CHAPTER 81

YOU NEED TO SNAP OUT OF IT

Angie excused herself from the table and went to use the bathroom. Making sure nobody else could get in, she started talking to her team. God bless whoever invented the ear piece system.

"Guys? Can you hear me? I only have a few seconds. I don't know where he is taking us. He keeps talking about our graduation. I think he's going after Belita first, he seems to dislike her. That's bad, because if I can't fight back, I won't be able to stop him from killing her. Or he might kill me first, since I'm clearly the stronger one. He might think I'll run away while he kills her, yeah, so I might go first."

"Stay calm. Whatever happens, try to communicate your location to us. We're still twenty minutes away from the restaurant." Garrett replied to her.

"Yeah, but we are about to leave now, so we'll be going further away. It will take you more time to catch up." Angie argued.

"Don't worry. We have your back!" Clara knew how pointless those words were. She also knew that they would put a big smile on Angie's face, when she heard them. And they did.

"Oh, if anything happens, tell-…" Angie got cut off.

"Nothing will happen! You and Belita will be just fine and you will be starting your next week at the Academy unharmed. I promise you!" Clara said quickly.

"Excuse Agent Seger, who clearly has no idea about protocol and the absolute prohibition to promise things that are out of our hands." Garrett pointed out. In all honesty, he was right.

"I can take care of myself. I just can't do that with my arms cuffed by FBI protocol shit and all that…" Angie sighed, pointing out one more time how she hated being unable to fight back.

"Do not even raise your hand, kid! We can't protect you in court if you fight. You don't want a killer to jeopardize your whole career by filing a lawsuit against you, do you?" Garrett, once again, spoke the truth.

"Uff, fine then. I'll let him kill me. Tell Bryan he's the coolest dude I've ever met. And that I don't like him like that, but he does have a fine ass." Angie dramatized.

"You can't fight him with your hands, but you are a smart kid. Outsmart him!" Clara pointed out. "Use the fact that he likes you, to your advantage. Be charming, talk to him, try to get in his head. Buy us some time. We're coming for you, Jess!"

"Jess?" Kevin gave Clara a confused look.

"Ugh, I'm really bad with names. Sorry." Clara excused herself, but Garrett and May knew her better. Clara was extremely good with names, she suffered with dates and she'd occasionally skip on giving someone congrats on their birthday, but she knew names and she wouldn't ever get confused, especially not while on a case.


Angie walked out of her bathroom stall, only to find Belita, staring back at her with her jaw dropped. The girl had walked in to wash her hands and had heard Angie whispering in English, inside one of the stalls.

"What did she just say?" Garrett asked, hearing Angie speak in Spanish, still not knowing she was talking to Belita.

"She said: Don't worry. There is no time to explain. I'm not going to hurt you. Please don't tell him." Clara translated.

"Crap! Did our victim just bust our whole operation?" Garrett shifted uncomfortably.

"Possibly. Yes." Clara confirmed.

"Now it's up to the kid to play it smart. Otherwise they're both gone before we even figure out where he's taking them." Garrett kept staring at Clara as he spoke.

May and Kevin kept quiet, in the back seat until Kevin had to translate Belita's frantic questions, most importantly about who Carmen was and why she spoke perfect English.

"No, no, no. She can't trust Belita! Telling her who she is would put her in danger immediately. She's not trained to keep quiet and act normal in such situations." Garrett commented. "God, I hope Hunter is not as airhead as she looks!"

"Jesus, people...you do realize I can hear all that side chatter, right!?" Angie broke off her Carmen persona, finally replying to the team. She had been able to hear everything and Garrett's last words were what had pushed her over the edge.

"Great. Now Belita is asking Angie who she's talking to. She's busted for having an ear piece." Kevin translated.

"Will everyone shut up and let her breathe!?" Clara finally rose her voice.

"Man, you sound sexy when you're all worked up, you little firecracker." Angie chuckled, speaking to Clara and not giving a damn that everyone else would hear her.

