A/N: Hello dear readers! Thank you so so so much to you lovely followers/reviewers. I love you so! Here is the next chapter. It doesn't quite follow Joey, but it was still fun to write, so I hope you guys enjoy! Please R&R!
Prentiss pressed the heel of her hands into her eyes as she paced the conference room.
"I should have been there." She said for the fourth time that hour.
Morgan's voice was patient as he looked up from the papers in front of him on the table. "It wasn't your fault, Emily. You were gone for five minutes. He was in and out of your place in less than three."
"Besides." Reid added quietly. "We thought he would have no way of knowing that Joey would be staying with you. We still don't know how he figured it out…" He trailed off, muttering to himself as he flipped through some files.
When Prentiss had returned to her apartment after tending to her neighbor's place, she could immediately tell something was wrong. Perhaps it was the cabinet that had been conspicuously knocked open in the kitchen, or the stillness about the place that told Prentiss she was now alone (save her cat). Instantly, in a panic, she called out for her colleague, searching each room. But Joey was gone.
In a whirlwind, Prentiss snatched her phone and dialed Hotch while grabbing her bag and sprinting back out the door. She was sure she had doubled the speed limit as she drove back to the office to meet Hotch, who had never left. Within twenty minutes, the rest of the team had been assembled.
"She's gone!?" Garcia practically screamed as Prentiss relayed what had happened at lightning speed. Morgan's face was stony and Reid looked terrified.
JJ hardly reacted before she stood up and pulled out her phone. Whoever she had called answered despite the hour. "This is Agent Jennifer Jareau with the FBI…" She began briskly as she stepped out of the conference room.
Hotch, who had been in his office until then, appeared. "Garcia. I need you on the computer now. I will go with you to get you started on several searches. Kevin will be joining you shortly." Garcia, rather stunned, nodded mutely and stood to comply. "Morgan, Reid, Prentiss, all of Pearce's old files are in my office. Scour them." He commanded as he followed the tech analyst out.
Morgan strode out wordlessly to retrieve the files. Reid looked up at Prentiss, who looked like she was fighting back tears.
"Emily." He said softly. "This isn't your fault." When Emily shook her head and turned away, he pressed on, rising to move and stand behind her, though keeping a respectful distance. "None of us blame you for this. He eventually would have found her no matter where she was or who she was with."
Prentiss took a deep breath to steel herself before turning and giving the younger agent a tight-lipped smile. "Thank you."
Morgan returned with three boxes of files and they got to work. An hour and a half later, though, and it felt like they had hardly made a dent in the information that sat before them. Prentiss continued her pacing. Suddenly, JJ and Hotch entered.
"JJ and I are about to go coordinate with local law enforcement." Hotch said tersely. "But before we go I want to know what you've found."
He looked into Morgan's defeated face, but it was Reid who spoke. "From what I can tell," He began with knitted brows. "Pearce has been the Unit Chief for four different units of the FBI. Five including ours." He flipped a page.
"So…what? He's climbing to corporate ladder?" Morgan asked.
"He's not really going up, more…around." Reid said, slightly bemused. "Each change wasn't necessarily a promotion or demotion…he essentially desk-hopped."
"That's not that unusual." JJ pointed out.
"Each change happened almost a year apart exactly." Reid continued.
"That is unusual." Prentiss noted. "Unit Chiefs may not often stay for long, but they typically last more than just one year."
Hotch nodded. "Text that to Garcia and tell her to look into it first. JJ." He indicated for the agent to follow him, and the remaining three continued to pour over the files on the table. The minutes crawled into hours and soon dawn was breaking and the first morning light was creeping into the bullpen outside the conference room.
Reid, now on his fourth cup of coffee, had plowed through nearly twice as many files as Prentiss and Morgan combined, and there were only a few left in the last box. Morgan, who had been resting his head on his arms on the table, looked up as the door opened again. JJ and Hotch reentered, looking weary.
"Well?" Prentiss asked, eager for any news.
JJ sighed. "We gave the police pictures of both Ryan and Pearce, and they're going to keep a look out. I'd called them as soon as you told us what happened, Emily, and they'd been doing grid searches through both Emily and Pearce's neighborhoods, and they put road blocks up around the city, but they came up with nothing."
Morgan shook his head. "A guy like Pearce would have a plan to get out before he attacked her."
Reid sighed. "He could be long gone by now."
