Lost in a Memory
Chapter Three
By The Chronicler
Gideon stood on the edge of the road, looking down into the thistle tangled incline. He could see where something, about Reid size, had crashed into the underbrush, rolling down the incline to land with quite a rucas at the bottom where the snow had been packed down from a hard hit. His eyes followed the chaotic path as Reid had found his feet and wandered about, looking…
Looking for what?
Or was it just aimless wandering?
Did he have a purpose when the path abandon the twisting and turning back on itself, taking on the more than less direction of the shack in which he had been eventually found in?
Could he see the shack from there in the dark, cold night in a drug induced stupor?
Even if he had seen it, could he have possibly made sense of it? Drugged, lost, cold, and alone, could he possibly have made the connection between shack and shelter and safety?
Or did he just happen to wander in that particular direction?
"Kid's right mess up, is he?" the deputy sent out to show him around asked.
Not bothering to look at the man, Gideon started down the incline.
"Umm… watch your step there, sir…. Agent…. Sir?" the deputy advised, quickly pushing away from his car and following. "Don't want two of you FBI sorts whacking the senses outta you on the same fall." He tried to chuckle, but, not getting a like reaction from the agent, he decided to let his joke go. Instead, as loose gravel slipped out from under foot, sliding him down the hill for a few inches, he asked "What are you looking for anyways, sir? Maybe I can help? 'Course the CSI boys have been all over this little piece of earth. Hell, thought they'd have us start pulling the trees up by the roots and strain through the dirt!" Again he tried to encourage a lighter mood, only to, again, fail miserably. "I mean, what's it you hoping to find out here anyways?"
With a sigh, Gideon finally stopped to look back at the man. "There is more to the scene than can be picked up with the casual eye. CSI determines the hows. BAU determines the whys." he explained in a calm, cool voice as if he was explaining the why the sky was blue to a small child.
And, like a small child, the deputy answered his response with yet another question: "Well, is it like the whys all that important? I mean, 'sides keeping you all employed?" Again he chuckled.
"Only if you want to catch those responsible." Gideon answered, turning back to his search and leaving it at that. He didn't have the time nor the inclination to play teacher just right then. There were, after all, other concerns.
"humph." The deputy found that as funny as his own comments. "That sounds pretty full of yourself. Don't you think?"
Gideon turned in the direction of the shack and leaned this way and that, trying to see the old building through the trees and bushes. He stood on his tippy toes and bent down to Reid's height. But, no matter how he tried, he couldn't see the shack. Shaking his head, he concluded "He didn't see it from here." Frowning, he glanced at the deputy. "Who else knows about that shack?"
The officer shrugged. "Just about anyone with kids or's been a kid here abouts." He scratched his chin. "Come to think about, taken a high school sweet heart or two there myself in my day and time." He smiled. "You wouldn't know it, but I was quite the lady's man back then."
"Must have been your fine choices of date destinations." Gideon grumbled. Sighing, he began to talk it out to himself. "Well, Reid didn't grow up around here, it's doubtful at best that he knew that the shack was there. Can it be seen down the road? As the car passed, before he reached this point."
"It'd be a hard thing to see in the dark, but, yea, the roof is visible from the road if you're riding the margin line right close." the deputy answered.
"The car was swerving. If they were struggling…" He paused to glance back up at the road. "He could of seen the shack from the road, assumed it meant help and/or safety, and made his move."
The deputy looked doubtful. "In the dark, out in the middle of near enough no where, drugged right out of his wits…" He tilted his head, shaking it slightly. "I don't see it. I mean, if'n he was gonna run at first sight of help, why didn't he jump out at the K-Mart some fifteen miles back? Or.. " He waved a hand forward, in the way the car had been, assumedly traveling. "Why not wait 'til he got to Shanty just another five miles up. Shucks, Shanty even has itself a couple of security guys." He frowned. "'Course, if'n he didn't grow up around here, 'suppose he might not have known about Shanty."
