"What can you tell us about Marissa's mother?" Hotch asked as Mycroft, Sherlock, and John sat in the board room.
"She's a gold digging tramp." Sherlock answered bluntly.
"Sherlock!" Both John and Mycroft shouted together, shocked by his statement.
"He's right though, Karen Layton." Mycroft continued calmly answering the question, Sherlock's comment forgotten. "The woman was a socialite quick to elevate her status but ultimately money was her motivation. You believe she was involved?" Mycroft asked.
"We believe she orchestrated the kidnapping, yes." Hotch nodded.
"She wasn't on the list of names you gave us." Reid stated having easily memorised the list of names he had given the team earlier.
"Human error, I did not think to include those with a personal motive against me." Mycroft answered carelessly.
"Understandable seeing how you don't have personal relationships with anyone." Sherlock mocked as he turned to face his brother, giving him a look that clearly said are-you-going-to-tell-them-or-not.
"Richard Mason also provided us with some additional information you should be aware of. Mr. Mason, Goran Petrović, Millard Sampson and Charles Trent were all employed by an unknown women, Karen I now assume." Mycroft informed them; not mentioning how he came to this information and Hotch didn't ask when he talked to him. "His accomplices took Marissa from the school while Mr. Mason was in charge of retrieving the laptop, he does not know where Marissa is currently being held."Mycroft explained what the man he had spoken with in the abandoned warehouse had told him during his interrogation.
"He didn't ask?" Morgan asked.
"So long as he was paid, he didn't care." Mycroft stated remaining calm despite being no closer to finding Marissa.
"Do you have that Garcia." Morgan asked into the speaker phone.
"Yes sir, I'm pulling them up now. No recent bank activity, but they have called each other regularly, I guess they didn't know that disposal phones are only helpful when you don't pay for them by credit cards." Garcia said with a victorious tone.
"Idiots." Mycroft muttered as he spun a small ballpoint pen on the desk, as the technical analysis continued to research.
"Okay their cells are turned off right now, but the second they turn on I'll nail them." Garcia said causing Mycroft's hopes to drop.
"Can you narrow it down to where the last calls were made?" Sherlock asked gritting his teeth slightly.
"Why yes my English friend, I can." Garcia answered, her bubbly tone almost caused the British government himself to smile. Before she explaining the last call was likely made just before the kidnapping, and was not the position where Marissa was being held. It did narrowing it down to a relatively small area on the map.
"Any buildings in the area that could be used to keep someone captive?" Rossi asked.
"They would need a lot of space and solitude, look for old buildings or sites closed off to the general public." Emily answered.
"Unfortunately, that is the entire area." Garcia sighed; most of the town was expanding and upgrading older buildings into new subsections.
"There has to be some way to narrow the area down." John said as Reid circled a large area on the map with red marker.
"If there is we haven't thought of it yet." Sherlock said mournfully.
"I want that area locked down, search every inch until she's found." Mycroft ordered as he glared daggers at the map on the board.
When it was clear intimidation wasn't going to work, they tried threats. They threatened her classmates, they threatened her, they threatened her family, and they threatened her father. To the last one Marissa couldn't help but laugh.
Then they moved on to violence, hitting her in the gut so forcefully it knocked the wind out of her. But still, she refused to cooperate.
After a short amount of time, they tied her to the chair and left her in the attic. She would sit there for hours, occasionally they would return and try to convince her to cooperate, but mostly she sat in silence.
Marissa could hear them arguing downstairs often, they must be waiting for their boss to return to see what they were going to do with her.
It wasn't until the sun had started to set, and the rays of sun peaked through the boarded windows casting long shadows across the floor, that she realised how late it had gotten. Subsequently, how hungry she had become.
Her uncle Sherlock could go days without eating, especially when he was working a case, it was a trait she did not share. Like her father Marissa had a sweet tooth and her bag was always stocked with chocolate bars, and while she was home there was always a bag of chips within reach. She could only go an hour without getting something to eat, a habit her father was trying to break her of.
Sighing Marissa tried to ignore her growling stomach and instead find a way to escape. Steal grey eyes searched the room, collecting data on everything around her. The two men had done one smart thing by leaving her alone in the room, under the impression that by not being in the same vicinity as he she couldn't use any mind games on them. Unfortunately for them, they underestimated her talents outside manipulating people.
...
For an hour she ran the ropes against the raised screw-head letting it slowly, very slowly, work away at the rope.
She knew her wrists would be red and badly chafed when her restraints finally broke, but she didn't know the extent of the damage until she was able to bring her hands in front of her again. The damage was focused mainly on the top of her wrist where she had pulled her hands as far apart as the ropes would allow, causing enough tension for the screw-head to chisel it away, but simultaneously causing friction against her skin.
Now she seen the thick red lines burned into her flesh, which would soon blister and scar, but it was a small price to pay to finally move freely.
It was the squeaky floorboard that signaled one of the men was coming again. But this time she was ready.
...
Opening the door the bald-headed man only had a fraction of a second to take notice of the empty chair where Marissa was supposed to be. Then he was suddenly hit from behind with a board torn from the window.
The man fell to the floor with a loud thud- disoriented, but not unconscious. That had been no coincidence; Marissa knew how much force she could exert and how much force it took to knock a man unconscious. The impact on the cerebellum made him temporally lose his motor movement but not enough to knock him out completely.
During his moment of disorientation Marissa easily pulled his gun free from his holster at his waist and pointed the barrel at him.
"I have a few questions, who are you people and who do you work for?" Marissa asked calmly, sweet voice contradicted by the weapon in her hand.
"You won't shoot me." The man said with a hand on the back of his head, his voice slightly slurred and confused.
