tw- violence, blood, mentions of su*cide
Time seemed to drag on impossibly slowly after that night.
The team worked on cases steadily and the routine now felt second nature to the newest member of the BAU. She finds stability in the balanced practice of the team.
They fly to a city, they solve the case, and they return home. It's all pretty open and shut.
Except for Spencer. That case is left wide open.
Her days are spent trying to avoid his eyes as they work side-by-side. Sleepless nights are spent contemplating that one strange evening and what she came to discover about him.
When she arrived at work the morning following her night with Spencer, everything seemed to be amicable between the two co-workers for the first time. They weren't arguing, but they weren't speaking to each other at all, either. Emily and Derek had brows raised in speculation.
They let it go. The silence was better than the immature back and forth.
But, even through silently sitting across from Spencer Reid at the office, her mind ran wild with a resentment that burns her cheeks and scorns her tongue.
Why did it have to be her? Why did she have to be the one to catch him at the wrong place at the wrong time on the A-train platform that night?
Didn't he have a car? Why did he have to take the train, anyway? Why did she have to be the one to find out that he's using? Why-
"Hey, Scowls-a-lot, can you focus? Please?"
Jo looks over her shoulder and is brought back to the unfortunate present.
Derek is covered in sweat, some blood dribbles from a cut on his forehead, and his chest heaves up and down quickly. He doesn't look good.
"Sorry, I'm here," She says, shaking her head to clear it.
Her hands clad in fingerless leather gloves curl around the stock of her gun and her heart thumps against her ribs uncomfortably.
The ceiling of the house the two agents are hunched inside is leaking in all kinds of places and floorboards stick up out of the hardwood. It makes their sneaking around quite impossible.
They're crouched silently behind a half-wall, and a countertop ledge is right above their heads concealing them as they try and see anything in this dusty dark.
The unsub, suspected mid-forties white male, had led Jo and Derek down a winding desert road and into this piece-of-shit house.
He ran inside before Jo or Derek could get a clear shot, and Jo convinced Derek to follow behind her into the house without waiting for backup. They didn't have cell reception to call Hotch out here, anyways.
She thought they could get him on their own.
But, as they sit in the dusty dark now, Jo has a gut feeling that they were not going to get him, and that they were lured into this house on purpose.
It all seems too convenient; a high-speed chase down a desolate desert road, the unsub getting away in just enough time to escape Jo and Derek in their black SUV. It has to be some sort of set-up, she just wished she had realized it sooner before putting herself and her best friend in the line of fire.
It's so humid and gloomy that Jo can barely see a foot in front of her face. Her vision is only black silhouettes against an even darker backdrop.
The unsubs could be right next to her and she would have no idea.
The old hardwood floors of the level above them creak loudly a few times and Jolene snaps her gaze to the ceiling before looking back to Derek quickly for guidance.
He looks at her with a panicked scowl, "Try and call Hotch, I know there's no reception but it's our only way out. Maybe Garcia will pick up your location."
He's whispering still, trying to reassure her by speaking slowly.
She pulls her phone out, first turning the brightness all the way down before dialing Hotch. Her hands are shaking and sweaty and it's hard to grip the phone even with her grip-gloves on.
It rings once and goes straight to voicemail.
Call Failed
Looking left and right, she slowly starts to stand, gun extended in her left hand, phone in her right.
"I'm about to do something," She glances at Derek, "Just be cool, okay?"
He tries to grab her but she is already halfway across the large living room.
"What the hell are you doing?" He hisses.
She has to make it to the coffee table so she can stand on it and get reception. It's simple, and she can do it.
The floor creaks ever-so-slightly under her dainty steps and she freezes, checking around herself again. Not that she can see much, anyway.
Derek is hyper-vigilant at this point, ready to jump to his feet and defend her the moment one of these guys tries to pop out and surprise her.
But it turns out that Derek is the one who needs defending.
When Jo hops on the table and raises the phone in the air, Derek receives a hard swing of some sort of glassware to the back of the head.
The glass shatters and Jolene drops her phone in surprise.
She turns around precisely and whispers, "Morgan?"
"Guess again."
"Sir, Jo's phone just turned on for a sec," Garcia's distorted voice sounds over the pounding of her keyboard.
