Chapter 8
Emily and JJ had been back in DC a week. They had rented a house to accommodate their new family of five.
'CLICK'
"You're ready to go, Mrs Prentiss. Stand up using the bars when you are ready." The rehabilitation therapist told her
JJ smiled, looking at her terrified wife, ready to take her first steps with her new artificial left leg.
JJ stood directly in front. Emily pulled herself up using the bars. She stood wobbling slightly, apprehensively she moved her right leg forward and tried to move her left leg but stumbled forward and started to fall. JJ stepped forward and grasped her wife, preventing her from falling.
"Steady there speedy, slow and steady wins the day. Even you can't run before you can walk." Smiles JJ
Over the next hour, Emily manages six steps on her new robotic leg, as the girls have nicknamed it. The 1000 Watt smile adorning her tired face was priceless for JJ. Her Emily was nearly complete. JJ hoped that walking unaided again for herself would help her with the coffin nightmares. Every night since the guys dug her up and rescued her, she had two or three nightmares a night. Emily being Emily tried to hide them from JJ. She failed drastically on the second night when she screamed like a banshee and woke her. Emily had sweated that much the bedding had to be changed, and JJ had to take the shaking Emily into the shower to wash her quickly. She only had one nightmare a night now, but they had become more extreme. Emily was refusing to see anyone about them as she hatted therapists.
The therapist told the exhausted Emily it was time to go home until tomorrow's session. JJ was waiting for the complaining from Emily but was pleasantly surprised when she just thanked her therapist.
"Proud of you, sweetheart, time for a nap?" JJ smiled full of pride for her wife efforts
"God yes," smiled Emily
EJ
Nicole had a pole beating JJ's chest and catching CC on her shin. Suddenly CC swiped her legs from under her, crashing to the mat. Nicole laughed as JJ offered her hand.
"How are you feeling? Is it helping with your urges?" JJ asked
"Some, I'm not as mad with the world, but some urges are still there. Thank you for trying and not just locking me away." Nicole answered
"Try your switch thing the Psychologist and the therapist suggested," JJ asked
'Blue Petal, Blue Petal, Bl..."
"Mama Jenny, Aunty C," smiled Angie
"How do you feel?" CC asked her
Angie smiled at JJ and CC, and they had been trying a method where the two Angie could change over to Nicole so she could participate in some form of physical activity that she could have a regular release. It reduced her urges to hurt people with the aid of her twice-weekly therapy sessions. JJ and Emily were still cautious around Nicole, and her temper was still explosive. They both had bruises to show. They both were willing to try to prevent her from being institutionalised. The therapist had helped them in identifying when Nicole was present due to certain mannerisms.
Emily walked in slowly, totally unaided. She was becoming much better using her new artificial leg.
"Strauss phoned she wants us in her office tomorrow at 10:30 to discuss our possible return. I don't like the way she used possible Jen. I know we both need to have our psychological assessment and requalify on the range. You don't think she is going to stop us from rejoining the team?" Emily asked, a little concerned
"I can't see a problem, sweetheart, but it's Strauss so that nothing would surprise me. I love you." JJ kissed her wife to try and allay her fears.
EJ
Emily stared open-mouthed at section chief Strauss across her desk.
"Ma'am, I don't think I heard that last sentence correctly. You are not returning me to the BAU because I am a possible liability? You are going to reassign me?" Emily asked Strauss
"Yes, agent, you have a prosthetic lower left leg. What happens if you get shot in it, you're going to be a liability in the field. Your better sat behind a desk safe in Quantico." Strauss replied
"WHAT! If an agent with two normal legs gets shot in their lower left leg, are they bulletproof? Unless they are like these film actors on tv that don't feel a thing and can run a marathon, a normal FBI agent would require medical assistance and an operating room. I won't let you reassign me!" Emily sternly replied
"It's done agent, your to report to the translation department section chief once you have clearance." Strauss responded with a smile on her face, "that will be all agents."
A devastated Emily walked out of Strauss office led out by her wife. Hotch asked the pair to see him in his office.
"Emily, I've tried to go over Strauss's head, but she is following orders from above. I'm trying to find out who ordered it. JJ, don't shoot the messenger, but your being moved to be Strauss assistant once you're cleared to return. Again that has come from above Strauss pay grade. What I needed to see you about is Andy Luttrell's lawyer has requested to meet you urgently. She is willing to meet you here today, and you need to phone here." Hotch told the two ladies handing over her lawyers' contact details.
