Fic: Story in My Skin 1/?

[bbt-criminal.livejournal.com]

Fic: Story in My Skin 1/?

Title: Story In My Skin 1
Author: bbt_criminal
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Emliy's best friends are dead and missing. The team learns some of her secrets. Compartmentalized, indeed.
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine, the characters belong to the fine people at CBS. Although if you 've got a spare Spencer lying around, I'd be happy to take him off your  hands!

“If you wanna live life on your own terms,

            You gotta be willing to crash and burn.”

                                                            -Nikki Sixx, Motley Crue

 

 

            Emily yawned into her coffee. It had been a really late night. She knew she shouldn’t have gone to the concert on a work night, but how often does your favourite band come to town? It was all worth it. She crossed the bullpen and sat down at her desk across from Morgan, hoping for a quiet day of paper work.

            JJ gestured to her on a high-speed walk to the conference room. Emily shook her head a little. It wasn’t going to be a slow day after all. She mentally braced herself for the parade of horrors JJ was sure to unleash and went to take her seat at the round table.

            JJ waited for everyone to arrive, and started in rapidly. She flipped on the TV screen and a split screen image of two young-looking women with long hair, tattoos and piercings filled the screen.  “Last night, at a concert in downtown Washington, two women were abducted. One of them was found this morning behind an apartment complex, mutilated, bound and partially dismembered. An upside down cross was found painted on the wall near the body in blood. The women are Katherine LeMan, 34, from Alexandria, and Wilhemina…”

            “Billy Jo.” Emily sputtered. She continued as the team swivelled as one to stare at her. “Everyone calls her Billy Jo.”  The look of devastation on her face clearly telegraphed to her co-workers. She took a deep breath to stop herself from shaking. “Which one?”

            “Which one?” JJ looked a little confused. “Oh! Ms. LeMan was the victim found this morning.”

            Emily put her head in her hands as panic welled up clear and strong in her chest.

Hotch looked concerned. “Prentiss, obviously this is having a strong effect on you. How do you know our victims?”

            Emily was short. “They’re my best friends outside of the BAU.” She turned to JJ. “What happened to them?”

            JJ looked from Emily to the photographs on the screen, caught a brief nod from Hotch, and gave the details.

            “As near as we can tell, they were taken from somewhere downtown after the...” she consulted her notes, “…Slayer concert last night. We’ll have a better timeline after we look at the security camera footage from the parking lot and streets around the area. Ms. LeMan died at around 6 am, cause of death blood loss. The unsub seems to be  a sadist, but we found no sign of a sexual assault. Police have recovered the whole body, except for her right upper arm.”

            Reid jumped in. “That’s an unusual part for a collector to take. Statistically, trophy collectors are much more likely to take hands or feet if they don’t take a sexualized part of the body…”

            “Not now, kid. We’ve got to get going on this if we’re going to find Emily’s friend before she’s killed too.” Morgan shushed Reid.

            “How do we know she’s still alive?” Reid questioned. He hated to ask, but it was necessary.

            JJ had the answer. “The first body was dumped in plain sight, with no attempt made at concealment. The other should have been left in the same condition if he was dumping her too.”

            “Do we have a good description from family members or friends of what the victim was wearing last night to use for the canvass? We’ve got a lot of potential witnesses in that area, late night shops and bars are all over the place. We’ll need to find out who they were with…”

            “Kat was wearing black jeans, a Lamb of God tank top, her spiked collar, her leather jacket, and platform boots. Billy Jo was wearing my Motorhead shirt and a plaid skirt with fishnet stockings and her favourite Demonia boots. She had a big leather cuff that she always wore on her left wrist, and a bunch of silver rings. I have pictures from the show on my phone that we can get Garcia to download and print for the canvass.”

            “Your Motorhead shirt?” Morgan looked incredulous. “Isn’t that a bit more rock and roll than you usually go for?”

            Emily shot him a look of death. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve been a metal head since the ninth grade. It’s my dirty little secret. That’s not important right now. What else do we know about the unsub?”

