Jake’s: this is the team’s favorite restaurant. Part steak house and part sports bar, it is dark inside like the interior of a ship, carpeted in blue, polished with brass and watery light. Here’s Garcia, dressed in something bright yellow, a fake lily outlined in glitter pinned into her hair. She gestures with her straw when she’s not chewing on it. Here’s JJ, sitting sideways in her chair, flicking the head of foam on her pilsner glass with a polished fingernail.
It’s a busy night. She takes inventory of each customer as they walk through the door. She gives the couples and groups a pass, but she still scrutinizes, looking past the cues of fashion and the markers of gender, homing in on interactions, postures, gestures. The singletons command the lion’s share of her attention. Most of them are jammed elbow-to-elbow at the bar, eating nachos and watching the game or drinking beers while waiting for a table to open up. Her eyes probe the shadowy places. She reacts to the merest flicker of movement.
Emily holds the stem of her glass with cold fingers. This is her life and she is mistress of all she surveys. She takes a long drink of Merlot.
She wishes she had spent more time with Foyet. What memory she has of him is blurred with adrenaline and fractured into pieces; she sees a gaunt figure with hands too big for its wrists, hairy forearms, an untucked shirt. She wants to know the ins and outs of his voice, its pitch, its inflections and accent, his mannerisms; she wishes she could tease the cadence and posture of his body out of a crowd. She craves that spark of recognition. She wants to know how it feels when he enters a room.
“Em, are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She snaps out of her daze. “I’m fine.”
“You were kinda lost in space, there, for a minute,” says Garcia.
“Yeah…just. You know.” She puts the glass down and flashes a brief smile. “Long day. I was…ah, wondering about something, actually.”
“Long boring day,” says Garcia. “Long, luscious, awesomely boring day. I’m so relaxed. It’s just wrong.”
JJ butters half a roll. “What?”
Emily shifts her hair back over her shoulders. “Did I ever tell you guys the story about how when I was a kid in Italy I found a body in a stream?”
“Yeah.” JJ nods. “I think so. Weren’t you like…thirteen, or something?” She takes a bite. “It was the woman next door and she’d been murdered by the postman. Or something like that.”
“That’s her.” Emily pokes the leaves of her salad with her fork. “Her name was Francesca.”
Garcia takes a suck off her straw. “Why are you thinking about that?”
“I dream about it sometimes. I dreamed about it last night. It’s been kinda stuck in my brain like a…like…I dunno, like when you get something caught in your teeth.” She gestures at her mouth. “I guess I’m picking at it.” She shifts in her seat. “You know how there’ll be a song that comes out and just dominates the airwaves? It plays and plays until you’re sick to death of hearing it and can’t understand how there could be anyone left in the world who hasn’t heard it at least a thousand times?”
“Oh yeah.” JJ rolls her eyes. “Achy Breaky Heart, anyone?”
“Tell me about it,” says Garcia. “I used to actually scream when that song came on the radio.”
“Well that summer it was a song by Air Supply. Making Love Out Of Nothing At All.” Emily shakes her head and her voice lowers. “I keep hearing it. It’s like…stuck in my head. It’s just a piece, though. Over and over.”
“Earworm.” Garcia breaks open a roll. “Did you take the Lady Gaga cure?”
“I did.” Emily nods with a wry smile. “I did, and nada.”
Garcia puts down her roll. “Poker Face failed?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Damn,” says Garcia. “This is serious.”
“So do you want to talk about it?” JJ wipes her mouth. “I mean, I know the basic facts, but there’s always more to every story.”
“If you need an ear, we’re totally here for you.” Garcia reaches over and pats Emily’s hand.
“I’m not sure how much I’ve told you.” Emily’s eyes slide around the inside of the restaurant. “It was kind of a traumatic thing for a thirteen-year-old to witness.”
“Well yeah,” said Garcia. “I would’ve had nightmares for…well, forever, I guess. It’s not something you get over.”
“I remember…I remember that she was naked from the waist up.” Emily shrugs and looks into her plate. “Her boobs were showing.” She spears up some salad and takes a bite. “That really weirded me out for a long time.”
“Ew,” says Garcia.
“Yeah.” Emily chews and swallows and nods. “It was gross. What was really gross was how it kept making me think of…like, Playboy spreads and stuff. How the only reference I had for naked breasts were pictures in girlie magazines.”
“That is rough,” says JJ.
