Author's Note: Thanks to the reviewers of the last chapter: SparkleInTheSun; Love-B .xo; savetonight; Zolidify; midmac; laurenhd08; claudia-scags; Moi; and EmmaBerlin. They literally spur me forward in posting, so thank you.
Special thanks to SignedSealedWritten brynnifer who's always fantastic.
Hotch slammed to door shut angrily as if by taking his aggression out on the SUV he could erase the memory of earlier that day. "Everything okay?" Dave asked, eyeing him closely.
"Fine." Hotch bit out as he stepped around the car. "Let's do this."
Emily slowly closed the door to the backseat of the SUV, somewhat grateful for the chance to be at work with the team again, but also wishing desperately she didn't have to have her first raid back be at this house.
Manuel's house.
The suburban neighborhood was in pristine condition, snidely mocking the profilers as it kept the horrors of JJ's torment behind its doors.
"Did you know that approximately 600,000 to 800,000 victims are trafficked annually across international borders worldwide?" Reid asked as he too slid out of the SUV. "And the State Department has estimated that 80 percent of internationally trafficked victims are female and 70 percent are trafficked into the sex industry." Reid spouted off, unaware of the odd looks the others were giving him.
Derek practically jumped out of the SUV after Reid, shutting the door forcefully behind him. "I don't think now's the time for your statistics, Reid." He fought to keep his tone light, knowing intellectually that Reid didn't intend to remind them of JJ's position.
"Morgan, you and Rossi go along the back. Reid, Prentiss, and I will take the front." Hotch informed as if the others hadn't spoken.
The two agents nodded and quickly disappeared around the back of the house.
"Ma'am," An officer spoke loudly, causing Hotch and Reid to turn with curiosity. "This is a police line, you can't cross—"
The woman was in her early thirties with what appeared to be a two year old clinging desperately to her as she spoke pointedly to the officer. "Oh, please God, tell me he didn't kill her. I called you. I knew something was wrong!" She insisted, pushing past the officer who held his ground firmly.
"Ma'am, this is an ongoing investigation—" The young officer continued his standard explanation.
"Ma'am, I'm Special Agent Aaron Hotchner, this is Special Agent Emily Prentiss. Can she ask you a few questions over here?" Hotch nodded his approval at the young officer who then held up the tape for the woman and her child.
The woman stopped just short of the sidewalk as she held her hand up to her mouth in horror. "I knew something was wrong. Please, tell me she's okay."
"Ma'am, can I get your name?" Emily asked, smiling gently. She nodded to Hotch who quickly retreated and with Reid approached the front door.
"Caroline. Caroline Parker." The woman shifted the boy in her arms. "I live right over there—" She pointed to a house just across the street where an eight to ten year old girl stood in the empty doorway, eyeing the commotion with curiosity.
"How long have you lived—" Emily didn't get a chance to finish her question before Caroline answered quickly.
"We just moved here less than a year ago. Our boxes aren't even all unpacked." The woman eyed Hotch and Reid as they slowly entered the home.
"You said you knew something was wrong. Did you see anything unusual—"
"My husband—Alan—he always tells me I'm a busybody, but…I knew something was wrong."
Emily could tell this woman was caught up in the heat of the moment, and definitely had information that right now Emily couldn't quite understand. Ushering the woman to the other side of the SUV, away from the sight of Manuel's house, she tried again. "You thought something was wrong, can you tell me why you thought something was wrong?"
Caroline took a deep breath in an attempt to better help the agent with kind eyes. "Like I said, we moved here only a little while ago. Dr. Santos—he seemed nice, genuine even. But one night Brock was up with a fever and I was looking out the window. I saw this blonde girl limping into the house. She fell down, and Dr. Santos grabbed her by the arm and practically dragged her into the house."
"What did the girl look like?" Emily queried.
"Long blonde hair, frail. I didn't see her face then, but she was so tiny—skinny tiny, she was tall, but she was like unnaturally skinny—she looked as if she was probably fifteen or so."
Emily immediately felt her senses pique with interest as she quickly jotted down this information. "What happened next?"
"I went over, knocked on the door with a pot of soup. I told him what I saw and he told me that it was a patient he was helping in rehab." Caroline ran a hand through her dark curly hair.
"He said he brought a patient home?" Emily asked, unable to keep the disbelief out of her voice.
"Yeah, he said she was a runaway that needed help but couldn't afford it." Caroline snorted, "I think he thought I believed him, but I didn't. It just didn't add up."
"So you called the police?" Emily deduced from the other woman's earlier insistence.
"Yeah, they showed up. He told them the same story, but this time, she was his sister."
"The story is inconsistent." Emily muttered, jotting down the woman's story quickly in her notebook.
"Exactly!" Caroline cried with relief. "Alan said he was probably embarrassed at first, that's why he didn't tell me—I knew something was wrong."
