No Plan ━━ Spencer Reid

[ 005 ] Now You See Me

[ September 17, 2007 ]

Daisy almost never thought about Josh during the day.

Just the fact that she had—and while talking to her brother's coworker of all people—increased her nausea tenfold.

Most of the time, thoughts of Josh only plagued her at night, when she was alone in the bed they used to share. Sometimes Daisy would wake up screaming, feeling his hands on her when they weren't really there.

Late that afternoon, Daisy was still thinking of him while grocery shopping. She no longer missed him; that was a thing of the past. Now all Daisy remembered was the awful things he had done to her, the scars he'd left, the way he'd convinced even Daisy that he owned her. . .

Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, Daisy shook her head and buried the horrible memories deep, deep down where they belonged. She focused on the overwhelming combination of smells in the supermarket as she picked out milk, fruit, vegetables, and so on.

It was a moment of normalcy. Daisy could almost forget that she was pregnant (and that she wasn't even sure if she wanted this, but that the idea of not having this baby made her sick).

Outside the store, twilight was starting to filter through the sky, peppering pink and yellow clouds across the canvas of dark blue. Daisy frowned and checked her watch. Six-twenty.

She'd told Aaron she would come over to help him clean up and restock his groceries at six-thirty. The next two minutes were spent hurriedly checking out and rushing to her car, then starting the fifteen minute drive to her brother's house. The entire DC area rested on the border of Virginia and Maryland, so driving to and from work, home, and the BAU offices had become something of an easy routine for Daisy.

As she typed Aaron's address into the GPS, Daisy sincerely hoped his living space wasn't as messy as she thought it was.

She was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

Whenever she visited her older brother's house, Daisy would marvel at his wife's ability to keep the house clean with a toddler running around. When she turned the key in the lock and let herself in, however, Daisy's stomach dropped at the sight that greeted her.

On the coffee table in the empty living room was an empty bottle of whiskey and two cups, one of which was laying on its side. The throw pillows, which had once been neatly arranged on the sofa and armchairs, were strewn over the floor, and the bookshelf that leaned against the back wall was in disarray.

The kitchen was somehow even worse, despite the fact that it was in pretty much the same state as when Daisy had last visited. Aaron was sitting at the table, looking through a case file with a half-empty cup of scotch beside him, and Daisy cleared her throat. He looked up, and the look in his eyes made Daisy's heart sink. Slowly, she took the case file out from under Aaron's arm, closed it, and set it down on the counter.