Next chapter, this time with an actual plot. I know that some parts are a little far-fetched, but I tried to be at least interesting. How does the team and Maeve deal with a situation when it's Reid in danger?
Thanks for the reviews, you are all very sweet to me. Special thanks to those constructive reviews that pointed out more specific things, good or bad. You know who I am talking about.
I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin'.
I see bad times today.
(John Fogerty, Bad Moon Rising)
Three months later
"Hey, Hotch, can you please tell Spencer to go home? My parents are coming in an hour and I am way behind with the cooking..."
"Wait, Maeve, slow down, Reid isn't home yet?" Hotch frowned.
The rest of the team looked up. They were all held up by paperwork, but Spencer left early to help Maeve prepare for her parents' visit.
"He is not at work?" Maeve sounded alarmed.
"No, he left two hours ago..."
"I thought he was with you. I couldn't reach his cellphone, I assumed that the battery died again... Oh my..."
"Okay, Maeve, calm down, maybe it's just something stupid. I'll have Garcia check the traffic, if there have been any accidents..."
"Sir," Garcia interrupted him in a small voice, "that will not be necessary. I checked the security cameras. Reid's car is still in the parking lot."
There was a long silence.
"I'm on my way to you," said Maeve. Her voice sounded strangely hard and calm. She hung up before Hotch had a chance to protest.
"Any news?" Maeve stormed into a conference room, looking like a goddess of war, if that's possible with a backpack over her shoulder and baby in her arms.
"We checked the footage from the security camera," said Blake. "Show her."
The blurry video showed Spencer walking to his car, stopping and looking towards an SUV parked a few spots away. He went to look behind the SUV and never came out. They couldn't see what happened next because the car blocked the view, but when it drove off moments later, the parking lot was empty.
"We checked the records a bit further back to see who came in the car, but the unsub was wearing a hat the whole time. The rest of the face was obscured by a beard. License plate is stolen, he had a fake badge that got him in the parking lot. He exited the car the moment he saw Reid coming out of the door, but he stayed in the blind spot behind the SUV. We think that he might have called for help or something like that to make Reid come so close," Morgan explained.
Hotch nodded. "This wasn't a chance abduction. The unsub knew where the cameras are, he was careful not to show us face, he had the stolen license plate and the fake badge. He was perfectly prepared."
"Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary lately?" Rossi turned to Maeve. "The same car repeatedly parked in your street, a stranger hanging out on the sidewalk...?"
"No," Maeve shook her head.
"Maeve, can you give us a second, please?" said Blake and gently lead her out of the room before Maeve had the chance to protest. Once the door closed, Blake turned to others. "Don't you think Reid would have noticed a stalker?"
"You know how absent-minded he can be. This unsub is clever, maybe clever enough to pass unnoticed," said Hotch.
"Maybe by Reid," said Rossi slowly. "Not by her," he nodded towards a glass door. Maeve was standing just behind it, her back to them, watching the office. "She has successfully avoided a stalker for months. She would have noticed something was off."
"So what?" asked Morgan. "The unsub didn't stalk Reid? How is that even possible?"
They all looked at the painfully empty board.
"It is not," Blake shook her head. "It is not possible to pull this off without knowing Reid's habits at least a little. The unsub had to know Reid's car, that he's here today..."
"That's what bugs me," Morgan interrupted her. "Why take him from Quantico of all places? Why not wait until he gets home? Why risk taking him here?"
"Because here is where the person stalked him," said Hotch slowly. "Rossi was right, Maeve would have noticed. The unsub learned only Reid's work routine, not how his home works."
"Great, so they thought that Maeve is a bigger risk that the FBI," Morgan muttered.
"They turned out to be right, didn't they?" JJ replied darkly.
"Maybe they did it to taunt us," Blake suggested. "To show us that we can't protect one of our own in our home territory."
"Which brings us to the motive," sighed Rossi.
"Considering the abduction site and victimology, I would say revenge," said Hotch. "Garcia, give us a list of all the unsubs we have apprehended since Reid joined the team. Locate all family members, lovers and close friends and find out if any of them are in the area."
"That's a lot of ground to cover, sir," Garcia looked around helplessly.
"Start with those Reid had some special connection with – where he was crucial in solving the case, where he had unusual contact with the unsub or that particular family member, where he made the arrest personally," Hotch suggested.
