Standard disclaimers apply.

As ever, thank-you to my readers, followers and especially to my reviewers: moni9576 and Evening Spirit. As you all know, reviews make wonderful New Year's Presents! ;)


For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me that history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could have never told me. Only history itself can convince you of the truth. And once you've seen the truth — really seen it — you can't look away.

---Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

CHAPTER FIVE

The Memory Keeper

The offices of New World Order Magazine were located in the heart of downtown DC, in a fairly new, eco-friendly high-rise. Sandwiched in the middle of the building, between a PR firm and the offices of a special interest group, the magazine would be easy to miss, if one wasn't looking for it. Hotch and Rossi, however, were looking for it, and so managed to arrive at the office just before nine, with little trouble.

Officially, Autumn Aldrin had worked for the magazine in the art department for a few years now, since arriving in DC. Unofficially, from what Garcia could gather, Autumn was the art department, having been tapped by a friend to spearhead layouts and design when he began publishing the magazine. And in the intervening years, New World Order Magazine seemed to have modest success, even as larger magazines were struggling to adapt to a postmodern world where readers sought content online rather than in print.

Perhaps, Rossi mused as he and Hotch waited for Autumn, New World Order was surviving because it appealed to a small, pointed demographic. Several issues of the magazine rested on the small table in the claustrophobic waiting room, and Rossi had begun to page through one while the agents waited. Judging by the content and advertising, the magazine appealed to young radicals with a libertarian stance. While most of the articles dealt with current events and Capital Hill politics, it also boasted sections on the economy and arts and culture. Rossi flipped to the back where he found a few movie, television and music reviews and sensed that it had the potential to become its readers' bible.

"The perfect primer for today's yuppie anarchist," Rossi commented. Hotch, who evidently had been lost in his own little world glanced over at him.

"What's that, Dave?" he asked.

"Nothing, just thinking out loud," the other agent replied, closing the magazine. "How much do you want to bet that this girl's going to come from a conservative background?" he said after a moment's silence.

Hotch frowned. "Why do you say that?"

"It's just a hunch. Both our victim and Nastia had old-fashioned parents with old-fashioned values. I'm wondering if everyone in their little group came from similar roots. It would explain their shared desire to rebel. And this magazine certainly seems to advocate its own kind of revolution."

Hotch eyed the magazines on the table as if he had just now noticed their existence. Rossi could tell that Hotch's prolonged game of cat and mouse with Foyet was wearing on the man more and more every day. He wondered if it would be better for the entire team if Hotch took a leave of absence, even if it was just to relax and get some sleep. Hotch looked as though he had been battling insomnia for six months or more and Rossi – if he were truly honest with himself – had begun to question Hotch's ability to think clearly in the field. But fieldwork was a point of pride of Hotch and Rossi knew he would read any suggestion to take a break as an insult.

When he finally spoke, Hotch's voice was barely above a whisper. "These kids seem to have gotten themselves into a world of trouble."

"No kidding," Rossi agreed. "Whatever happened to rebellion through music and free love?"

"It got too commercial," Hotch replied, looking up as a young woman appeared in the waiting area.

She flashed them a large, toothy smile. "Agents? I'm Autumn Aldrin. Maggie told me you were waiting to see me?"

Hotch rose to his feet and introduced himself and Rossi. "I'm sorry to bother you at work, but we have some questions about Neve Williams."

"Of course. Anything." Autumn held her hand out, motioning down the hall. "My office is down this way."

Beyond the waiting room, the floor plan bottlenecked into a claustrophobic maze of cubicles and thin-walled offices. Boxes overflowing with printer paper and back issues of the magazine were plied along the carpeted floor. Blown-up prints of notable covers hung on the walls: coverage of Iraq, Barack Obama's election and the lagging economy. A few curious heads popped up over the fabric-covered cubicles, and Rossi tried to hide a smile – the office suddenly looked like a prairie dog town.

"You'll have to pardon the mess," Autumn said. "We're about ready to put the next issue to bed. We're covering health care – again. I tell you, as long as they keep on debating health insurance on the Hill, we've got cover stories." She chuckled slightly. "And, of course, we have on-going midterm election coverage, most of which is on the web. I'm in here."

She had led them to the very back of the office, which was divided from the rest of the space by a glass wall and split in half. "Max Koenig, the editor in chief and creator of the magazine is over there." She nodded to her left.

Autumn office was a complete disaster, and the face that it was visible to everyone at the magazine didn't seem to be stopping her from building piles that rivaled the termite mounds of Africa. What appeared to be a year's worth of mock ups littered her desk and had begun cascading onto the floor. Binders lined the divider between her office and Koenig's, so stuffed with papers that they were practically overflowing. A poster delineating font variations hung over a bookcase on the opposite wall. The only refuge from the complete disorganization of the office came from the vista afforded by the picture window behind Autumn's desk: the Potomac River.

Somehow, within the chaos of the design editor's world, Hotch and Rossi were able to find two seats before Autumn's desk, though Hotch's chair currently housed several weeks worth of back issues of the Washington Post.

