𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

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𝟱:𝟮𝟵 𝗽𝗺
𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗢'𝘀 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗲


"𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐇, 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐀𝐑 was left right here," the seventeen-year-old stockboy pointed to an empty parking space, tucking his boxcutter into the green apron tied around his waist. "They towed it yesterday mornin'." He flicked his impossibly straightened hair out of his eyes as he looked back to the two agents. "Never thought somethin' like this'd happen here."

"Why's that?" Morgan asked, turning his back to the sun setting over the flat roof of the store and sliding his sunglasses atop his head.

The boy shrugged. "You hear about it all the time, but you never think you'd see it, y'know?"

Emily was able to steer the teen back to the investigation. "And CCTV didn't capture anything?"

He shook his head again. "No, ma'am." He pointed to the outer corner of the building where a white camera faced into the parking lot. It had to be at least ten years old. "This one saw her leavin' to her car." He spun to point to another, hidden against a lamppost and shrouded by an overhanging branch. "That one's been broken a while."

"We'd still like to see the footage," Morgan said.

The boy nodded. "Sure thing, mister." He lead the agents inside and towards the back of the store. He tugged on a doorhandle, aptly labelled 𝗦𝗘𝗖𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗬, and stepped into the cramped room. "It backs up e'ery night. We got four in the store, one out back, and the two out front, but one of them's broken." He looked to Emily as he repeated his earlier remark, and she nodded, smiling curtly.

Morgan dropped into the dingy, grey office chair, already searching the tapes. "Thanks Len," he had caught a glimpse of the boy's nametag earlier, "we can handle this. You can head back."

Len gave a single nod of his head as he exited, the door remaining open by use of Emily's propped boot. "Nice kid," she remarked.

"What time was Lisa taken?" Morgan asked, still scrubbing through the footage.

"Around 4."

"Okay, so..." Morgan scrolled back the tape, "here's Lisa in produce, 3:48." The two leaned in, their eyes on the image of Lisa Holden as she was picking oranges from one of the displays. It seemed normal, mundane. She had no way of knowing that her life was about to be turned over quicker than the fruit in her hand.

"I can't see anyone watching her," Emily frowned, "nobody obvious, at least."

"This is the only camera that sees the majority of the store," Morgan explained, "aside from the one at the checkouts. Anybody could've been watching her."

Emily pursed her lips, leaving her post by the door to step closer to the monitor. "Fast forward, maybe somebody followed her out."

Scrolling again through the videotapes, Morgan slowed it once he saw Lisa approaching the checkouts, the timestamp in the corner reading 4:03pm. There were a few customers behind her, some having their own groceries rung up by other cashiers, but nobody looked suspicious. Lisa then left the store, but nobody seemed to follow her.

Until she reached her car.

"There, pause, pause," Emily ordered, pointing to the screen. A man dressed in a navy-blue hoodie with the sleeves pushed up had crossed the screen, stopping by Lisa's dark green Ford Territory, striking up a conversation. The two agents narrowed their eyes; Lisa was then leaving willingly with the man that had met her. "She must have known him," Emily concluded.

"Or he's approachable," Morgan countered, "maybe had a convincing ruse."

Emily straightened as Morgan stood. "That doesn't help much." She followed her colleague out, instinctively glancing about the store as they left, giving Len a polite wave when he looked up from the shelves he was stocking.

"Prentiss." Morgan was heading towards the noticeboard posted near the entrance to the store. He pointed to a yellow flyer with three of the stubs already ripped off.

"Modern Mothers," Emily read. "That's the second time they've come up." She looked to Morgan as he took one of the stubs, printed with a phone number. "You can't think that's a coincidence, can you?"

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𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐏𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐔𝐏𝐒 were tucked tightly into their cardboard cupholder, their white caps marred by hastily scribbled order notes. Abbie's plum-painted nails tapped against the cupholder rhythmically as she again entered the investigation room. Smiling, she delegated the coffees. "One for Noah." Double-shot latte. "Aaron." Americano, decaf as it was now after 3pm. "And Dr Reid." White, three sugars.

"Thanks," Reid mumbled, swiping away the wayward curl that was hanging in his face before matching her smile.

Abbie placed her own coffee on the mahogany table, iced caramel macchiato, before exiting again, on her path to dispose of the emptied tray.

"Excuse me," she heard her brother murmur to the others as he followed her out.

She tossed the cardboard into an open trash can, turning to be face-to-face with her eldest brother. She recognised the look of concern that rippled his brows; he was about to corner her with an accusation. She didn't even have a chance to speak before he descended.

"Are you sleeping with him?"

A frown tightened across her features. "I'm sorry?" Even if she had been expecting the ambush, her brother's question was so out-of-turn that it still caught her off-guard.

