Retribution, A Spencer Reid/Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 64. Puzzle Pieces

The enforced idleness of the next hour was almost unbearable for the team.

Reid tried calling Ana, but it only served to increase his frustration at being too distant to reach her mentally. Apparently she’d rallied enough to try and make a break for  freedom. But the effects of her concussion and the lingering sedation made her stumbling progress easy to spot and easy to stop. All Ana’s ill-fated attempt to search for her daughter had done was earn her a burly-looking orderly delegated to keep watch over her.

However, they did allow her the phone call when Reid explained it would do far more to calm her than any medication.

“Spencer! She’s gone! Someone took her!” Ana’s first contact with her husband, coupled with her inability to share his thoughts, brought all her panic and grief to the fore. It almost made the orderly standing by take the phone from her. But Reid’s words threw her a lifeline, letting her hold herself in check, reassuring her gentle-natured, but firm guard that she could handle the emotional stress.

“She’s okay. I saw her…you know?  Saw her.” He didn’t need to be within telepathic touching distance; Reid could feel Ana’s fear…could share it. “I’m on my way. The whole team is. We’ll get her back. I promise.” He tried to keep his voice steady for her sake. “How are you? How are you feeling?”

Ana didn’t care about her own health. She ignored his questions. “Where did you see her? Can you tell who did this? Spencer, can you?”

A heartbeat of silence followed, during which a thousand horror-filled possibilities sped through the young mother’s mind.

“Oh, Ana. It’s Carol Bescardi. Bescardi took her.”

A thousand horror-filled possibilities were replaced by one truly dreadful reality.

xxxxxxx

Hotch was no longer bent over like a man trying to prevent himself from fainting. He’d straightened, swayed in his seat, and then leaned back, resting his head against the cabin wall, eyes closed. Clearly, he was suffering. But no one knew from what, or how to help. And Hotch wasn’t doing anything to communicate.

Morgan pulled back, giving his leader room to breathe. Rossi, however, stayed close, slipping an arm behind Hotch’s shoulders and resting his other hand on his friend’s midriff where it could deliver occasional, comforting pats and rubs. He had one ear trained on Reid’s phone call and the other subdued conversations taking place, but his focus was on Hotch.

I told you not to go wandering off and getting lost ever again, Aaron. I told  you.

Rossi felt a father’s conflict; anger at one’s child for endangering himself, tempered by relief that the child had returned, tempered yet again by an abiding worry that the child had sustained an injury whose severity was, as yet, unknown.

Morgan read the concern in Rossi’s eyes, and when the older agent pulled Hotch closer, encouraging him to rest his head against Rossi’s shoulder, Morgan didn’t see anything paranormal or eerie about it.

All he saw was a father trying to give comfort and strength to his son.

xxxxxxx

Bescardi returned the baby’s glare as she picked up her purse and ran an indifferent hand through her hair. She ran over the list of items she needed to buy.

Some formula and disposable diapers. She grimaced with disgust at the thought of having to perform the tasks of feeding and changing, but decided to look upon them as analogous to the care and cleaning of any laboratory animal. She also needed some isopropyl alcohol for sterilizing her test subject’s skin prior to taking a blood sample…the first of many, she anticipated. Alcohol reminded her that she hadn’t tasted any of the potable variety since her incarceration. Bescardi smiled at the thought of picking up a nice bottle of Burgundy. She would toast her success in style. And last, but not least on her list: a winter coat. She hadn’t realized how warm the lab coat her employer had provided had been until she’d shed it after attacking that unfortunate empath.