"Did anything else happen?" Emily asked. "With the police?"
"They said they didn't have probable cause or something like that, but when they looked through his house they couldn't find her." Caroline shook her head, "They told me to keep an eye out, if anything else suspicious happened to give them a call."
"Did anything else happen?"
"I watched him. I watched. Alan said I became obsessed—but somebody needed to do something—so I watched. The girl, she'd be gone for weeks, sometimes even a month or two, then she'd come back at weird times, only to leave again at four in the morning."
Emily frantically jotted down the information and Caroline took it as a sign to continue, "Agent Prentiss, I could see bruises. From my kitchen window, I could see that she was hurt."
"Did this woman have a name?"
"Dr. Santos said her name was Alejandra." Emily's face blanched and Caroline quickly picked up on the recognition. "Please tell me she's okay," The younger woman pleaded.
"She's okay." Emily bit her lip, images of the scene earlier that day playing before her mind. "Did anything else happen?" She pressed lightly.
"Once, I was outside jogging at five in the morning when they were coming home and I went over to talk to them. She wouldn't look at me, Manuel introduced her as his niece—I knew that girl needed help." Caroline explained. "I called the police again, but when they came out they couldn't find a sign of her."
"Thank you." Emily smiled gratefully, suddenly struck by a pang of emotion that this woman had tried to help, but like the team, her effort was not enough. "I'll let you know if I have any more questions."
The other woman nodded and shifted the young boy in her arms before ducking back under the police tape.
As Emily watched as Mrs. Parker retreated to her own home. She hoped that this time, as everybody bound together to help JJ, they wouldn't fail her again.
Lisa Nielsen sat down on the oversized couch, relaxing just for a minute despite all the housework she needed to do. Zoey's toys were strewn all around the floor and Lisa had half a mind to reprimand her daughter and try to force her to maintain some type of order.
She sighed as she noticed the empty food-bowl signifying that Zoey either she forgot to feed her trusted companion since her ordeal or the six-year-old was sneaking table scraps and other treats to the German Shepherd that Dixie really shouldn't be eating.
Maybe she should try to discipline her daughter, trying to remind her of what was against the rules.
She had not, after all, given up her job as a high level corporate attorney just to pick up toys and become a glorified maid for her daughter.
But then—
She was still haunted by what had happened to her little girl.
A few toys on the floor were a welcome exchange to be able to rear her daughter to adulthood, even if it did mean constantly finding toys on the floor or table scraps in the doggie-bowl.
Because for nearly fourteen hours—fourteen heartbreaking hours that felt like decades—Lisa had been forced to contemplate the life she would lead without her little girl.
Toys on the floor and sneaking table-scraps for the dog were a welcome alternative.
She flipped on the news, wanting to catch the important headlines before she started dinner.
"—in Liberty Way Park today. According to our source this is where the FBI Agent that had been missing for months managed to confront her former captor."
Lisa leaned forward, intrigued. She was well aware of Agent Jareau's case—everyone was—but since her own daughter had been kidnapped from her bedroom it was far too real. A picture of a well-groomed man filled the television screen.
"Dr. Miguel Santos, formerly a well-respected therapist, has now been linked to the disappearance of Agent Jareau. In today's attack, Agent Jareau somehow managed to wrestle the gun from Dr. Santo's grasp and free herself from her former captor."
A picture of JJ replaced Dr. Santos's and Lisa whipped around as her daughter squealed in excitement.
"Zoey!" Lisa was by her daughter's side in a second, well aware of her sometimes momentary triggers that sent her back to the hellish experience. "Is everything okay?"
"Mommy!" Zoey gasped. "It's my Angel!"
"What's that baby?" Lisa asked, smoothing the girl's dark hair.
"My Angel" Zoey explained, "it's her!"
"Agent Jareau has been admitted to an area hospital and authorities have not yet released information on her condition." The reporter finished, and the new continued.
"Mommy, will you find My Angel?" Zoey asked excitedly. "I've gotta see her."
"Zoey, are you sure Sweetheart?" Lisa asked. When Zoey had been found, to Robert and Lisa's horror, Zoey could barely utter any coherent phrase other than referring to some person as 'her angel'.
Months of therapy had thankfully helped return Zoey to her normally precocious, though more nightmare prone, state.
Her angel? Agent Jareau? Lisa bit her lip thoughtfully, it seemed too much of a stretch.
Zoey leveled a glare that rivaled the ones she herself gave to her loving husband when he made stupid comments. "I'll see what I can do, alright?"
"Yay! Thanks Mommy!" Zoey hugged Lisa's legs tightly before seeing Dixie chewing a ball in the corner. "Can me 'n Dixie play outside?" She pled.
Lisa chuckled, marveling at the girl in front of her. Hesitating for only a second, she nodded. "You can only play in the back yard, you can't go outside the fenced area, grab a jacket and I will watch you." She rattled off the familiar instructions.
