*Okay as always I own nothing of Criminal Minds or Rizzoli & Isles just enjoying using the characters.
p
They landed around 2:30 pm and drove to the precinct where Jane noticed the officers looking less than happy that they were there. She understood the officers feelings she never liked the feds coming on her turf and taking over an investigation. "But look at me now walking in with the big boys." She thought and smiled to herself. JJ made the introductions of everyone as the captain led them to a preset up room. It looked like the one they just left in Boston except for the dry erase boards and the map of Santa Fe city limits on a peg board.
"You ready to head to Deming?" JJ asked Jane who was just kind of looking around getting the feel of what everyone was doing.
"Yeah... lets go."
XXXXX
It was going on 1 pm and Maura hadn't heard from Jane or Emily. She decided she would give Jane a little more time since she was on a case but Emily was going to get a text soon if she didn't hear from her. It was way to quiet in her office at the moment. Normally the silence would have been welcomed but since Emily had been back in her life silence usually signaled chaos in the waiting. She was pulled out of her thoughts by happy noises down the hall of excitement. She stuck her head out and found the sources of coos and aha's in the hallway. "Emily..." She called as she saw her lover rolling a stroller containing Bella.
"bonjour ma rose." (Hello my rose.)"
"Qu'est-ce qui t'amene (What brings you here?)" She asked as she took Bella from the stroller.
"Bella voulait vous voir (Bella wanted to see you.)" She said and smiled leaning in and pecking Maura's lips.
"Bella... hummm?" She said with an "are you sure" voice.
"All her...promise." Emily said smiling a crooked smile and raising her hands in surrender.
"Bella... I'm not sure I'm believing your madre right now." Maura said as the little girl smiled at her in what seemed to be agreement.
"Ouch... busted." Emily said laughing. Maura walked into her office with Emily pushing the stroller behind her. When they got in she shut the door and kissed Emily properly.
"Mmm..." Emily moaned into the kiss. Pulling away, "...I'll have to stop by more often if this is the welcoming committee greeting."
Maura smiled, "Now tell me why you are here?"
"I missed you."
"Emily..."
"What? It's true... now have you heard from Jane?" She said being concerned about the woman.
"She texted but they were boarding the jet heading to New Mexico so she couldn't call."
"Ugh... that's a very long flight." She said making a scrunched up face.
"Yeah... and Jane hates flying."
"Well... we are just batting a thousand with each other aren't we." Emily said breathing in a deep breath and letting it out.
"She will be okay... I hope." She said but now was wondering how her friend was handling the flight. "But right now since I have you here..." She said looking at the woman, "...I need an answer from you on something I know you do not want to talk about." She paused as what she said sunk in, "Why didn't you tell me Ian was the reason you had to become an assassin?" Emily's face fell to the floor, the other shoe had finally dropped. Maura knew it all now.
"Habibiy... why do you carry so much guilt and shame? You saved my life." She said lifting the woman's chin up so she could see her eyes.
"I didn't want you to feel the burden of the blood on my hands. I should have fought for you with Garret or even before him like Carolina told me to do but I didn't and I made my bed. I didn't want you to feel responsible in anyway for the choices that I made."
"There isn't blood on your hands Emily... you did what you were told to do. And from what I have been told... you did it with integrity and honor."
"Maura... those words are easily spoken but hard to live down."
"Look Jennifer had to kill Squar to save our lives and I believe she did it with integrity and honor..."
"... because I sent you two there! That's why she had to kill him. It really should have been me or Jaclyn that cleaned up that mess."
"Emily Prentiss! I went of my own free will just like Jennifer did. Now you need to find some way to release this guilt and shame that is..."
"...Maura!" She raised her voice then closed her eyes calming herself down. "You have no idea what I am capable of doing or the sadness I have caused." She said looking down at the floor again not wanting Maura to see what she perceived as horrible.
"Maybe not but I have seen the good and happiness you left in the wake of said sadness. I also know that you are a master shot and that you will kill anything that tries to hurt your family or threatens your country. Which makes you a human not a monster. I will also tell you this if anything remotely looks like it's going to hurt you or my girls I will do the same and I'm not evil but very much human." She said lifting the woman's face again so she could see how much the statements were meant.
Emily leaned forward and kissed her, "Since you put it that way... I do not sound so bad." She said smiling and kissing her again. "Oh... by the way... Morgan is still nervous around you."
"He needs to be." She said and smiled, "No one messes with my pretty girl or any of my girls and gets away with it."
"Yes ma'am." She said smiling at her lady. "Now would you like to go to lunch with me and your daughter tiger?"