They tried to open JJ's office door but found it locked. Looking through the window, they could see all JJ's stuff was packed into boxes on the floor. JJ turned to look at Emily her eyes filled with tears
"What's happening? Someone has got it in for us. Let ring Luttrell's lawyer and find out what they want." Emily told her wife.
Sat at Emily's desk, they had spoken to the lawyer, and Andy Luttrell had requested an urgent meeting with the two of them. She wouldn't discuss it over the phone or with anyone else. They had both agreed and would go straight there. JJ knew Emily was nervous as she was scratching an itch on her imaginary left foot very vigorously.
"Emily, your left foot is not itchy. It's made of carbon fibre, remember sweetheart?" JJ smirked
EJ
Emily sat hand in hand with JJ in the prison visiting room, waiting for Andy Luttrell to be brought in. Two corrections officers walked in with a pale looking unrestrained prisoner. She carefully sat down on the table attached stool.
"I'll get the ball rolling, and I'm dying from cancer! The doctors have given me two months maximum. I suppose it's my penance, it's from some chemicals I used to dispose of somebody's years ago. I don't want to see my girls, but I would like to ask you both to adopt them and keep them out of this. I know it's a lot to ask after I had them thrust onto you. Things aren't going so well with the FBI, are they at the moment?" Andy asked the two Prentiss women.
Emily and JJ look at Andy Luttrell aghast.
"Reassure me you're going to take care of Angie, Nicole and Macy, please, then I'll tell you what you need to know," Andy asked
" The three girls both saved our lives; they are not going anywhere. CC moved to D.C to help us look after them. If it makes you feel better, and Emily will adopt them, we have both grown fond of them, and we are even helping Nicole with her dark urges." JJ replied
"Thank you, and I knew you were both kind people. Emily, I am so sorry about your leg, I know it doesn't make a difference, but my mortality has changed my perspective on what I have done over the years. Thank you for looking after the girls. I can go to my damnation knowing my girls have good in their lives." Andy Luttrell tells them
Andy beckons to Emily to come closer, and Andy starts to whisper into her ear for a few words before coughing blood up and being escorted back to the hospital wing.
Emily stood and mouthed to JJ she would tell her at home.
EJ
CC had taken Macy and Angie to the cinema to give JJ and Emily time to talk. JJ drops two hair bands on the coffee table that she had put in her hair as Angie's dolly. Pulling the open one bar, she exposed a USB mini drive. Plugging it into their laptop, opening the only file, they read all the enclosed information. After an hour, they sat back, both silent, not believing what they had read
"Wow, they that explains things a bit, they don't know if the Luttrell's kept anything on them," Emily mumbled
"The assistant director of the FBI and two executive assistant directors family's used the cleaning services to dispose of two girls bodies they had just raped and murdered. They must wonder where their file is; they are keeping us close, as Andy Luttrell just explained. Robert Luttrell had been beaten to death in his cell, and Mave had been attacked. Mave was on life support. Her outcome was not looking very good. Someone was cleaning shop." JJ surmised.
Emily and JJ phoned CC explained the basics to her, and asked her to take the two girls somewhere safe. CC promised she would protect the girls and take them somewhere safe. Emily and JJ re-examined the computerised files over the following few hours, jotting down information every so often. They both had five days before their assessments to return to work. They need the help of the team.
EJ
Hotch, Morgan, Rossi, Reid, Strauss and Garcia sat drinking in the family room of the Prentiss house, listening to JJ explain the information on the files they had retrieved. The team all looked shocked at the names of the three college kids. One executive assistant director was going to be Emily's new boss when she returned to work. JJ had no doubt she would be transferred to the office of public affairs in due course.
"We need all of your help, but we would both understand if you wanted to step away from this. We don't want you all with targets on your back, Robert Luttrell is dead, and Mave is on life support..." Emily was interrupted by JJ gasping, reading her latest text. She passed it across to Emily. " Andy Luttrell overdosed on her morphine after the patient-controlled analgesia machine malfunctioned and delivered too much. Thank god CC has the girls and gone off-grid. They have too much to lose their cleaning shop, and we're safe as long as they think we haven't seen anything." Emily finishes.
"Emily, what do you need us to do?" Strauss asked, surprising everyone
JJ explained she was going to blackmail the Assistant Director to draw him out. She outlined their plan over the next half hour. Morgan and Rossi objected to her putting her life in danger. Hotch and Strauss agreed with Emily and JJ's plan to everyone surprise, adding a few refinements.
