Nothing to Everything

4: Three Little Dots

We walked into the round room and sat down. Emily was the first to talk before any of the guys could."We were supposed to be off, do not judge. We had to initiate Izzy into girls night." JJ then added, "Also didn't hurt that Izzy is friends with the owners of Mike's bar so we got all of our drink for half price all night. I don't even remember how we got to Penelope's." "Wait... does anyone remember how we got to Penelope's? Because I do not either." I chimed in, but then my phone buzzed from a text.

Mike: I have all of the car keys for whoever drove to the bar. I put you all in an Uber to the colorful girl's house since you all insisted you didn't want girls night to end. You had four of those alcohol bowls all different flavors so I can only imagine how you guys are feeling. Drink lots of water. Will return all of the keys and cars the next time you all come here and are fit to drive home. It was a blast seeing you drunk.

"Mike got us an Uber apparently, and has all of our car keys." With that all the males started laughing, even Hotch let a smile slip onto his face before banishing it quickly. Hotch started presenting the case as JJ wasn't able to look it over beforehand. "We are heading to Montana. A small town in the woods have seen multiple abductions. The unsub takes the person from the center of town, keeps them for three days, then returns them right outside of the police precinct. When they are returned they do not remember what has happened to them, cannot describe the unsub and has a tattoo that they can't remember how they got. The wifi and service is spotty at best so Garcia you are coming with. Wheels up in 30." Thankfully I do not recognize any part of this case, but it does seem familiar. I head to my desk and grab my go bag to change my clothes. Apparently all of us had the same idea because when I opened the women's bathroom door everyone else was already in there getting changed. "I think we should get an award for being this hungover and still being able to work." JJ said with a chuckle as she finished getting dressed. We all laughed and nodded our heads. "Does anyone remember what happened? I'm too afraid to text Mike back and ask if I did or said anything embarrassing." I asked in hopes that no one else remembered. They all shook their heads which made me calm down a little. "Is every girls night that crazy?" I asked curiously. "Not in the slightest." Tara replied with a laugh. At this point we all looked like professional women again so we headed out to the SUVs to go to the airstrip. The men had already left so we all piled in to one SUV and headed out. JJ drove while Penelope was in the passenger seat leaving Tara, Emily and me in the backseat. All I could focus on was how close Emily was to me. She had caught me staring at her way too often since starting so I forced myself to look out the window. Still though, her scent filled my nose and it was so comforting. She smells like wood smoke and a touch of perfume. She smells like perfection. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------We arrived in Montana and everyone piled into SUVs to head into the town. It was a two hour drive from the airport, thankfully all of the women took naps on the plane. Somehow it ended up that all the women were in one SUV again driving to the town in the same positions as before. I was getting motion sick so I lead my head against the car door and tried to sleep to pass the time. I woke up when JJ was pulling the car into the precinct parking lot. I had shifted in my sleep and was laying on Emily's shoulder cuddling her arm. I released her and lifted my head with a blush. I looked at Emily and she was smiling at me. We got out of the car and it felt nice to stretch my legs. I looked around and it was as if the town was only two blocks big each direction and shaped like one big square with a park in the middle. It was a beautiful town. We entered the police precinct and it was tiny. I counted 5 desks and one office labeled "sheriff." Small town crimes like this are bittersweet. There is less places to hide, but the unsub most likely has lived here majority of their life meaning they know everywhere in town and the surrounding woods to hide. "You guys must be the FBI. I am Sheriff Smith." We all shook hands with the Sheriff and introduced ourselves. "Clearly, there is not much space in here for you to set up everything, but the mayor has allowed us to use a meeting room in the town hall as your base for however long you need to catch this person." He shuffled to the door and led us to the building next to the precinct. He walked in and then brought us into a meeting room with everything we said we needed. Based on his cycle he should be releasing someone tomorrow and we were going to be set up around the precinct to try and catch them. The sheriff left and Hotch turned to everyone. "Everyone group or pair off and start exploring the town. If we are going to catch this unsub we are going to need to be familiar with the town layout. Also go out around the woods while it is still daylight but make sure you are ensuring you know your way back. Penelope, start setting up your gear." Everyone nodded and headed outside. JJ, Tara, Emily and I joined together. "We should start in the woods since that is most likely where he is keeping them for the three days." JJ said then started walking towards the woods."Wait, stay right here a minute." I ran off into the closest convenience store and quickly came back with alphabet stickers and tape. The three of them looked at me like I was insane for buying them. "You put the alphabet stickers on the trees and tape them to ensure they stay on the tree. This way we can go where we want and don't have to worry about getting lost. It's like Hansel and Gretal using breadcrumbs, but these will stay where we put them and then on the way back we can take them off the trees so we don't give away were we have been. Also, the cardinal rule of exploring nature, leave it as good or better than you found it." They accepted that answer and we started walking. After a few minutes Emily started hanging back with me when I was marking the trees with the stickers. "Where'd you learn this?" She sounded impressed. "When I was a girl, an older man named Frank took me and my mom under his wing and acted like my grandpa when he saw how we lived. He was well off and had woods behind his house. He made me my own hideout cabin that I had complete control of. I was able to decide who could come in and