Wow, when it rains it pours for reviews! I went from drought to a drizzle to a downpour of commentary and for that, I thank you all especially Z 84 (whose real pen name is not being saved in the document manager for some reason) and mrytale2-5 who have reviewed the most and to ilovetvalot and LoveforPenandDerek for responding to my plea on Chit Chat on Author's Corner forum for Criminal Minds. If you haven't checked it out, I recommend doing so. Link can be found on ilovetvalot's author page. And I love my other readers as well!
Well, the end is near as there is only one chapter left. After that will be a short break as I continue to work on a sequel (hopefully one of many to come). I'm thinking I'll post it starting mid-January. Thanks everyone!
Things had not gotten much better at the station and Reid's eyes were beginning to blur on the map he had been working on for the past four hours. Morgan was helping collate the reports from the search teams, but he was distracted. JJ was still at the hospital with Roy and Tyler Phillips and coordinating the press releases but was also calling them for any updates they had reached. Reid himself kept wondering if this is what the team had felt when he had been missing. One the one hand, they had had the video feed to know he was alive—well, and died but was resuscitated—but they had also known what he was suffering. Being on this side of the coin, Reid wasn't sure which way he preferred.
"Officers are covering the fields and Gunnison, but nothing so far and there's an APB on his truck," Detective Parker reported over Mitchell's radio. "We'll keep looking, but it's getting dark."
Prentiss consulted her notepad and added, "Graham went to work and went home, according to Dr. Zare. He didn't interact much with the other workers or clients except for Rosa Stables. No friends and no family that's local."
Morgan called up Garcia and put her on speakerphone. "Baby girl, tell me you have something."
"I wish I could, my supers, but Clark Graham is barely on the grid. I've got tax forms and work records, but the man's never had a parking ticket. His parents are deceased and he was an only child. I've been looking for property in his name or his parents' names, nothing."
Mitchell looked up as if shocked. "Ms. Garcia, could you look at his earnings compared to what he spends on a regular basis? Rent, utilities, whatever."
"Is that Officer Mitchell? I am so sorry and I promise I'm typing as fast as my fingers can fly over the keyboards—"
"Garcia," Morgan interrupted.
"Right, working on it and I'm seeing that his little hole of an abode cannot possibly be eating his finances the way they empty every month which means he's got to have some other little hideaway. But I'm telling you, I've been looking and there's nothing."
"Nothing under his name," Mitchell repeated. He turned to the other profilers in the room. "You've said that Graham is obsessed with my sister and his fantasy. He thinks they belong together and he might have already stolen her social security number. Check her name."
"Searching for property under one Juliet Mitchell's name…and still nothing, intrepid heroes."
"Try Juliet Graham," Reid suggested.
"Bingo, genius man! There is a cabin owned by Juliet Graham and its upkeep is paid out of a joint account of Clark and Juliet Graham. Can't believe I missed that."
"Address, Garcia," Morgan prompted.
"Right, 1326 Caraway Lane."
"That's two miles away from Rosa," Mitchell commented as they rushed out the doors to the SUV's. Mitchell then pulled out his radio to call Parker to rendez-vous.
Mitchell drove as Morgan sat shotgun and Reid and Prentiss took the back seat.
"What are the odds of Juliet being hurt?" Mitchell asked, tense and strained as if he had been holding the question back until he couldn't any longer.
Reid caught Morgan's eyes in the rearview mirror before offering a half shrug.
"He hasn't displayed aggressive or violent behavior toward your sister, just obsession and fantasy. Even his kills so far have been expedient," Morgan explained. "We have no reason to think that your sister is in danger as long as she doesn't disrupt whatever fantasy Graham has."
"And if she has?" Mitchell asked, his tone dry as well as concerned.
"If Hotch is with her, he'll be coaching her through," Prentiss assured him.
Reid breathed faster as Mitchell took a sharp turn down a dirt lane and increased speed. In the distance, Reid saw a cabin at the edge of the woods, feeling a pang of hurt thinking of Gideon. Their team was mostly moving on from that loss, but just the thought of having Hotch taken from them was even more painful.
"There's his truck," Mitchell said, pointing at the beat up pick up truck on the chimney side of the cabin. "Parker's five minutes out."
