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Nobody can be forced to commit an act of villany. You can't push anybody into the mud; people always step into it themselves. No matter what the circumstances of life are, there are no justifications and there never will be any. (Sergei Lukyanenko, The Night Watch)
"Okay, people," Garcia walked in the room, yawning widely, with a laptop under her arm. "I looked for Anna everywhere and found nothing. I don't know how it's possible, sorry."
"Maybe it's a middle name. Or a nickname," Blake suggested. "Try Anabel, Annalise, those kind of names."
Garcia shook her head ruefully. "Been there, done that. Nothing."
"Might be untraceable," said Morgan. "One of my friends was named Eric James, but his parents called him Bobby."
"What happens if we don't find her?" asked Maeve.
"The unsub said she'll call today. We can ask her for more leads," said Rossi and tried to sound comforting. "She wants to find Anna as much as we do, I'm sure she'll cooperate."
"What if she hurts Spencer?"
Hotch laid hands on her shoulders and made her look in his eyes. "I know this sounds harsh, but Reid can take it. He had been through a lot and he had always come out victorious. She will not kill him and anything else he can handle. Our best shot is to find Anna."
"What's your name?" Spencer asked.
The woman paused. This morning she showed him her face and he was surprised how young she was, not more than twenty-five. She was pretty, blond, blue-eyed, and he was positive that he hadn't seen her in his life.
"You can call me Lisa," she said finally.
"Why did they take Anna away, Lisa?" he pressed.
"God is testing me," she whispered. "He wants to see if I'm worthy to raise his child, and I am. I will get her back."
"I'm sure you will," Spencer assured her, while his brain was on fire again.
He had a feeling that his child didn't refer to God's children as much as it referred to the child's biological father. He must have been some man to make such a deep mark on this girl. There were strong religious undertones present, Lisa was talking about the man like he was some kind of saint. Spencer had a few candidates in his mind, but only one was really a possibility.
He was at least ninety-five percent sure that he knew the identity of Anna's father.
Garcia felt terrible. She was combing their suspect list back and forth, she even pulled up a list of all girls named Anna put into custody in the last year, but came up blank.
"Hey, Baby Girl."
She jumped a little but didn't need to turn to see Morgan. "Hey."
"What, no "hot stuff" or "gorgeous"? I am deeply offended," he clutched his chest theatrically.
"I'm not in mood," Garcia muttered and sipped her coffee. "I mean, custody and adoption is one huge bureaucracy. How can a kid disappear without a trace? There is always paper trail."
Morgan looked at the screens suspiciously. "Maybe we were wrong. We thought that the custody was the stressor, but what if it was something else?"
"Well, even I need something better than this. I can't make a miracle from nothing," said Garcia, but without her usual energy. She felt drained the way she had never felt before.
"No, let me finish. We were looking at kids adopted in the last year. But sometimes, when the parent doesn't have the means to take care of the child, they put the kid into custody, but they still let the parent see them from time to time. What if this woman could at least visit Anna, but was lately denied access?"
Garcia stared at him. "Gorgeous and smart, I want ten of those," she sighed and the spark of her old self appeared in her wink. "How far back?"
"Try ten years, let's see what we get."
"We got a major break! Or we think we have. Maybe. We can't connect it to the case, but it's much more than we had in the morning," Garcia marched into the conference room with her laptop.
She waved the remote control and a young woman's portrait popped up.
"Elizabeth Patson, twenty-five years old. Parents divorced, father died of stroke three years ago. Ran away from home when she was fifteen and since then there are absolutely no records of her for four years, until late 2008. She appeared at her mother's doorstep with a baby in her arms. There is no record of the child's birth, no father, like the child began to exist when it was one year old. It is a daughter, Mabel Anna, and she is currently six.
Elizabeth refused to get a job and apparently could neglect the kid for days, so they gave Mabel Anna to the custody of her grandmother and her new husband. Elizabeth lived with them for a couple of years, but a year ago she moved in with a new boyfriend, Colton Berenski. He is a weird one, did a lot of things, including being a private detective, street magician, and scuba-diving instructor. Now he's part-time make-up artist and part-time cult leader. The sect doesn't seem to dangerous, they call themselves the Children of Eden, but they are closer to Jehovah's Witnesses than to David Koresh, the members are all relatively normal people, there were no complaints about them, no criminal records. Elizabeth's stepfather still didn't like it much, so eight months ago he got a restraining order and bam! Elizabeth can't go within a hundred yards from her daughter."
"What makes you think this is our unsub?" asked Hotch.
"It's the only Anna we could find that fits the profile. The stressor wasn't the custody, it was the restraining order," answered Morgan.
Maeve looked at the portrait and caught herself thinking what would she do if someone would tell her she can't see Joanna again. She too would have stopped at nothing to get the right to her daughter back.
"So there is nothing to tie her to Reid?" Rossi raised one eyebrow.
"Not yet, but there are four years in which she could have been doing anything. If we could only find what," Garcia sighed.
"It means one good thing," Blake said. "We can put away all the case files since 2009. During that time she was already accounted for."
"It's something," Hotch agreed. "You two," he told Garcia and Morgan, "good work. Where does Elizabeth's family live?"
"Oh, I'm glad you ask," Garcia beamed. "Fredericksburg. Forty minutes from here."
"Good. Dave, Morgan, you take the boyfriend, Blake, JJ, you're talk to the mother. I stay here with Maeve in case she calls," Hotch commanded.
JJ followed Blake to the front door of a suburban house, thinking that this is a nice place for a kid to grow up. The woman in her late forties, or perhaps early fifties, who opened the door was warm and welcoming, and her husband, even though he was a dominant personality, seemed like a decent person.
