FOUR I PROMISE

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WINTER PARK POLICE DEPARTMENT
Later That Day.

     "Detective Holder, I'm Dr. Spencer Reid here with the BAU, I believe you met the rest of my team earlier," Spencer greeted the gruff looking man who looked generally dismayed at them being there. "I'm here with the niece of the suspect, Tensley."

"Nice to meet you, young lady," the man said to Tensley, his voice more patronizing than Tensley would have liked, before turning to Spencer, "Listen, I said this to your supervisor as well, but if I had my say, you wouldn't be here. We've got our guy and this little girl here and nothing your team will do is going to change that."

"I'm almost sixteen, don't be gross," the girl spoke up before Spencer could say anything, a grimace on her face. She refused to hide behind Spencer as she stood strong and straight next to him, doing her best to seen mature even though she looked impossibly small standing next to Spencer who towered over everyone. It didn't help that she was barely above 5'3." Turning to Spencer, she said, "I wanna see my uncle."

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Detective Holder gruffed, "We're not letting him see anyone until you guys give us a good reason to not drag him to prison right now."

Spencer didn't look phased as he simply asked, "Now that the charges have been lifted for the sake of the investigation, how much longer can you hold him? Just curious. I think it may be... forty-eight more hours? Tensley, you don't have to worry about seeing Ted— Theodore."

"That's what I thought," the girl gloated with a small smirk as Spencer pushed past the detective to meet up with his team in a conference room. Tensley tried to go in with him, but he held her back. "Dude!"

"Please wait out here while I meet with my team. There's going to be grisly photos and gross crime scene talk and you're a child, so stay," Spencer instructed and the girl huffed before taking a seat. The man smiled at her before entering. Immediately, all the heads in the room turned to him. "Sorry, I'm late."

Aaron Hotchner only raised an eyebrow, asking, "You've got the niece?"

Spencer nodded, "Tensley, yes, she's here. What do we have so far?"

"We're a few days out on a toxicology report on the victim," Emily Prentiss explained, tossing him a file, "Here's everything we know so far about both Jameson and Theodore--"

"Along with a suspiciously condemning statement from the wife," JJ added on, taking a sip of her coffee, "Derek and I are going to go speak to her later."

"What do we know about the wife?" Spencer asked as he reviewed the folder.

Garcia over her video call answered this one as she said, "Wren Romily-Wallace. She and Jameson were coming up on their seventh marriage anniversary and as we know, she had a miscarriage four months ago. She's from a wealthy family, but apparently, when she married Jameson she was cut out of the will, I'm not sure why because Jameson himself was as clean as a whistle. Not so much as a misdemeanor or even a detention in high school. He was well-liked and apparently the two of them had been smitten with each other since high school and no one was surprised when they married after college. Theodore was Jameson's best man."

"That's a deep history between the three of them," Derek Morgan commented, "Lots of time for little things to build up -- cause a rift. Any history between Wren and Theodore?"

"Nothing tangible that I can find, no," the tech expert answered as the sound of her keyboard clicking was prominent over the video call. "You're gonna have to ask her yourself. I'll send you her current address -- she hasn't gone back to the house since Jameson was murdered."

"Morgan, JJ, why don't you two head out and talk to her?" Hotchner instructed as the two left the room, "Garcia, before we talk to her, what do we have on the niece that contacted us? Tensley Baldwin."

Garcia clicked her tongue, saying, "This girl has got quite the history for only fifteen-years-old. Her mom died of a heroin overdose when Tensley was six and the boyfriend took care of her for a year before he was arrested and the state was made aware of the living conditions she was sent to live with Theodore and has been with him ever since. Minor trouble at school with an iffy attendance record, but nothing to spark concerns over Theodore's care for her. In an essay she wrote for school, she says moving in with her uncle was the best thing that ever happened to her. She seems like a good kid cursed with a bad childhood."

Hotch nodded, turning to Spencer, "Bring her in."

Spencer followed directions, pushing open the door and locating the girl who was scrolling mindlessly on her phone with a bored expression on her face. She looked up when she heard the door open and all Spencer had to do was nod and she was up and following him into the room. Tensley was certainly an odd part of the case considering it wasn't often that their investigations were caused by a fifteen-year-old girl with an attitude, but Spencer had a feeling she would be of some help.

"Tensely Baldwin?" Emily greeted her first, holding out a hand which the girl tentatively shook, "I'm Agent Emily Prentiss, this is Agent Aaron Hotchner, and obviously, you've met Spencer already."

"Miss Baldwin, we want to know why exactly we're here," Hotchner spoke, not bothering to cushion his words with her. "You're very adamant that your uncle didn't commit this crime, but if I'm being honest, it really looks like he did. The fight certainly doesn't help --"

"Teddy got a letter," Tensley spoke up before Hotchner could say anything else. Spencer perked up since this was the first he was hearing of this. "He got a letter a few days before the fight. I don't know who sent it or who would do something like that, but the letter claimed that Jameson had... had put his hands on me. You know."

Spencer paused, furrowing his brow at this as he carefully asked, "... Forgive me for asking, but, did he?"

"Spence--" Emily went to chastise him, but Tensley stopped her.

"No! I've only met Jameson a couple of times and every time he was super nice but not in the weird like creepy relative way, in the way that he was genuinely just a really nice dude!" the girl explained, looking exasperated, "Whoever did this to my uncle knew exactly what they were doing. They... they lied to give Teddy motive, but the part this stupid killer didn't count on is that my uncle couldn't hurt a fly! He's the type of person who traps a spider in a cup so he can let it go free, spiders! He doesn't even hurt spiders!"

"So, if he knew the letter was fake, why not own up to it and apologize to Jameson?" Hotchner asked, looking over their board. He had turned it away as not to let Tensley see any of the crime scene photos. "That's all we need, for now, Miss Baldwin, feel free to wait outside."

Tensley, however, didn't move, "I wanna hear what you have to say. He's the only family I have."

"Okay, we can keep it PG," Emily said as she walked over to where Hotchner was looking at the board. "So, whoever did this is smart enough to come up with the plan to frame Theodore--"

"He prefers Teddy," Tensley cut in, looking nervous when everyone in the room looked at her. Shrinking in her chair, she muttered, "Sorry."

Spencer walked over with the other two, saying, "Whoever did this had to know exactly what would set Teddy off. This wouldn't just be an acquaintance of the two, they had to know what would cause Teddy to threaten a decades-long friendship. Garcia, you still there?"

"What do you need?" Garcia piped up from the video call.

"Can you cross-reference anyone they both went to high school or college with and look if any of them have interacted recently? Whether it be through Facebook or other means, try and find something that would signify some sort of meaningful relationship with at least Teddy, but ideally with both of them."

"It'll take me a minute, but yeah, I can get that for you," Garcia nodded, "Also, hi Tensley, nice to meet you, my name's Penelope."

"Nice to meet you," Tensley muttered, "So you guys agree with me that my uncle didn't do it?"

Looking over at the girl, Spencer sighed, "If we didn't believe you, we wouldn't be here. We're gonna find out who did this, I promise."

I haven't been watching criminal minds lately so I haven't been writing for this as much but i needed to mix things up since I've been writing for my draco malfoy fic so much lately (go read it, it's called unrequited enemies) but i didn't wanna get tired of it so i made myself write for something else and somehow inspiration struck for this so yay! new chapter! i hope you guys liked it I'm super excited to get more into the investigation and stuff!