Jenny held her hand over Reid's mouth, sucking the life out of him with obvious enjoyment. Her eyes gleamed with mad delight as she watched him weakly try to toss his head and failed. The life was leaving him. Even if she failed in this attempt, there was still the drug overdose. He had been sleeping all day, would they notice him sleeping a little more until his heart stopped? Of course not. Just to be sure, Jenny took her free hand and turned Reid's arm over, placing it under the blanket, along with the other one to make it look less suspicious. All of a sudden, Jenny was aware of footsteps approaching the door. Oh well, She thought. Guess this gives me some time to escape. She took her hand off his mouth and placed it on his forehead as Agent Hotchner walked in.
"What are you doing?" He asked sternly.
Jenny turned to face him with a carefree smile on her face. "I was just concerned that he had been sleeping all day so I had to check his forehead for a fever."
"He's probably just worked up." Hotchner said, still glaring at her from the doorway, his profiler side taking over and assessing the girl. She seemed to be telling the truth. Or she believed what she was saying. It didn't matter. Reid was safe as long as Hotch was there.
Jenny saw Hotchner let his guard down and inwardly congratulated herself on being such a damn good actress. Maybe I should go into acting. She contemplated this decision and realized acting would be very difficult in hiding, in prison, or dead, as these were three options she saw for herself.
"I just wanted to make sure he didn't have a fever." She explained.
"Well, does he?" Hotchner asked as he sat down and gestured to Reid. She shook her head. There was something so familiar about thing girl and he couldn't quite place it. Was it her voice? Yes, her voice. He had heard it before and her features were also very familiar. He tried to compare this girl to Jenny. Dark brown hair, yes. But it was straight, not curly. And she had brown eyes. Hotch noticed her eyes twitch, however. "Is there something wrong with your eyes?" He asked.
Jenny shook her head. "No, I just didn't get much sleep last night. They twitch a little when I'm tired." She certainly did look tired. She had bags under her eyes and her skin was pale. She looked almost as bad as Reid. She turned back to her patient. "When was the last time he woke up?"
Hotch blinked and then remembered Reid. He looked down on him and said, "This morning."
"What time?" She asked. She was staring at the genius with a blank look on her face, as if trying to hide her emotions, which she was. There was rage threatening to boil over every time she looked at this pathetic excuse for an FBI agent and she wanted to spit at him. But she made her facial expression neutral so that Agent Hotchner wouldn't suspect anything.
"Around two am." Hotch answered. Upon coming in, Morgan and Gideon had explained about his nightmare and the first thing he had asked was, "What time?"
Jenny nodded and finally Hotch couldn't take it anymore. "Do you work here?" He asked her, his stoic face turned towards her.
"Sometimes." Jenny answered vaguely.
"Your voice is very familiar." Hotch said. It wasn't easy to confuse her high tone of voice with anything else. She was shrill like a squirrel.
Jenny looked flattered. "I have been told that I sound like Bernadette from the Big Bang Theory." She said proudly.
"I have never seen that show," was Hotch's somewhat annoyed answer.
"Really? Oh, well, it's about four nerds- Sheldon Lee Cooper, Leonard Leaky Hofstader, Howard Joel Wolowitz, and Rajesh Ramayan Koothrapoli- and one hot chick- Penny, she's an actress who works at the Cheesecake Factory because she's not very good- who lives across the hall from Leonard and Sheldon, who live in the same apartment 4A in an apartment building on 2311 Los Robles, Pasadena California," Jenny was ranting in a manner that reminded Hotch of Reid and she was getting very excited about the show. "Howard is jewish and lives with his mother and Raj has this thing where he can't speak to women, selective mutism it's called. Anyway, Leonard has this huge crush on Penny and he finally asks her out at the end of season one, but it doesn't go very well in the beginning of season two and at the end of season two, they realize their feelings for each other- or rather Penny realizes her feelings for Leonard because he already knew he had a crush on her- when Leonard had to go to the north pole. When they get back at the beginning of season three, Leonard and Penny get together and Penny sets Howard up with Bernadette, this girl she knew from her job at the Cheesecake Factory and is also getting a PhD. Now, keep in mind, Howard is the only nerd without a doctorate but he doesn't mind because he's an engineer and they all work at CalTech. Leonard is an experimental-"
Hotch held up his hand to silence her. Her face was red and she hadn't even finished explaining the plot of the show. "Sounds. . . great." He said.
"Sorry," Jenny said. "I just love that show because I am such a nerd I love Star Trek and Lord of the Rings and all that fun stuff and so do the nerds on that show. I love Sheldon. He is SO AWESOME!" Jenny cried, flapping her arms as if she thought they were wings. "If Jim Parsons weren't gay I would. . . Anyway, Sheldon has an eidetic memory, an IQ of 187, and two doctorates." Jenny said with an enormous grin. She obviously loved the show.