"Now, Emily, I swear to god, if anything takes me away from you and our three girls, I'm haunting your ass for the remainder of your life!" JJ laughed. Only Emily knew JJ was petrified. She tried to joke to make things lighter.
Morgan asked, "three girls?"
"We treat Angie and Nicole as separate people; it helps Nicole with her dark urges being treated as a separate individual. It seems to help." Emily answered.
EJ
JJ had raised a grievance about her removal from the BAU. She now sat opposite the assistant director of the FBI.
"Agent Jareau..." JJ halted the assistant director
"Three bears cabin, a little fun with your two friends resulting in the death of Candy Cussler and Simone Fox both strangled by one of these cords. I have underwear and an alarming video of the three of you doing the disgusting deed. That cord is for you to confirm its authenticity with the lab. The two bodies were embalmed, so I'm sure your fingerprints will be pristine around her neck." JJ informed the shocked FBI assistant director
"What do you want, Jareau?" He asked shocked
"Michael, I think you can call me Jennifer. After all, we are going to become great friends. You confirm authenticity first, then come back to me. I have contingency's in place should I suddenly die or disappear like the Luttrell family." Replied an evil looking JJ. "I think your new special assistant needs a great view from her office and a superb pay rise, don't you think, Michael?" Smirked JJ sitting on the corner of his desk.
The assistant director looked like a fish out of the water but soon regained his composure. "FINE! You start Monday, Jennifer. But you..." he was cut short by JJ slapping him across his face
"Now, Michael, I thought we were getting on so well, and you were just about to ruin it by threatening me," JJ smirked, pulling out her cell phone, opening up an app and passing it across to the red-cheeked assistant director
He reads the news site and goes pale.
' very senior FBI agent involved in rape-murder of the student according to a close source.'
The assistant director dropped the phone and just glared at JJ
"Don't confuse my sweet angelic looks, assistant director. I am a heartless evil bitch when needed. You get one chance, and that has just been used up. Now I think that's going to cause you some pain. I will see you bright and early tomorrow." JJ smiled, picking her phone up from the floor.
EJ
Once JJ had left, the assistant director of the FBI sat in his office fuming. JJ had been slaughtered numerous amounts of times in his mind in many heinous ways. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a burner phone, and phoned his coconspirators. His phone had the latest FBI encryption software installed, so it was impossible to record his call. He informed his two friends of JJ's demands and about the cord.
"We need some collateral that they care for. Leave that up to me. We will talk again tomorrow. Just remember phone security." He told the two friends on the conference call
He then spent the next hour setting up JJ's new job and office, ready everything for the morning. The night crew were going to be busy.
He poured a large brandy and sat thinking for a while about how he would handle the blond threatening his life's goal of becoming the director of the FBI. He could offer her a very senior position and burn her career further down the line. He thought of a few more things, but he had to kill the bitch. She slapped him and deserved to die. He had to find the Luttrell kids they now looked after.
'That's it. I'll kill them while she watches them die, then her wife. The silly blond will give up the evidence after a few screams. Oh Jennifer, your mine now. No one slaps me, no one.'
He smirked, sitting in his chair drinking his brandy, satisfied he was still the king.
EJ
Garcia sat with Emily and JJ, listening to the next generation listening device attached to the assistant director's desk by JJ.
"Sweetie, slapping him was a little off-script. Did it feel good?" Emily laughed
"I profiled him as a control freak. He had to be the alpha, so alpha female Jenny turned up to challenge him. It knocked him off his game. Listening to his call, he wants to fix it. They are going to make mistakes now. Especially when the forensics come back from the cord." JJ smiled
"Time for me to place the cat amongst the pigeons," Emily smiled at her beautiful wife and picked her phone up
"Mr Roche murder, listen carefully to me. We know about Candy. She is being dug up as we speak. You have been a very naughty boy and deserve to be punished. Watch the enclosed feed if you don't believe me." Emily warned him. Sending the streaming link to him
"I have a tip for you, Executive Assistant Director Roche of the FBI. He has two bodies hidden from his past. If you would like to know more, watch the link I'm emailing to you now. Her name was Candy Cussler, last seen with Executive Assistant Director Roche and two friends before she disappeared, never to be seen again until tonight." Emily hung up and sent the link to a web camera watching the exhumation of the coffin containing Candy's embalmed body.
JJ phoned the tip to a further two newspapers and two national tv stations. Emily was now breaking into the assistant director's private car outside a Restaurant, placing a cloned copy of the disposable cell phone.
