was normal for a child to base their own reaction to a new and scary situation on how their parents reacted to it, and although neither of them realized it, that was what Hannah was doing now.
Emily placed a comforting hand on her daughter's knee and looked the girl straight in the eye as she spoke with total conviction. "Nothing's going to happen to you," she said instead of answering the question directly. As an FBI agent, it wasn't a promise she could – or would - make to anyone else who was in Hannah's shoes. But as a mother, it was a promise she was making to her child – and one she intended to keep. Emily Prentiss was not going to let anything happen to her daughter.
Hannah nodded, believing Emily without question.
"I don't want you going anywhere alone," Emily told her daughter before giving the teenager a questioning look. "How long are you grounded for?"
"Two weeks," Hannah answered glumly. She had accepted the punishment for missing curfew without argument or complaint, but that didn't mean she was happy about being grounded. What teenager would be?
"It's actually good you're grounded because the only places you're going are home and school," Emily stated matter-of-factly, ignoring the baleful glare her daughter shot her. "It's just a precaution, but your dad and I talked, and, for now, one of us will be picking you up from school."
Hannah nodded in quiet acceptance. She wouldn't have been so accepting if she hadn't already been grounded. As it was, the only thing that was really changing for her was how she got home from school.
Emily was surprised that Hannah didn't have more questions – or concerns.
The truth was that Emily had been trying not to show her own fear in front of her daughter; and, if Emily wasn't afraid for her, Hannah didn't think there was anything to be afraid of. The woman's legendary poker face and ability to compartmentalize might have been counterproductive in this instance because her impressive calm façade was giving Hannah a false sense of security.
Hannah didn't know Emily's team specialized in finding serial killers because Emily had never gone into much detail about her job at the BAU. That was intentional on Emily's part. At first, Emily had been worried the kid she was trying to get to know would be even more closed-off with her if she knew Emily was a profiler and not just an FBI agent. No one liked being profiled. Now, it was more an attempt to protect her daughter from knowing things no child should. The people the BAU hunted did terrible things that gave grown men and women nightmares.
Unlike Jack and Henry, the other children who were being targeted and were old enough to understand some of what was going on, Hannah hadn't grown up with a parent who was an FBI agent. She had never visited her mother in the hospital when the woman was recovering from a stab wound or a bullet wound. She had never seen her parent come home beaten and bruised. Logically she knew Emily's job was dangerous, but she didn't really understand how dangerous it was.
It creeped the girl out a little to think that someone had been watching her, but whoever it was hadn't actually done anything to her and Hannah knew they could have. She thought her birth mother was probably just being overprotective.
In part because she was operating on limited information, Hannah wasn't taking this threat as seriously as she should have. That showed when the FBI profiler segued into giving the fourteen year old some basic safety tips. Hannah alternated between teenage annoyance that the older woman thought she didn't know this already and making light of the safety tips with smartass responses – responses that Emily probably would have found amusing at any other time, but there was nothing funny about her daughter's safety and Emily definitely wasn't laughing at the ill-timed jokes.
"Seriously, Emily?" Hannah interrupted the woman who was in full on lecture mode on stranger danger. "I'm fourteen, not four. I know not to talk to strangers. Unless, of course, they have candy. If someone offers to break me off a piece of their Kit Kat bar…" Hannah's voice trailed off when she saw the distinctly unamused look on Emily's face.
"Do I need to remind you that you talked to Reid when you had no idea who he was?" Emily asked, referring to their impromptu meeting in the library.
"He said he worked with you at the FBI," Hannah responded defensively.
"And you believed him," Emily pointed out. "Did you even ask to see his badge?"
Hannah looked down, and Emily had her answer.
"Not everyone is who they say they are," Emily told the naïve child who had grown up in somewhat of a bubble – a bubble that Emily hated to burst.
After that Emily was able to get through the rest of the points that she wanted to make with minimal interruption from the smartass teenager. She knew none of the three suspects the team had identified would appear threatening to the average teenager. Two of the suspects were kids. Sure, they were over eighteen, but they were college age kids. Danny Murphy could easily pass as a high school student if he wanted to. And their other suspect was a pretty blonde woman who didn't look like she could hurt a fly. Hannah had to understand that not all bad guys looked like bad guys, and by the time Emily was done, she did.
When Steve got home, Hannah was working diligently on her math homework at the kitchen table while Emily checked her completed French homework. It was a decidedly domestic scene that would have felt so unbelievably normal if it wasn't for the reason Emily was there.
Emily and Steve exchanged terse but civil greetings. Emily quietly advised Steve to keep blinds drawn, windows locked, and doors locked. They had already agreed that one of them would pick Hannah up from school for at least the next couple of days. He told Emily he had been able to move everything he had scheduled the following afternoon and would be able to pick the teenager up and grudgingly agreed to let her know if he couldn't pick Hannah up on Friday. Because it was a holiday week and New Year's fell on a Tuesday, it was a short week with only three school days total. There were two school days remaining before the weekend.
It felt awkward to hug and kiss her daughter goodbye under the adoptive father's watchful eye, especially knowing how he felt about her at the moment, but Emily did it anyway, cherishing the feeling of having Hannah in her arms and knowing the girl was safe and whole and untouched by the bad in the world.
