CHAPTER 30

NOT A SUSPECT. AN ACCOMPLICE!

"IT'S OVER!"

A text – Simple, short and easily comprehensible.

"Garcia, it's 6 o'clock on a damned Sunday morning!" Luke replied to the conversation starter, sent to the group chat by no one else but Miss Penelope.

"I know, but I've been waiting for Sunday to come and now it's finally here and I couldn't just keep all this happiness to myself. I had to share it with everyone!" It took Garcia three seconds and a half to type this whole phrase.

"Guys, I hate you!" JJ chimed in. She was not a morning person, not even after having two young kids. Mornings were not her thing. At all.

"I actually find that refreshing. Good morning, team!" Rossi typed, even using a smiley emoji after his text.

"Do you think she will contact us?" Garcia asked curiously.

"No. Come on, you know how Prentiss is. She'll roll up to the meeting room tomorrow morning and pretend like nothing has happened." Rossi replied.

"Uhm, Dave, you do realize Emily is not replying, but she's still a member of this group chat, right? She'd be reading all of that, eventually." JJ reminded him, in case he might regret his words later on.

"Yes. And good. She should!" Rossi never had a short fuse, especially when it came to Emily, but this situation was getting on his nerves.

"Hey. How's everyone?" Tara had tried to ignore the beeping of her phone, but she finally gave up and opened her eyes, enough to be able to see what she was typing on the screen.

"Bored. Having a week off sucks!" Reid finally gave in and joined the chat as well.

"Hey, speak for yourself, Smart Boy!" Luke grimaced while typing. The timing of this free week was kind of off, but he wanted to make it look like he was enjoying himself.

"Just so you guys know, I got woken up by my wife, throwing pillows at me and screaming for me to turn the damn notifications off. Having said that – Good morning to you too!" Matt texted, along with a fuming mad emoticon.

"I miss our little Breakfast Club meetings..." Garcia poured her heart out, using a crying emoticon.

"8 o'clock at our favorite breakfast place?" JJ suggested.

"Sounds great!" Reid could not wait to leave those four walls that he had been a prisoner between for the past six days.


"I am so full!" Angie commented, barely able to walk after the lunch.

"Well, you ate the menu, basically." Bryan chuckled. "Although, it was more sweets that you ordered. I still can't believe you are fully functional after so much sugar."

"Ah, it's the youth." Angie started skipping through the grass and waving her hands left and right, like a happy child.

"She did not just call me old!" Bryan muttered to himself with a frown.

"Yo, Energizer Bunny, wait up!" He called out and picked up his pace.

"We have twenty minutes until our afternoon class." She announced after checking the time.

"I have an idea!" Bryan grabbed her hand and started walking towards Angie's dorm.

When they got to the room, he shut the door and locked it.

"Wow, this must be good if we need all this privacy." She smirked, sensing that he was up to something.

"Oh, it is!" With those words, Bryan pulled out a huge piece of white paper and secured it on the wall, on top of Amanda's study table.

"Oh yes. Let the investigation begin!" Angie clapped her hands contently and hurried over to her side of the room, grabbing some colorful pens and stationary.

Bryan drew a somewhat of a straight line in the middle of the paper and they started filling in the timeline.

"Wait, no. When did that happen? I don't remember that." Angie protested when Bryan was about to put a sticky note at the point right before they heard Amanda scream.

"Oh, I guess I never told you about this, but I remembered hearing Amanda say something before we heard the scream." He explained, as on the note he had written that Amanda was heard saying something like "not yet".

"Are you sure?" Angie did not believe him.

"Well, not when you look at me like that." Bryan hesitated, still holding the sticky note, but now unsure if he even wanted to place it on the improvised board.

"Hey, can I try something cool with you?" She had an idea that, clearly, got her very excited.

"Oh, man! The last girl who said that to me…ohhh, she was mean with those teeth." He smirked.

"Eww, you are disgusting and I did not need to know all that. Gross!" Angie winced and kept waving her hand in the air, trying to move those mental images of what Bryan had just said, away from her face.

She then asked him to sit on the couch and make himself comfortable.

"Yup, it went a little like this, too." He pushed it a little further and Angie felt compelled to throw a pillow at him.

