IF YOU ASKED ME A YEAR IF I THOUGHT I'D BE THE UNIT CHIEF OF THE BAU, I'D THINK YOU WERE ON DRUGS. I always thought Hotch would be here until he died. I mean, he ate, slept, and breathed this job. I just thought he'd never leave.
Being the unit chief with Emily for Interpol taught me a lot about myself and my skills. I know I can handle this position. Especially with Emily by my side. I have no doubt in my mind that we are more than capable to lead this team to success. We did it once before, we can do it again.
Although, for the BAU, it's a little different. Emily and I need to be on the same page a lot more than we had to be in London. We typically are so I'm not too nervous about it. Because of this, we decided to have the same office. There was a dividing wall between Derek's old office and Hotch's that moved, so it's a bigger space. We're not on top of each other. We kept the couch here for Rosie if she decides to join us for some nights.
We did not have time for a warmup. We were able to increase the budget to add a new agent. We had resumes up to our knees to look through. There was already a large stack of files we needed to look through and a smaller maybe pile. We had already gotten to work. If we're trying to locate Scratch on top of everything, we need another agent as soon as possible.
So here we were. In our new office at the BAU. Tara knocked on the door and walked in with two different pots of flowers. "I come bearing office-warming gifts"
That was so sweet of her.
"Oh, that is so nice. Thank you." I smiled. She set one down on my desk and one on Emily's.
"So, how's it going?" She asked us.
"Weird." Emily replied. I nodded.
"Yeah?"
"It started with the I'm gonna hurl first day jitters, but now there's this. We were able to increase the budget to hire a new agent." Emily said. I was proud of us for that one.
"That's great." Tara spoke with a smile.
"Yeah. Anyway, what's up?" Emily asked her.
"I was just checking to see if we had a case." Tara said.
Surprisingly, we didn't at this very second. "We don't." I replied.
"We don't?" She asked.
"No, uh- I can double check..." I trailed off and saw Garcia walking through the halls. "Garcia!"
She walked in. "Ma'am."
"Please stop calling me ma'am." I let out and looked down. I think it's funny but it makes me feel way older than I am.
"We haven't been called in anywhere, have we?" Emily asked her.
"No. As of 9:27 eastern standard time, all serial killers have taken the day off. Maybe they went to therapy." Garcia replied. One can only hope.
"Frankly, we could use this time to review these resumes." I replied and Emily nodded.
"Well, if we're good here, I need to take the day off-campus. Is that a problem?" She asked. I can't believe Emily and I have control of this now.
"No. Not at all." Emily replied. Tara looked back to me and I nodded with a smile. As long as we're good here, there's no need to worry.
"Thanks." She nodded and walked out.
Emily and I shared a look before turning our heads to Garcia. "Is she-" I started.
"Don't. She has sworn me to secrecy." Garcia replied.
I held my hands up defensively. "Okay. Fair enough. Never mind."
"Alright! Twist my arm. I'll tell you. Follow me." Garcia relented. I didn't even say anything. Emily and I obeyed and followed her out. We knew what was coming now.
We walked into the conference room. She had literally everything in a presentation like we do for cases.
"Let's face it. We don't really know much about Dr. Tara Lewis. We know she's an army brat who was raised all over the world. I know, because she told me yesterday that her mother died of breast cancer when she was in college, and that her dad was honorably discharged, and he started an auto-repair shop in DC. But, what I just learned is that her most complicated family relationship is with this guy." Garcia went on and pulled up a picture. "Gabriel, her younger brother, every bit as smart as Tara. He got a 1600 on his SATs, and he didn't go to Yale, despite having a free ride."
"Huh." I let out. That's interesting. I didn't have the heart to tell Garcia Emily and I already knew about all of this.
"Instead, he got involved in a bunch of get rich quick schemes bordering on fraud. Apparently Tara, while bailing him out of bankruptcy, said, look, Gabriel, this cannot happen again. And then he turned his back on her. Scandal? Enter, or rather, re-enter, the father. He's distraught that his children are feuding. He wants them to patch things up so they can be a family again, and today, Gabriel is flying in. Him and Tara agreed to meet at a coffee shop. They're going to swallow their pride and maybe, just maybe, they will put the past behind them. Sweet, right?" Garcia kept going.
