Retribution, A Spencer Reid/Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 56. Family Stuff

“What’s the story with that new file clerk?”

“Dunno. One of those social outreach hires, I think. Not sure.”

“She’s kinda creepy.”

“Be nice...”

xxxxxxx

One day.

One day away and she’d done her best to line up the ducks, but the end result was more a milling herd effect than the neat, precise line her analytical mind had envisioned.

Carol Bescardi had let some of her personal standards slip as well. No longer neatly coiffed and trimly turned –out, the necessity of moving quickly to make the most of time snatched during breaks and lunch had made inroads on her appearance.

It’s doubtful David Rossi would have recognized her at first glance.

But despite the disheveled hair and the unfashionable prison-issue footwear, Bescardi’s face still had the power to…arrest. Unfortunately, it did so for very different reasons. The striking woman with features that embodied an overstated elegance could now best be described as ‘frazzled,’ or ‘stressed,’ or even, if the onlooker were of an unkind bent, ‘maniacal.’

She hunched over her keyboard as though devouring it. She startled easily. Sometimes she would open and close certain desk drawers repeatedly, without doing anything more than gazing at the contents, her lips moving soundlessly as though reciting something or counting to herself. Every once in a while she would stretch in her chair, extending one leg far beneath her desk and performing a strange, repetitive flexing of her foot, raising it until the toes grazed the underside of the furniture, checking the security of the envelopes and their stash of cash.

“What’s she doing?” one of the other clerks had whispered to the Records Department supervisor.

“I think she might be a bit OCD, that’s all.” The supervisor had sighed and avoided making any more judgmental observation. It was just her luck that her department was considered the one where employees of questionable ability could be best contained. The relatively new girl, Carol, might just need some more time to fit in, though.

Time will tell, she thought. But if she keeps making mistakes, we might need to find something else for her…janitorial work maybe. She watched the clerk in question do her peculiar drawer-check, followed by her leg stretch and foot flex.

I’ll give her a few more days. Maybe she just needs to settle in and feel more comfortable here. The supervisor shook her head and returned to her own workstation, resigned to once again checking the recently hired woman’s work for errors after she’d left for the day.

xxxxxxx

One day.

Bescardi kept glancing at the large, white-faced wall clock on the opposite side of the room. Today was important. She would have to move fast and be focused when the lunch break began.

She’d managed to loosen one of the envelopes taped under her desk by prying at it with her toe all morning. She didn’t think anyone had noticed. When the time came, at precisely noon, she’d drop her pen. While in the act of retrieving it, she’d pull the envelope the rest of the way off and slip it into the deep pocket of her lab coat. No one would be the wiser.

Today would require speed, focus and cash.

Today she would rent a room in what could only be called a sleazy dive. But it was perfect. It was a mere half-block away from the building that housed the office of George Evanston, pediatrician. It was one of the thousands upon thousands of such anonymous spaces that riddled the city. And anonymity was very important as she moved forward.