Fic: Too Close, Chapter 4 (Criminal Minds, Reid / Morgan, Hotch / Chad, Prentiss)
Title: Too Close, Chapter 4
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pair: Spencer Reid / Derek Morgan,
Aaron Hotchner / Chad Christensen
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Criminal Minds Main List
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Ask the right questions if you're to find the right answers.
-Vanessa Redgrave
Reid climbed out of the car and took one last look at the map.
“This should be it.”
“Are you sure?”
“This is the most up-to-date map I could find.”
“I’m not talking about the map, I’m talking about your map reading.” Chad pointed out, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. “You do that geo-whatever and still somehow you manage to get us lost four times.”
“It’s called geographical profiling, and we weren’t lost that many times.”
“This was supposed to be a seven hour drive. With your instructions it took over nine hours.”
“Well, we got here, didn’t we?” Reid threw his hands up and almost dropped the map in question. “Can we go now?”
“Hang on.” Chad reached over to open the glove compartment, pulled out a gun wrapped into a holster, and attached it to his belt. “This whole place gives me the creeps.” He got out of the car and locked the doors. “Are you sure this is the right place?”
“Yeah, all the landmarks match, this must be it.” Reid eyed the empty neighborhood. A few old houses near the narrow dirt road, all of them near the point of collapsing on their own.
“Which one?”
“That one.” The genius pointed at the crooked one floor house, surrounded by a rusty fence and an outgrown yard. His hand instinctively went down to rest on the butt of his gun. “How do want to do this?”
“Wait here.” Chad followed the fence around the house, coming back from the other side. “No back entrance, just a little basement window.” He shoved the gate open and grimaced at the loud creak. Chad gestured Reid to follow and walked across the front yard, stomping the outgrown weeds from the path. They walked to the small porch and positioned themselves on both sides of the door.
Chad knocked on the door, first casually, then adding more force behind it.
“Jonathan Pazura. FBI, we’d like to have a word with you.” He tried the handle and the door opened easily. Chad pulled out his gun. “We’re coming in!”
The inside of the house matched the first impression. Everything was covered with thick layers of dust, making the house look as deserted as it did from the outside. They quickly checked the small two room house, but it carried no signs of recent occupants. Chad shoved his gun back into the holster and run his fingers across the dust covered table.
“Either the maid has the decade off or no one has been here for a good while.”
“This is the only address we have.” Reid tucked his hair behind his ears, his other hand waving nervously. “We know he’s not incarcerated or dead. Or at least as far as we know.”
“Maybe he disappeared on purpose. It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for a long time, and this would be a nice red herring if someone tried to find him.”
“Yeah.” Reid admitted. “Of course it’s also possible he didn’t vanish out of his own will. Mrs. Ashton said he didn’t show up after the night the last girl was killed, maybe he either was too dangerous to the killer or he was working with the killer. Either way, it would be reason enough to get rid of him.”
“It’s kinda sad to rain down on your parade when you get into that theorizing zone, but we don’t even know he had something to do with the murders.”
“He knew the last victim, possibly the others through her, and dropped off the map after the murder, and if he knew the last victim, it’s perfectly possible that he knew the girls through her. And anyway, we have a name to follow, that’s more than we had before.”
“True.” Chad stated with a light nod. “So what do we do now?”
“See if he had places to hide.” Reid grabbed his cellphone and squinted to see the columns on the side of the screen. “No signal.”
“So we’re going back.”
“Back where?”
“To that town we drove through maybe five miles ago. We’ll get some food and see if we can contact Garcia.”
“Yeah…” Reid’s stomach groaned, as if it was agreeing with the plan. “When was the last time we ate?”
“Too long ago. But if you want a quick snack right now, I saw a dead cat in the back yard.”
“No thanks.”
“Right, you discovered you’re a dog person after all.” Chad smirked and pulled the door open. “Kind of a shame George didn’t live long enough to see it.”
“Don’t bring that up again, he tried to bite me!” Reid countered, marching out of the house. “My reaction was entirely proportional to the estimated threat.”
“He was a tiny little puppy! He just barked at you and that was only after you started screaming.”
