Chapter 8
AN: So I hope you're enjoying the story. I would love to know what you think… If you like where this is going, don't like where it's going. Your opinions have a pretty good influence on how the rest of the story plays out :)
After sending law enforcement out with their profile, the team reconvened in the conference room to discuss what they could be doing. They had about eight days before they wound up with another dead woman on their hands. While they had a profile, they had zero leads so far.
"The only hope we have of finding a connection is finding out exactly where he met these women," Reid said. "We profiled that he's competent enough to hold down a job, which means that's most likely where he met them. It's not going to be as easy as some high-class establishment – it's going to be a place probably with a lot of workers or somewhere easy to blend into the background… Somewhere that workers aren't really noticed. We'll have to rule out places like the grocery store first. All these women lived not too far from each other and all probably frequented the same food stores."
"That's good. Why don't we check in with Garcia and see if she's found anything yet" Hotch said. "Grocery stores and retail stores are made up of menial jobs. It's probable that he works in one of those places." Hotch began dialing Garcia.
"Cyber Genius at your service. How may I serve you today?" Garcia answered, her hands already hovering over her keyboard.
"Garcia I know you've pulled up all of these women's spending records. Tell me where they frequented… Grocery stores, retail stores, coffee shops – anything you can find. We need to know if they overlap somewhere."
"It's a lot of information to sort through, I've been working on it and have so far come up short," Garcia said.
"I know. And Garcia, I also want the GPS trackers on all five of the women's cars and phones. They should all intersect at some point," Hotch said, secretly praying that they did but knowing that there was the potential that they would be back to square one once again if Garcia couldn't find a common location among all the women.
"Already on it, Boss Man. I'll call you as soon as I get something. Over and out", and with the click of the phone, Garcia was on a cyber mission. Hotch sighed, and looked at the board. They were out of options. The man who had abducted all of these women had to live or work somewhere where all of these women had been. The GPS trackers were the team's only hope of finding the man and Reid's only hope of potentially finding his sister alive.
The team had been sitting in the conference room for hours, sorting through all the information that Garcia had sent them. So far, there was no obvious overlap between all of them, which was excruciatingly frustrating.
All the women had some kind of connection with another, a common store frequented by two or three of the women, but not all of them.
"Unfortunately, this is all that we have, so why don't we run with it and see where it takes us," Hotch broke the silence. Hotch stood in front of the corkboard that had all five women's pictures up at the top. "Rachael Williams, Anna Wollack, Marisa Clearwaters, Jennifer Mayson, and Olivia Haywood. Anna and Olivia frequented the Hampton Bookstore on Vinton Street. Jennifer and Anna also used the same dry cleaning service. Granted, the GPS only showed Anna going there once, but it only takes one time for the Unsub to want her as his next victim."
"And we still have nothing on Rachael and Marisa? Do you think that's a coincidence?" JJ asked.
"This Unsub plans, he's competent. While he's attracted to women of similar physical appearance, I think he smart enough to only go after those with no personal connection to him and he'll stalk them, learn their habits. He'd know that women with similar routines as other victims would be too obvious of a pattern for us to figure him out. Nothing too risky for him. JJ and I will head to the dry-cleaning service. Rossi – I want you to go back and interview the significant others of these women again – maybe we missed something obvious. Morgan and Reid, you two go to the bookstore and check things out. This is all we have to go on"
With that, they all headed their separate ways. Reid didn't talk the entire car ride to the bookstore, between his racing thoughts and his pounding migraine, and Morgan didn't push him either. They opened the door to the bookstore and we surprised by how small it was.
Reid looked around, and found himself smiling. This bookstore was small, but perfect. The walls were lined with books with a nice sitting area to read. Comfortable. This had Liv written all over it.
There was no way the Unsub found all five women in this place.
"Is there anything I can help you with, gentlemen?" a voice broke through the silence of the quaint little store.
"Hey," Morgan said, turning around to see one of the workers approaching the two of them. "I'm SSA Derek Morgan and this is Doctor Spencer Reid – we're with the FBI."
"The FBI? Seriously?"
