Chapter 5 – Paper Thin
Essential Listening: A God to Many Devils, by Kids in Glass Houses
0o0
They'd got the call late the previous evening and Grace, for one, was glad that the SFFD had decided to let them sleep. There hadn't been a hell of a lot for anyone to do at the time, anyway.
Not that Grace had done much sleeping.
She'd spent most of the night doing exhaustive background searches into EDF members and trying to keep her father's final, tortured moments out of her mind. At about four AM, Reid had knocked on her hotel room door and forced her to turn the light out. Clearly, she hadn't been the only one working late.
Gods but she hated the waiting.
The chase was fine – the chase was great – exhilarating, satisfying. Even the initial phone call could set her heart racing, however guilty she might feel about that when the bodies started rolling in. But the waiting…
It left too much time for introspection – and right now, that was something she could more than do without.
"Detective Castro is with Vega – they're meeting Gideon and Morgan at the scene," said JJ, dropping fresh cups of hot beverage in front of her colleagues. "Hotch and Emily are still chasing Abby."
"That sounds like fun," Grace mumbled, greedily closing her hand around her tea. In light of her performance at the crime scene the morning before, she had skipped breakfast and was really beginning to regret it.
"How many victims?" Reid asked, still focussed on the incident board.
"Just the one," said JJ, sipping her coffee. "Thank God."
"That's not like him," Grace remarked.
"He broke pattern," said Reid, frowning at them. "Why now? What changed?"
"I'm guessing he didn't much like what Evan Abby had to say about him at the EDF meeting last night," Grace suggested.
Hotch and Prentiss had filled them in on his movements during a very late team dinner the previous evening.
Probably at about the same time some poor bugger was burning to death, Grace thought. Suddenly, she didn't feel so hungry any more.
"So Hotch was right – he was there last night…" JJ pulled out the files that Garcia had sent over the night before. Each one contained a photograph snapped by Prentiss at the EDF meeting and a brief résumé. They spread them across the desks they had commandeered in the incident room.
"There were thirty-seven people there last night," said Reid, staring at the files.
"And I guess we can rule out the women," said JJ, picking out a few of the files and dropping them in a separate pile. "That leaves…"
"Twenty-four," Reid immediately supplied. "Seventeen, if we take age into account."
He removed six more of the files.
"Okay," said Grace, flipping through her notes from the night before. "I have twelve men with isolated jobs – nine of them with company cars."
"You read through all one hundred and fifty files?" JJ asked, surprised.
"I couldn't sleep."
JJ looked like she wanted to ask if Grace was alright, but Reid cut across her abruptly.
"You want to take three each?" he asked.
"Sure," said JJ, giving Reid an odd look.
"I guess I wasn't the only one not sleeping," said Grace in an undertone, in an effort to diffuse some of the tension.
JJ nodded, settling down with her files.
Grace was aware, as she worked, that both her colleagues were watching her rather more closely than she would have liked. Although she appreciated that people were worrying about her – especially after such a short time with the team – such scrutiny irked her.
It was making the back of her neck itch.
JJ was also keeping an eye on Reid, she noted, in an unconscious sort of way. He'd interruption had been his way of protecting her, she knew, and that moment aside he had given the team little cause for concern lately. He still had moments, however, when the toll of the events in Georgia were written all over his face. She rather hoped that JJ would chalk it up to that rather than anything else.
She and Reid had spent a few sleepless hours talking about parents and the nature of helplessness the night before. She glanced at the young doctor. The more she found out about her new friend, the more she wondered how he was still standing, weighed down as he was by his own, particular burdens.
It had been hard enough for Grace when her father had been diagnosed… It had been like finding a new kind of hell every day as the man who had raised her gradually lost pieces of himself, becoming more and more like a baffled, well-meaning stranger. She couldn't imagine dealing with that sort of stress as a child – even an obscenely intelligent one… And having to have her committed, on his birthday no less…
Living with that kind of condition had its cost.
It had been clear from the way that he had spoken about his mother that he loved her dearly, and Grace was glad that he still had her there to steady him – though she was certain he'd rather die than let her know what had happened to him. He didn't want her to worry.
Ignoring the part of her that ached to hear her father's voice again, worried or not, she took a breath and applied herself to the file in front of her.
They had a serial arsonist to catch.
0o0o0o0
Chief Vega's team had cordoned off the junction of the street and were busily processing the miniscule evidence that such a random and unprovoked attack had generated.
Morgan sighed as he and Gideon walked up to the blackened area of grass and sidewalk where last night's victim had hit the ground.
This son of a bitch was really beginning to piss him off.
