“Damn, so there’s a good chance he was somehow listening in on our conversation.” Prentiss said aloud what they had all been thinking.
“And he may now know the whereabouts of Morgan and Garcia and we have no way of warning them.” JJ added.
“Go to another one of our Technical Analyst see if they can triangulate Morgan and Garcia’s call, maybe we can get a location, and tell them to be quick because Morgan did say they were going on the move again.” Hotch ordered and then made his way to his office with the intent of contacted Marshal Boyle to inform him of what they know.
He knew by the two guards posted just outside the doorway of the sleazy hotel room that he had found the right place. They greeted him with a nod as he handed them one of the four large pizzas he held. The two guards greedily grabbed the offered food and began scarfing it down, as they wave the man inside. Upon entering the room, which was surprisingly clean and well furnished, he discovered four more well-armed guards. The guards all flanked a man seated on the white leather sofa watching what looked to be a 52in flat-screen TV. Two of the guards instantly moved to their new guest and took the remaining pizzas offered to them and went about eating, the remaining two guards quickly following suit.
“What the fuck are you doing here Manuel?” The man seated on the sofa spoke, but never took his eyes off of the TV screen.
“My name’s Kevin now, remember? I came to talk with you and…and I brought lunch,” The guest replied with a goofy smile which quickly faded when the seated man turned and gave him a hard glare. “They found out…about me,” He finally answered which gained the seated man’s full attention. “The uh…the FBI they know that I’m a mole sent by you.”
“You’ve blown your cover with the FBI and then came here estúpido?”
“I came here to let you know that there’s been a change of plans.” Kevin spoke calmly as he lifted his hand and stared down at the watch on his wrist. “In about 20 seconds your guards here,” He pointed to the men surrounding the table who were already showing signs of distress. “Will be dead and I’m pretty sure the two guards outside the door are already dead. I poisoned them.” The seated man stared in horror as the four guards at the table began to convulse and seemingly choke to death.
“What’s this Manuel, you’re no killer.”
“The name is Kevin, Kevin Lynch, remember that’s the alias you gave me?” Kevin hissed out as he pulled a gun from inside the jacket he wore and aimed it at the seated man. “You’re right Ruiz I wasn’t a killer not before I met you, before you threatened me and my family in order to coerce me into working for you…”
“I’ve paid you very well for the work that you’ve done these past years.” Ruiz defended.
“I was just a college kid on spring break and you hijacked me, my sister, and my friends, killed them and then threatened my sister’s life if I didn’t come work for you. But you know what I’m over that, you’re right 5 million is a great healer of things. But there’s no amount of money you can offer me to hurt Pen.”
“Pen…who the hell is Pen?” Ruiz asked in genuine confusion for a few seconds before realization dawned on him. “Wait you mean that punta?”
“Don’t call her that.” Kevin nearly growled out.
“You’ve fallen for the girl I’ve paid you handsomely to track down so I can kill her?” Kevin’s silence spoke for him. “You’re trying to double cross me for her?”
“Not trying, doing,” Kevin said as he began twisting a silencer on the gun.
“You said they know about you,” Ruiz spoke but didn’t attempt to escape nor showed any type of fear. “So they’re gonna be looking for you hombre, and she probably already knows about who you are, that you only pretended to be with her because I paid you, so you think she’s gonna want you now, that she’ll love you?”
“Doesn’t matter, I love her and I’m gonna do whatever I can to make her safe. Top of that list is to get rid of you.”
“You think killing me is gonna protect her? No, no my friend I’ve already given the order that if anything happens to me my brother Ramon is to take that bitch out in my honor. Something happens to Ramon there’s already a million dollar prize that will go to any of my men who takes her out. So you see killing me solves nothing, she’s still gonna die.”
“I don’t think so. That million dollars has already been put in a trust to Penelope, she’ll be notified in a couple of days. As for your brother I have it on good authority that right about…”Again Kevin lifted his hand to look at his watch. “Yeah right about now your home in Columbia where your brother and all your men reside is being raided by the Col. Jiminez and his soldiers.”
