Chapter 7
Watching, she had felt unusually and keenly alive, alive the way a knife is sharp, so that the humiliation she was enduring was perfect, like the paring of skin from a hard apple.
- Sonya Hartnett
July 10, 2014
Will sent a copy of the work receipt over from the alarm company. The employee name on the bottom was Jack Finch, and of course no Jack Finch had ever worked for the alarm company.
Will had also sent a picture of the camera he pulled out of the motion sensor installed in that bedroom. Very small, very difficult to see unless you were looking for it and incredibly expensive. It had a wireless receiver that was larger, but embedded in the wall behind the ceiling molding, so it went undetected. "This is not something you find at your average spy shop, my fine friends," she'd told the team. Tracing the camera would be impossible.
Whoever the unsub was, he knew how to cover his tracks and remain hidden.
Rossi and Reid had run out to pick up food for a late lunch and Hotch had stepped outside to wait for Morgan and Prentiss. JJ was back at the kitchen island looking at some of the pictures.
"You're going to burn in the fiery depths of hell if you keep staring at our friends fucking like bunnies," Garcia called out in a sing-song voice.
JJ laughed. "I actually am trying to figure something out. I feel like I'm missing something."
Garcia stood up and came to stand in the doorway. "Does your husband know you've been staring at Derek Morgan's naked glory all day?"
"Not yet. Anyway, it's Emily I can't stop looking at."
Garcia raised her eyebrows, "I always had a feeling about you two."
JJ laughed again. "That's not what I mean. I mean her face and how free she looks. She's always been so guarded, and with him, she just seems able to let it go. I wouldn't really believe it unless I saw it, and now that I've seen it, I can't stop looking."
She paused and looked at Penelope. "I know you're dying to sneak a peak Penelope. If you're going to do it, do it now before they get here."
Garcia stared at the pictures from a distance for a full minute before finally caving. "OK, just a quick look. God, it's so awful but so delicious." She approached the island and glanced at the photos. "Holy shit, Jayje."
"I know, right?"
Garcia placed a gentle finger on one of the pictures. "Look how he's looking at her, like he'd die without her. I should have known. After her funeral he was a terrible mess and I was worried about him. I went completely covert operations one Saturday, borrowed Kevin's car and followed him. You know where he went?"
JJ shook her head.
"To her grave. He'd brought a blanket and a beer and a book. He sat there and read to her grave for an hour."
JJ blinked back tears. "Does he know you saw him?"
"No. And I don't want him to know. If he wants to talk about it, it's his business."
They both looked at the pictures a moment more. Garcia gave a deep sigh. "At first I was really mad that Morgan hadn't told me about this. But now I'm looking at this and how in love they are, and it's hard to stay mad at him. Whatever they did, they did it for a reason."
At that moment, Reid and Rossi returned, laden with food bags, and Garcia jumped away from the photos like they were on fire.
"They're here," Rossi said. "They pulled in behind us. Hotch is talking to them for a minute and then they'll be in. You ready to walk them through this, JJ?"
JJ took a deep breath and nodded. Garcia scurried back to her computer, then stood by the door, then sat again.
Reid looked at her, "I've read a lot of books about appropriate reactions in certain social situations, but I've never read exactly how people should react to their friends after spending the majority of the day looking at pictures of them having sex."
JJ, Rossi and Garcia all started laughing quietly, then quickly calmed themselves when they heard steps on the front porch.
Hotch opened the door and gestured Morgan and Prentiss inside. Morgan came in trying to look stoic, but the team could read his tension. Emily wasn't even trying to hide anything. Dressed in running shorts, a tank top, and a ponytail, she looked so young and frightened. She was also blushing to the roots of here hair.
They all stared at each other for a few seconds, no one quite sure what to say. Garcia saved the day. "Emily, Emily, Emily! You're here!" She wrapped Em in a strong hug and said, "See, this isn't going to be so bad. I've seen a lot of Emily tata today and, while they are fabulous, when I look at you all I see is my friend!"
Emily actually laughed at that and warmly returned the hug. JJ was caught up in the moment and joined in. When Emily was released, Rossi came over and squeezed her shoulder. "It's great to see you, Emily."
Reid stood back, blushing almost as much as Emily. She looked at him and gave him a kind smile. "I don't bite, Reid." He smiled back at that and came close enough to give Emily a quick hug.
"Ok," Morgan said, "This is an awkward reunion, but I'm glad we're all here and safe. Hotch let us know where you're at. This is the camera I found in the tree. It was connected to a modem that the unsub connected to the landline at the house. I took pictures of the connection so you can see Penelope." He handed Garcia his cell phone then leaned in to ask her quietly, "We ok, Baby Girl?" Garcia gave her friend a hug and said, "Absolutely."
"OK," said Morgan, linking his fingers with Emily's, "Let's do this."
"JJ," Hotch said, indicating that she should take the lead.