"Triangulate the location, Garcia. We don't have much time," Hotch commands, eyes squinting as he tries to see anything with the rapidly setting sun.
The rest of the BAU is standing outside of their SUVs on the same desolate desert road Jo and Derek sped down minutes prior, the hot air and night sky swallowing them whole.
"Where did they speed off to anyway?" Prentiss questions in frustration.
"I don't know. I turned around and the SUV was gone," Hotch informs.
"It was probably Jo," Spencer nods, looking out into the vastness of the desert, "She's the irrational decision-maker of the two."
"We don't profile our teammates," Hotch scolds, "But you're probably right."
I know I am.
"Garcia?" Hotch questions.
"I...I got it! 2241 Hawthorne Road. Sending it to your phones now."
"Thanks, Garcia," Hotch hands up, immediately climbing in the drivers seat of the SUV.
"We're on Hawthorne now. They can't be far. Wheels up."
"I told you to subdue her, not nearly murder her."
"I didn't mean to."
"If she winds up dead, you're dead."
Jo's head pounds like a motherfucker moments before her eyes crack open. She blinks slowly, trying to clear her vision, but she can't.
Everything is hazy and fractured. The state of her consciousness isn't under her control-it's like her brain is rocking back and forth, banging against the confines of her skull.
She feels pressure around her midsection, glancing down to see rope wrapped around her core and arms as she's tied down to a chair.
She groans and blood dribbles from the back of her head around her neck and onto her collarbones. Her head lulls around lazily, trying to keep itself upright.
"She's awake! Look! See? I told you she'd be fine, Z."
Her useless vision pans over to see two swirly silhouettes approaching her. They're big, they're the silhouettes of men.
Her fingers press into the wood of the chair. She's lived this scene before.
Her brain tells her body to kick into fight mode but it can't. Her limbic brain is failing her and all she can do is be still as the taller of the two men approach her.
There's a glint of something frightening in his eyes, something familiar.
"Finally," he hums, "I'm glad you're awake," He brings his face down to her level, examining the porcelain skin.
Her eyes are drawn to the man's prominent chin, zeroing in on the spot. The skin there is covered in thick brown hair, except for a small area on the left side of his jawline. She makes out a scar there, a patch of skin where the beard can't grow over.
His grey eyes sink into her dark brown ones, and even as she can barely form a sentence in her own mind, she tries to speak. She will never act defenseless.
Never again.
"Whhhh-Who are, who-"
"Don't say anything, Jet," She registers a familiar voice, no idea who it belonged to, though, "I'm right behind you. I got you."
She nods. She hopes she's right to be nodding.
She feels the warmth of a body behind her which makes her notice the rope binding her arms and torso to whatever she's sitting on. She thinks it is Derek behind her but she can't be too sure of anything with the swishing of her skull.
"You don't have to say anything," The first grimy voice answers, "We already know everything we need to know, about the two of you at least. The skillful Agent Morgan, and the whip-smart Doctor Banks."
His voice sounds slithery like a snake.
"I was dying to meet the rest of your crew, especially the young man who's so integral to your team's every success. The wondrous Dr. Reid. I know they'll all be here soon enough."
"What?" The man bares bold yellow teeth in a rotten smile, "Did I strike a nerve, Agent Morgan? Coming after your family?"
Jo feels this man's footsteps pounding into the floor as he circles around her over and over again. It sounds like a metronome which makes the blaring burning in the back of her head more prominent.
"I knew you'd be stubborn, Agent Morgan. Especially when it comes to this one," The man straightens his spine and walks away from Derek without missing a beat.
He's moved back to Jo, now.
Fucking pussy.
"Good thing the golden child of the BAU is too out of it to know what's going on," He changes his tone, "I use the term golden child very loosely here, of course."
She hears his laughter before she registers there is another strange man in the room. Her head heavily swings to the left and she wills her eyes to open a little more, even with the weight of her eyelids forcing them closed.
He is short and huddled in a corner, gripping something and rocking back and forth.
He is fearful, paranoid. When she makes dreary eye contact with him he looks away quickly.
"Pretty girl, pretty pretty girl," The first man is before her now, bent over to her eye level and peering into them carefully. HE looks like he is trying to memorize the patterns of colors in her irises.
