Chapter 22

Monday, March 15

10:30 p.m.

They'd searched the entire precinct. The evidence, the case files—everything was gone. No one in the department had wanted to touch the case, even after all these years, but none of them had seen someone from the BAU with it either. A full audit of evidence had gone into effect, bringing the entire station to a standstill. The evidence room was locked at all times, not to mention covered by hallway surveillance cameras. And yet when Boucher had tried to pull the footage, the camera had conveniently been angled in the wrong direction for the past three days. There was little chance someone outside of the department or BAU had taken the evidence. Something was going on here, and Leigh couldn't help but wonder if Chief Maynor had a part in it, but exhaustion was winning out.

Her follow-up with the medical examiner's office and Dr. Jennings's neighbors had taken most of the day with little to show for the effort. Nothing had stood out to the dozen or so people Leigh had questioned.

Dr. Roxanne Jennings had been friendly enough, coming and going at all hours of the day but mostly kept to herself. Made sense. As the only pathologist in Concord, she would've been on call 24/7, leaving no time to forge real friendships or hold down a romantic relationship. No family in the state. All Leigh had been able to locate was a cousin out west, who'd fallen out of touch. Neighbors had described Dr. Jennings as open with a good sense of humor, yet… off. Not for any particular reason other than what she did for a living. What kind of person wanted to handle dead bodies all day?

Leigh could relate. It'd been one of the primary reasons she'd stopped trying to connect with the people in her apartment building, at the gym, or through coworkers. Because what kind of person went out of her way to study serial killers year after year? This murderous thing had shaped her whole life, reaching its tendrils down into every area. Even those that shouldn't have been touched by it.

Leigh glanced at her phone on the hotel room desk for the hundredth—or was it the two hundredth?—time. Willing it to ping. To light up. To do anything but sit there like a brick. Elyse had done as she'd asked. She'd stopped trying to contact her. Stopped caring. Only this time, Leigh had brought it on herself, hadn't she? She'd been the one to draw the line between them. Not the other way around.

But that deep need—the one that drove her to shut down the possibility of a hysterectomy in the first place—was clawing to the surface the longer her screen remained dark. It promised that if she just made the effort, she could have everything she wanted. That someone out there really could understand how… broken she'd become and maybe feel the need to help piece her back together.

"You're going to regret this." Leigh grabbed for her phone off the desk and tapped the received message from Elyse. She'd tried to delete it, to put it out of her mind, and move on with her life and this case, but something she didn't understand at the time had stopped her. She hit the call button and pressed the phone to her ear.

The line picked up, but there was no voice on the other end.

She'd have to be the one to take the first step. "My brother was murdered. My father went to prison for it, and my mother shot herself because of it. You wanted to know why I don't want the surgery? Because I want it all back. I want to feel the way I did growing up, surrounded by family, knowing we had each other no matter what, and that I was important to someone. And if I go through with a hysterectomy, I lose any chance of that."

The words were out there now. They'd escaped faster than her brain could keep up, and her internal critic had lost control. The following silence pressurized between her shoulder blades until she couldn't hear anything but Elyse's breathing through the line.

This was the part when the physician's assistant would realize what she'd gotten herself into. Where she'd apologize, making it sound as sincere as possible, before distancing herself from the conversation and from Leigh. Someone would be at the door. There was a call on the other line. She was right in the middle of cooking dinner. She'd heard them all. And Leigh would believe her. Because that was the only thing she could do to bury that part of herself all over again.

Seconds distorted into a dark fluid.

"How can I help?" Elyse finally said.

Time seemed to freeze as Leigh processed her words. She'd forgotten how to breathe right then. That… She hadn't expected that. A flurry of nervous energy took hold as she opened her mouth to respond, but she'd suddenly forgotten how to speak, too.

"Leigh? Are you still there?" Shuffling broke through the line as though Elyse was checking to make sure the call was still connected.

"Yeah." Blood rushed to her head. She didn't know how to do this anymore. Two decades of isolation had corrupted her social skills, and she felt like she was drifting in open water without a life preserver or any sight of land. "I'm still here. I just…"

Leigh stared at the hotel's light textured wallpaper meant to imbue calm and a sense of relaxation, and it worked. The denial, the anger—it'd slipped free until there was nothing left to clutch on to. The cancer was back, and she couldn't ignore it if she still wanted all those things she'd been forced to put on hold. It was time to make a choice. Forward. "I wanted to ask about a second round of radiation. I've done it before. I know what to expect. I'm on assignment here in Concord, but I can make it work."

"The cancer is more widespread than last time, Leigh," Elyse said. "Dr. Wilson told me a second round of radiation might slow it down, but it's not your best option."

