A Long Way From The Playground

CHAPTER 5

"Alright let's get to work, Sam you and Hector check out the dump site and let me know what you find there. Remember we are looking for anything that stands out, seems irregular or a potential murder weapon. Isabel i want you to stay here with me, we're gonna work up a profile and a geographic location to narrow it down okay? Tess, our trainee Corbin is supposed to start today, can you get him set up with his clearance and give him a rundown of the case?" I say clasping my hands together on the table. Everyone nods and stands up to get moving. Everyone fist bumps and goes their separate ways. A young kid maybe 23, knocks on the door to my office and clears his throat.
"Uhh excuse me, my name is Corbin Wynn. I'm the trainee assigned to your team ma'am." He says shakily
"Welcome, SSA Ryleigh Andrews. Please don't call me ma'am, I'm like 5 years older than you. Andi, Ryleigh, Ryles any of those are fine, we are super informal in this unit I swear. Don't get super comfortable, we are already on a case. I'm gonna bring you down to our technical analyst Tesserae to get set up. Call her Tess, it's just easier. You'll be meeting the rest of the team later today and if you've got what it takes you'll be brought on as an agent." I state as we walk together towards the tech lab. I knock on the door and Tess yanks the door open.
"Is this him?" Tess questions. I nod and give him a light shove.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine. She doesn't bite hard!" I say laughing at his shocked face. "I told you, we are very informal in this unit. It's the only way to keep our heads straight. You'll get used to our teasing and antics quickly." I say before walking back to my office. Shutting the door and walking to my desk I reach into my top drawer and pull out a picture frame. It's a picture of me, Aaron, Sean and Donovan during our summer trip to Florida. I smile at the memory and place it back into my drawer before leaning back in my chair. My phone rings and I pick up without even looking.
"SSA Andrews" i respond
"Andi it's Hector, you and Isabel need to get down here. There's something you should see." Hector says quickly
"Fine, send me the address." I say before hanging up and grabbing my credentials and holstering my weapon. I yell out to the conference room to grab Isabel's attention and we run out the door to the suvs. I can only imagine what we're going to find.

(Not gonna write a whole case out because i suck eggs at that sorry)
Time skip 6 months

It's the day of the wedding and I've decided that I'm not going. It wouldn't be right for me to be there considering he chose Haley over me. I'm not that awful to ruin someone's big day. Instead I spend the day in the office working on sifting through potential new cases and catching up on paperwork. A knock at the door breaks me out of my zoned out state.
"Yes? Can I help you?" I ask without looking up
"I'm looking for a Miss Ryleigh Elenor Andrews?" They ask, I finally look up and my face breaks out in a huge grin.
"SEAN!" I yell bolting out of my seat. "What are you doing here?!"
"I live out here now Ry! Look at you, little miss Manassas all cozy in the big apple!" He says holding my arm up twirling me around.
"I wouldn't call it cozy but yeah it's great up here! I really enjoy running my own team and doing things my way. But what about you? What are you doing here?" I laugh punching his shoulder playfully.
"Well big brother doesn't want me at the wedding so i have off this weekend and a little birdie back home told me that you worked in the city so i tracked you down. You don't call, you don't write, you don't come home. What happened? I thought we were still good?" He asks taking a seat in front of my desk.
"Sean, please..i left that part of me behind when i left home 9 years ago. I'm not that same person you used to look up to and know so well. Your brother hurt me badly, i had to re-evaluate what i wanted out of life and i made it work. Part of that meant leaving behind what I knew and loved about home. I'm much better and much much happier up here. But enough about me. Have yo-" my desk phone rings loudly in the quiet office. "I'm sorry just a second"
"SSA Andrews...uh huh....where....okay no problem i'll recall the team, brief them and we'll be on our way....yeah send them to our tech, her name is Tesserae Foster....great thanks see you soon...bye." I put my finger on the receiver to hang up, still holding the phone. I looked at Sean with a grim face.
"I'm so sorry, um give me your number and we will catch up as soon as i get a chance yeah?" I ask he nods and grab a pen from the cup on my desk, handing him a post it he writes his number on it and hands it over before giving me a hug.
"I'll see you soon Ry, stay safe." I nod, hugging him back before looking down at the phone and calling the chiefs assistant.
"Yes this is SSA Ryleigh Andrews, I need a recall of Tesserae Foster, Samuel Douglas, Hector Rameriez, Isabel Torres and Corbin Wynn immediately thank you. I say before hanging up. I set everything up in the conference room before sitting down to wait for the team to come in. I look out the window into the cityscape thinking about how different things would be if we hadn't broken up. Would we have made it through college? Would we have gotten married afterwards? I shake my head hearing the door open, I turn around and nod at my team, gesturing for them to take a seat.
"Alright, sorry for ruining everyone's weekend, this one came right to me about an hour ago." I turn to face the cork board where everything is pinned up. "For the past 3 weeks 3 females have turned up with their throats slashed, all of them were exotic dancers at different clubs."
"How come we are just being brought in now? 3 bodies in 3 weeks, that right there is a pattern and combined with the fact that they are all in the sex work industry its obvious that the unsub is not a fan of these girls flaunting their bodies." Hector says walking towards the pictures on the board. "They are remarkably similar, brown hair, green eyes and each of the girls have 4 piercings in their ears. It's clearly someone targeting a specific person and this is them working their way up to the final act." I nod my head writing down theories on my notepad while the team goes back and forth for a while about different possibilities.
"Mmkay, I'm going to split you guys up, Hector take Corbin down to the dump site on 44th and Corbin make sure you pay attention to everything Hector says, you'll be doing this solo in a few weeks to prove to me you want to be here got it?" Corbin nods and grabs his jacket along with Hector and they leave. "Isabel you're going to the morgue, they're already expecting you. Sam you're coming with me to the other two dump sites. Tess, see if you can find ANY overlap with these victims, I'm talking jobs, doctors, restaurants anything you can find okay?" Everyone nods and we head downstairs to the garage.
"Sooo...I take it you're not going to the wedding then Ryles?" Sam asks
"Nope..not happening..not in a million years. He deserves to be happy as much as I hate him and Haley I'm not showing up to ruin their day. I'm sure he would love for me to be there but it's not happening and I would appreciate it if you didn't bring it up in front of anyone else Sam, please?" I say as I pull on the door to the black suburban. I look over and make eye contact with him and he raises his hands in surrender and nods getting in the passenger side.