"I think that would be a lovely idea." Maura said kissing the little girl in her arms and then handing her to Emily to put back into the stroller. "I just need to get my coat."
XXXXX
The team gathered in the conference room at eight. Hotch had sandwiches ordered in since he knew they would be there for awhile gathering the profile they hoped to give first thing in the morning or sooner.
"Okay... let's get started. JJ you and Jane go first and give us the information you found out about Rita Gomez and Bianca Lopez."
Jane sat and listened to JJ give the facts of the 21 and 22 year old lives that they had just went and listened to tearful people talk about. How sweet and innocent the young ladies were and how they were trying to get their lives together for a future. Rita had been leaving an abusive boyfriend in Denver which Pen ran and found that he wasn't the unsub since he was still in Denver, ruling him out as the suspect.
Bianca Lopez was a 21 year old who was graduating from the University of Arizona in the summer and had flown in to attend a friend's wedding. They had learned that the bride and her were best friends at one time. Jane had talked to the other friends and found out that the bride Nicky and Bianca were girlfriends for a summer their senior year until Nicky broke it off by dating a football player. She also found out that Bianca was heart broken and they were surprised that she even came to the wedding.
"Excuse me Agent Hotchner there is a Sandy Lutz here and is begging to speak to someone concerning Bianca Lopez." A young man came in interrupting the meeting.
"How is she connected to this case?"
"She said she is the girlfriend of Bianca Lopez." The man said.
"Jane and I have it Hotch." JJ said standing up. He looked at her and nodded in agreement.
They met with the young woman that had peace tattoos and pink hair in a quiet office in the station. The two could tell the woman had been crying from the red eyes and tear stains down her cheeks. "I am SSA Jennifer Jareau and this is Detective Jane Rizzoli." She said extending her hand in greeting.
"Have you found out anything about Bibi?" The girl asked frantic.
"Bibi?" JJ questioned.
"Yeah... that's what we call Bianca at school."
"We are doing everything we can to find her." JJ said as tenderly as she could.
"I told her not to come... to let laying dogs lye."
"What do you mean?" Jane asked as her instincts kicked in and now needing information.
"She came here to show Nicky that she had moved on with her life and not to worry that she would never out her to anyone."
"Was Nicky worried?" JJ asked.
"I'm not sure totally... but the reason she broke Bibi's heart in school was because she couldn't love her in the open. She didn't want to be labeled "gay." The girl paused looking up at the ceiling trying to gather her tears back in. "I love her and I want the whole world to know that she is wonderful and she loves me and I love her." The woman said as she pulled out a small ring box, "Please find her so I can ask her to marry me. I was going to wait until graduation in the summer but now that maybe to late." She said as the sobs started and Jane pulled the crying woman into her arms and looked at JJ like "we got to find her alive." An hour later they had finished with Sandy taking her information and promising that they would contact her if they found out anything. The young girl was staying in a motel for the night. She had to be back at school soon but had driven up when she heard her lover was missing.
The two walked back into the conference room trying not to show how much the girls story had affected them. "Anything new?" Morgan asked the two walking in.
"Yes and no..." JJ said. "Yes in that I pray to God that we find this girl alive for that girl's sake out there and no because this guys victims life styles are all over the place." She said as she noticed Jane walking over to the board with the victims pictures on it. "Jane... what are you thinking?" She asked sensing the woman brainstorming.
She turned, "The only connections that these women have is that they are young Hispanic women that flew into Santa Fe on different dates."
"Yeah..." Morgan agreed, "...and?"
JJ had already pulled her phone and called Pen knowing the look in Jane's eyes. She had seen the same one in Emily's when she was on the trail of something that led to a break through."
"Queen of knowledge here for your service."
"Pen I'm going to put you on speaker I think we are going to need your services soon."
"Okey dokey."
Jane looked at the speaker phone and shook her head as she heard the last part of the conversation, "Pen... you have established that the women flew in on different airlines at different times. But can you possibly get film footage of the women picking up their bags from the terminal?"
"It will take some time Jane but I'll hit you back if I found anything. Pen out."
"What are you thinking Jane?"
"The airport is the only place that we have found that these women's paths intertwined. The unsub has to work there and if we can find at least one person paying attention to one of our ladies then just maybe."
"I get where you are heading with that... that's really good thinking." Rossi said as he heard what the woman was saying.
The team brainstormed for another hour and gave the police a profile of the unsub. It was going on midnight so they headed to the hotel to get some sleep hoping Pen's babies could give them a new lead.
More later... :)