"He knew." Gideon mumbled, his eyes following the direction of his hand. "If it was ever on a map, Reid knew about it."
"Hey, that's right!" The deputy snapped his fingers. "He's like some sort of freaky brain, isn't he? Like the Buckaroo Banzai of the FBI!"
The agent looked at him. "Buckaroo Banzai?"
"Yea…. You know? Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Demission? Perfect Tommy and Rawhide and New Jersey and Penny Priddy? Big cult classic from the early eighties? They write a lot of fanfic for it off the internet." He shrugged. "You know!"
Gideon's eye brows raised in something of a mental wince, then turned away from the man and his chatter. "He was tied. The marks on his wrists note that."
"No ropes or anything on him." the deputy pointed out. Glancing about, he noted "And none was found around here." He held up a finger. Maybe they're still in the car!. You know? The one he jumped from?"
The agent took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Ropes leaving those marks would have been pretty tight. There were no scrape marks indicating he slipped the ropes." he mumbled to himself, finally coming to the conclusion "Someone released his hands."
"Well, he was pretty doped up. Not like the kid would have given much of a fight."
Gideon nodded slightly. "So…. Did he escape? Or did someone let him go?" He glanced around at the forest again. "Why here?" He turned back to the officer. "Who owns this property?"
The Deputy shrugged. "You don't know?"
Gideon raised one eyebrow.
"Senator Domas." the man explained. He waved a hand about. "He owns everything on this side of the road from Road 122 and right on up to the Shanty. Fact be, his place is just up at the end of Rd 122."
"Richard Domas." Gideon breathed.
"You know the Senator?" The deputy shook his head. "Well, guess he ain't a senator no more. He's some sort of teacher or professor or something. But you know him?"
"Something like that." Gideon mumbled.
Not one of Gideon's favorite people.
Consistently Domas had made it clear that he thought Gideon was weak and cowardly. After all, he did have a mental breakdown. Domas didn't believe in the BAU's usefulness, and was the fore runner in the pressure on Hotch to have Gideon removed. He didn't think that, without Gideon's reputation, the BAU had the strength to stand scrutiny.
But, what they had butted heads on the most was the assignment of one Dr. Spencer Reid.
If there had been anyone Domas had worked harder at getting rid of than Gideon, it would have been Reid. The kid, Domas had argued, had no business in the Bureau. If they needed an encyclopedia, they'd open an encyclopedia. In the very least, Reid didn't belong in the field.
If it wasn't for Gideon blocking his every attack, Domas would have had Reid locked away in some basement library, or worse, on day one of the kid's young career.
Funny that Domas' name would come up now.
"Sir?"
Gideon glanced at the deputy again, a little startled with finding him still there. But, the annoying man's interruption did remind the Agent of why he was here. And why he would now leave.
"Sir?" the deputy asked as Gideon walked pass and back up towards the car. "Where are you going?"
"To have a word with senator Domas." He paused half way up the incline to look back at the officer. "You coming?"
Hotch slowly pulled the car to a stop in front of the huge, mansion of a house.
The circler driveway was already occupied by three sheriffs cars and a coroner's van. Uniformed officers were scattered around the property, picking their way through the garden to the west, beating the bushes on the east. And more than a couple paused to watch the newcomers arrive.
"What the hell is going on here?" Elle wondered, already climbing out of the car.
"That's becoming the popular question of the day." Hotch mumbled. He wasn't sure just how frustrated he could get without exploding, but he was pretty sure he was quickly closing in on that mark.
"Agent Hotchner." Sheriff Jackson greeted as he stepped out onto the wide porch. Hands on hips he watched as the two agents approached. "Fancy meeting you here." he growled, his own frustration making itself known.
"Sheriff Jackson." Hotch responded. He held his hands out. "What brings you out here?" He might as well be the first one to ask.
Jackson glanced at Elle, but otherwise ignored her. "Now, Agent, considering this is my crime scene, I thought maybe I should be the one to do the askin' here." His eyes narrowed. "What does bring you to the Domas homestead?"
