"Welcome to heaven, here's your harp. Welcome to hell, here's your accordion."
Gary Larson.
February sixth.
Same day.
Sunday.
12.30
There had been nothing left of their three hour flight. Quietly, the team had sat in the plane with their own thoughts and their own feelings. Hotch had nodded at each of them when they entered the plane, but he spoke no words about their decisions. He had been on the phone a lot and he scribbled down information as it was passed along. From the corner of his eye, he was watching his team and they were watching him. They had counted clouds and the seconds that ticked away and waited until they would arrive. During their journey, photos and papers with information was sent to them. Without much talking, each of the members of the BAU primary team would study them, say a few casual things and then be left with the pace of their heartbeats. It had been different for all of them.
The first thing sent to them, even before the entire team had boarded the airplane, were the pictures and the information on the victims. SSA Angie Wills; SCU primary team leader and female serial killer expert. SSA Ricardo 'Cuba' Pinõ; drug expert. SA Holly 'Lewy' Lewis; sex offender expert and attack pattern specialist. Hotch and his team didn't need the photos to know who the victims were; they had met two months ago when their ex-colleague, the Brit Abby Scott, had been arrested for murder. She used to be SCU, working out of Atlanta, and her old team had been questioned in order to complete the profile on Scott. But, in the end, the results the BAU team had been looking for had turned the tables and curtains fell to reveal a person they did not really know. Dave Rossi had known Angie Wills from back in the days. Hotch himself worked with the SCU supervisor, David McCallister, on a case twelve years ago. They all knew the victims. They all had a personal connection to them, each in their own way.
This case was going to be hard, they all knew. The SCU had been Atlanta's personal super heroes. And now someone had taken those heroes from them and the city demanded answers.
Penelope Garcia – she had quickly changed her bright red jacket with flowers on the back for a more suitable, grey black-striped knitted jacket – sat at the table with a computer in front of her. These days, planes – especially government planes – were more able to deal with transmitters such as mobile phones and computers. The pilots never really liked it when the team used internet or satellite connections, but they understood the brave men and women of the BAU had a job to do.
"Sir?" Garcia called out to Hotch, her voice not carrying the usual spirit.
Her supervisor looked up from his notes. "Yes?"
"We have more pictures." She informed him.
Hotch stood up and his team, having heard the announcement, did as well and gathered around the booth Garcia sat.
"These are some of the crime scene photos McCallister just sent over." Garcia said and she pressed a button.
The first picture was probably the worst. It held an overview of the crime scene; showing a black SUV in an underground parking lot. Two people sat inside the car, the third wasn't to be seen. Behind the wheel, the lifeless body of Angie Wills was leaning against the door. Her eyes were only half closed and blood had dripped from her forehead down to her chin. Dead on arrival. As usual, Wills was dressed in black.
On her right sat Holly Lewis. Her head, the forehead covered by a streak of blood, was leaning back which caused her mouth to stand open – if only slightly. Lewy hadn't even put on her seatbelt. Two bullet holes in the front window confronted the viewers with horror and the two dead faces staring dead ahead behind them caused a tragic scenery.
This wasn't just a crime scene; this was a graveyard.
On the first photo it was visible once you finally managed to tear your eyes from the first two bodies; the door of the left backseat side of the car was opened. The second photo showed the result; Cuba Pinõ, in his motted smart brown check trousers and his long sleeves multicolour stripes cardigan, laying on the ground with two red spots on his chest. He was holding his gun in his right, his phone in his left.
"Guys, take a closer look at those pictures." Reid suddenly said as he nearly pressed the photo he was holding against his nose.
"What is it?" Hotch questioned and he stared at the picture of Angie Lewis. She had been such a statue and was now degraded to something ordinary – just a meat sack and bones, a corpse destined for nothing else but rotting. It was such a vehement attack on the character she once was.
"There are no entry wounds on their heads." Reid mumbled. "Here, see, you can't see the wound. You see the blood but not the wound."
"These pictures were Photoshopped?" JJ asked in disbelieve.
Garcia had studied the pictures on her laptop and typed away until she spoke. "I can't tell. They only sent me teeny tiny, compressed JPEG files so there's no way I can remove layers or reveal something."