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -------
Prentiss looked up as a steaming Styrofoam cup appeared in her line of sight and snatched it from Morgan.
“Thanks.”
“I’ll rather give you coffee than let you bite my head off when the withdrawal hits.”
“Everyone here, who doesn’t drink too much coffee, puts your hands up.” Prentiss took an exaggerated pause. “ No one? That’s really unanimous.” She took a sip from the cup and sighed. “Did Garcia get those records?”
“She’s working on it, but she’s got other stuff in the works too. When I called her, she was almost as grouchy as you are.”
“I’m frustrated! We’re not making any progress.” She finished the coffee with one long gulp and dumped the cup into the nearest trashcan. “Did Rossi and JJ come back yet?”
“Not yet, and Hotch said we should head back to the hotel and get some sleep if we don’t get those records in the next half an hour. “Penny will call when she got something.”
“She’ll probably call ten minutes after I fall asleep…” She grunted, and got up from her seat. “If there wasn’t that silver lining, I would really be grumpy.”
“We have a silver lining?”
“Yeah. Garcia usually calls you, not me.”
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -------
Reid leaned over his plate of French friends and a turkey sandwich and lowered his voice.
“Am I imagining it, or are we getting weird looks?”
Chad finished chewing a mouthful of fries, and took a long unashamed look around the diner. Most of the other customers quickly turned back to their own plates.
“Yep.” He confirmed and took another bite from his burger. “Virginia’s very own equivalent for Hicksville. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many plaid shirts in one place.”
“That’s just a stereotype-”
“Where do you think stereotypes come from? Small town, small gene pool. Haven’t you noticed how much everyone here looks alike?”
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -------
“To sleep or not to sleep…” Morgan pondered, sitting on the edge of his bed. “If I lay down she’ll call, if I don’t she won’t.”
“Are you decent?” Prentiss’s voice called through the door. “Pack up, we’re moving.”
Morgan got up, pulled on the pair of jeans and the shirt he had just stripped and opened the door. Prentiss was waiting in the hallway, arms crossed and dark circles under her eyes.
“This proves it, Garcia’s having us bugged. She heard what I said and called me just to keep me from sleeping.”
“Did she get the records?”
“No, but her search finally kicked out a result. Two more similar cases, so we`re splitting up. JJ`s coming with us to check it out.”
“Are they even close?”
“Less than half a mile from the Nevada border.”
“On the California side?”
“No.”
“Great, just frigging great…” Morgan walked back into the room to pack up his things. “Like we haven’t had enough arguments with the locals here. Now we’re spreading into two states…”
“It’s the Law Of the BAU. If anything can happen to mess up the investigation, it will happen.” She commented tiredly. “Backseat’s mine, I didn’t get any sleep.” She continued before Morgan could protest. “Be a gentleman.”
“I’ll try, but if I crash the car, it’s your fault.”
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -------
“Yeah…” Reid pressed his phone between his ear and shoulder while he marked the spot on the map. “I found it. Okay, thanks.” He hung up and pocketed the phone.
“Garcia?” Chad asked as he returned to the table carrying two mugs of coffee. He placed the other in front of Reid. “Did she find something?”
“Yes.” The genius beamed. He took a sip from the well sugared coffee and pointed at the spot on the map. “Pazura has an older sister-”
“Called Carla, and she lives in the area.”
“How did you know?”
“I asked Jenny.” Chad nodded his head at the chubby girl mopping the counter on the other side of the diner. “Told her I was looking for someone I used to know, and she was very helpful.”
“Just like that?”
“First rule in small towns: People in bars and diners always know everyone that’s living around. If they don’t know them personally then at least they know all the best gossip.”
“Exactly how did you get her to talk?”
“Little flirt can go a long way.” Chad grinned into his coffee. “And keeping your badge out of sight.”
“You were gone for five minutes.”
“Yeah, it helps when you’re dressed for it.” He gestured at his leather jacket, threadbare jeans and snuggly T-shirt. “I don’t exactly look like a fed.”