            “There’s unfortunately not much to go on. All we have so far is the victimology, which you know better than we do. No one saw anything.”

            Emily thought hard about last night. She wished they had decided to skip the bar after the show. Those four or five Patrons she knocked back were making her memory a bit fuzzy. They’d started out at the Hideaway, right around the corner from the stadium, then moved on to the Tattoo Underground, which was rowdier and had a live band. Think, Emily, think. Was there anyone out of the ordinary? Anyone at both places? She was drawing a blank. 

            Reid was perusing the crime scene photos, spreading them across the table to compare them and scan for tiny differences. He immediately noticed that the marks on the body from the mutilation seemed odd. “These marks aren’t deep enough for stab wounds, but are too deep to be taunting scrapes. We’ll have to get the coroner’s office to take a closer look at them, try to determine what caused that particular mark.”

            Emily choked back a wave of nausea. Talking about strangers like this was hard enough, but her friends were a whole new world of hurt. Hotch caught her swallowing hard. “Emily,” he said gently, “maybe it would be better if you took a few days off while we find your friends. We need clear heads in here on this one. Your judgement is obviously going to be clouded, and we all know what happens when things get personal. I understand if  you-“

            Emily cut him off. “No way. No way you are cutting me out of this one. I’ll get the son of a bitch myself if I have to.” Her eyes flashed in warning, and Hotch almost took a step back.

            “I’m sorry, Prentiss. You’re obviously too close to this one. You are officially removed from field duty until further notice.” Hotch shook his head imperceptibly. Prentiss turned on her heel and stormed out of the conference room.

            Rossi raised an eyebrow. “You do realize our team’s closest link to that community is the person you just suspended?”

            Reid jumped in. “The metal community is notoriously suspicious of police. Following the satanic cult scares of the 1980s, they have been associated with all kinds of antisocial activity and drug use, and police forces have been known to harass fans based solely on their appearance. It’s classic knee-jerk judgement, akin to racial profiling, and even less effective.” Reid smoothed his hair behind his ear, and gave a tiny shrug.

            “We’ll just have to approach the problem in our usual way, and see what we get. If it’s true that our unsub is targeting fans, the community will cooperate with our investigation. What do we know about the victims?”

            “Kat LeMan was a computer technician at a mid-size corporation. She lived in downtown DC, three blocks from Wilhemina Georges and a 15 minute walk from her work. Oh.” JJ paled, and her eyes widened as she made the connection. “She lives in the same building as Prentiss.”

            “What about Billy Jo? What do you we know about her?” Morgan spoke up from the crime scene pictures he was studying.

            JJ continued with her report, the worried look on her face growing. “She was a fine artist and worked in a tattoo parlour.”

            “So the connection is the concert attendance, and possibly the friendship. We need to determine if this was a crime of opportunity, or if they were targeted. Get Garcia on the surveillance tapes from the surrounding areas. Morgan, you and Rossi can take their workplaces. JJ and I will contact the families. Reid, you go to Prentiss’ apartment. Make sure she’s okay.”

           

            Morgan and Rossi met a complete dead end at LeMan’s workplace. Most of her co-workers liked her well enough, and all claimed that she had no enemies. Nor had she ever mentioned having any problems outside of work. She’d been telling her coworkers about the Slayer show for weeks. Unlike Prentiss, her workspace made it clear that she was part of the metal subculture. It was like being in an alternate dimension where Garcia was evil. She had Kiss action figures and a couple of stuffed toys that were cute in a dark way. Her screensavers showed photos taken at various concerts, and featured herself, Billy Jo Georges, and Prentiss with a bunch of long haired guys that Morgan presumed were musicians. A stack of CDs beside her desk bore names he’d never heard: Cradle of Filth, Children of Bodom, Hammerfall, and the Black Dahlia Murder. He cocked an eyebrow at Rossi. “Did you know about Prentiss’ little hobby? It seems that she’s pretty dedicated, if these shots are indication.”