Hotch immediately grabbed his cell phone and dialled a number too familiar to him.
"Why would they change a crime scene photo?" Morgan thought out loud and at no one in particular.
"They must be covering something up. But why? We're going over there to help them." JJ said in disbelieve. She made a face as she went through the pictures on her tablet. "There's not clear image of Pinõ either. You can see his body, but not his face."
"Perhaps they're trying to cover for someone?" Prentiss suggested carefully. She interlaced eyes with Rossi, the man she had spoken with in the late hours of the night, trying to find a way to get out of the mess.
"Abby wouldn't murder someone with a gun." Reid instantly replied platonic.
Before she spoke, she opened her mouth and glanced at Rossi again. "Reid, that's not what I meant."
"Yeah, it is." The genius told her, but his tone of voice remain so calm and at ease – as if talking about his facts or what he had for breakfast that morning. "I'm just saying. Abby wouldn't use her gun to murder someone. To her, guns represent law enforcement and everything that comes with carrying a badge. She would never disgrace the uniform."
"Right." Prentiss responded and smiled briefly, and fake.
"McCallister isn't picking up his phone." Hotch announced annoyed and he dumped the phone back on the table in front of him.
"Doesn't make any sense. They're covering up crime scene photos and now the man that called us for help isn't picking up." Rossi said to his superior with that grim, stark expression on his face. "I don't like where this is going."
February sixth.
Same day.
Sunday.
13.28
There hung something solemn in the air, a sense of grief and loss. Their shoulders were heavy during the walk to three parked SUV's. There was silence as well, and each agent avoided eye contact. They hadn't handled a case this personal since Reid's abduction. This time there were three victims and they all knew them – closely or not. They had been called, like with any other case, but they could not treat this as any other case. They were FBI. This was different. This was personal.
Reid rode with Morgan, the genius not once looking at the dark man as he stepped into the vehicle, wearing those ridiculous sunglasses and ignoring everyone else. For the past 2 months, Reid had refused to ride with Morgan, just as he had refused anything else to do with the older man. Garcia, who had been asked by Hotch to join them in Atlanta for her expertise, unlike her character chose the car Hotch and JJ approached. Morgan shortly glanced at her, but then bowed his head and let it be. Prentiss and Rossi didn't even need to look at each other – they just walked towards the car like they had done many times. Before taking off, Reid looked out the window and suddenly saw a figure a little over half a mile away, dressed in blue work clothes from the airport, smoking and looking at them. For a minute, Reid hated him just because the man wasn't sitting in his seat, knowing where they were going and knowing what news they would have to deliver at some point. And he hated him, solely for that reason.
The address of the crime scene had even already been programmed into the navigation system that came with the cars. Full tanks, parked in a way they could drive away easily. Once they left the airport, they were escorted by squad cars. Hotch noticed it all, stepping into the car, and he wondered what could be so bad that the Atlanta SCU couldn't wait till they got to the scene. He wondered what his team was about the face, after everything they had already been through. He knew he should have more faith in the abilities of his team members, that they were strong and confident people, but the little voice in his head kept repeating one sentence, and one sentence only.
'Abby Scott played you. Abby Scott played you. Abby Scott played you. Abby Scott played you. Abby Scott played you. Abby Scott played you. Abby Scott played you. Abby Scott played you. Abby Scott played you. Abby Scott played you. Abby Scott played you.'
It drove him nuts and kept him awake at night. Her case file lay open, next to his bed every single moment of every single day. He stopped bringing the file to work since he had mesmerized every little detail and went over it and over it and over it. He thought he had her. He thought he had gotten through to her, that he had managed to get to her and finally make something out of the washed-up profiler that had held such a high and promising future, filled with FBI fortune. Scott could have been the best. He thought he had gotten through to her and that he could make the best of her. That he could mould her into a team player and a person that played well with others. One that didn't go rogue on his ass and went in every other direction rather than follow and obey. However, what hurt Hotch the most, was that she had gotten to him. As he believed she was letting him in, he let her in and she enjoyed the feeling.
She had them all fooled. The greatest F.B.I. profilers just got conned by a devious woman with possible wrongful intentions and one that had lied her face and character together with the ease of confessing weekly sins to a priest. How foolish they must have looked to her. How foolish they must have been.
