Chapter 12
Haley Brooks-Hotchner
The door opened.
"We need to talk, Haley." He took a step towards her.
She turned her back on him and left him to follow her into the room.
Aaron closed the door behind him. Haley leaned on the table and stared at Aaron.
"Talk then."
"I just want to hear you say it wasn't you."
Haley almost felt something. This was the man she had married, the father of her son.
But only almost.
"Just say it, Haley. Say you had nothing to do with it. Please."
She wandered over to the bedside table and opened the drawer. There was a small gun in the draw which she removed.
Briefly her mind flashed back to the day that Aaron had bought her the gun.
"For your protection." he had said.
Well, now she was using it for protection.
"You won't hear me say that, Aaron, because it was me."
She turned and pointed the gun at Aaron. "Sit on the bed, Aaron. And move slowly."
Right up until this moment, Aaron had denied the evidence that Haley was trying to kill him. The shock that registered on his face made Haley smile.
"Why, Haley. Why?" Aaron sat down. He felt suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion.
"You disgust me. Setting up with that freak child, how could I ever let my son be exposed to that kind of influence?"
"But Haley, it's not like that. We don't….."
"Why didn't you just die? It would have been that simple. I would have the money for Jack and me, you would be gone. But damn you, you wouldn't die!"
Aaron reached out his hands to her.
Haley raised the gun. "Don't try and touch me. Not ever."
Aaron lowered his arms. He pushed a shaking hand through his hair. Tears welled up in his eyes.
"Do you realise what you have done, Haley? We have arrested Bannon. He has told us everything."
"Everything Aaron? I doubt it."
She crossed the room and leaned casually against the wall. "Even now, Wood is killing that pervert kid of yours. By the time they find out what he's done, it will be too late."
Aaron went to get up. Haley waved the gun at him.
"Don't you move."
"Please, Haley. Let me call the hospital. Let me save him. Then you can kill me." Aaron's tears were falling freely now. "Please, let me save him first."
Aaron stood up and took a step towards her. The sound of the gunshot shook the room. Aaron felt the bullet tear into his chest. He looked down at the red stain growing on his shirt.
"Haley…" he whispered huskily. He felt his knees bend, and he reached out to stop himself from falling. "Haley, don't……"
The second shot hit him in the neck. He felt it cut through in slow motion, and rip out of the back. His hand went up to feel the blood running, as the room around him darkened, and his eyes flickered, he crashed forward to the floor.
Haley threw the gun onto her bed, and filled the kettle.
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The nurse ran into Spencer's room. As soon as she saw him, she pressed the emergency button.
As the alarm sounded, she went to his bedside.
He had been hit in the face; a growing bruise was appearing on his cheek. The tube had been pulled out of his throat. He was breathing on his own, but his breaths were shallow and weak and his heart beat was rapid.
She examined the antibiotic drip, and checked the line.
Suddenly, Spencer's back arched and he started to seize. She turned to him to hold him on the bed, when she saw something on the floor.
A tiny 2ml syringe.
She looked up at the antibiotic drip.
Oh no!
Quickly, she pulled the needle from the back of Spencer's wrist,. His body was twisting on the bed, his eyes wide with shock and pain. She held him down as his body convulsed.
The door opened, and the doctor rushed in.
"What happened?" he asked, taking over from the nurse.
She picked up the syringe and showed him.
"I think something was injected into the drip. A man came in claiming to be Dr. Reid's brother." She put her hand on Spencer's forehead as the convulsion eased off. "I pulled the drip out, but I think some of whatever was injected may have reached him."
"Call the FBI, nurse. And leave that syringe. The police will need it."
Spencer was lying quietly now. The Doctor checked his obs. Heart rate too slow, breathing shallow. Too shallow.
He pulled a trolley closer, and intubated Spencer again, re-attaching the ventilator.
He suspected that the syringe would contain snake venom.
Very clever. It would never have been suspected, Dr Reid would have died, and he would have put 'snake bite' on the death certificate.
He looked at the new bruise on his cheek. There didn't seem to be much serious damage. He would order an x-ray, to be certain.
The nurse came back into Spencer's room carrying clean bed linen.
"The FBI are in their way." She picked up the table Spencer had knocked over and the things that had been on the table. "I have notified security, but I think whoever it was would have gone by now."
She gently touched Spencer's arm. "I'll change your bed in a moment, Dr Reid, and clean you up." She wiped the sweat from Spencer's face.
"Could you ask security to get the CCTV tapes together for when the Fed's get here?"
She nodded and glancing back at the still form on the bed, went out again to call security.
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Morgan ran into the hotel reception, his ID ready.
"Which room is Haley Brooks-Hotchner in?" ha yelled at the receptionist.
Startled, she said "312. There is already one of you people up there!"
Morgan took the stairs. He didn't want to wait for the lift. Ignoring the pain in his foot, he took the stairs in twos, knocking anyone out of his path on the way.
He kicked open the door of 312, and stopped short, unable to believe what he was seeing.
Aaron was on the floor by the bed. He had a wound in the chest, but worse, he was bleeding from a ragged hole at the side of his neck.
Haley was sitting be the table. The gun was on the bed where she had dropped it. She was staring glassy-eyed at the wall.
Morgan wrapped the gun up with the sheet and held onto it. Haley didn't react.
He knelt beside Hotch. He noticed with relief that there was no arterial spray.
Hotch was alive, but unconscious.
He called the medics, and turned to Haley. He stood her up, and cuffed her. He turned her to face him.
"What the hell have you done, Haley?"
She focused her eyes on him.
"I have protected my child."