"She's now telling Belita that it is better for her to not know anything and that she should keep her secret if she wants to be safe." Kevin kept on translating.

The conversation was a huge mess. Everyone was connected and could hear everything. At times, it was hard to even tell who was speaking and what was happening.

To top it all - the UnSub walked in the bathroom, making sure the girls were not going to escape him.

Angie stopped speaking and she followed him to his car, holding Belita's hand and dragging her behind her. The poor girl was as scared as she was confused. In her eyes, Angie was now the bad guy. Her gullible soul believed that the UnSub was really some magical prince charming who wanted what was best for her.


"I found it! I searched the oceans and underneath the lava from every volcano. And it did seem impossible. But I found it. I did! Because this is what I do - I find things that are not meant to be found!"

"Garcia, out with it!" Emily spat out, showing her the bad mood she was currently in.

Garcia then gave them some useful information that allowed them to link those two victims, but sadly it failed to assist them in figuring out what the next victim might look like. The only thing they could somewhat be sure of was that it would be someone young. But whether it would be a male or a female, remained a mystery. The female victim had only moved to that small town a couple of years ago, while the male victim was native, so that ruled out the possibility that the UnSub would only choose locals.

"Thank you, Garcia." Emily said politely before she hung up.

The part of the team that had remained at the police station, wrote down the information they thought was useful for cracking the case, while Emily, JJ and Rossi followed the Coroner's car to the morgue.

Finally having some privacy, Emily hovered on top of the victim's body, with some new expression on her face - something her colleagues doubted having seen ever before.

"I still don't see it. Two victims, a slight hint of a connection and two completely different MOs. We are hardly looking at two killers, operating at the same time. So, what is it?" Rossi's question received no reply.

"Adler..." Emily spoke softly, brushing her hand against the deceased boy's now cold palm. "That was his name. He just turned nineteen. A child..."

JJ could not take this. Being a mother of two boys, this scene was a bit too much for her to handle, so she simply squinted her eyes and walked out of the room. She would later blame that on a sudden need of caffeine, in case anyone asked.

If anyone had to stay and tame down Emily's daemons, it would surely have to be Rossi.

"Emily, this is not her and you are not responsible for this death, like you were not responsible for hers." Rossi reminded her, but her eyes were glued to the boy's face and that scary unknown expression was still all over her face.

"Emily...you need to talk to someone. Anyone. It doesn't have to be one of us, or even anyone you know. I'm sorry, I love you, but I must be strict with you about this. You need to snap out of it."

"I'm fine..." She muttered, doubting her own words.

"You usually end up in a hospital after each time you try to convince any of us of that. So…" Rossi shrugged.

His eyes had only briefly landed on the boy's face, they were much more interested in the interaction Emily had with his hand. The scene itself, had to be disturbing. However, Rossi found it quite…sentimental. There was a certain…something about Emily's actions. A certain sadness in her eyes. A certain melancholy. A certain pain that not everyone can relate to or empathize with.

At some point he noticed how Emily had detached herself from reality and was now fully immersed into a world only she knew what was happening in. Her eyes were dark, half squinted, like she was refusing to take in the reality. Her hand kept on brushing softly against the skin of the boy's palm, as if that gesture would give him any comfort in his misery.

"Emily, you are not fine…" He attempted to reason with her, with the same result he had gotten more times than he could count.

She ignored him completely, still unable to even register his presence next to her. Emily tended to have those dark, detached moments, when she would be completely numb and spaced out. They usually lasted anywhere from a minute to an hour, and they usually only occurred when she had the opportunity to walk off and get some privacy while they pass. However, this time, she did not seem bothered by Rossi's presence at all. She was acting as if he wasn't even there and he wondered if that was what somnambulism resembled – acting strange, in a state of trance, unable to see the real world around you.

A few seconds later, they were urged to leave and the sounding thud of the door opening finally brought Emily back to Earth.