He wraps a slim lock of her hair which is matted with her blood around his finger, twirling it around before letting it drape over her shoulder again.
"Do not touch her," Derek grinds out.
"No need to get hostile, Agent Morgan. We're all friends here," He looks up and down her frail, limp body, "Very good friends."
"If we're such good friends, why don't you tell me why you murdered those girls. Kelly Prescott, Hannah Jordan, what did they do to deserve it?" Derek asks.
"In order to tell you that I'd need to strike a deal with you," The man tisks, "Are you a negotiable man, Agent Morgan?"
He's not letting Derek see him on purpose.
"I am," Derek says..
"Well, in that case, let's negotiate. I could tell you why I killed them, I could. But then everything would be ruined. Every ounce of painstaking work from the past..." He pauses, glancing back at his partner, "From the past number of years would be meaningless. I take my work very seriously-"
BANG
Derek eye's snap to the locked attic door, hearing the second locked door at the bottom of the stairs being burst down.
Someone's here.
The first man is moving in hurried movements toward the other, "Now. You know what to do."
The second man wails so loudly JO screws her eyes shut, "I-I can't! I change my mind. I'm not dying tonight. I don't want to die!"
"YOU PROMISED! DO IT!" The man's face becomes red with anger, the folds of his skin deepening into an urgent scowl. Tears slip down Jo's face. She doesn't like loud noises.
A loud bang sounds and Jo feels wetness dribbling all over herself.
"NO!"
It drips against her face, her chest, her arms and legs. It's running everywhere in combination with her own blood and she feels like she isn't going to be awake for much longer.
"Hotch, down the back stairwell," Derek nods to the door, and Rossi follows Hotch down the concealed stairs.
She doesn't know how it happened, she can barely feel her own fingertips, but soon her head is being cradled and hair is being wiped from her face.
"She's losing a lot of blood," Prentiss says. .
Derek stands to get to Jo but stumbles, the hit he took to the back of his own head representing itself.
The adrenaline has worn off and the tiny black dots he's been fighting off all night speckle his vision.
"Morgan," Prentiss orders, "Sit. Now."
He obeys, almost falling as he grips the back of the chair for support.
Spencer hangs up with 911 and crouches in front of Derek, eyes flitting back and fourth between his.
"What happened?" He asks.
"We saw the vehicle from the amber alert. Bright blue '72 Camaro. She-we thought we needed to take immediate action so we jumped in the car and followed them here. We were being so careful. I don't know-" He sucks in a harsh breath, baring his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut.
"It's alright," Spencer places a hand on his shoulder.
Hotch and Rossi run back up the stairs, heaving for air, "He's gone," Rossi alerts.
Hotch's eyes go to Jo, passed out and bloody in Prentiss' lap. He gets a funny feeling in his chest, one he has felt so many times while working this job, and one that he always ignores.
He couldn't name the feeling if you asked him to, and that's the whole point.
He's avoided it, believing that if he doesn't take the time to examine it will simply go away. The ache will become a memory until one day it's gone completely.
"We need to get them outside before the ambulance comes."
"Hello?"
"Where have you been? I've been calling you since last night."
"Well, I got knocked out with a baseball bat a few nights ago so I've been…resting."
He sighs, "Sorry. I just worry. How are you doing?"
"The ache is mostly gone," She pops a grape into her mouth from her criss-cross position on her bed.
"Good. Uh, I wanted to ask if you've talked to your dad since you got back from the hospital."
She swallows, and the pit in the center of her stomach grows deeper, "He hasn't called."
Hotch sighs again, and Jo hears movement, like he brought the phone away from his ear for a moment.
"He just called me to ask if you were well enough to attend the ball on Saturday after we get back from San Bernardino. I figured he hadn't called you, but…"
"Yeah. I didn't want to believe it either."
"I'm sorry Jolene-"
"Hotch, stop."
For the first time in this conversation Jo finally finds her voice.
"It's just not fair to you."
"I know, but it really isn't your fault. It's just something I have to deal with."
He hears her breathing get heavier, but he doesn't address it..
"Tell him I'll be there. Not to worry."
"Okay…"
"Anything else?"
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Fine. See you on the jet."
