For Old Times' Sake

Chapter 27

Emily looked at the man sitting inside the interrogation room. He hadn't looked up for even a second from a spot on the table. He unsettled her, and that wasn't a good thing.
"Who's taking him?" Morgan asked.
"Hotch and I. He said this creep is giving him a very familiar feeling."

JJ walked up to them. "Garcia just pulled up his files. Gary Fowler, thirty-two years old. He's a stringer. Father was abusive, mother left them and moved away when he was eight. Stayed in a foster home after Child Protective Services picked him up two years later, ran away when he was sixteen. No criminal records. There's a chance he supplied the pictures to Black, but that guy has already denied it and asked for a lawyer. We've got to make him tell us something."
"I know. We're going to pretend as if Black confessed to getting the pictures from him. That should give us somewhere to start." Hotch said.
"Let's do it."

Hotch and Emily walked into the room, only to be greeted with a smile.
"How can I help you, Agents?"
"I don't know, why don't you start by telling us where you got those pictures from?"
He smiled again. "What pictures?"
"The pictures you gave to Black to publish. The ones of those murdered women."

"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Black has already confirmed that you supplied those pictures to him. We have his confession. Denying it won't help your case." Emily replied.

He smiled again. Emily was beginning to feel extremely uncomfortable, something that was uncommon for her.
"You've beautiful eyes, Agent."

The sentence seemed to hit them like a slap, even more so than the knowledge that they couldn't use it as proof of anything.
"What did you just say?" Hotch was now bent on getting something out of him. He was sure that this man knew where Y/N was.
"I just gave her a compliment. Nothing more," he said.

Right then Morgan walked into the room with a woman dressed in a suit.
"My client doesn't have to tell you anything. You are holding him here without reason."
Of course, it was his lawyer, who promptly walked out with him grinning at the irked team.

"He has to be our guy," Emily said.
"Or at least connected to our guy anyway. Tell Garcia to pull any files she can on his residences, past, present, everything. I want all his addresses so we can get search warrants out." Hotch said.

***

You took a deep breath as your captor walked in, having woken up a while ago.
You were hungry, thirsty and your body couldn't stay awake for longer than what seemed like a couple of hours.
"Guess who I met today?" he leaned against the doorframe.
"Who?" you asked, your brain not working enough to play games with him.
"Your team, Agent." He smiled as your head shot up.
"You're lying," you said. "They'd arrest you if you went near them."

He laughed loudly. "Okay. On what grounds?"

Right. They couldn't arrest him without evidence.
Tears stung your eyes as you conjured up images of terrible things that could happen to you if the team didn't find you in time.
"You know, I've read a lot about how the first 24 hours or whatever are very important when someone goes missing. I'll tell you something. I give your team the remaining seven hours after which you'll be gone for a whole day. And then, you can be another reminder to them of how important it is to find a missing person within 24 hours."
"How generous." you snarled at him.

"Quite the opposite, darling. I'm going to go there and watch them squirm as they fail to find anything of value that could lead them to me. And then I'm going to come back here and watch you do the same as I carve your eyes out."