Standard disclaimers apply.
Yet another chapter that has been hiding on my hard drive for over a week, waiting to be completed. It's that time of the semester, I guess. Anyway, many thanks to my readers, followers and an extra-special thanks to my reviewers: moni9576, Moon Raven2, Mogo Girl, emzypemzy and shireling! I really appreciate the feedback! :D
'But why will he not dance again?' asked the Infanta, laughing.
'Because his heart is broken,' answered the Chamberlain.
And the Infanta frowned, and her dainty rose-leaf lips curled in pretty disdain. 'For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts,' she cried, and she ran out into the garden.
---Oscar Wilde, "The Birthday of the Infanta"
CHAPTER FOUR:
That Game They Play
"I think it's a great idea!" Morgan said that evening, when the entire team had reconvened to debrief and Hotch had made his suggestion.
Reid looked slightly crestfallen at this decision, though – to hear Hotch explain it – the idea to go to LA had been Reid's.
"J.J., when we're done, I want you to call up Detective Kim in LA and give him the heads up on Reid's arrival."
J.J. nodded and made a notation on the pad of paper before her. Garcia cocked her head and studied Morgan. The last two statemements had been made in a voice just a note or two shriller than he usually spoke. At least that was how it sounded to her. It didn't take a profiler to tell that Morgan was chafing slightly at Hotch's suggestion, though he agreed with its merit. Poor Morgan, she thought, watching him update the team on the day's progress. He was torn between establishing himself as a division leader in his own right and respecting Hotch's current situation. Everyone knew it would only be a matter of time before Foyet made good on his threats to Haley and Jack and he wasn't utterly destroyed, Hotch would eventually reassume his role as Section Head. In the interim, Garcia noticed, though he had abdicated his position in favor of Morgan, Hotch slipped back into leadership mode from time to time. The suggestion to send Reid to LA was born of one such slip.
The rest of the team, Garcia included, found themselves slightly nonplussed when it came to Morgan's newfound role. Old habits die hard and every team member was guilty of at least once deferring to Hotch without thinking. Garcia could tell such incidents grated on Morgan, though he pretended to ignore them. In the months since Foyet had attacked Hotch and threatened his family, the entire team had seemed off kilter, as if Hotch's agitation had infected the entire group.
Morgan dismissed the group a few minutes later and Garcia leaned across the table towards Reid. "I have that information you wanted."
"Oh, great, thanks." Reid stood and followed Garcia back to her office.
"Better pack your sunscreen," she said as she settled down at her desk, bringing up the relevant files on the monitor.
Reid chuckled ruefully. "Don't remind me. You'd think all those years in Vegas and Pasadena would have given me a little more tolerance."
"Not when you spend all those years in the library, my dear," Garcia replied. She grinned at him.
"Touché. So, what'd you find?"
"Okay, well, first, Joey Hennessey. He was originally from the LA area, and he attended USC from 2000 to 2004, where he studied English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. The novel you asked me about, Every Little Thing, was originally submitted as his thesis. He cleaned it up and had it published the following year."
"2005."
"Indeed. Anyway, after the publication of the book, he became the critics' darling and for a year or so he did the whole publicity, book tour, autograph thing. Then he went off the radar for a while, resurfacing in the fall of 2007 to start graduate school at UCLA. He dropped out a year and a half later and moved to DC where he was supposedly working on a second novel until he commit suicide last spring."
Reid pursed his lips. "That sounds like the Wikipedia version of his biography. What juicy little tidbits are you keeping from me, Garcia?"
She smiled. "Be patient! I have to tell you about the book too." With a few clicks of her mouse, she changed screens. "Let's see… Every Little Thing. Like I said, the critisw had mostly positive things to say about it – they seemed impressed at the effort, given that it was his first novel and he wrote it while still a student. Amazon describes it as 'a neo-noir novel in the tradition of James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett before him.' But the really interesting thing is that it's about a murder in LA in the 1940s." She turned from the screen and paused for dramatic effect. "The entire plot is based on the murder of Faye Reynolds."
"Really?" Reid leaned back in his ergonomic chair. "That is interesting," he murmured.
Garcia nodded. "Yeah. Really. The murder in Every Little Thing mirrors the death of Faye Reynolds down to the very last detail. It's exactly the same. Hennessey's character has – to borrow from your lexicon – has the same victimology as Reynolds down to being a call girl. All in all, it's a very loosely fictionalized description of the murder."
"So it's about the murder?"
"Sort of. I haven't read it, of course, but from what I can gather from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, the protagonist is this guy who meets the victim a few months before she dies, falls head over heels in love and goes off the reservation when she dies to find her murderer. Throw in some corrupt cops, Hollywood vixens and McCarthy stooges and you've got yourself a novel."
"Hmmm."
"You don't sound all that impressed."
He shrugged. "I've read a lot of books."
"Anyway, I figured I'd better fill you in on the plot before I got to part two of my investigation."
"Okay."
"Well, when I started digging into Joey Hennessey's past, I discovered a couple more interesting things. Young Joey's parents died when he was a teenager and left him with quite a fortune. Which explains how he paid for USC. It also explains how he paid for the mental hospital stay in 2006."
"Ah."
Garcia raised her eyebrows. "Yes. As you may have already surmised, Hennessey's a rather tortured author. He checked into Somerville Hospital outside of LA in 2006 and left a year later to enroll at UCLA. And I think I know why he cracked. Which reminds me, the first thing you should ask Detective Kim for is the case file on Allison Walters."
