a late night, unedited chapter for my favorite pals and readers. you guys are ridiculous and insane and the amount of support you give this story is even more crazy. i love you guys so much for it, you don't understand. thank you. -mags
THIRTY ONE ; VISALIA.
Derek Morgan, Aaron Hotchner and Penelope Garcia followed quickly behind Jennifer Jareau as she led them back to the round table. Penelope held a laptop in her hand, Morgan carrying a rolled map, both of their minds spinning as they processed the news that JJ had delivered.
"He knows where she is?" Morgan asked, seeming to move quicker to catch up to JJ.
The blonde shook her head, never stopping to turn back to him. "I-I don't know," JJ replied, thoughts racing through her brain, attempting to possibly fathom what the genius could have been thinking. "He just shot up from his seat and started yelling for maps and a whiteboard. Asked for you guys too. He had that look though," she said, eyes finally meeting her teammates. "He's figured something out."
The round table was a mess. The four were taken back by the scene they saw before them. Papers from Quinn's file were scattered around the table, mixed in with the limited information about the Horsemen. Kate stood, sifting through the documents, eyes scanning the pages below her, Rossi doing the same beside her.
"Reid," Hotch said, catching the attention of the three agents in the room. The leader caught Spencer's gaze, slightly taken back by the wild look in his eye. "What is it?"
"The kid may have something," Rossi stated, glancing at the genius who grabbed the letter from Lawrence and placed it into Hotch's hands.
"When we first profiled the Horsemen, we said that they would want to end their game where they started," Spencer began. "It all started in Palo Alto with the shooting of Joseph Lawrence's father by Jonah Grey. It ended with the murder of Jonah Grey in Palo Alto by the Horsemen, right?"
"Right," Morgan replied hesitantly, brow furrowing.
Spencer shook his head, pointing at a document that was in Quinn's file. "But what if it didn't end with Jonah Grey?" The tension in the room seemed to shift. It was tighter, it was higher.
"You're saying that it ends with Quinn?" Penelope asked, voice wavering.
The doctor gulped, ignoring the pain in his chest as he thought of the end result. "Yes," he whispered, jaw clenching. He glanced down at the paper he was pointing at, eyes glossing over as he saw her college transcripts. "I mean, why Quinn? When she went in for that Stanford interview, there had to have been multiple people that interviewed with Lawrence before her. I mean, sure, she might have been more perceptive to lies, but why her?"
"Quinn said that he 'saw something in her'," Kate recalled. "Was that 'something' a thing other than skill?"
Morgan's stomach dropped as he looked toward Hotch and Garcia. The three became uneasy as JJ spoke up.
"This entire seven year mission was about Quinn, wasn't it?" she said, disbelief evident in her voice.
"Not her," Morgan said. The entire room looked at him. "At least not at first."
Spencer's breath caught in his throat. "What do you mean?"
Hotch sighed, biting the inside of his cheek. "Garcia found information on Quinn's family," he began, "who've which have all passed. The last to go were her parents."
"So you think her parents were involved?" Rossi questioned, brows raising.
The genius let out a shuddering breath, the word 'no' falling from his lips in repetitive whispers as things began to add up in his head. "Reid," Morgan said cautiously, nearing the man to make sure that he was okay. "Reid?"
"I know where she is," he responded. His eyes clenched shut as he turned back to the whiteboard behind him, sketching out the letters L O V-E. "Love may have been the answer, but there's even more to this as well."
"The dash between the V and the E," Kate noted. "The answer isn't just love, is it?"
"It's an acronym," Spencer answered. "The acronym is a location. I knew that as soon as I saw the letter. But it was a matter of where. I had a couple of suspicions, but I wasn't sure." He inhaled shakily as he turned back toward the board. "But, now that we know Quinn's parents were actually involved with the Horsemen, I know that one of them is right." Spencer uncapped the marker, writing words vertically beneath the acronym. "JJ told me that we found out that Quinn's father worked in the finance department for largest electric railroads in California, the base of which, is in Visalia, where Quinn grew up."
The each member of the team seemed to stiffen as Spencer moved away from the board, revealing the phrase, Located Over Visalia-Electric.
"If this is about Quinn's father, then this is where she is," Spencer stated, looking up at his teammates. "I know it."
Hotch eyed him suspiciously. "You're sure about this?" His gaze focused on the shaking hands of the doctor.
"It makes the most sense to me," he replied. "It's the one thing that I can think of that adds up."
The leader nodded, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "I'll tell the Bureau to prepare the jet. Wheels up in twenty." He then turned to Garcia. "I want you to find everything in your power about Quinn's father." The technical analyst nodded, running off as soon as she was given her orders.
