My Life Had Stood
Chapter 9: Recognition
"Help!" The woman scurried through the thicket, trying her best to navigate despite her newly acquired lack of sight. Her eye sockets had been sutured and cleaned, before a bandaged had been secured over them. Done carefully so, without a blemish.
Not that she cared, she just wanted - needed - to get away. The man who'd done this to her had let her free, though she had no idea where. It was a grassy area with bushes and some thorny plants. Her ankles and feet got pricked quite a bit as she ran.
Standing where he'd released her, James Wagner watched as the woman ran. He could see the enormity of her fear in the way she scurried away. He felt like a cat reprieving a mouse after toying with it. Only he felt no need to kill it.
Why kill his toy when it'd be much more satisfying knowing he could hunt it again. None of them would even see him coming or know he was watching. Not a single one had seen his face. Except Julie...
James smirked, heading back to his van recalling her. It'd been empowering, convincing her to visit this city. Three months ago, he'd seen her and he knew. She'd been nearing her fourth birthday when their - her - mom left him in that place. Despite that, he recognized her - though that was likely because Julie resembled their - her - mother.
"..." He exhaled, starting up the van. He grimaced each time he thought of Amy Wagner - Vaughn now. The woman he'd called mom, that he trusted yet had abandoned him: every time he thought of her, anger as biting as a newly sharpened knife roiled his stomach.
"Momma. Don't go. Momma." He'd pleaded with her, his twelve year old self being held back by the man in the white coat. His cries did nothing to halt her. Though they continued until he could no longer see her.
James gripped the steering wheel, teeth clenched firmly together. The next second he scowled and drove on. The road taking him toward downtown Niagara Falls, his dark brown eyes scanned the sidewalks.
"Probably, shouldn't." He licked his top lip, considering whether to find another target or to wait. He approached the intersection just before the hospital, flipping on his turn signal. Tomorrow he would scour the downtown tourist area, tonight he would head to the room he was renting.
His brown eyes narrowed at the black SUV parking outside the hospital; curious he turned into the pharmacy parking lot just across the street. He parked and watched the vehicle, his mind wondering.
"Oh...interesting..." He sat back in the driver's seat, mouth twisting between a frown and a smile. Turning off the engine of his van, James watched as the agents exited their vehicle and entered the hospital.
One of them in particular caught his eye.
Rubbing his chin in contemplation, he watched until each of the agents had entered the hospital. Once the door had shut behind the last one, James opened the glove-box and pulled out two items. One of which was a gun.
0
"How is Reid?" Morgan asked JJ as he, along with Lewis, approached her and Rossi. It had taken near an hour for him and Lewis to arrive from the crime scene where Julie Vaughn had been found.
"He's still in surgery." JJ replied, her tone and body language worried. "It'll take a while longer according to the surgeon. The bullet may have nicked his spleen, so they're working on repairing the damage."
"What the hell happened?" Morgan said after taking in what JJ said, frustrated at not being able to do anything to help. After receiving Hotch's call about Spencer, he and Lewis had rushed to the hospital.
"A witness brought in for questioning apparently tried to take Reid's gun and it fired during the struggle." Rossi explained, piecing together what had occurred based on what Spencer had managed to tell him before passing out.
Morgan drew in an angry breath, shaking his head. "Tell me the bastard's in custody."
"You don't have to worry about that." Hotch said as he approached, catching the tail-end of the conversation. He quickly asked about Reid, getting the same response as Morgan.
"Hotch..." Morgan started to ask, his question soon answered when Hotch explained that the person who shot Reid had forced Hotch to shoot her. He sighed.
"That's..." Lewis paused. "When you said 'witness' did you mean one of the vic..."
"No. Not exactly." Hotch replied, explaining how Amy Vaughn hadn't been abducted like they'd thought, but had been brought in from the Amtrak station.
"...damn." Morgan paced, letting the rest of his questions go and instead checking the door heading toward the operating room.
"There's nothing we can do, waiting here. We still have a case." Hotch spoke after a few seconds of silence, though he too was reluctant to return focus to their unsub. The thing that nudged him was Amy Vaughn's dying confession and it's implications.