JJ nodded and pulled her shoulders up straight, trying to mask her nervousness. "The pictures are laid out chronologically. It's going to be shocking when you first see them, but this is the fastest way to get a first impression. We'll go from there."
She led the way into the kitchen, Emily and Morgan following her, Hotch and Rossi behind them. Reid hung back and stood in the doorway, and Garcia sat back down at her computer.
"Oh. My. God," gasped Emily after one quick glance at the display. "I don't know if I can do this." She turned her back to the refrigerator and slid down to the floor, putting her face in her hands. Derek went to crouch in front of her and put a comforting hand on her knee. "Come on, Em. Let's figure this thing out. At first glance, I'd say we look damn good."
Emily huffed out a nervous laugh and Derek stood, offering her a hand. After a few seconds, she took it and stood. "We can do this," he said. "First impressions, Profiler."
Emily took a deep breath and looked at the pictures. If she could see past her mortification, Derek was right; they looked good together. Emily reached a finger out to gently touch the photo from JJ's house. The night she thought all was lost and she realized that maybe she could fight her way to get it back. It was a long journey that took her away from him, but they'd made it back to each other.
"The timeline is right," said Derek. "This isn't every time, but it's an accurate representation of when we were together and when we weren't."
"What about other cases where we would have flown somewhere and you two…" Reid trailed off, not quite able to say the words.
"We kept this out of work most of the time," he said, looking at Hotch. He turned back to Reid, "Once in LA and once in Arizona. But that's it."
"So he didn't fly with us on cases, or he didn't want us to know he had. Or there wasn't a way for him to see anything," said Reid.
"We can disregard the last option," said Rossi. "Because this picture," he said picking up the one where Emily had been in the car crash, "was taken from inside a hotel room. If he wanted to see something, he could. We need to operate under that assumption."
Derek placed his hand on Emily's back. "What do you see, Em?"
She glanced again and kept finding her eyes drawn to that first picture of them dancing.
Emily blushed again before she spoke. "The first one. Why that picture? The second picture was in my apartment, the next morning before we left for work, so the cameras were there already. So why send such a relatively innocent picture from that first night?"
"She's right," Derek said, laying a finger on the second picture. "I went home after that to change for work and my alarm was malfunctioning. I called the company who said they'd send someone right out. I called Hotch to say I'd be late. This third photo is from a few nights later, at my house."
"Do you have any recollection of the man who came to work on your alarm?" asked Hotch.
"I didn't spend much time with him. I let him in, and then went to my office to do paperwork. He was Caucasian, muscular, about my height, mid 50s maybe. He was there for about an hour. That's all I can tell you."
"That fits the general description of the person who worked on JJ's alarm, and the person my neighbor saw dropping the package at my door. It's vague, but I think we can assume this is all the same person." Hotch looked at his team and they all nodded in agreement.
"Prentiss, I know it's not much to go on, but does that description set off any alarm bells?"
Emily shook her head. "Not off hand."
Reid stepped forward and picked up the picture from October 2013. "Where was this taken?" Emily closed her eyes as Reid held up the picture.
"Scotland," said Morgan. "Emily was at a conference, she stayed longer and I flew out for a couple of days."
"So the room was booked well in advance. Morgan when did you decide you were going?"
"It was planned a few months before that."
"So plenty of time for the unsub to get cameras in that room. Ok, what about the time gap from July 2012 to October 2013? Anything glaringly missing?"
"Yes," Emily said. "We were able to meet up at a cabin that belonged to an old friend of mine in Vermont. That was in February 2013. It was planned at the last minute. Other than that there were a few short, last-minute times we saw each other. They were probably too brief for the unsub to get there."
Emily looked down when Hotch raised his eyebrows at her. Derek responded, "Do you really need to know about that if it's not relevant?"
Hotch said, "At this point I think everything is relevant."
Morgan thought he had been keeping it together pretty well, but he'd been doing that for Emily's sake. Now his anger surfaced. He was pissed at whoever had done this, and it was unfortunate that that feeling rose to the surface at that moment. He started counting on his fingers as he spoke harshly, "March 2013 in a storage room in an airplane hangar when our work flight times overlapped by about an hour at Dulles. June 2013 in New York. We were supposed to meet for a quick dinner before Emily had to fly back to London, and ended up in the restaurant bathroom instead. August 2013…"
Emily stood there, stunned and rooted to the spot, when Derek first started speaking, but when he said August 2013 she snapped out of it and quickly moved in front of him, reaching a hand up to cover his mouth.
"Whoa, there. I think they get the idea." Emily could feel Morgan's anger vibrating underneath the surface and she put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "We're not going to get anywhere if we get angry. And, Jesus, Derek, we've got so few secrets left, let's leave the ones we do have in the vault, ok?"
Derek laughed at that, took a deep breath and relaxed a bit, nodding his head at her.