"Yeah-" Emily started but was cut off.
"No, it's terrible because what if he asks for money? What if she can't say no? What if she gets caught up in his whirlwind of manipulation?"
"Did she put it that way?" Emily asked.
"No, I did. But I can't help but be super vigilant when it comes to people I love. I'll go through all the worst case scenarios. I'm vigilant like that." Garcia went on.
Spencer and JJ then walked in. "What's going on?" JJ asked and looked at the screen.
"It's Gabriel." Spencer replied.
"Oh." JJ let out.
"How do- how did you guys know-" Garcia asked, taken back.
"Uh, she told us about him when she first joined the team." JJ replied. I was holding in a chuckle.
"He flew in this morning, probably looking for money." Spencer muttered.
Luke and Rossi then walked in. "Hey. Is there a case?" Luke asked before looking at the screen. "What's Tara's brother's picture doing up?" He then asked.
"Well, he's in town." JJ replied.
"He must want money." Rossi added.
Garcia slammed the remote down. "Come on. The new guy? He know? How come I was the last one to know?"
"It was an experiment. She wanted to time how long you could keep a private conversation private. And you made it 12 hours." Spencer said and looked at his watch.
"Damn. I had you down for 6." Luke smiled.
"Okay, you know what? You guys, I though you were my friends. But you suck. You all suck. Especially you, new guy. But then you always suck. Newbie." Garcia sneered before stomping out.
"I had 14. I think I won." Spencer let out.
"Who had 11?" JJ asked. Oh, Emily did.
"Em, you did, right?" I asked.
"Oh, I did!" She exclaimed.
We loved Penelope to pieces. She just can't keep a secret for shit.
—
It was a good thing we didn't have a case because Tara called us from her lunch saying a random man showed up pretending to be her brother.
She brought him here and moved him into an interrogation room. We ran his prints and Emily and I went to find Tara. I've never seen anything like this. Our first case as unit chiefs.
"We can hold that man for 24 hours. After that we need to either charge him or let him go. Is Gabriel answering his phone?" Emily told her.
"This is his phone. His contacts, his emails. Look at this. He was in the Capitol Hill district. And look at the time stamp. He's been in my backyard a month and he hasn't told me." Tara said and showed us his phone. This is so weird.
"Does your father know?" I asked.
"Maybe, I mean, I have to speak to him." Tara replied.
"Albert Lewis Body Shop. He's listed, right? I'll bring him in." Spencer offered.
"Okay." Tara breathed. She was nervous.
Tara gave Garcia the phone. "Okay, process that and break it down." I let out.
"Aye aye." Garcia replied and walked away.
Rossi stepped out of his office and gestured we all go talk to him. Tara was still talking.
"Just why would Gabriel send a stranger to meet me and pretend it's him? It makes no sense. Maybe he's scared, or maybe it's another one of his scams, but..." Tara tailed off.
"Tara, let's talk." Emily spoke. We all went into our office and shut the door.
"Um, what is this? Am I in trouble?" Was the first thing she asked.
"Just the opposite. If someone's messing with you, they're messing with all of us." Rossi told her.
"And it's happening directly on the heels of Hotch entering the wit sec program. We have to be hyper vigilant." I added. This was done purposely. And I had an idea of who.
"I agree. I'd like to start by questioning the suspect." Tara said.
"No." Emily replied.
"Look, is this is because I'm too close to the case..." Tara trailed off.
"We need to read the man you just brought in as an unsub posing as your brother. What would interrogation strategy call for at this point?" Emily asked.
"Uh, get him frustrated. Force a mistake by denying him what he wants." Tara replied. Exactly.
"And what does he want?" Emily then asked.
"Me." She said quietly.
"So you can't go in." Emily replied.
"So, who are we gonna send in instead of you?" Rossi asked her.
She pondered for a moment before choosing JJ.
Tara, Emily and I walked to the room outside on interrogation and watched from the outside.