Once he was done talking dirty, she commenced.

"Now, I need you to calm down. Relax your breathing. Pace it out, slowly and evenly." She said in a voice as soft as silk.

"I'm not into yoga, sorry." He shrugged, his eyes still open and looking at her with disbelief.

"Shut up and close your eyes, Bryan!" She said, a bit more sternly this time.

He complied, because he didn't want to see what would happen to him if he didn't.

"Now, I want you to picture the woods. Take a moment to really picture things, as they were. The five of us, the trees, the cold…" She spoke softly.

"Imagine you are back there, right now. What do you feel?" She asked, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen, to make notes.

"It's…obviously it's cold. I mean, it wasn't in the beginning, but then there was wind, this strong wind, very soundly, too." He started off. "We got dropped off to our location and we wandered around, trying to see what was near us. But it was pitch black. I ran into a tree without even seeing it in front of me. You were talking to this new guy at this moment, so I was glad you didn't notice me making a fool out of myself."

"Good Keep going. Tell me everything you remember. Any detail counts." She tried so hard not to comment on how sorry she was for having missed that scene.

"Well, we got to the location where we spent more time at, without moving around. I don't know why. I thought we were supposed to explore…" Bryan suddenly felt confused. Their task had been to explore and to get to different places, not to sit around and chat.

"No, wait. Wait a minute…" He squinted his eyes a bit more and she could tell that he was digging deep into his memories.

"I was walking…yeah, I was walking by your side. You were between me and this new guy, the elder one. Then Amanda and Jack were…well, I don't know where. I figured they were either ahead of us or behind us." He still sounded confused.

"Think harder, Bry-Bry. Yes, I was between the two of you. But where were Amanda and Jack before we reached the last stop we made?" She urged him to recall things, as she already knew the answer to that question.

"Ahead of us, I guess?" Bryan took a wild guess, but after a second he changed his mind. "No, that could not be right. I remember asking you if you knew where we were going and you said you were unsure, but you thought we should take a turn to the right. Yes, that's right. You wanted to turn right. The elder guy mentioned we should keep going in a straight line, but you wanted to turn right. So, it must mean we were ahead, since we were calling the shots and choosing the path. Jack and Amanda must have been behind us. They couldn't have been next to us, because right before we got there, we passed through some wild trees and I remember branches were everywhere, so it would have been hard to stay together and avoid the branches, while walking in a perfect line of five. We must have split then: the three of us went ahead and the two of them stayed behind."

"What do you hear?" She asked curiously.

"Uhm, branches being torn from the wind. There's also the sound of leaves and broken branches that we were stepping on as we walked. I could hear someone's stomach churning. Yeah, someone was hungry, I remember you later giving them a snack bar, because I remember you opening your bag and grabbing the fairy lights, too." The more he spoke, the wider the grin on Angela's face became.

"Okay, this is good. Very good, actually. Tell me more. What else did you hear?" She pushed it and he could tell that it was important.

"Uhm, nothing. Like I said, the wind was too strong. I couldn't hear anything." He shrugged, with his eyes still closed.

"Oh yeah? Are you sure? Then how could you have heard someone's stomach?" She challenged him.

He took a deep breath and kept quiet for a moment, just thinking hard.

"Amanda!" He said triumphantly. "Amanda was saying something, to Jack, I think. She spoke quietly, as if she didn't want anyone to hear it."

"Good. Keep going. When did she say that? Can you make out her words?" She asked, writing something on the paper.

"Uhm, no. I don't think I heard her words. I only heard her voice. I think she spoke before you wanted to change directions." He suggested, but then he took a moment to really think about it and he changed his mind once again. "No, she spoke after you. I remember I was annoyed as we walked through the branches. Once that cleared out, I was still irritated, so the fact that nobody was talking got me even more upset. I specifically remember making an effort to start a conversation, so that's why I asked you if you knew where we should go. I didn't care about the directions, it was just a conversation starter. And then you suggested the right turn and the new guy argued with that…Uh, then, yeah…that's right, that's when I heard Amanda speak. I wondered if she'd make a snappy comment about your proposal or if she would actually have your back. Yeah, I remember being interested in what she said. Wait a minute…she said a few words and then I started listening more intently…"

Bryan was amazed at the amount of things he was just remembering. It had only been a week, but it felt like he had forgotten crucial things about that night.

