Chapter 2
The next morning, everyone was gathered in the hotel lobby ready to go to the police station, except Emily.
‘We need to go. The police are waiting for us.’ Hotch pulled back his sleeve to look at his watch. ‘JJ, are you sure she got up?’
‘Yeah, yeah, she should just be coming. I don’t know what’s taking her so long.’
They fell into antsy silence. Spencer was clicking the pen in his pocket. The clicks got faster. Morgan muttered, ‘Give me that,’ and tried to grab Spencer’s wrist.
Hotch opened his phone and typed something. Before he could speak, JJ butted in, ‘Why don’t we go ahead to the police station now, and when Emily’s down, she and Morgan can go straight to the medical examiner?
‘We don’t have the facts from the police yet,’ said Morgan slowly.
‘I’ll call you?’
He gave her a weird look. They waited a bit longer, but still no sign of Emily.
‘Spence, can you go and check on her? I have to go to the toilet.’ She touched his arm and pressed the key into his hand, then walked away before he could argue. Her teeth ground as she felt their stares digging into her back.
As she turned the corner panic set in. Spencer had the wrong key. The one for her room on her own, not the one she was supposed to be sharing with Emily. The wrong key. How could she possibly explain that?
But would he know? He was far too polite to just barge in, right? He’d knock, he wouldn’t just unlock the door. And then Emily would figure it out.
In the bathroom, water ran over her wrists. She sucked in a deep breath, the cold on her veins grounding her.
The sound of the tap gushing and her skin stinging and suddenly she was nine years old again, hiding in the bathroom at someone’s birthday party and wondering why it was all so easy for the other girls. There was this big joke that she wasn’t part of. Loneliness gnawed at her, because there was something somehow different about her, but she couldn’t figure out what.
Sexuality was not something that was ever discussed when JJ was growing up. She didn’t remember any homophobia, but then she wouldn’t have known what a lesbian was at the time. The concept simply didn’t exist in small towns back then. It probably still didn’t, really.
In school, whilst the boys did woodworking, the girls did home economics. The idea this might be sexist didn’t exist yet either. They learned things like cooking sausage casserole and using a sewing machine. It was essentially training to be a housewife, and to give it credit, a lot of it was useful life skills.
Most of her classmates were married by the time they were 20, and it wasn’t uncommon to get engaged during high school. Not many people moved out of town. JJ had been fairly unique in bothering to go to college, which her parents had hated at the time. The surviving daughter walking away from the family home. Once she’d left she never spoke to her father again.
Would she be able to face Emily? Her eyes glazed over as a hollow face in the mirror stared back at her. She’d have to be. As she left the bathroom, she pressed her cold fingers to her cheeks, stopping some of the heat radiating from them.
Cautiously, she peeped around the corner for the lobby. The rest of the team were really getting impatient. Spencer had not returned with Emily yet.
She waited until she heard Emily’s profuse apologies for oversleeping to go back over.
‘Ah, there you are!’ JJ made a point of looking Emily in the eye. She kept walking towards the door as she said, ‘Should we go?’
They got into two cars. JJ, being first, drove. Spencer got in her passenger seat, and after Morgan nabbed the backseat of Hotch and Rossi’s car, Emily had no choice but JJ’s.
‘Emily, did you not hear JJ getting up?’ Spencer asked candidly.
‘No, I guess not.’ Emily nodded, hoping to end it there.
‘That’s odd, because even though I sleep with earplugs in, I wake up when Morgan turns the light on.’
‘I, uh- don’t turn on the light in the mornings.’ said JJ. ‘It’s too bright.’
‘I agree. Although I do keep it on late at night to read so I think Derek is just paying me back.’
They both laughed politely. ‘Sounds like him.'
Spencer was annoyingly chipper this morning. The conversation could quickly reach shaky territory. Thankfully, it ended there, and the drive was short.
A police officer met them in the car park and led them to the briefing room. The case that was presented to them was brutal. Two teenage girls had been abducted from bus stops and found dead. Their eyes had been burned out with sulfuric acid. The crime scene photos made Emily feel sick.
The team were shown to a side room where they could set up. A large pinboard had been wheeled in.
‘Do you need a map of the area?’ An officer asked.
Reid replied, ‘Thank you but no. I prefer to print my own beforehand. There’s a specific inch-to-mile ratio that I find works best.’
‘Uh- alright then. Well, if you need anything, just ask.’
It was clear from the files that the local police had never had a case like this before. They opened them up and spread them on the conference table.
‘Before we do anything I want this made sense of.’ Hotch was painstaking about case files. He liked to lecture the team about his days as a prosecutor and the cases that fell through because the evidence documents weren’t set out correctly. Emily thought it was like teachers and the student who swung too far back on their chair and cracked their head open.
Also, paperwork quickly numbed her to a case. With every tedious box it got more detached from the atrocity. Emily didn’t want that before the case had even started. ‘I can do the breakfast run.’
The team took it in turns to find a local cafe and buy coffee and pastries. The Bureau-approved hotels were rarely nice enough to have breakfast included, and even if it was, they had to leave earlier than it opened.
Surreptitiously she went over to JJ and, lowering her voice, asked, ‘Why don’t you come with me?’
JJ pursed her lips but didn’t look up from the page she was reading.
‘I guess that’s a no, then.’ she muttered.
Hotch was watching her, brow furrowed. ‘Who’s going with you?’ he asked, handing her the expenses card.
‘Uh, well…’ She looked around at the rest of the group, shifting on her feet. She was trying her best to not look nervous right now. Hotch knew something was up.
‘I’ll go.’ Derek said after a second.
‘Thanks, Morgan,’ said Hotch. He nodded at them both in turn.
