Chapter 4: Unanswered questions
Reid penetrated in the conference room, three minutes ahead of everyone, as usual. The huge mug in his hands seemed far too heavy for him, but his colleagues had grown used to the unreasonable amount of coffee this frail man would ingurgitate day after day. Sitting down around the circular table, the doctor flipped open the book he was currently reading, to get his mind busy until the others were there. Soon enough, the blonde communication liaison officer strolled into the room with a stack of files under her arm.
"Hello, genius." She said absentmindedly, sitting down across from the younger agent.
"Morning, JJ. So, what's our case today?"
JJ frowned, flipping through her different files without looking up.
"In fact, I am not so sure… I can't remember presenting any new case to Hotch… unless I've been sleepwalking, which would not be surprising given the little sleep we have had lately."
Reid raised an eyebrow and turned to Dave Rossi and Derek Morgan, who seemed to be in deep debate.
"Hey, do you know who called for a meeting?"
"Hotch sent us both a message." Morgan answered, making his way to the seat nearest to the screen.
"Do you know what it's about? Nothing's come over my desk since we've returned yesterday." JJ intervened. She had checked: all her files were still on her desk this morning, so no one had been snooping around, taking some of her work while she was asleep. She sighed. This would be too great.
As Aaron Hotchner exited the elevator, his briefcase in hand, he didn't miss the few disapproving glances from fellow profilers. Even though he had headed home for a short time before coming to the Bureau, he had not gathered the courage to change into a proper suit. He seriously didn't care at the moment, although he agreed that the sight of SSA Hotchner in a casual T-shirt and jacket instead of the shirt and tie could surprise more than one. On autopilot, the man jogged up the few stairs to the conference room, where he was greeted by five pairs of worried eyes.
"Oh, Bossman is a little casual today… What's the occasion?" Morgan couldn't help noting when the chief unit greeted them with a nod and put his briefcase on the circular table a little too briskly.
Derek's smirk quickly faded as they all took in the look on their boss' face.
"Is everything okay?" JJ asked, her eyes bouncing from one person to another to observe the others' reaction.
"No. Thank you for coming in early."
At that moment, Garcia strolled into the conference room, making herself tiny as she took the last available seat, near the door. From the looks on her face and the fact that she didn't throw a joke or smirk at anyone, the others guessed that she was in the confidence already.
"Aaron?" Rossi intervened. The palpable tension in the room was killing him.
"Emily went missing last night. There was a fight at her apartment, two bodies were found. She was already gone and no one has seen her since."
For a few seconds, the agents were so stunned that neither of them answered.
"Garcia, the pictures, please." With a single nod, the blonde analyst sent the pictures downloaded from Hotch's phone onto the screen on the wall.
"Strauss called me to inform me that a murder had been signaled at Emily's address. I went over to check it was not her."
"And it's not… is it?" JJ interrupted. Although the first statement had been quite clear, she just had to make sure.
"No." the man, visibly exhausted and tensed, replied in a sigh. "They found a woman and a man. Everything is not yet clear, but apparently the woman's throat was cut first, then the man got in a fight – with Emily, I would guess – and was stabbed in the stomach."
"And she didn't stay?" Derek voiced what everyone had been thinking. Emily Prentiss running away. "This isn't like her."
"I agree." Hotch replied, looking back at the gruesome pictures. "I tried to call her but her phone is off. As soon as she turns it back on, Garcia will be able to trace it."
"She might be hurt." JJ said, looking at an empty spot on the table. She was still under shock.
"Who is working the case?" Derek asked, his eyes fixed on the pictures showing a young woman in her twenties, eyes wide open in shock.
"Homicide. As there is no intra-state connection for now, there is no reason to make it federal." Hotch had kept his hands in his pockets, partly because he was still shaking slightly from worry and lack of sleep.
"No reason? She's one of us."
"Morgan, even if they decided to make it federal, we unfortunately would not be allowed to interfere."
The way Hotch held his agent's gaze told him how much he agreed and resented these idiotic rules.
"Let's keep it quiet then." He finally added, meeting approving looks on the six faces.
"Do we know the identity of the victims?" Reid intervened. He couldn't help thinking, now that the picture of the young woman was displayed on the screen, that she looked a lot like their missing colleague.
"Garcia?" Hotch turned to their technical analyst, who became all flustered at once.
"Um… I ran the pictures you sent me through our database. And both the woman and the man had a match."
"Go on." Hotch couldn't have been more surprised. He knew Garcia was a great asset to the team, but the task seemed a little too easy at once.
"Jeffrey Richards, 48, was prison guard at the Central Kansas Prison Facility for over ten years. His criminal records are all clear and he even was rewarded as a model state employee two years in a row."
"Family?"
"A wife and two children, aged 7 and 10."
"And the girl?" Derek asked. If the history of the man couldn't give them any hint as for the reason of this bloodshed, maybe it was linked to the first victim.
Hotch's eyes narrowed as the analyst stopped typing at her keyboard. She opened her mouth to say something but seemed to think how to rephrase it.
"Garcia?" he pressed with an annoyed tone. They couldn't waste any minute.
"I'm not sure how to tell you this."
"Shoot, baby girl." Derek leaned forward to make her feel more comfortable. Garcia was buried half of the time in her bunker and was not used at having so many spectators at once.
"The girl appears in the adoption register for the state of New York, under the name Lizzie Mayers. Previously Lizzie Prentiss."
"I don't follow you…" Hotch leaned forward, putting both hands on the table to support his weight.
"Prentiss… as in 'sister of Emily Prentiss'? Niece? Cousin?... What?" JJ locked with her female friend's eyes, praying her to continue.
"Rather daughter."
Hotch felt as though someone had just kicked the air out of his lungs. There was nothing of the kind in Emily's personal file, although he had never failed to notice how good Emily was with children.
"Are you sure?" he heard himself ask absentmindedly.
"Positive. The girl was born in the Albany Medical Center, on August the 8th 1990 and immediately given in for adoption. She stayed a few years in state care and had been living with the same family since 1994."
Silence fell over the team like a cover of snow, numbing all the emotions and answers, until Hotch cleared his throat.
"Did anyone of you know about this?"
He was very surprised when Rossi's head shot up. "Yes and no."
Hotch raised a questioning glare. "And by that you mean…" Derek said, once again the first to jump to the question everyone had been asking silently.
"She told me that she had been pregnant at a very young age. But she said she had had an abortion."
"Why didn't she tell us?" Reid asked.
"Reid, giving away your child is a heartbreaking thing to do. I think she just doesn't want to be reminded of that twenty years later…" Hotch spoke without realizing.
"How do we know that anyway?" Reid said, glancing around to find his colleagues staring blankly at him. "I mean, aren't these registers supposed to be secret?"
"Not if you don't want them to be. Emily purposely left her name for her daughter to find if she so wished." At the realization, Hotch couldn't suppress a sigh, and he closed his eyes just for a second, long enough however for Rossi and JJ to notice.
"What's bugging you?" Rossi asked, not leaving his eyes off his long-time friend.
"I'm just thinking that the first and only time Emily saw her daughter, it was to see her die."
This bold statement brought everyone back into their thoughts. A very dark place full of unanswered questions and worry concerning their missing friend.
