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𝐹𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑛.
The team hurriedly rushed into the conference room, exchanging looks of confusion when they found Melanie to be standing in front of the room.
"What's going on?" Derek inquired, voicing the thoughts of every team member.
Melanie inhaled sharply, using the remote control in her grasp to pull up the most recent image of Louise that the anonymous sender had given her. "This... This is my sister. Louise Beaumont. She's thirty–six years old as of this summer."
JJ's eyebrows pinched together, her lips parting as she gathered her thoughts. "I'm sorry, I'm not following."
"My sister has been missing since the winter of 1998, and before you say it — yes, I know very well what the statistics say. All signs point to the extreme likeliness of her death, and in the back of my mind, I always partially agreed with you." She turned away from the team, clicking a single time on the remote to reveal the surveillance image of the man that Emily had encountered in France. "Until this man showed up to the INTERPOL office that Emily had been transferred to, asking for an Amelie Beaumont and claiming that he and his wife were expecting her return."
"Amelie– Wait, who's Amelie Beaumont?" Penelope questioned, her eyes wide and full of worry.
Melanie cleared her throat, her gaze dropping to her feet before she found the power to look her team members in the eye. "I'm Amelie. Well... I was Amelie."
The unknowing individuals dropped their jaws in confusion, exchanging looks of similar emotions before staring back at Melanie — silently praying for an explanation. As much as she hated that this was her current reality, she knew that this horrid day would eventually come. Even that prior knowledge didn't make the entire ordeal any simpler for her.
"When Louise went missing, I was sixteen years old. The police were uncooperative and deemed my sister's disappearance as out of their control. She had a few marks on her criminal record, but she only did what needed to be done in order for us to survive. Stealing food from grocery stores, pickpocketing wealthy people on trains — things like that. But to them, she was a troubled woman who probably ran away with a boyfriend of sorts," Melanie began, her eyes darting to each team member as she spoke.
"I researched alone for years while I was still in Paris, eventually stumbling upon the supposed best crime fighters in the world — the Behavioral Analysis Unit based in Quantico, Virginia. I did all that I could from my home, sending in my sister's file that I put together all by myself. And as I understand now, they didn't have jurisdiction over a crime that took place in France and it was essentially out of their control," she continued to explain. "But that just wasn't good enough for me. I needed to know what happened to her. From that point on, I did everything in my power to make it to the BAU — hours of training, studying, and work to beef up my resume. One day, I finally made it. The workload that I've taken on and the relationships that I've developed with you guys slowed down my personal investigation for a while, and I selfishly believed it to be a good thing. I didn't feel stuck anymore, I felt free..."