"Okay!" Zoey scrambled excitedly, the large German Shepherd following closely behind.
Lisa laughed as she heard something crash from Zoey's room and cringed as she thought of the mess that would need cleaning.
If only life were so simple.
Derek stepped into the home, fighting the pit in his stomach that grew with every step he made toward the hell JJ had been forced into.
Rossi signaled forward, indicating Derek should flank him from behind. Morgan winced at the sight of the sleek modern furniture and wall hangings that seemed to give off the air of sophistication and wealth.
After quickly clearing the main floor, Rossi nodded and Derek put his gun back in its holster.
"So this is it." Dave murmured, placing his own firearm securely back in its holster. "This is where he had her."
"This is it." Derek agreed softly.
No words needed to be spoken, because how were colleagues supposed to sit and idly chat about the hell where one of their own had been tortured?
"He said—" Morgan choked uncharacteristically over the words, "he left her something. A gift."
Rossi quirked his eyebrow suspiciously. "A gift? For JJ? He's a narcissistic sociopath." Rossi frowned, "If anything, it'd be a final attempt to exert power over both her and us."
"I know." Derek sighed, rubbing the back of his head in disgust. "Which means it's even more important for us to find whatever he had for her."
"Guys?" Reid called from the front room. "I found something I think you'll want to see."
CSU techs were busy taking photographs of something on the table. Derek felt himself torn in separate directions as Hotch watched what appeared to be videos on Dr. Santos's large television screen. Rossi stepped toward Hotch, seemingly making Derek's decision for him as he felt himself pulled toward the item on the table.
"A scrap book?" Derek mused in surprise. He nodded to Reid who picked it up and breezed through it quickly before handing it over to Derek's gloved hands.
Derek quirked an eyebrow as if Reid could explain in a glance the horrors that the book contained.
Spencer gulped, uncharacteristically silent as he shook his head and turned toward the video screen.
"How was it?" Hotch ground out, his voice low and angry as he spoke out of the side of his mouth, his eyes never leaving the screen.
"Bad." Reid admitted, unwilling to explain everything that the book contained, but also aware that Hotch deserved to know. "A ledger. I think it's of people Manuel 'leased' JJ to." He cringed. "It also has clippings from the reports on her abduction. It looks like he either planned to or did show it to her to prove how far off we were from finding her." Spencer surmised. "What is this?"
"JJ." Hotch's voice cracked as they watched the figure on screen quiver with fear doing nothing to fight the burning of his eyes from the emotion that swelled inside of him. He couldn't tear his eyes away, and the more he saw, the more he wanted to tear this monster apart limb from limb.
JJ hugged herself tightly, hating the fact that she could feel her own body shivering beneath her fingers. Her team, they were coming for her, they would find her. That's all she had to keep reminding herself.
And the blotchy monsters that seemed to appear from nowhere weren't real.
At least, she hoped they weren't real.
"This has been a great year Manuel." An older man descended the stairs that led to her basement prison with the well-dressed man beside him. "I see you've taken on a problem." The man laughed at the sight of JJ huddled tightly in the corner. "It is only going to cause problems for you."
Manuel nodded, "I don't normally accept 'problems' in exchange for payment, but I made an exception for this one."
"Have you tried it out yet?" The older man asked, eyeing JJ lecherously with lust that he made no effort to hide.
"I don't do that, it would—" Manuel searched for the right word, "Stain my impeccable reputation. I intend to lease it out for profit."
"A good choice." The man agreed, "But you wouldn't mind if your former mentor tried her out? Your first 'client'?"
"I won't even charge you." Manuel laughed as he clapped the man on the back. "It's not broken yet."
"No matter." The man growled, apparently unaware he was being filmed.
JJ watched the men with confusion, lifting up her hand just to check if the figures in front of her would dissipate through her fingers like most of the other monsters haunting her recent nightmares. She was glad they were at least speaking English, though she still wasn't sure what they were talking about.
As the older man stepped toward her, she suddenly knew with a sickening reality of what was about to happen.
But there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Other than fight.
"You know what I want. No games." He leaned down and whispered closely. JJ recoiled from the awful foul stench that blew in her face from his breath. "I can promise you, though. This will hurt."
At some point, Derek had joined the others as they watched JJ's torment be carried out on the screen. Seeing her struggle in the man's grasp before he slapped her and ripped her clothes from her body, Reid turned away, unable to watch any more. "Turn it off." He begged as he left the others.
JJ screamed loudly as she fought against the man, seemingly snapping the others from the trance that seemed to captivate them. Hotch paused the image on screen, suddenly overcome with the realization that dozens of agents and officers and technicians were walking in and out of the house, exposing JJ's image to the entire world.
JJ deserved privacy.
Rewinding the DVD to capture the other man's face, Hotch paused it and barked, "Somebody get me an ID on this man. Now!"