“And sexist and awful.” Garcia reaches for the butter bowl. “And ew. Just plain ew. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
“This job will make pretzels of your mind. The things you have to do to your thoughts, the way you have to twist everything around just so you’ll sleep at night.” JJ sips her beer. “It takes strength.”
“Which you’ve got in spades.” Garcia grins and bumps Emily’s arm with her fist. “I don’t know how you guys do it. Seriously. I’m so not tough enough.”
“You’re tough,” says Emily, turning her head. “I’ve heard you in there, sitting in your little computer cave and not taking anybody’s shit.”
“Yeah, but those are just voices on the phone.” Garcia rolls her eyes. “Voices that belong to the bumbling idiots of East Butthole more often than not. Dealing with them is easy. They’re not those guys who’d skin you just as soon as look at you…and then go and have sex with the skin.” She shudders. “Ewwwww.”
JJ swirls a slice of cucumber through a bit of dressing and takes a bite. “Well, sometimes they are.”
“This is true.” Emily folds up a bit of roll and pops it into her mouth. “You never know. Psychopaths look just like everyone else.”
“Gah, don’t remind me.” Garcia drinks. “I spend a lot of time trying to forget that little fact. I bury it in glitter pens. When it tries to speak to me I shove something with unicorns on it into its leering nasty little mouth.”
JJ chuckles.
“Oooh, we have incoming.” Garcia sits up straighter. “Hey! Where the hell is Derek?”
JJ turns her head and Emily looks up in time to see Hotch and Reid making their way toward the table. Hotch has his suit coat off and hanging over one arm and there is rain in his hair. He sees her looking and smiles. The shape of it slides into her stomach and spreads out, imprinting itself along the inside of her skin; he is always the same, taking up the air and filling her with feelings both serene and taut.
Reid plunks down between JJ and Garcia. “He’s late.”
Garcia leans back in her chair. She slides her glasses down and looks at him over the frames. “You’re gonna tell me it took a genius to figure that out?”
“I think he’s stuck in traffic.” Hotch drapes his suit coat over the back of the chair. “He said he had some stuff to take care of. He’ll be along.”
“So you’re seriously telling me it took a certified genius to figure that out.”
Reid shakes out his napkin. “They have to justify my exorbitant salary somehow.”
“Here.” Garcia giggles and pats his shoulder. “Have a bun.”
Hotch pulls up to the table. He looks around. “I see you’ve been here long enough to get your salads.”
“Yeah, speaking of which.” Reid waves his fork. “Em, do you mind if I snag your tomato?”
“Oh. No.” She holds up her plate. “Go ahead.”
He reaches across and spears it. “Thanks.”
Emily’s phone rings.
“Perhaps that’s Derek begging forgiveness for his unrepentant tardiness.” Garcia takes a bite of salad.
“As if.” Reid makes a face. “He’d call you for that.”
“Hmmm.” She pretends to contemplate. “I guess he would, huh?”
Emily smiles and pulls the phone out of her purse.
“Prentiss.” She plugs her ear and strains to listen. She raises her voice. “Hello?”
A breath like a chuckle breaks into the background noise.
Emily tightens her lips and hangs up. She puts the phone on the table. “Dropped call.” She shrugs. She fishes a shred of carrot out of her salad and bites into it. “Maybe they’ll call back.”
“Maybe they won’t,” says Garcia.
Reid bites into his roll. “Maybe you’re better off.”
Hotch opens a menu. Reid orders a plate of hot wings. Emily watches him, her heart moving in short dry beats. Her breath is tight. Details snap into focus with excruciating clarity: the veins in the blue faux leather of Hotch’s menu, the dusty light reflecting off the leaves of rubber plants, the clinking of forks plates glasses, the basketball game on the TV, the torchy twang of a Juice Newton song (break it to me gently”let me down the easy way), the strong smells of fried fish and onion rings. Hotch closes his menu. A waitress passes behind her chair, holding aloft a tray of appetizers. The wind in her wake stirs the small hairs on Emily’s neck.
The phone rings again. She makes her voice sharp. “Prentiss.”
“Oh I know just how to whisper, and I know just how to cry.” The crooning voice in her ear makes her think of cigarette smoke and blues songs drowned in whiskey. “Hi, Emily.” He chuckles. The skin on her thighs crawls. “Did you get my note?”
Reid, in the middle of saying something to Garcia, double-takes at the look on Emily’s face. She pastes on a one-sided grin and bends her head, turning in her chair away from the table. “Yeah.” She pitches her voice low and soft. “Didn’t I tell you not to call this number?”