She hangs up and her right hand gently cradles her left wrist, rubbing at the newly formed scars there. The scars from the rope.
How the hell do you think I'm doing, Hotch?
She flops back onto her bed, hair fanning her head and spreading on the pillow beneath her head.
She spots the cardboard box placed on her desk.
Can't I ever give myself a break?
It's either the box, or fighting memories of the unsub's steely eyes.
Her feet pad across the cold wood, coming to a stop and placing her hands on the side of Gideon's box.
Hours pass and she now has a full-on evidence board tacked to the only blank wall in her room. Chinese take out boxes and several mugs of half-drunk coffee occupy every surface of the room.
Cass popped into her room once or twice for what she would call a wellness check, but Jo always dismissed her with a wave of her hand and some excuse.
"I'm busy."
Red, green, and yellow yarn strings together countless documents, reports, and CSI photos.
CSI photos of her family.
She sucks her teeth, eyes bouncing between different photos, unable to land on one for too long.
She can't come up with anything. No clear methodology, no MO, no signature. There's so much information here and none of it adds up.
No wonder Gideon couldn't solve this.
Victim three, unidentified teenage girl, sustains severe head trauma and 15-20 acute stab wounds to the arms and hands, evidence of sexual assault, evidence of-
Victim one, Holly Banks, DOA. COD tracheal laceration-
Victim two, Colin Banks, sustains no injuries.
Victim four, unidentified eight-year-old boy missing upon arrival. Suspected abduction-
The Unknown subject, suspected white male, 30-45. The profile suggests he is arrogant, intellectual, and in extreme control. The dexterity with which the crimes were carried out suggests a medical background, but otherwise not much is known about-
"What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?" One hand rests on her hip, the other in her hair.
"Cmon mom, give me something," Jo starts to chew on her thumbnail, eyes frantically scanning the make-shift board.
She goes back to the box.
After sifting through some discarded papers, the only thing left inside that she hasn't investigated are a set of three cassette tapes. They're dusty and look ancient, Jo doesn't even know what kind of machine you would need to put them in to listen to them.
But she knows someone who definitely will.
She picks up her phone, clicking on the contact and bringing it up to her ear in quick motions.
"What?"
"Hey…pal."
She squeezes her eyes shut. He sighs.
"I need your help again."
"Pass."
She groans, "It's actually," Her eyes rake over the board, "It's actually really important."
"You realize we're getting on a jet in seven hours, yes?"
"And I know you're not going to go to sleep anyway. Come on, I have a pot of coffee on."
Jo runs her tongue along her teeth beneath her closed, grinning lips.
"I like San Bernardino."
Derek follows her gaze to a shirtless six pack riding past them on a skateboard.
He bares his perfect teeth at Jo, winking at her before he rolls past.
"San Bernardino seems to like you, too," Derek laughs.
Hotch hangs up from his phone call, turning back to face his team gathered outside the precinct.
They had just been quickly briefed by the local detectives, but they were already called into this case late in the game. Once the jet touched down, they had no time to waste.
"Morgan, take Banks with you to Maren's mother's house. Talk to her about Maren's behavior leading up to the disappearance and the day of."
"Got it. Keys, please," Jo holds her hand out.
"No way, I'm not dying today," Derek reaches for the keys and Hotch lets him grab them. .
"Explain," Jo crosses her arms, looking at her boss.
"Your head," Hotch says, "No driving while we're here. You're still healing."
He walks away from them and Jo stares at the back of his head while he barks orders at Spencer and JJ.
"Fucking buzzkill."
San Bernardino, besides the hot guys, really is nice. Jo stares out the window of the SUV at the blurring landscape and thinks how cool it would have been to grow up in a place like this.
"You mind taking the lead with Maren's mother? She'll probably take to you better than me," Derek's voice makes her shift her gaze from the pastel window.
"No problem," She nods, "You know I'm good with moms."
"Tell that to Lacey."
"Don't even start. Lacey's mother was off her rocker. She was homophobic, it's not my fault Lacey wanted to pretend to be in the closet whenever we weren't alone."
"You never told me that."
"Really?" Jo swears she told him, "Wow. I mean, yeah. I wanted to be with her, even after we broke up. But she-" Jo shakes her head.
It's unimportant.