Way too soon to Hotch' personal taste, he turned the corner and saw Morgan do to the same in the black car behind him. As they approached 8th Street Northeast they were immediately greeted by police cars. Atlanta PD had secured the entire block making sure nobody got in, but also so that nobody got out without being seen. Hotch lowered the window with a simple press on the button and pulled the car up next to an approaching officer.
"My God. The entire neighbourhood pretty much came." Garcia said hushed as she looked out her window and watched countless of people behind the yellow tape.
"The SCU has been good to them. Dropping crime rates, the people feel safer, their kids can play outside again. And now, they've been hurt and it's the community's turn to watch the SCU's back." JJ replied, softly as Hotch talked to the officer.
"SSA Hotchner, BAU. Agent McCallister is expecting us."
"Yes sir, thank you. You can go through." The officer, blond and young, told him and signalled to his colleagues to clear the way. Then he talked into his radio. "BAU is here."
After flashing their badges they were allowed to drive through the roadblocks and drive up to an imposing and tall, but completely misplaced building. A large apartment building with underground parking had been placed right across a small alley and a small, two story building that could be a home, but could be an office as well. Surely, on the corner of Piedmont and 8th Street, a modern-looking flat wouldn't be that ill located, and yet it would if you knew that just two blocks down, people had gardens with trees and one-story homes and low red brick walls at the end of their property. The transition from modern, commercial, working life to the American dream home and living was just too rapid and abruptly to understand why suddenly the buildings were tall and mostly showing glass.
Parking the SUV's on the middle of the small two-way street, the team stepped out of their vehicles and walked towards the grey structure. Garcia would stay behind in the car, not wanting to set foot in a crime scene, and would start working from the car to have something to do. Angie Wills had lived on the fifth floor, owning a small but nice condo where she moved to after the death of her lover, colleague and co-founder of the SCU, Trevor Harrison. They would look at her apartment later, for now all they needed to see was the crime scene. Questions were burning on Hotch' tongue like acid and he wanted answers. Soon. For the past two months he had been walking around with unanswered questions and found that the cause of it all, Abby Scott, wasn't willing to answer them for him. Now, David McCallister, head of the SCU, was raising more questions and again, didn't seem willing to provide answers. Or closure, for that matter. As Hotch, followed closely by his loyal team, got closer to the entrance of the parking lot, he started to distinguish a memorable figure.
He was completely misplaced – more than the tall structure and its reflecting glass. He had pocketed his hands, staring at something on the road, he shoulders hanging low, his head slightly bowed. He wasn't on his phone and perhaps that was most out of character. David McCallister was always doing something with his phone; calling, being called, texting, keeping the troops together and guiding them through battle. McCallister was one hell of a leader and ever since he was appointed head of the SCU, nobody had ever been able to say that he had done something wrong, or that something should have gone differently. People agreed with his methods and saw that they worked, they created success and he gained respect by the day. To see him standing there now, Hotch thought, shouldn't have surprised him considering the circumstances. And yet, it bothered Hotch to see a fellow leader stand and look like that. He had never been in his shoes before.
"Mac." His voice was kind, even though he wanted to demand to know what on earth was going on.
His head snapped in the direction the voice came from and Hotch could read the relief washing over McCallister's face as he immediately extended his hand. "Hotch. Thank you so much for coming. And your team," He added after looking over Hotch' shoulder, "thank you. We need all the help we can get."
Again, unlike his character, McCallister spoke before being asked. There was a short pause and McCallister swallowed and pointed at the entrance. "I'm sure you have figured out by now that the photo's we sent you weren't originals." Hotch nodded with a stern glare. "I'm sorry. I just couldn't take the risk, I didn't want anyone else figuring out yet. The crime scene has been secure since we got the call, nobody's been there yet, not even the crime guys, so please, be careful."
"What's going on Mac?" Hotch asked him, frowning and not understanding.
McCallister sighed and ran his hand over his mouth and chin. "He's back, Hotch."
There was something in the way he said it, something in the look in his eyes that immediately struck a nerve with Hotch. He did the calculations in his head; they had worked together on one case only.
An unsolved one.
"All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible."
George Santayana.