JJ walked in. "Good afternoon. I'm Jennifer Jareau with the Behavioral-" JJ started but was cut off.
"Analysis Unit of the FBI. Tara told me you were cool." Fake Gabriel replied.
"Alright. And you are?" JJ asked.
"Gabriel. Her brother."
"Could I get your full name and social, please?" JJ asked and opened the file. We had everything.
"Gabriel Anthony Lewis. 989-42-7001." He sneered while looking through the window.
JJ set the file down that had Gabriel's real ID. It did not match the man sitting in front of her. "That is Tara's brother. See the problem here?"
"What? It's a drivers license photo. They asked me not to smile."
"No hesitation. No up-speak. He maintains eye contact. Whoever this guy is, he's good." Tara let out.
"Let's see how he does at double jeopardy." I let out and continued to watch JJ grill this man.
"Where were you born?"
"Army base, Fort Rucker." He asked.
"Right. In, uh, Georgia?" JJ asked.
"No. Alabama." He corrected.
"With stops in Okinawa and Hamburg?" JJ asked.
"Other way around. Hamburg first."
"What did you major in at Yale?" JJ asked.
"I didn't. What is going on here?" He asked, growing frustrated.
"Why are you the only one that gets to call her T?" JJ asked.
He scoffed and looked out he window. "We're going there, huh? Her name is spelled T-A-R-A. It was my father's grandmother's name. You know what else is spelled T-A-R-A? Tara. The plantation in Gone With The Wind. Now that's a movie that most black folks aren't crazy about. So my mom and dad, they drilled it into her, it's Tar-a, Tar-a, Tar-a. And every time we went to a new school, which was everytime my dad got re-stationed, she had to make sure our classmates got it right. You feel me?" He went on and paced around the room.
"Yeah, I do." JJ replied.
"Good. So while we're in Hamburg, this kid starts following her around and he starts staying, Terra, Terra, Terra, Terra. Now, he never seen Vivien Leigh or Clark Gable or "I don't know nothin' about birthin' no babies." He just knew that he was getting underneath her skin." He paused. "And my sister said..." He spoke and looked out the window. He didn't say anything.
"Go on. What did she say?" JJ urged.
"What happened next is our secret. Mine and hers. I wouldn't tell the rest to just anybody. My sister knows that. All that matters for this little back and forth, which I'm guessing she put you up to is afterward I started calling her T...to show her that I was always on her side. Even now, T. Even now."
I was baffled.
Spencer alerted us that he was here with her father. He told her the reason he's been in the area is because Gabriel is now a lobbyist for online gambling. He had a business partner named Carl Brubaker. Luke and Tara were going to his place.
Emily and I sat down to talk about this for a moment.
"You know who I'm thinking this is, right?" I spoke. I didn't even want to say it out loud.
She just looked at me with solemn eyes. She knew.
"Peter Lewis." She murmured. I nodded.
It all makes sense. It made even more sense when Spencer realized that the drivers license photo of Carl Brubaker was computer generated. Who would hack into the DMV's website and do that?
Mr. Scratch.
This is a set up. He knows Hotch went away and he's trying to tell us he knows. He's pissed.
—
At the address, there were pictures of Tara's brother through the years and a video of the real Gabriel yelling for Luke. What he's telling us is he knows Luke is on the team. Scratch is targeting us all.
"I'm getting protective detail on everyone. Call Rosie and tell her not to answer the door for anyone and to lock the windows." I told Emily and she nodded. My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. This was our first experience with him.
"Do you want me to just have Anderson go get her and have her do her school from here?" Emily asked. You know what.
"Yeah." I nodded.
I made the call and then went into the conference room where everyone was. All except Tara. "I've placed protective details on Hayden and Joy, and Will and the boys. Anderson went to get Rosie and she's going to do her school from my office. We need to assume that Mr. Scratch is targeting this entire team." I spoke and sat down.
"You know, that could be why he had Gabriel screaming out my name. He wants us to know that he knows I'm part of the BAU now." Luke said and I nodded.
"Isn't his M.O. to drug his victims and make them hallucinate?" Emily asked.
