"It's not him," Gideon announced gravely.

Four pairs of shocked eyes turned in his direction. "What?" "Quoi?"

"It's not my nephew," he repeated.

Emily stepped closer. "Gideon, how can you be so sure? His face is unrecognizable."

"Mademoiselle Prentiss is right," Capitaine Dubois agreed.

Gideon pointed to the corpse's left shoulder. "Noah has a half moon shaped birthmark on his shoulder. This poor man doesn't."

The Capitaine and his Lieutenant exchanged worried looks and began conversing in rapid French. Gideon had been right about the police. They had assumed incorrectly that neither could speak French so they felt secure in talking in front of them.

Emily peered closer at the puffy shoulder, trying to see any evidence of a birthmark. All she saw pale skin. When she looked up at Gideon, she was surprised to see that he didn't appear to be relieved that it wasn't his nephew. Instead he seemed calm and detached, almost to the point of being clinical about the whole situation. Before she had a chance to question him, the Capitaine approached.

"Monsieur Gideon, I must apologize for bringing you all the way over here for nothing. We were so certain it was the body of your nephew."

Gideon dismissed the apology with a shrug. "No harm done. I still needed to confirm that it wasn't him. Would you mind if I looked at his backpack? I just want to verify everything in it is his."

Dubois glanced at the Lieutenant and then nodded. "I see no problem with that. Unfortunately, it is not here. It's back at my office. But if you can stop by around three, I will be glad to let you take a look. Of course, I can't allow you to remove anything since the backpack and its contents are evidence in an active murder investigation."

"Of course, Capitaine. Completely understandable," Gideon agreed holding out his hands.

"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" he asked after a brief moment of hesitation.

"Not at all."

"Merci. When was the last time you had spoken to your nephew?"

"I do believe it was the day of his graduation from college."

Emily's eyes narrowed ever so slightly in suspicion. Something in his answer rang false with her.

"He never called you while he was here in Paris?"

Gideon shook his head. "Noah spoke to his mother, my sister, a week before your death notification."

"I see." Dubois held out his hand. "If you do hear from your nephew, please let us know. We have a few questions for him in regards to how our victim ended up with his backpack."

"I will," Gideon said, shaking the proffered hand.

"Merci. Good day Monsieur Gideon and Mademoiselle Prentiss." He also shook hands with Emily before letting the attendant guide the two back to out to the waiting room and the exit outside.

Out on the sidewalk, Emily grabbed Gideon by the arm. "You knew before looking at the body that it wasn't your nephew," she hissed in annoyance.

Gideon stared over the highway at the barge chugging its way up the Seine, ignoring her hand and angry tone. He inhaled deeply, using the fresh air to clear his lungs of the smell of decomposing flesh.

"Walk with me," he abruptly announced, walking down the sidewalk.

Emily stared at his departing back, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Then she muttered a mild curse under her breath and hurried after him. In silence they walked along the Voie Mazas until they came to a set of stairs. Without saying a word, they agreed to go up them and found themselves in the Square A. Tournaire, a small heavily wooded park behind the Institut Medico-Legal.

"Enough!" Emily declared, stopping dead in her tracks when they were in a secluded spot. "Gideon, you knew before we even went in that it wasn't Noah."

Gideon turned to face her and shrugged. "I had my suspicions."

"You had your suspicions?" she echoed in disbelief. "How?"

"A few days ago I got a text from an unknown number that read, I'm in trouble."

Emily resisted the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until his head fell off. Instead, she shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket. The temperatures this time of year hovered in the mid-forties.

"How do you know for certain the text was from him? You just said you didn't recognize the number. Anyone could have sent it."

"It was addressed to Uncle Jase. Noah is the only one who calls me that."

"And how do you know someone else couldn't have known that?"

"What would be the logic behind that?" Gideon asked in genuine confusion.

"Your judgment is clouded. You're seeing what you want to see. I'm not saying it wasn't Noah who sent that, but there are other possibilities that you need to consider."

"Like what, Prentiss?"

