Chapter 13
BAU Headquarters
Quantico, VA
December, 2005
Spencer still had a spring in his step that afternoon. They were off rotation, which in his case meant teaching a few classes at the Academy, something he enjoyed. Today's class had been a good one. And he was expecting a letter this afternoon. He really looked forward to letter days.
But what if she wanted to meet? What had he been thinking?
He smiled at the now familiar ecru envelope in the mail pile. Coffee first though, he'd fill his travel mug for the trip home. Maybe he'd read her letter on the train. The first of many readings of course, eidetic memory or not reading her letters was an act worth repeating.
But on his way back he stopped. Everyone on the team was gathering in the elevator lobby, around this little old woman. Her hair was white and her back was stooped, but she gave off an air of power and anger. "Um, she said she wanted to see Aaron Hotchner's team." Penelope said.
"I'm Aaron Hotchner." Hotch said, stepping forward. "How can we help you?"
"By being as miserable as I am." The old lady replied. "My name is Dorthea Bryant. You imprisoned my great-grandson."
"You great-grandson went to prison for murder." Hotch replied.
"Ridiculous! Robbie would never do such a thing! The government is just trying to punish my family. Well now you're the ones being punished."
"What did you do Mrs. Bryant?" Gideon asked.
"I did the same thing to your family that you did to mine. I arraigned for one of yours to be locked away. He'll be treated like my boy is being treated, and you'll know exactly what I know. Nothing! Now you all can suffer the nightmares and the worry, just like I am. Now you will know what it's like to lose part of your soul."
Hotch and Gideon traded an unhappy look. "Anderson." Hotch said, pulling his phone from his pocket. "Take Mrs. Bryant to interrogation room 3."
"Go right ahead!" Mrs. Bryant said. "My lawyers are on their way. Between them and my age I won't do a day in jail, you just watch." Her smile was pure malice over unending misery.
But now Hotch was ignoring her. "Everyone call your families, just in case. Warn them about a threat."
Spencer wasn't in too much of a rush. Bennington was a locked facility; it would be hard to kidnap his mother out of there. But he spoke to the nurse on duty anyway, warned her to watch out for anything suspicious and so on. By the time he got off the phone everyone else was hanging up. "Everyone's accounted for?" Hotch asked.
"Yeah." Morgan said. "My mom and sisters are fine, they were all there."
"I spoke to Mom's Secret Service detail." Emily said. "And my...godson is fine too."
"My mom's visiting my grandma." JJ said. "They're fine"
"My daughter-in-law said that there hasn't been anything..." Gideon said.
"Mom's okay." Spencer said.
"And Haley and Jack are fine." Hotch said. His brow furled in confusion. "She spoke in the past tense. I had one locked away. Not will have."
"To lose a part of your soul." Gideon replied.
All of a sudden it clicked. Spencer and JJ met eyes. "Will." She said quietly. She was already pulling out her phone.
But Spencer was already moving. "Garcia, I need the address and number for a Dr. J. Rivers. She works at the Folger Shakespeare Library." But he was already getting on the phone.
A polite, professional voice answered. "Folger Shakespeare Library"
"I need to speak to Dr. Rivers, please. It's an emergency."
"May I ask who's calling?"
"Dr. Reid from the FBI."
"One moment." One moment that stretched into eternity. "I'm sorry, Dr. Rivers has gone home for the day."
"Thank you!" Spencer was off the phone before he could be put over to voicemail. He and the others were already moving.
"I'll send you the address!" Penelope called after them.
106 6th St SE.
Apartment "A"
Washington DC
Turned out she lived five blocks from work, ten from Union Station, and twelve from him. Twelve blocks. Exactly one mile. One mile away all this time.
"According to DC Metro the back door was open when they got here." Hotch was saying.
It was a standard row house apartment. You entered from the foyer into the living room in the front. A postage stamp of a kitchen took up one end of that front room. Behind that was a bathroom, a closet and then a bedroom. In this case, being the so called garden apartment, it had a door leading to the back of the property. The furniture was minimal, the kind that was rented with the apartment or found at the nearest thrift store. The kind that was easy to leave behind.
"It looks like she came home, went into the bedroom to change, and he jumped her." Morgan said. "From the mud on the floor he was hiding in the closet."
This was one of the many buildings in DC that backed on to an alleyway. In this case it was tucked into a corner. No other house had a view of that back corner. It would be easy to drag someone out and into a waiting van. Or force them out at gunpoint. Especially if they had never encountered a gun before. What were the chances a librarian had?
"Why can't I feel anything?" Spencer asked. He was so used to the pleasant happiness coming from his counterpart, the gentle ease of the life of a scholar. Now there was nothing at all. Not dead, he thought, please not dead. I can handle anything but dead.
"Agents." A DC Metro cop came up to them. He was holding an evidence bag with a hypodermic needle. "Our guys found it in the garden."
"There's your answer." Emily said. "He drugged her to keep her quiet on the trip. She'll probably sleep until she gets to where they're taking her."
"Which is where?" JJ asked.
"That's what we need to find out." Hotch replied.
"Dorthea Bryant didn't do this." Gideon said.
That stopped everybody. "She confessed." Hotch pointed out.
"I arraigned for one of yours to be locked away." Gideon replied. "She set it up but she's not the one actually holding Dr. Rivers. We have to run victimology as well as looking at Mrs. Bryant, see who would likely be her accomplice."
Victimology. Spencer thought he was going to be sick. He looked around the small, barren living room. There was a comfortable reading chair with Dave Rossi's books on the table next to it, and a small, battered desk in the corner, and that was all. The items on the desk were lovely, fountain pens, elegant accessories, a box full of note cards, all ecru cotton, all with a different design. She was a collector after all.
Maybe if he didn't open the one on his desk she'd come back to write him another.
"I'm going to take Reid back and get him settled." Morgan was saying to the others. Spencer felt his friends hand on his shoulder. "Come on, let's get back."
"I need to help find her." Spencer insisted.
"You will. But not here."
"What do you mean?"
Morgan stopped. His eyes were filled with compassion and dread. "Kid, what do you think is going to happen when she wakes up?"
Spencer felt himself go very cold. She was a librarian for god sake; she didn't know what to do with an Unsub. "We...I..."
"Come on. We need to get you someplace safe before that happens." As Morgan pulled him toward the door his phone rang. "Yeah, baby girl, what have you got for me?"
Penelope was all aflutter. "Okay, you need to get Reid back here right now!"