When everyone gets back to the office, I order food in for everyone since we have all been up for almost 15 hours. The door to the conference room flings open and Tess runs in with her notebook slamming it down in front of me.
"They all share the same doctor and before you ask i already ran through their info and i found someone who might be your unsub. He's a male nurse at the doctor's office. His name is Elian Romero, 36 recently divorced with one young son. His wife left him citing domestic abuse and was awarded custody of their 9 year old son Jeffrey. Guess what and where she works now?" Tess says with a smile knowing she practically cracked this case.
"Alright let's go. Isabel and Corbin to the work address, Sam, Hector and I will take the house. Comms on and radio if you need backup. It's only us 5, we won't have swat with us this time so if you have to shoot do it, it's either you or them okay?" I say grabbing my earpiece and vest before heading down to the garage. There's crackling static in my ear and then I hear Tess' voice come through.
"Guys another woman has been taken. Eyewitness describes our guy Elian driving a late model sedan and our unlucky lady matches his type perfectly. Her name is Rita George, 32 single mother of two boys and works at the indigo gentlemen's club downtown."
"Okay change of plans, Tess call the precinct and see if they can send a few uniforms over to Romero's workplace, Isabel and Corbin follow us, more than likely he's heading back to his house. It's got a basement and more than likely that's where he was keeping the girls until he killed them. Lights and sirens until 2 blocks before, we don't wanna spook this guy and have him kill Rita early." I say reaching down to flick the lights and sirens on in the car. Speeding out of the lot both SUV's weave in and out of traffic trying to get to the address as quickly as possible. After a 20 minute drive we pull up silently outside Romero's house and see his car parked on the side, I motion for Hector and Corbin to take the front entrance and have Sam Isabel and I take the basement entrance.
"On three...1....2....3"
"FBI OPEN UP"
Sam kicks the door open and we make our way down the stairs waving our guns in the direction of the scream that echoed in the small room, we see Elian standing there using Rita as a shield holding a knife to her throat.
"Elian Romero..drop the knife and step away from Rita" i say calmly
"NO, SHE'S JUST LIKE THE REST! A BUNCH OF WHORES SELLING THEIR BODIES TO PAY THEIR WAY THROUGH LIFE! MY SON SEES MEN COMING HOME ALL THE TIME AND HE KNOWS IT'S NOT HIS FATHER COMING THROUGH THAT DOOR! IT'S A SIN DON'T YOU SEE?!" He yells pushing the knife closer to her throat.
"You don't wanna do this Romero, don't you want your son to be able to see his father? Even if you're in jail at least he can see you. I know what it's like to grow up without a father in my life and I know that if he was in the picture I would have wanted to see him. You don't want him to grow up without you right?" He shakes his head and cries, dropping the knife and pushing Rita forward.
"Tess dispatch medical, we need it asap!" I say into the mic as Sam roughly grabs Elian yanking him up the stairs by the metal handcuffs.
"You're okay, you're safe now.' I say taking off my jacket, wrapping it around Rita as we walk up the stairs into the dark neighborhood. Wrapping my arm around her shoulder, I led her to the ambulance that pulled up outside the house, I turned to her, shrugging the jacket off before replacing it with a blanket. I nodded my head one more time before handing over one of my cards.
"You need anything you give me a call, okay?" I say smiling softly. She returns the soft smile before climbing into the ambulance and I take that as my que to leave, turning back to my team I smile brightly.
"Great work today guys, you too Tess. Let's get back to the office and wrap this up yeah?" I say grabbing the keys out of my pocket. We all work towards the suvs parked on the street and take off for the office knowing that this was one of better endings to a case. Once we get back to the office I turn to the team telling them to complete their paperwork and then take the next two days off since we worked almost 29 hours straight. I head into my office and slump down in my chair, running my hands over my face. I look at the stack of files that seem to be getting higher every time I come in here. I start working on some of the files when my desk phone rings.
"SSA Ryleigh Andrews"
"Andi it's Weigner, can I borrow you for a moment?"
"Of course sir i'll be there in a minute." I say hanging up the phone, throwing the file back onto the overflow pile I stand up heading towards his office. Knocking softly on the door i open it and stick my head in
"You wanted to see me sir?"
"Yes, have a seat Ryleigh." That's never good, I never get addressed by my first name unless I'm in trouble.

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