"We haven't heard from Elizabeth in months," Mrs. Grayson, Elizabeth's mother, admitted. "After the restraining order she was furious, she threatened us, she came to William's work, she sent us angry letters, called us every day, but after a month or two she gave up."
"And you haven't reported any of this?" Blake raised her eyebrows.
"Elizabeth has always been difficult," said Mrs. Grayson sadly. "It's her father's blood. William wanted to go to the police, but I asked him to wait a little longer. I hoped she would give up and she did."
Only to find another way to get Anna back, JJ thought, but she asked a different thing: "Why did you ask for the restraining order?"
"It was the damn man she started seeing," Mr. Grayson muttered. "He filled her head with nonsense, she wanted Mabel back, and there was no way we would allow that. She wasn't fit to take care of the kid. She used to forget to change her diapers for days, she forgot to feed her, she used to just walk out of the door and not return for days...
We stepped in and adopted Mabel. We let Elizabeth live here with us, because we didn't want the kid to be completely without her mom. A year ago she moved out and the first three months we haven't seen her at all. Later she came back, talking about how Mabel is supposed to be with her mother and this isn't right. Of course we told her no, and when she said she would take Mabel by force, I filed for the restraining order."
"Has Elizabeth ever talked about what happened during the time she was missing?" said Blake.
"Not a word," Mrs. Grayson shook her head. "Not even the name of Mabel's father. When I asked, she only told me that he was the best man she ever met."
Such a great man... surely Elizabeth would want her Anna to know about him, JJ thought.
"Is Mabel home?" she asked. "I want to talk to her."
Mrs. Grayson showed her to the room of a little girl. It was quite neat and tidy for a six-year-old girl and JJ thought that maybe the Graysons were trying extra hard to ensure that Mabel won't end up like her mother. Mabel herself was a pretty brown haired girl with her mother's blue eyes and she was watching JJ with cautious expression.
"Mabel, this is agent Jareau, she wants to have a chat with you," said Mrs. Grayson. "I'll leave you alone," she told JJ.
Once the door closed, JJ smiled. "Hi, I'm Jennifer. Mabel, do you know where is your mom?"
"She is with a bad man," said Mabel.
"How do you know this?" JJ was surprised.
"Grandpa said so. He said that because of the bad man she can't see me."
Mabel didn't seem very sorry that her mom's absent. Perhaps she was happier this way, when her grandparents took care of her. She was sure that Elizabeth wanted her little girl back, that she might even love her, but whatever sickness plagued her mind didn't allow her to stay focused on the care Mabel needed. With a feeling of horror JJ realized that to save Spence they would have to give this girl to the woman who could forget to feed her for days.
"When have you last seen your mom?" she asked, trying not to think too far ahead.
"She gave me a birthday present," said Mabel, touching the silver cross on her neck. JJ remembered that Mabel's birthday was in a month, so she hadn't seen Elizabeth for almost a year. Whatever battle was raging between Elizabeth and the Graysons, Mabel had been left out of it.
"Has she ever talked about your dad?" JJ got to the point. It was a stab in the dark and she didn't really expect an useful answer, so she was surprised when Mabel nodded.
"She said that dad is in Heaven with angels."
So we are looking for a case with a dead male. That won't narrow it down much, but we might be able to cut a few files out.
JJ looked at the doll Mabel was playing with. It was dressed in a pink gown and had a crown on her head. "Is that a princess? My mom used to call me Princess when I was your age. What did your mom call you?"
Mabel just shrugged like her mother was not important. "She called me Anna."
The Children of Eden had a small house at the edge of Fredericksburg and apparently tried to recreate the Garden there. The building was barely visible through the bushes and trees and walking to the front door reminded Morgan of jungle.
Colton Berenski was waiting for them in the living room. There was no couch, actually no furniture at all, just thick green carpet, so they sat on the floor, opposite to Colton. The man was dressed in flowing white robes and he was wearing the most sanctimonious expression Morgan has even seen.
"Welcome," he said. "I understand that you come to talk about Elizabeth."
"Yes, we do," said Rossi cheerfully. "Where is she?"
"On a crusade."
"What crusade?" Morgan sounded more hostile than he intended, but he could never stand religious fanatics.
"Her daughter is kept from her. It is against the natural order of things and Elizabeth is trying to right that wrong," Colton answered with a smile.
"This particular mother neglected her child," Rossi pointed out.
"Doesn't matter. Mother and child. Nothing should separate them," Colton said. "I don't know what she's doing, but whatever it might be, she has my full support."
"Do you know more about this crusade?" Rossi pressed further.
"She said she needed to talk to somebody who didn't want to talk to her, so I gave her a few tips on the disguises."
Morgan remembered Garcia talking about Colton Berenski being a make-up artist. That would explain the cross-dressing and the beard, he thought. Maybe he's the brains of the operation.
"Where is Elizabeth now?"
"I have no idea." The smug smile that accompanied the last sentence did it for Morgan. He reached for Colton and grabbed him by the collar.
"You wouldn't let your woman stray that far for that long without checking on her," he growled in his face. "Where is she?"
"Morgan, calm down!" Rossi warned, but he didn't listen, only shook Colton a little harder.
"She calls once a week," Colton managed to say. "She said she has some leverage now, so I expect she'll be home soon. That's all I know, I swear."
"You are lying!" Morgan shouted.
"Prove it!" spat Colton.
"Morgan!"
Morgan let him go, but kept eying him suspiciously. He was sure that the man was hiding something. He even seemed clever enough to plan the whole thing for Elizabeth. Unfortunately also clever enough to make sure nothing can be tied back to him.
Colton smoothed his clothes with a dignified expression. "I need to ask you to leave. Will you go now or do I need to call the police?"