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Chapter Two

Breadcrumbs

"I wasn't planning to lead, I was standing in the back and then everyone turned around."

- Avery Hiebert

I didn't calm down until I saw her, sitting in that same spot as nearly every other time I'd come to Vegas to see her, whether from a case or not. The staff said that no one had visited her that day, but they would look into the records and pull any on visits to Diana Reid since my last one. I stood in the sanitarium, rubbing my chin with one hand while rapidly clenching and unclenching the other. Lewis was with me, while the rest were running through the evidence to compile the profile, or running down leads at the local sperm bank.

The nurse in charge, a small old woman named Yuiko Ajibana, knocked on the entryway. I jumped, tearing my eyes from my mother. The nurse was my savior; Lewis had been egging me to cross the large room to talk to my mother. Ajibana handed me a clipboard with some pieces of paper on it, "Dr. Reid, Dr. Lewis, this is the sign in sheets for everyone visiting Diana Reid in the last six months."

I winced. Hearing out loud how long it'd been since I'd last seen my mother was... off putting, to say the least. My eyes scanned the list, flipping through the pages, and within a few seconds I had all the information on them memorized.

"I'll never get used to watching you do that," Lewis chuckled.

I frowned. Most of them I recognized; old colleagues and friends, distant family, even a couple by my father. But my eyes zeroed on two, who signed in together multiple times in the last year. One of them... one of them I knew, "Peter Johnson and..." My gaze snapped up, "Elle Greenaway?!"

"Do you know them, Reid?" Lewis peeked over my shoulder, and I offered her the list.

"She... she was a member of the BAU a long time ago, before even Emily joined the team," I flipped open my phone, brow furrowed, and dialed quickly.

"Office of unmitigated brilliance."

"Garcia, I need the last known location of Elle Greenaway," My gaze flickered between Lewis and my mother. What was Elle doing here? Why was she visiting my mother?

"Wait, Elle? Genius boy, it's been-"

"Her name is on the sign in sheet for my mother's sanitarium, Penelope," I tried to keep the panic from my voice, and swallowed thickly after catching the look on Lewis's face, "Please."

"On it."

The line clicked dead and Lewis said, "Do you want to take a minute, Reid? I can talk to your mom."

"No, no," I shook my head and started towards my mom. Yet I stopped, and turned back to Lewis with a wry smile, "... but I wouldn't mind the company."

She smiled back, reassuring, and followed me to the couch next to my mother's seat. Mom started a bit, doing a double take when she saw me. Then it happened, just like the last few times. The unsure glance, a slight crinkling of the brow. Jaw slack with confusion. She had no idea who I was.

Then the look vanished as realization dawned, and she smiled, "Spencer."

"Hey, uh... hey mom," I slid into the spot on the couch nearest to her, Lewis taking the one further down, "How're you feeling?"

"I was reading your latest letter," She thumbed the paper in her hands, the smile widening just a fraction. Mom folded it gently before placing it back into the envelope on her lap. She was calm, smiling... healthy. It was one of her better days. Mom's eyes slid from the paper, passed me, to Lewis, "Are you going to introduce me to your friend, Spencer?"

"Yeah, um..." I looked back at Lewis, "This is Doctor Tara Lewis, she's um... one of my-"

"Your coworkers at the BAU, yes," Mom said, her eyes sweeping over Lewis with the kind of narrow precision that was rare these days. Taking in all the details, memorizing them. Not unlike me, "Spencer started writing about you in his letters not long ago. Another doctor on his team... in psychology, no less."

"Yes ma'am."

"It fits."

"Mom-"

"This isn't a visit, is it Spencer?" Mom's smile faltered somewhat. Her eyes flashed, first to Lewis, then just back to Ajibana where the nurse hovered just out of earshot, "You've always come alone when visiting."

I tried to start, but my throat was dry. So I swallowed thickly, thinking back to the list, "Years ago, I had a coworker named Elle Greenaway. I wrote to you about her; do you remember?"