As she was leaving Emily glanced at JJ, like a reflex. She kicked herself for it and just hoped Hotch had stopped surveying her.
‘How did you sleep?’ asked Derek.
‘Yeah, alright, you?’
‘So you slept past your alarm, huh?’
Emily wasn’t sure if this was a jokey taunt or a probe, so she played it safe. ‘Well, I was just having one of those dreams that you really don’t want to wake up from.’
‘Trust me, I know what you mean.’
The safest option with Morgan was usually innuendo, and it seemed to work because he dropped the topic.
Around the next corner was a bakery. From the outside it looked suitably run-down to be in their price range. The BAU daily food allowance was tiny.
Derek ordered cappuccinos for himself and Reid, who liked four sugars, and a double macchiato for Hotch. Rossi kept a cafetiere and espresso cup in his go bag.
‘I’ll have a hazelnut latte, thanks.’ said Emily.
‘What about JJ?’
Emily’s head spun. ‘What about her?’
Derek gave her a sideways look. ‘What coffee does she get?’
She opened her mouth a beat too early, and then hesitated, not wanting to seem too keen. ‘Uhh, I don’t know.’
‘Come on, she’s your best friend.’
‘Wait, maybe a caramel latte?’
She felt her cheeks get hot and dug her nails into her palm. Once again she’d created needless awkwardness. She owed it to JJ to keep it together. She didn’t need to be being profiled on top of everything else. So, for all intents and purposes, her secret crush was unrequited. Nothing had changed.
‘Is that all for you today?’ The man behind the counter smiled, unaware.
She scanned over the pastries behind the glass. JJ would’ve loved the pink macarons. They did look beautiful.
‘Could we also get six of the almond croissants and two of the pink macarons?’
She offered to carry those two bags if Derek took the drinks. On the way back she kept the conversation about the case, taking no chances.
They put the coffee and croissants down on the conference table. JJ had to come near Emily to get them. As everyone was distracted, Emily held out the other bag to her. ‘I got these for you.’
She glanced at the bag briefly. ‘What is it?’
‘Open it. Macarons. They look delicious.’
‘Why don’t you have them then?’
But I got them for you, she wanted to say, but she was already feeling pathetic enough. ‘Oh, do you not want one?’ She said instead.
JJ just walked away to grab a croissant and a coffee stirrer.
Emly bit the inside of her cheek. She shouldn’t have done that. Her stupid olive branch had made JJ shut her out even more. Maybe it would just be like this now between them. The thought was painful, but she couldn’t spiral because Hotch started to give commands.
‘Take your food to go. We’ve got a lot to do, and with this kind of killer he won’t be slowing down. Dave, you and I will talk to the parents. Morgan and Reid, go to the disposal sites. Emily, you and JJ to the abduction sites.’
JJ didn’t return Emily’s glance.
The team filed out to the car park and into three cars. JJ drove, the air tense, with only brief directions exchanged. The first abduction had been at a bus stop on a busy high street, so they parked on a side road and walked.
JJ said, ‘So Beth got off the bus here and headed northwest toward class.’ She was walking quickly, staring decidedly forwards.
Emily thought a conversational tone was the way to go. ‘It's amazing no one witnessed her abduction.’
‘A friend knows I’m married to a man and still kisses me, so I guess anything’s possible, right?’ She snapped and sped up ahead of Emily.
She took a deep breath. ‘Come on, that’s not fair.’
‘Maybe our unsub’s a little bit like Bundy. He feigns injury in order to get her to help him.’
Emily got in front of her to block her path. ‘Look, JJ, if you want to talk about this-’
‘Maybe he tried other tactics, like, Wow, you're really pretty. You should be a model. I can take your photo.’ She spoke over Emily as if she hadn’t said anything, whilst her eyes darted around in the distance. She pushed past her to look around the bus stop.
‘Guess that’s another no.’
‘Either ruse would disarm her.’
‘Charm is quite the killer,’ Emily smiled subtly, trying to lighten the mood.
‘So are tears,’ she said curtly. ‘Whatever the unsub did, he most likely used it to get her into his vehicle.’
What JJ was implying irritated her, but she buried it and replied, ‘Well, if Abby was last seen at a bus stop a few miles away, then he definitely has a means of transportation.’
‘Hopefully the disposal site will tell us more.’ And with that, she walked off.
Emily watched her walk away with a dull ache in her chest. Even though she knew this was inevitable, it still didn’t feel fair. The kiss wasn’t just a mistake to her, and she knew JJ wouldn’t be reacting like this if she hadn’t felt something too. She broke into a jog, calling out, ‘Oh, come on, JJ, wait!’
JJ didn’t stop until she got to the car. She got inside and shut the door. Emily thought for a second that she was just going to drive off.
Emily reached the car, out of breath. The door to the passenger seat clicked as JJ unlocked it. ‘Are you really not going to talk to me?’ Emily asked quietly, her voice tight.
JJ’s fingers curled around the steering wheel. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
‘But how can you say that?’
‘Fine, then I’m not talking about this.’
Buried in the sharpness of JJ’s voice there was hurt, and Emily couldn’t stand it. ‘I get it, JJ, but put all of this aside, we’ve always talked about… You’ve always been the person that I can…’
Her eyes held a glimmer of something as they flickered towards Emily, but then the walls were up, firm and cold. She clicked her tongue. ‘We don’t have time for this right now.’ She started the car and drove off quickly.
Emily hated that line. Her mother used to say it to her to dismiss her or stop her from arguing. She tried to steady her breathing. ‘Why not?’
JJ gave her silent treatment. Emily was doing her best not to raise her voice, but it was getting difficult. ‘Don’t shut me down like this!’
‘Please, Emily, just lay off it.’ She sounded like she was on the verge. ‘Leave me alone.’