when, he let me design and decorate it, it is one of my prized possessions. Even when he moved into a bigger house, he paid for the cabin to be moved to his new property and I still use it since I live with my mom still. It's very deep in the woods so he made signs on trees with a knife and taught me how to read them so I could always find my hideout, but it wasn't obvious. I was also known to just run away to the woods when I wanted to be alone so instead of yelling at me, he gave me rules when I had to come back and made sure I had ways to know how to get back." I smiled at all the memories and mentally noted to text Frank to see when he would be in his Virginia house next. He had houses all over the world which has been a dream of mine and he made me hideouts in each and every one of them. When I looked at Emily she was smiling at me and we just kept walking. Gosh, I could look at her smile all day and not get bored. After a few hours we turned around to go back into town. Penelope had finished setting her gear up and wanted to join us when we did our town adventure. Something felt odd when we got closer to the town, like someone was watching us. "Does anyone else feel that?" I whispered to the others in case the person was close. They all shook their heads no. I subtly looked around and found the person. They were hiding in between trees, but very much so watching us. It was a young adult, I would guess male and wearing all black. I looked at their face trying to imprint it to my memory and remembered their location markers. We don't have reliable communication with the rest of the team so I can't do anything now. "Walk faster. We are being watched in the woods with no reliable communication." With that everyone subtly increased their pace and we headed straight to find Hotch once we reached the town. We found Hotch in the meeting room setting up the board. Spencer was setting up his geographical profile of the town and surrounding woods. I grabbed a pen and shoved him aside. "Move before I forget this location." I marked the place on the map where I saw the person and turned to Hotch. "While we were walking back I saw a person watching us. They were trying to hide between trees and were wearing all black. It might have been nothing but I don't know, they gave off a bad vibe, like they were making sure we weren't going to walk that way." Hotch nodded while Spencer went back to the map pouting. "Sorry, Spencer, I needed to make sure I didn't forget the location. I'm not as used to these woods as I am back in Virginia." I did what I could do put everything back to how it was before I barged in. "Izzy is really knowledgeable at tracking in the woods. She bought stickers and tape so we could mark our path on trees so we wouldn't get lost coming back into town, but also not destroy the trees. It was pretty cool. She even put the alphabet in order so we knew how far we were." Emily seemed truly impressed with my skills which made me blush. I headed outside to try and hide it, plus it was hot in the meeting room. JJ and Tara were using the bathroom so we were waiting for them to come out. Penelope sat down beside me on the bench that I had decided to sit on. She handed me the cell phone hooked up to her signal. "Are you straight?" Penelope asked looking at me and my jaw visibly dropped. "I figure we are good enough friends now that I can just come out and ask." I tried to hide my laughter. "No, I am not straight. I am bisexual. Maybe next time ease into that question thought, Pen." I lost it and started cackling. "What made that come to your mind?""The way you sometimes act with Emily. I can't tell if you two are flirting or if you would act the same way with friends." "I'll be honest with you Penelope, sometimes I don't know with Emily either. The way I act with her and how she acts with me. Let's drop this conversation in case she comes out though, until we are alone with no way she can hear ok?" Penelope nodded and I laid my head on her shoulder while both of us just watched the sun set and the people walking in town. Just by watching the town you never would of thought that an unsub was lurking somewhere picking out who they were going to take tomorrow. We stayed like that until the others came out. "We have decided we are walking around to find food." JJ announced when they came out of the building. "I've seen a lot of locals go into that diner across the square. It seems like the popular place to get food. We can tell the others we are getting dinner there." "I just sent them a message, let's go!" Penelope jumped up and dragged me up with her. I laughed as we started walking towards the diner. I think I've laughed more since meeting Penelope than I have in a while. We got to the diner and one of the waitresses said to seat ourselves. I pulled them to the corner booth that would fit all of us, it also gave us a good view of everyone else in the diner. Soon the rest of the crew came and sat down with us. It was almost like a family meal. We ate, talked and just enjoyed each other's company. "Ok, we have a big day tomorrow. The sheriff said we have rooms at the inn in town. There isn't enough for everyone to have their own though. They all have two queen sized beds and a pullout." Hotch said and dropped keys on the table. I looked at the females, "we all slept in the living room of Penelope's apartment so we can all share one room, we would most likely all end up in one room anyway." The girls nodded and all the men took their own key with a shrug. Hotch looked at us with his stern face, "you are all adults, but let me remind you we have work to do so don't stay up too late." He made a point of looking at all the females. We all bursted in laughter. "Come on ladies, let's go explore the town." JJ said while getting up and the rest of us followed her. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------After a few hours of going into every store of the town and talking to the people we headed to the inn. The room was a decent size, but not by any means big. We all put our bags down and claimed a bed. Penelope and JJ one bed, Tara and Emily took the other bed and I claimed the pullout couch. I flopped on the couch and just stared at the ceiling. I couldn't get that person watching us out of my mind, something didn't feel right. It was like my subconscious knew who they were, but my conscious didn't. Was this a town Frank brought me to? I don't remember, but he did take me along to some business trips that were one time things. I might as well text him to try and see.