Chapter Text
The bar is filled with cigarette smoke. The smell fills your nostrils and has you gagging, wondering how many showers it will take to wash this place off your skin. Everyone had acted like you were ready for this, saying you were everything that Interpol had wanted. You were the youngest agent they had ever shoved undercover, having graduated college at eighteen and ending up in the field less than a year later. They needed you; that was their excuse. They needed your ear for languages. You currently spoke eight, but what mattered right now was that you spoke Italian. They said that they needed you to find the dozens of girls that had gone missing from bars in one small Italian town, and they suspected that some people with a significant amount of power were involved. There should have been dozens of eye-witnesses, but no one wanted to talk. So their natural solution was to have you head to a different bar every night, hoping you would be kidnapped.
The one upside to this whole situation was your boss, James Coleman. He was like the older brother you had always wanted. He led his team, your team, with courage and confidence. He was the only person you could contact throughout your strange predicament. He told you to try and make this fun. If not fun, at least a game. See how many different people you could seduce, how many people you could get to take you home. It was fun at first, but now you were so lost. This was not who you were at all. You wanted to go home and read books and drink tea on your patio in the rain. You didn't want to be here, in this strange bar where you didn't know if you could trust the bartender. There were too many sweaty bodies dancing way too close together. Then she walks in, and your world stops.
Her beautiful dark hair perfectly frames her face, and her brown eyes look sweet and haunted at the same time. Her posture is different than everyone else in the bar. She looks as though she knows she's superior to everyone. She looks like she knows what she wants and what she's doing. You want to go home with her tonight. At this point, you realize that you've been staring for far too long and should probably find a different thing to stare at intensely and hope she won't notice. Unfortunately she does, and soon she's walking over.
"Like what you see?" she asks.
"I don't know, do you?" you respond. She looks surprised. Suddenly you feel uncomfortable and too small. You try to pull your shirt up, feeling too exposed with the neckline not leaving enough to the imagination. You wished you were already drunk, or at least able to drink at all. Then you realize she's laughing, and maybe you haven't screwed up after all.
"Do I what?" she questions playfully.
"Like what you see."
She laughs again, her cheeks slowly turning pink as she admits,
"Yes. I do. What's your name?"
"I'm Izzy," you answer. You almost told her your real name, and that would not have been good. You're not usually this nervous or flustered at all. You're not really a fan of the whole crush with butterflies in your stomach thing.
"Izzy? No last name?"
"I don't give my last name to strangers."
"Izzy, I don't plan on staying a stranger. I'm Lauren. Lauren Reynolds."
"It's nice to meet you Lauren. Do you dance?" you ask, working up your confidence.
"I do, but not right now."
You nervously chew the inside of your cheek, wondering where the hell this is going.
"What do you want to do then?"
"Would you like to come meet my boyfriend?" she asks, a trace of nervousness in her voice.
"Your boyfriend?"
"We're looking for company," she states, her cheeks bright red.
This is not something you would normally do, or do ever. But hey, maybe you might finally get kidnapped! And Lauren is really hot. You must hesitate a second too long because Lauren looks like she's preparing to leave.
"Sure!" you say, with way more confidence than you feel. "Let me text me friends to tell them I'm leaving."
You pull out your phone and quickly text James: Might have something. Keep you posted, look for me in the morning.
Then you plaster a smile on your face and grab your clutch.
"Ready!"
Lauren grabs your hand and pulls you out of the bar, and you actually enjoy yourself for the first time in Italy.
The BAU is investigating the murder of guards and captains on privately owned boats docked along the coasts of Britain and the US. They are working on a joint task force with Interpol, and everybody's feeling the stress and pressure from the higher-ups. But after a week of working nonstop, they find a fingerprint in the cabins of both boats. It belongs to an Amy Pearce. But the name only brings up more questions.
"Sir, this girl is just weird!" Garcia tells Hotch.
"It can't be that bad. Come on, Garcia we need something. Tell me you have an address," he responds.
"That's the thing, my lovlies. I don't have anything. No bank account, no credit card, no phone number, nothing. That's where things get weirder. I figured she has to exist somewhere, right? So after an lot of very legal and definitely bureau approved hacking, I found over a dozen sealed Interpol files."
"Babygirl, tell me you can open them," says Morgan.
"That's the thing, I can't. I've tried everything, and any attempt to hack these files will send an alert directly to someone's computer. But what I did find is a photo."
"Can you-"
"Run facial recognition and send it to your tablets? Already done!" With that, Hotch, Morgan, and Reid, hear the click of the phone and their tablets' text alert.
"What are we supposed to with this? We literally have nothing!" exclaims Morgan, growing frustrated with the lack of any concrete leads.
Reid glances at the photo, and then exclaims,
"Hey, I know this girl!"
"You know a girl?!" teases Morgan.
"No, seriously. She goes to the same coffee shop that I do."
"Don't you go to some dump of a coffee shop in the worst neighborhood in the city?" asks Morgan.
"Theoretically speaking, there's no such thing as good or bad neighborhoods, it's just society's perception of the-"
"Reid." Hotch interjects.
"Right, anyway, we could go to the coffee shop and see if anyone recognizes her picture and knows where she might live."
************************************************************
"Wow Reid, this place really is a dump," says Morgan. "You're sure you've seen her here?"
"Yeah. She was probably drawn to it for the same reason I was. Not a lot of tourists or outside traffic. No one should be able to find you here."
"Focus. Let's see if the owner knows anything," Hotch interrupts.
They walk into the coffee shop (shop being a generous word), go up to the counter, and flip open their badges.
"FBI, can we speak to the owner?" Morgan asks.
"You're lookin' at him," responds the grumpy-looking bald man behind the counter. "Name's Mike."
"We've heard that this girl does visits here occasionally, do you recognize her?" Hotch asks.
"No, sorry, can't say that I do." He doesn't actually sound very sorry. "I'm old, you know. Memory loss and all. Don't really remember a lot of customers."
At this point, Spencer steps out from behind Morgan and Hotch. Mike's face lights up.
"Toothpick! We've missed you around here! Would you like your usual?" Mike exclaims enthusiastically. It isn't until he's staring at the glares of the agents that he realizes his mistake.
"Let's try this again. Do you recognize this girl?" Hotch asks, firmer this time.
"I told you I don't know who that is. Like I said, some people are just easily forgettable."
"You want to know what I think, Mike? I think you're covering for someone. And I think that things are going to get a whole lot worse for you if you don't help us out here," Morgan says threateningly.
"Look, fellows, I'd really love to help you-"
At this point, the bell on the door dings and everyone turns around and stares. Mike's face falls, but you don't notice until you're already inside of the coffee shop.
Hotch, Morgan, and Reid jump into action.
Morgan tackles you to the ground and hand-cuffs you.
"Amy Pearce, you're under the arrest for the murders of..."
Crap. Your head starts pounding as you try and block out the noises around you. You had a feeling this day wasn't going to go well.
*****************************
Back at headquarters, the team springs into action trying to put together your profile and figure out interrogation techniques.
"Are we sure it's her?" asks J.J. "She doesn't look large enough to inflict this kind of violence on these men."
"It doesn't matter, we need to figure out what she knows as soon as possible," responds Hotch. "Emily, I want you to question her first. Try and build some rapport with her, she's more likely to open up to a female."
"Okay," says Emily. She's desperately trying to figure out what happened while she and J.J. went to check out the latest crime scene, so she doesn't look closely at the person in her interrogation room until after the door clicks shut behind her. When she looks up, her heart drops.
"Izzy?!" she gasps.
"Lauren! What the fuck are you doing here?"