Chapter III
"A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept." ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafón
'You play around with people's minds and lives. You think that it is just going to carry on? Do you remember the lion and the mouse? The lion in your story ate the mouse after the mouse had set the lion free. Now it will pay. Sooner or later you will pay, later actually much later than you should but it is never too late. The weather may be hot but there is a storm coming.'
The words of the letter kept replaying in both David and Gloria's minds as they were getting dressed to head for Quantico. But Gloria was trying with all the skills she had to conceal her face from showing that she was getting increasingly worried.
"Let's cut the crap. I am asking you again. For which reason you are in front of me?"
"It is too hot, isn't it? That will bring down some storm."
Did she have to consider it a clue? A clue towards the direction that Saturday's visitor and the shootings the previous evening were connected? Or was it just a regular saying to avoid the answer? Was it a threat? A warning? What? Gloria was getting unnerved. Why should have it been him? She had ignored it to get away thinking that he was just carrying on with what he had said before. But what would be the reason for a flipping letter? He could have threatened her in person. But he had no reason whatsoever. And the letter was sent to Quantico? And what was up with all this lion and mouse?
"We should ask Hayden, too, about the letter before we leave, don't you think?" she said to distract herself.
"We probably should, just to cover the basics," Rossi admitted.
"Do you want me to do it?"
"No, I will. She disappeared last night. We have to talk, anyway."
She nodded.
"Leave the ring on," David said quietly after a pause, as he saw her getting the chain from the pocket of the bag.
She turned to him in question and surprise.
"It's the last of our problems but people are going to start talking, again."
"Are you sure it's a good idea? Now out of all times?"
"We could wait for this to finish but let's pre-empty them. They'll say I got a daughter and the ex-wife. I don't want them to refer to you as the 'girlfriend' or spread anything stupid."
"You know I don't care about what people may say."
"I do. I am the one the Bureau loves to gossip about. I am not dragging you along. The ring will not only set things straight but tell them that if they dare to involve you into their nonsense they'll have to deal with me."
Any other woman would have protested his ways. But Gloria was aware that Dave tended to be old fashioned sometimes and was overly protective of her when it came to people's rumours, not only because he was blaming himself for the unwanted attention, but because he knew she had been the subject of gossip in her past and most of it happened after a tragedy, when the guy was no longer around to take her side.
"Okay, whatever you think is the best," she complied.
'Is he sure he doesn't want this all to pass in case he changes his mind?' her mind hissed and she got scared for a whole different reason. She stepped close to him, placing her palms on his chest.
"Till we get it sorted, please be careful, my love…" she breathed.
"You, too, stella mia. You, too," he whispered back, pulling her lips on his from the back of her head.
He didn't know who had reassured whom more strongly when the kiss ended. But he still had that feeling in his stomach that something else was off, that something else on top of everything bothered the woman he loved.
A soft knock came from the door and Gloria pulled back grabbing her bag from the side of the bed.
"Yes," David answered, clearing his throat.
The door opened slowly and Hayden appeared.
"I am sorry for coming here but I thought that's the most private place in this house I can find both of you," she explained quickly.
She looked much calmer than the previous night.
"I just want to apologise for last night. The things I said to you two were way out of line."
Hayden wasn't some crazy, harsh woman. It was the shock talking before. And who knew? Probably Joy was right. She had kept her away due to the dangers, too, and over just the six months the young woman was in touch with David, this happened.
"It's totally understandable," Gloria spoke softly.
Again one of these times, Hayden thought. Gloria had been the one to try to stop her and "take some breaths" first and when she didn't, she had not returned a single answer. And then she was the first one to diffuse what happened, too. That was the most she had done since Hayden had met her. Normally, she never took position, avoiding an opinion on anything, even the simplest of things. She looked like a feisty person. Joy had described her as very spirited, too. But during any interaction that involved the three of them, the younger woman was the complete opposite. Hayden and David had still a rocky relationship sometimes but it wasn't like her stance could help anything in particular.
David threw a side look to his fiancée, probably understanding the reasons for her passive behaviour better and didn't look like he approved them. She avoided his eyes and took the thin jacket from the chair.
"I have to make some calls," she said," Hayden, there are two agents inside, two in a car outside and a van with a surveillance team and a SWAT agent. A fly passes by and they know about it. You are safe here."
"Okay. Thanks."
And yet again one of the times Gloria was retrieving from the conversation completely.
"Did she take my attitude that lightly, or didn't she just want to make me feel bad?" Hayden commented on David's thoughtful face watching her closing the door behind her.
