My Life Had Stood
Chapter 47: Unraveling the Truth 3
-"What's this case you need help with?" Spencer asked after greeting Fitzgerald, his phone to his ear. His surroundings calm enough that he could listen to the other agent without being reminded of the current situation, despite being only feet away from the hospital.-
Camille Fitzgerald lingered over her answer, a bit surprised that the other agent's keenness to help her. Not that they didn't get along - when she'd helped out the BAU a few times over the years, she'd gotten along decently with each of the agents she'd met. Her surprise stemmed from Spencer not commenting on her calling him, rather than Rossi or Hotch.
She ran her fingers through her rich, auburn hair, her heterochromatic eyes reading over the files in front of her.
-"Fitzgerald?"-
"My team's just been handed a case. A young woman was murdered and dumped in an alley a few weeks ago. No witnesses. No identification found with the body." Fitzgerald said, her words summarizing the easier points of the case. She shuddered, glancing at the medical report on the victim as well as part of one of the crime scene photos. "There's evidence that the victim was tortured, extensively, for at least a few weeks before death. And repeatedly sexually assaulted."
-"...You think it could be a serial?" Spencer mumbled, listening to the younger agent while standing in the park. Not far from the fountain. His brow furrowed when Fitzgerald paused before answering in the affirmative.-
"We know it's a serial. The M.O matches that of a handful of other murder victims in the area. Most which were from twenty or so years ago." She replied, flipping open one of the other case files. Her lips pressed together sadly as she focused on the handwriting. "...it was a case my old team worked on before I joined the Bureau."
-"I...I'm sorry." Spencer replied automatically, recalling about the circumstances that had led to Cam Fitzgerald working with the BAU years ago. Her entire team had been killed just little over a year prior to her joining the BAU temporarily. A bad winter flu had whittled the team down to just three, and Fitzgerald was called in to help out until they were better. "Did...did you want the BAU's help? What about your current team? Aren't they..."-
"Agent Aderhold is currently thinking about calling Hotchner and officially requesting assistance. But..." Cam Fitzgerald chewed on her inner cheek, nervous and concerned. "With everything that's happened, with what Rossi's going through...about James...I..." She paused, thinking about the senior agent. Rossi had rescued her from a terrible situation when she was a child, and she viewed him as family. More than she did the rest of the BAU.
-"..." Spencer drew in a sharp breath, the name James making him think about Alsie. He tried to hide it, but Fitzgerald didn't miss the reaction. She picked up on the shift in his emotion quickly, though she deduced it differently.-
"What is it? Is Rossi okay? What...?" Fitzgerald asked, her body tensing as she immediately assumed Spencer's reaction had to do with the senior agent.
-"He's fine. Considering the circumstances." Spencer answered, not wishing to cause the younger agent any undue stress. "Is...is the reason you called me and not Rossi because you don't want to stress him?"-
"Yes...and no." Fitzgerald replied, taking out another paper from the most recent case file. "I...there's something...odd...about this newest victim. It..." She hesitated, not knowing how to explain or if she should.
-Spencer tensed, immediately thinking about James' crimes. "Please don't tell me that the victim was enucleated..."-
"Don't worry. She wasn't...and like I said the M.O matches cases from twenty-four, twenty-five years ago. He...James...would've been a preteen then if my math's correct." Fitzgerald's voice caught as she said the name, not sure if she could've if she'd been talking to Rossi instead. "No. It's...it's just...some hair not matching the victim's was found on the sheet the unsub wrapped the body in. Some skin cells too."
-"..." Spencer swallowed, waiting for the other agent to continue. He didn't want to jump to any conclusions based on how Fitzgerald was explaining things.-
"The lab tested it for DNA, to see if it could be the unsub's. It isn't." Fitzgerald paused, clicking her tongue as she lingered over the report and how to interpret it. She could sense that Spencer was wondering how she could know it wasn't the unsub's. "The hair and skin cells were from a female, and the unsub is definitely male." She closed the file, finding that looking through it kept making her hesitate or veer off her purpose. "We ran the DNA through the database, local and nationwide, just in case it matched another victim. It...didn't match a victim. But...there was a strong familial match with another's in the system. One added not that long ago."
-"...familial match...?" Spencer tensed, his eyes widening and he prompted Fitzgerald to continue. "Fitzgerald? Whose DNA did it match...? Was it James'?"-
"Yeah..." Fitzgerald nodded, though she continued to bite her lip. Spencer caught her continued hesitance quickly, his attention more keen on the other agent than it'd ever been on anything. "It...I didn't believe it at first, so I ran it again, against all databases, even the FBI personnel samples...it was of course a familial match to Rossi's, but there was another closer familial match."
-"Tell me who else had a familial match to it, Fitzgerald." Spencer said, his heart thumping. His brain had already deduced the answer, but it didn't and wouldn't seem real until Fitzgerald said it.-
"...do you have any siblings? A sister...?" Fitzgerald asked instead, causing Spencer's breath to catch. Though it wasn't a direct answer to his demand, what she asked did confirm his suspicion.