"She wanted something else. She's loyal to her mother, no matter how fucked up she may be."
Derek is quiet.
"Dude, it's fine," She reassures, "Three years later, I can see now that we wouldn't have lasted long after that anyways."
"How come?"
Jo's breath drops into her stomach, "No reason. Just life, I guess."
Derek nods, "Well good, then. At least you have a shitty mother to blame the heartbreak on."
"Totally."
"We're here," Derek pulls the car into park.
They're in a cul-de-sac, an American flag on the front lawn of every house landlocked on this small street.
"This ought to be fun," Jo remarks, stepping out of the car and slipping on her black-tinted sunglasses.
"You're telling me," Derek responds and a moment later he's knocking on the front door.
A woman just under 5'2'' answers. Her hair is blonde and curly. Pretty.
"Martha Stanton?" Jo asks, deepening her voice a bit.
The woman nods quickly through the screen door, wrapping a gray cardigan around her torso.
"I'm SSA Banks, and this is SSA Morgan," She holds up her credentials, "We're from the Behavioral Analysis Unit at the FBI."
Martha peers at them closely, eyes flicking between the two agents passively.. Her eyes run up and down Derek several times before landing on the tattoos on Jo's neck and hands.
"FBI?" She scoffs.
Jo smiles, commanding the woman to grant her eye contact..
"Mrs. Stanton, we have a few questions to ask you about your daughter. Do you mind if we come in?"
Martha looks over her shoulder quickly, "It'll have to be fast. I have to pick up Michael at five."
Jo checks her wristwatch purposefully, "Gives us about a half-hour. More than enough time."
Martha wordlessly holds the door open.
She leads them through a tight foyer hallway, photos of two different children lined on every inch of spare wall space. Two boys.
"Is Michael your other child?" Jo asks.
Martha brings them to a stop in the living room where she takes a seat on a Lazy Boy. Jo and Derek seat themselves on an adjacent couch.
"Yes, my son. He's nine, we adopted him from Minnesota three years ago. And we also have James, my oldest."
"Sweet kid," Jo nods at Michael's soccer photo displayed on the coffee table.
"He can be quite the handful," Martha tries to humor.
"Why no pictures of Maren?" Jo asks.
"Oh," Martha looks up at one of the walls, "She never likes us to display photos of her. She doesn't like the way she looks in them."
"Mrs. Stanton, I want to ask you about your daughter in the days leading up to her disappearance."
Jo takes note of every shift, every jerk, every reflex in the woman's body while she speaks.
"Uh, Maren was..." She looks into the blank distance, "a bit off right before she disappeared."
"Off?"
"Blowing up on me and her father, talking back to Pastor Ron, neglecting her chores."
"Sounds like some typical behavior of a seventeen year old girl," Jo tilts her head, "I mean, I can remember when I was seventeen-"
"My Maren isn't like that," Martha shakes her head, "She is sweet. She's a good girl."
"Hm," Jo hums.
"She's going through a hard time. She just broke up with her boyfriend Patrick. What a nice boy he is. We love Patrick."
"Why'd they break up?" Derek prompts.
"She won't tell me anything other than the fact that she was the one who broke it off with him, not the other way around. I tried to convince her to call him and tell him she made a mistake. I mean, she really shouldn't have let someone like him go."
Jo looks at Derek so briefly that any civilian, like Martha, wouldn't have time to catch it.
"Can you tell me more about Patrick?"
"He's born and raised in San Bernardino. Comes from a great family. He's the type of guy you want to bring home to your parents. Strong. Dependable."
"We're going to need his address."
"I'll take the lead on this one," Derek says.
They hop up two small cracked cement stairs leading up to the front door of Patrick Henry's house.
"I can handle scumbag men," Jo assures..
"It's not you that I worry about," Derek knocks on the door.
No answer.
"FBI," Derek clarifies with another knock.
There's shuffling behind the door followed by the sound of several locks becoming undone. The door swings open fast.
"What?"
"Patrick Henry?" Derek questions, credentials displayed in front of him.
Patrick reads the badge, "Maybe."
"SSA Morgan, SSA Banks. We'd like to ask you a few questions about Maren Stanton."
Pause. He reaches his left hand up, scratching his chin.
Pacifying behavior.