"You didn't ask how he takes his coffee." Hotch was almost interrogating her. "You know mine, you asked Reid's, but you didn't ask Detective Greenhill. He didn't decline what you gave him, indicating that you know what he likes. Not to mention, you've only called him by his first name, and you usually only let me or Sean call you Abbie."

This was true; only those closest to her had the privilege of calling her the name she favoured most.

"Are you sleeping with him?" he repeated.

Abbie folded her arms over her chest. "No."

Hotch knew from her stance that she wasn't offering the full truth. "Were you sleeping with him?"

"Aaron!"

"Yes or no, Abbie."

She swallowed before sighing, dropping her arms. "No, I have never slept with Detective Greenhill." She made effort to refer to him by his title. "We went out a few times, we've kissed, but once I was part of the trial, there was a conflict of interest and we called it off. We've both since agreed that we're better off as friends."

"Both of you?"

She grit her teeth. "Yes, Aaron, both of us. Now lay off." She turned on her heel, returning to the designated office for the investigation. She dropped into the vacant seat next to Spencer, taking a sip of her coffee. It took a few moments for her to realise what he was doing, flicking almost rapidly between the file notes he had compiled.

"Are you actually reading all of that?" She watched his fingers skimming down the page before repeating on the next, a sense of delicacy in his touch as the tip of his middle-finger traced the words, his other fingers lifted slightly. "How are you that fast?"

"The average conscious brain processes information at a rate of sixteen bits per second," he responded, "while the unconscious mind can run at a rate of up to eleven million."

She stared at him for a moment, her own conscious brain processing what he'd said. "You're not exactly average though, are you, Doc?"

"No, I'm not," he simply answered.

She smiled, leaning forward with her elbows on the table and her chin resting in her hands, unable to draw herself away from him. "What are you reading?"

"Transcripts," he explained, his response short as his focus remained on the typed files.

Abbie knew the ones he meant; she was there. She even remembered the stenographer, Marcie, and how she'd wear her red hair in a sleek bun every day. "May I?" she asked, extending her hand to a discarded pile, cautious to not mess with his current progress on the transcripts he still held.

Spencer looked up momentarily, accidentally spending a second too long to linger on her legs next to him, one crossed over the other. He nodded quickly, returning to his reading.

Abbie rested the file on her lap, recognising her own handwriting in the notes she had made when she had first been given the case, well over three months ago now. Never would she have imagined the outcome; everyone on the prosecution was sure it would be a slam dunk. But the defence were crafty and the evidence was shaky at best, almost all of it ruled out as being circumstantial. Marcus had surprisingly sound alibis. Almost too sound, Abbie had thought. For every abduction, aside the first, Marcus had concrete proof that he was nowhere near the area. Receipts, timestamped photographs, a speeding ticket on the other side of town. She could understand a few of them, but being able to prove his innocence on every occasion seemed too good to be true.

His defence team couldn't plausibly explain Marcus's DNA under the fingernails of the eighteenth victim, Bonnie Glendale, nor could they diminish his semen on the underwear of Helena Ignatius, victim seven, at least according to Abbie and the prosecution. He would testify that he had been on a date with Helena that apparently ended with them having sex in his car, and that he had broken up a fight between Bonnie and a friend in a bar he frequented, and she had accidentally scratched him. Abbie didn't believe it for a second, but it was enough to create reasonable doubt in most of the jurors, who then swayed the others.

What Abbie couldn't shake, however, was the fact that the abductions and murders stopped while Marcus was in custody.

Hotch's phone began to ring and Abbie looked up as he answered. "Go ahead, JJ."

JJ's voice was overheard from the speaker. "We just met with Marissa's mother," she explained. "She said the same thing that Lisa's ex did. Both of them stuck to pretty rigid routines; work, kids, shopping, and they were part of the same support group."

"Modern Mothers?" Morgan said as he and Emily had entered the room. "It was advertised at the store where Lisa was last seen." He handed the phone number stub to his boss.

"The same," JJ confirmed.

"Meet us back at the station, JJ," Hotch instructed before hanging up. "Prentiss, call the coordinator," he handed back the stub. "There's a connection here, something we're missing. Did you find anything else at the store?"

Emily pocketed the paper. "CCTV had video of the UnSub as he approached Lisa at her car," she explained. "She followed him willingly, then they're out of frame."

"Any view of his face?"

"No, but you can see the back of his neck and his arms," Morgan relayed. "He's white, Hotch."

Abbie's shoulders noticeably slumped, looking to Noah, who was pinching at the bridge of his nose. Her brother was staring at the mugshot pinned on the board; Marcus was African American, and the room now all reached the same conclusion.

Marcus Fletcher didn't abduct Lisa Holden.