"Yes... the girl who was shot, who then left not long after," Mom tapped her knee with my letter.

"She came to see you, didn't she? Has for a year now, along with a man... a man named Peter Johnson," She was my mother. Why was it so hard to speak to my own mother?

"Peter? A nice man. He was writing a book about... something," Her brow furrowed, then widened just a bit before settling into a smile, "Ah yes, it was on the use of mental illness in classic literature. We had lovely talks about literature, him along with his wife."

"Elle? Mom, was Elle his... wife?"

Mom's brow furrowed, confusion growing on her face, "No, it wasn't your coworker, Spencer. Peter never called her his wife, but I could tell. Called her his angel, and the last few times I've seen them, she was pregnant." She smiled, fondly, though her eyes seemed to glaze somewhat. I could feel this lucid moment of my mother's slipping away, "She had... white hair, like Annabel's daughter... what was her name...?"

Annabel Christenson, mother of Nephilim. Using the name of a supposedly dead person could have raised red flags, so he used the name of someone else. Someone I knew. But he would have needed to show ID, so how...?

"Now what was her name-" My mother looked at me, eyes narrowing, jaw slack like she was halfway through a thought when it was suddenly cut off, "Her name... son?"

She'd forgotten my name. Oh god, she'd forgotten my name. I leaped to my feet, mumbling excuses to Ajibana, and hurried out of the reading room. Lewis was hot on my heels, but I didn't stop until the front entrance hall of the sanitarium. I paced between two pillars, hand over my mouth as I felt pile rise in my throat. Nephilim had been here, seen my mother, and it had to have been recent because Mom had specifically mentioned pregnancy. She'd been here with a man under the pretense of writing a book to what? Grill my mother for information on me? Did she tell him anything? My eyes swept the hall, trying to envision it. Her, walking through the doors, probably with sunglasses so the light from outside didn't blind her. Holding her pregnant belly like in the video, probably sticking close to the man who took her. Probably sticking close to the unsub. If she'd been with him for seventeen years, Stockholm Syndrome was just about a certainty...

"Th-these places have cameras, especially at the entrance," My words were going a mile a minute, stopping dead in my tracks as I rounded on a bewildered Lewis, "The date of the last visit was a week ago. If they still have the footage, then we can... we can get video of the unsub and Nephilim."

"Reid-"

"Williams is going through the Christenson case file with Walker," I needed to see those files to. The unsub was leading us - leading me - to something, but what? After so long, why taunt the police now? Why lead me out here, why use Elle as an alias? "I-I have to see the case file..."

"Reid-"

"But why now? Why after so long-"

"Reid!" Lewis yanked me back to reality, jerking on my sleeve to get my attention. Concern was etched on her face, and she dropped my arm quickly, "Calm down. Think it through."

I swallowed back a retort, grimacing as the rest of the entryway came back into focus. A few of the visitors checking in were staring at us, but once I caught their eyes their own darted away. I closed my eyes and took one deep breath before looking over at Lewis, "... sorry."

"It's getting to you, isn't it?" Lewis said as we left the building, "Reid, are you sure you should-"

"Yes," She didn't need to finish. There was no way I was stepping off this case, not now. And from her half-hearted tone of voice, she knew that.

Lewis smiled in a kind of tired, knowing way, "So we go back in there, request a look at those tapes, and make sure that the staff knows to call us the second anyone with either the name Peter Johnson or Elle Greenaway shows up here. Alright?"

"Yeah," I forced a smile that quickly fell. With that, Lewis and I headed back inside and I apologized to Ajibana, "Sorry about that, um... would it be possible to see any security footage you have of last week at the times Peter Johnson and Elle Greenaway signed in to see my mother?"

"Sure, this way," Ajibana led us through the sanitarium to the security office. Inside was quite a few monitors; if I had to guess, I'd say they were probably about a quarter compared to the number of cameras in the sanitarium. Every few seconds, the scene on one monitor would cut out to show a different camera.

