Y/N wasn't going to lie. Since she finished the cognitive, she hadn't been doing well. The memory had plagued her and she couldn't get any rest. Hotch had insisted that she go home and relax. He thought that by having her at the BAU, he was risking her mental and emotional stability even more. She had been emotionally impacted by her best friend being kidnapped and mentally impacted with the unsub going unidentified.
So, Y/N said goodbye to the team and headed to Spencer's apartment. She took the backpack with her, trying to calm herself down. She made herself a tea and sat down on Spencer's couch, admiring his large book collection. She picked a random novel and started to read. She could at least distract herself with a random story, rather than focusing on the state of her best friend.
She wondered how Spencer was able to read half of the books he owned. Most of them seemed to be between 1000 and 2000 words, some of them having over 50 chapters that were incredibly long. Her wonder quickly subsided when she remembered that her boyfriend could read 20,000 words per minute.
Soon enough, Y/N's eyes became heavy, and she quickly put the book back where it was and headed to the bedroom, intending to try and get as much sleep as possible. The moment her head hit the pillow her eyes closed and she started to dream. For the first time in a while, she was calm. She wasn't worried about work, about the profiler exam or the impending rescue of her best friend. For a brief moment, she worried that by not working, she was letting Alyssa down. But, the thought quickly disappeared when she figured that by being well rested, her mind would be sharper, and she'd be able to help out more.
Y/N stood in front of the same man that she had only seen glimpses of before. His face was obscured.
"Do you have it?" Y/N asked.
"Yes, yes. $25 for the murders and $25 for the cheating. $50 all together." The man exhaled.
"Y'know, now that I think about it, I'm sure you've done some pretty bad things." The man spoke, clearly unimpressed.
"I'm not the jerk who cheated on his wife and proceeded to murder the women he cheated with." She scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"I could always just...make you forget what you saw." He chuckled.
"Then you'd have to deal with my mother, and you don't want that." She snapped back, not letting him intimidate her.
"I don't give a shit about dealing with your mother. You're the one causing me trouble, so being rid of you would be in my best interested." He hissed.
She didn't even flinch. The fiercer she got, the angrier he seemed to become.
"I'm not afraid of you." Y/N smirked.
"And I'm not afraid of you." He forcefully grabbed onto her arm. He had just grabbed her, yet it felt like he had been tightly grabbing her arm for hours. She knew for a fact that if his grip got any tighter, a bruise would form once he finally let go.
"If you weren't afraid of me, you wouldn't be paying me $50 per week to keep your secrets." Y/N replied, trying to keep calm.
Without warning, his grip on her arm got tighter, as she expected. She felt sick. She was fearful at this very moment, but there was no way she'd show him how she really felt. As long as she was in his view, she'd continue to present herself as a strong individual, and not a scared child who wanted to escape a dangerous situation.
"Don't sass me...you bitch." He growled. Y/N wanted the pain to end. She glanced down at the lower half of his body.
He wore black boots, similar to the ones you'd wear in the army. Between the fabric of his pants and the edge of his shoes, Y/N could tell that he wore plain black socks. His pants were dark gray suit pants that seemed to be tailored to fit him. His belt was black with a shiny silver buckle.
Y/N finally got a glimpse of his upper torso. He wore a black and white striped shirt with the top two buttons undone. His shirt was tightly tucked into his pants, like he was trying to impress someone. He wore a blazer that made her feel as if he dressed like a college professor. Y/N immediately noticed the initials that were embroidered on his blazer pocket. RS.
She was so close. If she looked a little further up, she might have finally been able to get a description of his face. She looked up, passing his neck and chin. Finally, she was staring into his eyes. His face was oval shaped, yet he had a semi-defined jawline. His small lips were pursed, clearly angry. His eyes were quite large, his irises were a deep brown colour, almost black. Y/N stopped herself from staring at him, fearing that the longer she stared, the angrier he'd get. His hair was buzzed on the sides, and longer at the front, almost forming a side-fringe. She could see the slight gray hairs that were strewn evenly around his head, although he seemed to be someone who dyed his hair light brown to seem younger than he was.
"If you kill me, I'll make sure to come back and haunt you for the rest of your horrid life." Y/N hissed, seeing how enraged he became.
Y/N jolted up and grabbed the nearest pen and paper. She wrote down every single detail that she noticed about the man who had paid her off when she was younger. The moment she couldn't think of anything else, she put on a bra and put some shoes on before rushing out of Spencer's apartment with her phone and the note-pad.
———
(At The BAU Office)
Running up to the conference room door, she walked in, catching her breath.
"I have a description." Y/N spoke, everyone's eyes widening. She handed the note-pad to Penelope who quickly walked off and headed back to her lair.
"How did you get a description? The cognitive wasn't exactly specific." Derek asked.
