Emily wasn’t exactly sure if she was happy or unpleasantly surprised by Penelope’s presence in their conference room. She had slept extremely well the previous night and she felt much more balanced now that she knew she and Aaron were going to be okay.
“Morning Peaches,” Penelope greeted cheerfully as she typed away on her laptop.
“What are you doing here?” Emily asked, no derision in her voice. “This is a long way to fly.”
Emily and Aaron had been the last to arrive and Penelope had been in the process of cueing up the things she’d found. “I decided it would be easier to just work from here. I found something for you guys.”
Emily pulled up a chair. She knew it was fruitless to argue with her friend in the midst of a case, danger or not. “Then by all means.”
Penelope grinned for a split second before turning serious. “So, I was running the names of our victims through databases, newspapers, anything and everything under the sun and I came across something very interesting.”
“Spit it out, Garcia,” Aaron pushed.
“They were all in the same newspaper column,” Penelope answered without flourish.
Derek raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
“Outstanding contributions to their communities,” the blond responded, still typing. “In the crime section.”
“That’s an odd place for praise to come from,” JJ voiced, leaning forward in her chair. “They’re usually too fixated on reporting the crime instead of praising the cops that do the work.”
“Even journalists can have an optimistic streak?” Morrow offered, though it was obvious she didn’t believe it.
“I can make a few calls,” JJ offered.
“No need, my dear overworked media brilliance,” Penelope responded with a grin. “I took the liberty of phoning up a few of the reporters on the crime desk.”
“And?” Aaron asked, getting slightly impatient. The sooner they had a concrete suspect the sooner they could solve the case and the sooner Emily and the others would be back to safety.
“They were all ghost written,” the blond answered. “By a reporter by the name of Bernard Dell.”
Nick expected many things when working a murder case. He expected death, he expected uncomfortable pictures, he expected nightmares, he expected to comfort grieving family members. This time, however, he had not anticipated or expected the use of the BAU. And it had turned out spectacularly in his favour.
Bernard Dell, “Bernie” as he was known around the precinct, was someone every cop on the force had dealt with. The man had slowly risen in the ranks of the paper until he got his coveted position as one of the elite members of the crime desk. He was ruthless, and that was what made him exceptionally good at his job.
But his background wasn’t all sunshine and happy bunnies. On the contrary, the man had a past that made it obvious as to why he’d gone into the crime reporting to begin with and why he held onto his job “ and his definition of truth “ with everything in him. The technical analyst that had come in from Quantico had found the connection with surprising ease and it only made Nick respect the BAU more.
Bernard Dell had a brother. Well, past tense anyway, and it had been an officer by the name of Alexandra Osborne that had put the young man away. Her testimony had been what the case had hinged on and the main reason for the conviction. Suddenly it wasn’t so surprising that there was such a resentment of women. Nor did it surprise him that he felt women did not belong in law enforcement.
What had surprised him was how they’d come to the conclusion. The case had seamlessly fit together in ways Nick hadn’t even been the slightest bit prepared for. It had shocked him to see how bang on the profile of the guy was. He was white, mid-twenties to mid-thirties, resented women, probably because of a past with one. The bit about blaming it on his mother had been off, but the part where he’d been involved with law enforcement had been dead on. Bernie had testified for the defence as to his brother’s character.
Bernie, however, had been brainwashed. There were a million statements testifying to his brother’s involvement with the gang subsequently accused of killing the man the elder Dell brother had been incarcerated for. The evidence that had since turned up “ and had been processed, thanks to the FBI “ was even more effective in proving that Eddie Dell had indeed been the one to beat their victim to death.
The sad part had been the aftermath and it made even more sense in connecting Bernie’s resentment of women in law enforcement to his actions now. Eddie Dell had been brutally and fatally stabbed during a prison riot. Even the persecution of those responsible hadn’t diminished Bernie’s feelings of hatred towards law enforcement.