"There has to be something else. Some other treatment or study." She'd take anything at this point. Anything other than losing her only shot at a family. "Please."

Elyse didn't answer for a series of breaths. Holding Leigh's entire future in her response. "I'll do some research. See what I can find. I can't make any promises, but if you're sure about this, I'll do whatever I can to find a solution for you."

"I'm sure." The vise around her lungs released then, and Leigh took her first full breath since Elyse answered the call. "And thank you. For not hanging up on me."

"You're welcome." The cheeriness that'd once grated against her nerves was back, but this time, Leigh took it for what it was: hope. "But I'm going to need something from you in return. Just… call me if you need to talk. Okay? Don't try to do this alone."

Straightening, Leigh tightened her hold on the phone. Her automatic defenses fed into the discomfort at the thought of reaching out to a practical stranger, but Elyse had made her point clear. She'd been through this before. Had lost a daughter because of it. If there was one person who might understand that need for a family, it could be a physician's assistant who'd been in the room while Leigh tried to keep a gown tucked around her bare ass. "Thanks."

The call ended from the other line.

She redirected herself to the edge of the lumpy hotel bed, setting the box Chris Ellingson had gifted her between both hands. Flashes of that night—of the fire and the man in her bedroom, of the ashes where her childhood home had once stood—seeped past her defenses. She'd tried to fight them off, but she'd reached her physical end. Officer Donavon Pierce had yet to show his face at the station since, citing personal matters according to Boucher, but without proof he'd been the man behind the mask—all of which had gone up in flames—she couldn't tip her hand. Not yet, but it was coming. A man capable of arson and terrorizing an FBI agent had no place in law enforcement, as far as she was concerned.

Sleep tugged at her sore muscles while the blisters along the front of her shins screamed for a change in dressing. There was no avoiding it. She would have to surrender sooner or later, and the longer she pushed it off, the higher chances of making a mistake skyrocketed.

The hotel room wasn't much different than the one she and the team had searched this morning. Dark, quiet. No fireplace, but she didn't need amenities. A pillow and a bed were enough. Late nights in the office, right when she was on the brink of unraveling another piece of a puzzle and with only the hum of her computer to keep her company, a desk worked great, too. She pressed the opposite corners of the package into her palms, her heart rate steady behind her ears. This place was too quiet. There wasn't even any noise coming from the shared doorway between hers and Boucher's rooms.

The case had pummeled them in a matter of days. Seemed no matter how much progress they'd made, the unsub was determined to unravel it. And he was doing a damn good job.

Her phone vibrated from where she'd plugged it in on the side table. Unknown number. Tapping the screen, she answered. "Brody."

"Ms. Brody, this is Lebanon Fire Marshal Sam Hoover," the caller said. "I wanted to give you an update of the incident at your home."

Incident. More like attempted murder.

"Right." She scrubbed her fingers into one eye, trying to get a clear picture of his face but failed. She hadn't actually met him. It'd been Chandler Reed who'd talked to the marshal. "Have you found anything that confirms my statement about an intruder?"

"Well, we've identified gasoline as the accelerant used, and based off the fact there's no insurance to claim for you burning down your own house, I think it's safe to say you're cleared of any fault." Low voices penetrated through the line from the marshal's end. "That being said, we did recover a blood trail leading into the woods behind your property. Fresh, too. The crime lab is running it for DNA as we speak."

"That's great news." Her mind tumbled end over end with the potential results. Lebanon PD officers were required to submit DNA and fingerprints during the hiring process. Donavon Pierce wouldn't be able to hide behind that mask if the results came back a match. "Thank you for keeping me in the loop."

"My pleasure. Have a good night." The fire marshal ended the call.

The night was looking up.

Leigh tossed her phone on the bed, slipped her index finger beneath the single line of Scotch tape securing the brown wrapping around the box, and tore it free. A rainbow of colors peeked through the opening, lit by the dim lamp on the bedside table. Shucking the packaging, she flipped the box over. Chris Ellingson had given her a box of Legos, as she suspected.

But now she knew.

He'd been watching her, studying her, following her, learning her habits.

It wasn't enough he'd taken her brother and her dad, or that he was the reason her mother had given up on this life. He'd set out to systematically destroy her entire family. Including her. That took patience, resources, and hunting skills. She turned the box to read the title of the set. "Everyone is Awesome. Yeah. Sure they are."

She didn't have the mental capacity to put the set together. She needed to change the dressings on her wounds, get a good shower, down a granola bar, and chase a full night of sleep. She could deal with whatever game Ellingson was playing in the morning before she and Boucher set themselves up for disappointment all over again. Tossing the box, she tried not to let the sound of plastic bricks knocking together soothe her nerves as she headed for the bathroom, but damn it, it did. The promise of something familiar and quiet and focused in the middle of a case that was pulling her in too many directions called to her at a deep, cellular level.