Angie asked, once again, where they were being taken, and got one more vague answer about a certain graduation ceremony at a special place. At this point, asking a third time would only raise suspicion.

Belita had, so far, been doing well with keeping her mouth shut and Angie was acting calm and collected, pretending to be Carmen.

The car came to a stop at a remote wooded area, as Angie had figured it would. The problem was – she had no idea how to communicate their location to her team. There were many little roads on the way there and a while back they had gone off-road anyway. That, plus the lack of landmarks, helped for a difficult explanation.

"Status check, Hunter?" Clara called out, but Angie did not reply.

Belita got out of the car first, followed by the UnSub and, finally, Angie. It had taken her a few more seconds to scan their surroundings, in desperate hopes of maybe finding something she could communicate to the team.

She noticed the UnSub took a large bag from the trunk of his car and it made her roll her eyes. He really was way too obvious and Belita was kind of dumb, if she had to be honest with herself.

He then took the girls further in the forest, looking around nervously, as if to make sure nobody would be there to bust his plans. A large cloth was then sprawled on the ground and he asked the girls to sit down.

He handed each girl a piece of paper with a few grammar exercises to fill in and a short text, which he then would ask them to read out loud. Angie sighed with relief when she saw him handle her a pen, already imagining all the places she could stab him with it, if she needed to defend herself. But Garrett's annoying voice sounded in the back of her head, telling her not to even dare touch the UnSub. How was that any fair? Sure, it would count as defense, but she would still be held accountable for her actions, in court, and that would mean the end of her Bureau career, before she would even have the chance to start it.

Belita was acting weird, being all fidgety and quiet. The UnSub pinned that on nerves from having to take her final English exam, even though she had only taken a few classes. How was she dumb enough to believe his scheme?

Angie busied herself with the papers, filling in everything slowly, making sure she'd have enough mistakes.

When it was time to read, Angie went first and the UnSub was impressed, even though she did the crappiest accent she could possibly imagine. Then, as Belita read, he kept on wincing and rolling his eyes. Everything pointed to Angie being his favorite since the moment he introduced her to Belita. That might not be such a bad thing for Belita, in the long run.

"Okay, now that I've reviewed your final exams, only one of you is fit to graduate. Congratulations, Pilar! You are now worthy of the US flag." Something about his behavior was odd.

A minute ago, he seemed normal, while grading the papers. He had been quiet as the girls read the texts, too. And at that moment, Angie saw a change – his eyes were darker, his breathing got heavier and he was looking at them differently. He had just called her Pilar, so God knows what was on this man's mind.

"Pilar! Monty, run that name." Garrett gave out an order, listening on the other side of the line, as Clara drove the car to a location they could only hope Angie would be at.

"Monty?" The line between the team and their data analyst back at Quantico went dead. "Fine then, May, please run the name?" Garrett asked, as nicely as he could, under pressure.

"Pilar…okay, it's quite a common name in Cuba…" May started, clicking on her tablet and receiving an overwhelming amount of information.

"No, try the US!" Clara suggested.

"Okay, Pilar in the US. There are quite a bunch of Pilar-named women in Florida, for obvious reasons…" May started off, but Angela, surprisingly, interrupted her with an idea.

"Students!" Angie whispered on the line.

"Huh?" The UnSub somehow heard her and was now curious what she meant.

"I am Pilar, the student." Angie smiled, playing his own little game.

If the UnSub mentioned that name, it must be important to him. Maybe if she pretended to be that girl, they could learn more. She was, after all, the master of playing a character brilliantly.

"Yes, baby. You are my beautiful Cuban girl, my best student yet." The UnSub replied to her and it was at that moment when she realized he was fantasizing, imagining each one of his students to be a certain Pilar girl that, she assumed, he once knew.

"Bingo! Pilar Romero, 17 years old, Cuban native, went to America on an exchange student program, to study English." May read. "Filed a restraining order against a teacher that she claimed was abusive. Nobody believed her, as she didn't speak English well and she did not have many friends. Two weeks later, she disappeared, only to be found one more week later, dead…oh my God…"

"What?" Clara jumped at the gas pedal once more.

