IV.

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1 year and 4 months later . . . . .
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           Marjorie's temporary office was silent apart from the hum of the air conditioning and the ambient typing sounds from the agents outside

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           Marjorie's temporary office was silent apart from the hum of the air conditioning and the ambient typing sounds from the agents outside. She sighed tiredly as she flipped to the next page in her paperwork. She had a lot of paperwork recently. And though she was unbelievably honored to be temporarily promoted, she hadn't considered the drastic work load. Still, she didn't want to complain.

Ever since her case with the BAU, she'd been given many more opportunities and was treated with much more respect. She didn't know what Gideon or Hotch had told her boss, but she was grateful nonetheless.

Whatever it was, it garnered her with enough respect and trust to be made interim Unit Chief while her boss was on maternity leave. Of course, she eagerly accepted the position, but after only 3 weeks, it began to wear her down.

Continuing to flip through the file on her desk, she huffed, dropping it and rubbing her hands on her face to try to stay awake.

"Agent Sloan?" A voice called from the doorway. Marjorie looked to see Amanda—Agent Gilroy—another woman in her unit around her age. She gave the woman a tired smile to show she was listening. "I think Peter's back," she was told.

Through her grogginess, it took a moment to process what she meant. Peter? Oh! Then she stood up and followed Gilroy to her desk. "You're sure?"

"I just got a new image. Screen name of the sender is HUGZ. He just uploaded this to me."

"And you're sure it's a new image?"

"New image, same boy. Time and date stamped an hour ago."

"Are you communicating directly with this HUGZ?"

"No, I'm in a chat room. I was just fishing."

"Pull it up," Marjorie told her as she looked at the other agent's computer. She looked at another agent behind her, asking him to find where the chat room originated. Then she addressed the entire unit, "Everybody listen up. We have a boy we named Peter a year ago. At the time, he was listed between 5 and 6 years old." She looked directly at Agent Gilroy, telling her to instant message the sender. VN-HO, meaning very nice—how old?

Interested? The sender asked.

"Very," Sloan instructed the agent to type. Then they were sent a link. "Go to the site," she told her. The link took them to a recording with a timer at the bottom.

THE VERY FIRST NIGHT. . . aaron hotchnerWhere stories live. Discover now