I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday as I did.
So, we now have some other perspectives in this chapter to see how the rest of the team and family discovers the abduction. We're coming up on some important plot points here like the unsub's identity, but there is more to come after that. Halfway point, folks. I'll keep posting if you keep reading (and maybe leaving some reviews. I'm happy to see one, but it's lonely. Don't let it be lonely).
As always, enjoy!
It hadn't been that long ago when Roy Phillips had sat and listened to his son breath while he slept. A habit he had formed when Tyler was a baby had kept on in years, especially after the death of his wife. Roy was a light sleeper and would walk the hallways of his house at night, checking in on the children in his charge.
John had been a still and silent lump sprawled half under and half over his covers in stark contrast to the self-contained manner he kept in his waking hours. But Roy had never been as worried about his nephew as the other two. A quiet and serious boy, John had remained so as he grew and became a quiet and serious man. Roy was proud and grateful.
Checking on Juliet sleep was always an adventure. Some nights, the girl would lay stretched out as she had fallen asleep while reading. Other nights and he would find her on her stomach, clutching her pillow. She was his lieutenant and the one he trusted above all with his horses and his son.
Watching Tyler sleep in the hospital bed was not how Roy wanted to watch over his son. Tyler slept like the dead, curled on his side with the blankets covering up to his head. Here, Tyler lay on his back, pale from blood loss and bandaged, his hair swept away from his face. Even in sleep, his son's features were troubled, but above all, he was breathing. Still breathing.
The doctors had explained that Tyler was very lucky. The attacker was either very unskilled to miss vital organs that could lead to bowel infection polluting the rest of his body, or the attacker was very good at finding the places to stab that wouldn't kill him.
Either way, Roy would let his nephew and the FBI agents consider the implications of that development. His place was at his son's side. Call it fatherhood asserting itself or penance for believing his child a murderer, but Roy would not abandon Tyler.
John brought him coffee, but otherwise left him alone. He was told that Juliet was asleep in the lounge and Roy knew that he owed an apology to her but couldn't fathom doing so until he knew his son would be all right. Other than that, Roy was aware that John was conferring with Detective Parker and Agents Hotchner and Prentiss.
Roy heard the breathing pattern change as Tyler began to wake up sometime around four in the morning. He moved his chair closer to Tyler's bed and took his son's hand in his.
"Tyler. Tyler."
"…Dad?"
Roy felt himself smile for the first time all day and night. "Yeah, it's me. How do you feel?"
"Kinda funny… my head's all fuzzy."
"You've had a lot of drugs pumped in you," Roy explained. "Do you remember what happened?"
Tyler's eyes closed for a minute and it seemed that it took monumental effort for him to roll his head over to watch his father.
"I didn't kill anyone, Dad," Tyler whispered. "I didn't kill anyone."
"Yeah, I believe you. We all do."
Tyler managed a short snorted breath. "Yeah, now that…someone tried to kill me." After a moment, Tyler jerked and tried to sit up. "Juliet? Is she okay?"
"She's perfectly fine. He didn't touch her," Roy assured him.
Tyler eased back into the hospital bed in relief.
Father and son sat in silence and Roy almost thought that Tyler had fallen back asleep until the boy spoke softly.
"I'm sorry about Peter."
"Want to tell me what you fought about?"
"He said that it was because of me Juliet never went to college. He told me to get my act together and start owning up to my future. I just didn't want to hear it."
Another moment of silence.
"I'm sorry I've pressured you, Tyler. I just couldn't stand watching you mope around and get into fights. I thought that I could get you on track and I just went about it the wrong way."
"Dad. I don't want to own and run the stables."
"Okay."
"I don't know what I want to do yet."
"That's okay, too. We'll figure it out together."
Roy had lost his sister. He had lost his wife. He would be damned if he lost his son.
No one looked like they had gotten much sleep in the handful of hours Reid noticed as he drove to the police station with Prentiss, Morgan, and JJ. The other officers in the bull pen were equally subdued; word of Tyler Phillips' attack had spread like fire. Mixing his first cup of coffee for the day with plenty of sugar reminded him of Juliet Mitchell.
"We'll need to follow up with Dr. Zare's clinic and employees," Morgan started by naming the veterinarian who worked the most with Rosa's horses.
"We should go to the school again," Prentiss added.
"We'll have to wait for Monday for that," Morgan said.
The two of them left for the animal clinic, leaving Reid to ponder the map he had started to outline.
"So how does that work?" a voice asked from behind him.
Reid turned and saw Officer Mitchell holding out a refill cup of coffee for him. Reid accepted the cup and sipped, finding it wasn't quite sweet enough, but didn't let that stop him.