Emily blew out a breath of frustration. "How am I supposed to know? Apparently there's a lot more to this that you have neglected to tell me," she said pointedly.

He held out his hands in apology. "There's nothing left to tell. You know everything."

God this man is so irritating, she thought as she tried not to yell at him. How was I ever able to work with him? "Then why didn't you let me in on your little secret? I don't like being blindsided."

Gideon dismissed her complaint with a shrug. "I wanted your reaction to be genuine."

"My…my reaction?" she stammered, staring at him like he had grown a second head. "Why?"

"I told you, I don't trust the police. We could have shown our hand if both of us had known." He had no clue why she was getting upset. His reasoning was sound and logical.

This time Emily couldn't keep the outrage from creeping into her voice. "You dragged me all the way over here just to put on a performance for the flics because you don't trust them?" She threw up her hands in disgust. "Unbelievable."

"No," he corrected. "I asked you to come because I needed your help. I need your help to find Noah."

"But I don't have any jurisdiction here," she protested.

"True. But you know the city, the people, and the language. You said you spent a majority of your childhood here."

"I did." Emily took several deep breaths to calm down. It wouldn't do her any good yelling at him. Gideon seemed impervious to it. All she was accomplishing was giving herself a second ulcer after she had finally got rid of the first one. "Gideon, why didn't you tell me all of this the first time?" she finally asked softly.

"I was afraid you wouldn't agree to come," he said frankly.

That gave Emily some pause. Would she have said yes? He had mysteriously reappeared in her life after five years of silence and, to be perfectly honest, she didn't know him very well nor he her. But what she did know for certain was that he was brusque, condescending and lacked manners at times. Yet he cared deeply about the victims and it was obvious he cared just as deeply for his nephew. He only went about it the wrong way. Emily really couldn't fault him on that even though it annoyed the hell out of her. But in the end, it all boiled down to that he was still a member of the BAU family and you help family.

"I would have said yes," Emily said sincerely.

Gideon studied her before nodding. "Thank you, Prentiss. I appreciate your honesty."

Of course he didn't apologize since he still believed he had done nothing wrong. Emily decided to be a good sport and ignore it. Instead, she ran a hand through her hair. "Okay. I'll help you find Noah, but from this point on there won't be any more lying and secrets. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

She looked around the park. "Let's find a place to sit down and talk. I could really use a drink right now."

They left the park, crossed the Quai de la Rapee and made their way along Avenue Ledru-Rollin. They found a small café and settled at one of the outside tables. Gideon noted Emily deliberately chose the chair that put her back to the brick wall.

Emily held up her thumb and index finger as the waiter approached. "Bonjour, Monsieur. Deux cafés, s`il vous plait." He nodded and went to fill their order.

Gideon leaned back in his chair. "I thought you said you gave up coffee?"

She gave him the stink eye and retorted, "I changed my mind." He chuckled but said nothing more.

They sat in silence while they waited for their café noirs. The service was quick and efficient. Within minutes they had their coffees and the bill. Gideon arched an eyebrow at the little piece of paper.

"Don't worry about that," Emily said dismissively as she dropped several sugar cubes into her coffee and stirred it. "They're not trying to kick us out. We've ordered drinks so we can linger for an hour or two." There was also a square of chocolate on the saucer that she planned to save for last.

"Interesting," he said and took a sip of the dark, fragrant, medium-dark roast. "Very strong," he coughed.

Emily grinned. "Try adding some sugar." He nodded and stirred in some. "Better?" she asked when he took a second sip.

"Yes."

She leaned forward, resting her folded hands on the table. It was considered bad manners to keep your hands in your lap. They must be visible during the meal, but that didn't mean you could lean on your elbows. "Tell me about Noah."

Gideon smiled fondly. "He's my sister's youngest and I must admit, my favorite. He's a lot like me, but more outgoing. He just graduated from Cornell with a degree in architecture."

Emily nodded. "That's what? A five year program?"

