Shattered Secrets

Chapter 17: The one that got away

Emily and I drove to the Thomas' house in silence for a while until she broke it.
"So you and Hotch..." She trailed off leaving the sentence open for me to continue.
"Em I really don't want to talk about it, please?" I kept staring out the window. I hoped that my disinterest in the topic would cause her to drop it. I was sadly proven wrong.
"Look clearly something happened I just want you to know I'm here for you if you want to talk."
"He ended things at Haley's funeral, harshly. It's fine now we're over and that's that." I wanted her to think I didn't care even though I still cared so much. It made my chest hurt if I thought about it too much.
"I'm so sorry August. You guys were good together I'm really sorry it didn't work out."
"Yeah, me too." I cleared my throat in hopes of getting rid of the lump that formed. If we kept talking I knew I would have started crying and that was the last thing I wanted. I was not the heartbroken ex that started crying on the job. I refused to let that be my story. I just wanted to solve this case so we could go home. I thought I was done wallowing but clearly I wasn't over him as badly as I wanted to be.

[A few days later]

It had been five days and all we had was another dead body. One lead, no profile, nothing else to go on. We were all started to burnout we hadn't had a case like this in a long time. The local field office was starting to push us out claiming the case had gone cold already. We were fighting for our place but they were starting to have a point. Derek had followed every possible lead he could about the snakes but they all were dead ends. No one seemed to know where someone would be finding this many without raising some sort of alarm. We had Penelope scanning every digital database with the idea the unsub could be finding them online. Emily and I had talked to all of the victims families and they all said the same thing. Beloved husband or father with a mediocre 9-5 job and they couldn't think of anyone who would do this. The medical examiner didn't have much for us either, the cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head. Nothing odd about the gun that was used except for the fact it was stolen from an elderly retired police officer a week before the murders started. He had dementia and couldn't tell us anything about who broke in. All he knew was she was a petite white woman with red hair. Which was around 2% of the population of the city. According to Spencer that was over seventy thousand people. We were completely stuck.

We stayed in the conference room for what felt like years pouring over case files. I knew we were close we just had to keep pushing keep working from every angle.
"I hate to be that person but guys what if us being here drove her back underground?" Tilula brought up a valid point. It happened more than we normally admitted. Killers know we're close so they go dormant until they think we've forgotten about them. Most of the time they resurface and we catch them for good. There is that rare occasion that they go dormant and never come back but something in my gut told me that wouldn't be happening now. This unsub needed to be in control and have all the power  there was no way she could just go underground forever.
"We have five dead bodies we can't just give up." I don't know why this case was hitting me so hard and why I was arguing to stay.
'We have the building blocks for a profile don't we, we know the offender is female."
"August we only have the testimony of a demented old man we all know that's not enough for a profile even a preliminary one." Arron knocking all of the wind from my lungs with a single sentence. I wanted to tell him to shut up and that he didn't know what he was talking about. I couldn't contain the anger I had for him. I stormed out of the room hearing the door slam behind me and I couldn't bring myself to care.

I stood staring at myself in the bathroom mirror wiping the tears from my face. I felt so stupid hiding in the bathroom crying over a breakup this was ridiculous. I couldn't even do my job because of him. I said I ruined everything I touch but the more Im around him I think he might be the one who ruins things. He was ruining me. I walked out of the bathroom practically running face first into him.
"Do you want to get your act together?" He snapped at me the second he saw me.
"Excuse me?"
"No matter what mistake happened between us does not mean you cannot disrespect me in front of the entire team and think that nothing will happen." hearing him call us a mistake made my heart shatter.
"I understand this case is hitting you harder than normal but we've been requested back on Quantico and will be leaving first thing tomorrow morning."
"Are you serious? Arron we have to stay."
"No Agent Wallace we don't, we have active cases that need our attention and this is no longer one of them. I suggest you get your behavior together before we take off tomorrow morning otherwise we will have to get Strauss involved." He walked away leaving me standing there with my mouth slightly open in shook. Never once had he ever to report whatever it was that we had. The longer we weren't together the more I realized I hadn't known him at all.