"By analyzing the sites of where the victims were abducted and left to be found, and now Tyler's attack last night, we can narrow down the likely home of our unsub, or at least where he feels the most comfortable," Reid explained at his usual breakneck pace.
"I can't believe he found them last night," Mitchell remarked. "I barely remembered the place and not even Uncle Roy ever knew that's where Juliet and Tyler would run off to."
"It's likely that he followed one of them, which still supports that he is very familiar with the area," Reid said.
"If he had been following Jules, Magda would have noticed," Mitchell stated with authority. Reid remembered what Juliet had explained to him almost two days ago. "But if he had followed Tyler, why wait to attack him for hours when Jules was there?"
"We think that leaving behind a witness is a sign of escalation," Reid explained. "His message isn't being understood so his methods are changing."
"What does that mean for finding him and stopping him?"
"We refine our profile and keep a look out."
Some hours later, Morgan and Prentiss returned to find Reid poring over the case files and crime photos.
"Reid, where's Hotch?" Prentiss asked. "We might have something."
Reid blinked and looked at his watch. It was almost noon.
"Not here yet. That's weird."
"He was just going to take Juliet back home and then drive her back to the hospital," Mitchell said. "Maybe she actually listened to me and went to sleep."
The BAU agents watched as Mitchell took out his phone and speed dialed.
"Voice mail," he muttered after a moment and speed dialed again. After another pause he said, "Answering machine." A third time, he dialed.
"Roy, is Juliet there? No? No answer at the house or her cell."
Morgan had whipped out his own cell phone, presumably calling their leader, but his results were the same as Officer Mitchell.
"I can't get Hotch."
Prentiss kept trying Hotch's cell as Morgan put in a call to Garcia.
"I'm picking up his cell at the Phillips house," the tech goddess spoke over the speakerphone as Morgan, Prentiss, Reid, and Mitchell moved out to the parked vehicles.
"This is not good," Reid muttered, mostly to himself.
John Mitchell burst from his car and bolted up the porch steps, into his childhood home. With a sinking heart, he noted that the front door was wide open. The front hall was empty, as was the den and living room and kitchen. Leaving the agents to search the rest of the first floor, John hurried up the stairs and straight to Juliet's room.
It, too, was empty of his sister's presence.
He rejoined Morgan, Prentiss, and Reid in the living room. All three were grouped around in a circle, staring down at their feet. John saw a cell phone and two holstered guns on the floor. It didn't take a large stretch of the imagination to guess that they belonged to Agent Hotchner. Scattered around the floor were white flowers which John recognized.
He wasn't the only one.
Morgan knelt carefully to avoid disturbing anything and gestured to the flowers. "I noticed flowers like these last night while we were chasing down the unsub."
"She said someone left her a bouquet two nights ago, but those are still upstairs in her room," John said in a state of shock. "These are new."
"Your uncle hasn't been the target," Prentiss realized. "It's always been about your sister."
"You're telling me that the man we know has killed five people, attacked my cousin, and all in an effort to make clear some message we have yet to figure out has been targeting my sister. And now this same psycho has mostly likely kidnapped her?"
"And one of our agents," Reid added, flushing when the three of them stared at him incredulously.
"We need to go over everything again," Morgan determined. "We're still missing something."
"Yeah, like why go through the trouble of abducting a federal agent when he now seemingly has the person he really wants," Prentiss pointed out darkly.
John walked away to the front door, punching the door frame without thought and without feeling the pain in his hand. Ignoring the agents behind him, he stalked to the stables, hoping to find answers. This time walking down the aisle, he found Magda in her stall.
"Senor John?"
John looked up and saw the head of the stable hands, Carlos Vega.
"Senor John, what has happened?"
"Juliet has been abducted," John said shortly. "Carlos, I need to know if anyone has been on the property today besides you or your boys."
"Just my boys, senor. I saw the SUV when I arrived this morning, but it was empty and no one was home."
John sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
"Officer Mitchell."
Agents Prentiss and Morgan had tracked him down.
"We think we may have a name," Prentiss informed him.
"Dr. Zare at the clinic this morning said that one of his employees has been acting strangely in the last few days. Do you know a Clark Graham?"
John stopped breathing. "He worked here a year ago, but we had to let him go. That's when he found the job with Dr. Zare."
"Senor," Carlos interrupted. "Clark was always very fond of Senorita Juliet. And when he comes with Dr. Zare, he always has eyes for her."
Morgan got on his phone and John heard him demanding for an address.
John met Carlos' eyes as both men remembered the young man. Clark Graham had been an awkward and introverted young man. He was a nobody that John hadn't thought of in a whole year.
But Clark Graham had kidnapped his little sister.