It didn’t help that Nick had known old Ben Dell and his tastes towards the female gender. Ben Dell had grown up in a time where women were obedient and lived under the thumb of their husbands. The woman’s only job was to pump out and take care of children. His views had not changed with the times and his sons had grown up with the mentality. Which made Bernie even more furious about Officer Osborne’s arrest and conviction, according to the BAU.
“Shaw! We have a problem.”
Nick turned to his partner, eyebrow raised. “Coop, how can we have a problem?”
“Bernie Dell’s nowhere to be found.”
JJ couldn’t sleep.
There were way too many things running through her head for her to even consider it, the topmost being the fact that their unsub, though they knew who he was, had flown the coop. And rather spectacularly if she could say so herself. There was no sign of him anywhere and he’d left everything that could be recognized as his behind.
And he still had Jo Sile, their latest victim with an ex-husband and 2 young girls. That connection hadn’t been all that difficult to figure out. After all, a women divorced was one who obviously didn’t follow the code. All JJ could hope for was that they’d find the woman in time. She didn’t want to leave a five and seven-year-old without a maternal figure. And even though they were divorced Hank Sile seemed just as determined to make sure Holly and Ellen had their mother at the end of this.
“JJ go to sleep.”
The blond sighed. She should have known that Spencer would be aware of her tossing and turning. “I can’t.”
He was being hypocritical and he knew it. Hotch had woefully informed JJ earlier that day that a press conference with full televised support was the only way they were going to get anything done. They had nothing to go on but a picture and description of the man and Jo Sile. JJ was going to have to plead with the public to give them a hand and it worried Spencer like nothing else. It was going to put JJ directly into the line of fire. “You have to.”
JJ sighed and rolled over, resting half of her body on top of his. “My ass is on the line tomorrow.”
Spencer almost jumped. JJ didn’t swear often, even something as mundane as ‘ass’. “I know.”
“And?”
He could tell from the single word everything she didn’t say. He sighed. “What do you want me to say, JJ?”
She would do her job and she would do it well, like she had every other time she’d had to get up in front of reporters and news cameras. She would shove aside the fact that she was a blatant target, the only face the team often put forward. She knew the power she held in that position, but she also had a vague understanding of the danger it entailed. And there was nothing she really wanted more, especially in this situation, than to keep herself out of danger. “I don’t know.”
He knew she didn’t. She didn’t want him to ask her to step away from the public eye. She didn’t want him to ask her not to do her job. If she had wanted him to ask, it would just be to pick a fight, not so anything could come of it. Her job was her job and until she didn’t understand or ignored the risks, he wouldn’t ask her to give up something like that. Jennifer Jareau not only loved her job, but was dedicated to it and it was that dedication that had attracted Spencer in the first place.
“I don’t like this,” she said softly.
Her voice startled him just a little. “I don’t either.”
“But I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” he admitted. “Not now anyway.”
There was nothing they could have done before either, and they both knew it.
“It’s not like I haven’t been the center of attention before,” she said softly, her fingers absently tapping at Spencer’s chest.
The case of the Fisher King rose unbidden to his mind. “True.”
JJ took in a deep breath. “The whole team will be there the whole time.”
“We will,” he agreed, his fingers tracing at her lower back in an attempt to calm her down. It was going to give him nightmares if she didn’t ease up soon. “Nothing will happen to you, Jenn.”
She tilted her face to meet his eyes in surprise. “What did you just call me?”
Spencer blushed. The name had slipped out without a second thought. “I’m sorry…” he began to sputter.
“I haven’t been called Jenn in a long time,” she said softly.
“It slipped out. I-“
“I like it.”
He looked down at her, noticing her blush. An echoing heat rose in his own cheeks. “Oh.”
“But…” she said. “Just between you and me.”
Spencer smiled. She called him ‘Spence’. She was the only person who ever called him ‘Spence’. And now he could call her ‘Jenn’. For some reason it made him feel a little bit better about the lion’s den they’d be walking into tomorrow.