"Is this even our case? Do we have jurisdiction, or are we supposed to hand this off to Organized Crime?" Morgan asked tentatively.
"I don't care." Hotch answered bluntly. "Has Garcia found anything?"
"I'm not sure—." Prentiss started but was cut off by the sudden appearance of the aforementioned tech analyst.
Garcia was carrying her laptop along with a wary expression. "Guys, I found something you need to see." She sat and the team assembled behind her as she launched into her discovery. "So as you know from the boy genius, Pearce desk-hopped between five different units in the last five years." Garcia began. "But here's the weird thing, each time Pearce left a unit, another employee from the same unit left as well. Usually a week before him."
Morgan and JJ exchanged confused looks. "What do you mean?" Reid asked.
Garcia pulled up some scans of official Bureau files. "In 2012, Pearce was Unit Chief of Organized Crime. In March of that year, he moved from Organized Crime to Counter-Terrorism with a strong letter of recommendation from some higher up. But in the last week of February, one of the agents from Organized Crime handed in her resignation."
"Amanda Lowell. She was only twenty six." Reid muttered, reading ahead of her.
"That's right." Garcia confirmed. "And at first it just looks like she was someone who got in over her head too young. But Amanda passed all of her exams with flying colors and had glowing reports from her supervisors. She was on the fast track to becoming a Bureau superstar."
"I remember her." Morgan mused. "They considered giving her a promotion after only two years."
"Exactly. So I thought it was weird that she would suddenly resign. And of course, as I do, I dug a little deeper." Garcia continued. "And under a very hard-to-break seal, I found a report."
"A report?" Prentiss repeated.
"Yes. A report of sexual and physical harassment that Amanda Lowell made against none other than her Unit Chief Aidan Pearce." Garcia pulled up a file that had various lines of text blacked-out.
"What happened?" JJ asked.
Garcia's face fell slightly. "The report was dropped after a couple weeks. Amanda herself came forward to say that it was all a misunderstanding. A week later, she handed in her resignation. Ten days after that, Pearce moved to Counter-Terrorism."
"Weird…" Prentiss muttered.
"And what's even weirder, and creepier, is that almost the exact same thing happened a year later in Counter-Terrorism." Garcia pulled up more files. In March of 2013, Lauren Bauer filed a report of sexual harassment against Pearce, and again Bauer came forward a few weeks later to say it was a misunderstanding. Two weeks later, she resigned at age twenty four, and a week later, Pearce moved to Cyber Security."
"And I'm guessing something similar happened there, too?" Morgan asked darkly.
"Yes." Garcia shook her head in disbelief. "Taylor Greene reported and dropped a case of sexual and physical harassment against Pearce before resigning. Pearce moved to Weapons of Mass Destruction. A year later, Hannah James filed and dropped another report against Pearce before resigning, and Pearce got shipped to us."
Hotch's expression was stormy. "He's been doing this for years. Garcia, can you pull up pictures of all the agents that left?"
Garcia nodded and clicked a button. The team collectively gasped as all four pictures of the former agents appeared on Garcia's screen.
"They all look like Joey." Reid said unnecessarily.
"Where are they now?" Hotch asked sharply.
"Oh brace yourselves." Garcia sighed. "Amanda Lowell promptly moved to California after she resigned. I left her a message, but it's like five in the morning there, so she might not get back for a while…if she does at all."
"What do you mean?" JJ asked, concerned by the tone of Garcia's voice.
"I'm afraid Amanda is the only hope you have of asking about Pearce." Garica pulled up a few more files. "She moved out there and essentially became a hermit, but she seems to be doing better than the others. The second girl, Lauren, moved to Oklahoma after she resigned. She had a sister there, but a few months later she…she committed suicide. The last two, Taylor Greene and Hannah James resigned and then completely disappeared off the face of the earth. Taylor's phone was on for a week after her resignation, and it pinged off a tower in Maine, but that's the last anyone has heard of her. Hannah simply…vanished."
Prentiss and Hotch shared an ominous look. "Do any of them have any family in the area?"
Garcia typed away for a moment. "Uhh…Lauren's parents live forty minutes away and…Amanda has a brother that lives just outside of D.C."
Hotch nodded. "Prentiss and Morgan, go see Lauren's parents and see what they can tell us. Reid and JJ, go to Amanda's brother. I'll check back in with the local police. Garcia, keep checking into the cases."