"Yeah, I saw a flash coming from behind. A light. I guess it must have been a thunder, but it wasn't this strong. It also lasted longer, like maybe three seconds. Then we stopped walking. Right before that, Amanda spoke again. This time I was listening carefully and uh…she asked for the time…I think…"

"None of us has a watch or any kind of electronic gadget, Bryan." She reminded him.

"No, but she did say "time". I remember that now. I don't remember the other few words, but she most definitely said that one." This time he spoke with authority, Angie decided to believe him, so she put that into her notes.

"Then you were going through your bag and Jack walked off. He said he needed to pee. He came back three, maybe four minutes later. I never thought about it, but given that it was pitch black, he could have literally peed in front of us and nobody would have seen him do that. So, he was away for a little bit too long. Hmm…" Bryan bit his bottom lip, suddenly suspicious.

"This is good, Bryan. Now, forget about Amanda. Focus on Jack from that moment on. What did Jack do when he came back?" She asked, her own memories now suddenly coming back as well.

"Well, Amanda didn't do or say anything else. She was just there, like the rest of us. But when Jack came back, I heard a sound. Two sounds. Consecutive. Like a knock. No, wait, a knock would have been louder. Also, there was no wood around us, except on the ground, but those were just branches and he couldn't have knocked on those. Also because the sound came from up above, not from the ground. It came from like, I don't know, shoulder height." Bryan then took another moment to recall things. "Oh my God. It was a pat on the shoulder. Double pat. Yes, that's exactly what it sounded like. Like, a sign or something. You know, like the one we do when we are searching a house."

"But was it Jack to pat Amanda's shoulder or was it the other way around?" She asked.

"No, no, it couldn't have been Amanda. It was a strong pat, a loud one, since I was able to heart it through the wind. Amanda is much more gentle. It must have been Jack. Maybe he wanted to give someone a sign that he was back in the group?" Bryan exhaled sharply before inhaling again. "But I heard his footsteps near me. So he walked by me first and then went to Amanda and pat her shoulder instead. Why not pat mine? Why not simply speak out and say he was back? It's like, almost as if he only wanted Amanda to know he was back, but we could all sense his presence there, too. It was obvious. He's a big guy, heavy, his footsteps would be hard to conceal anyway."

Bryan then gasped and it made Angie drop the pen from the surprise change in his emotions.

"No, wait. That's right. I heard the footsteps. When he walked away, he went in one direction, but then he came up from behind me. And at that moment I believe I was with my back towards the place where Amanda wandered off to afterwards. So, he must have come from there, but that's definitely not where he walked off to. Like, he had almost made half a circle on his way back." Bryan's memory was solid.

Amanda was impressed by all the new information they were gathering.

"Then you gave the other guy the protein bar, snack bar, whatever that was…" He trailed off, thinking about the order of things. "No, I heard his stomach churning one more time and that's when you took the backpack off your shoulders and you grabbed the bar and handed it to him. Then you saw the fairy lights and took them out. I remember you said you didn't know you even had them there, that you just grabbed the bag and they happened to be there from when you moved to the Academy, you said you never unpacked them. When you lit them up, I saw your face first, because my eyes were drawn to the sudden source of light, which was in your hands. Then you handed each one of us a piece of the string, we formed a line and…wait, Jack was between you and me when the lights went on. But then, in the line, he was all the way at the end of the line, next to Amanda, who was next to the other guy, followed by you and then I was at the other end of the line, opposite to Jack. It didn't make sense. Him and I would have ended up holding the rope next to each other. How did he get all the way to the other side?"

Angie closed her own eyes for a moment, trying to picture it all.