"Oh, you can just toss those onto the floor," Autumn said, her cheeks flushing slightly when she realized how unprepared she must have seemed. She herself was contending with a stack of heavy books on her own chair. She dropped these to the floor with a thump. She then cleared some space on her desk before turning her attention to the agents. "Neve's death is such a tragedy. It's been a hard year for us," she said without ceremony.

Hotch raised an eyebrow. "You mean your group of friends from California."

"The Breakfast Club, yeah. I mean, Joey's death was shock enough, but at least he chose it. Loosing Neve just seems so senseless."

"Your friend Nastia Eldridge said you had fallen out of contact with one another since college," Rossi began.

Autumn nodded. "That's right."

"Had you also fallen out of contact with Neve?"

"Yes and no. As I'm sure Nastia told you, Neve left California rather abruptly about a year after she graduated."

"Her father said he enticed her back east with the promise of a free ride to graduate school."

Autumn's eyebrows flew up. "You spoke to her father, then. I suppose that was…illuminating."

"I take it you weren't much of a fan of the Senator either," Rossi noted.

The woman smirked, rolling her eyes. "None of us were. He was too much like all of our parents."

"Oh?"

"We all came to LA trying to stretch our wings. We were trying to find ourselves. Some of us, of course, had very strict parents. Granted, my parents weren't as strict as Nastia's or Neve's, but they definitely had rules that we were expected to follow without question. College was the first chance I had to do exactly what I wanted. No one was monitoring what movies or TV shows I watched, or what music I listened too. I didn't have to explain why I was reading the books I was reading and no one told me I had to dress a certain way or to go to church on Sunday. It was very liberating. I got to figure out who I was, out of the shadow of my family. You see, I grew up in a very small town in Oregon – everyone knew the Aldrin kids and we sort of lost our individual identities because we were the Aldrins. It was nice not to be subjected to such rigid expectations and scrutiny.

"But I'm digressing. You asked if I had kept in contact with Neve after graduation and the answer is yes. Well, at least I had recently. After Never came back here for grad school, we feel out of touch. But then Max decided to start this magazine and invited me to join the staff. So I moved out here and Neve was the first person I contacted. It's so much easier to move somewhere when you know someone there."

"When was the magazine founded?" Hotch asked.

"2007. So almost two years ago. Once I moved out here, we reconnected and we started seeing a lot of one another. I honestly liked Neve. She had a good heart. Which is why her death is so sad. The world needs more people like Neve."

Rossi shifted in his seat, trying – and failing – to get comfortable. "Did Neve have any enemies?"

"Enemies?" Autumn laughed ruefully. "I don't think Neve could make enemies if she tried. She taught first grade! And she taught at one of those cushy private schools the Obamas considered for their daughters. Apart from some overwrought parents who aren't happy that their little Jimmy or Suzie isn't making friends, I don't suppose Neve dealt with anyone too terrifying."

"What about Nastia Eldridge?" Hotch interjected. "Could she have introduced Neve to someone who got her into trouble?"

At this question, Autumn lapsed into silence, considering Hotch's words for a few moments as she formulated her answer. "I really don't know," she said at last. "Neve and Joey were always a little more extreme than the rest of us. And Neve was very naive and very trusting, especially of Nastia. As I'm sure you know by now, Nastia opened Neve's eyes to the world around her and also introduced her to all sorts of people and beliefs that Neve had never considered."

"Drugs?" Rossi asked.

"Could be." Autumn's voice had suddenly turned dreamy.

Rossi frowned. "You don't know? I thought your group was inseparable."

"You have to understand the dynamic," Autumn said, a slight edge creeping into her words. "We called ourselves the Breakfast Club, but we were really more of a salon."

"Salon?" Rossi repeated.

"Not in beautician sense. I mean in a more classical sense. Like in Paris at the turn of the last century. We were group of like minds – artists. Joey the writer; Nastia and me, the graphic artists; George the actress and Charlie the film student. We shared ideas and supported one another's arts. We spent a lot of time together, yes, but often our time together was devoted to the proliferation of art. I'm sure to you it sounds very esoteric and conceited and I don't blame you. It's starting to sound esoteric to me now too. But at the time, it seemed so important."

"Neve was the only one of you who wasn't an 'artist,'" Hotch observed. "Did her presence create any problems?"

"No!" Autumn exclaimed. "Neve was the best of any of us. She was kind and possessed a beautiful mind – a beautiful soul. She could have easily become our muse."

"She wasn't a proverbial third wheel."

"Certainly not. But I think she always felt slightly out of place. She stuck very close to Nastia. Like I said, she always trusted Nastia, perhaps too freely. So while we met to discuss art and to party from time to time, we weren't always together. There were rumors that Nastia and Joey experimented freely with drugs. But did Neve?" She shook her head. "I'll never know for sure, but I'd be very surprised. Neve followed Nastia like a puppy, but I don't think she'd do drugs, just because Nastia did them. Neve was a much better student than Nastia, after all, and I don't think liberal heroine use would aide her studies."

"How about in the last few months, once Nastia had moved back in with Neve?"