"Who's Allison Walters?"
"The girl Hennessey was accused of killing in 2006. The case didn't flag for me when I first searched because the whole MO wasn't there. She was murdered in January 2006 – stabbed to death. They suspected Hennessey because the girl had the word "traitor" carved into her stomach."
"Like Faye Reynolds."
"And like the victim in Hennessey's book, Madeline Chase. That's why the police originally suspected Hennessey – because the murder seemed to be lifted more or less chapter and verse from his book. But Hennessey used his inheritance to hire a fancy lawyer who got the case dismissed. It went cold, but the police always seemed to like Hennessey for the killing, even though they had no really damning evidence against him."
Reid rested his elbows on his knees and tented his fingers. "Allison Walters dies in January of 2006, the police suspect Hennessey and by the end of the year, he's in a mental hospital. He sounds like an unsub."
"Ghosts don't kill people, Reid."
He smiled. "You know what Bram Stoker wrote in Dracula, don't you?"
Garcia shook her head, playing along. "No."
"The dead travel fast."
She laughed. "They might travel fast, but do they kill?"
"I suppose that'll remain to be seen." He rolled his shoulders and stood. "Is there anything I can bring your back from LA?"
Garcia paused, thinking. "How about one of those maps to all the movie stars' houses? Then I can spy on them from Google Earth."
Reid grinned. "You got it." He turned to leave and was halfway out the door when he heard Garcia speak again.
"Hey Reid?"
He turned. "Garcia?"
"Be careful, okay? You know how those unsubs like to kidnap you."
"If that's the case, Garcia, I should be pretty safe in LA – the unsub's here, you know."
"I know, just be careful."
He leaned against the door, arms crossed over his chest. "You know, you never told what was bothering you this morning," he said finally.
She turned in her seat, twirling back and forth slightly in her anxiety. She bit the inside of her cheek. Wasn't it just like Reid to remember their conversation from this morning, despite everything that had happened since then. She sighed. "It's not a big deal, Reid. Forget about it."
"I'm a profiler, Garcia, and I know, so I already know it's not a big deal."
She bowed her head. "I'm just a little worried about Morgan, that's all."
Reid nodded slowly. "A lot has changed in a very short period of time," he agreed. "But I don't think that's what you mean."
"He used to be a lot more fun."
He cocked his head. "Something else is bothering you."
"He's getting very close to Tamara Barnes."
"Yes."
"I…I don't know if that's…wise."
"It's not for us to judge."
"But a victim!"
Reid wrinkled his brow. "A victim's sister."
"Where do we draw the line? Especially in his position?"
"Garcia, Morgan knows what he'd doing."
"Maybe he doesn't! Maybe he's not thinking straight. Emotion makes us act like we never otherwise would."
"That's very accurate." Reid offered her a small smile. "But I think he's earned our trust, Garcia. Give him the benefit of the doubt. At least for now."
She played with her feathered pin and didn't meet his gaze. "Don't say anything to him about this, okay."
"Okay. I'll see you when I get back, okay?"
"Keep in touch."
"You know all of us would be lost without you, Garcia." He left her office and continued down the hall towards the elevator, checking his cell as he walked.
"Reid!" Morgan was leaving the department through the glass doors leading to the BAU bullpen as Reid passed. "I'm glad I caught you. You've got the jet tomorrow. Be at airport at ten."
"Thanks." Reid pressed the elevator call button. He glanced over at Morgan. "How's it going? You know, being section head an all?"
"Good. Different, you know, but good."
Reid nodded. "I'm glad to hear that. I'll keep you updated on what I find out in LA."
"Great. Good luck."
"I'll need it."
On his way to the airport the next morning, Reid stopped at Barnes and Noble to buy a copy of Every Little Thing as well as a couple of computer books he had been planning on reading for some time now. Nothing like a little light reading for the flight.
Every Little Thing turned out to be a slim volume with several pages of rave reviews artfully arranged at the front of the book. Reid scanned these with interest, but – like all reviews included with a book – they were fairly unhelpful. He closed the book. The cover was black. At the bottom was a silhouette of a man, standing underneath a street light. In the upper right hand corner, a starlet looked down at the man. The title was splashed across the rest of the cover in a 40s-style font. He shook his head – this stylized drama struck him as forced.
At the cash register, the saleswoman's eyes lit up when she saw the book on the top of the pile.
"Every Little Thing? I love this book! Joey Hennessey is a genius, isn't he?"
Reid shrugged, the irony not lost on him. "I've never read it."
"Oh, you're going to love it! It's so romantic."
Reid hoped his expression didn't reflect what he was thinking. "I'm sure I will," he said, handing the woman his credit card, hoping to hurry the process up a little.
A half hour later, he had arrived at the airport and boarded the jet. It seemed a lot larger when he was in it by himself. He tried a few seats until he found one that seemed right and glanced out the window.
He wondered if Lena had ever read the book. She had gone to USC, after all. Maybe she had some insight that Garcia's computer couldn't find. He dialed her number before he could talk himself out of it and was relieved to get her voicemail.
"Hey, it's Spencer Reid. From DC? Anyway, I've come across a book in relation to a case and I was wondering if you had read it. It's called Every Little Thing, by a USC alum named Joey Hennessey. I was wondering if you'd hear of him, seeing as you went to USC. Uh, anyway, give me a call when you get the chance."
He snapped his phone closed and grabbed his iPod. He chose one of his favorite Beethoven pieces, the Eroica Symphony and opened Every Little Thing, settling in for the cross-country flight.
