Cold Hands ✔️

twenty one

chapter 21; hey one question: what the hell

The group was huddled around a laptop back at the police department, streaming back to the conference room in the BAU. All team members were present and eagerly awaited Ripper's findings.

"I should have seen it sooner." Adeline said out loud as she typed away on her phone. She pocketed it before turning back to everyone.

"Garcia, can you do a track and trace from my phone?" 

"Yeah, sure." Garcia was puzzled, but started it anyway.

"The classical books, that's what we should have looked at. So Monte Cristo, right? It's not just looking at friendships, but an overarching theme of the book is self-reliance. The main character of the book was framed by people he trusted and went to jail. I mean he did do some stuff to be put in jail, but not what he was accused of so he spent way longer than he needed to there." Ripper rambled, pacing.

"Addy, move on." Reid told her.

"Right. But Prentiss got it right when she spoke about the Great Gatsby quote. People think that Nick Carraway was in love with Gatsby throughout the book. But what if it's about unrequited love? Gatsby never acknowledged Nick and when he died, Nick would never get an answer. So now what do we have, we have friendship, self-reliance, and unrequited love." Adeline summarized as if she was teaching a class.

"Yes we know, he is in love with you and he used to consider you a friend." JJ said, trying to see what was different this time around. 

"Then the email," Ripper said, not even registering JJ " "Maybe if you just loosen up we can all have some fun. Just the three of us." That's what was written. And it dawned on me, I've heard that before. So where have I heard it from? Well it was so long ago I almost forgot." Adeline had a way of missing the point, assuming everyone is following.

"Addy." Reid firmly said. Adeline paused her pacing and nodded at him.

"Who is he?" Rossi questioned, growing impatient.

"Not a he. A she." Adeline said, looking at her team.

"Harper and I left a party in high school." Adeline said, now speaking directly at Spencer.

"We left because she told us those exact words. 'Maybe if you just loosen up we can all have some fun. Just the three of us'. Belladonna Ivy is our unsub." She finished, out of breath. Reid nodded, not breaking eye contact.

"Make your case." He whispered. He couldn't deny, watching Adeline go off like this was a little hot. He liked how her brain worked and how she got all flustered.

"Okay so, I remember meeting her and I got a weird feeling. Belladonna was very touchy around me and insisted that we go to the party. She styled me in a skimpy dress and had us drink. The whole time she was watching me and trying to dance with me. She wasn't my type and she got offended. Unrequited love." Adeline ticked off.

"Her dad was never in the picture and her mother died when she was young. She was left to her grandparents but considered Harper to be a long lost sister. She did everything with Harper and tried to be a part of her every waking moment. Harper hated it, but she felt bad for her. But then Harper died. Self reliance.

"It has all the makings of a psychotic break. She called me non-stop after Harper's death, so much so that I had to change my number." She was out of breath at this point after talking so fast.

"And we are about to find out if I'm right." She whispered, pulling out her phone.

Before explaining to the group, Adeline had sent the following email.