Mitchell parked behind a large stand of trees, hiding the SUV from the cabin's sight. All four of them exited and reached for the protective vests and ear piece radios in the back trunk for Reid, Morgan, and Prentiss. Reid followed Prentiss to the east side of the cabin while Mitchell and Morgan took the west side.
"Looks like just the one entrance," Reid reported as he scanned the building and looked through the windows.
"No one on the first floor that I can see," Morgan shared.
They were ready to wait for Parker and his back up to arrive before going in, but then they heard sounds coming from the attic.
"That sounds like a struggle," Prentiss said, voice remarkably calm.
Then, Reid heard a scream.
"Go in, now!" Morgan ordered.
Hotch expected the action, but was still caught off-guard when Juliet suddenly swung around and punched Clark Graham in the jaw, sending the man tumbling to the floor. Juliet then planted her foot on Graham's ribcage and forcibly shoved him further away before spinning on her feet back to him and began fumbling at the rope tying his right hand.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded harshly, keeping one eye on the fallen and dazed man and the other on the girl hunched over her work.
"Plan B," she responded shortly.
Despite the rope's thickness and complexity of the knot, he watched her fingers manipulate the knot loose and moved on to the one on his right foot as he worked one-handed on his left hand. It was too bad she didn't know he was now using his non-dominant hand, but Juliet had merely gone for the knot closest to her which Hotch couldn't argue.
But as he was untying his own knot, he let Graham out of his sight until he saw Juliet get seized from behind and hauled away him. She screamed as Graham threw her against the wall, no doubt rattling her teeth. The knife which she had dropped to attack Graham was now in the stalker's hands again.
"You were supposed to love me!" Graham shouted, grabbing a handful of Juliet's hair and pulled her in closer to him. "You weren't supposed to betray me like she did!"
As Hotch hurried on his bindings, Juliet screamed back, "I am not her!"
His left hand came free as Juliet caught Graham's hands in her own, stalling the knife aimed at her neck. He yanked one of his feet free and worked on the last knot keeping him from protecting this girl. Just another few seconds and he threw himself out of the chair and lunged for Graham who had Juliet trapped against the wall. Hotch barreled into the man and added his hands to the mix to keep the blade away from Juliet.
Graham suddenly let go of the blade and elbowed Hotch in the sternum, causing the breath to violently expel from his body. He hunched over and then caught a fist in his mid-section before retaliating with his own punches.
Graham wasn't as strong as Hotch, but he hadn't been tied to a chair for most of a day; Hotch's limbs felt sluggish and he could not afford that right now. As he prepared for another attack, Hotch was pushed aside by a white-clad body which now tackled Graham to the floor. He watched, somewhat incredulous, as Juliet wrestled on the floor with Graham until Graham used his superior height and weight to flip them over, pinning the girl to the floor.
Hotch reached for Graham and hauled him off of the girl, noticing that the man had suddenly gone limp in his grasp. Hotch soon saw why and stared at the teenaged girl, still lying prone on the floor, with fresh, red stains on the white dress and bloody knife still held in her stained hands.
Juliet looked stunned, as if she were just as surprised at her actions as Hotch and Graham who was now whimpering in pain. Hotch laid Graham across the floor and placed his hands over the bleeding wound.
"Hotch!"
"Juliet!"
The voices of his teammates were a relief, coming up from the lower level of the building.
"Up here!" he shouted back. Hotch looked over to see Juliet slowly sit upright, staring at her hands and the knife. "Juliet. Juliet!"
She jumped when she finally realized he was speaking to her. "I didn't mean to," she said tonelessly. "I didn't mean to."
"I know that," Hotch assured her. "We'll figure it out later, just open the trap door so they can get to us."
The knife clattered to the floor as she crawled over to lift the trap door just seconds before Morgan, Prentiss, and Officer Mitchell came climbing up.
"Hotch!" Morgan rushed to his side. "What happened, you okay?"
"I'm fine, he has a knife wound in his abdomen, call for paramedics," Hotch answered, glancing up to meet his agent's eyes and then looking over to where Mitchell was crouched over his sister.
