When Nothing Goes as Planned
Week 20
Emily hung the picture of 13 year-old Simone Hartmann on the whiteboard next to the ones of the three other victims. They did not know yet if the cases were related, but the resemblance between the young girl and the women was uncanny. Emily stared at the picture for a moment and then ran her right forefinger over the girl's face. She traced the line of her jaw over her cheeks and to her smiling lips. An innocent smile that will no longer be there when they find her. If they find her. Emily squeezed her eyes shut when she felt a tear threatening to fall.
Emily opened her eyes when she heard the door being opened behind her and turned towards it.
"The grandparents are here," Detective Keenan said and she followed him out of the office and into a room with four chairs and a table. Grandparents were seated at one side of the table and and Dave at the other. As Emily sat down next to him, Keenan walked out and closed the door behind him.
"Mr and Mrs Hartmann I know this is very difficult for you, but we need to ask some questions about you and your granddaughter," Dave said pushing a box of tissues towards Mrs Hartmann.
She took one and slowly wiped her eyes. "What do you want to know?" She asked.
"Can you think of anyone how would want to hurt you or do this?" Dave asked.
Mr Hartmann shook his head. "No one we know would do anything thing this and we don't know any one here except my cousin who we're visiting. We have only been in the county for 3 hours."
"You're visiting from Denmark, right?" They nodded. "Have you contacted Simone's parents yet?"
"No," Mr Hartmann looked at his watch, "it's only about 5 in the morning back home. We thought we would give them one last peaceful night before calling. Also we didn't know if it was something we should do or if you were going to do it." When Mrs Hartmann started crying again her husband wrapped his arm around her. "How are we going to tell them that their daughter have been kidnapped?" he asked, his voice thick with sadness.
Emily turned the page on Dave's note pad and handed it and the pen to Mr Hartmann. "If you write down their phone number then we call them later and tell them what happened."
"Thank you," Mr Hartmann said as he wrote down the number. "Do you have any other questions for us?"
"Yes," Dave said, "when was the last time you saw Simone?"
"At lunch." Mrs Hartmann said. "She was bored so she went to look around the area."
"And what kind of clothes was Simone wearing at the time?"
"She had on a sandy colored dress-"
"No." Mrs Hartmann cut in. "She wore the dress on the trip here, but as soon as we got to the house she changed out of it and into jeans and this white shirt with 3/4 sleeves and small pink flowers on it. I don't remember what shoes she had on, but probably her black converse. She wears them all the time, so they are kind of old looking and they have pink shoelaces with black stars." A small sad smiles appeared on her lips. "On the tip of each shoe she has drawn a smiley face."
"Simone likes to draw?" Emily asked.
"Yes, she does it all the time and she won't go anywhere without her sketch book," Mr Hartmann said.
"Did she have it with her when she left?"
"Yes!" Mr Hartmann hesitated. "Well I don't know, but she had her red backpack with her."
"That's good," Dave said. "Now please tell us something about who Simone is. What kind of things does she like to do other than draw?"
"She... she does gymnastics twice a week. And she also likes to play soccer with her younger brother in their back garden. She is actually really good at it, because she's a fast runner." Mrs Hartmann stopped talking and looked Emily in the eyes. "Why didn't she run away? Simone is a fast runner. She could have run away from him!"
"I don't know and we don't know what happened yet, but two of our colleagues are talking to the woman who witnessed that happened and call 911. We will figure out what happened and do everything we can to get your granddaughter back.
/
The sound of someone crying was echoing against the walls as Simone opened her eyes, but complete darkness was all she saw and a for a moment she was not sure if she had actually opened her eyes or not. She turned her head to try and figure out where the crying was coming from and noticed that her hands were tied together in front of her body and a gag had been placed in her mouth. Panic filled her body. Where was she and how had she gotten there? But no matter where here was Simone knew she needed to get out of there, she tried to remove the gag by lifting her head of the ground and moving her hands up, but the movement made colorful lights flash before her eyes and her head started throbbing as if someone was hitting a hammer against it. Simone slowly lowered herself back to the ground and rolled on her side. It was cold in the dark room and fear was taking over the feeling of confusion Simone had felt when she first woke up in the unknown room. She moved her legs up so she was lying with them pressed to her chest, hoping it would keep her a little warmer. She closed her eyes wishing that when she opened them again she would be anywhere but here.
Just as Simone was about to fall asleep again she heard the sound of someone crying and she remembered that it had been the same sound that had woken her up before. "Hello!" she tried to yell, but the gag prevented any real words to come out. The crying continued and Simone ignored the pain in her head as she slowly moved in the direction of the sound on her stomach. Her elbows scraped across the rye floor and she felt a wet substance starting to run down her upper arms every time she lifted them to move further towards the sound.
After what seemed like hours Simone reached a wall. She placed her ear against it and could hear the crying more clearly. She knew there had to be a door somewhere so she slowly rose to her knees. Dizziness waved over her and she had to lean her forehead against the wall and breath in and out slowly in order for her not to faint. When the worse had passed Simone again started moving. She ran her fingers over the wall which was even more rye then the floor, but then all of the sudden the texture of the wall changed from bricks to wood and she knew it had to been the door. Simone fumbled around trying to find the door handle and when she found it she pulled it hard down, but nothing happened. The door was locked. Tired, Simone slide to the floor. She could not believe she had made it all the way to the door only for it to be locked. She needed to figure out where the crying was coming from, because maybe the person would be able to help her get away or maybe they could help each other. Simone closed on hand around the other so it made one big fist qand then she started hitting the door as hard as she could.
