WITHOUT RESERVATION

PROMPT: What Happens in Vegas, Dies in Boston (Crossing Jordan)

Chapter 4

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Nicholas Prentiss liked to believe he was a rather intelligent man. More than that, he liked to believe there were very few people in the world he knew better than his dark-haired niece. She'd been here for a week and a half now and had done nothing more than sit at the window all day, staring out over the expanse of acreage he had in the back. It was more out of character than Nicholas had ever seen her.

Emily had grown up riding horses. She loved riding and he knew there were enough trails around the property to keep her occupied for much longer than the three weeks she'd slated to be here. Yet there hadn't been once that Emily had been out on those trails. She'd never even gone to the barn. The furthest she'd ventured was outside to the porch where she spent hours literally just sitting on the porch swing.

And she was having nightmares to boot. He was a naturally light sleeper, an unfortunate thing when his niece was waking almost every night screaming. He'd gone to her a few times, tried to sooth her out of it like he had when she was a child, but there was nothing that could bring the light back into her eyes that he loved. This wasn't his Em-bear staying with him at all. This was some sort of broken shell of the dynamic woman he knew her to be. It was with all of the love and devotion in his heart that he snuck into her room while she was out on the porch and rifled through her things to find her Blackberry. She'd kept the device off through the duration of her stay, so when he turned it on, there were a number of missed alerts.

He avoided those entirely, heading straight into her contact list. There had been one name she'd called out more often in her sleep than he'd bet even she realized, so he bypassed the first seven letters of the alphabet until he hit "H". It didn't take him long to locate 'Hotchner' in her contact list.

"Emily?"

He sounded so hopeful that Nicholas knew right then and there he was making the right decision, regardless of how much crap he was going to get for invading Emily's privacy. "I'm sorry, son, but no."

"Who is this? Where is Emily? Is she okay?"

He tried not to smile at the frantic note in the man's voice. "She's perfectly fine son, if by fine you mean safe. I'm her uncle, Nicholas Prentiss."

"I didn't know Emily had an uncle."

That didn't surprise Nicholas in the least. "Tell me, what is your relationship with my niece?"

"We're colleagues, sir," came the other man's careful voice.

That was like saying he was rich. The concern in the man's voice told Nicholas that whatever was between his niece and this man, it was more than just a peer-to-peer relationship. "What else, Mister Hotchner. Because my niece wouldn't call me at an ungodly hour to ask to come to New York if it wasn't for a damned good reason."

Hotchner was silent on the other end of the phone for a moment. "We were involved."

There was the crux of the matter. Nicholas nodded sharply. "Mister Hotchner, I need you to listen to me carefully. I do not say these words lightly."

"Yes sir."

"My Emily is not the woman she used to be. She is not out riding her horse, she is not out sunning herself on the back porch. She is not trying to beat me at chess, nor is she bragging about her superior abilities in the kitchen. She has not baked a single loaf of banana bread since arriving here, and let me tell you, Mister Hotchner, my niece bakes the best banana bread I have ever eaten."

He heard the other man swallow. "I never knew that."

Double bingo. This went deeper than Nicholas had originally anticipated. "I am not calling to place blame, or to find out what happened. What I do know is this: Emily Prentiss is not a weak woman. She is one of the strongest people I have ever met. When she breaks, she does it quickly, efficiently, and then moves on. But that is not what has happened here.

"I am not trying to place blame, nor am I trying to make this any harder than it has to be. It is obvious to me, a man that has never met you, that she is irrevocably in love with you. Coming out here was a way to reconcile herself with the life she would inevitably be returning to. This is a retreat, time to process, but it isn't working. I can see it in her eyes, in her behaviour and in the way she has woken up from nightmares with your name lodged in her throat.

"So you have a decision to make. Either you come out here, find her and fix her, or you let one of the greatest people I have had the pleasure of knowing go."

The way Hotchner hung up the phone without another word, Nicholas had a pretty good idea of what his decision would be.