"The victim was a CPA," Detective Castro told them, looking up from her notes. "Greg Belew, thirty-nine, white, six foot, handsome." She paused as the two agents took in the twisted crumbs of plastic and leather that were all that was left of Mr Belew's belongings. "He was talking to his fiancée on his cell when it happened."
Morgan shook his head. You didn't forget hearing something like that.
"It was kerosene," Vega added. "Same exact type used in the other fires."
"Well," said Morgan, "Hotch had Abby under surveillance at the time of the attack, so we know Abby's not the UnSub."
"Witnesses put a gold sedan here," said Vega. "So we know this is our guy."
"And, given that the attack occurred less than thirty minutes after the EDF meeting and Abby's house is less than a mile from here…" Morgan continued, thinking aloud.
"Chances are the UnSub was at Abby's house," Gideon finished.
"He parked some distance away and walked," Vega surmised.
"This victim isn't even on the EDF list," said Morgan. He glared at the blackened patch of grass at his feet. It was just so damn' pointless.
"No," Castro agreed sadly. "He was just a guy who looked like he had a nice life, like the others."
"The UnSub didn't go into a house," said Vega, looking around. "He barely even got out of his car – there was no planning whatsoever." He paused. "Why?"
"He's devolving," Morgan explained. "He's doing it fast."
"It's more than that," Gideon proposed. "This was random. Impulsive. Adolescent. Like a tantrum – he's got displaced aggression: he listens to Abby denounce him and his work, it enrages him."
Coward, Morgan thought bitterly. Can't face the man he's really angry with, gotta take it out on this poor bastard…
"So that's the trigger," Gideon continued. "The UnSub lashes out immediately."
"Well, if he was at Abby's, we have him on camera," Morgan said. "It's just a matter of time before Garcia can start narrowing down the suspect list."
"He's devolving too rapidly," said Gideon, with a slight shake of his head. "He's gonna attack again, soon…" He shrugged, "We're gonna have to trust this Abby guy with the profile. Let's go."
0o0
Prentiss watched Hotch walk briskly back from the doctor's office with an oddly bitter expression on his face. They had been tailing Abby all morning and – though his sketchy behaviour hadn't altered – he didn't appear to be trying to make a break for it.
She wondered what could have made Hotch's face seem so pinched.
"He's leaving," he said as he got into the car, "but not in the way we thought."
"What do you mean?"
"He's seeing his oncologist."
"Oh God," said Emily, with feeling. Suddenly Evan Abby made a hell of a lot more sense. Of course he was angry, of course he was bitter… he was literally running out of time.
Silently, they watched him cross the road and get back into his car. He looked so slight and vulnerable all of a sudden.
"It makes sense," she said. "The banks, the attorney… he's putting his life in order."
"Yeah," Hotch agreed, starting up the engine.
Emily watched Abby as he drove off along the street.
He wasn't even twice her age.
It just didn't seem fair.
0o0
They'd parked in a leafy side-street across from a ball-park. Abby had been watching the game for a good twenty minutes when Hotch decided to make his move. He'd needed to get his thoughts in order before he could.
He'd left Prentiss in the car, ostensibly so she could fill Gideon and the rest of the team in on their discovery, but mostly because he wanted to do this alone. He crossed the road, clutching the pictures from the EDF meeting under one arm. Evan Abby was a principled man for whom time was very rapidly running out: he would want to do the right thing. He would help them if he could.
"Which one is your son?" Aaron asked, as he joined Abby at the fence.
He jumped, absorbed in the game.
For a moment he looked like he wasn't going to answer, but he blew out his cheeks and pointed the boy out, leaning back on the fence.
"Catcher."
"Does he know you're here?" Aaron asked.
"I think so," Abby said, as both men watched him practice, "but we have an arrangement."
"What's that?" Hotch asked, glad to be getting somewhere.
"We both pretend I'm not."
"Sorry," said Aaron, and meant it. He watched Liam Abby for a moment, hoping that this wasn't a glimpse of his own future. He gave Abby a sideways look. "How long do you have?"
Abby stared at him, stunned, before chuckling at the efficiency of the FBI.
"Six months," he said, and glanced up at the blue sky above them before adding, "a year would be a miracle."
"And you haven't told anyone?"
"No…" Abby looked down. "It's leukaemia… LUST can be lethal," he added, with another dry chuckle. "I started the EDF right after I was diagnosed…" he looked at Hotch. "How did you know?"
Aaron paused a moment; as uncomfortable as he was discussing his own private life, he needed to build on the odd rapport he and Abby seemed to share. He needed him to trust him. Besides, this man was in a lot of pain, and worried for his son. It might help him to know that someone else's son had turned out okay.
"My father, when I was in high school… everyone knew he had affairs," he said. "Even my mother – but nobody talked about it, so I decided to confront him. And I followed him." He shifted, uncomfortable. "The lawyers, the doctors, the banks, the weight loss, it… it all came back. He had lung cancer."