“You’re lying we’ve settled our beef with Jiminez years ago, we pay him very well to keep out of our business.”
“Yeah I know, but Col. Jiminez recently discovered that you’ve been holding out on him, that instead of the 75 percent you’re supposed to give him to traffic your drugs through his region, you’ve only been paying him 25 percent.”
“That’s a lie! I would never cheat Jiminez and he knows that.”
“Yeah it was a difficult sell, when I told him he didn’t believe me at first, but when I showed him your bank accounts and the 100 or so small transfers of money that you had me to steal from three of his off shore accounts over the past several years. Small transactions that would go unnoticed but that had added up to well over 10 million dollars, well it was very convincing evidence. All fabricated by me but me didn’t know that, and when he saw me put back all of his money taken, well that was a great testament to my loyalty to him. Well that and his order that I kill you, sorry…oh wait,” He began fumbling in his jacket pocket and then pulled out his cell phone. After a few seconds fiddling with the phone his held it up and aimed it until Ruiz clearly appeared on the small screen. “Say ‘Cheese’.” Kevin said as he pulled the trigger.
“Still no luck on finding Morgan and Garcia’s location?” Hotch asked as he entered the bullpen stopping at Prentiss’s desk.
“They were able to pinpoint an area by the cell towers and Marshal Boyle went to investigate.” Reid answered and was then cut off by Marshal Boyle who had entered with two other Marshals.
“We came up empty, they were long gone. That Agent Morgan is good he’d definitely be welcome at the WPP if he ever decides to make a career change.”
“So at this point there’s nothing more that can be done until Morgan checks in again, and we just have to pray that we’ll be able to get to them before Ruiz does.” Hotch stated.
“You don’t have to worry about Ruiz,” A voice spoke from the entrance and all eyes fell onto Kevin Lynch who stood with his hands raised in the air. Marshal Boyle, the other two marshals, Hotchner, and Prentiss all quickly had their guns pulled and aimed.
“Face down on the floor, arms out to your side.” Marshal Boyle commanded and Kevin quickly complied. With a nod Boyle had one of the other Marshal moved to Kevin where he placed him in handcuffs, and then helped him to stand. Once they saw that their suspect was secured they all put away their guns.
“When you hear from Pen tell her it’s safe now she can come home, and tell her that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I never meant to hurt her, never would…”
“Where’s Ruiz?” Hotch asked.
“You’ll find his body at the Flamingo hotel on Davenport Ln.” Kevin replied.
“Prentiss, Reid get an escort from the local police dept.” Hotch ordered and the two agents rushed out. “You killed Ruiz?”
“Yeah, I had to, to protect Penelope.”
“Son, you probably just pissed off Ruiz’s remaining family, and guaranteed that Penny will never be safe.” Marshal Boyle said.
“No,” Kevin shook his head as he spoke. “I’ve dismantled his entire organization, emptied out all of his banking accounts, transferring the money to different charities, and I caused the execution of his entire family as well as the mercenaries he had for hire. The local militia received evidence from me that Ruiz had stolen millions from them, so they took them out. It’s probably all over the news by now. There’s no one left, I made sure of that, so it’s safe for Penelope to come home.”
“We’re taking him into our custody you don’t have any objections to that do you?” Boyle asked Hotchner who only shook his head no. “Good lets go.”
“Agent Hotchner would you please tell Penelope that I’m sorry and that I love her, I really truly love her.” Kevin pleaded as Boyle pulled him away.
She had been standing just in the doorway of the office staring at the objects placed throughout the room. She didn’t know why but she found it difficult to get her feet to go further into the room, and that’s how he found her just standing staring.
“What’s wrong is something out of place?” He asked as he moved up close behind her. He had to fight a sudden urge to wrap his arms around her, they’d had decided before their arrival back home that they would keep their personal lives personal, which meant absolutely no physical contact at work, at least no more than they usually had.
“Yeah, me,” She replied meekly. “I honestly thought that I would never see this place again, just feels so strange being back here.”
“I’m sorry,” He said as he leaned in and kissed her temple, unable to fight off that urge to console her. “Maybe you should take the time off that Strauss offered you.”