"What do you mean crime scene?" Elle wanted to know. "What happened here?"
The man ignored her, keeping his focus on the lead agent. "Fact be, I'm not sure whether to be pleased or disturbed at seeing you hare abouts." he admitted.
"How so?" Hotch asked as he stepped pass the sheriff to peer through the open doors and into the entrance of the house.
The once beautiful, marble tiled floor was hidden beneath small, blood stained foot prints running around and through a large pool of blood. Small, bloody handprints marked the hall table, the stained glass windows of the door, the door knob, a tipped over vase. Three shell cases were dropped on the floor. Two officers were discussing how to pull a bullet from the wall without damaging the important piece of evidence.
Jackson turned to stand beside Hotch. "How so? Pleased 'cause, chances are, if I don't have to find you, I probably don't have to look very hard for your kid. Disturbed 'cause I'm gonna be askin' you to hand that kid on over to me."
Hotch turned to look at the man, but it was Elle who asked the question.
"Is Reid a suspect?"
The Sheriff finally gave her his attention. "You all are the brainiac club of the FBI. You tell me." He waved a hand at the house. "I have two MIAs. Former Senator Domas and his wife. Enough blood to make us think that our MIAs did not go willingly. You see the size of those hand prints? Those feet? 'Bout the same size of your kid. In the house of a man who, according to his secretary, made it his goal in life to pull your team apart." His hand turned direction waving at the woods. "Agent Reid was found only a few miles from this spot, covered in blood, apparently under the influence, apparently uncooperative…"
"Uncooperative?" Hotch repeated, resisting the urge to get angry with what he was hearing.
Elle resisted less. "Apparently?" she snapped. "He was drugged. He was abused. He wasn't being uncooperative. He was unable to cooperate! They took away his memory!"
"They who?" the sheriff snapped right back. "The only evidence that there ever was a they' is an anonymous report that someone saw something being thrown from a car in the middle of the night. Not even your kid can verify that there was, at any time, a they'." he pointed out.
"He didn't do this!" Elle insisted. She looked at Hotch for back up.
Hotch didn't immediately look at her. He was focusing on the small foot print only a few feet away, inside the entrance. He remembered the blood on Reid's feet when they had found him. He had been in shock. He had been drugged. He didn't remember anything. He couldn't tell them, without a doubt, that he had not been in this house. That those were not his foot prints. That those shell casings did not come from a gun he had fired. That he did not have something to do with the disappearance of Domas and his wife.
But Elle repeated, if not for the sheriff, for Hotch. "Reid did not do this."
Hotch finally looked at her.
She shook her head. "Doped up, whatever. It isn't in his nature to hurt people. And you can not make someone do something that he is not willing to do in the proper state of mind." She was trying to back her full hearted belief with some reason. Anything that would convince Hotch, a man of facts and evidence, that her gut feeling, her faith in Reid was right.
The lead Agent sighed. He looked at the Sheriff again. "Reid's fingerprints are on file. Have they been matched?" he wanted to know.
Jackson shrugged. "They're on their way for comparison." He too sighed. "Look, Agents, I don't want to nail another cop, FBI or not. But, even if he didn't do whatever happened here, he was in the immediate area. Maybe an accomplice. Maybe a victim. In the very least, he's a possible witness. I need to question him."
Elle started to shake her head, but Hotch nodded, earning him a steaming glare from the woman.
Hotch looked at the Sheriff. "Under my supervision. And after he is released from doctor's care." He titled his head toward his partner. "And Agent Greenaway works the crime scene with your people."
Jackson bobbed his head to one side. "Fine. You're Agent is more than welcome. I'll take any help in figurin' just what the hell is goin' on here abouts. But I want deputies on the boy." He glanced at Elle, assuring her "For his sake as much as mine. Accomplice or victim, whoever they' might be, won't want him talkin' to me."
Again Hotch nodded. "Elle, take a look around. Find out what you can." he ordered, turning away and starting back for the car. Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, he pushed the required buttons to ring Morgan.