"Hotch..." Morgan protested, along with JJ. Rossi and Lewis, though remaining silent, gave looks that expressed the same sentiment as Morgan.
"...I understand, but our unsub probably has another victim. A..." The sound of his cell phone interrupted Hotch. After checking caller ID, he answered it but not before taking a few steps away from the team. Enough that they wouldn't overhear. "Yes, Garcia?"
-"Why didn't you warn me what I was going to find?!" Garcia demanded, her tone not even slightly cheerful. It was more distressed than angry.-
"The DNA..." Hotch's stomach knotted at Garcia's reaction. It knotted further as Garcia confirmed what he'd feared. Though it was only a preliminary comparison, it showed a strong familial connection to Rossi. "No, I'll tell Rossi. You..." He paused, listening to Garcia saying she was going to join them in Western New York, whether he agreed or not. After a moment, Hotch sighed and agreed that Garcia should come to them.
Hotch put away his phone soon after saying goodbye to Garcia; facing away from his team he hadn't noticed Rossi approach.
"..." Rossi simply stared at Hotch, studying the younger man.
"Dave..." Hotch said quietly, glancing at the rest of the team waiting closer to the surgery room. "We should talk privately."
"You...you ran the DNA against the database, didn't you?" Rossi accused once the two of them reached the near empty waiting area.
"Yes." Hotch replied, explaining that he'd asked Garcia to run the DNA looking for possible relatives. He further revealed what Amy Vaughn had told him before she died.
"...what?" Rossi drew in a breath, feeling the same mix of emotions when he'd interviewed the woman, only more intense.
"Amy Vaughn apologized. And admitted to switching her son with yours..."
Rossi swore, a gauntlet of emotions running through him.
A dry chuckle from just a few feet away, drew their attention. The only other person in the waiting area - whom they assumed was waiting for another patient - had neared close and quietly enough to listen in on their conversation.
The two agents were about to tell the stranger to mind his own business, when he backed away.
"Sorry." James said, his dark brown eyes smirking as he eyed Hotch and Rossi. He made his expression contrite while backing away and mumbling about being a fan.
Retreating toward the corridor leading away from the waiting area, James smirked the moment he was turned away from the two men. He continued toward the elevator, feeling until he reached there that at least one of the agents continued to watch him.
James entered the elevator and leaned against its back wall, his eyes locking on the FBI agents who'd both continued to watch him. Before the elevator doors closed he mouthed something towards them, and smirked watching the confusion.
Hotch watched as the stranger left, his brow knitted in thought; his instincts had told him that something about the stranger was off.
"...did he just say 'look at the book'?" Rossi asked, having sensed the same uneasiness that Hotch had.
"I think so..." Hotch paused, his gaze alighting on a book that had been left on the chair the stranger had been sitting in. He approached it wordlessly, but swift. It was one of Rossi's.
Hotch quickly opened its cover, his stomach roiling before he even saw the first Polaroid. Julia Vaughn, sans eyes, was tied and gagged in the photo.
His and Rossi's reactions were immediate.
0
James coolly switched from the elevator he'd been on to the one next to it once it stopped at the first floor down. Its timing impeccable, the neighboring elevator had been about to close when he'd managed to slip in. He heard the shouts of the agents as they just missed seeing him slip inside the other elevator.
"What are you doing? This is the express elevator. The next stop is a restricted..." The sole other occupant of the elevator demanded, only to shut up the moment James pulled out his firearm.
"Still restricted?" James pointed the gun against the man's head. He noted the white coat and employee ID. "Dr. Connell?"
"I don't want any trouble." Dr. Connell replied, voice shaking. The next moment James ripped off the ID, the card being a bar-coded one that could be scanned for access to restricted areas.
"Now your coat." James said, prodding the side of Connell's head with his gun to emphasize his seriousness. Connell quickly complied, taking off and handing over his white doctors coat. "That wasn't so bad now."
James punched Dr. Connell in the abdomen and immediately afterwards in the face. The other man sunk to the floor as the elevator dinged its arrival on the restricted floor.