Abby nodded sombrely.
"You know what benzene is?" he asked.
"I know it causes cancer," Aaron admitted.
"Leukaemia," said Abby wryly, walking slowly away from the fence. It was as if he wanted to keep this topic as separate as he could from his son. "It's also highly flammable," he continued. "They keep it in underground storage tanks – it's expensive to clean up, cheaper to hide." He raised his hands, an admission of heart-felt guilt. "My speciality…
"Most of the properties were zoned 'CR' – Commercial Restricted – warehouses where nobody worked, so what's the harm, right?" He coughed, and again Aaron caught that oddly haunted look in Abby's eyes that he'd seen the day before. "Well, I just found out that one of those jobs was sold and rezoned 'ES'. Elementary School."
"And you didn't report it?" Aaron asked, surprised.
"I report it, they come after me," said Abby, coming to a halt. "And I leave nothing for my son." He glanced behind him to where Liam's team were still practicing. "That's why I started the EDF, the LUST list…" he shook his head, frustration and irony written all over him. "I was trying to do the right thing."
"You still can," Aaron told him.
Abby shook his head, annoyed.
"I don't know who he is."
"He was at your house last night – and he was angry," Hotch said, handing him the surveillance images.
"Yeah, everybody was angry last night," said Abby, flicking through the photographs. "They were furious that I shut it all down."
"He was angry for a different reason," Aaron explained, trying to jog Abby's memory. "What you said enraged him, but he's a coward. He wouldn't confront you."
Abby peered hard at the pictures in his hands; he had thought he knew these people, that no one he knew would be capable of the barbarism Hotch had shown him the day before. Now he searched their faces, wondering.
"He was probably the only one who wasn't angry at the time," said Aaron. "He didn't express anything until after he left."
Abby stopped, stricken, looking at the bottom-most picture.
"Vincent Stiles," he said, in obvious distress. He handed the pictures back; Aaron could see the anger and disgust in his face.
And something else: guilt.
"Thank you," he said as Abby walked away, feeling for the man. It must have seemed like every bit of good he tried to do – from his job as an environmental consultant to starting up the local chapter of the EDF – had backfired magnificently.
He took up his phone and called the team, not taking his eyes off Abby's retreating back. It could so easily have been him…
"Vincent Stiles," he said, when Garcia patched him through. "Abby's leaving. Keep a tail on him until we have Stiles, just to be sure."
He heard Detective Castro's voice crackled over the SFFD radio: "Copy that – I have Abby."
He hung up and looked back at Abby pull out of the car park, thinking about Jack.
0o0
Reid was pacing. Grace wished he would stop; it was making her head hurt. They'd been waiting to hear that Stiles was in custody, and Grace was getting increasingly grumpy. All she seemed to have done for the last couple of days was wait. It was beginning to get to her.
"That was Emily," said JJ, hanging up the phone. "Stiles is already gone."
Reid dropped his pen on the table in frustration; Grace pinched the bridge of her nose.
"It looks like Abby tipped him off," JJ added, and watched as frustration shifted to astonishment on her colleagues' faces.
"What the hell is he playing at?" Grace demanded of the world at large.
JJ shrugged, equally nonplussed.
"We profiled Abby as horrified at the fires – why would he want to help Stiles?" Reid asked, shocked. "Give me his file!"
0o0o0o0
It wasn't his idea of a great meeting place, but it was isolated, and just at the moment that was exactly what he needed.
He watched Evan Abby pull up, intrigued. For all that the hippy moron had said about him – and his work – at the meeting the other night, he had still been generous enough to warn him that the Fed's were onto him.
He was puzzled as to why he wanted to meet, however… but perhaps he could turn Abby's generosity into an advantage.
"Bet you were afraid I wasn't comin', huh?" he said, as Abby 's gaunt frame stalked towards him.
"Look, those things that I said about you," Abby began.
"Uh huh?"
"I'm sorry, I had to say them."
Stiles folded his arms, not entirely buying it. He wasn't a coward. He was twice the man Evan Abby was.
"I know you're an artist," said Abby, stepping closer, "a genius. I appreciate your true value."
Stiles preened a little, despite himself. Abby seemed in earnest; there was a dark clarity in his face that Stiles hadn't seen before.
"So what, you just came here to apologise?" he asked, intrigued.
"No," said Abby, and there was a manic glint to his eyes now, one that Stiles thought he recognised – and thought he could use. "I came here because I respect your talent, and I wanna take full advantage of it."
Stiles smiled.
It might be entertaining to string Abby along for a while… just long enough to get him alone in an enclosed space – somewhere he wouldn't be expecting a threat.
After all, he didn't need Abby's help.
He was a God.