Chapter 05

Capital Plaza Apartments
Apt #23
Washington DC

June 2012

Spencer had been thinking about NA and having to ask for help. Maybe he wasn't the only one who had trouble asking for what he needed.

He set his alarm for 5:30, so he was awake and caffeinated and recording the call when it came in at 6 am. "Good morning." He said. "Please don't hang up. You've been calling for a long time and...I don't know why but I think you need help. I don't know why you never say anything but...I want to help you. Just...say something. Anything."

There was silence on the other end of the line. A moment later it was broken by a soft sound. Then another. And another.

The caller...she... was crying.

"Please say something." Spencer said. "Let me help you."

The line went dead.

BAU Headquarters
FBI Building
Quantico, VA

"We're not bringing her in." Jim said over the video link. "We don't want whoever is doing this to get the idea that we're on to him. But we've got constant eyes on her and Liam and their maid. If anyone so much as looks at them cross-eyed we'll be on them."

"Good." Morgan said. "Hopefully we can clear this up quickly."

"Something's not right though."

"What do you mean?"

"Kerry seems all right on the outside, sweet, polite, that sort of thing, but when you sit down and talk to her something is off. She's a recruit for one thing. That's unusual these days; most people have a family connection."

"She doesn't?"

"She doesn't have a family. Apparently she's completely estranged; she was in something like the foster system back in Dublin. She was assigned here when Liam was three days old. And she said she had been assigned to 'extra training', her words, because of for her involvement with his father and she doesn't want to go again. She won't give up his name, but she said he was also a Knight of the Blue."

"They're not supposed to run together?"

"Not at all. But usually when you break the rules they talk to you about it, you don't get extra training. I know things are different for Knights of the Blue, but a pregnant twenty year old? Not a chance. This does not work with the group I know."

"Was this 'punishment' enough to ward her off talking to the father?"

"It was enough to ward her off talking to me. She's terrified. And that is not supposed to happen, just the opposite, everyone I have talked to around here, people I trust, say that Knights of the Blue are supposed to be fully supported, made as comfortable as possible to do their jobs, just as I remembered. They're supposed to feel safe. And the head of the local office here said Kerry and Liam's father could have gotten what they call a dispensation to stay together, it's a form that gets rubber stamped through. But not only that, I spoke to Liam as well, he said that every few days a strange man calls or comes around and makes his Mommy cry."

"So she was maltreated when she was at her most vulnerable, sent to a foreign country alone when she most needed people and is being continuously reminded that she cannot contact anyone she can trust. Someone is keeping these women isolated and vulnerable, easy targets." Morgan considered this. "Someone has a very neat system going to get to that treasure. But none of it is missing?"

"According to the Grand Master it's all still there."

"And why wait so long to get these women to let them into it? Back when they were exhausted from dealing with newborns on top of it would have been a better time to move." Morgan said.

"Not a clue." Jim replied. "But I hope you find out, who knows how many women could be like this now."

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children
Casualty Ward
London UK

"Punished? Non." Luc Gaillard said. After hearing from Morgan and Jim Emily had returned here to speak to the one Knight of the Blue they knew of in London. "No one sent me for training or any sort of punishment."

"Did anyone say anything?"

"Non, not at all. I was given a day to report, travel voucher, that sort of thing. No one said anything about our relationship, to either of us."

"Did they know about it?"

"Oui, we had discussed putting in for a...la dispense...a dispensation. We were planning on after we graduated, to move off campus together."

"Why do you need a dispensation?"

"Two Knights of the Blue are not supposed to sleep under the same roof. They say it is for our own safety, two or more together would be a tempting target. But those rules are ancient, in modern times they are mostly ignored, a formalité. We spent the night in each other's rooms many times. But technically we each had our own room in separate buildings, to move in together we wish to do the paperwork."

"But then you were reassigned?"

"Oui. As you say, out of the blue. She was going to apply to follow, but..."

"Was Collette close to her family? Were they Templars?"

"Non. Her parents divorced, estranged, they sent her to boarding school young. She was...ahh...recruited."

"So without you she didn't have anyone to help with Geneviève."

"Non. She was alone." He shook his head. "Why did she not tell me? I would have come to her, no matter what anyone would have said. I would have married her."

"That's a very good question." Emily sighed. "How is Geneviève doing?'

"As well as can be expected, or so the doctors say." Gaillard smiled a little. "Collette told her about me, everything but my name. All about our time together in Paris, about my family. Geneviève said that her Mama told her that they couldn't go to her Papa because if they tried the bad man would take her away."

"Bad man?" Emily asked.

"I don't know. Maybe someday Geneviève will be able to tell me. I think I would like to have a long talk with that man."

As Luc Gaillard said that Emily felt that this was a Knight indeed, one hidden beneath layers of academia and urbanity, but one that could easily pick up a sword and go for blood. "At least you have the rest of your life with your daughter."

"Oui. We will make up for lost time. I only wish I could have done so with her mother."