Please, review, and thanks to all the people who wrote reviews for the previous chapters! The finale is just around the corner, the next chapter. Enjoy!
I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own. (C. , The Horse and His Boy)
"Okay, the next time she calls we need to get Reid talking," Hotch told Maeve. "Not her, Reid. He gave us one tip, he'll give us another if he gets the chance. Do you have any idea how to do this?"
Maeve braced herself. She knew that Spencer was being used as a mouthpiece and she would give anything to hear the real him again. She thought hard, looking at the picture of Elizabeth Patson.
"She is doing all this to get her little girl back, right?" she turned to Hotch.
"We believe so."
"I think I have an idea."
She was interrupted by an angry Morgan coming back with a slightly annoyed Rossi. Blake and JJ came moments later and they reported what they found.
"So the girl's father is dead and nobody knows how to identify him," sighed Hotch after the briefing.
"This is not important right now," JJ interrupted him. "We can't give her the girl. Mabel's happy with her grandmother, she doesn't even miss her mother. Give her to Elizabeth and in twenty years we have her on there," she gestured to the board reserved for the unsub.
"She won't give us Reid until she has Anna back," Rossi said.
"You are not actually suggesting...?" JJ couldn't even finish the question.
"Of course not, but we need to consider at least bringing Anna with us."
"We can't put a six-year-old in the line of fire!" Blake exclaimed. "God, where is Reid when you need him?"
"Somewhere in a dark room with a psychotic bitch," said Maeve coldly. "And we are getting him back without endangering neither him nor Anna. You know he would've found a way and so will we."
It was evening when the phone rang. Maeve almost dived for it, but Hotch stopped her and gathered the team first. Only after everybody was present he let her pick up.
"Spencer?"
"Hello. Have you found Anna?" His tone suggested that he was reading a message again.
"Yes, yes we did." Maeve tried to keep her voice calm and stick to the script. "They just don't want to give her to us, but we are working on it."
"Work faster. Tomorrow, 9 AM, I will send you an address in time. You will be there with Anna or I'll leave you a corpse." It was amazing how calm Spencer was, talking about his death, but Maeve started shaking. She could feel a breakdown coming, but she had to hold on for a little while longer.
"We will be there," said Maeve. "Can I talk to Spencer please?"
There was a short moment of silence, before he answered. "Hey, it's me."
"Hey," Maeve replied, not even bothering to conceal the emotion in her voice. "We miss you. The little one misses your bedtime stories."
She ignored the confusion of the team, concentrating only on Spencer.
"Is the baby there?" They were both careful not to give Elizabeth even the tiniest bit of information, not even Joanna's gender.
"Yes, the baby's here with me." Maeve glanced over to where Garcia's office was, where Joanna was asleep in her cot.
"Maybe I can tell a bedtime story over the phone?" They all knew that the question wasn't directed at them. "My little one loves it when Papa tells a story." The silence was long, but Elizabeth wasn't hanging up, which was a good sign. Finally Spencer spoke again:
"There was once a king, who ruled in a Silver Country. He had many beautiful queens and many little princes and princesses and they all lived happily together. But an evil Prince envied their happiness and sent a traitor, who acted like he was the king's friend and gained the king's trust.
But the guards from Prince's country were impatient and they didn't wait for the traitor to do his work. Instead, they laid siege to the Silver Castle. The king still hoped that the traitor can help him, but that never happened. Instead the traitor tried to take all of his beautiful queens. He almost succeeded, but the youngest queen realized his plans and fought back. She found a magical box that took her and the king to a beautiful place, where the guards can't reach them, and they can live happily ever after there."
"That was beautiful," said Maeve. "I know how important it is to you that we hear your stories."
"Tomorrow," Spencer replied in the emotionless voice of the messenger. "9 AM. I will send the address."
Elizabeth hung up and Maeve had to take a deep breath to calm down.
"What the hell was that about?" Morgan asked, but nobody listened.
"Garcia, were you able to track it?" Hotch turned to the analyst.
"Sorry, sir, it's somewhere in Fredericksburg, but that's the best I can give you."
"Fine, search the area for any property that can in some way be tied to Elizabeth Patson."
"On it, sir."
Meanwhile Maeve turned to the still confused Morgan. "It was a strategy I put together with Hotch," she explained. "I needed to give Spencer a chance to tell us something and we thought that a mother won't stop a father from telling his daughter a story. It was a message. We just need to figure it out."
"Who is the Prince?" Rossi started. "Maybe it's a nickname?"
"I don't think it's anyone," Maeve shook her head. "When he talked about the siege, he specifically said the guards from Prince's country. I think this is a reference to Prince William County – to Quantico."
"Meaning that the traitor is an FBI agent," Blaked continued. "And he wants to take away the beautiful queens – the victims?"
"So we're looking for a guy who held multiple females," Hotch agreed. "At first he was confronted by an undercover FBI agent, later probably by the whole team."
"What bugs me," said Morgan, "is the last part. About the youngest queen. According to Spencer's story one of the victims helped the unsub escape. But we have already established that Anna's father is dead."
"Maybe the king wasn't the father?" JJ suggested.
"The magic box," Rossi whispered. "A magic box that took them to a place where they could live happily ever after and the guards couldn't reach them. Did Reid manage to sneak in a Doctor Who reference or does anyone else think it sounds a lot like going to a better place?"