'Probably she thought wrongly that you had every right to burst out on her and call her a problem and shady and implying that she was a good fit for people to gossip, but let's not get started with Gloria's self-esteem,' David thought.
"A bit of both, I guess," he said instead, "I know this wasn't supposed to happen. I know you were never a fan of our job, too. But when it frustrates you, take it out on me and not Gloria, please."
The black woman nodded.
"I'm sorry. I guess that with the gun unsettled me, even though I should have been thankful. Did she use to do that regularly?"
"No," David reassured her, "But she also didn't come to the house knowing that a threat was around."
"Good timing, then," she replied with still a bit of disbelief.
"Good instincts, I would say," he raised his eyebrows, "Hayden, we received a threat letter…"
The ride to Quantico was silent. Ryland's phone beeped from an incoming text, as he drove the SUV with Gloria and David sitting in the back seat. Gloria noticed Leenux's name popping on the screen. Ryland had already messaged her what she needed her to look up. Probably she was texting that it was done. Mark threw a look at her through the mirror, but Gloria didn't meet his eyes, turning towards the window. She had realised that in between everything she had asked him in the kitchen to keep the whole extra investigation a secret from the very man that had put that ring on her finger. For sure whatever he was thinking was very far from the reality, but still Gloria should have been more careful. In the rush to keep her secret, she wasn't thinking very straight...
David noticed that weird play of glances and he could also tell that she was absentmindedly swirling the ring on her finger below the jacket in her lap, his gut feeling getting stronger. But he brushed it off to the fact that Agent Mark Ryland always made him feel uneasy while Gloria seemed pretty much okay with him.
In any way that a matter in hand was that Hayden was very sure that she had created no enemies during her career as a diplomat, at least not deadly ones. In either way the threat had come either from him or Gloria...
"The lion and the mouse is one of Aesop's fables," Reid explained to the BAU team and Gloria in the conference room, "A mouse wakes a lion up. The lion threatens to eat it. The mouse says that it is too small to satisfy it and the lion spares it. When the lion gets caught by the hunters the mouse returns the favour by breaking the lion free. The morale of the fable is that kindness is always rewarded and no one is too small to help. In some variations this was given from a political aspect saying that no one in society is unimportant even from the lowest classes. Actually in one variation, the lion offers the mouse whatever it wants and the mouse asks for the lion's daughter to marry. But the bride steps on the mouse and kills it by accident on their wedding night. That variation wanted to ridicule people that tried to raise in social classes through marriage."
"But according to the story of the letter the lion ate the mouse after it helped him out," Tara said.
"So in short we talk about ungratefulness, or at least perceived ungratefulness. Someone that thinks they helped out and not only they weren't returned the favour but instead got destroyed," Gloria concluded.
"You knew I would take care of you and I did, even more than what you had ever expected. You didn't mind about the rest. You liked it. You liked it very much, indeed. You can be nothing but thankful to me."
That discussion came up again in her mind. No, the person from Saturday wasn't behind that. She wasn't thankful for anything. But she had done what she was told. She had kept her end of the agreement.
"It feels a bit too obvious," Morgan remarked.
Does anyone come to mind that would have that much rage?" JJ asked their two friends and they both shook their heads no.
"JJ, during my career I may have been helped and didn't always say thanks. They thought I was a bastard but I don't think anyone was so unnerved to harm the people close to me," Rossi admitted.
"This happens everyday. Sometimes it is even an honest mistake. Most people either don't care that much or get annoyed for a bit. Very few pay that much. And have in mind that this whole thing can just be in the person's head. It is not obvious at all," JJ carried on.
"There are a few types of people that could have considered themselves so helpful: a material witness or a police officer or another agent," Hotch spoke for the first time.
"There should be something in the choice of the fable," Tara spoke again, "There are many ways to call someone out for ungratefulness. Why choose that one? It is a fable told mainly to children. The UnSub may be a parent."
"Or even worse, a parent that wants revenge for an ungratefulness towards their child," JJ added.
David looked at Gloria. She was in touch with that missing presumably dead agent's mother, even though it was close to impossible.
"Sally? Not a chance," Gloria replied to the question in his head, "First of all, I am the only one that is actively looking for her daughter. She is far too distraught and has no criminal connections. And this happened just a month ago. Based on this letter whatever they mumbling about seems to be back in the past. Sorry, we are talking about the mother of a missing undercover agent considered dead my team is looking for," she filled the others in, "The team had nothing to do with the operation she was in, though."
"So she can't blame you in the first place," Hotch said.
