Disclaimer: Still don't own it
Spencer stopped suddenly when she spotted Mona from the corner.
The young woman turned to see her boyfriend and his partner nervously going about their business; giving Spencer a look of wonderment.
Mona was currently set up with a small space on the floor with her laptop resting on her legs; she was sitting Indian style while her back was against the wall. She seemed to be ignoring everyone in the room and just typed away while the other two occupants did their thing. When Spencer took a few more steps inside, Mona looked up from her laptop and gave the FBI Agent a bored look. The two locked eyes for a few seconds before the shorter woman went back to what she was doing. Spencer went to be with Toby who had eyed the exchange while his partner seemed to be keeping to himself.
The three had been busy while Spencer was away; setting up a bulletin board with all the relevant information of the case. There were pictures of the victims, crime scene photos, timeline on their lives, and other things that Spencer had yet to see before; concluding that Mona must have brought what she knew to their little group. Getting in close to the board, she studied the printed out A messages that were tacked on; bringing up some ugly memories from the past. The messages themselves were hauntingly reminiscent to the ones she had received all those years ago and there was a thought in the back of her mind that wondered if her brother was behind it; though he had been dead for years.
"So you found out the name of the second victim?" Spencer asked as she studied the board some more. She was surprised that they found the name of the victim so fast given that she had only been away for a few hours.
"Yes; she was actually in the system but under another name once we ran the DNA; Melissa Rogers, twenty-three year old runaway whose been missing for a while with no family," informed Mike from his computer. The way he was focusing on his work station told Spencer that he was trying to not be reminded that his ex was in the room.
"Well I guess we know a little about our perpetrator now; he likes his victims to have no family so no one will report them missing," stated the FBI Agent which earned a nod from Toby.
"Which means that it makes it harder for us to find potential victims," Mona stated from her corner; reminding Spencer that she was in the room. The FBI Agent still wasn't sure what to make of their new compatriot though they could use all the help they could get.
"How did you first find out about this A? You never explained why you at the Travel Agency," Toby stated as politely as he could. He had wanted to know that ever since Mona had arrived and waited until Spencer had showed up to ask.
"It was by accident; I stumbled on the A messages for the first victim through her roommate," answered the young woman and the reluctance to tell them could be heard in her voice.
"Why were you interested in Tasha Lamont?" Mike asked Mona, speaking for the first time since his former girlfriend appeared in their office. He tried to keep his voice neutral and professional given that his emotions were completely jumbled at the moment.
"We weren't; her father is a person of interest to the Agency so we tagged his daughter's emails along with anyone else connected," informed Mona, not going into further detail since it was a classified case.
"I am guessing that is when you saw the A messages and decided to investigate?" Spencer inquired, not pressing the other woman on the other stuff. It wouldn't do anyone good to get Mona into trouble or alienate her by dwelling into whatever assignment she had.
"Pretty much; couldn't believe it at first given that Charles was dead and he didn't have any partners. I figured that this was a copycat who either read Ezra's book or had been following the case when it was broadcast on television," stated the young woman and she remembered how upset she had been when she had first read the messages from A. She had to hide in her office while her people had to cover for her.
Mona had gone to a lot of trouble to put the past behind her; going as far to cut off every last person from her childhood except for her mother. It wasn't hard to do given the enormous betrayal that she had suffered from those she thought she could trust. The few who knew her story thought it was a tragedy that she had gone through the Hell of the Dollhouse only to be locked up for something that she did not do; especially at the word of a proven liar. Once she had been sprung from jail and recruited into the NSA, Mona did her best to never have to deal with the drama of Rosewood again.
She had considered getting revenge a few times; once she had advanced in seniority, Mona was able to start getting away with a few things. During the first few years of her new career, she had been stationed in Europe and had stumbled upon Alison when she was in France. The blonde had been walking down the street in Paris when Mona had spotted her from her safe house; flanked by a bodyguard. Since she was in between assignments, Mona had spent the week spying on Alison, watching in amusement as her former enemy was super paranoid. She had later found out that all the girls were that way and scared that Mona was going to get revenge for what they had done. Luckily for them, Mona was much too busy with her future to waste time on petty revenge.
"How do we know that he didn't have a partner; other than Andrew that is who was just in it for getting ahead academically," Mike wondered out loud, clamping up once he realized that all eyes were on him. Toby was both amused and concerned that his partner was acting like this in the presence of his former girlfriend.