They were all concentrating on the case files they had read, so when Morgan jumped to his feet, shouting: "Got it!", JJ actually yelped in surprise, Blake spilled her coffee and Rossi, who had been writing notes, jerked his hand so hard that he drew a line on his pants.
"What was that about?" Blaked asked angrily, wiping coffee off the table.
"That religious freak in Colorado, Benjamin Cyrus!"
"Of course," JJ nodded.
"He was a leader of a sect, calling themselves the Separatarians. He was polygamous, marrying numerous teenage girls, that's what first caught our attention. Reid and Prentiss went there to interview the girls, but while they were in, the local police raided the community. There was gunfire and it ended in a siege. Prentiss' cover was blown, but Reid managed to gain Cyrus' trust," Morgan explained to Blake and Maeve, while frantically searching for the right file. "Cyrus was planning to blow the whole place up. We had to go in, but Reid and Prentiss managed to get the women and children out. Only one of his wives, Jessica Evanson, went back. She saw that Cyrus was shot before he could press the button, she saw the detonator and she did it herself. She found the magic box that took them to a better place."
"What about the Silver Castle?" Rossi frowned.
Maeve looked at the file over Morgan's shoulder. "It says that it happened in La Plata County. La Plata is Spanish for silver."
"Garcia, you're up. The Cyrus case, give me the list of all women who got out of there alive," said Hotch.
"Will do, sir, coming to your screens right now."
They scanned the list and it was Rossi who got the first hit. "There! Lisa Mulgrew. If I remember correctly, Mulgrew was Cyrus' real name. Lisa can be a nickname for Elizabeth. Garcia, get us the photo."
When the picture appeared on the screen, there was a collective sigh. It was a hit. The face staring at them was a lot younger than the one on the board, but undoubtedly the same one. The records showed that Elizabeth Patson alias Lisa Mulgrew left eight months pregnant. That's why they couldn't get any hits from the previous searches – their files contained only Lisa Mulgrew, but the birth records of Mabel Anna Patson talked only about Elizabeth Patson.
"Okay, now we know pretty much everything there is to know, so we need to think of a way how to get Spence back without giving Mabel back to her psychotic mother," JJ concluded.
"You know, I remember how Prentiss and Reid talked about Jessica Evanson, the youngest wife," said Rossi slowly. "According to them she loved Cyrus enough to die for him. Maybe Elizabeth did too. I think he gave her shelter, made her feel loved, and he was quite charismatic. She must have been in love with him. Maybe we can manipulate those feelings, tell her that Anna had been claimed by her father and they are both waiting for her."
"She won't fall for that. She know Cyrus is dead," Blake shook her head.
"Besides, she has a new religious fanatic now," Morgan added.
"Maybe we can use him. If Colton Berenski talks, she will listen," Hotch suggested.
"He will never cooperate," Morgan rejected the idea. "He said outright that he supports her. I think he knows exactly what she's doing, only there's no way of proving it."
"So what?" JJ asked. "We bring her down?"
"We have to try to settle it peacefully," Hotch shook his head.
At this point Maeve walked out, unable to listen any more. She went to the computer room so she would be there when Joanna wakes up. The conversation was replaying in her head and she tried to put herself in Elizabeth's shoes. She imagined someone would take Joanna. What would stop her from getting her daughter back?
The answer came to her as easy as breathing. Death.
She won't give Spencer back unless we give her Anna or unless she dies. We will not give her Anna. So to save Spencer, Elizabeth needs to die, Maeve realized and was momentarily horrified by the thought. She was sitting there, her head clear, and she was considering the possibility of sacrificing a young woman's life.
"You would kill yourself for her?" Diane Turner's voice was burned in Maeve's memory forever. You got the question wrong, girl, like everything else, Maeve thought. The real question is – would you sacrifice another life for his? Are you selfish enough to proclaim that his life is more important than somebody else's?
It scared her. She never expected to be faced with those questions. She knew that it won't be her call in the end, but at the same time she was scared that the team won't decide in time. They were supposed to bring the criminals in alive. When it comes down to it, they might hesitate. After all they did hesitate when Diane held her and there was no guarantee it won't happen again. They might stop for too long and it could cost Spencer his life.
I have to be there, she realized. I have to be there and make sure they don't. Make sure they bring him back safe, no matter the cost.
Would you become a monster to save him? The little voice in her head, asking her all the horrible questions sounded suspiciously like Diane Turner.
Maeve had always considered herself a good person. She wasn't exactly Mother Teresa, but then again, hardly anyone was. She tried to help people, that brought her and Spencer together after all. She played fair and always tried to find a compromise that would suit more or less everybody. The little everyday acts of kindness came naturally to her.
But the possibility of losing Spencer woke up a whole different side of Maeve Donovan, the one that had been stirring ever since Spencer disappeared. It was the Maeve that stared down Diane Turner on the roof, telling her that she will not jump and if she wants her dead, she better do it herself. That Maeve was determined to fight until the bitter end, to make the choices no one else can, to save the love of her life against all odds.
Yes, she realized. If it means that Spencer comes back safe and sound, I would strangle her with my own hands. I am not saying that one life is more important than the other, but I am saying, that given a choice, I will always choose Spencer without hesitation. And I will make sure that when the moment comes, the team won't hesitate either.
Does that make me a monster? she asked herself as she looked at her sleeping daughter.
This answer was much more difficult, so Maeve settled for a simple solution this time.
Maybe it does, but if that's what it takes to save him, so be it.