"Cause of death – multiple stab wounds with a knife. She was found in an alley that lead to her dorm building, the day before graduation from the exchange student program…" May stuttered. "And she was naked, rolled in the US flag."

"Who was the professor she filed against?" Garret asked quickly.

"Rodney Phelan, thirty-eight, from Twin Falls, Idaho. He worked as an English teacher in a school for immigrants in the area, as there are a lot of factories that hire foreign staff, so they can pay less money. Anyway. He got kicked out a year ago after a girl complained about him making advances. She was seventeen. It was later ruled as a joke, but he never got his job back." May summed it all up and it was pretty much all the info there was out there, on this guy.

"So, Professor Phelan, which girl graduating today?" Angie asked, out of the blue.

He did not even register that something was off. He was so deep into his fantasy that even when she called him by his real name – one that he had never disclosed to either one of the girls, he remained completely apathetic.

"Are you out of your damn mind, kid!?" Garrett groaned, hearing how Angie just randomly rolled his name off her tongue.

"Shh. Let her play it out!" Clara scolded him and it warmed Angie's heart to hear that someone actually believed in her.

Angie looked at him with doe eyes, waiting for him to state the obvious – it would have to be her who would get to graduate earlier. She could take his torture, Belita could not, so this was the perfect scenario.

However, after giving it some thought, the UnSub surprised her by pointing a finger at Belita, instead.

"But, I better on English than Belita!" Angie tried to argue, knowing that graduation meant torture and death for one of them. Belita was the victim, she was the one Angie had to save, not her own self.

"Because you lie." Belita said rudely.

"I don't like liars." Rodney gave Angie a stern look.

"She know English. I hear her in bathroom. She talk to someone." Belita uttered and Angie remained calm, surprisingly.

"I was practicing." Angie said in her defense.

"No, you talk like American girls. I hear you much clear." Belita said and, despite her bad English, Angie's undercover was blown into pieces.

"So, we have an imposter?" Rodney raised an eyebrow. "You are not Pilar?" He asked, as if coming to that conclusion surprised him in any way.

And yet, it did. It surprised him to the point where his fantasy was shattered and Angie quickly turned from his favorite student, to his enemy.

She saw him brush his hands against the side pocket of his jeans and there was no doubt in her head that this was where he was concealing his knife. With his other hand, he grabbed the edge of a cloth from one of his oversized bags and pulled on it, revealing the US flag.

"Who are you?" He asked angrily, grabbing her throat and making her gag instantly.

"Car- Carmen." She said, trying to catch her breath once he released his grasp.

"You're lying! I wanted you to be Pilar!" He kept on yelling at her.

"I not lie. I am Carmen. Fun fact, I think me saw a sign here, near pond, sign says Carmella."

"There is no sign, saying Carmella, you stupid idiot. We're in Guanabacoa."

"Guanabacoa park pretty. I like lake, but there is old harbor thing over there, it ugly. But park pretty!" Angie spoke.

"Damn it, I love that kid!" Garrett said out loud, hearing all the indications Angie was finally able to give them.

It took May a few seconds to find the exact location of the old abandoned harbor by the lake, and Clara was already on her way there, driving like an insane person.

"Keep stalling, kid!" Garrett ordered, hoping that the line between the IRS team and Angie was still open, unlike the failed attempt of a phone call they had earlier with Monty.

"Ten minutes!" Clara informed them and she would surely make that six minutes, by breaking every single rule on the road.

It was the moment that the UnSub took his knife out, that Belita understood who the enemy really was. She started crying and walking backwards, as if to escape him, but he was quick enough to grab her and give her a nasty stab in the leg, making sure she wouldn't be able to go much further while he would be busy with Carmen's so called 'Graduation'.

He leaned over Angie, holding his hand in the air. She did not even wince. That confused him. Was he not doing it right?