Leigh gripped the bathroom doorframe. Chris Ellingson knew her well, but she guessed that was the point. Knowing a target allowed you to predict their behavior, learn what they cared about most, and more importantly, who they trusted. Everything he would've utilized against her brother and Derek Garrison. "You asshole."

She grabbed the box and brought it to the desk shoved up against the wall between hers and Boucher's rooms. Twisting it end up, she caught sight of the small circle of tape that'd already been cut. Hesitation nearly pried her curiosity from her, but she'd already started chasing the pleasure that came with shutting off her brain. Ellingson had opened the box. Only one way of finding out why.

Bricks tumbled onto the desk and spread out in an array of bright colors. Not a single plastic bag in sight, but Chris Ellingson didn't strike her as an environmentalist. Legos were usually grouped together to make certain elements easier to assemble. He obviously wasn't interested in making her life easier. Leigh made quick work of piling the twelve people figures together. Her inhales were steadier already, the bite of straight plastic corners familiar against her fingertips. Shame and a fiery dose of embarrassment she'd given in so quickly took a backseat to the silence in her head.

It was a distraction. She knew that. If Ellingson had studied her as thoroughly as evidenced by his gift, then he'd know she wouldn't have given up on uncovering where he'd been hiding all these years. After all, he'd practically challenged her to do exactly that, knowing she'd need a warrant for his financials, credit, and phone records. And without cause, she was dead in the water. She could, however, use her federal influence to look into crimes already committed. Her request for the Fruitland missing persons case would take a couple days to ensure she wasn't raising any red flags. All she needed was one look. Until then, she'd play Ellingson's game. And wait for him to bury himself.

Within minutes, she'd assembled the platform the people figures would stand on. A rounded stage with a vertical rainbow backdrop of color. The set itself paid homage to the LGBTQ+ community with its varying spectrum, meant to garner appreciation of the differences between each figure. Eleven colors ranged from black to hot pink in streaks with one figure drenched in the matching color from head to toe. Every figure in its place.

But there'd been twelve figures in the box.

Leigh grabbed the instructions. She picked the last man off his face and turned him toward her. This figure had been added. He'd blended in with head-to-toe black. Same drench of color, same hairstyle, but there was something different. She rubbed her thumb across the front of the figure's chest. The plastic had been gouged close to where his heart would've been. Setting him under the desk lamp, she tried to make out the shape.

A heart?

No. Too narrow, and the sides weren't rounded enough.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

She'd seen that shape before.

Pinned to every Lebanon PD officer's chest while on duty.

A police badge.

Leigh sank back into her chair. The color of the figure, the carving in its chest. Chris Ellingson had added it for a reason. As a message. It didn't take much for her brain to connect the dots, even as exhausted as she was. She had no doubt in her mind Officer Donavon Pierce had graffitied her garage and shoved her down that hill, that he'd been the one in her home the night it'd burned to the ground, almost taking her with it.

But did that make him a killer?

Did his hatred of her, her family, and what'd happened twenty years ago fit with what they knew about the unsub who'd murdered three victims in cold blood?

She needed to talk to Hailey Pierce again. Get a sense of Officer Pierce's habits, schedule, interests. Her instincts said a home visit wouldn't just piss off the man she suspected of burning her house to the ground but, given what little she knew of Pierce, that his wife would be the one to pay for it. She'd have to time another visit to the Coffee Garage. Without Boucher.

Chandler Reed had failed to find anything of use in Gresham Schmidt's hotel room. Cleaned. Just like the other scenes. Phone GPS had become worthless after learning the former detective's cell had been turned off the day of his disappearance. The manufacturer was notorious for shooting down subpoenas for access to the device. They could try to guess Schmidt's passcode, but three wrong attempts would lock them out of the phone altogether, and phone records hadn't given them any evidence he and Michelle Cross had been in contact. All they had was an old family photo.

Schmidt's vehicle had been cleaned as thoroughly as the hotel room. No prints. No fast-food wrappers or hair left behind. Boucher's task to uncover what the detective had been doing when not working this case hadn't resulted in much either. Schmidt had kept to himself while at the hotel, never ordering room service or speaking to the staff. The Do Not Disturb sign had been in place each time the cleaning crew had made their rounds. Security footage of the floor and lobby had suspiciously stopped working the day Schmidt had checked in. The hotel manager had concluded after several attempts to fix the system that someone was taking it down on purpose. He'd been prepared to put in a call to police when cameras had suddenly started working again.