Where's the doctor when you need him?
"I can come back in half an hour with a warrant if you'd like." Derek says.
"Why don't you do that?" Patrick slams the door in their face.
"It's gonna take a lot of convincing to obtain him for questioning," Jo looks at Derek next to her.
"We'll have him downtown in half an hour."
After a million absolutely nots from Hotch, they were able to obtain probable cause due to the fact that Maren's drivers license was found in Patrick's car.
The local PD detained Patrick Stanton for questioning in under half an hour, just like Derek had said.
"Let me do it," Jo asks through a tense jaw, though she sounds a little too excited about being alone with a kidnapping suspect .
The way Patrick is so relaxed behind this two-way mirror makes Jo want to be the one to interrogate him all the more. He's a smug, sitting duck.
"You sure kid?" Derek asks.
"Yes," She looks at Patrick still, "Dealt with guys like him hundreds of times."
"Signal the moment you need one of us," Hotch opens the door to the interrogation room.
She nods, legal pad in hand, and walks into the room with her gaze on the ground.
She won't look at Patrick until she decides to.
"She's gonna get under his skin real quick," Derek shakes his head as he watches Jo sit across from Patrick at the metal table.
"Exactly. We don't have much time. If we're right about Maren being sold into a trafficking ring she could already be halfway across the world by now."
"You sent her in there?"
Prentiss and Spencer join them, Prentiss gawking at the scene behind the glass.
Hotch only nods.
"God rest his soul."
"You're the woman from before, from my house."
The room is small and cold, one electrical light buzzes overhead.
Jo nods, looking at the manila folder laid on her lap, "SSA Banks."
"Can I get you anything, Patrick? Coffee? Water?" She asks but doesn't move a single part of her body.
He's leant back in his chair, one leg folded over the other with crossed arms.
He rocks slightly back and forth, but his face paints a calmer picture.
"Coffee would be great," He nods.
"Cream? Sugar?".
"Too much of a bother to ask for cream?" He tests the boundary.
"Not at all. Let me get that for you."
She's on the other side of the glass now and Hotch looks at Reid, "Get her a cup of coffee."
"Anything for her highness."
"Get over yourself," She quips but her eyes are glued to Patrick through the glass.
"What do you see?" Derek stands behind her.
"He's stretching out his major joints," Her eyes frantically follow his movements, "He keeps rolling his shoulders and ankles, and trying to crack his knuckles."
"And how would you use this against him in a court of law?" Derek poses.
"On its own it means nothing," She dismisses, "But it tells me his body is trying to burn off nervous energy. Think Jodi Arias doing yoga while in the interrogation room for Travis' murder. Same thing. Innocent people don't get so nervous that their body has to kick in to burn off that extra energy. ."
"Here's the angry man's coffee," Spencer hands a styrofoam cup to Jo and she takes it.
"Thanks for making yourself useful."
She's on the other side of the glass again, handing Patrick his coffee and returning to the cold metal seat.
This time she places her legal pad and folder flat on the table. Patrick sips the coffee.
"Didn't know they let little girls into the FBI."
She makes eye contact with him for the first time.
She laughs, which disarms Patrick. He doesn't expect her to join in on her own mockery. She doesn't dignify his statement with a response, but she does open the folder on the table in front of her, letting it take all of her focus.
"You probably got a swanky daddy, dontcha? Some hot-shot FBI guy that got you this job."
"I actually do have a swanky daddy, so watch your mouth," Her eyes detach from the folder to look at him for a split second before looking back down.
"I'm assuming you know why you're here."
"Uh, not really, no." He states this like an obvious fact. Like it's completely ridiculous that he is in a police interrogation room.
"How do you know Maren Stanton?"
"Oh," Patrick nods, "Maren was my girlfriend."
"Was?"
"She broke up with me a few days go.:
""It says here in my file, Patrick, that you're twenty-three years old. Graduated from San Bernardino Technical School last year," Jo raises her eyebrows in shock like she was reading this information for the first time right now.
"Be twenty-four in December-"
"Maren Stanton is seventeen years old," Jo's voice runs over him like a bulldozer. He pauses.
"So?"
"Come on, Patrick. What could you possibly be doing with a seventeen-year old girl? She's practically a child," She leans closer to him, calmly resting her elbows on the table between them.