            “She’s a master of compartmentalization. If she didn’t want us to know, we didn’t know.” Rossi smiled thinly.

            “It seems there’s a lot we don’t know about Prentiss.”

            “We’ll know more once we have Garcia goes through the files on these computers. Let’s move on to the tattoo shop. Hopefully, they’ve been a little more open over there.”

            They arrived at the shop, located on a busy street in a shopping district. A large neon sign outside proclaimed the place Odin’s Brush Tattoo and Piercing. A sign in the window certified them health board certified. Inside, the walls were decorated in the usual collection of flash. Photos of celebrities and particularly unusual or well-done tattoos raised clients’ expectations. The place was meticulously clean. A short, spiky-haired girl with full sleeves of flower tattoos was behind the counter. “Hi there. Are you here to get your dad inked?” The girl winked at Morgan.

            “We’re with the FBI. Does Billy Jo Georges work here?” Rossi addressed the girl gently. He was aware that the girl was probably not just a co-worker, but a friend.

            The receptionist went blank at the mention of the FBI. “She owns the shop. We’re state health board certified.”

            “We aren’t here about health standards. Ms. Georges went missing last night.”

            “Well, I haven’t seen her yet. I wasn’t expecting to. She doesn’t come in til late after shows. We have a deal where I don’t go to the same shows so we can cover for each other.” The girl did not offer her name, Morgan noticed.

            “Listen, baby girl. Your boss is definitely missing, and her best friend is dead. We need to know anything you can tell us about the people she interacted with in the last few days. Clients, anyone she mentioned following her, strange phone calls, anything you can remember.” Morgan levelled with her in an attempt to shock her into cooperating.

            “Emily is dead?” Spikey put a hand in her hair and closed her eyes.

            “Emily? No. Emily is alive and well. Kat LeMan is the one who was attacked. What do you know about her? Did she have any enemies?  Anything you can tell us will help us find Billy Jo. We know they went to a heavy metal show last night. Were they involved in any satanic activity?”

            Spikey’s head snapped up. “Satanic activity? Is this a joke? She was a metal head, not an idiot.” She wore the expression of someone who’s been accused of something ridiculous one time too many. “Are you guys from the church across the street?”

            “Church across the street? Like we said, we’re with the FBI. Did you have a problem with the church people?”

            “They come across and accuse us of being in league with the devil all the time. We used to have speakers outside in the summer, and any time we played our music, they’d come out with their crosses and accuse us of sacrificing animals and having orgies in the back room. They tried to have the zoning changed in this area so we’d have to move. Bastards.”

            “Did Billy Jo mention anyone else going to the concert with them?”

            “If you’re trying to say it was one of our friends that did this, you’re wrong. I’m done talking to you now.”

            “Thanks.” Morgan said slowly. He left his card on the counter, and he followed Rossi out of the shop.

            “Friendly girl.” Rossi was quietly sarcastic. He’d assumed that they’d be stonewalled from the get-go. His research into debunking the myth of suburban satanic cults had brought him into contact with the metal community at the height of the 80s PMRC frenzy, when parental advisory groups had claimed that metal led to suicide, drug use, and murder. The fans were understandably skittish of anyone outside their group, especially authority.

            Morgan was already on the phone. “Hotch, we got nothing we didn’t already know except that the victim was being harassed by a church group. They’re not exactly known for mutilating types of murder, so it’s not a lead.”

            Hotch told them to come back to the office and confer with the rest of the team when they returned. Morgan sent a quick text to Reid to update him and find out how Emily was doing.

Comments

[sleepingwgods.livejournal.com]

I know that, but after four seasons and the kind of friendship that's evolved between them through the years, I'd think the term would have become like a nickname. Nevertheless, all's fair in fanfic writing.

True, true. I loved "Demonology" for the backstory it gave us on Prentiss.

No problem, keep 'em coming :)

Edit: You know what line I really liked?
"It was like being in an alternate dimension where Garcia was evil."
Made me giggle, what a successful description indeed.