CHAPTER EIGHT
She was exhausted. Derek was exhausted. She felt bad. She wished there was a way she could stop the nightmares, could find some different way to feel safe without having to share a hotel room with Derek. Sure he’d been there for her after Cyrus and she’d stayed with him after New York, but that didn’t always make it easy to deal with. She’d flat out refused his gentle request that she stay in the hotel. She wouldn’t feel safe there without the team around. Plus, it was less likely she’d be harassed in the precinct.
For the first time she found she wasn’t against being left behind in the precinct for days in a row. Usually, she resented it when it wasn’t her turn and the days before her attack she’d been irritated with the way it seemed like they were all hovering. So what if she looked like the victims? It couldn’t have simply been looks that had set the guy off. And she knew who it was, or at least had a good gut feeling. There was no way that waiter was watching her in the diner the days leading up to her attack. In her job, it wasn’t safe to believe in coincidences.
So what was it?
She hadn’t been able to find over the last couple of days as her colleagues alternated staying with her. She had been through the files time and time again and couldn’t find any connection. Garcia hadn’t been able to figure out a connection between their victims either. And she wasn’t even sure where she fit into all of it. Which brought her back to the diner. Carthey’s. She’d heard the name before, she just couldn’t remember the context. There had to be a connection. There had to be a reason she had been watched at the diner yesterday.
She jumped when a hand settled on her shoulder, lashing out without thought.
“Whoa, there girl.”
Emily sighed at Derek’s voice. “Sorry. I got caught up in my thoughts.”
“About the case, I hope.”
She managed a little bit of a smile, not just for him, but for Dave and Hotch who trailed in after him. “I’m trying to find what else connects these girls. It has to be something other than just their looks.”
“Find it?” Hotch asked.
Emily held his eyes. “Not yet,” she replied. “There’s something missing.”
Hotch came around the table to sit beside her. “What about these women is similar to you?”
She looked away, her eyes blurring and focusing on nothing. “I’m not sure,” she admitted.
“Successful, smart, attractive,” Hotch murmured his attention on her and not on the team. He missed Derek’s eyebrow raise at the intimate tone of his voice and the words he was using.
Emily shot a skittish glance at her supervisor, uncomfortable with how close he was. “Hotch, I really don’t know.”
He sat back and Emily relaxed marginally. Derek stepped closer again, making sure she saw his hand before it rested on her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go back to Carthey’s, get something to eat.”
“No!” she exclaimed on reflex.
Derek raised an eyebrow. “Em?”
“There’s something…. Lauren Sheldon’s team mentioned that she liked to frequent Carthey’s.”
“You think it has something to do with the restaurant,” Dave said.
“I know it does,” Emily replied quietly.
Derek sat down on her other side, leaning in and taking her hand this time. He ignored the annoyed breath she blew out. She was trying to be strong. “What happened?”
“Someone was watching me,” she said softly, unconsciously squeezing his hand. “When we were at the diner. Someone was watching me.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
Emily jumped. “No, sir.”
Hotch took a deep breath, aware he’d spooked her. “Why not?”
“It’s not exactly the first time I’ve been watched, sir,” she said with a wry tone to her voice. “You said it yourself, I’m successful, attractive…” She shrugged. “Guys look.”
“So it was a guy?” Derek inquired, a new urgency to his voice.
Emily knew he figured she’d seen the guy. “Definitely. I don’t remember much more about him.”
“We’re going to have to ask the people the other victims worked with,” Derek said. “If Lauren Sheldon frequented Carthey’s and Em got attacked because a guy was watching her there, there’s our connection.”
“But there’s something else,” Emily insisted. “There’s something about me, about Agent Sheldon, that set him off while we were there. He picked us for a reason.”
“Excuse me, agents?”
Much to Emily’s surprise, it was Campbell Nenych who poked her head through the door. “I’m afraid we have another body.”
“Violence is an understatement,” Derek said, looking down at the blood and gore that marred the pavement by his feet. “This is personal.”
“TOD is approximately three days ago. Maybe more. We’ll know after we put together an entomological timeline.”
Emily, who had refused being left behind, did the calculation faster than anyone else could. “Right after I was attacked.”
“Give or take a few hours,” Campbell agreed. “Do you think…?”
“They’re connected,” Hotch said quietly. He’d made the connection between spooking Emily and loud noises. He didn’t want to see that again. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. Not now. A couple of days ago she’d been the opposite. A couple of days ago she’d been willing to show weakness, willing to use him for the comfort he knew she’d desperately needed. And he was more than willing to provide that for her. So much so that he wanted to do it again. “Do we have an ID?”
“No wallet, no ID. Just an iPod,” Campbell replied
“She was out for a run,” Emily said unnecessarily. “Even if it is our guy, it’s not the MO. She just looked brutalized, not tortured.”
“Make sure they get an SAE kit,” Hotch murmured to Campbell, feeling Emily shiver as she ostensibly remembered her own attack. Hotch wasn’t immune to it. Had Emily woken much later, he probably would have already… He didn’t want to think about it and shook his head violently.
“You okay?” she murmured as the detective walked away to ensure the ME did as asked.
“Me?” he asked, before his brain could stop his surprise. She was asking him if he was okay? She was the one having nightmares. She was the one who had been attacked by their UNSUB.
“Yeah,” she replied, turning only slightly, her eyes still on their Jane Doe.
Hotch knew the tactic, knew that whatever was going on in her brain she didn’t want him to see it. Her mask was cracking and while part of him was happy to know the mask wasn’t a flawless weapon, something stirred in his stomach at the idea that she wasn’t infallible. It was an odd juxtaposition. On one side, the man in him was glad to see she wasn’t a robot, that she could break just as he knew he could and resisted almost as much. The agent in him was absolutely terrified that she wasn’t the rock she acted like for the large majority of the team.
“Just thinking,” he replied.
“About?”
“By looks, she fits the victimology.”
“For the most part,” Emily agreed.
He saw her swallow, knew she was uncomfortable and knew there was little he could do right now to assuage her fears. Not in public, not in front of the team. Nevertheless, he stepped unconsciously closer. “So why did he attack her?”
“Opportunity?” Derek offered coming up in front of them. “This isn’t that far from our hotel.”
Emily shivered and Hotch stepped closer again. “Pure luck he comes across a woman that fits our victims’ descriptions?”
“Which would say he’s devolving,” Reid said, pushing himself up from the nearby body. His hands went straight to his pockets.
“So long he’s not focused on Em, I’m not particularly against him devolving,” Derek said honestly.
Hotch was close enough to feel Emily’s very slight wince. “We need to figure out how he chooses his victims.”
It was the same thing they’d been saying for days now, ever since Emily had been attacked. How was Emily like the other victims? What did she have that they had? Why was she so convinced that they were missing a part of the victim profile?