“Neither do I!” Reid claimed. “But it doesn’t mean I’d just go and…”
“Use what you got? You could if someone gave you a make-over. Now you look like a sixties bureaucrat.” Chad grinned as he glanced at Reid’s stripy tie, vest and tweed jacket with elbow patches. “Why did you even put on a tie and a vest for a road trip? That thing must be hell in a hot car.”
“I’m used to it.” Reid muttered, straightening his tie.
“That must be one reason why you’re so skinny: You sweat it all away under your tweeds.” He looked down at the open map laying on the table. “Did you find her on the map?”
“I did, it’s right here.”
“Does it look familiar?”
“Familiar?”
“That’s the same area where we just came from.”
“No, we came from…” Reid took another look at the map. “Whoops…”
“That geographical profiling must have more to do with profiling that geography.”
“I’m not usually this bad at this! If the GPS stops working in this area, I’m allowed to have some leeway with my map reading. This isn’t so easy when all the roads are tiny and some of them aren’t marked at all.”
“Let’s just get back to the real issue. Did Garcia find anything else?”
“She’ll call me back later, she’s got her hands in a lot of pies right now.” Reid paused and hid his blush behind his coffee mug. “She told me to say it like that, it’s supposed to sound casual enough for an informal conversation. She says my way of saying things sometimes makes the whole conversation go weird.”
“Just like that explanation?”
“Yeah.”
“She has a point.”
“I know… So when are we leaving?”
“Leaving where?”
“To see the sister.”
“Have you looked outside?” Chad pointed at the window. “It’s dark. If we got lost in bright daylight, I don’t even wanna try it in pitch black on unmarked roads.”
“Oh… right.” He took a sip from his coffee. “What time would we be home if we left now?”
“My best guess? Sometime tomorrow morning, probably couple hours later if we get lost as many times as we did before.”
“Did you have a lot to do tomorrow?” Reid asked carefully. “Anything you can’t delegate-”
“You sneaky little broomstick…” Chad shook his head, halfway between a chuckle and a groan. “I know what you’re gonna suggest.”
“You got a better idea?”
“There is no good ideas here. Either we spend the night in the dark getting lost in the middle of nothing, or spend the night here and tomorrow driving back. Frankly, I’m not that thrilled about either one of those two.”
“I just mean we’ve come all this way and it would be a shame to leave without checking the sister first.”
“Remember how this started? You wanted to meet the vic`s mom, who lives in the same area.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Then we got an address and you just couldn’t leave it to the cops to handle.”
“Are you going to tell me we’re driving back tonight?”
“No, I’m telling you this is the last pit-stop. We’ll go chat with her in the morning and no matter what she can tell about her brother-”
“You don’t mean-”
“Or if there’s a line of stuffed heads on her mantle, you’ll leave it to the cops.”
“None of the victims was decapitated-”
“Are you listening? No more “just this one” trips to see the next lead. You can give me the puppy eyes and pout till the cows come home, but tomorrow we’re going back, even if I have to tie you to the roof of the car. Do I make myself clear?”
“What if-”
“No ifs.”
“Okay, but if-”
“What did I just say?”
“No ifs…”
“Do we have an understanding?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” Chad emptied his mug and grabbed his wallet. He pulled out a few notes and pushed them across the table. “You go get a room in that motel, I’ll check that little store in the corner.”
“Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“The motel.”
“Across the street, we just walked past it when we were coming here. The one where they had that neon-colored sign, that said vacancy. Seriously, how can someone with your memory be so clueless about his whereabouts?”
“I had other things on my mind.”
“Of course you had. Lean over.”
“What?”
“Lean over.” Chad reached across the table and grabbed Reid’s tie.
“What are you doing?”
“Two guys signing into the only motel in town without luggage, wanna guess what that will look like? In a place like this the gossip will be going around before the morning paper.”
“Small town mentality.”
“Yeah, so you might as well look the part.” Chad pulled off the genius’s tie, opened the few top buttons and gave Reid’s hair a little fluffing. “There, now you look like a legitimate toy boy.”
“So you just want to ruffle some feathers?”
“Nice choice of words, Garcia and Morgan have really rubbed off on you.”
Chapter 5