Leigh pinched the Lego figure between two fingers and pulled Troy's old toy soldier from her blazer pocket in comparison. "One step forward, two steps back."

A hard knock on the door separating Boucher's room from hers jolted her nerves into overdrive. She pocketed both figures, shoving to her feet. As much as she wanted to share the burden of a psychologist's head games and her interest in a missing boy from Fruitland, Montana, Boucher had made his position clear from day one. It'd take hard evidence for him to accept she'd been right about Chris Ellingson all along. Evidence she didn't have. Yet.

She flipped the deadbolt and opened the door. "I didn't order room service, if that's what you're looking for."

"You're such a smartass." Boucher raised a grease-spotted paper bag. "Thought you could use some real food rather than that granola bar made for rabbits you've been carrying around."

Her stomach growled at the promise of too many calories, saturated fats, and salt, and Leigh widened the door to let him in. "Rabbits can't eat nuts. It's bad for their digestion."

"I know it's hard to understand, but most people would just say thank you." He took in her room in record time, trying to make it seem he wasn't cataloguing everything she'd left in sight. Including the Lego set on the desk. He looked good in civilian clothes. Relaxed, if that was possible. "I'm sorry. I didn't know I was interrupting an all-night rager."

Leigh swiped the bag from him and took up her position on the edge of the bed. "From what I remember of the academy, they don't teach cadets how to be assholes. You must've come by your tendencies naturally."

"Right. You were with Concord PD." Boucher shook off her insult as he drove his hand into the bag of food and pulled out an oversized burger. Setting up on the opposite queen-sized bed, he made quick work of the wrapper and took a bite. "I looked you up, Brody. You graduated the academy at the top of your class. You had your pick of assignments according to your TO. Said he'd never seen any rookie as gung ho about the job as you. He swore you were going to be running your own precinct with the big boys in under a decade."

Leigh tried to concentrate on unwrapping her own burger rather than what came next.

"Then one day you up and resigned." Boucher shook his head as if the concept of not being a police officer was so foreign to him, he might as well be talking to the cow who'd sacrificed its life for his burger. He hid it well by grabbing a few fries out of the bag she'd set between them on the nightstand. "No two weeks' notice. No job in the pipeline. You left your uniform, your badge, and your gun in your locker and never came back. Then I looked at the date."

Her gut soured, the idea of taking a single bite of her burger along with it. "People leave the force for all kinds of reasons."

"I remember your mom," he said. "I crashed my bike in front of your house. Must've been about thirteen. You would've been gone by then. Rumors around town said the place was haunted. My parents told me to stay away because of the evil that lived there. I was being stupid and trying to race past there as fast as I could on the way to a friend's house so I wouldn't get kidnapped and murdered along with your brother and his friend. Didn't see the rock under my tire until it was too late." Boucher stared down at the food in his hands. "She came right out with a first-aid kit and a bottle of water, helped me clean up, made sure nothing was broken. Didn't seem very evil to me. Even with your next-door neighbor screaming at her to get the hell away from me."

Her heart jerked at the guilt trying to convince her she should've been there. She should've stayed to take the brunt of Lebanon's hatred, but time and distance had given Leigh a truer perspective. Her mother hadn't died the day she'd set a gun against her temple and pulled the trigger. She'd died right along with Troy. "There aren't any patterns in this case. I can't… Every time I think we have something solid, it slips through our fingers. The man responsible for Derek Garrison's death didn't deviate from his pattern when he killed my brother. Killers have their own unique set of rules they follow, but?—"

"But this one isn't letting you get a peek at his guidebook." He took another bite of burger.

"Yeah." Leigh didn't know why she'd revealed that part of herself, the insecurity, the doubt closing in around her every decision. Other than she had no one else but the lieutenant who could possibly understand the fear seeping past her defenses. The fear of losing what was left of her family. For good.

Boucher's phone vibrated with an incoming call. He tossed what was left of his burger on the nightstand and answered on the second ring. "Boucher." Every muscle in the man's body solidified with battle-ready tension. The lieutenant shot to his feet. "I'm on my way. Keep her calm until I get there." He didn't bother with pleasantries, ending the call. "I've got to go."

"What's going on?" Leigh's mind raced with the possibilities. Another body. A domestic disturbance call at the Pierce home. Her heart rate jumped the gun, shooting into her throat. Boucher was already headed for the door, not bothering with his belongings in the other room. She reached out to slow him down. "What happened?"

Boucher turned on her, all that caged fury breaking the surface. His jaw set. He was practically vibrating having to stand still, and she instantly regretted stopping him from leaving. "My son is missing."