"It is but he managed to complete it in four years. He really put his nose to the grindstone to graduate early so that's why he decided to take a year off to explore Europe. Then he was planning on going back to get his masters."

"To clear his head and enjoy the architecture?"

"Yes," he agreed, sipping his café. It wasn't bad once he got used to the strength.

So Noah was book smart, but Emily had to wonder if he was street savvy. He was no longer a teenager, but he was still young and immature in many ways.

"Would he be smart enough to stay out of trouble, not get pulled into something illegal because it sounded like fun?" She hated asking the question, but it needed to be done.

Gideon took a few minutes to think about it, frowning slightly as he did so. "I believe so," he said eventually. "I would say he's more cautious than impulsive, but he can be very passionate about things he believes in."

She nodded. That could be bad if he let his heart lead instead of his head. "This trip," she said. "Is it solo or did he come with a couple of his college buddies?"

"Alone."

"Merde!" she swore, inadvertently reverting to French and causing Gideon to smile. "So we don't have anyone to contact to find out when they saw him last and how he was acting."

"I'm afraid not. But if we could gain access to his cell phone records we could see who he called before his disappearance," he hinted, arching a knowing eyebrow.

Emily was about to suggest checking his phone, but remembered it was in the custody of the police and she highly doubted they would let them take a peek at it. So they would have to go at it from a different direction. She finished her coffee and set the empty cup back on top of the saucer.

"I'll have to ask Hotch for permission to use Garcia. I don't want to get her in trouble for doing something unofficial on business time especially since this isn't a BAU case."

"Not a problem," he readily agreed, knowing the technical analyst was the best bet at the moment.

"And we can have her pull up his credit card statements. That could narrow down which arrondissement he's been in and we can start searching for him from there."

"Arrondissements?"

"Districts," she translated. "Paris is divided into twenty administrative districts. We're currently in the twelfth."

"Interesting," he said with a nod of his head. "Learned something new."

"Indeed."

"Once we know which one, we can check out the hotels."

Emily laughed. "You've never backpacked your way across Europe have you, Gideon?"

He frowned in confusion. "No. Why?"

"When you're young and don't have a lot of money, you don't go stay in a hotel. You go to a hostel. They are a lot cheaper and you can hang out with people your own age. Old fogeys like us stay in hotels and pay through the nose for the amenities," she finished with a chuckle.

"I didn't know that."

"Now you've learned two things in less than ten minutes," she teased, feeling more relaxed around the ex-profiler. Maybe it was the coffee or the atmosphere of sitting at a sidewalk café in Paris. It's the coffee, she decided. God, she missed the stuff.

"I have," Gideon chuckled. "Would these hostels show up on his credit card?"

"Probably in this day and age. It's safer than carrying a large amount of Euro's and you get a better exchange rate with a card."

Speaking of cards, Emily pulled out hers to pay the bill. If Gideon was footing the bill for the airline tickets and hotel, she could at least pay for the drinks. As she added a few Euros as an additional tip to the one already included in the bill, she said, "Let's head back to the hotel. I prefer to make the call in private."

"Sure," Gideon agreed and finished off the last of his coffee.

As they waited for the server to return with her credit card, Emily popped the piece of chocolate in her mouth and almost sighed out loud at how good it tasted. It just melted on her tongue.

"There's one thing I don't like about the whole situation. Noah is mugged and robbed of his backpack. Then the mugger is killed before he has a chance to remove the valuables. The killer, in turn, dumps the body and the backpack in the Seine."

"You think he would have known that the body would have eventually been found and identified through the belongings."

"Or he simply didn't care. Either way, there are too many coincidences for my liking," Emily said with a grimace.

"Same here." Gideon stared off down the street. "Noah, what have you gotten yourself into?"

In the comfort of their hotel suite, Emily sat at the table jotting down the highlights of her chat with Gideon on the legal pad she had picked up on the taxi ride back while he retreated to his room to call his sister. Emily wanted to get everything down while it was fresh in her mind. Her laptop or tablet would have been preferable, but she hadn't packed them since it was supposed to have been a quick trip here and back so she had to make do with what she could find. As she wrote in the illegible scrawl that only she could read, Emily felt her pulse quicken at the prospect of working on a case. She paused mid-word and mentally scolded herself. Gideon's nephew wasn't a case. She was simply here to help an old co-worker. But Noah's whereabouts and actions were a mystery, and she couldn't resist a mystery that needed solving. Who could?