Emily turned around and faced the others. Looking at Hotch she said, "We tried to see each other when we could. The turn around time was always quick because I was here for a short meeting, and half the time it didn't work out because you all were on a case. Most of our communication that year was video chats and talking on the phone. Now, please, we want to help, but I can't do it like this," Emily said while gesturing to the pictures laid out.
JJ stepped in and placed a gentle hand on Emily's back. "Ok. How about you take the pictures from your apartment and Derek takes the ones from his house and you look through them separately."
Emily nodded and JJ and Rossi started gathering and separating the pictures. "What about the ones from other places?" asked Reid.
"Leave them for now," said Rossi. He handed Emily the stack of pictures from her place. "Come on. We can go in the living room and sit down."
Emily reached over and grabbed the picture of her and Derek dancing that was left on the island. She gently laid her hand on it. It was a beautiful picture.
Rossi put a hand on Emily's back. "There's always something special about the first of anything, right?" Emily smiled warmly at Rossi, remembering the conversation from a few years back. "Yes, there is."
Derek settled himself in a recliner with his pictures and Emily sat on the couch. Rossi settled in the other chair and JJ took a seat next to Emily. "Just flip through them. What do you notice? What strikes you as odd?" she asked.
Emily started looking through the photos. Her embarrassment waned as she sat in comparative privacy on the couch. What struck her as odd is how fucking happy she looked in every picture from the very beginning. She did not look like the floundering, self-possessed person who couldn't decide whether or not she liked herself. That inner struggle she plagued herself with was not evident on her face at all. What she saw was a woman who was radiant with this man, and obviously in love.
"What, Emily?" asked JJ.
She shook her head. "It's nothing."
Derek was completely absorbed in his stack of pictures. He flipped to one and gave a devilish grin and a light chuckle.
"Damn it, Morgan. Stop that," commanded Emily.
"Ooooh, Morgan." He looked at JJ and Rossi, "When she calls me Morgan, I know I'm in trouble."
He grinned at Emily, "Sorry, Princess. I was just remembering my birthday from a few years back."
"Keep that up and you won't live to see the next birthday, Derek Morgan."
Rossi and JJ laughed, relieved that the mood had become a little lighter.
Emily blushed again, remembering that birthday. She'd spent quite a bit of money at a sex shop, buying a ridiculous outfit and some toys. Jesus. It was an amazing night, but incredibly private.
Suddenly Emily sat up and gasped. She frantically flipped through her stack of pictures and found February 14, 2010. There they were, naked on her couch, Derek lying on top of her, kissing her, their wine and dessert on the coffee table.
"Derek, show me the picture from your birthday." He held it up and she blushed again, but it wasn't as bad as it could be. He was standing against a wall in his living room, his fingers wound in her hair and she was on her knees, the picture showed her back. It was very clear what she was doing, but it wasn't terribly graphic.
"Bring the pictures back to the kitchen and lay them out," she said to Derek. Emily stood and everyone followed. Hotch reappeared with Reid and Garcia.
"Ok," said Emily, "So these pictures are embarrassing. They could potentially ruin our careers, and this has certainly been the most humiliating day of my life, but they are not as bad as they could be, not by a long shot."
Derek caught on. "She's right. We were so caught up in how shocking they were collectively that we didn't see it at first. This picture," he indicated the one from his birthday, "This is nothing compared to the pictures the unsub could have printed, Hotch."
"This one, too, Derek," Emily said and pointed to the February 14th photo over to him. It was actually a breathtakingly romantic picture, with very little exposed. But Emily thought about what started to transpire just a little after that picture was taken and she blushed redder than she ever had before.
JJ raised her eyebrows in question at Emily, curious about what wasn't shown in that picture. "It's never gonna happen, my friend," Emily said to her, and the group laughed.
JJ started sifting through the pictures. "That's what I was missing." She pulled four pictures forward. "Look here. There are clearly two camera angles in Emily's bedroom. But in each of these pictures, the angle printed is the most discrete one."
Reid reached over and picked up a picture. "JJ's right. If this picture was captured by the camera on the other side of the room, we'd get quite an eyeful." He stared a moment more and then Emily plucked the photo out of his hands, "I think that's quite enough eye candy for you today, Boy Wonder," which caused the group to laugh again and Reid to blush almost as red as Emily.
"It just doesn't make sense," said Rossi. "If the goal was to humiliate, why not send the absolutely most graphic pictures? If the goal was to sabotage your careers, the graphic nature and volume of the pictures wouldn't have been necessary."
"Unless this person has become truly obsessed and is angry at Emily for wanting to come back to DC to be with Morgan," said Reid. "The graphic pictures could have been an anger response, but he could be holding back the most vivid images for himself."
"Which means there is a chance that he is a danger to you both. That Emily coming back is the stressor, and that these pictures are probably not his end game," said Hotch grimly.