"Seriously," Morgan's tone lightened, sizing up the individual standing in front of him. It didn't seem like fear in this guy's eyes, but more like complete fascination. When it came to questioning people, Morgan found it was usually one or the other, regardless of whether or not someone had something to hide.
The man stood about as tall as Morgan, aged mid to upper twenties, blonde haired, blue-eyed.
"Um, my name is Christopher. What can I do for you?" He reached out and shook Morgan's hand and politely nodded in Reid's direction once Reid quietly denied him the handshake.
"How well do you know the customers that come into the store?" Morgan asked.
"Depends. I know a lot of the regulars. Every so often, a new person will pop in here now and again."
"Do you recognize this woman?" Morgan asked, handing him a picture of Olivia.
After staring at the picture for a good few seconds, Christopher looked up, "yeah she's one of the regulars. She keeps to herself when she comes in but she's friendly. Reads a lot," he laughed.
"Did you ever talk with her?" Reid questioned. He was looking at Christopher, but suddenly his vision began to go hazy. Reid looked down, and tried to rub the blurriness out of his eyes. In a few seconds, his vision cleared, and it seemed to go unnoticed by the present company.
"Like I said, she keeps to herself. She doesn't really talk to anyone. I may have exchanged a word here and there when she comes up to check out, but that's it… Wait, why do you ask? Did something happen to her?" Christopher suddenly looked uncertain.
"She's missing," was all Morgan said.
"Missing? Oh jeez. That's awful, I hope she's okay. If you don't mind my asking, but what does this bookstore have to do with her being missing?"
"We're just trying to cover all of the bases. Hit all the places she frequented, and see if anybody has noticed anything out of the ordinary. Did you ever see a guy come in here, maybe someone who was a little unsettling? Paid a little too much attention to the females in this place?" Morgan asked. He didn't want to make it seem like he and Reid were checking Christopher out as a potential suspect, so he kept the conversation focused on other aspects. In the back of his mind, Morgan noted the innocent fascination Christopher seemed to possess, and would cross him off the list of potential suspects in a few minutes' time.
Christopher stopped and thought, slowly shaking his head. "Not too many men come around these parts – most of our customers are female. Not really sure why, but that's just how it is."
"Christopher, do you recognize this woman?" Morgan asked, handing him the picture of Anna.
He studied the photograph, and shook his head no. "I don't know her. Why? Is she missing too?"
"She's dead," Reid said bluntly. "Anything you might remember could help us."
"You think it's the same guy? Is that woman you showed me before going to be the next victim?"
"If you could stop asking questions and continue answering ours, that would be great," Reid snapped.
"Reid," Morgan said sharply, looking in Reid's direction.
"Sorry, I just – Excuse me," Reid said, giving himself distance from the conversation and walking down one of the aisles instead.
"Is he alright?" Christopher asked.
"Olivia, the one you recognized – she's his sister," Morgan said quietly.
Surprise flickered in Christopher's eyes. He blinked it away and looked at Reid, who was scanning titles further down, "Dude seriously? Oh man, I'm so sorry-"
"Hey don't sweat it, it's not like you knew," Morgan said.
He and Morgan continued to talk, but to no avail. Christopher couldn't come up with anything useful, and neither had his coworkers or boss. JJ had called them and let them know that she and Hotch had also come up empty handed at the dry cleaners. They left more frustrated than they were before, despite knowing the bookstore was a long shot to begin with.
The team had come back to Quantico, back to the round-table room. Reid couldn't bear to sit there any longer – it was suffocating him. His team had once again grabbed food and were sitting around the table, brainstorming. Reid tried to hide the fact that he couldn't even manage to choke down a bite of the food in front of him. He was pretty sure he would throw up right then and there if he ate anything.
His headache had become a full-blown migraine and if Reid didn't know any better, he would think he was actually dying. He quietly excused himself from the room, mumbling something about having to go to the bathroom.