She had filled three pages with facts, observations, further questions and possible lines of investigation and was working her way through the fourth when he returned. Gideon donned his reading glasses, picked up one of the sheets of paper and squinted at it.

"Can you even read this?"

"Yes, I can," she huffed, giving him a dirty look and snatching the paper out of his hand. "How did the call go?"

"It went alright," he said, settling into an empty chair. "Rachel was relieved to know that Noah wasn't dead, but is still upset we don't know where he is. She's thinking the worse that he's out there alone, hurt and scared."

"That's what mothers do," Emily said while at the same time wondering how many times her mother had those same thoughts over the years. "Did your sister know if Noah might have hooked up with any fellow travelers? He might have dropped a few names while talking."

"Rachel did say he mentioned a Sven, Dieter and Rolf."

Possibly two Germans and a Scandinavian. "Any last names?" she asked hopefully.

He shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

Last names would have been a big help. Trying to find three particular boys by their first names only in a city with over two million people would be near to impossible. There was also the possibility one or all of them were no longer in town.

"Needle meet haystack," Emily muttered and glanced down at her list of questions. It felt odd interviewing Gideon as the family of the possible victim. "When your sister—"

"Rachel. You can call her Rachel."

Emily nodded. "When Rachel last talked to Noah, how did he sound? Was he anxious? Stressed? Was he dropping hints that he was in some sort of trouble because he was afraid to tell her?"

"I asked her that and many more questions," he said. "And her answer to all of them was an emphatic no. Their conversation was normal. He was enjoying Paris and was thinking of staying longer."

"How often did they talk? Daily? Every other day? Weekly or longer?" She probed.

"Weekly or a little longer."

"So she wouldn't suspect anything was wrong if she didn't hear from him for a week or two," Emily stated more than asked, idly rubbing her right shoulder in the general area of her collarbone.

"Not at all," he agreed.

Emily tossed her pen down in frustration. "So all we know is that everything was hunky dory up to the time of Noah's last talk with his mother. Then something happened between then and your cryptic text message." She blew out a breath. "Maybe he witnessed the murder?"

Gideon frowned thoughtfully. "That is a definite possibility, but I feel there is something bigger going on that kept him silent for almost two weeks."

"I do too." She rubbed her shoulder again.

His frown deepened. "Prentiss, is there something wrong with your shoulder?" he asked. He had noticed during their conversation, she had been massaging it on and off.

"What?" she asked in confusion.

He nodded at her hand that had stilled on her shoulder. "You've been rubbing your shoulder."

Emily looked at the offending hand and dropped it into her lap. "Uh…my collarbone aches when I'm frustrated. I broke it awhile back."

"How?" he asked in curiosity.

She debated if she should tell him any more beyond that. It was really none of his business, but she had feeling he wasn't going to let this go easily. So she decided to toss him a bone and hoped he would chew on it for a long time.

"I took a bullet in the shoulder."

"Ah…that explains why you were at the pool. I never took you to be a swimmer."

"It was part of my physical therapy," she responded slowly with guarded eyes.

Gideon had just confirmed he had been the one spying on her at the gym. The thought made her wonder how long he had been following her before she had confronted him. And what was more troubling… why she hadn't caught on to it earlier. A few months ago she was hyperaware of her surroundings and now…

"God, I'm going soft," she muttered under her breath.

"Excuse me?"

Emily looked up. "Nothing," she said quickly to cover her slip of the tongue. Time to change the direction of the conversation. "Perhaps we should call Hotch now."

Gideon frowned. "Isn't it a bit early?"

She glanced at her watch. It was a little after two so it would be eight back home. "If Hotch is being his predictable self, he'll be there."