She's not angry. Not yet.
"I never did anything she didn't want. She adored me. Her mother was so happy we were together. Her dad, too," He brushes it off with a small shrug.
"That's statutory rape, you know that."
"Don't pretend to be my friend, bitch. I know what you pigs do, act like you're all buddy-buddy with me until I falsely confess to something you wanna pin on me."
If you think that was me being a bitch, just you wait Patrick.
"Why did Maren break up with you?" Jo ignores the outburst, which makes Patrick suck in a huff of air.
"I don't know," Patrick bites through his teeth.
His eye twitches.
Jo leans back in her chair.
"Patrick, I'm trying to help you here. I'm about the only person who can right now."
"I don't need help."
"When was the last time you saw Maren?"
"Three days ago, when she fucking broke up with me," He rubs his chin.
"Are you sure about that?"
His hand grips his chin, "Why would I lie?"
"You tell me," Her gaze pulls from his left eye to his right, "Mrs. Stanton was very upset to hear you two broke up."
"What can I say?" Patrick flings his arms out, "We were a great couple before she decided to ruin everything."
"I mean, the fact that you two broke up seemed to upset her even more than Maren being missing."
Patrick doesn't speak.
"She lives in a pretty rough part of town, Mrs. Stanton. House looks like it could use a few repairs," He is stoic, "Some updates on that god-awful furniture, too. She could use some money."
Patrick holds his chin again, elbow resting on his other arm.
"You could get her that money, huh Patrick? But it would come at a cost."
"I haven't talked to Mrs. Stanton in weeks, Maren told me not to contact her mother anymore after we got in a fight."
"When was this fight?"
"I-I can't remember the day exactly."
"What were you fighting about?"
"Not important."
"That's for me to decide," Jo's voice drops what seems like an octave.
Patrick smirks, "Can't keep your composure for too long, can you Agent Banks?"
Jo realizes her hands are gripping together harshly, laced on the table in front of her.
She releases her hands.
Jo glances at her legal pad, "Maren was last seen at Ingram Park, 1.3 miles from your house. She lives on the other side of town."
"Maren was always somewhere she wasn't supposed to be."
Was. Maren was always somewhere she wasn't supposed to be.
"When was the last time you saw Maren?" Jo presses, letting her kind facade get burned up by her searing hot hatred for the man.
"Three days ago. My house. When she broke up with me," Patrick shouts back.
"Be real with me, Patrick," Jo slams her left hand on the table, "You saw Maren after that."
"I did not," Patrick's rage rips through his voice.
"You're just a man who's never been held accountable for a goddamn thing in his entire life. You manipulate people and make them submissive to you, prime examples in Martha and Maren Stanton. You could get the two of them to do just about anything for you, huh?"
"They weren't exactly the strongest women, but they had their limits. Even though most of the time they let people walk all over them."
"What do you mean?"
"Me, Martha's husband, her oldest son? Even the little one, Michael. They let us walk all over them. Whatever we wanted, they did it. Not my problem that the one time Maren decided to fight back she chose to get violent."
"She hit you?"
"She tried," He almost smiles but holds it back, "She's too small to cause any damage, anyway. Weak."
Patrick is trying to stall, going off on misogynistic tangents to paint Maren as an unstable doormat.
"So this fight takes place on the last night you saw her?"
"Yes. The last time I saw her."
"And when was the last time you and Martha Stanton were in contact?"
"What, they don't train you how to open your ears at the FBI academy? We last spoke weeks ago, lady. Jesus," Patrick violently leans into Jo.
Her eyes go wide. She's almost there.
"What did you and Martha talk about?"
"I know you got a pea-sized brain in there Patrick, but come on. I know you can remember if you try hard enough," Jo's voice is devoid of humor.
"All women are the fucking same. You make fools of yourselves trying to prove you have the least bit of cognition going in your vapid little heads until you realize you're powerless."
"How much was she worth?"
The room stops. Patrick's lip switches ruthlessly.
"I'm sorry?"
"How much did you sell her for?" Jo asks just above a whisper.
A wicked smile spreads onto her face just because she knows it will ruin him.
Patrick's eyes break away from her ruthless contact.