"Ah... the entrance, please," I tore myself from the monitors, "The sign in sheet said they last came in on Tuesday at 2:15pm. Try then first, please."

The security guard, a portly man with a nametag saying 'Eiselstein' raised an eyebrow, shooting a look first as me, then Ajibana. The nurse nodded, and only then did the guard start rifling through the footage backlog, "You're lucky, doctor. We only keep security footage records going back about a week. This one would've been overwritten tonight." He pulled out a CD and slipped it into the only computer not connected to the mess of security monitors. The screen flickered to life, and soon the footage played. It was choppy, more series of still photos than fluid video, "Advance it to about 2:10pm, if you can."

The guard grunted and shifted the video forward. I watched, eyes steadily narrowing, only seeing the image on the monitor. I hadn't even realized I was holding my breath until I gasped, "There!" I lunged forward, hitting the pause before the security guard could even flinch. On the screen, clear as day, was Nephilim, just as she'd appeared in the video at the station. Even in the grainy security cam footage, I could see her hands resting against the sizable bump on her stomach. And next to her, arm around her shoulders, was a tall man. He was turned away from the screen, wearing a trilby that cast a shadow over his face from this angle. I cursed; of course it wouldn't be so easy to get footage of his face.

"Is this all the footage from that day, from all the cameras?" The guard nodded, looking at bit miffed as I leaned back from the monitor, "We'll need copies when can send to our technical analyst in Quantico."

"You can just take these if you want," The guard replaced the CD in its case and handed it to Lewis after shooting me another look. What was his problem? "We were going to rewrite them, anyway."

"Thank you," Lewis took the case with a smile. As we left the sanitarium, she looked sideways at me, "Reid, are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes," I said through clenched teeth. I really wished she wouldn't keep asking that, "Why?"

"You're pale; you look like a ghost, Reid," We got into the car and she started it, "You know that if I'm noticing, Prentiss is."

She didn't need to say that. I already knew it. So I didn't answer, and Lewis didn't push me. As we drove, something began to bug me. I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialed Garcia. After a half dozen rings, it went to voicemail. I tried again, got the same thing, and left behind a message, "Garcia, call me when you get this. I need that information about Elle."

"Not picking up?"

I shook my head, glaring down at me phone. It was odd; something like looking up a former FBI agent should be simple, especially for someone of Garcia's ability. I sighed and called Emily instead, who actually did pick up, "Prentiss here. Is your mom alright?"

"She's fine, but..." I told her everything we found out, about the unsub and Nephilim visiting her, and that's probably how they found out so much about me. Once again, my mother was the leak, just like with the Fisher King. I couldn't help the grimace.

"We'll make sure Mrs. Reid has extra protection, Spencer," Emily said, "Bring the CDs to the precinct; we'll get the footage to Garcia for analysis."

"Yeah, sure, um..." I hesitated. Maybe it was nothing, but... "I tried calling Garcia, but she's not picking up. All I asked her was to look up Elle; you'd think she'd get back to me quick."

"Yeah... I'll try her from the precinct."

"Thanks, Emily."

When we got there, Garcia still wasn't picking up, and everyone was notified and had returned to the precinct. As Lewis and I walked into the room Williams gave us for congregating, JJ looked up from her stack of papers, phone clutched like a vice on her hand, "No word from Garcia. I just sent someone else to go check on her."

"Could she have been attacked?" Lewis said as she took a spot beside the blonde.

"Unlikely," I didn't sit, instead pacing in front of the board where we'd taped pictures and info of each of the victims, "The BAU is in the middle of FBI headquarters."

"Still..." Lewis frowned, "Any word from the others, JJ?"

"Emily and Rossi are finishing up at the local sperm bank now, and Williams, Walker, and Alvez are bringing the rest of..." She gestured to a pile of boxes, considerably older than the newborn case, "... These. They're from the Christenson murder case."

