This is my Last Resort (Chapter Fifteen) by Lexikal
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Dark themes; violence; missing children/implied child abuse, lots of Reid angst...
Summary: Spencer Reid, third season-ish (2008-ish), is kidnapped/taken hostage and abused/terrorized along with a host of other "unwanted" children. Please see chapter one for more info.
The video conference with Elle's maternal uncle and his wife was scheduled to take place at 2:00 pm. At 1:55 pm Reid entered the room carrying a large cup of black coffee, a steno pad and a pen and sat down, ignoring the concerned looks his team mates were shooting him.
The Uncle had previously been contacted, apparently, and told that the little missing girl from the news- the one who had been "kidnapped" from a hospital in Virginia- might be his "late" niece, Lise.
Garcia had set up everything so that his face would be on the television, as well as on the computer screen, and the video conference would be tape recorded. He was at the local Boston PD because he didn't have a computer capable of video conferences.
At precisely 2:00 the call was made, and the conference started. Gregory Miller was in his mid-fifties, balding, clean-shaven. He looked slightly nervous.
"Mr. Miller?" Hotch said, by way of starting the interview. "My name is Agent Hotchner, and I have the rest of my team here with me." Hotch then introduced each member of his "team" while Gregory Miller nodded silently and Reid fidgeted, desperate for answers.
"You said over the phone that the little girl from the news might be Lise?" Gregory Miller said anxiously when the introductions were done with.
"We believe she might be your niece, yes," Hotch said simply, not wanting to give away too much. "We are looking for her right now, to the best of our abilities, but we wanted to talk to you. Right now we need as much information as possible. We were wondering what you could tell us about Lise. What you remember."
Something dark shifted over the man's features but was then gone.
"Lise? Why? She was only three when she was...taken...whatever happened to her. She was only three."
"I understand that, sir, but anything you can tell us might help the investigation."
"How?" The man sounded exasperated.
"We believe the people who took Lise took her for a specific reason... that they wanted a certain type of child. What was she like when you knew her?"
"She was three years old!" The man repeated, looking distressed. "Aren't all three year olds basically alike?"
"No, sir, they're not..." Reid cut in, moving so that the man on the screen could see him. "If this little girl really is Lise, than she is not behaving like a typical six year old either..."
Hotch shot Reid a warning glance. Reid took a sip of his coffee and ignored Hotch.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Miller asked.
"The child we interviewed at the hospital, who may be Lise, was extremely intelligent, for one thing..." Reid mollified. Gregory Miller was nodding now.
"Well, yeah. Lise's parents- especially my sister- were always going on about how bright she was. They wanted her tested, but apparently no psychologist they could find was willing- or able- to perform an IQ test on a three year old child."
Reid nodded and began to take down rapid notes.
"Can you give us any examples of your niece's intelligence?" Hotch pressed.
"Well, I always thought a good deal of my sister's babbling was that Lise was her first child, the normal parent's over-estimating their children type thing. Um, I know she was toilet trained before she was two, and reading before two as well, and apparently neither my sister or her husband had taught her to read. That child did speak more like an eight or nine year old, even at three, which was a bit weird. Even before she was a year, she was speaking in complete sentences, but more than that what stood out was how...weird she was." The man fell silent, lost in memories.
"Weird?" Reid pressed.
"You ever see that movie Village of the Damned? How fast those kids learn things? Lise was like that. She was more than just bright, though, and I said so. And so did the shrinks. She had a way of staring at you, even as a toddler that was just plain eerie. Like she was sizing you up or something. And weird stuff happened when she was around..."
"Can you give us an example, sir?" Hotch asked.
"She would've been about two and a half or so, shortly after she got out of the hospital, but..."
"Hospital?" Reid piped up, writing faster now.
"Yeah, first two, two and a half years of that child's life she was sick with leukemia. She got well again, survived, was declared fine... but when they brought her home for good, she just wasn't right. My dog, when she was over here...my golden lab was the sweetest dog in the world and came downstairs with blood on her, but there was no blood on Lise. Lise said the dog had bitten her, but my dog hid under the table and it was my dog that was bleeding, not that child... and after that I just didn't want her around my boys. No matter how old she was."
Reid was nodding to himself.
