Disclaimer: See chapter 1
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"Hi sweet girl, you're supposed to be enjoying a romantic weekend, not calling me," Garcia said into her cell.
"Sorry Garcia, mothers will be mothers; if it makes you feel any better I phone home and check on Will too. And, to put your mind at rest, we are having a romantic weekend, since, at the moment, we're sitting here in a Jacuzzi full of bubbles with a glass of wine, lavender scented candles, and bath oil scented like," she giggled, "licorice of all things."
"Oh yeah, blame that one on Reid," Garcia laughed. "Apparently, licorice and lavender are the only two scents that seem to turn both sexes on. Don't even ask Jaje."
"I think it's working," Will said in the background. "Thank Reid for me."
"I'd have to agree with that; that's why we thought we'd better call now, later we might be um… busy!" she said as Will nibbled on her ear and she giggled. "Quit it, but hold that thought. How's Henry?"
"He's been a very good little boy, keeping his godfather bus…what the hell?" Garcia stopped speaking as Reid dropped the bright red pail and shovel he'd been carrying and ran towards the sand box. She saw him reach to his hip automatically, as if for his sidearm which he wasn't wearing today. He scooped a startled Henry into his arms and away from a man with scruffy brown hair, but a beard that was neatly trimmed, who'd been bent over Henry.
"Who are you?" she heard Reid asking the man.
"Dean Hardy, who are you?" the man replied.
"Garcia," JJ was shouting into the phone, "Garcia!"
Reid pulled his badge from the back pocket of the beige cords he'd worn today with a hunter green polo shirt. "Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid, FBI, what were you doing with the boy?"
"Doing," the man looked bewildered; "I wasn't doing anything. I was just talking to him." He pointed to another child with identical brown hair, about Henry's age, who was standing beside a very pretty woman with long golden brown hair that fell down her back in a French braid, except for a fringe of wispy bangs across her forehead, "Joshua and I are often out in the park when Will and Henry are here. I was just saying hello."
"Garcia!" JJ's voice finally penetrated Garcia's consciousness.
"JJ, do you and Will know a guy named Dean Hardy?"
"Yeah, why?" Will asked.
"He was talking to Henry I guess; Reid got a little over protective and started giving the guy the third degree."
"Tell Reid he's okay," Will replied. "We talk to each other all the time while the boys play. His wife works with one of the senators on the hill."
Garcia moved toward the sandbox and touched Reid on the arm. "Reid, I've got JJ and Will on the phone and they say he's okay." She inclined her head toward the man, woman and little boy.
"Oh," Reid nodded and turned back to them to find the man looking at him as if he was not playing with a full deck.
Reid looked into Dean Hardy's eyes and he could see the puzzlement there; of course, he was puzzled, why wouldn't he be? He didn't know. He hadn't seen the seconds tick down on a clock that was auctioning an anonymous boy, nicknamed Peter, taken from his mother when he was one, to the highest bidder. He hadn't felt the relief of opening a door in a rundown farmhouse and feeling a safe and healthy Michael Bridges rush into his arms. He hadn't seen a thirteen year old boy made homeless after his mother tried to kill her six year old niece because her husband couldn't control his pedophilic urges. He hadn't spoken to Sarah Hillridge, a woman who never gave up hope of finding the son taken from her many years before, because, a mother knows. He hadn't seen the joy of them finally being reunited, the son almost a man, combined equally with the sorrow of the parents whose children did not return from Mosley Lane. He had never seen a disturbed young woman named Samantha Malcolm making dolls out of live women because the father, who'd abused her sexually and with electric shock, had given her dolls to another girl he'd molested to silence her. He had never seen pictures of Riley Jenkins' small body riddled with stab wounds. And, he'd never seen a handsome unassuming man, much like Dean Hardy himself, named Gary Michaels, smile at a small boy sitting by a chess board in a park just like this one, and say, "Hey, you're pretty good."
"I'm sorry," Reid said as he put Henry back down in the sandbox and went to retrieve his pail and shovel; "I hope you and your wife understand that the things I see in my work give me a rather skewed perspective on the world."
"Of course," the man nodded. "Why don't we start over, I'm Dean Hardy and this is, not my wife, but my sister-in-law, Becca Dryden. She just moved here from Madison to be nearer to my wife; they've always been very close. I'm just showing her around."
The petite woman reached out to shake Reid's hand and he was surprised at the strength in her small hand. "It's nice to meet you," she said in a cheerful, almost lilting voice. "I totally understand your actions just now with little Henry," she crouched down, smiled, and waved at the toddler as he responded to hearing his name. "I'm a pediatric nurse and I've seen children who've been abused and molested; it's something you want to prevent at all costs."
Reid turned to Garcia, "This is Penelope Garcia; she's also with the FBI." Garcia reached out and shook both their hands. "Will and JJ are away for the weekend," Reid explained.
"That's right," Dean replied, "Will told me something about that, you're the godparents."
"That's us," Garcia said. "Becca, why don't we leave the guys to their sand castle building and we can chat on this bench over here. I can fill you in on all the great places to shop." At the sound of the word shopping, Becca's eyes lit up and she followed Garcia to the bench.
The women watched as Henry slowly filled his pail with sand that Uncle Spence packed down hard for him and they turned the pail over to make a mound of sand. The child babbled incoherently and it almost reminded Garcia of the way Reid would suddenly spout out facts as fast as his tongue would let him. "Your colleague appears to be having a good time," Becca said as she watched the threesome in the sandbox while Dean just paced around. This was likely the time he usually talked with Will.
"He does, doesn't he?" Garcia agreed. "He's a lot more than a colleague; he's like a little brother who I love very much." She watched him helping the boys dump their sand mounds and thought his mind was likely racing with ideas on how to turn those mounds into the most exquisite sand castle. She heard him laugh as one of the boys threw a miniscule handful of sand and he ducked his head, most of it landing in his curly hair. Joshua stood and tried to walk, falling on his bottom when his, still unsteady, legs were unable to handle the uneven footing of the sand. "Oops," she heard Reid say and the two children echoed him and laughed. In the confines of that sandbox, there were no such things as serial killers, child abusers, or molesters. Garcia lifted her phone up and took a picture of perfection: two little boys, learning how to socialize and play together and the genius, Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid, learning, at last, how to be a child.