A cold case. That's why the box was so old. It had been stuffed in a corner somewhere, forgotten. Just like Nephilim's herself. My hands clenched and I strode to those boxes, intent to see just what the detectives had seventeen years ago, when the phone in JJ's hand went off.

"Jareau," Her expression slowly furrowed, and a few times she seemed to try interrupting whomever was on the other end, "Ok-w-wait, Garcia I-... Hold on, hold on Garcia I'll put you on speaker." She set the cell down and pressed it just as Williams, Walker, and Alvez entered behind me.

"Someone hacked me!"

Her voice was strained, stuttering a but at the ends of words. I could already see her face; eyes a little wide, a bit paler than normal. I leaned forward, both palms on the table, "Who hacked you?"

"E-Elle's name was a... a trigger or something. The second I put it into the system, boom!" Something slammed on the other end, probably the desk when Garcia smacked it out of frustration, "Something activated in the system and started transmitting information... Somewhere!"

"Information? What information, Garcia?"

"Um... um, I can't tell until I get back into the system," Garcia was less frantic now, her tone slowly calming, "I've been trying for an hour already; it'll be a bit before I can get back in. But whatever they took, it was waiting for me to look up Elle in the system, so..."

"It's involved with the case here," We would have had no reason to look up Elle in the system without this case and that security footage. There would have been no reason to have that security footage if the unsub hadn't taken Nephilim to see my mother. And there have been no reason to check on my mother without that note, addressed to me specifically, "He's leading us."

"What?" Lewis asked.

"The unsub is leading us, playing with us," I eyed the CD case on the table. The one with my name on it, "Planting the bodies outside the FBI field office, not the local precinct, getting some kid to hand deliver a CD with my name on it, specifically mentioning my mother knowing I would go to her, knowing I would look up the records and find Elle's name, and knew I would ask Garcia to look into Elle's whereabouts."

"What're you saying?" Williams asked. I jumped, having nearly forgotten the detective was there. Her eyes were narrowed, arms crossed, "That this sick freak what, wants you here? You specifically, Doctor?"

"Oh god..." JJ's hand flew to her throat, eyes wide. She snatched her phone off the table, "I'm calling Emily. We need her back here as soon as possible."

"Wait, wait, JJ," I held up both hands. She shot me a look and I sputtered, "I-I'm not gonna tell you not to call Emily, JJ. Just... let me think." She froze, hand hovering over what I assumed was the call button. My mind was going a million miles a minute. He was taunting us, taunting me, and would probably send us another breadcrumb soon enough. Somehow planted something in the FBI computers at Quantico that was only triggered by Elle's name, meaning that there's something behind Elle, but it wouldn't be safe to look her up here... if the unsub was thorough enough to plant a virus possibly months in advance, they probably did here, so... "We-we need ah, ah computer. Williams, do you-do you have a personal laptop? Something that's not connected to the databases here?"

"Yeah, my VAIO, why?"

"There's a coffee shop around the corner," I stood, mind still going a mile a minute, but a clear line shining through. What we can do to get ahead, "Take your most tech savvy person there, hook them up to the internet at the coffee shop, and get all the recent information you can on Elle Greenaway. Make calls, make inquiries, but don't use any official internet hookups, wireless, systems or databases."

"Reid?" Lewis leaned over a bit to catch my eye, "What're you thinking?"

"Garcia's system went down when she tried to look up Elle in Quantico. If the unsub was leading us here for a reason, leading me here for a reason, then it's not that much of a stretch to assume some worm or virus is in the computers here too," The chair screeched with how quickly I stood, "We can't wait for the next clue in this sick freak's game. We-we have to get ahead of him. We have to-"

"Spence-"

"He has my best friend, JJ!" I rounded on her, half shouting in frustration, and running a hand through my hair as I tried and failed to stay calm, "He's had her for seventeen years doing sick things to her, forcing her to get pregnant over and over by different men and..." Just like that, it all reached a peak. I slumped into the chair again, feeling suddenly drained. Drained and just... tired, "... and I gave up on her."