The phone was answered almost before the first ring had ended.
"Morgan," Hotch started, but then stopped to listen. After a moment, in a tone far too calm, he asked "What!"
He snapped his cell close, wrapping his fingers around it so tightly his knuckles turned white.
Morgan was mad.
Mad at the bad guys.
Mad at the so-called hospital security.
And, most of all, mad at his own stupidity.
How could he had been so stupid as to leave Reid alone? Reid had been counting on him! Gideon had been counting on him! And he let them down!
And why?
To answer a phone call, which, as he should have known, was made just to lure him away from the kid. If anyone wanted to phone him, why didn't they just call his cell? And, hell, if no one on earth knew his cell, he still could have waited until J.J. had returned.
But, oh, no, he was stupid enough to leave Reid alone!
All by himself, with no memory of who he was, who anyone was…
Frightened….
Sick…
Helpless….
utterly alone….
"Why do you think he ran?" J.J. wondered.
Morgan glanced at her sharply. "What?"
She shrugged, stopping the security tape she had been watching, to turn her attention away for a moment. "Why'd he take off?" she wanted to know. "Even if I couldn't handle her, Reid wouldn't have left me to fight for myself. Even if he still doesn't remember us personally…"
"It isn't in his nature." Morgan had to agree with that.
Reid might not always know how to help, often trips over himself trying to help, but, never even thinking of harm to self, he would always try. It was part of his nature. It was instinct. Not memory.
Morgan turned to look at their prisoner who was sitting on an examination table, waiting for a doctor to clear her for transportation. "Why did he run?" he asked her.
The woman looked back, tilting her head to one side, the corners of her lips turning up in a slight smile. She seemed amused just to watch the agents try to work out what was going on and still not have the faintest idea.
Like watching chimps trying to figure out how to reach the banana hanging off a string just out of reach.
Morgan leaned his knuckles on the end of the table, leaning forward on them, his dark eyes narrowing. His voice dropped as he asked again "Why' did he run?"
She shrugged slightly. "Perhaps you frightened the child." she suggested in a soft, almost seductive whisper.
Morgan stiffened. Straightening, he crossed his arms over his chest, trying to hide the fact that this woman, whoever she was, had set him back. He didn't know what it was, but she sent a shiver up his spine.
"Derek!" J.J. reached out and grabbed his arm. "There he is."
Morgan quickly turned back to the security screen.
There he was.
Reid, in hospital pajamas and soft, walk-about slippers, slipping out the front door. He paused just outside the glass doors, stepping aside while a couple entered. He glanced about, then started off, flinching away as he passed a woman who walked by. Then he was out of camera sight.
Morgan glanced about, as if, what the camera couldn't pick up, he could see for himself. "Where the hell is he going?"
With a startled hiss, Reid stumbled to the side until his shoulder hit the stone wall.
"'scuse me." mumbled the woman as she hurried pass and down the street, too busy with her own life to be concerned with the reaction that a stranger on the street had to the simple brushing of shoulders.
Reid held his breath, kept his eyes down, his arms wrapped securely around himself, until the click of high heals on cement had faded away. He dared to raise his eyes, glancing about, searching for any possible threat.
To his horror, threats were every where.
The man reading the newspaper while waiting for the bus at the corner.
The woman standing on the steps of the civil center, waving her hands about in a heated discussion with a man in a gray suit.
The blue sedan with tinted windows parked under the "Two Hour" sign.
The hotdog vender in front of the street corner, drowning a foot long with chili and cheese.
The cop encouraging the vendor to add more chili as his female partner stood to the side, shaking her head.
Reid's head tilted to one side as he watched the hotdog vendor. He could almost remember, almost hear the whispers coming through the fog….
"Come on, Reid. You haven't lived 'til you've had a Heart Attack Dog!" Morgan had laughed at him.