"An eidetic memory and an IQ of 187,"Hotch said, looking down at Reid fondly. "That sounds familiar."
Jenny looked at her watch, knowing she had stayed too long. "I should be going." She said as she headed out the door. It suddenly occurred to Hotch that she had never explained how he recognized her, only went into a rant explaining her favorite tv show.
He stood and called, "Hey, what's your name?"
Jenny appeared around the doorway a few moments later still out in the hall and said, with a mischievous grin on her face, "Jenny." Then she disappeared again.
Hotch sat down. His brain was still processing all the trivial information this girl had thrown at him to realize that Reid's would be killer was named Jenny. He sat for a few moments, sorting through the useless Big Bang Theory trivia and then it hit him. Cursing himself for his own stupidity, Hotch jumped up and opened the door that Jenny had closed on her way out and dashed into the hallway, scaring several passersby in the corridor. Hotch looked around. There were too many directions she could have gone.
Hotch was still cursing at himself and based on the freaked out looks of the nurses milling around the nurses' station, he was saying them out loud. "You fucking idiot." He mumbled quietly as he approached the nurses' station, remembering that Jenny had said she sometimes worked there. Maybe some of the nurses knew her.
Paisley looked up as the man walked over to her. She had heard rumors around the hospital about an FBI agent with eagle eyes watching his fellow agent vigilantly. This man certainly looked like an eagle. She tried to stare him down, but was a bit intimidated. "May I help you, sir?" She finally asked in a shaky voice.
"There was a girl in my colleague's room"- colleague. Definitely FBI. Having been raised in the sixties, Paisley was a little scared of 'the man'- "her name was Jenny. She had dark hair and dark eyes."
"Oh, yes, Jenny. I know her." Paisley was a little confused. Jenny had green eyes, not dark eyes. But then she remembered that Jenny wore contacts and sometimes liked to wear colored ones, even though they made her eyes twitch.
"I need any information you have on her." Hotchner said.
"Information? I'm sorry, sir, she's just a volunteer. We have done background checks on all our volunteers and she volunteers here a lot but we only have information files on our staff." Paisley said, getting worried. What had Jenny done to make the FBI need to know her personal information? She gulped as she saw the murderous glare the agent was giving her.
"You let a volunteer take care of an FBI agent?" His voice was a dangerously low whisper. Paisley wished he would yell. It wouldn't be so scary if he would just yell at her.
"Sh-she volunteers here all th-the time. I tr-trust her w-with all my patients. Sh-she's harmless." Paisley stuttered in fear.
Hotch decided to lay off the poor woman. It wasn't her fault. No, how could it be? After all, she'd only just let a civilian walk in, pick up some scrubs and try to murder an FBI agent. Hotch took in a few deep breaths and turned to head back to Reid's room, but suddenly spun around to face a shaking Paisley again and say, "What's her last name?"
Paisley frowned, trying to remember. She just couldn't believe that sweet, innocent little Jenny could hurt someone. I guess the murder of her aunt really set her off. "It starts with an 'S'. Something german ish. Ummm. . . 'Strauss'. That's it. Jenny Strauss."
Hotch gasped and backed up a bit.
"What? What is it?" Jenny asked.
"Strauss. That's the name of my late former boss." Hotch said softly. The memory of her dying in his arms was still too painful to think about.
"Jenny's aunt died. Her name wouldn't happen to have been Erin, would it?" Paisley asked nervously. She never knew Jenny was related to someone in the FBI.
Hotch mutely nodded and turned on his heel to head back to Reid's room. He walked in and shut the door and let his head rest against it. Erin Strauss had a niece. Erin Strauss had a psychopathic niece. Well at least now we know why Jenny was so bitchy Hotch thought. He tried to laugh weakly but instead let out a sob. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
"I don't want to die alone" Strauss's last word to him as he held her and told her she wouldn't be alone. She had sobbed into him and died.
Hotch opened his eyes, trying to get away from the painful memory. They were losing team members left and right. First Elle, then Gideon, then Seaver, then Prentiss, then Strauss. He couldn't take it anymore. At least he could protect his shattered team from any more danger.
Hotch sighed as he sat down, then noticed something was off. What had Jenny been doing before he had walked in? Something was out of place. Something in the way Reid was positioned wasn't right. It took Hotch a minute to figure it out. Reid's arms were under the blanket. They hadn't been like that when Hotch had left. Jenny had moved them. Why? Hotch had a sick feeling that he already knew as he pulled Reid's arms out from under the blanket and turned them over.
Sure enough, Reid's right arm revealed the memorable and familiar needle marks. Dilaudid.