"I'll help you get something set up at the coffee shop," Walker said. Williams shot me a look I couldn't - and wouldn't - try and decipher before leaving with him.

JJ walked around the table and knelt down in front of me. I couldn't look at her, but she leaned over until I was forced to look at her, "Spence, this isn't your fault. This isn't."

"Isn't it though?" Tears blurred my vision, so I covered my eyes with a hand, "When her case went cold, I didn't... I didn't follow up on it or anything. I told myself she was dead. There's no way she could still be alive after so long, especially with the medication she needs to stay healthy..."

"Spence, you were just a kid," JJ reached up and smoothed back my hair.

She was right and I knew it, but it did nothing to make me feel better. But I let her smooth back my hair anyway, taking some solace in it as the others moved around us. Lewis went for the Christenson file while JJ left Alvez to make the phone call to Emily and Rossi. JJ patted my knee and stood, "Come on, Spence. Let's go for a walk."

I didn't put up a fight as JJ led me from the meeting room. I didn't really see the precinct as we walked, didn't see the officers or anything else until a blast of fresh air hit my face. JJ brought me outside, the hustle and bustle of Vegas around us a buffer to my chaotic thoughts, "... sorry JJ, I... well, it's just hard, you know?"

"I know, Spence, I know," JJ sighed, "I already know your answer to this, but are you sure you-"

"Don't tell Emily to take me off the case, JJ..." I said, "... please. I can't. Knowing that she's alive out there..."

"Okay, Spence," She put a hand on my arm, a strained smile on her lips, "But I'm here if you want to talk."

She turned to leave, probably to give me a moment outside, but the tenseness in my chest, the unshed tears in my eyes... "She was going to be my first kiss."

JJ chuckled a bit at that, "I thought Lila was."

"Lila was my... actual first kiss, but Nephi..." I laughed once, a bubble of happiness at the memory. Visiting her, clutching my acceptance letter from CalTech in my hands, all smiles from us both and cookies from her mother, "Nephilim promised me she'd, uh... give me my first kiss when I showed her my first degree." I didn't blush at the memory, but I did smile. With my eidetic memory, I could remember it all. Every detail of it. It was a happy memory.

"Did she now?" JJ put a hand on my shoulder, her thumb rubbing comforting circles here, "We'll find her, Spence. We will."

It was dark by the time everything was set up and explained to the poor coffee shop across the street and Williams and Walker managed to gather everything they could with the limited resources. Emily and Rossi returned, and while she didn't say anything, I could see it on Emily's face. She was worried about me. They hadn't found anything suspicious at the sperm bank, which threw another layer on the whole case. With twelve different fathers, it could be a case of... a case of forced prostitution, but the footage sent to me didn't point to that. The wording, about her being 'the mother', and dragging us all into the case in the first place, just didn't make any sense.

"Elle Greenaway just about fell off the grid when she left the BAU," Walker said as he came in with Williams, carrying a stack of papers in his arms, "She has a cabin in the woods a ways outside Seattle, Washington. We've contacted the Seattle PD to look into her cabin, but won't hear back for a while yet. Other than that, she doesn't really have any social media, nothing."

"Bank accounts, jobs, anything?"

"Not that we can find without trying our own databases, or with Garcia down," Walker shrugged.

A cop poked his head through the door, "Penelope Garcia from Quantico, on line two."

"Speak of the devil," Emily muttered as Williams reached over to push a button on the phone.

"I've managed to get some limited functionality back into the system," Garcia said, stress thick in her voice, "This jerk though, he's smart. Really smart. He hacked my system, but get this. He copied everything. Everything he could get his hands on."

"Hiding what he was really after," Alvez said.

"Exactly, but the thing is, he left something behind."

I gritted my teeth, "The next breadcrumb."

"Just that, pretty boy. Another video, addressed to you."

My hands clenched at the chair, knuckles white as I breathed, "Have you... have you watched it?"

"No, I um... figured you'd want to." There was some typing, then my phone went off, "There you go, Spencer."