After a moment she lowered her fits and listened. The crying had stopped and a low, scared woman's voice could be heard through the door, "Who's there?"
Simone sighed with relief and she pulled at the gag. She was able to get it out of her mouth after a couple of tries. "I'm..." her voice came out as an almost silent whisper and she wondered how long it had been since she had last said anything. How long had she even been here? Simone cleared her taught and said, "I'm Simone. Where am I?" There was silent for a long time and Simone thought that she might had missed the answer. "Hello..."
"I don't know where we are. What day is it?"
"I'm not sure. The last day I remember it being is ... but I don't know how long I have been here," Simone said with a sigh. "I think I was in the head. It hurts a lot and-" She stopped talking when she heard footstep over her head.
"Oh no he's coming," the woman on the other side of the door said with panic it her voice and then she started crying again.
"He?" Simone asked scared just as the door was opened behind her and the room was filled with light. The sudden change from darkness to light hurt her eyes, so she squeezed them tight together as she slowly rolled onto her other side. She moved her hands up to her face to cover her eyes and then she opened them. Peeking through her fingers Simone saw a staircase and at the top stood a figure in the doorway looking back at her.
"You're awake," the figure said and started walking down the stairs and then towards the young girl.
/
"Hi Em, what are you doing still awake?" JJ asked as she walked into their shared motel room, dropping her bag onto the foot of her bed. Emily glanced at JJ as she went past and then she got of her own bed to shut the door.
"I'm still awake, because I'm working," Emily mumbled as she sat back down on her bed Indian style and went back to scrawling notes onto an already extremely full piece of notebook paper. She looked from the page to the case file next to her and then went back to writing. Her hand moved quickly over the paper pressing the pen hard against it.
"Didn't Hotch tell you to stop working and go to bed like 2 hours ago?" JJ asked sitting down on the side of Emily's bed.
"I still had more work I need to do, so I didn't stop I just started doing it here instead. And it's not like Hotch can just tell me what to do," Emily said without even looking up at JJ.
"Actually he can Emily, because he's your boss if you haven't forgotten."
She did not answer, but just kept writing till the pen all of the sudden gave up. Emily cursed under her breath and swirled circles in the corner of the paper to catch the ink, but nothing came out. "Damn it." She started shaking the pen up and down.
"Please stop that," JJ said, gently grabbing Emily's wrist. "What's going on?" she asked, taking the pen out of Emily's grip.
"Give it back," Emily whined.
"It doesn't work anymore."
"Give it back anyway."
JJ sighed and let the pen fall back on the bed. "You need to stop working and get some sleep."
"I'm not tired," Emily said taking the pen. It still would not work, so she put it away and instead grabbed the file of the bed and started reading through it again. She needed to work, she needed to find the girl.
"You might not be tired, but the little ones inside of you need you to sleep," JJ said, snatching the file from Emily's hands and threw it across the room.
"JJ, I need that!" Emily said sounding desperate.
JJ ignored her comment and instead got of the bed and gathered all of the papers and threw them on the floor with the case file. Turning back around she placed her hands on her hips. "Go to bed!" she said strictly.
Emily did not answer her, she just kept looking at the place where her notes had been. She would not be able to find Simone without her notes and without the case files she did not have anything to go out from. She was not like Reid, who could remember everything, even though she often wished she could. Emily felt tears filling her eyes once again. She had spent most of her day crying in the women's bathroom at the precinct. She did not know if it was just because of her hormones or if it was the case, but when Hotch had caught her with red and puffy eyes for the fifth time in three hours then he had ordered her to go back to the motel to get some sleep. But sleep had been the last thing on Emily's minds and she had instead studied every information they had been able to garter about the young girl. "No... I need to find her," Emily whispered and as the words fall from her so did the tears.
JJ started walking back towards the bed. "Em...?" she asked sitting down next to Emily on the bed. "What's going on with you?"
"I don't know," Emily said with a sob looking up at JJ. "I don't know what it is with me, but the case makes my heart hurt. I need to find this girl."
"And we will help you find her. Remember we're a team." JJ said, tilting her head to the side with a small smile and Emily nodded. "But it's time for bed for the both us."
As JJ got of the bed and walked into the bathroom to change, Emily crawled under the covers. She wiped the tears of her cheeks with the back of her hands, but they were quickly replaced by new ones and soon she was sobbing into her pillow. She could not stop her crying and when she felt the bed sink down behind her and JJ crawling under the covers she just started crying harder.
"Shh..." JJ whispered and wrapped an arm around Emily's upper body. "Do you want me to go get Hotch for you?"
Emily shock her head and grabbed JJ's hand with both of her's. "No, please just stay with me."
JJ moved closer, so her front side was pressed completely against Emily's back and then rested her chin on Emily's shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere."
A/N – I'm so sorry for not updating earlier, but last month I started nursing school and with that, homework and babysitting, then I haven't had much time to write. I know it's a bad excuse, but it's the only one I got. And I hope this chapter doesn't suck too much. I think I have rewritten it four or five times and I'm still not satisfied with it. But anyway, happy Sunday :)