Morgan peeked out of the conference room window just to make sure that was actually where Reid was headed. Morgan had already secretly gone through all of Reid's stuff the night before to make sure that he had no more drugs hidden somewhere. He hated thinking of Reid as an addict, hated not being able to trust him to even make a trip to the bathroom alone. Addicts were manipulative and sneaky and liars, and as much as Morgan didn't see Reid as such, he knew that he would be stupid if he didn't take the proper precautions to protect Reid from himself. Because as much as he didn't want to admit it, Reid had the habit of lying and manipulating and being sneaky when it came to Dilaudid.
But that's what happens when you're an addict.
Morgan sighed and pulled himself back to reality, not wanting to think of his best friend anymore as an addict. However, as minutes continued to pass, he began to worry about Reid. Looking up from his files, he saw Hotch already looking at him. Morgan got up from the table and headed toward the bathroom.
When he opened the bathroom door, he heard the sink running. He turned the corner to see Reid leaning over the sink, washing his face and rinsing out his mouth. He steadied himself against the sink, staring off. Morgan took a second to really let Reid's appearance sink in – the watery eyes no doubt caused by a recent bout of sickness, the ragged, uneven breathing, his hands shaking against the sink.
"Reid, man, come on," Morgan said, motioning for Reid to follow him. When Reid didn't follow, Morgan turned around and took a harder look at him. For the past few seconds, Reid had been staring at the same spot on the counter, unblinking, eyes glazed over.
What Morgan didn't know was that Reid never even heard what he had said. He had heard the door open when his vision violently blurred. He held onto the edges of the sink to steady himself, hoping it would pass – it kept happening to him. The lightheadedness, the dizziness, the blurred vision…
"Reid," Morgan said, putting his hand on Reid's shoulder. Reid blinked hard, trying to shake the blurriness out of his eyes. He tried to apologize but the words wouldn't come out of his mouth.
Morgan could see that Reid wasn't all there, and he wasn't quite sure what to do.
Reid was finally able to whisper something that Morgan couldn't quite hear.
"What did you say?" Morgan asked, face to face with Reid, still holding onto Reid's shoulder as if to keep him steady.
"I just need a minute," he whispered, his voice hoarse.
"Reid, you had like ten minutes. I half-expected to find you in here passed out… Which looks like it still might happen," Morgan said uncertainly.
"Is everything okay?" Both Reid and Morgan looked up to find John standing in front of them. Reid was just beginning to come back to his senses, his vision clearing.
"John, what are you doing here?" Morgan asked.
"I just came by to see if there were any leads… If there was anything I could help with," John said, dejectedly. Morgan's heart sunk – he was so worried about Reid that he didn't even really stop to consider how difficult this was for John. While Morgan was getting to know Olivia, he had also gotten to John extremely well. Morgan really respected him, respected how, like Morgan, John had grown to see Reid as a little brother. He was a good man, in Morgan's eyes.
"No, John. There's nothing new, nothing to help with. I'll call you if there's anything," Reid said quietly, slowly.
"Actually, Hotch will call you if there's anything new. I'm gonna take Reid home for the night," Morgan said.
"Morgan, what?" Reid said, snapping out of his previous daze. He was not going home.
"What's wrong?" John asked, looking between the two men for answers.
"Reid's not feeling too well," Morgan said, making eye contact with John. John nodded, knowing very well what the situation was with his brother-in-law.
"Morgan, I'm not leaving," Reid protested.
"It wasn't a suggestion, Reid," Morgan said. "Either you go home, and you rest, or I'll get Hotch to take you off the case."
Reid shot him a look that screamed betrayal. He couldn't believe Morgan was threatening him with that – he had to be on the case. One look again at Morgan told Reid that it was an empty threat. Morgan wouldn't dare get him taken off the case.
"Come on, Spence. You heard Morgan – just for the night. Better yet, why don't I just take you? That way Morgan can keep working and I'll keep an eye on you," John offered.
"I don't need a babysitter," Reid snapped. "If you're so afraid of what I might do, then I'll just come out and say it," Reid continued looking at Morgan, "you took the last of it. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. I don't need someone to watch over me every damn second of the day."
"Reid, it's not that we're afraid of what you might do. You're sick, and we just want to help you out," Morgan started.
"No, I don't want your help. And I don't want John's help. I don't need it," Reid said, pushing past the two men and heading back toward the round table room.