"Sir, you mentioned psychiatrists...shrinks? Do you remember what that was about?" Hotch prodded.
"She got really bad as the months flickered by. Was still...bright, of course...but her behaviour was frightening. Apparently there was some concern that she was emotionally damaged or something, because she'd been in the hospital since infancy, never really picked up or anything, she was terrified of hospitals. Something to do with bonding...some bonding problem..."
Reid was taking faster gulps of his coffee, writing faster.
"Was she in therapy for this...bonding problem?" Reid finally asked.
"She was analyzed or something...assessed? Yeah, assessed. But my sister was wary of shrinks, and then all those reports of children being killed during holding-therapy and re-birthing therapy started popping up on the news, and my sister- Margie- she thought all Lise needed was more love and attention. Said her baby had been deprived of enough, and she wasn't about to start traumatizing a baby for problems that were her fault."
"Your sister blamed herself for Lise's emotional problems?" Rossi asked seriously. The man on the computer screen shrugged.
"I don't think she blamed herself, but she felt guilty that her child was a train-wreck, if that's what you mean. I know that I was surprised when they took her to a shrink... so her behaviour must've gotten worse. That child could do nothing wrong in their eyes, so in order for them to take her to one of those shrinks, she must've been acting up pretty badly..."
Reid was nodding again, even though he wasn't facing the computer and the man couldn't see him.
"If you do some digging you should be able to get the assessment or at least speak to the shrink that first looked her over...I don't think she was given an actual diagnosis, but some term started being thrown around a lot shortly before Lise's disappearance, and I know her mother said that Lise hated seeing the shrinks, was frightened because they reminded her of medical doctors and that child was petrified of doctors of all sorts..."
"The term they used to describe her condition...her behaviour...do you remember what it was?" Hotch asked.
"Reactive...Reactive something? It was a long time ago."
"Reactive attachment disorder?" Reid said softly, not really a question. A statement.
"Yeah, that was the one. I did some research on it on the internet and then I really didn't want her around my boys anymore..."
"How old were your children at the time?" Rossi asked conversationally.
"I have four sons. Michael is 16 now, so he would've been thirteen when Lise was three. George is ten now, Patrick is 7 and Scotty is 6, same age as Lise, give or take a few months."
"Do you think your sons would be willing to talk to us?" Hotch asked, not really expecting a positive response.
"Patrick and Scott were practically babies themselves. I am not sure they could tell you much. I know she scared George pretty badly when he was about seven, but he never told me why, and she put Mikey on edge. I am not sure any of them would be any help to you. Listen, I hope you find her, and I hope she is okay... but if she is anything like she was then..."
Hotch nodded. He already knew what the man was saying. I don't want that child back in my life.
"And your wife? Might she remember anything in addition to what you told us?"
"I doubt it," Gregory Miller said, keeping his tone neutral. "I highly doubt it."
"Alright, Mr. Miller...Thank you for your time."
"I hope you find her... one thing that never did sit well with me..."
"What's that?" Reid said, still writing, not even looking up.
"Her parents were executed and Lise was just...never found. And as ridiculous as this probably sounds, I never really did think that child was dead, even though she was proclaimed dead. There was just something about the entire murder that didn't make sense, but I can't put my finger on it..."
"You don't think Lise hurt her parents?" Reid pressed, still writing, obviously distracted.
"Of course not! She was three! But... then again, I'd never seen a three year old with eyes like that before..."
"Eyes like what, sir?" Hotch asked.
"On the surface, she seemed sweet and bubbly and bright, right? Every mother's dream child. But then, you'd catch her looking at you when she didn't think you were watching her, or when she was angry, and there was something else in them that I've never seen in such a young child's eyes. This darkness, if that makes any sense. Like looking into two tiny little black holes. Probably sounds stupid, but you'd have had to be there, I guess..."
"It doesn't sound stupid at all." Reid muttered, barely loud enough for anyone in the room to hear him, let alone Gregory Miller, but Hotch caught it, and so did Morgan, who was sitting right next to Reid.
"Thank you for your time, sir," Hotch said then, shooting Reid another look. "We'll be in touch as we learn more."
"Yeah, okay..." Miller said, but he didn't sound particularly enthusiastic. The conference ended there and the entire team was silent. Reid was the first to speak.