"Then he evolved. He's taking these victims with multiple personalities and brainwashing them with someone else's memories." JJ replied.
"So he took Tara's brother and did God knows what to get him to spill his life story, and then he planted those memories in the guy downstairs. The more memories he has, the stronger the identity he can create." Luke said. We had an ID on the other man. Desmond.
"He must have put Gabriel's whole life inside of Desmond." JJ muttered.
"Well, the good news is we have a list from before. Patients with dissociative identity disorder Scratch might target next." Garcia spoke.
"Okay, cross-reference those against missing persons. The rest of us need to figure out how to deprogram the unsub safely. He's still our best lead to Scratch and Gabriel." I let out.
"It's the pictures that are baffling. Scratch left them out specifically to call our attention to them." Spencer said as we put them up on the screen. There were a few different pictures with numbers on them.
"He's a math genius. He likes us to solve his puzzles, which usually tend to lead to bigger traps." Luke said. This all feels like one big trap.
"But it's the configuration that's strange. The pictures are obviously of Gabriel at different ages, but normally one would arrange them in chronological order or reverse chronological order. 15, 11, and 32 is a pattern that he wants us to see." Spencer went on.
"Not us. Tara. It's a pattern he wants her to see." Rossi let out.
Anderson poked his head in the room, "She's in your office." He said to Emily and I.
"Excuse us." I said and we went over to our office.
Rosie was standing inside waiting for us. "Is everything okay?" She asked.
What do we tell her that's not too much?
"Right now it is." Emily nodded and then turned to me.
"One of our team members was targeted, Tara, by an escaped serial killer who was avidly after another team member who left. The timing is very concerning so we just wanted you here where we knew you were safe." I explained.
"Am I in danger?" She then asked.
"No!" Emily said quickly. "It's just for caution. We have protective detail on all of the families of the team's houses. We just didn't want you home alone is all." Emily assured.
Rosie seemed to ease a little and sat down.
"In the second drawer of my desk is a bunch of snacks. Garcia also has a stash in her office. There's drinks in the fridge. Help yourself. You probably won't see much of us because it's crazy here right now, but if you need anything let us know." I said with a smile.
She nodded and sat down.
—
After a little while, Garcia pulled Emily, Rossi and I into the conference room.
"Here's the good news. I've confirmed that this man is Desmond Holt. He was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder after his mother died and his stepfather started to make him play Russian roulette regularly." Garcia said and put Desmond's photo up.
"That's the good news?" I asked with my eyes wide.
"Oh yeah, because the bad news is I got a video from Desmond's therapist, Dr. Lawrence, who was very concerned when Desmond went missing. This is why." Garcia replied and pulled up the video.
It was of Desmond convulsing and thrashing when she was talking to him.
"She tried to get Desmond to recognize his other identities, he went into a dissociative break for 6 months." Garcia revealed. We're screwed.
"So if we get Desmond to see he's not Tara's brother, we could end up doing the same thing?" Emily asked.
"Oh, Dr. Lawrence is surprised we haven't already." Garcia said. Great.
I took a deep breath. "You know the plan where we don't give the unsub what he wants?"
"Yup." Rossi replied.
"New plan. We give him everything he wants." I said. They both nodded. Tara needs to go in.
—
I went to go brief Tara on this.
"You are not to mention Desmond Holt, Franklin, Tennessee, multiple personalities, or Mr. Scratch." I told her.
"Got it."
"You have to treat him like he's your bother. Considering the hostility and dismissal we've subjected him to, it's a small miracle he's not drooling yet." I continued. I know this has got to be tough for her.
"Not really. When it comes to my brother, hostility and dismissal are my specialty." She replied and headed into the interrogation room. I watched from outside.
"I guess you're pretty angry, huh?" Tara asked.
"Angry? I came here thinking I was gonna have a chance to make things better with my sister, but instead, she had me arrested. Why would I be mad over a little thing like that?" Desmond deadpanned. I feel for him. He doesn't know what the hell is going on. He's a victim, too.