Got him.
"Fuck off, I'm done answering your questions-"
"Maren told you she wanted to break up weeks before she finally built up the courage to actually do it. You became so enraged at the thought of her wanting to leave you that you went to her mother. Given that Maren is a child, you knew exactly where to go when your control over her was threatened. The next person in line.
Martha adored you from the start, not seeing many issues in the age difference. She just liked you because you're the ideal, reliable, strong young man. You kept Maren on the track that Martha wanted her to be on. A responsible fit for her daughter. You knew you could get her on your side against Maren.
You told her you could make all your problems go away-her financial issues as well as her defiant troubled daughter."
A vein bulges on Patrick's forehead, his pale face now burning like a tomato. His lip is twitching, wanting to make his hateful protests verbal but he can't. He can't reveal too much.
"So are we gonna wait for him to reach across the table and strangle her or can I go in there now?" Derek asks, biting on his thumbnail.
"Wait," Hotch holds his hand out, eyes on Jo and Patrick.
"That's not true, you don't know what you're talking about," Patrick shakes his head at the young woman with a bit too much confidence.
"It was easy to sell her off, huh?" Jo runs her tongue along the ridges of her teeth. Her elbows are perched on each of her knees in a strong, masculine position.
It makes Patrick hum a low chuckle.
"How much was she worth? 100k? 150?"
He grinds his jaw.
"Ah, 150,000 dollars for your underaged girlfriend. I have half a mind to arrest you right now," She says, knowing the only thing she would be able to hold him on, maybe, was the statutory charge.
"Did she beg you not to do it? Did she plead with you to just take her back home and not leave her with those strangers? Did she kick and scream against your hold on her as you passed her along to some faceless criminal?"
"SHE FUCKING DESERVED IT! The little bitch she is," Patrick's eyes widen when the last syllable tumbles off his lips.
"You fucking manipulative cunt," He rises to his feet and begins to raise his hands to Jo's neck.
Derek's pushing him forcefully to the cement wall behind him a second later, flipping him around to press his cheek into the wall.
The outburst doesn't shake Jo, and she walks up and leans on the wall, coming face to face with Patrick.
"Patrick Henry, you're under arrest for conspiracy to commit kidnapping, kidnapping, and the forced commercial sexual exploitation of a minor."
"Can we get him out of here, please?" Hotch calls from the doorway and two officers walk in and shuffle Henry out in a hurry.
"How about this one?"
"No."
"This one?"
"Ewuh, no."
Prentiss pulls her phone from Jo's view, scrolling and scrolling until, "Okay look at this one. You would look so cute in this."
"Cute? God, you're starting to sound like Garcia," Jo shakes her head.
"Well, we have to find you something to wear. Or are you planning on telling everyone you'll be at the ball until you just don't show up?"
"I'm hurt you think so low of me," Jo scoffs and pulls her phone from the jet's tray-table in front of her, "I already have a dress."
She hands Prentiss the phone and her jaw drops.
"Holy hot," She says slowly.
"I know," Jo grins.
"Holy backless!" Prentiss gasps, scrolling to the next photo of the dress.
"I had to get something incredible to wear considering how much it's gonna suck."
They continue their gossipy talks of the Founder's Ball and Spencer tries to drown them out as he finishes the book on Naturalistic Medicine in his lap.
He hasn't decided if he is going to attend the ball at all. He figured no one would miss him if he didn't go, but Derek had quickly shut that idea down and told Spencer he was 100% definitely going to go.
He'd have to pull out the suit in the back of his closet that he hasn't worn since god knows when. It just sounds like a lot of work.
"What about you?"
Spencer looks up to see the two women staring at him under the glow of an overhead jet light.
"What about me?" He wonders, an innocent and confused look on his face.
"The ball? You coming?" Jo asks.
He opens his mouth, surprised she is talking to him in such a neutral way that he doesn't know what to say.
"N-no. I mean, well I haven't decided yet."
"He's coming," Prentiss looks at Jo who smirks with her mouth closed.
As the two continue talking again, Spencer's eyes drift to Jo's phone which is still open on the tray table.
It's opened to a picture of the dress she would be wearing. The black, long, strappy material with a large cut-out along the back.
Maybe Spencer will go to the ball.
