+18 eps. 12-16 - Gillian and Brock face huge changes in their lives after she leaves the PD and he moves back to DC. But no matter what, looks like they just can't help coming across each other.
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The sun on his face woke him up. Brock sat up and took both hands to his aching head, his face pursed at the throbbing pain. Then he noticed he was still dressed, even his shoes on, tucked in with his bed comforter. He swung it away and stood up, standing the dizzy feeling that blurred his eyes and squeezed his throat.
On his way to the bathroom to fetch some painkillers, he had a vague recollection of Russell being there the night before. But he had cancelled their dinner. Then why would Russell be there? Things weren't exactly clear in his memory after the third whiskey, especially considering he'd taken all three one after another, like they were water, and with an empty stomach. One thing was sure: he didn't remember being anywhere else but the couch, and somehow he'd made it to his bed, and even covered himself. But how...? Gosh. It felt like a hundred cannons firing in his head, nonstop.
Only then he realized the sun never came in through his window before ten in the morning. Crap! Had he slept in so bad? There you go, Brockner. Drowning your sorrows in alcohol. What a brilliant idea. Now you gotta call in sick for the first time in ten years.
He made it to the family room and found his phone on the couch. Off.
"Shit!" he grunted, turning it on.
Right away he got a zillion warnings of missed calls and texts. Ten-fifteen!? Great! He dialed Cassidy. He'd check the missed calls later.
"Brockner! Where the hell are you?"
He tried his best to sound calm and composed as usual. "Good morning, sir. I'm sorry I didn't call in sick earlier, I just—"
"Are you dying or something? Can you function at all?"
"Of course I can function, sir, it's just that—"
"Then get your go-bag and drive your ass to the airport asap. An Amber Alert just popped up. The CARD is sending a team, but the BAU can't spare anybody to go with them. So you're on. And hurry up, they're leaving within the hour. I'll let them know you're coming."
Brock scowled when Cassidy disconnected. He was about to mentally hate him and complain about it, then the words Amber Alert sank in. Just out of habit, after half his life responding to life-or-death situations, he spun around and hurried back to his room.
Forty-five minutes later, he stepped out of his car in the FBI's hangar. Showered, shaved, every thread of hair in place, wearing his flawless navy blue suit with his dark red tie. And sunglasses nailed to his face.
The CARD agents wore jeans and shirts. One of them spotted him and called out, "Agent Brockner?"
He headed their way across the hangar and the man pointed to the small jet waiting for them just outside the gates. Brock stopped, corrected his course, and headed out. His migraine had receded, but his head still felt like wet cotton. Well, you know what you wetted the cotton in, right, Brockner? You soaked it in Blue Label. Now enjoy the ride.
The door closed right behind them as soon as they boarded, and the jet rolled to the runway while they found themselves where to sit. The CARD team was two women and two men, all between thirty and mid-forties, and they naturally took the two pairs of seats facing each other. Brock took an individual seat at their side, across the aisle.
They introduced themselves to Brock, but he couldn't register their names. One of the men gave him a folder as one of the women pulled up a side table to set a computer on it.
Brock opened the folder to the picture of a smiling boy. The man filled him in as the jet speeded up to take off. Brock realized one of the reasons why he wasn't seeing quite clear was that he still had his sunglasses on, so he took them off.
"Dennis Clayton, nine. He was taken this morning while he walked to school alone. He forgot his lunch, so his mother took it to school not an hour later, on her way to work, and found out her son wasn't there. They're canvassing the whole town as we speak. No ransom calls so far."
"Any witnesses?"
"No, nothing. A tech is going through feeds from street cameras along the boy's way to school."
"Guys...," one of the women called them, and nodded at the computer.
Brock scowled at recognizing Brandon Philips on screen. Where were they going? He glanced down at the open folder on his lap and spotted the boy's address. Somersworth, New Hampshire. Great! New England. Gillian's playground. Easy, Brockner, she's busy somewhere else, working a murder case.
"Morning, Agents. I'm Philips, and I'm gonna be your tech for this case."
"Anything on the feeds?"
"Still working on it, but I did find this." Brandon's face was replaced by a video from a traffic camera. It showed one of the main streets in town, only a few cars driving in both directions, and four or five people on the sidewalk. One of them a boy with a school backpack. "This is High Street, right across from the City Hall, at the corner with Highland Street," said Brandon from the speaker. "Dennis' school is around the corner, a hundred yards up Highland. That boy you see coming, that's Dennis. Now pay attention to the gray car coming from behind him."
Brandon played the video and they watched the boy approaching the corner, grinning hi at a woman opening a store. The boy was still ten yards away from the corner, when the car Brandon mentioned drove closer and slowed down, almost to a full stop. Dennis turned around the corner, to his right, and got out of the camera field as he walked up the hill to his school. The car stopped at the corner, lingered there for two or three seconds, then it turned right slowly, after the boy.
"There are no security cameras along Highland Street up to the school, and Dennis never made it there."
"We need an APB on that car asap," said one of the agents.
"Already done, ma'am. And I'm running the plate as we speak. Now I want you to take a better look at this."
Brandon moved the video track back to the car at the corner, then zoomed in. The image got blurry, but all of them were able to see a man in his thirties behind the wheel. He looked to his right, the way Dennis had gone, to his left, up at his rearview, and then he steered the wheel quickly to turn right around the corner.
"He checked nobody was paying attention, then he went after Dennis," one of them said.
"The question is, was he following Dennis or he just took the opportunity?"
"Philips, try to get a name and call us back."
"Yes, sir. Philips out."
The man who had given Brock—what was his name? Murphy?—started shooting orders. Brock paid attention, to try to keep their names in mind. "Alright, team. Plummer, you take the family." One of the women nodded. "Cortez, you go to that corner and ask around. That woman saying hi to Dennis may have seen something." The other man nodded. "Hanno and I are going straight to the station." He turned to Brock. "What d'you wanna do, sir?"
Brock needed a few seconds to realize he was the 'sir' and he wasn't supposed to follow the team leader's orders. It would take him a while to adjust. Especially because his hangover would've appreciated being told what to do, at least for the next few hours.
"I'd like to interview the parents," he said.
The woman called Plummer nodded with a radiant smile, and Brock thought that Cortez teased her about being lucky. The team leader turned again to Brock and frowned.
"You look tired, sir. Wanna get a shut-eye? We still have an hour to go."
Brock nodded with his best blank scowl, hopefully making them think he hadn't entertained the idea from the moment he got onboard. So he gave them back the folder as he stood up and headed to another single seat near the cockpit. He was asleep in under a minute.