"Seems that description contradicts the supporting statement." he had answered, staring at the foot long staining the paper holder with thick, orange grease that seeped through to run down his fingers. It was a balancing act just to keep it in the holder. How he was gonna actually eat it without it ending up on his shirt…
"Hey, kid. You okay?" Someone touched his shoulder.
Reid snapped around, slamming into the wall again. He couldn't help but wince as he added bruises to his already impressive array. Still, he managed to warn "Don't touch me!"
The man held up his hands. "Easy there, kid. Just wanted to see if you needed some help." He glanced back at a young woman who stood a safe distance away.
Details flooded into Reid's brain so alarmingly fast, he winced again.
Matching gold rings: married.
His polished loafers, creased slacks: professional.
Calluses on her fingers, pretty, kept up shoes, but not new: she sent him through school.
Tint to his blue eyes: contacts.
Short black hair on shoulder of her sweater: black dog, small.
His loosened tie…
Her hay colored hair, just the bangs tied back with a pink ribbon…
Ink stains on the very tip of his left index finger…
Whisp of raspberry hand cream…
"Is he alright?" she asked her husband, reaching out towards he boy..
Reid's eyes snapped to the hand, backing even further away, if that was at all possible backed against the stone wall.
The man quickly grabbed her hand, but kept his attention on the boy. "Can we do something for you? Do you need to go to the hospital?" he asked, trying to be helpful.
"Hospital?" Reid's eyes snapped back to him. He shook his head. "No." he gasped, sliding back down the wall from the couple. "No hospital." Spinning away, he continued down the wall away from the couple as quickly as his cold feet would carry him.
He could hear the couple talk urgently to each other behind him, but did his very best to tune them out.
No, no hospital. He couldn't go back there. There was nobody there he could be sure of.
There was no one anywhere that he could be sure of.
He couldn't even be sure of himself!
The only thing he knew for sure, without a doubt, was his toes hurt. Happened when someone went walking out in the snow in hospital slippers.
He stopped.
It was in front of a gray, box like building with a snow covered garden area, an oak tree with winter bare branches. Parking lot with key card entrance. Big glass doors with black steel frame. Little black globe security cameras attached to the walls and overhangs.
He knew this place.
Penelopy Garcia was happily tapping away at her keyboard when her phone hummed the American Hero ditty. The little finger of her right hand made a leap to the phone pad, before returning, as if nothing had happened. "Whisper sweet nothings to your Goddess." she commanded into her headset.
A moment and her fingers paused. She couldn't help but smile. "You lost Reid?" She chuckled. "I know he's small, but he isn't that' small." Then she frowned, her eyes flared. "That bitch! J.J. should o' put a bullet up her…" She stopped, tilting her head to one side. "Well, we can check the street cameras." Her fingers started work on the keyboard again. "Oh, have faith, my lover. Would I fail you?"
There was a soft cough behind her.
Quick as all get out, Garcia spun about, ready to release her wraith on any and every soul who would dare to intrude on her sanctum without her leave. But she stopped.
A small figure was walking by the window of her office.
"Umm…. Hold that thought, Derek." She rose to her feet, stepped to her door, and leaned out. "Hey, Little Bo Peep? Found your lost sheep." She sang, before tossing the headset back onto her computer desk and hurrying out the door.
She felt an instant pang of panic when, with a quick glance around, he was no where to be seen. She snatched the arm of a passer byer, dragging him around to face her. She demanded "Reid! Where!"
The man struggled to keep a hold of his stack of files as his arm was nearly ripped out of the socket. "Huh?" he wondered. "Oh…. umm… I think I saw him heading for the Bull Pen. Hey, he okay? He looked kinda…." Suddenly and unexpectedly released, he stumbled back, bumped into the wall and lost his grip on his files.
Garcia never noticed the paper disaster she left behind as she hurried down the hall to the Bull Pen, the life center of the B.A.U. offices.
Sure enough, there he was, absently wandering around the desks, his arms wrapped around himself, trying to ward of the shivering. Every now and again he'd reach out to touch this or that…
… a phone, lamp, desk corner…
… as if making sure that they were really there. But, then, pull back just short, as if afraid to find out it wasn't, in fact, real. His wet, muddy slippers made a squishy sound as he shuffled along.
