𝙰𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝙾𝚍𝚍𝚜 | 𝚂𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚛 𝚁𝚎𝚒𝚍

Losing Time

It was futile for Delilah to even try to argue but it didn't mean it would stop her from trying. Marlene never showed up for her shift that morning and up until now, no one had realized that anything was wrong.

"There's no footage of her ever arriving for her shift," Penelope was on speaker for the whole team, including Delilah, to hear. "And neither of your Unsubs have been at the coffee shop since the one day Marlene talked about."

"So she was taken on her way to work," Rossi deduced and glanced at Delilah. "Is there a place she would've gone to before work?"

Delilah shook her head. "Her shift starts at 7 in the morning, there's not a lot of places here that are open that early."

"Is there anywhere she might have gone?" Hotch asked her again with a time implying for her to think about the answer carefully.

Delilah didn't have to. "I have lived here for six months, I've gotten to know the schedules pretty well. Nothing opens before 7, I swear."

"If they have her, they would need a private place to hold her," Emily guessed. "This town's kind of—"

"Nosy?" Delilah finished for her with a sour smile. "Yeah!"

"What are the spots that no one visits?" Spencer asked her. "The spots that everyone talks negatively about?"

Delilah shook her head. "I don't—there's just a, um, a foreclosure street. A full street of houses that no one wants to buy because it's in the bad part of the neighborhood. That's all I can think of, honestly."

"We'll start there," Hotch decided and was quick to split his team up. Just as Delilah opened her mouth to say something, he told her she was going directly to the hotel.

"I have to go see her!" Delilah had kicked and thrashed all the way to the hotel. Despite her petite figure, she had decent strength.

"You can't do that," JJ, bless her heart, had kept her patience despite the rocky drive to the hotel. Delilah was pacing back and forth in the living room. "It would be dangerous—"

"I know but believe me when I say that I know how to take care of myself. This whole Witness Protection thing—it was done for my family. If I disappeared, then they would come after me and not them."

A saddened expression marked JJ's face and before she knew it, she was asking a question that she shouldn't be. "When you say 'family', is that...does that mean a family of your own?" JJ knew that even though she had no family of her own, she couldn't imagine having to leave them behind.

Delilah stopped pacing to meet JJ's gaze. "No, no, nothing like that. I said I had nearly dated, right?"

JJ realized that and immediately felt even more unprofessional for ever asking the question. "I'm so sorry—"

Delilah waved her off. "It's fine, don't worry."

"Why don't you tell me about them? Your family," JJ suggested. It was a distraction tactic to keep Delilah from trying to storm out of the hotel altogether. "No names, nothing specific, just...talk about them."

Delilah turned her head at JJ, momentarily hesitant about the idea. "I...haven't really talked about them since I left. I mean...at first it was too hard being away from them so I kind of buried them deep in my mind."

"Of course," JJ nodded. It was a sensible thing to do in order to avoid unnecessary pain.

Delilah slowly came to the other side of the coffee table and sat down over her knees. "I, um, I had my Mom and my Dad and two brothers—well, I have a step-brother. I'm the baby of the family."