Her eyes refused to give him any attention, and they were glued to Belita, who was now curled into a ball, near them, crying on the ground and holding her leg with both hands, trying to stop the bleeding.

"Jesus, girl, don't you dare faint on me, ugh!" Angie muttered quietly, this time using her Angela voice and proper English.

"Belita, get the rum bottle and pour it over the wound!" She added, hoping the girl would listen to her.

The knife still had dried blood on it, possibly from the previous victim, and it looked dirty enough to give Belita an infection, if her wound was not cleaned properly right away.

"Oh, so you are a liar!? You do know English like an American girl." He mentioned.

"Why do all serial killers have to be dumb idiots? Like, seriously!" Angela groaned, rolling her eyes and still not giving him the satisfaction of looking at him.

"What did you just call me?"

"The name every judge in his right mind would call you, you ass!" She said cockily.

"What the Hell!? Stop provoking him. You have no back-up. Do you have a death wish or something?" Garrett was now a little less impressed by Angie's tactics.

"Don't worry. He's harmless. He only goes after innocent little girls who are dumb enough to believe his lies. I'm not one of those. He won't dare touch me. He can't do it, he doesn't have it in him. He's a spineless creature, afraid of his own shadow, happy to hurt the powerless. But the moment he faces a strong female, he'll crumble like a newborn puppy, begging for his pathetic life." Angie laughed out loud.

"Stop!" The UnSub said, pleadingly.

"That's right. Beg! Beg me to stop. Come on, oh please, beg me to stop!" She finally looked at him, with a smug smile.

"Stop it. Stop. Just stop. Okay? Stop!" The man turned from a psychopath with a knife, to a powerless creature, just like she had suggested seconds ago.

"Is that what Pilar asked you? To stop? Did you kill her because she asked you to stop?" She took it one step further.

"Stooop!" He grabbed his head with both hands, the knife still between his fingers.

"Did she tell you she was not interested? Did you try to get her attention in any way possible? Did she turn you down? Did you think that killing her would make it better?"

"Stop speaking, please!"

"Five minutes. Hang on, baby!" Clara announced, her words making Garrett give her a questioning look.

"Did you fantasize about her? Did you imagine her speaking fluent English? Is that why you killed her? She wasn't good enough to graduate? Or maybe you killed her, so she wouldn't graduate and go on with her life, returning to Cuba? Did you come to Cuba to find a new Pilar? Huh? Did you think any other girl could ever make up for the loss of Pilar's life?"

A loud slap across the face was not what would make Angie shut up. When that attempt failed and she continued on being loud and annoying, the UnSub swung his knife in the air.

"Oh, please do it. Stab me. Stab me real good. Come on. Do it. Give yourself the satisfaction of pretending to be a real man, come on, stab me. I dare you to have the balls to stab me. But look me in the face and imagine Pilar. Stab me as many times as you stabbed her, let's see if I magically turn into your precious little Cuban fantasy. Come on, stab me. STAB ME!" She raised her voice at the end, the loudness of her voice was confusing him more and more.

Angie had read in one of her books that when dealing with a psychopath, if one inserted themselves into their fantasy, it would confuse them and possibly make them even more dangerous, but it was a great stalling strategy. They would surely lash out even harder, but they would take twice as long to get to their state of aggressiveness, so she was now testing out that theory.

"Why hesitate? Aren't you a real man? Oh, is that why Pilar was not interested? Were you not man enough for her, Professor Phelan? What a lame guy you must have been, just some local school teacher, I bet you did a crappy job at it, too." Angie continued, but the effect of her words was starting to wear off.

The psycho facial expression on his face started being a little more normal and it was only a matter of time until he would go back to his nature and let his instinct plunge that knife right into her chest.

"FBI, drop the knife!" Clara yelled out, jumping out of the car as soon as they figured out their exact position. They had arrived just on time.

"What?" The UnSub muttered, now even more confused.

For a second he looked towards the four people who had jumped out of the car and were now walking towards him. Three had a gun pointed at him.

