In Hiding (Final Book in the Boss's Niece Series)

Spencer Vs. Debra

*Reid's POV*

Day 1 without Mel and Haley felt like pure hell. I couldn't sleep that night because I didn't have Mel. The bed felt too empty. I ended up getting Haley's monkey that they had left behind and hugged her until it was time to get up for work.

I was on my 4th coffee and it was only 9:00. Everyone else had arrived about an hour ago and now we were seeing if we could find anyone who'd want Mel dead.

"There might be a longer list than we think." said Blake. "I mean, she has captured a lot of UnSubs, not to mention that whole Justin thing-"

"Justin's dead." I cut her off. Everyone looked at me in surprise. I took a sip of my coffee, not making any eye contact with anyone.

"We can't rule out anything involving Justin. We did that with Tobias when Mel was kidnapped and look what happened there." JJ said. "We can't rule out anything at all until we find out who hired Debra and why they want Mel killed."

"Do you think I can help?"

We all looked up to see Debra standing in the open door of the Conference Room. I felt my anger boil at her. Why did she have to come and ruin everything? In my opinion, this is was all her fault.

"Why do you want to help? You're the one trying to kill her." I spat. JJ put a hand on my shoulder to calm me down.

"I may have been hired to kill her, but that doesn't mean I want to." Debra retorted. "Listen, Mel is my daughter. My only child. I know I wasn't in her life, but I still love her so much and killing her would kill me inside."

"What do you get out of this?" I asked. JJ squeezed my shoulder.

"If you catch the guy who hired me, I won't have to kill her, which means I can spend the rest of my life making up the lost time with my daughter." she said. "So please, let me help you."

"She can help as much as she can." Hotch jumped in before I could say anything. "But, once the one who hired you finds out, he's not gonna want her to talk to the FBI."

"I haven't heard from him at all lately. I was beginning to be hopeful, but until I hear something, we shouldn't assume anything." she explained.

"Do you know who hired you?" Simon, the new guy, asked.

"No. Not at all."

"What do you mean no?" I snapped.

"Spence." JJ whispered.

"I mean I don't know him." Debra said. "I've never met him before. He just e-mailed me and told me he wanted to meet. The meeting was at least 2 minutes long and all he said was, 'I want you to kill Melanie Reid'."

That was hard to take in. He was direct, which means he probably has a vendetta against Mel. That kind of narrows it down, but not by a lot.

"Did he give you a name?" Morgan asked.

"No. In his e-mail, he told me, 'I heard you're a hit woman. I want your service. Meet me' and the location. No name, no cell number, no nothing." she said. "He was quite young, though. I'd say late twenties, maybe he just turned thirty. Somewhere around that mark."

"Garcia, make a note." Hotch said to Garcia, who quickly wrote this down on a sticky note. "Anything else? His appearance?"

"I don't remember much. I remember he had dirty blond hair. His eyes were this blueish, green color. Almost gray. He was almost as tall as-as you." she said, pointing to me. "He was at least an inch or so shorter than you."

I didn't like her. I don't know if it was the fact that the nightmare of Mel killing Debra had haunted Mel for so long or the fact the only reason Debra wanted to reconnect with Mel, the only reason she was back, was because she had to kill her only daughter.

I couldn't hold it back anymore. I slammed my cup of coffee down on the table and stood up. JJ tried to hold me back, but it didn't work.

"You're a horrible person, you know that?" I spat at her, letting my thoughts flow. "You leave your daughter with her single father without even as much as a phone call or-or a letter or something to Sean or Mel and now, the only reason you're here to see her is because you have to kill her!"

"You think I want to kill her?" Debra asked. "She's my only daughter, Spencer."

"I'm not saying you want to kill her. I'm saying the only reason you can be bothered to see your only child in 35 years is because there's been a hit put on her!" I said, raising my voice.

"I couldn't come in contact with her because of my job."

"Bullshit!" I swore. "Mel and I work a very dangerous job. You don't see either of us leaving Haley, do you?"

"Reid, just calm down." Morgan said.

"No, no I will not just 'calm down', Morgan! This woman is trying to kill the love of my life. And to make things worst, it's her mother! You listen to me, Debra Anderson. I will find who hired you and I will put you behind bars. That way, those women in prison can show you how you really should be treated."

The room was silent. I was face to face with Debra. The tension could be cut with a knife. A steak knife.

"I'm. Leaving." Debra finally said. She turned on her heel and left without another word. I took deep breaths to calm myself down.

"What the hell is wrong with you?! Debra was the only way for us to find out who wants Mel dead." Hotch said to me.

"You know what, Hotch. If I remember correctly, you retired, which means you're not the boss of me anymore. You can't yell at me or get mad at me for losing my cool the way I did because you do it all the time!"

"Go home."

I grabbed my coffee and left. On the way home, I stopped at a pay phone. I dialed Mel's cell number and waited for her to answer. I felt the tears sting my eyes.

"Hello?" came Mel's voice.

"Mel?" I said, my voice shaky. "I really needed to hear your voice."