"No. Neve matured a lot after she left LA. She grew up, and I don't think Nastia ever has. I think a lot of the things that Nastia talked Neve into in LA wouldn't have flown with her now. She had a good job and she was happy."

"What did Nastia talk her into in LA?" Hotch pushed.

Autumn shrugged. "Parties, liquor, sex. Nastia and Joey lived very hedonistic lives and they tried to draw Neve into that."

"But not now?"

"No. Plus Nastia was lying pretty low since her suicide attempt. She may not have succeeded in killing herself, but something did die. From what I heard from Neve, Nastia spent most of her time at home, drawing."

Autumn's mention of sex had triggered something in Hotch's mind that he couldn't believe he had overlooked before. Could his investigating skills really be suffering so?

"Was Neve dating anyone?"

Autumn shook her head. "I don't think so. I know there was another teacher at her school that she was interested in, but I don't think she had acted on it. Despite everything Nastia had done to try to bring her out of her shell, Neve was – at her very core – rather shy."

"I must admit I'm a bit confused, Ms. Aldrin," Rossi said finally, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

"How?"

"Well, you opened you house to Nastia, but you don't seem all that fond of her," he observed.

Autumn blushed a deep crimson. "No. No, that's not it at all. We just come from two very different points of view, but I don't dislike her at all. I don't dislike any member of the Breakfast Club. We were very close," she said. "We practically became one another's families. We even sat shiva for Joey last winter."

"Shiva? I didn't realize he was Jewish."

Autumn sighed. "I guess his parents were fairly devoted orthodox Jews – his grandparents even came over here from Europe in the early thirties to escape the Nazis."

"But his parents died when he was a teenager. He remained devoted after they died?"

"No. That's the really weird thing. I didn't even realize he was Jewish until after he died. When he died, Nastia called all of us together and told us that he wanted us to sit shiva for him, since he didn't really have a family of his own. You see, usually the immediate family sits shiva for the deceased, and like I said, we became a family while we were at USC."

"A traditional shiva lasts for seven days and has a complex set of guidelines for mourners. That's quite a commitment for a group of young people," Rossi said.

Autumn shrugged. "I guess so. We weren't all that concerned about it. At least I wasn't. It was Joey's last request – the least we could do was honor it."

"Who participated in the shiva?" Hotch asked.

"Well, me, of course, and Nastia. Neve, Charlie and George even came in for the week."

"I thought George lived in DC?"

"She did, for a while," Autumn replied, but she paused, thinking. "Actually, she split her time between New York and DC. She's an actress, you see and so she did some parts in theater productions in New York and when she didn't have a role, she came down here. She usually'd crash with me, since we were roommates in college too. But about a year ago, she decided to move back to LA – she's been trying to get a part on a TV show or a film and I guess she thought she'd have better luck in LA."

"None of you are Jewish, are you?" Rossi said.

"No. Why?"

"I would think that you'd need some sort of rabbi or religious official to help you observe the shiva, if none of you were familiar with the practice."

Autumn blushed and glanced at her desk, tracing the outline of the magazine's title on a mock-up. "We kind of did it under the table."

"Under the table?" Hotch knit his brow. "What do you mean, under the table?"

"Well, an orthodox rabbi would probably look unkindly on a suicide and even more unkindly on a group of non-Jews holding the ceremony. So we held it ourselves, without much outside help. Traditionally community members and those from the wider family prepare meals for the mourners, so we had friends help us there. But it wasn't synagogue-sanctioned."

"Did Nastia say why Joey would want such a religious observance when he had previously showed little interest in religion?"

"He found religion," Autumn said simply. "It was strange, but true. I guess he grew very interested in his faith while he was at UCLA. Right before Joey died, Neve mentioned to me that he was thinking of studying comparative religion at Georgetown. It was pretty out of character. At least for the Joey I knew at USC. As far as I could tell then, he was more or less an atheist. Nastia's father, you know, is a minister and every so often, Joey would make a comment like 'I can't believe your father believes this garbage' or something like that. He wasn't religious at all back in college."

"And Neve didn't know the source of this transformation?"

"She was as stumped as I was. She didn't believe he was really serious. In confidence, she compared him to the Emperor Constantine."

Rossi nodded. "The Roman emperor who converted to Christianity on his death bed. Just in case."

"Exactly. She thought it represented a manifestation of paranoia more than a fervent belief in the power of the practice."

"How did Joey's new-found faith affect his writing?" Hotch asked.

"Not much. He didn't publish as an atheist and he didn't publish as an orthodox Jew."

Rossi sighed and glanced at Hotch. "I think that's everything we have for you, Ms. Aldrin." He handed her a business card. "If you think of anything we missed, please give us a call."

"Of course. I want you to catch this pervert who did this to Neve."

Rossi had reached the door when he realized he was still holding the copy of the magazine he had been reading in the waiting room. He held it up to show Autumn. "May I keep this?" he asked.

"It's yours."

Hotch and Rossi returned to their SUV in silence and remained quiet for the duration of their trip back to Quantico, digesting their meeting with Autumn.