The team moved quickly to obey. Time was ticking.
A couple hours later, arrived back at the Bureau feeling dejected and frustrated. Lauren's parents hadn't been able to give them much. Morgan had driven on the way there to let Prentiss sleep, and she returned the favor on the way back, but both of them were looking worse for the wear. As the ascended to the conference room, they found Reid and JJ already there, and they didn't look much better.
"Any luck?" Morgan asked in greeting.
JJ sighed. "Amanda's brother hasn't heard from her in three years."
Prentiss shook her head. "Lauren's parents couldn't give us anything about where their daughter could have gone. They'd gone to the police about it, but apparently Lauren left a note, so they dismissed it."
"A note?" Hotch asked as he entered the room.
Morgan nodded. "We sent a picture of it to Garcia to analyze. She's going to send Reid a copy so he can study the handwriting."
"Garcia said all four of the agents had phone records similar to Joey's in months leading up to their resignation. A bunch of texts and numbers from a disposable cell."
"Pearce." JJ stated, and Reid nodded.
"I just can't believe he got away with this for five years and no one in the Bureau stopped him." Morgan sighed.
"Oh my God." Prentiss breathed suddenly.
"What is it?" Hotch asked sharply.
"Five years…" She muttered. "Texts and calls…pickups…Reid, Ryan said the men she would pick up were Czech, right?" Reid nodded in confirmation. "I think I know what this is about." Prentiss said. The team looked at her expectantly, so she rushed to explain. "Back at Interpol, I remember another team had been tasked with this gang that was big in the arms dealing ring. They operated out of the Czech Republic, but their leader was exiled, so they started running internationally. They'd had a solid lead until they lost all traces of the gang…five years ago." She finished heavily. "They almost had them in Morocco, but they were tipped off and moved again, and we never picked up their trail."
"So you're saying you think Pearce has been helping these arms dealers for the past five years?" Morgan asked.
"It fits, doesn't it?" Prentiss asked. "He'd be able to provide them cover, and all these mysterious texts and calls? He's having agents of the FBI work as their foot soldiers."
JJ nodded. "These young agents were fresh out of the academy. They'd need someone to look out for them, give them a recommendation, so Pearce took them under his wing just to use and manipulate them. They'd never actually admit to what he was doing because they were afraid they'd get taken down, too, especially if Pearce had something to blackmail all of them with."
Garcia let out a sad noise. "Oh those poor babies probably felt all alone and like they didn't have anyone they could talk to. And now Joey—."
"She's not alone." Reid said firmly, fiercely. "She has us. We will find her. We will."
Hotch regarded him carefully before turning to Garcia. "Check into anything in Pearce's background that has to do with the Czech mob or any arms dealings. Any kind of irregular payments or any unexplained trips."
Garcia nodded and her fingers flew over the keyboard. "Oh!" She exclaimed suddenly. The team looked up. "There have been odd payments in Pearce's account. They didn't come up before because they weren't regular and they often weren't the same amount. Every once in a while, he would get a payment of…no less than a thousand dollars, direct deposit."
"What's it listed as?" Morgan asked.
"Um…a service fee?" Garcia peered closely at the screen. "And if I look into his car's GPS…it looks like a few days before each of those payments…" she trailed off, pulling up two documents side by side. "He made a trip several hours north. Plymouth, Massachusetts." She finished, pulling up a map.
"What's there?" Prentiss asked warily.
"Um…it's a port city." Garcia started typing again. "And it looks like he specifically went to a shipping yard…oh."
"What?" Hotch asked severely.
"We went to a shipping yard that was just shut down because it's under investigation for being involved in the human trafficking ring."
Hotch and Morgan exchanged a look. "If it's involved in one trafficking ring, why not others?" Morgan asked wearily.
"Garcia, did Pearce drive there last night?" Hotch asked.
"I don't know." Garcia answered in a defeated voice. "If he did, he didn't use his own car. It's still parked here."
There was a beat as everyone looked around at each other. "That's all we have to go on right now." Hotch finally said. "Wheels up in thirty." The team practically sprinted out the door. "And Garcia," Hotch turned as they exited the conference room. "Send someone to look at Pearce's car, and find out how he knew where Ryan was."
"Yes sir." Garcia said in a slightly trembling voice. "And please…bring her home safely."