EJ
The Executive Assistant Director was stunned watching the casket lid being opened live on this web feed. He gasped, recognising the body lying in the casket; although she was decomposing, her face was engraved in his mind. Remembering her dead body laying on the mattress in the cabin, lifeless eyes staring at him after he had strangled her.
He slowly opened his bottle of scotch and poured a healthy splash into his glass, and gulped the contents down like it was soda. He had a further drink trying to steady his nerves; he opened his desk drawer and pulled out his encrypted disposable cell, and dialled the Assistant Director from memory.
"Michael! We have a problem. They have just dug up Candy Cussler, and I'm watching it live on a streaming feed emailed to be by someone whose voice was disguised. What should I do?"
'Stop panicking, Simon; there is nothing to trace her back to us. We need to talk. I will meet you outside your house in 15 Minutes, Simon stop falling into your scotch glass. I need you clear-headed when we talk.' The Deputy Director warned his friend
"Don't you dare chastise me," he yelled, hanging up.
Simon Roche sat watching the removal of the casket by the M.E and the police officers cording off the area. His house and personal cell rang simultaneously, he picked his cell up, and the call was from an unknown caller.
"Hello"
'Is this Executive Assistant Director Roche? I am Nancy Wells from the Washington Post. Would you like to comment on reports that you murdered a girl at a party in a secluded cabin called the three bears? Whose body has just been exhumed this evening? I watched it live. My informant told me police believe they should still be able to lift fingerprints as the body was well preserved because she was very well embalmed.' Nancy asked
"I have no comment Nancy as I have no idea what you are talking about. Goodnight." Simon abruptly ended the call panicking internally
Looking at his house phone, he had both house lines ringing and his cell ringing. He just poured another drink muting his house phone and turning his cell off. He sat, contemplating how his life had changed so much in 20 minutes. A well-hidden mistake from his earlier years had surfaced, ready to swallow him whole and destroy everything he had built for himself and his family.
EJ
JJ put her cell down after using her best media liaison voice, pretending to be a reporter on the phone.
"He sounded shaken up. Watching her dug up, and coming face to face with her should keep him off his game long enough to slip up."
Emily smiled, picking up her cell and dialled his wife
"Hello Mrs Roche, my name is Judy Forth. I'm a reporter with the inquisitor. Would you like to comment on reports your husband raped and murdered a girl during a party at a cabin? Her body has just been found, and his fingerprints have been found around her neck. How does it feel living with a rapist and murder? Do you feel safe with the age of your daughter? Can I get a comment on the record?" Emily pushed.
Emily listened to the silence, thinking she was going to hang up any second. "It's not true. My husband is in the FBI. He hunts people like that. It's a plant some criminals trying to sully his good name. He has probably never met this girl." She told Emily
"Open the link I've just sent you. I think the photographs will show you he was well acquainted with her. I think after viewing the photos, you need to consider your safety seriously. My paper would be happy to hide you from him and the FBI. Ring me back if you want my help." Emily sent the link and ended the call
"Seed sown and watered, let's see what we grow?" Emily smiled and hugged JJ
EJ
Margaret Roche opened the link and looked at four photographs of her husband with a naked Candy Cussler pro forming oral sex on her husband. The other three photographs should be in various sexual positions; the one Margaret kept glancing at was her husband and Candy on a porch with the cabins name on the wall 'The Three Bears'. She decided and grabbed her sleeping daughter and quietly walked out the back door away from her husband.
Margaret had walked three blocks when she dialled the reporters' number
"Hello Judy Forth, can I help you?" Emily answered
"Judy, I need your help", Margaret sounded despite on the phone.
"Where are you? I will come and pick you up." Emily smiled and thought, got you. She arranged a location to pick them up.
Twenty minutes later, Emily and JJ pulled up, and Margaret and her sleeping daughter got into their SUV. They drove a predetermined route so Garcia could keep the destination safe from cameras.
Margaret placed her sleeping daughter in the bed and then followed Emily into the family room of the friend's house.
"My name is SSA Jennifer Jareau, and this is section chief Strauss and SSA's Hotchner, Prentiss, Morgan, Rossi and Dr Reid. Before you ask any questions, I think you need to watch this video. It will answer the majority of them." JJ sat Margaret down and pressed play on the portable DVD player.
The BAU watched the emotions change as she watched her husband and his friends rape and murder the two women. She noticed two birthmarks on his backside that confirmed beyond any shadow of a doubt it was her Simon.