Meanwhile Rossi opened the door and invited Maeve back in. Her eyes flickered from one face to another with a questioning look.
"We don't know much, but the working theory is that it's some form of revenge," said JJ.
"And as he wasn't killed on the spot, the revenge is probably going to include torture, right?" Maeve added. She tried to sound calm, but her insides were twisting just at the thought of it and her mind flashed back to what Spencer told her about his encounter with Tobias Hankel.
Nobody from the team wanted to answer. Maeve looked down at Joanna who was squirming in her arms. "Let me work this one with you," she said finally.
"What?" exclaimed JJ, Rossi and Morgan at the same time.
"Please," a tear ran down Maeve's cheek. "Let me help you find him..."
Please, help me find her... The whole team felt like they were transported a year and a half ago and looking at a desperate Reid who begged them to save a woman he had never seen.
Finally Hotch cracked. "It's probably safer to keep you close. You stay here, understood? If we're in the field, we'll keep you posted. And now, think hard, have you noticed anything out of the ordinary lately?"
"No... wait, I've almost forgotten. It was, I don't know, four weeks ago? Spencer was outside, it was Sunday morning, and this man came up to him. They talked, Spencer said that it was some kind of missionary? When I came out with Jo, he walked away, pretty much in the middle of a sentence. I remembered I thought it's strange that he isn't in church on Sunday, but Spencer gave me the whole lecture on churches who had their services on Saturday," said Maeve.
"What did he look like?"
"He was small, he came up to Spencer's shoulder, big beard, a hat... that's about it. I didn't get a good look at him, he was gone too fast."
"He didn't want you to see him," Blake nodded. "And with the hat and the beard, that must be him."
"Okay," Hotch said. "We have nothing better to do, we can as well help with the research. Everybody grab a file and start digging."
"This is the worst," Morgan slammed his file on the table. "Normally we would be in the field, interviewing the families, searching the crime scenes, something! We have absolutely nothing to go on."
JJ looked to where Maeve was feeding Joanna. "Imagine how she must feel. Just when she thought it was all over."
Morgan shook his head and seemed to sink lower in his chair.
"Morgan?" JJ spoke so quietly he barely heard her. "If this is revenge... What if all this work is for nothing? What if he's already...?"
"Don't think about this. What if he's still alive? He needs us and we're not going to let him down."
JJ looked at Maeve again and she remember how she felt when Will was abducted. She was far from calm and methodical, which now described Maeve the best. Spencer's girlfriend asked her parents to bring her a cot for Joanna, some spare clothes, a new supply of diapers, simply everything a mother and a child needed for an extended sleepover at the FBI headquarters. She also went through Spencer's emails, looking for anything useful, and sat with a sketch artist to make a good picture of the unsub.
They have seen an endless number of distraught relatives, crying, accusing the investigators, shouting, silently staring ahead... Very few of them reacted by focusing on a problem and analyzing it.
"It gives her something to do and some semblance of control over the situation," said Blake like she could read JJ's mind.
"But how does she do it? How does she not feel it?"
"She will. Give it time and she will," said Blake and suddenly she sounded very sad and tired.
Spencer felt slightly nauseated and had a nasty headache. He was kept in a dark room and as far as he could tell, he had one wrist handcuffed to the bed frame. Otherwise he was thirsty and confused, but unharmed.
Of course he remembered a faint call for help from behind an SUV, he recalled going to look, seeing a figure slumped on the ground... and that was it.
I was kidnapped. Okay. How do I get out of this?
He tested the handcuffs, but they seemed to hold. Before he could go on any further, a voice spoke right next to him.
"Keep calm, Dr. Reid, listen to what I tell you and this doesn't have to get violent." It sounded artificial, there was probably some kind of transmitter he couldn't see. "If everything goes according to the plan, you'll see your family soon."
Maeve must be devastated right now. I missed the dinner with her parents...
"What do you want?" he asked, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible.
"I want her back. They took her from me and that should never happen. Now, I am coming to your room and I want you to be perfectly still. Try to fight and I will hurt your wife and child."
Spencer froze, but only for a second. Then he took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. "Okay, okay, no fighting. Your rules. Nobody needs to get hurt."
Someone came in the room and turned the light on. Spencer closed his eyes, blinded by the sudden brightness. That meant that he only heard the person come closer and felt a phone being pressed into his free hand.
"And now we're going to make a call."