As Hotch left the room, Rossi narrowed his eyes at the board. "There's one thing about this that still doesn't make sense to me," he commented. "If this is about her parents, why not kill Quinn?" He saw Spencer's face harden and Derek shudder. "The Horsemen wouldn't have held onto Quinn if this was about her parents. They would have killed her before shooting them. Why keep her?"
It was a question that left them thinking. Rossi had a point. Why make it about Quinn and not end it with Andrew Carson?
"Maybe they liked her too much to let go of her," Kate offered. "They saw that she could become a essential part of their team."
"But I can't believe that The Horsemen would love someone associated with Andrew Carson, let alone his daughter," JJ reasoned.
Morgan's posture straightened, mind piecing together the puzzle. "Love," he muttered, eyes flicking to Reid. His expression was one of pure disbelief. "What son of a bitch do we know that's in love with Quinn?"
Spencer's eyes glossed over as they widened, placing a hand over his mouth as he stabled himself on the table. "Oh my god," he whispered, voice breaking into a sob as he caught onto what Morgan was implying. "Morgan," he said slowly, looking up at him as a tear slid down his cheek. "What's today's date?"
Suddenly, a figure came rushing in. There was a panicked look on Agent Anderson's face as he ran into the room, carrying his phone in his hands. "Sir," he began, looking toward Rossi.
"Anderson, what is it?" The agent's face paled, shock written across his face.
"Sir, it's Kyle Masters," Anderson said. "He didn't show up after the recess during his trial. They, uh, they think he's run away."
-----
Quinn Carson was unable to hide her expression as she stared at the laptop before her. Confusion, betrayal, hurt and disbelief made a mix of emotions upon her features whilst she watch Kyle Masters smile at her from a pre-recorded video. The man she had once trusted with her life had been revealed as the mastermind behind her abduction.
Joseph Lawrence however, couldn't subdue his grin. It had worked. It had worked perfectly.
"I-I don't understand," Quinn choked out, unable to take her eyes off the screen. "How-"
"You will," Lawrence replied. The smile on his face never faltered. "Just-" He paused, eyes meeting Quinn's for a moment. "-watch." She followed his hand, observing as he pressed his finger upon the space bar.
The video then began to play.
Kyle moved in the video, leaning back in the chair that he sat in with a lackadaisical attitude. His movements were cocky and fluid. It was as if he already knew that he had won. "Quinn," he cheered, laughing jovially, sending a chill down her spine. His actions contrasted the situation drastically. It was unnerving. "Well, if you're watching this, it means that everything went to plan. Thankfully." He leaned closer to the camera. "That took eight and a half years to plan. Strenuous is the fucking understatement of the year."
Quinn shut her eyes tightly, not wishing to look at the video any longer. "Quinn," Lawrence scolded. "You're going to want to watch this."
Her jaw clenched as she opened her eyes once again, breathing becoming more labored. "But, yeah. This is it. The 'big reveal'," he said, throwing his hands up in air quotes as he said his words. Masters chuckled, releasing a small sigh. "I know it's not gonna be easy for you to swallow, because I know you, Quinn. I've been with you for seven years, I know exactly who you are. You never suspected this. You were never able to pick up on the lies. You let your heart rule your mind." Quinn exhaled heavily as she heard the phrase that constantly rolled around in her brain thrown back at her. Her stomach churned. This wasn't happening. It wasn't.
"You probably have questions. I know I would," Masters admitted. "Let's start with why. As Lawrence probably told you, your father has a part in this whole thing. Brief history lesson about him, by the way." He was now resting his head on his hand, unnervingly nonchalant about everything. "Your father? Not exactly the guy you thought he was. The man was a huge dick. He loved you more than anything Quinn, but man, was he an ass." He paused, catching his breath. "When you were eighteen, your father took you on one of his business trips. Little side note, your father doesn't actually work for Visalia Electric. That was a front. But that's beside the point. On that trip, you witnessed a shooting in Palo Alto. The shooter was Jonah Grey and the victim was my father." Quinn shook her head as she processed the information Masters had just spewed.
Quinn remembered the day clearly. She was uncomfortably close to the victim, her quickly father pulling her away from the area as people fled from the scene. Quinn remembered thinking about how she could have died. How that shot could have gone into her head.