Next to him, there was a wounded girl and right underneath his knife, still up in the air, there was Angela's chest. Things did not look good for him and he was now in a state where he could comprehend the severity of the situation. Angela had shattered his fantasy and that had brought him back to the reality. But at least she had been able to buy herself a few more minutes before her back up arrived, otherwise she would have been dead by that time.

"Not a clean shot, Seger!" Garrett said out loud, afraid that Clara was about to pull the trigger.

She looked fierce. He had never seen her like that before. He had seen her reckless, wild, but never this fierce. It was like she had to protect Angela, no matter at what cost. Like an instinct. Like something an animal would do.

Clara pursed her lips, standing still, now close enough to the UnSub, but still without an actual reason to make a clean shot. Yes, she had him on her radar and she'd make the perfect shot from where she was standing, but he hadn't given her a reason to pull that trigger. And Garrett was hoping that Clara would know that.

"Drop the knife and we can talk…" Garrett tried to reason with the man, but Angie shook her head, as if to let him know that it won't help.

Rodney's mind was so messed up and confused at that moment, that any conversation would be doomed before it would even start. He couldn't be taken down with words. He had to be overpowered, but he was not making any gesture to show that he was actually going to hurt Angela, so still, no good excuse for them to shoot.

"Markings 137." Clara whispered, making no sense at all.

To everyone it seemed like gibberish, but Garrett had his suspicious it might be some sort of a code. Then again – when did Angie and Clara have the time to develop their own code? It seemed highly unlikely Clara would have taught that, at the Academy.

As soon as Angie heard that, she smirked.

"Pilar is alive! She survived the stab wounds and was given a new identity. You'll never find out where she lives now." Angela said, her eyes piercing through the UnSub's eyes.

The mere mention of that possibility drove him off the edge. She saw that psycho stare in his eyes one more time and the grip on his knife tightened. In the split of a second, he was now looking at her through gritted teeth, rage oozing from his face, while his hand swung up, to acquire speed and force, before it slammed down to the exact place where Angela's chest was…until a second ago.

She knew she was going to piss him off. It was a calculated move. So, when she gave him the reason to go off, she also rolled to the side and allowed him to plunge the knife into the mud, instead.

Clara now had the perfect opportunity to shoot, which is exactly what she did. Before the UnSub could even realize that he hadn't even stabbed Angela, he was on top of her, with blood leaking from his own chest.

"Nice shot!" Mae commented. She had been going to the gun shooting range with Clara lately and she knew Clara was a sharp shooter, but this was fast and precise, this shot impressed her.

Kevin was standing by the car, as he had been instructed to do, until Garrett motioned for him to go get Belita and talk to her in Spanish. Kevin tried to calm her down, he made her look the other way, so she wouldn't be looking at the UnSub. He kept repeating that it was over and that she was going to be okay.

Mae called in for immediate medical help, while Clara and Garrett stood by Angie's side.

"Good job, Hunter!" Garrett said, allowing the tiniest smile to creep up on his face.

To say that he was impressed would be an understatement. The girl had not flinched under pressure and she was not even freaked out now, having Clara remove a huge man whose bloody body was now covering half of Angela's body.

"Thank you for being such great back-up, guys." Angie said politely.

Clara finished pushing the UnSub out of their way, before she knelt down and embraced Angela's body. She didn't give a crap about the fact that her own clothes got muddy and bloody instantly. She just wanted to feel Angie's beating heart, against her chest.

"Είμαι περήφανος για εσάς, Angela!" Clara whispered to her, making her smile.

"Suck up." Angie chuckled. In reality, she didn't mind hearing that Clara was proud of her, and she did appreciate the chosen language. It was one of her favorite.

"Translation?" Mae asked after making sure the UnSub was definitely dead.

Angie and Clara winked at each other and none of them translated.

"How did you know Clara was fluent in Greek?" Garrett asked, as if that was the most pressing question he had.

"And how were you so sure the UnSub wouldn't know Greek?" Kevin added to the question.