"Wait a minute!" She added, taking over the story. "I felt someone elbow me at some point. Someone was moving around. It was the new guy. He pushed me aside, so I could be next to you. I remember that now. I thought it was cute, because he knew we were already friends and he probably thought I'd be more comfortable next to you anyway. So, he walked past me and…he looked at Jack. Yeah, he did look at Jack, I noticed that when I looked to their side of the line, when I handed them the rope, the fairy lights. The guy looked at Jack, Jack then looked at me and Amanda…"

"Amanda was looking in direction to where she wandered off to later. The same direction Jack came back from a minute earlier!" Bryan finished her sentence. "I know this, because initially I thought Amanda was looking at me, but she was looking past me, sideways. I could see her eyes squint a bit, as if she was trying to make out the most of what she was now seeing, with the lights on. I never questioned that, because literally all of us were looking around and trying to notice as many things as we possibly could, now that we could finally see. Then the lights went off…"

"Yeah, I said I wish I would have changed the batteries, but now I remember that I actually did. Inside, there were two brand new batteries. Those were my favorite fairy lights and I had made sure they were ready to be hanged, once I moved in my dorm. That's why I put them in my backpack, to keep them safe from tangling with the other stuff I had in my bigger bag. So, the batteries were new." She bit her lip, much like he had done a few minutes ago.

"What happened to those lights anyway?" He asked curiously, sinking further into the sofa.

"I don't know. They weren't in my backpack when we came home. I never saw them again." It then hit Angie, something fishy was going on. "Hey, we went back to our crime scene so many times, but not once did we see the lights on the ground. They couldn't just disappear! So, either one of us took them and forgot about it, or someone was at the crime scene after that night."

"Angie, the batteries were on one of the two ends of the rope, correct?" He asked and she muttered a positive reply. "Well, they weren't on my end of the rope."

What he suggested suddenly made sense to her.

"Jack's in on it!" She had her suspicions before, but this was just further proof.

"Yup. He must be involved. All the sneakiness in the woods, wandering off, messing with your lights…" Bryan commented. "I believe it's time we put Jack on our timeline, as a suspect."

"No." Angie's denial made Bryan open his eyes.

"Not a suspect." She smirked, writing Jack's name on a sticky note and placing it next to Amanda's name, in the middle of the timeline. "An accomplice!" She added proudly.

"No way! You think Jack and Amanda did this together?" Bryan then stopped and thought about her suggestion for a second. It made sense. All the weird things that Bryan had just recalled about that night, fit with what Angie was suggesting.

"Until proven otherwise." She double tapped Jack's name on their board and she showed Bryan the notes she took while they spoke.

"Woah, all of that is new information!?" He glanced at the paper, with eyes wide open.

It was almost a full page of words, connections, assumptions and things that he had just said.

She nodded.

"How did you just do that? Man, I didn't even know I had seen and heard all these things until you…you did…what the Hell is it that you did just now?" He raised an eyebrow. If she said she was a magician, he wouldn't find it hard to believe.

"I just gave you a cognitive interview. You should know that, David." She teased him, surprised that an LAPD Sergeant was not familiar with this technique.

"Oh, that's right." He sighed. "I'm not David, stop that! And also, I was SWAT, I'd go around the block, knocking doors down and saving hostages. I didn't take part of all the detective work that went on before or after my missions. I do know what a cognitive interview is. I know how hard it is to conduct a successful and unbiased one. Question is – how do you know how to do it?"

"I'm a genius." She smirked, turning this into a joke before he would ask any further questions.

"Alright, now let's keep going and find out what I could remember about the fight and everything that happened after it." He suggested and Angie had to shoot him down.

"Sorry, bro. It is only effective when it is short. I can't just keep on squeezing information out of you, otherwise we risk that you start making up memories, just to answer my questions and to close the case." She stood up and grabbed her notebook. "Also, we now have four minutes to get to the auditorium for our next class."

Bryan looked at his watch and jumped up from the sofa. How could she not warn him earlier?

They made a sprint to the academy building and took their seats just as the teacher was walking in, along with Dan.

They had never seen this teacher before. He was quite young and clearly already an Agent, but he was a new face to everyone.

Dan introduced him as a substitute and also let them know that their class had been canceled and that their evening exam was pushed to, well, that very same moment.

"As you can see, there is a tablet in front of each one of you. Inside is an interactive test, containing questions from every subject you have treated within your first two weeks of the Academy. You are supposed to, at any given time, be up to FBI standards, know your shit, and be able to produce high results. So, buckle up guys, because this test is not going to be easy." Dan said briefly and then waited for everyone to stop fidgeting and whispering so that he could give them a sign to start the test.