"Dolores and Edward White abducted a child who already had an attachment disorder. That explains both the level of her malice now, and also why they were afraid of her..."
"They were afraid of her? Reid, they shot her and tortured her, according to your own memories..." Morgan argued.
"Probably because they were afraid of her." Reid snapped back.
"Reid, Edward and Dolores White were killers. Whatever problems this child obviously had, they made them much worse. They executed her parents right in front of her, allowed her to be involved in the abduction process and allowed her to play God. They were adults. Dolores was...is...psychotic. Her actions, and what you told us about her when you were relatively lucid back up that theory, and Edward White, if not a full-blown psychopath, definitely didn't show much respect for the law or the sanctity of human life." Morgan argued.
"Sanctity of human life..." Reid trailed, sounding almost amused. "How much respect do you think Lise...Elle...has for the sanctity of human life?"
Hotch cut off the bantering then.
"Garcia, do you think you could track down this child's psych records, and find out about her early hospitalizations?"
"On it, Captain..." Garcia said, eyes darting between Morgan and Reid as she quickly left the room.
"I knew something didn't fit... RAD generally develops in the first three years of life, and even if Lise, or Elle, or whatever you want to call her now was taken at three and a half, if she had been attached at that age, she'd be disturbed now, but not nearly to the same degree..." Reid mused, almost as if he were talking to himself. He wrote down a few more lines on his steno pad.
He looked over at the rest of the team then, suddenly feeling deflated.
"Did Garcia run all the video footage of vehicles leaving P2 when Elle escaped?"
"Almost all of them have been ruled out. We are still waiting on a few, trying to get in contact with the owners." Prentiss answered.
"If she did stow away in somebody's vehicle, she is most certainly not just going to catch a ride and then go about her merry little way," Reid said almost sarcastically. "We need to be focusing on the drivers of those vehicles we haven't spoken to yet. Their lives might be in danger."
"Reid, she may not have even gotten in a vehicle, she could be on foot..." Rossi interrupted, but even he didn't really believe that.
"Yeah, and she might be a sweet, perfectly adjusted little girl who, with a bit of love and cookies, will return back to normal once this entire mess is sorted out," Reid groused miserably. "Of course she got in a vehicle."
"Reid-" Hotch said sharply.
"Hotch, she did get in some sort of vehicle, and until everyone's accounted for, we are wasting time. And possibly putting someone's life at risk."
"She's been missing since about 11:30 last night. If she was going to hurt someone... she probably would have done so already."
"Let's hope you're right." Reid said sourly. He turned back to his steno pad, where the notes had trailed away into a doodle of a cherubic looking small girl, but peaking up around her back and neck were wings. Not angel wings made of feathers, either, but dark black, leathery bat wings.
End of chapter note: Relatively boring chapter, I guess, but it provided some much needed info for the reader. I will get more into the cool hallucinations and the chase for Elle (and her psychotic "mother") soon enough. And yes, children can develop RAD from prolonged hospitalizations in early childhood (they fail to bond to a primary caregiver because they are so sick and they are often in pain or feeling sick if they need to be hospitalized, see a sea of endless faces- which isn't good for infants and young children that are learning to bond- and sometimes, not always, can develop RAD (there is also thought to be a predisposition to this disorder, as clearly not ALL children who are severely ill as babies and young children develop it or we'd have a major mess on our hands). Most of what "we" know about RAD comes from infants and toddlers from Slavic, over-worked orphanages who are then adopted, brought back to North America (never having bonded in very early life) and develop severe symptoms, but abuse, neglect, being shifted among many primary caregivers early in life (such as multiple foster home placements in infancy and toddlerhood) can cause RAD, as can multiple hospitalizations in some scenarios. Basically any situation which interrupts the normal mother (or mother-type caregiver) and infant bonding process can lead to this disorder. A good, nonjudgmental website for learning more about RAD in real life is .org Take care and I promise the upcoming chapters will be more exciting, but this was a necessary chapter, because it explains WHY Elle is so maladjusted- she already had bonding problems BEFORE her parents were killed, and that act (the murder of her parents) sort of sealed the deal. Not to mention that after the fact she was raised with killers... no, not good at all. Like always, please excuse any typos. And please review! I write more when people review, honestly! *grins*