"I fell asleep and the same memory that I recovered within the cognitive appeared in my dreams. Unlike the cognitive, I let the memory play out and I finally got a description of the man." Y/N sat down, taking a moment to calm down.
10 minutes later, Penelope rushed back into the conference room, a look of relief on her face.
"Tell us you got something, baby girl?" Derek asked, watching as Penelope nodded her head with more enthusiasm than before.
"Everyone, I'd like you to see what Y/N's description of the man looks like digitally." Penelope handed out a piece of paper with an image of the man that Y/N saw in her memory. Every detail that she had noted was perfectly shown in this image.
"You got a name?" Prentiss asked.
"Why yes, indeed I do. The man you are looking at is a man by the name of Richard Sumner. Yes, that is his real name, I checked." Penelope exhaled, handing all of Richard's information to Hotch.
"Here's a little family history lesson for you all. Y/N's parents are Y/M/N and Y/F/N Y/L/N. Yes, you heard me right. Y/N is the only daughter of Virginia's most infamous criminals." Penelope revealed.
Y/N was slightly shocked. She knew her parents had a reputation, but them being criminals was the last possible explanation she could think of.
"Don't worry, they didn't do anything "extreme" per-se. They preferred theft over murder. They only hurt people if it was absolutely necessary. They left the murdering to their associates. Now, that's where Richard Sumner comes in." Penelope explained.
"Richard isn't just one of Y/M/N Y/L/N's associates - more notably her right-hand-man, but he was a father. Yes. He and his ex-wife Amelia - formerly Sumner, now Porter - had one child, a daughter, Charlotte." Penelope continued.
Y/N remembered Charlotte. She didn't know much about her parents, but she did spend a lot of time with Charlotte when they weren't at their houses. For a while, they were the best of friends, and practically impossible to separate.
"Now, as we all know, Richard wasn't known for his commitment to his wife. He preferred cheating on her over family time. As the memory explained...sort of, Y/N caught him cheating and most likely caught him murdering as well. She was paid off, $25 for the cheating and $25 for the murders." Penelope rolled her eyes.
"Baby girl, as much as you are a great story-teller, we already know all of this." Derek reminded her.
"I know, but you don't know what comes next. 3 months after Richard started paying Y/N to keep her quiet, Charlotte was immediately pulled out of school and was presumably home-schooled by her parents, but her mother also started paying $190 for two counselling sessions a month, but not just any counselling." Penelope hinted.
"Let me guess. Marriage counselling?" JJ asked.
"Right you are, JJ. Those monthly payments continued for another year, but then they stopped. I dug further into Amelia's financials and discovered that while her marriage counselling payments stopped, that money started being put toward paying for a lawyer." Penelope nodded.
"A divorce lawyer, I'm guessing?" Prentiss exhaled.
"Right. So, with the marriage officially ending between Amelia and Richard, obviously Charlotte is caught in the middle. One night, Amelia comes home late from a meeting with her lawyer and finds her daughter's dead body in her bed. Who killed her? No one knew. Sure, both Amelia and Richard had suspicions, but nobody ever actually confessed." Penelope shook her head, disappointed.
"Do you remember this, Y/N?" Spencer asked.
"All I remember is being told that Richard, Amelia and Charlotte moved away." Y/N shook her head.
"Here's the insane thing. The last known thing that Charlotte said to anyone was through a voice message. According to phone records, Charlotte called her mother and when she didn't answer, Charlotte left a voice message that explained her discovery. She had told her mother that she had proof that her father was cheating." Penelope gasped.
"She found out through my diary. I wrote everything down when I was a kid. I also wrote down details about Richard's shady behaviour, under the assumption that no one would ever read my diary. I was clearly wrong." Y/N exhaled, letting a tear slip.
"So...Charlotte read Y/N's diary - whether by accident or on purpose, not important - and she tells her mother everything. She tells her mother about her father cheating and about all the murders. Because of this, she was killed." Rossi leaned back in his chair, shocked.
"I think I know who killed Charlotte. It had to be Richard. Of course, he didn't want to kill his own daughter, but he was willing to pay a child to keep quiet about his shady behaviour, so it wouldn't be such a far stretch to assume that he killed his own child." Derek suggested.
"That might also explain why he was dormant for so long. Y/N is the reason why Charlotte found out and in turn, why Amelia found out. He blames Y/N for the downfall of his marriage and he also blames her for forcing him to murder his only daughter. He's had around 10 years to plan, and now he's finally getting the revenge he feels like he deserves." Hotch concluded.
"Okay. We have the stressor: Y/N being blamed for the downfall of his marriage and the death of his daughter. We also have the trigger: His plan finally ready to execute. All we need now is a possible location." Rossi looked at Penelope, who nodded.
"I'll be back with a list of residences and other places that either Richard or Amelia own." Penelope exhaled.
"No, focus only on Richard. Using a residence or place owned by Amelia would be very risky." Hotch refined Penelope's search.