"No. Can that be a code of some sort, by the way?" Gloria wondered, "Back in the days they used some weird names for people and operations, back like twenty-thirty years ago at least in Europe."
"Not here," Rossi replied.
"In conclusion, in the search we have to include a person that contributed but wasn't rewarded or some tragedy happened to them. We will look into their relations after," Hotch finished and the team nodded.
"And we'll keep checking our end and well, mine," Gloria said and headed for the door.
She rushed through the corridors towards the techs' office where one was offered to Leenux. She would first check with her, speak to the rest of the team after. She found the small, young woman in her mid-twenties of Chinese descent in front of the computer screen with some papers next to her.
"Hey, did you find the stuff Mark messaged you about?"
She turned away from the screen to nod at her.
"Yes, I found these images and I tracked the name from the rental company," she replied in her usual reserved way.
Gloria, who was already looking at the photos, skipped to the printed page: Jason Barnett. That was a fake name. Then a photo caught her attention. Her analyst had found an angle towards the pedestrian walk in front of the coffee shop. She could see herself rather clearly.
"Did you get more from this camera?"
"I have a whole video. It is just a live camera, it streams on the internet, the recording is stored in a random server," she replied, finding the file.
"Please play it from the moment I step in."
The video started playing on the screen. Gloria saw herself walking in the shop and then out at a table on the side pavement, away from the view of the camera. Then the figure of the man coming to find her appeared just at the edge of the screen.
"Forward it fifteen minutes," she instructed.
She was then walking away on the screen. Lee, who didn't know what her boss was waiting for, looked at her. Since Gloria didn't tell her to stop it she didn't speak. Just five minutes later the man turned but not towards the direction he had come in. He walked right into the camera's view and he actually stared straight into it with one of those knowing smiles. Gloria felt that disgust at the pit of her stomach. He knew that she would look into their meeting, that they would come across that camera. Did he know what would happen just a day later? Or did he just think that she would try to find why the heck he had decided to appear, anyway?
"Could you print this?" she spoke, gathering her thoughts, "And run whatever you can find on this name: Jason Barnett here. It is an alias so have that face as a reference. Look for just the face, too."
"Okay," Lee replied.
"Thanks. And please do it as fast as you can. We may be bringing some other stuff that is irrelevant to this. Keep everything in a separate folder. As said it is confidential."
Lee not understanding but never asking questions nodded nervously.
"No one seems to have his feelings hurt somehow. Most importantly you are not even properly mentioned in these files, only some random codes," Emily said after they had spent a couple of hours listing her operations with Interpol since the very start of her career.
Gloria's team was going through theirs but they were a very fresh team and this whole thing felt like a years long revenge. Even if they had dealt with older cases no one could really hold a grudge against them, even more against Gloria personally. So she had sat down with Emily who was still working for the Interpol office in Washington to go through her part properly.
"And I was under, I wasn't really making decisions on the case only on the ground," Gloria agreed.
"Only if something happened down there," Emily tried.
"I don't think anyone has been helpful to me voluntarily and even if they had, they don't even know that they were helping a law enforcement agent anyway to expect something. I've gained nothing to be honest, what lion, what mouse…" Gloria exhaled frustrated.
"Ria, the most likely is that it is not from you."
'And why did that bastard come to me? Why the hell am I having nightmares?' the redhead thought, rubbing her head nervously.
Emily watched her friend. She was far too tense.
"Do you still have problems with sleep?" she asked with concern.
Gloria nodded.
"The worst it got was on Friday. I was constantly dreaming of fear and shots, I punched David in my sleep. It was a fucking mess… He said that I may have picked up on something off but I have no idea what…"
"Is everything else okay? I thought you would pass by the house on Saturday, you didn't."
"I got carried away with McCain's case," she half-lied, "I know I was not helping myself much. I've been lectured enough on that," she rushed to add.
"I have to tell you," Emily changed the subject, "Wetherspoon phoned me in the morning."
"What?" Gloria got surprised, "What the heck did she want?"
"Just to ask how you were doing, if we were looking into something in particular, if there were any leads. I was surprised myself. I had spoken to her only once when your transition was finalised. Have you contacted her?"
"Yes, we spoke last night, nothing that important," she lied, again.
Why did that woman keep snooping around? She didn't seem to care when she should and now she was asking questions?
Emily balanced what she was told. She didn't like Wetherspoon's vague questions but it didn't seem like Gloria was getting more specific either.
"If something is up, you have to tell at least David. These people fired at you, his grandson, his daughter and her mother."
"Don't you think I know?" Gloria snapped, "The moment something relevant pops up, I'll tell him."
"So you are looking into something."