“No,” Penelope quickly shot down that idea. “I’ve had enough time off while we were on the run, ‘sides you can’t take any more time off and it wouldn’t be any fun if you weren’t with me.” He chuckled at her words. “I’ll be fine, really. It’s just surreal I’ve spent a big chunk of my life in hiding, looking over my shoulders now I don’t have to do any of that anymore.”
“Thanks to Lynch,” Morgan added, knowing it was still a touchy subject with her. “You know he calls here every day asking to speak with you?”
“Really, well I guess I’ll have to ask Hotchner if he can locate whatever prison they have him in and have his phone calls blocked. What he did to me…he betrayed my trust in the worse way.”
“I get that.”
“No honey I don’t think you do. He violated me, I feel violated. If it weren’t for you, if I didn’t have you before the truth about Kevin Lynch or Michael Thompson, whoever the hell he is, he could have completely destroyed my faith in men, period. Seriously, I would have become a lesbian.” Again Morgan chuckled as he leaned in again but this time captured her lips in a gentle kiss.
“Aren’t there bureau policies about this type of fraternization at the workplace?” Reid’s voice interrupted their moment as they reluctantly moved apart.
“What Strauss doesn’t know won’t hurt her but I will hurt you if she ever finds out.” Morgan said jokingly as Reid, Prentiss and JJ stood just outside Garcia’s office door.
“Hey I can keep a secret, it’s Prentiss you need to worry about.” Reid said with a smile as he ducked out of the way of Prentiss’s playful slap.
“It’s good to have both of you home.” JJ said as she gave Garcia a hug and then Morgan.
“Yes it is, and from now on when you refer to yourself as the ‘supreme genius’ I won’t doubt it. Compared to you the other analysts they stuck us with were idiots.” Prentiss tossed out as she gave Garcia a quick hug.
“What about me,” Morgan asked when Prentiss didn’t offer him a hug. “Don’t I get some love, didn’t you miss me too?”
“Not really they replaced you with Agent Faulkner, he was an amazing Behavioral Analyst and he was so hot.” Prentiss said and then quickly giggled as she moved in and gave Morgan a hug. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”
“Really, because I recall you mentioning on more than one occasion about how ‘hot’ Agent Faulkner was.” Reid interjected.
“I meant I was kidding about not missing…never mind.” Prentiss said shaking her head as Reid stare at her perplexed, feeling yet again like he had been left out of the loop.
“How’s Clooney?” Morgan directed to Reid who had been caring for his four legged friend for the past several weeks.
“He’s big which you never mentioned and he drools…a lot, which you never mentioned either.” Reid announced causing the others to laugh just as Hotchner appeared at the door.
“We’ve got a new case, this came straight from Strauss some kind of favor to the local D.A. whose daughter’s body was just found mutilated and dumped in a nearby field.” Hotchner began explaining.
“Well did you tell Strauss that we’re not here to grant her personal favors?” Morgan asked, irritated.
“Normally I would have but I know she would never have asked if it wasn’t something BAU related. We have reason to believe that this attack was a form of retaliation against the D.A. The man she’s currently prosecuting is Christopher Richardson.”
“The suspected serial rapist/murderer?” Prentiss asked and Hotch nodded his head.
“All the files are on your desks, I want a briefing in 30 minutes.” Morgan, Prentiss, Reid, and JJ quickly filed out of the office and headed to their desks. “Garcia.”
“Yes sir.”
“The D.A.’s office has sent over all the videotaped evidence as well as some tapes they found in Richardson’s possession, I want you to go over them with a fine toothed comb and find me something the get this guy.”
“Yes sir I’m on it,” She said as she turned to her ‘babies’ and began turning them on.
“And Garcia,”
“Yes sir,” She still in her movements to give him her undivided attention.
“It’s good to have you back, welcome home,” Hotch said around a genuinely warm smile.
“Thank you sir, it’s good to be home sir,” She replied returning the smile. With a nod Hotch left the office closing the door behind him. Garcia took a moment to revel at her new life and her new love and with a contented smile she said. “It’s really good to be home.”