"I love you, Hannah," Emily murmured softly.
"Love you, too," the girl responded instantly.
Back at Quantico, the members of the team who were still there had finally managed to get a hold of Danny Murphy's parents. The Murphys claimed Danny was at home with them – something that was confirmed when they produced their eighteen year old son for a video conference that Penelope set up. Rossi and Reid spoke to him, and Danny denied ever having been in D.C. Based on that, they could rule him out as a suspect, but that still left them with two suspects. They'd had no luck locating either Jeremy Sayer or Claire Bates.
Jeremy Sayer was only thirteen when he was arrested, and he had stayed off the radar since his release. He was not a licensed driver in any state. There was no last known address for him. There was no employment history. If he was working, he was either doing something illegal or had found an employer that was paying him off the books. His parole officer had met him exactly one time. After that, Jeremy never darkened the door of the parole officer's office again and was therefore in violation of parole. There was a warrant out for his arrest in Nebraska, but the local police didn't usually invest a lot of time and effort in finding a parole violator. They prioritized open cases with unsolved crimes over parole violators whose crimes were committed several years ago.
Although it was nearing close of business in Washington, it was still early afternoon in Vegas. After getting an update from Rossi, Emily called a Las Vegas detective she had developed a good rapport with during their last case there and left a voicemail for him. She was hoping he would agree to do a welfare check on Claire Bates' residence and report back on whether it looked like anyone was currently living there.
When it came to the BAU family, everyone on the team would have worked through the night without complaint if they had any leads, but as it stood, there wasn't much they could do. There was no crime scene, no victim, and no evidence other than the pictures and envelopes which had already been processed.
The team reconvened in the morning, with Hotch and Morgan joining them again. Emily updated everyone on what the Vegas detective had reported. No one was home at Claire Bates' house and her car wasn't in the garage.
"Do you want me to put an APB out on her?" Penelope offered, eager to help find the evil person who wanted to hurt the BAU babies.
"On her and her car," Emily answered the tech analyst as she silently debated sending two members of the team to Vegas and two members of the team to the Midwest. They knew whoever took the pictures of their children was in the D.C. area. She wanted the team there, but they were somewhat limited in what they could do to find Claire and Jeremy from D.C. when any trail either of them left wouldn't have started in Washington.
Other than the welfare check on Claire Bates, there was no new information and no new developments. They were essentially waiting for a lead on Claire or Jeremy's whereabouts or for the next move in this revenge plot against the BAU.
"It's possible this isn't strictly revenge," Emily mused. Revenge would have been Danny Murphy's only motive, but both Jeremy Sayer and Claire Bates had something – or rather someone – else they wanted. "Jeremy was taking his rage at his own mother out on other maternal figures, but his mother was the real target of his rage. Penelope, you said she moved and changed her phone number. If he's been unsuccessful in finding her on his own, it's possible he thinks we'll tell him where she is to save our own kids."
"That's true, but I still think revenge on this team is part of it," Rossi said. "We stopped him from finishing what he started. Kendra and Carrie Sayer would probably be dead now if we didn't show up at the house when we did. The question is, which of us would he have the most anger toward?"
"That's easy. Me," Derek answered. "Prentiss and I went into the house together, but I was the one who cuffed the kid and took him out of there."
"You also attended his first parole hearing," Hotch pointed out.
"And I had nothing good to say about him," Derek said emphatically.
Tara shook her head, frowning at the logic that Derek - and therefore Hank - would be Jeremy's targets. "The families he annihilated were substitutes for Kendra and Caroline Sayer, a mother and daughter. If he's choosing substitutes, the only one targeted who has a daughter is Emily," Tara reasoned.
"Hannah is the only girl," Rossi conceded.
"She's also close in age to Carrie," JJ offered apologetically, not actually wanting Emily's daughter to be next on Jeremy's list.
"What about Claire Bates? The same thing could be said for her. It wouldn't just be revenge for her either," Luke pointed out.
"It would be about Jamie," Reid agreed, referring to Claire's son. "She may think we would trade her son for one of the kids she's targeting if she abducts one of them."
"The boys she took were substitutes for her son. He's the same age as Henry," JJ observed worriedly.
Matt gave JJ a questioning look, his eyes narrowed in thought. "Her son was a newborn. The boys she took were five years old and four years old."
"With her psychosis, she convinced herself the older boys were her son," Reid explained.
"What does that mean for us now?" Rossi asked. "Could she convince herself that Jack or Michael or even Hank is the same age as her son?"
"She could," Reid replied with a considering look on his face. "But I think it's more likely she would choose the boy closest in age to Jamie."
"Would it matter that Jamie's an only child?" Emily questioned with a glance at JJ. "Henry isn't, and he would be with Michael any time he's not in school."
"It might," Tara answered.
"In which case Jack would be the next closest substitute in both age and appearance," Hotch stated grimly.
Of course, none of them wanted their child to be the primary target, and each parent would continue to take every precaution with their own child until this was over, but if they could determine who the unsub would go after, they could put extra protections in place around that child. That was what they were trying to do. They just didn't have enough to do that. Not yet anyway.