Garcia could of collapsed with relief at seeing Reid there. But she chose a different route: getting angry. "Spencer Reid!" she cried, hands on hips, doing her very best to look motherly… without going as far as pushing her glasses back up her nose. "What are you doin' here! Daddy Derek is going out of his mind…" She instantly regretted it.
The young agent spun about, his big, startled eyes staring up at her. As quickly as he looked up, his eyes dropped, his arms wrapped around his middle white knuckles' tight, and he began to back away in a moment of panic.
Garcia quickly shook her head, her tone softening. "Hey, Reid, I'm sorry. I was just teasing. I didn't mean it." Then she frowned. "Why are you sacred of me? You're the one with the gun!" She paused. "Well, not that you were ever good with it." Pause again. "Yea, but you did shoot that guy, once." Pause to shake her head. "But you don't remember that, do you?" Her hand came up to her mouth to cover a gasp. "Oh! Maybe I shouldn't have said that. What a lousy way to find out that you killed a guy, huh? Even if he was a freaky crazed lunatic and was gonna kill Hotch and you saved him and…"
"Means the same." Reid mumbled, looking at everything he could without raising his eyes.
Garcia stopped. She smiled slightly. "What?"
"Crazed. Lunatic. Means the same." he explained in a near whisper. "It was redundant."
Garcia smiled. "Well, that sounds more like your usual little wise ass self." she chuckled. Hopping down the steps toward him, she said "Really, though, what are you doing here? You should be at the hospital."
Again, Reid acted with an instant of panic. Stepping back until he bumped into a desk. "No. No hospital!" his voiced raised in pitch, shaking his head.
Instinctively, Garcia reached out for him, wanting to assure him.
But Reid slid along the desk and out of reach. "I'm not going back!" he yelled at her. "No more hospital! No more needles! No more drugs! I don't need it! I don't want it! I'm not going back!"
"Alright!" Garcia returned, frowning. "Don't have a cow. Geez. And I thought I was the only conspiracy theorist on pay roll."
Reid looked up at her and blinked. His tone suddenly and completely calm, he repeated from somewhere "Actually, did you know that it is a common practice to recruit dentists to implant tracking devices…" He trailed off, tilting his head to one side.
Garcia couldn't help but laugh. "Where did that come from?" she wanted to know.
The agent shrugged. "He told me to believe." he answered softly. With a tired sigh, he leaned back against the desk, reaching up to rub his eyes. "My head hurts." he mumbled.
"Yea." she agreed. "What's called a hangover, sweetie. You were doped up. You're coming down now. Crashing." She shook a finger. "You know, I have this coffee stuff that is real good for hangovers. I know a thing or two about hangovers, you know….. Well, maybe you don't know. But anyways…" She turned and started back up the steps. At the top she spun about and said "Wait here. Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back…. No…. the office! Gideon's office! There's a couch. You can lie down…. 'cause, well, looks like you're gonna fall down, so…. I'll be right back. Don't run away again, okay?" She spun about and took two steps, before spinning back about. "Oh, and, hey… I'm Penelopy Garcia! Remember me?"
Reid blinked up at her and shook his head, mumbling "Sorry."
Garcia's jaw dropped. "You don't remember me? Not even a little?" Despite what Morgan had told her, she was shocked. "Who the hell could forget me? I'm a young, pretty blond! I'm the Goddess of the Net! I'm…"
"Miss. Garcia?" Reid interrupted.
She snapped her jaw shut and refocused on the boy. "Huh?"
"I don't feel good." he admitted, his arms, once again, wrapping around his middle, bowing over.
Garcia frowned. Didn't they already concur on that? But then she understood. "Oh….. OH! Umm…. Trash can! Find a trash can! Or something…." As she looked about, she couldn't help but wonder under her breath "What part of computer tech includes running about for a barf bucket?"
Tbc