Marissa smirked, a subtle tug on the corner of her mouth which caused her to look more menacing than most serial killers, and without a word pulled the trigger.
The sound of the gun muffled by the attached silencer, but Marissa still saw the flash, and felt the kickback. She had always enjoyed guns. The man in front of her didn't seem to appreciate the pleasure of having a gun go off, as he gripped his leg screaming loudly.
"A name, who do you work for?" She asked sternly.
"Bitch!" He shouted causing her to shoot him for the second time, in the shoulder.
"I really hate repeating myself and now I've gone and done it twice, do you want to try for a third time?" She said in a warning tone but before the man could answer her question Marissa could hear the loud thumping and annoying squeak as the second man ran up the stairs, no doubt having heard his partner's scream.
"Stay put, apply pressure to your shoulder and tie this around your leg above the bullet wound." Marissa ordered tossing him her school jacket before moving to the door once, gun dangling off one of her fingers.
...
The man had been running up the stairs, tall and bruiting, he took up the majority of the staircase, but he had been in such a rush he didn't pause to consider what was happening. Again, Marissa used the board as her weapon, catching him in the jaw as he burst into the room. He fumbled backwards and Marissa shoved him forcefully.
The building was hardly built to code, stairs far too close to the room's door, and with no further prompting from Marissa the man fell down the large staircase. Head over heels, he somersaulted backwards shouting and groaning, before lying motionless at the bottom.
Marissa stared at him for a second longer before discarding the splintered board for good and dusted off her hands. It was about time she went home.
The BAU team and Holme's brothers were working surprisingly well together. Together they had narrowed to the most likely site where Marissa could be being held. But before they had the chance to send out squad cars Garcia called in.
"Sir, one of the suspects phones just turned back on." She blurted out frantically.
"Track it." Hotch ordered not willing to lose the only lead they had left.
"He's making a call... to Mycroft?" Garcia said puzzled.
"Can you patch us into the call?" Hotch asked just as Mycroft's phone began to ring. Hotch held out his hand stopping the British ambassador from answering just yet, and he was pleasantly surprised when he did just that.
"Can I intercept a call, who do you think you're talking to." Garcia said proudly to herself as the sound of keys took over the conversation. Mycroft held the still ringing phone, every nerve in his body screaming to answer it, but he waited until the technical analysts did what she had to do. He would not risk losing the trace, or not permitting the agents to hear what the kidnappers had to say by being impatient.
"Alright It's ready, well hear everything you do. Just keep him talking." Garcia instructed seconds, which felt like years, later.
"Hello." Mycroft answered as he brought the phone to his ear. He was as always calm and collect, year of dealing with Sherlock's antics made him an expert at bottling down homicidal thought and displays of emotion.
"Daddy is that you?" Marissa's voice filled the phone and for a second Mycroft was frozen with the joy and realization that she was alive.
"Marissa?" Garcia blurted out before slapping her hand over her mouth, not having meant to say that out loud. She had been prepared to hear the voice of their kidnapper, not the victim.
"Who's this? Why do you have my father's phone." Marissa said with slight suspicion in her voice.
"Actually I intercepted the call. My names Penelope Garcia and I'm with the FBI can you tell me where you are." Garcia explained.
"We'll Mss Garcia with the FBI, I suggest you send two ambulances and your lest annoying police officers to my location. I assume your competent enough to track this phone." Marissa stated.
"Yes, just stay on the line. Are you hurt?"
"No I'm fine, my kidnappers on the other hand have had a bit of an accident. One with a GSW to the leg and shoulder, another with a few broken ribs, no doubt a fractured skull, and I suspect damage to his spine." She answered casually. Mycroft couldn't help but chuckle fondly to that, it was such a Sherlock thing to say (in fact he had stated a similar thing to Detective Lestrade once before). Perhaps Marissa spent too much time with her uncle if she was adopting his mannerism. A second Sherlock was certainly something he'd hoped to avoid.
The BAU team did not have the same reaction to the statement as Mycroft had, nor did they have Sherlock's proud smirk when he heard what she had said. Instead, a statement by one of Marissa's classmates came to mind. "God help whoever has her, the girl is a complete psychopath and if you don't find her you'll be finding her kidnappers dead in a ditch somewhere."
"What happened?"Garcia asked, again speaking out of turn but she was so flabbergasted by the teenage girl's nonchalant comment that she couldn't help herself.
"Poor bloke fell down the stairs." Marissa surmised.
"How many times did he fall down the stairs?" Sherlock asked seriously, but Marissa could hear the playful undertone.
"Just the once, uncle Sherlock. Is daddy there?" Marissa answered truthfully.
"I'm here." Mycroft responded having just realised he hadn't said a word to her yet. "Was there a woman with them?" He asked feeling the need to know she was indeed safe.
"Yes, I heard her talking downstairs, but I'm not sure where she's gone now?" Marissa answered she still hadn't built up the courage to leave the room. Having instead taken the fact that no one followed the second man up the stairs as conformation the woman had in fact left, and used his cell phone to call her father.
"Are you armed?" was Mycroft's next question. Not are you hurt, or where are you. He could tell by her tone, by her breathing, that she was injured slightly but nothing life threatening, and the call was being traced at the moment. The only concern at the forefront of Mycroft's mind was would she be able to continue defending herself if someone returned.
"I always am." Marissa smiled knowingly into the phone. A Holmes didn't need a gun or a splintered of wooden board to come out on top, their mind was always enough. That being said the gun in her hand didn't hurt either.
"The FBI have men on the way, I'll be there shortly." Mycroft explained already heading out the door, knowing her whereabouts were about to be texted to him.
"No rush, I'm having a grand whole time." Marissa said plainly, whither it was sarcasm or she genuinely enjoyed the thrill of maiming her kidnappers was left up in the air.