"I know this is all confusing, but I need some answers." She paused and pulled out the pictures. She recognized two of them. Not the one that said 15. "Okay, these photographs. I recognize these two, but not this one. I need your help."
"I've been screaming for you for hours. When you finally come here, you treat me like always. Which is dismissive. This is the way is always is. But...the thing I really didn't appreciate was that game in the coffee shop. Not even showing me the courtesy of recognizing me."
"Well, there were reasons-" Tara tried.
"No, I don't care! I don't care what your reason is. That's petty, T. That's low. Can't you even ask me how I've been?" He yelled.
Tara sat down and looked at him. "How have you been?"
"Oh! Great! So good, seriously. Because in the hours that I've been locked up in here I've had the time to think about my rights. Specifically that you have to either charge me or let me go. But I say to myself, hell, let me give her the benefit of the doubt. Give her a chance to come up in here and say, Gabriel, my baby brother, I'm so sorry that I went psycho on you. I'd let the whole wrongful arrest thing go for dad's sake. But you didn't. Because you can't, can you?" He went on. Silence filled the room before he scoffed.
He got up and went to walk out. I called Luke right away to stop him. Tara went out to him, too. She begged him to stay and he obeyed.
He asked for his father. This is not going to end well.
—
JJ and Spencer had some information.
"From what Spence and I dug up, Scratch used his fake identity to buy a shibari rope from this couple. They own a batik sex shop. In addition to the rope, he also made a very expensive purchase that was only listed as other." JJ said and pulled up the pictures. That's new.
"Shop's probably closed by now." Emily spoke.
"We do have their home address." JJ replied.
"We have to hurry. Scratch likes mind games, and right now he's putting Tara through hell." I muttered as we walked out of the conference room.
Emily and I ended up going to the address. A little blonde girl answered the door. Her parents were...busy.
"Hannah, you know what? We can take it from here." I assured as I heard the couple banging things. I don't even want to know.
"Okay. Just so you know, sometimes it takes him a while to untie her." She replied, like it was a normal Tuesday.
We just nodded and waited for them to come out. Soon enough, they did and we sat down. We explained why we were here.
"Can I offer you anything to drink?" The woman asked.
"No. Thank you." Emily replied.
"Yes, I made equipment for Carl Brubaker, we talked on the phone, but we never met face to face." The man said.
"Do you have an address?" I asked.
"Just a P.O. Box. We needed to make sure they could handle a delivery that size." The woman said.
"And what did you make for him?" Emily asked. Do I want to know?
"It was a vise connected to a pressure plate, which was in turn built around a chair. If you move the pressure of the plate, the vise squeezes." She replied. Oh my god.
"And if you take the weight off, how tightly would it squeeze?" Emily then asked.
"Tight enough to cut off blood flow." The man replied. I sighed.
"Or oxygen?" I asked.
"Yes, or oxygen." The woman confirmed.
Great. Just great.
—
We went back to the BAU and talked about everything.
"Heres the thing about brainwashing. It's a myth. You go back to MK-Ultra and the CIA dosing people with LSD and the Manchurian Candidate, never worked." Luke said to Emily and I.
"Scratch cracked the code with his drugs and his patients with multiple personalities." I said.
"That's true, but I keep going back to the video that Garcia got. Now, this Desmond guy is supposed to be super delicate. One wrong word and he goes into a stupor. That's not what we're seeing. Desmond Holt is dug in. You can march the real Gabriel in here right now and Desmond's going to insist that he's Tara's brother. I think the only way Scratch could have gotten him to that point is if there was an overlap somehow. Emotional overlap, psychological overlap. If we can find that overlap, we might be able to deprogram Demond." Luke went on. Good work.
"Alright, what do they share?" Emily asked.
Tara walked into the room. "Hatred for the father figures in their lives. Desmond played Russian roulette with his stepfather, and Gabriel...well, yeah, it's not the same thing, but it's close." Tara let out. Oh god.
"What else?" Luke asked.
"When mom died, they were all alone, and he needed a protector." Tara sighed.
"'Luke can't save you now.' That's what Scratch said." Luke spoke. It's all falling into place now.
"I mean, we knew Scratch would be baiting us." I let out.