JJ’s eyebrows go up. She and Garcia exchange curious yet gleeful looks.
“Quick on your feet.” He laughs. “I like that.”
“Excuse me.” She stands and turns to see all faces on her. “I’m going to take this outside.” She holds up the phone. “It won’t be a minute.”
“All right,” says JJ. “We’ll be here.”
Hotch touches the inside of Emily’s wrist. She startles a little and turns.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” She flashes him a contrite little smile. “I’ll be right back.”
“With aaaall the details,” Garcia sing-songs.
Emily feels Reid’s eyes follow her as she makes her way through the crowded tables. She swings her hair down over her face and presses the phone to her ear. “What do you want?”
“I just want to know you’re thinking about me. And you are, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” She pushes through the front door and the little bell jangles her nerves. “I am. I’m thinking about how to put a bullet in your brain.”
“Is Aaron thinking about me too?”
She moves out into the light drizzle. Broad cones of orange streetlight flicker with moisture and the cold air smells like mossy exhaust. She walks a little way down the sidewalk, past the plate glass window with its buzzing neon sign, and ducks beneath a nearby awning. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
He chuckles. “It’s more fun to ask you.”
“If you break into my house again? I swear to God, I will kill you.”
“You’re a real heavy sleeper, Emily.” The smirk rubs itself all over his voice. “Why, you don’t even wake up when someone sits on your bed.”
“Fuck you.” She keeps her voice low. She looks up and down the street. “What do you want?”
“I want you to enjoy your dinner.”
“What t-the…how”so you’re here.” In the canned background, muted by a roar of voices, she hears Juice Newton moaning (give me tiiiimmmmme”oh give me a little time) over the clink of silverware. Her muscles twitch. She moves to the plate glass window and tries to look in but the glass is tinted and it’s too dark inside. Her voice tightens into a hiss. “So why don’t you come out here, then? Talk some trash to my face?”
He laughs.
“What’s the matter, George?” Her weight shifts from one foot to the other. “Afraid of a girl with a gun? You know, the whole creeping thing, that’s pretty pathetic. Unless, of course, the only way you can get into a woman’s bedroom is by breaking into her house.”
The rhythm of his breath overlays the change in song. This one she doesn’t know, but it sounds like a cheap dive-bar refugee from the late 80s. It throws disco-ball reflections across the inside of her mind.
“Huh? Got any more trash talk for me, George?” She stamps her foot. “Huh?” She lets out a laugh that’s breathless and jagged. “Weak. That’s fucking weak.” She jabs the disconnect button with her finger and flings the phone into her purse.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Emily jumps out of her skin. “Jesus Christ, Morgan.” She puts her hands over her face and takes a couple of deep breaths. She turns around. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“So who’s George?”
Her heart pumps out the sting of humiliation. For one sharp sickening moment she’s thirteen years old, her father is standing over her bed with a Playgirl magazine in his hand and an unbearably stern look, and Emily can’t stop the hot blush from pouring into her face. Morgan’s eyebrows go up. He folds his arms and stands hipshot, fighting with the beginnings of a smile. She shakes her head, stammers, and clears her throat.
“It’s…” She lets out a sharp sigh. “It’s nothing”no one. Don’t worry about it.” Her hand moves in an unconscious chop. “It’s not a problem. I’m”I’m fine.”
Morgan holds up his hands.“S’okay. Your secret’s safe with me.”
“It’s just a stupid argument,” she goes on, zipping up her purse. “It’s stupid, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“All right,” he says. “Let’s go in.”
“Okay.” She nods and shoulders her purse. “Let’s. It’s miserable out here.”
Her belly tightens and the sound rises up from the floors, wrapping around her, lifting her out of her feet. She is adrift in sensation. The faces of her team are like buoys; their voices are bells calling her home. Morgan tugs her into safe harbor. I will be safe here, she thinks as she sits, I will be because this is my life, goddammit, my life and I am mistress of all I survey.
Emily takes a big bite of her burger and the textures, the flavors, the smells strike senses strung just shy of the breaking point. Her whole body hums. She can’t keep her eyes off the door.
She thinks about where she can get another gun. She lingers on firearms she’s had in the past, compares them to one another. She doesn’t trust the situation to something new, to a machine that her hand doesn’t know. In chaos and fear, the muscle memory will take over, and her hand remembers every gun it has fired. Her trigger finger has its own chain of command.