"While I can imagine that my brother could have had a whole slew of people helping him, it was never discovered once everything was concluded," stated the FBI Agent, dismissing the idea as politely as she could. The young woman could sympathize with the young State Police officer given what he was going through.
"Plus a partner would never risk doing something like this in the same vicinity of where the original case occurred; knowing that it would put off alarm bells," Mona continued and her bland tone towards her ex made him feel slightly sad.
"Why now though? Ezra's book has been out for years," Toby said, obviously confused about the whole ordeal. As a former member of the A Team, he was equally disturbed about the whole thing.
"He or she probably just read it and there was a trigger of some kind; something like that has been mentioned before by profilers who guest lectured when I was still at the academy," informed Spencer, hoping that she had that right. She had considered going into profiling but figured that she had gone through enough viciousness in her life. Even this case was starting to push her at her limit.
"Did you ever try to trace the IP address for the emails?" Mike asked Mona, trying to show off a little bit of knowledge to her. She had so far been ignoring him and he was hoping that she would address him if it had to do with the case.
"Yes but it didn't do any good; he or she was using dummy addresses as well as bouncing the signals off of satellites," Mona answered him, slightly glaring at the young man which caused him to cringe.
"This A has to be good if your Agency can't even trace him or her; that means though that we have to do this the hard way," Spencer stated with a sigh. A, whoever it had been, had never made it easy for them to catch and often left a trail of bodies in its wake.
"So how do you want to do this?" Toby asked his girlfriend, as he contemplated his own plan to handle this. He saw an opportunity to try and form some cohesion within this little team of theirs but needed to get Mona alone to do it.
"Well we still needed to check out the prison where Charles was imprisoned to see if he left behind anything that could be useful," suggested Spencer as she sat down on Toby's desk. She almost had forgotten about doing that in the wake of everything that had happened so far today.
After leaving her meeting with Mona, or being tossed out so to speak, she had gone straight back to the FBI building to give her boss a report. Once again, he stressed that if she wanted off the case because of personal issues, it would not be a problem. Spencer had politely refused and stated that she wanted to stay with the investigation; though she understood that the higher ups were starting to catch notice of everything. This usually meant that if she and the others didn't start producing results soon, they would be replaced by a more capable senior team even though the State Police was leading the investigation. She had seen the FBI forcibly take over investigations before so she had no doubts that it would happen again.
"How about you and Mike go do that tomorrow while Mona and I investigate the second victim?" asked the senior State Police Officer, eyeing Mona in the corner. He really wanted to know what she was looking at since she had yet to really participate besides what she knew so far.
Speaking of which.
"I don't see a problem with that; what did you find out at the Travel Agency?" inquired the FBI Agent to the young woman in the corner. That was another loose end that they had failed to touch up on after encountering Mona from earlier today.
"The contest was real and set up by the Agency; though the owners were confused to how the women entered since they had no physical record of them doing so. I did find that their computer was hacked though a hard drive that was too full of malware to effectively find out anything," answered Mona with a frown. It turned out that one of the workers was using the company computers to look at p*** while on shift with weak anti-virus software.
"So A found out about the contest, then hacked the system to make sure that they won; knowing that the roommate couldn't go. He or she then grabs our victim without anyone knowing," Spencer speculated out loud and it sounded sensible to the rest of the assembled group.
"How long did he or she keep the victims before killing them I wonder? Do you think that this copycat has a Dollhouse setup like Charles did?" Mike asked, deciding now was the perfect time to bring up the subject since it had occurred to him before. The only response he got was the nervous glances between Spencer and Mona.
"We should check out if there has been renovations in the area for abandoned buildings as well as old military bunkers just in case," suggested Toby as his hand brushed up against his girlfriends. Even after ten years, the month that Spencer had spent in the place along with the rest of the girls besides Alison still had an emotional impact.
"I'll work on that right now," stated the woman in the corner, already bringing up the necessary parameters on her laptop.
"Do you guys want to pull an all-nighter?" asked Mike, looking up at the time. It was getting late and it had been a very long day.
"Might as well since time is of the essence; maybe we should get some takeout because my stomach is grumbling," stated Spencer as she looked down at her stomach. She hadn't even had the chance to eat lunch; kicking herself for not getting a quick snack back at the office.