"That name, it should have copied over. When I stopped him at the elevator, he didn't even know who I was." Luke said. That is weird.
"Are there any other Lukes in his life?" Emily asked Tara.
"Not that I can..." She trailed off and looked at the pictures again. Something clicked. "You gotta be kidding me."
"What do you see?" I asked her.
"This whole time I thought Luke and these pictures were separate clues. They're not. They're the same clue. This is a pattern that Scratch wanted us to see. Luke, 15, 11, 32. The Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, verses 11 through 32." Tara said and ripped the 15 picture off the board. "I know exactly what this is."
Tara went back in with the picture and successfully deprogrammed Desmond. She got through to him.
And we had an address.
She found out something from Desmond. He's going to kill Gabriel with her father's gun. We needed to hurry.
Swat was on their way out and Rossi walked, Emily, Tara and I to the elevator. "I'm gonna coordinate from here. GW emergency's on alert. The director wants a report if you catch Scratch dead or alive."
"Will do." I nodded and walked to the elevator.
The elevator ride was almost dead silent. Tara was the first one to speak.
"Thank you."
I am so fucking annoyed by Scratch.
"I don't know about the rest of you but I'm getting tired of losing to this rat-faced son of a bitch." Emily muttered.
I scoffed. "He's not gonna take anyone else away from us, not on my watch. Am I clear?"
They all nodded.
The elevator doors opened. "Let's go to work." Emily stated.
I am over this motherfucker getting what he wants. No more.
We stormed to the address right away. We had no idea what the hell we were walking in to. Scratch is known for his traps.
We walked through the warehouse with our guns up.
Spencer looked up at the wiring on the ceiling that connected to a box. "That doesn't belong."
"Lewis, Alvez, second floor. Reid, JJ, open that up but don't disable anything until you either mine or Emily's go-ahead." I instructed.
I went up with Tara and Luke while Emily stayed down with JJ and Spencer.
We opened a steel door to see Tara's brother strapped down to the chair that couple was talking about. The gun was hooked up to it so if he moved, he'd be shot right in the head.
I spoke into my mic. "Emily, we found him. What do you have on your end?"
"We found a power source. If we cut the right wire, it should shut down the vise."
Key word is should.
Tara was talking to her brother while Luke inspected the monstrosity he was sitting on.
"This rope is heavy. Just removing it will shift the weight differential and fire the gun." Luke let out.
"Emily, what have you got?" I asked again.
"We might have something. Hang on."
Gabriel started moving but the gun didn't go off. It was a decoy. What the hell is going on?
"Wait a minute. Why would Scratch stage this? It's not in his profile. Unless he's leading us into a bigger trap." I said worriedly and spoke into my mic again. "Guys, look for another trigger."
All of the sudden, a sheet fell down that said "EXODUS 8:24".
This isn't good. I spoke into my mic. "Reid, what is Exodus, chapter 8, verse 24?"
"It's one of the plagues of Moses. "And the Lord did this. Dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh's palace throughout Egypt the and was ruined by flies."
I looked around the room and then up at the ceiling. That's when I saw it.
Two large crates. Fuck.
"It's above us!" I yelled.
"There's a redundancy switch somewhere. It's going off." JJ said.
"We can interrupt it if we bypass the correct fuse." Spencer added. They better.
They got Gabriel out of the chair as quick as they could
"Alright, this will only delay the trigger for a few seconds." Spencer said.
"Alright, go, go go, go! Get him off of there!" Emily yelled.
We got him quickly before running off to the side. We did just in time. Hundreds of nails shot down from the ceiling and stabbed into the floor.
When it was done, I took a deep breath. That was a close one.
"Is everyone okay? Is anyone hurt?" I asked quickly.
"Good." Luke breathed out.
Gabriel was okay. We went downstairs and Emily hugged me as soon as I got down. We may be unit chiefs, but we're wives first.
We made our way back to the BAU and Emily and I went straight to our office to see Rosie.
We both hugged her tight. We needed this.
Scratch is still out there. He's not going to stop until we get him. We had to make this a priority or else we're all going to die.