-"...Jemma..." Spencer felt suddenly weak from relief - hope? - at the news. He sat down at a nearby bench, overwhelmed to the point of not answering Fitzgerald for a few moments while she tried asking who Jemma was. "Jem...Jemma is James' daughter. I..." He faltered, not wishing to delve into the situation with Alsie. Or how he'd been lied to his whole life. "Look, tell agent Aderhold the BAU will help on the case. She can call Hotch to confirm, but I guarantee he'll agree to help once he knows about the DNA."-
"All right." Fitzgerald said, surprised enough that she didn't noticed until after hanging up, that Spencer hadn't answered her question about him having a sister.
0
"Damn." William Reid coughed, his hand held against his mouth and nose, both bloody.
"Careful. Here." Rossi led the other man to a chair in the hall, while flagging down a nearby nurse. Neither man had been prepared for the level of hatred in 'Emmie', who had struggled violently against the restraints around her wrists.
Luckily the restraints had held, but that didn't prevent her from headbutting William when the man got too close. The action had surprised both of them, and Rossi quickly helped lead William Reid out of the room. Still bleeding.
"What happened? Rossi...? Mr. Reid?" Hotch asked, approaching the two from down the hall, an unknown woman following him.
"Alsie switched to an alter...Emmie, she called herself." Rossi replied, standing up after a few nurses came to staunch the other man's injuries. He heard them mention about a busted lip and possible broken nose, which needed to be confirmed with an x-ray. Upon which they soon insisted on bringing William Reid to a room to be checked on.
"Wasn't she restrained?" Hotch asked, watching as the nurses led a reluctant William to an examination room.
"What!" The woman who had followed Hotch grew alarmed, her eyes widening behind her glasses. "You had her restrained?! That..." She cursed and quickly entered the hospital room after catching a glimpse of Alsie.
"Dr. Freeman? Wait..." Hotch attempted to stop the woman, but was ignored. Except for a brief moment when Jolene Freeman instructed him and Rossi not to enter the room. Or let any man or imposing woman to either.
She then shut the door.
"Aaron, that is...?"
"Dr. Freeman, Alsie's psychiatrist." Hotch replied, trying to get a glimpse of what was happening inside the room. Just in case Alsie turned violent again. He settled for just standing outside the door, close enough to overhear if any trouble occurred.
"All right..." Rossi nodded, concerned just the same as Hotch about the woman being in the room alone with Alsie - or rather 'Emmie'. The psychiatrist was pretty petite herself, though not as short as the troubled brunette. "Did you explain things? Or ask about Alli...Alsie's files?"
Hotch shook his head. "Dr. Freeman refused to say anything about Alsie to protect patient confidentiality. She said she'll ask Alsie if she'll be willing to sign a release for the files. What about you? Did you explain to William Reid about Jemma and that we're going to search for her?"
"Yeah." Rossi mumbled, not too keen on explaining some of the points he and the elder Reid had discussed. Things they didn't exactly have answers to or that either even wanted to know the answers to. "A...Aaron, how's Spencer taking this? I assume that with his father here, that he was told...? Or..." Rossi paused, thinking. "How did William Reid get here so quickly...? We only just found out about Alsie being..." Rossi faltered, still a bit reluctant to accept the fact of Alsie's and Spencer's familial connection.
Hotch started to explain the conversation he'd had with the elder Reid before Rossi showed up, and handed the senior agent the folder he'd been given. The one that held all of the information William Reid had on his daughter.
"He tried to locate her twice before, but the Crawfords had vanished." Hotch started to explain while Rossi opened the folder, reading through the detective agency files. He faltered though once he noticed the look that appeared on Rossi's face. It was one of pain mixed with regret.
"...He searched for her." Rossi inhaled, his eyes watering a bit as he felt his stomach clench.
"Dave, it wasn't your fault. You can't blame yourself for James. You had no reason to doubt what Dr. Richards told you and Carolyn."
"William Reid didn't have any reason to doubt his wife's doctor either, yet he looked for his daughter..." Rossi retorted.
"That's not exactly true." Spencer said from behind the senior agent, having been on his way to tell Hotch about what Fitzgerald had told him. The two older men quickly turned their attentions to the younger agent. "My mom...she recognized Alsie, that day we met as children. She picked me up from the park and saw Alsie, and recognized her." Spencer swallowed, mulling over what his father had told him and what he remembered now his memory of the time-frame wasn't blocked. "My dad simply acted on what she told him."
"Reid...?"
"I'm sure if you or your first wife saw James when he was a child, you'd have recognized him." Spencer continued, attempting to make the other man feel better. "You also wouldn't have stopped until you found out the truth."
The two older agents shared a glance that Spencer missed, having shifted his attention to Alsie's hospital room door. The glance clearly indicating that neither had failed to notice the anger the younger man had for his father. Anger strong enough that Spencer dismissed William's search for Alsie as meaning anything.
"Where is my dad, anyway?" Spencer asked after trying to peek through Alsie's hospital room door. His first thought having been that William was with Alsie, but that vanished when he realized it was another woman in the room with her, not a man.
"...getting his nose patched up." Rossi replied.
"What? Why? What happened?" Spencer asked, his eyes flitting from Rossi to Hotch.
"...Alsie attacked him."
Spencer flinched, shocked, the answer not one he'd expected. His expression as he glanced back towards Alsie's room clarifying that his reaction had more to do with her involvement. He seemed about to say something, but stopped himself. Instead he grimaced and shook his head.
"Re..."
"Fitzgerald called me." Spencer said, shifting the conversation away from Alsie or William. "Her team just got a case that may be connected to Jemma."
"What?"