"Well, Greek is one of the oldest written languages on the Earth, one of the first Indo-European languages, and the language with the longest history of alphabetic graphology on the planet. It is also the language of 'tall, dark and handsome' fairy-tale-looking sailor boys from, like, every movie…so it would only seem fitting that it was one of the thirteen languages Clara knew." Angie replied to Garrett with a smirk before shooting a glance at Clara, making her blush. She did, indeed, like her 'tall, dark and handsome' guys.

"Also, Phelan rolled his victims in the US flag, so he must be a diehard patriot, especially being Southern-born and raised. And since, in most cases, it is believed to be unpatriotic to learn new languages, and statistics show that true patriots choose to be monolingual in their own country's national language, plus – the US is culturally as well as geographically isolated from the rest of the world; it was a safe bet he would have no damn clue what I was saying." Angie then replied to Kevin's question.

The way she spoke – so calmly, so collected, so educated, with all this correct information and statistics; surprised everyone. First of all – this had to be the very first time this girl had ever had a run-in with a real criminal, a serial killer, at that - one whose lifeless body had just been physically removed from laying on top of her just seconds ago.

And secondly – she was stating facts and speaking loud and clear, calmly, as if there wasn't a hint of worry or trauma after what had just happened to her. It seemed weird. It would be human of her to be just as freaked out as Belita, who was still screaming and crying in Kevin's arms. And Angie just sat there, on the grass, covered in blood, with a dead body next to her…while she gave an extremely eloquent reply to her colleagues, with a small smile on her face.

An ambulance arrived ten minutes later and paramedics tended to Belita. A doctor asked Angela a few questions, but she was unhurt and in no need of medical help. Garrett insisted on her going to the hospital as well, presuming she was holding back the emotional trauma of what had just happened. Not every Trainee got to see an UnSub being rolled out in a body bag, after trying to kill them.

Angie did not say a thing, as she quietly sat in the car while it followed the ambulance to the hospital.


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

"Ducksdragonfly" Your Greek-related questions have just been answered in the nerdiest of ways lol :)! | Angie, a force? Hmm, that's IF Angie even gets close enough to the BAU again... | Yeah, Clara is a firecracker, like Angie. She demanded to be given some credit, but let's hope she won't feel the wrath of the other person (on the phone), because they are overly protective of Angie (and their identity is revealed later on). | Thanks, stay safe and well you too!

"Natasha36" Thanks so much! I have a huge plan with all the details of who is who and who did what, so that when the reveal/s come out, you guys will realize what was going on from the start and if you re-read parts of the story you will find obvious clues about the reveal/s hehe, clues that right now seem just like ordinary words, until you make sense of them and fit them into the puzzle :)! Yes, I'm giving subtle hints, without spoiling everything at once. I'm making you guys work for it hehe! You will find out who Bella is when the time comes. For now, she's just the shadow of a girl that Richard would do anything for! Clara spoke to someone who is protective over Angie (like Richard is with Bella). Their identity will be revealed later on. The hostage woman definitely knows who Lauren Reynolds is (in the mob world) and let me tell you - she's not a fan lol!

"rmpcmfan" Great, you should have questions, it's a detective style mystery story (at least I try lol) :)! 1) I can confirm Clara did NOT speak with Dan. It was someone whom Clara has nothing but "love" for! Someone special to her, whom you'll maybe hear more about ;) 2) The foreign agency needs her to do a "job" for them, so Bella is someone who used to work for Richard, but then he "saved" her from this life and she is now "studying abroad and doing what she always wanted to do". 3) Let's just say the foreign agency is NOT a fan of Lauren at all, lol. They only need Bella and Richard is their best link, even if they are not his fans because of his "connection" to Lauren, who is into hiding, technically, after having been spotted out and about with him during that one week. And him, being with "Lauren", makes him look shady to people. Also, if you asked "Lauren" who "Bella" or "Annabelle" is, she would not know that name ;)!