Her friend looked away, not confirming or denying it.
"Ria, you are so close to Rossi. You love him. What can you not say to him?" Emily asked, clearly dumbfound.
"Unless it is necessary for sure, he doesn't need to know, exactly because I love him, Em," she said steadily in that way that always sounded the most dangerous.
Gloria stepped out of the office quickly checking her phone for any updates. Emily was left behind thinking that her friend was probably making the worst mistake of her life.
Gloria was checking the list of Jason Barnet's with Lee. If that guy wanted to for her to check their meeting he had probably left breadcrumbs behind. There was a Jason Barnett with "Creative writer" listed as his job.
"How is your father doing with that book that he wants to write?" he asked.
"I don't think Johnny Walker brings any inspiration," she replied sadly.
The memory felt like it came from a different life. Well it did in some way.
"At least he has finished quite a lot of lucrative books."
Same voice, that memory was vivid though, just from two days ago.
"What can you find on this one?" she pointed on that Creative writer Jason.
"Only the driving licence he used to rent the car and an employee registration with an agency four months ago. They applied for a visa for him and it was successful. He is from the UK."
They were on the right track.
"What is that agency about?"
"Creative services, writing, models, video producing."
"Do they have any history?" Gloria asked a wild idea in her mind.
"According to their site yes but I don't see other mentions."
"Please find information on everyone even remotely related to this agency."
For one more time Lee nodded nervously without understanding the reasons for all this.
"And that's the address he had on the licence."
Gloria as she grabbed the paper and left to meet up with her team she thought that she had to check the address out. With a target on their back and the security measures she couldn't really sneak out of the building. Ryland had to do it, no matter if she wanted to reduce his involvement. The address was probably bogus anyway.
Early in the evening, David decided to go talk with Gloria their part of the investigation. They had stumbled upon a case of Gloria's Red Cell that the BAU had consulted on. It was an old one about an organised crime group and a material witness, a rather young kid, was murdered before he appeared in court. That was why the case was reopened in the first place. The BAU had checked their consultation but nothing. Gloria's team were checking their details. It was from a year ago one of the very first ones. They had closed it.
She was using a small file room as a temporary desk. He knocked and when he received no answer he opened the door to wait for a few minutes, probably phone Joy in the meantime. As he went to sit down he noticed a file on the desk. His eagerness for some answers and probably his gut feeling, too, took the best of him and he opened it.
There were photos obviously from street cameras. Gloria's Mustang was in few, seemingly on the way to her team's normal premises. She hadn't mentioned going to the office on Saturday. But in some photos later a car appeared right behind her, the same one, in many photos in different spots. Then close ups of that sedan, a blurred image of the licence plate barely readable and then papers from a rental company with the name Jason Barnett and then what an analyst could find on the name in the Washington DC area: addresses, car registrations, occupations. Even more papers were added after. But he stopped at an image of a man walking away from a coffee shop staring at the camera that took the image. He looked just a bit older than David. Wasn't Gloria asking Weatherspoon about someone retired from MI6 twenty years ago?
He heard steps and he closed the file. Gloria opened the door.
"What's up? Did you find anything?" she asked.
She instantly felt that something was off from the thoughtful frown on David's face, but she decided to ignore it.
"No. How does it look from you?" he asked neutrally.
"Nothing important. The kid was from a foster home. No relatives are alive anyway."
"Did 'you' find anything else?" he asked back.
"Nope. There is no much to carry on."
"So nothing has come up or happened that you haven't told the rest of us, that you haven't told me," he pressed again calmly, his disappointment growing by the second.
"No. Of course not," Gloria replied, getting alarmed.
"I'm pretty sure nobody told you that before, but you are a terrible liar when you try lying to me."
She knew all the techniques of deceiving and she was aware that she had sounded terribly. She had been one of the best spies of this planet but all her skills were disappearing with him…
"Something has been off since last night. I thought maybe something was classified and you couldn't share. But then I find this," he carried on opening the file, on top of them the photo of her car with the blue sedan following her, "It looks like others are very much filled in to what is going on."
Gloria's eyes rounded. She had said to both Ryland and her to keep it confidential, they should have assumed that included not leaving papers around. Ryland would not be that sloppy. Probably Leenux had made a rookie mistake; it wouldn't have been the first.
"Someone is clearly stalking you here, then an attack happens and you don't say anything?"
"It's not relevant and he is not stalking me. I'm just double-checking," she tried.
"The same double-checking you did with Wetherspoon last night? That's a lot of double-checking for something irrelevant."