"I saw you that day, Quinn," Kyle said. He shook his head with a false smile. "I remember seeing you. I remember, because that shot was meant for you." Quinn stiffened. "Your dad? He was apart of Grey's group. He was the head of it. He was their leader. Grey was sent by your father to create mass destruction, to make a name for the group." Masters gritted his teeth. "But Grey had other ideas. He wanted to be the the leader. He decided to target your family. Torture your dad a bit, you know. So, when he was the shooter for the whole business trip sha-bang, Grey decided to go for you. Instead, he hit my father.
"You should be dead, Quinn. Not him. Not my dad. You." Kyle's demeanor shifted. He was now serious, all playful banter behind him. "But you're not dead. And that's the b-biggest problem here. You're not dead, and he is." Kyle shrugged. "You may think that it isn't your fault. That you had nothing to do with it." Quinn's lips parted as she saw something in Kyle's expression. Something different. Something she only saw when he was hiding something. "But it's your fault. You need to pay."
Quinn grimaced as Lawrence grinned. "Please, don't make me watch this," Quinn whimpered.
"I would," Lawrence shrugged. "You should."
Her eyes fell on the screen reluctantly. "But my god, Quinn. I honestly can't believe that you didn't see this coming. You're so good at what you do. I can't believe that you didn't see through my bullshit. You know all of my tells. I just want you to look back on everything you missed. Because there's a hell of a lot. I really didn't think that I was that good.
"But now that everything's done and worked out, there really isn't much use for this game anymore. We knew when we threw you to the Feds that you were going to help them. We had to distract the BAU to kill Grey. We had to distract them more to forget about us. You were that distraction. And now, we're gonna be free, completing everything we worked for. It truly was a pleasure to know you, Quinn Carson. I'm so glad that I was able to give you what you and your family deserve." Masters gave a small wave and grin to the camera. "Oh, and when the BAU finds this, just know, that I will be seeing you soon."
The screen then went dark, leaving Quinn sitting still with tears steaming down her cheeks.
She thought about what Masters had said. Her father, a member of Jonah Grey's mob. Kyle, blaming her about his father's death. Her, never catching onto Kyle's lies.
His tell was his stutter. He always fumbled slightly with his words before he told a lie. It was never large, only a small discrepancy from his normal speech pattern. But, looking back on all of her interactions with Kyle since her arrest by the BAU, she had noticed what she had missed. She couldn't believe herself. She had let her one rule pass her. She had let her heart rule her mind.
The lie she had caught in the interrogation room with Kyle six months ago. The ones she hadn't. His nervous speech when he had called her a week before his trial. There were so many tells that she had missed because of her thoughts. And she couldn't believe she had missed all of them.
But one thing still didn't make sense to her. He had stuttered during the video.
Lawrence shut the laptop, still grinning widely as he stood before her. He leaned toward her, hands resting on either side of the table. "Any resounding questions? Anything?"
Quinn's gaze slowly met his. She clenched her jaw to avoid doing something rash. She didn't want to get hurt anymore.
"Just one," she whispered, making Lawrence raise his eyebrows. He gestured for her to go on. "Why now?"
Joseph titled his head to the side. "Excuse me?"
"Why now?" she barked. She calmed herself down, remembering who she was dealing with. Lawrence narrowed his eyes. "If Kyle wanted to kill me, why not just kill me the day we met? Why would he drag it out?"
Lawrence seemed to retract from her. He stiffened as she asked these questions. He was hiding something. Masters was hiding something.
"I'm not the actual endgame, am I?" Quinn asked, suddenly having a small revelation. Lawrence's eyes widened a fraction of an inch. But Quinn saw it. "What is the endgame, Lawrence? What are you two lying about?"
The man didn't reply. Instead, he glanced down at his phone as an alert popped up onto it. A small smirk began to pull at his lips.
"Well, Quinn," he said, smirk stretching into a full, malicious smile as he placed the phone before her. The screen showed Lawrence tracking something- someone, as they made their way across the country. "Lucky for you, your team's on their way to save you. Maybe I'll tell you when they get here." He shrugged playfully. "Maybe I won't."
-----
THIS CHAPTER WAS WEIRD AND THREW A LOT OF INFO YOUR WAY, SO IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE LEAVE THEM, I WILL BE HAPPY TO ANSWER THEM. OR, THEY'LL BE ANSWERED IN THE NEXT (and final) CHAPTER. WOOO.
I'VE MADE THIS ONE OF THOSE STORIES WHERE YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT EVERYTHING TWICE AND UNUSUALLY CAREFULLY. IT'S ANNOYING BUT THOSE ARE MY FAVORITE STORIES. YIKES.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE RESOUNDING RESPONSE ON LAST CHAPTER. the number of you that called masters a snake was fucking hilarious you guys make me laugh so hard it's ridiculous. i love you all tons.
-mags