"Why don't you and Mike go get some Chinese at that place down the street while Mona and I continue working. We can go over what we know as we eat," said Toby and the three nodded; though Mona's was more of a subtle one.
"What should I get?" Spencer asked as she grabbed her wallet from her purse on the desk. She didn't mind paying for everything since money wasn't a problem.
"Well you know what I like; what about you Mona?" inquired the older man, looking over at the other woman. She looked up briefly and gave him a rather bored look.
"My diet hasn't changed so Mike should still know what I want," Mona simply said and Mike looked shocked but quickly recovered. The younger man grabbed his coat while Spencer gave her boyfriend a quick peck on the lips before they both left.
"I'm surprised," Mona suddenly said after a few minutes of silence had gone by. Toby was curious to what she meant and looked up at her.
"By what?" he asked her, giving Mona his full attention. He was still unsure what to make of her being here to help them; though he wasn't unhappy about it.
"That you two aren't married yet; out of all of the old gang, I expected you and Spencer to have tied the knot first," stated the young woman will a slight smirk on her face. Toby wasn't sure if she was trying to be aggressive or was simply playing with him.
"We're engaged," he simply said, a little more defensively than what he had wanted. Mona had the ability to provoke certain emotions out of people; even after all of these years.
"Well the wedding should be interesting," declared the younger woman with a roll of her eyes as she continued to type. Toby wasn't sure what to make of that and decided that this was the perfect time to get the truth from Mona.
"Why are you here Mona?" he asked her with a mix of firmness as well as politeness. While he doubted that she was connected to all of this, he had to know the real reason why she was here helping them.
"I need closure; I was denied that ten years ago when I sent to prison for something I didn't do," stated Mona in full honestly. Out of all the people she could be truthful to, Toby was one of the only ones.
"I understand; thank you for helping us," said the young officer, genuinely appreciative that she was here. While Mona was a wild card, she had the skills to help them solve this; at least in his opinion. Clearing this with Tanner was going to take a lot of talking that he was not looking forward to.
"Well someone has to help you guys; you could never do anything right without me," she said, putting up a mask that was obvious to everyone.
"Listen; you need to let up on Mike and Spencer. It's been ten years and I know you were betrayed, but they have been going through Hell because of guilt of what happened. I just need you to work with everyone for the good of the case," stated Toby, pressing the point to the young woman. While he could technically sympathize with Mona on what happened, he wasn't going to let her ruin whatever happiness they had.
"If I was holding a grudge, I would have acted on it years ago and there would have been nothing you could have done about it. I could have even made Alison disappear permanently by now for what she did. Trust me when I say that I will be professional but that goes both ways; so keep your girlfriend on a leash because I am armed too," countered the young woman as she looked up from her laptop and gave a hard stare at the young man. He nodded and the look they then shared confirmed that they had reached an accord.
"How did you get into the NSA anyways? If you don't mind me asking," inquired the older man after a few renewed minutes of silence. Spencer and Mike were not the only ones who had been curious about that but figured that he might be able to get an answer when they wouldn't.
"I was recruited in jail while waiting to be released. Apparently I was on some sort of watch list and I was brought into the Agency right after I left town," answered Mona, remembering what had happened back then.
She had been sitting in the cell, waiting for the guard to come and say that she was free to go; after her mother had left her. That is when her mentor appeared and talked to her for over an hour, promising a future in the NSA and the chance to get away from all of this. He had told Mona that she had a great deal of potential in her and that she could do some real good for her country as well as saved lives. While it sounded a little funny at the time, just to get out of Rosewood was enough to grab the young woman. After being betrayed by those she tried to help, Mona was ready to put everything behind for good.
Once she had settled her affairs in Rosewood right after getting out of jail, Mona and her mother immediately caught a train to Washington. Once she had arrived, the young woman had said goodbyes to Leona and went with her mentor to a secret compound to train recruits. After excelling in all of her classes, she was then sent overseas on junior assignments. It had been a long ten years but Mona had found a future outside of Rosewood and was happy. She had risen in the ranks and was in charge of her own section of the Agency; domestic counterterrorism here in the United States. She never went back to Rosewood unless it was to see her mother; in and out before anyone noticed.
"Well I am glad you found something to keep you happy and thank you for not going after the girls," said the young man sincerely. She wasn't offended by what he said given the past between the two.
After all, they had all suffered because of A.
Please Read and Review; also a shout out to my friend Paraddicted for the pre-read and you should check out her fics!