"What exactly are you accusing me of here, Dave? I am looking into it. It's not like I sabotage the investigation," she turned aggressive as she always did when cornered.
"I never said that. But you can double the force and you don't because you want to hide something!" he raised his tone a bit.
"Does he know about me?" the man asked.
"There is nothing there for him to know," Gloria replied indifferently, "I had forgotten about your existence myself," and she wasn't lying.
The man smiled to the side.
"I am the reason you are who you are, Gloria. You haven't forgotten me. You can't. And looking at your soon-to-be-husband, your issues with men haven't changed that much, too. Or is this why you haven't told him about me?"
"I know who was following me," she said quickly.
"It doesn't look like it."
"It is complicated but I do. There is no danger. Given what happened I have to make sure. I don't want to waste anyone else's time and energy on something so vague. I will ask for help if I find something serious. Why the hell don't you trust me?"
"I do trust you. The problem is why you don't trust me," he said abruptly.
"David…" she pleaded softly, hurt by his tone.
David knew that it wasn't some act to soften him. He didn't give in anyway. He was hurt, too. She tried to reach for his arm and he stepped back. He realised that that was the very first time he ever pulled away from her.
Gloria made the same realisation and instantly she felt like bursting in tears, getting herself angrier. Sometimes the way she could turn into such a needy woman when it came to David Rossi was too much even for her. She knew it was all her fault. But she was ashamed. If it was not proven to be relevant, he didn't need to know. Why did he have to keep asking? Didn't he know that she would do anything for him?
A soft knock sounded from the door and Leenux's head appeared as it opened a crack.
"Ma'am? I'm really sorry but there is an emergency in regards to Agent McClain's case?" she spoke uncertain about barging into the room without waiting for a response and realising that she interrupted a private conversation.
Gloria nodded.
"If I find something, I'll let you know. I promise," she stepped out quickly, not looking at David and grabbing the folder on her way out.
"My name is Gloria, not Ma'am," she turned to the young tech girl with a rather kind tone in spite of the tension she was feeling, "And I told you to give these to me or Ryland in hand, didn't I?"
Leenux had ended up in her team due to rookie mistakes that had made her look suspicious to the NSA. But the poor girl wasn't capable of bad intentions. She just couldn't handle the pressure. Being told off could only make everything worse and leaving that folder on her desk didn't qualify as jeopardising national secrets.
"I was doing that and then I found Agent Ryland outside your office. He said you were about to have a meeting with the rest of the team and he said that it is okay to leave it at your office, less disturbing," she got confused.
Gloria frowned. Since when were folders left on desk considered confidential for Ryland? But well, it was her office and with a closed door. Who could tell that David would come in and open it? He should not have done it but they were reaching 24 hours, still had no clue and he was getting desperate.
"I thought that he was right. I mean he also knows, he is the one that contacted me initially about this whole search… Ma'am… Gloria, I mean… I am so sorry..." her voice getting just a notch higher as she was getting stressed perceiving her boss' silence as disbelief.
"When did this happen?" her boss asked.
"An hour and a half ago."
Gloria paused. What she was saying added up. They had met with a whole team to discuss that case and then she sat down with him to send him to Jason Barnet's address to check it out without being noticed. He didn't say anything about a file. That man wasn't prone to mistakes.
"Lee, It's fine, not a big problem. But don't do it again no matter what Ryland says," she reassured her softly, "Actually if she asked you anything you don't say. You check it with me first," she added at the end and the girl nodded.
Gloria seriously doubted if that tech could survive in the agencies for long. For the moment she was okay in her team, though.
"What is the emergency?"
"Agent McClain's handler received an unclear message."
"What?! Is it from her?" Gloria's face lit up unexpectedly. Was the young agent actually alive?
"We don't know…"
David hated the easy exit she was offered, but they did have a missing young agent on top of everything. He shook his head annoyed. Why? Why was she hiding stuff and what was it? Damn that habit she had developed over the past couple of months, hiding what the hell was going on in her head. But hiding facts and with a danger out there? And lying right in his face just minutes ago, last night just before she snuggled to his side? That was a first. She had shared with him so much what could be so important? Contrary to her, he did trust that she would look into it thoroughly. He didn't question that. He felt angry, disappointed and betrayed. With that job she had, Gloria spent her life lying to people, lying to the enemy though. She had crossed a very important line when she had lied to the man she said she loved.
"It is an occupational hazard that anyone who has spent her life learning how to lie eventually becomes bad at telling the truth." ~ Ally Carter
Hello! Long time no update! With what is going out there I got extremely busy. I hope you are all okay! Let me know your thoughts!