She didn't send it to the precinct, or to Emily. She sent it to me, "... thanks, Penelope."

"No thanks necessary. I'm gonna... try and get the rest of this working and see what I can get on Elle."

"Garcia," Emily said, stopping the analyst from hanging up, "Focus on Seattle, Washington and the outlying areas. Greenaway had a cabin out there."

"On it. If Elle had a coffee at a Starbucks last Thursday, I'll know about it. No one messes with my baby and gets away with it."

The line clicked dead and William's brow rose, "Her baby? That's one strange techie you've got there."

"That's Garcia. Her computers are her life," Emily said, tone trying hard to be jovial but her eyes zeroed on me with something akin to pity, "Reid, your phone."

"... right," I flipped it open, and sure enough, there was an email from Garcia. An email with one attachment, another .mp4 file. Williams helped me log in to my email from their computer and download the file in short order.

As she hit play, I braced myself in the seat closest to the monitor. The scene was the same from before. The same too-fluffy bed, covered in pillows and lace. The same lighting from the canopy, bathing the whole bed in a glow. This time, it was empty, but not for long. Slowly, Nephilim came into frame, half obscured by darkness on the right side of the bed. She crawled into the blankets and pillows, helped along by a hand in hers. She did not smile, she did not look back at him, and once in her spot, the figure leaned forward. He was dressed smartly; dark business suit, white button-down, tie, all of it. He no hat like in the security cam footage, but slicked back, dark hair with a blank white, featureless mask over his face.

"By now, you've talked to your mother. Soon Ms. Garcia will uncover everything you haven't about Ms. Greenaway," The bastard reached over and ran a hand through Nephilim's long, long hair. She didn't even flinch, "Soon the failure will be born and disposed of, because we cannot have failures, can we my angel?" Nephilim shook her head, once more without expression or feeling in her face. He was using some sort of voice modulator, "Then her holy body will be empty, ready for the seed of a new father. The one my flock and I have been waiting for." I felt my blood turn to ice as his words sank in. It was a promise, and through the voice modulation, I could almost feel the smile in that bastard's voice.

He moved then, pulling chains from the edges of the bed and securing them around Nephilim's wrist and ankles before pulling the blankets up to her round belly. She didn't fight, didn't flinch, nothing. Like a living doll. The man slunk across the bed, blocking Nephilim from view as he took up most of the frame in front of it, "For your associates, Spencer, I warn them; do not take the good doctor off the case. If you do, it is not Nephilim's life who is in danger." The man snapped his fingers and the room was suddenly bathed in light. Two other figures, dressed in black, came into frame, dragging a third. The third was bedraggled, tossed to the floor at the first man's feet.

"A hostage," Lewis said, and I didn't need to look back to know her eyes were wide. Staring at the screen, like mine. I couldn't look away from the monitor.

The woman - I could tell it was a woman from her build and long hair - was panting at his feet. Her arms were bare and she was dressed in a torn t-shirt and shorts. Even in the footage I could see the cuts and bruises along every inch of bare skin. Then she whipped her head up, half-snarling at the unsub with a glare that promised murder. Then she whipped her head to the camera.

"He's using me a bait, Spencer," said Elle Greenaway, eyes alight despite her obvious pain, "Don't need a priest to see tha-"

The unsub slapped her, open hand, and Elle fell to the ground with a grunt. The other two dragged her off, and the thin, injured Elle tried to shake them off, earning her another smack. The unsub shifted, hand under his chin and the mask. After Elle was gone, he addressed the screen again, "If the doctor leaves the case, she dies. If he is sidelined at all, she dies. If we had known the young Spencer Reid would grow to be so... accomplished... we would have taken them both back then. But the past is the past, and we have spent a long time setting up for your arrival, Spencer Reid. Now run along, chase down your errant Elle. May God guide your steps."

Author's Note: Well, y'all probably saw that coming if you've read the original, though I HAVE changed a lot of the story, hmm? Also, it's like... 3am and I am tired. Goodnight! :D