"Are you hurt? Where are you bleeding?" Mitchell demanded, performing his own examination of her body.
"I'm fine," Juliet answered. "It's not mine, it's not my blood."
Mitchell helped his sister to stand, holding her firmly by the shoulders as she swayed slightly on her feet. Hotch let Morgan take over stabilizing Graham who had fallen unconscious and walked over to the siblings.
"I told you to run," Hotch said sternly. "Not take on the man himself and try to untie me."
"Then you would be dead and not lecturing me," she pointed out softly.
Juliet watched numbly as paramedics came and took Clark away. She listened numbly as they said he was stable and would likely make a full recovery. She felt numbly as John wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tried to get her to speak. It was as she brought a hand up to rub her aching head that she noticed the blood staining her hands.
It was now the second time she had seen bright red on her skin, drying in splotches on her palms and underneath her fingernails. She even felt the blood gluing the white dress to the skin on her stomach and she could no longer stand it. Shrugging off her brother's arm, she bent over for the knife—the knife she had plunged into Clark's body—and started slicing at the stained fabric.
"Juliet, what are you doing?"
"I want it off, I want it off, I want it off."
Her hands shook so much, it wasn't hard for John to reach out and pluck the knife from her hands.
"Okay, just wait a second. We'll get outside and get a blanket from the paramedics, okay?"
Juliet could only nod and let her brother lead her down the ladder, seeing the cabin's main floor for the first time. Later, she would think about the framed photographs of her over the years, but right then, she stalled for her peace of mind. Later, she promised, one thing at a time and she wanted the dress off in the worst way.
Agent Prentiss had joined them outside, Juliet noticing that the place was suddenly swarming with police and other responders. It was Agent Prentiss who helped her remove the dress, setting it aside as evidence. Her tank top was stained as well, but Juliet left it for the moment and merely huddled under the gray blanket offered to her.
"We'll get to the hospital and get you cleaned up," Prentiss promised. John had stepped aside, Juliet assumed to call Roy.
"Where is Agent Hotchner?" Juliet asked.
"He's gone with Morgan to escort Graham to the hospital in custody," the agent explained then smiled. "It was the best way we knew to get him there himself so we could check him out which is where we're headed with you, young lady."
"I'm fine," Juliet tried to say.
"Before he left, Hotch told us you got thrown around like a rag doll, so don't even try it."
It wasn't until she was admitted to the hospital—room next to Tyler at her insistence—that the FBI agents, her brother and uncle gathered to lay everything out in the open. John and Agents Reid and Morgan outlined how they had found Clark's photo shrine to her in his apartment and then how they had finally found his second home. She resolved to feel freaked out later just thinking about being Juliet Graham when she wasn't feeling so drained.
So she lay on her hospital bed, a saline drip in her arm most likely laced with something to take the edge off the headache for both dehydration, whiplash from being shaken, and the large bumps on her head from the initial attack and hitting the wall and the floor.
Agent Hotchner explained what had happened from when they were at the house, to waking in the cabin's attic and what they had discovered on Graham's motives. While she noticed John and Roy react incredulously, the FBI agents seemed to take it in stride. They had seen stranger things, she guessed. She jumped when she was addressed directly.
"You never told me who Graham was in the delusion," Agent Hotchner prompted as all eyes focused on her.
"Wormtongue," Juliet answered. "He thought he was Grima Wormtongue."
"An odd choice," Agent Reid muttered. "But it most likely fit the best with where he saw himself as a man who watched from a distance which was all he was comfortable with until the delusion was threatened."
Somehow, Juliet wasn't surprised that Reid was as knowledgeable as she when it came to the characters. The two shared a small smile as the others looked on in patient exasperation.
She drifted off as they continued to discuss the legalities of the case, the past thirty six hours catching up with her.
A/N: And now that it's officially come out just who Clark Graham thought he was, I can share with you how I came up with his name. There is an opera called The Ghosts of Versailles where a character sings the Aria of the Worm. The tenor who sang the part in the premier at the Metropolitan Opera in New York is named Graham Clark. So, with the worm connection, I just reversed the first and last name, and voila! An unsub's name was born.
Also, the next-last!-chapter will be posted on Saturday as a holiday present. See you then!