Essential listening: Tag You're It, by Melanie Martinez
0o0
Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss wove her way through the packed club with a tray of cocktails and one mocktail, because SSA Jennifer Jareau was still breastfeeding. They weren't intending to stay out too late, this being a school night, but after their last few cases, and aware that their temporary media liaison would be leaving them soon, the ladies of the BAU had decided that they could afford a quick night out.
"Okay, so a rum punch for Penelope, a Meet Me in St Germaine for Jordan, a Virgin Strawberry Daiquiri for Jayj, an English Rose for Grace, and a Pornstar Bellini for me," she said, passing them out to their respective recipients. She downed the shot of Prosecco that constituted half of her drink in one and took her place at the little table in the corner that they thought of as their own – when they were in town long enough to go out.
"Thanks," said SA Jordan Todd happily.
"Ooh, that's a fabulous colour," said Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia remarked, eyeing the St Germaine. "Like a party in a glass!" She rearranged the slice of lime and party umbrella in her own drink artfully, then took a quick shot for her Instagram.
"What's in an English Rose?" Jordan asked.
"Tea gin," said SSA Grace Pearce with relish. "Usually Sipsmiths'. And rose petals, elderflower tonic, that kind of thing."
"That is so you," Emily told her and Grace laughed.
"Oh I think I'm much less elegant," she quipped. She twirled a rosebud between her fingertips and grinned. "I am a delicate fucking flower, though."
The others snorted.
"I've missed you crazy ladies," said JJ, with real affection.
Grace gave her a one-armed hug that managed to convey that they had all missed her too, but that this was in no way a reflection on Jordan, who had been serving as her rather harassed maternity cover.
"I can't believe four months have gone so fast," Jordan reflected.
"Uh, yeah," said JJ. "Henry is so big now. It doesn't seem like any time at all!"
"Just a few, short months ago you were a total n00b," Garcia told Jordan, with a grin. "And now you're one of us!"
"One of us! One of us! One of us!" Grace and Emily chorused, making Jordan burst out laughing.
"You know, even now I'm not sure that's such a good thing," she said, only half joking.
"I bet your old team can't wait to get you back," said Grace, kindly.
"Hah, yeah," said Jordan. "I dread to think what they've been doing in my absence."
"Back to Counter Terrorism?" JJ asked.
"Mmhmm," she replied, taking a sip of her drink. "I've got a week to myself after I finish here – and I need it, after what you guys have put me through."
"And I thought counter-terrorism was a tough gig," Emily said.
"Not as tough as yours," she said, raising her eyebrows. "I don't know how you guys do it, day in – day out. I don't envy you your positions at all."
"I guess we're all a little crazy by this point," said Grace. She glanced fondly at Garcia, who was cleaning off the little foil sparkler thing that came with her drink in order to tuck it behind her ear. "If we weren't already."
"Yeah," said JJ, with a laugh. "It's less a job and more of a way of life, at this point."
"You got that right," Emily snorted. "Except for Christmas, I don't remember the last time I had AL."
"How were your mom and dad?" Garcia asked, smirking.
Emily's ongoing struggle to convince her ambassadorial mother that she neither wanted nor needed to attend the dizzying round of social functions that were an essential part of the life of a high-flying political family were a source of constant frustration for her. She was aware that her friends sympathised, but based on the fact that all four of them were sniggering into their drinks right now, she could tell it was also a source of some amusement.
Still, their jobs made them good listeners.
"Urgh, don't get me started," she complained, and then recited a choice selection of infuriating anecdotes from the recent festive season that quickly had them all in stitches. To her surprise, it kind of made her feel better.
By the time she had finished, all five of them had drained their glasses and Jordan departed to the bar.
"So, you still up for a double-date this weekend?" Garcia asked Grace, who nodded.
"Sure. Cinema, right?" she checked, as JJ met Emily's eyes and both had to turn away at the image that came to mind.
"Yeah – Saturday, assuming we're here."
"What're you seeing?" Emily asked.
"Some thriller flick Kevin's really into," Garcia told them, with the air of someone who would have been happier seeing a rerun of Hackers.
"Yeah, Troy's been raving about it, too," said Grace.
"You don't get enough of murder at work?" Jordan asked, amused, setting down a fresh tray of drinks.
"You'd think," Emily laughed.
"I got into the Scandinavian thrillers when I was up all night, breastfeeding Henry," JJ put in. "Spent half my time assessing strategy and figuring out where they'd gone wrong."
"Occupational hazard," said Grace, wryly. "I do it to Agatha Christies – though it has to be said, Miss Marple's pretty much on point in terms of profiling."
"She was ahead of her time," Emily laughed.
"She's kind of my hero," Grace admitted.
"I can totally see that! I think we've found you a new nickname!" Garcia declared, as Grace groaned.
0o0
Jordan stalked through the office, a stack of files under her arm.
This was not how she imagined her final working week to go. But then, this was the BAU she supposed really, she ought to have seen it coming. Her sure-footed ex-dancer's feet took her through the maze of desks and between Emily and SSA David Rossi, who were taking a break from their respective stacks of reports.
"Hey," said Emily, in greeting, but Jordan simply squeezed between the two of them.
"Excuse me," she said, hurrying up the steps towards SSA Aaron Hotchner's office.
Behind her, she heard Rossi mutter, "This isn't good," and Emily's subsequent agreement.
They were not wrong.
Hotch was on the phone when she walked into his office, not even bothering to knock. "We have a request from Alabama," she said, without preamble.
"Have everybody meet in the conference room, I'll be there in ten minutes," he said, effectively dismissing her.
Well no, that wasn't going to work – not this time.
"A husband and wife were murdered at their home while they were sleeping," she told him, before he could tell her to leave. "Their ten year old daughter is missing."
She saw the slight raise of his eyebrow as he accepted the urgency of the situation and did a complete mental one-eighty. "Alright, I'm gonna have to call you back," he said, immediately hanging up the telephone. "When were the bodies discovered?"
"Less than an hour ago," she responded at once.
"What was the Time of Death?"
"Approximately one a.m."
"Eight hours," he reflected, grabbing his go-bag from under the desk.
"I know this isn't a serial," she began, but he waved her objection away.
"No, you're right. Most abducted children don't survive past the first twenty-four hours," he said, striding out of the office.
It was a little like trying to keep up with a contained, single-minded thunderstorm.
"Dave," he said, as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
"What's going on?" Rossi asked, already on high alert.
"We've got a missing ten-year-old girl, home invasion, parents were killed in their sleep," Hotch summarised.
"Where's our clock?" Rossi asked.
"Eight hours and counting."
Emily, who had been listening, nodded curtly and reached for her own go-bag. "I'll find Morgan, Pearce and Reid and tell them we're on the move," she said.
"Good," said Hotch, already leaving. "Wheels up in thirty."
And that was that.
0o0
There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues of human society are created, strengthened and maintained.
Winston Churchill
0o0
Grace scanned through the scant forensic information that had been collected prior to take off. It wasn't much to go on, but with any luck, by the time they landed in Alabama they would have more to go on. The M.E. hadn't even completed the autopsies on the kid's parents yet.
She sighed, glancing at the colourful photograph of a smiling little girl that was clipped to the inside of the folder.
Hang in there, kid, she thought, hoping she was still alive. The odds were against them, though. Most abducted children Katie Hale's age didn't make it past the first twenty-four hours. Grace checked her watch: ten hours down already; twelve by the time they landed and reached the crime scene.
Across from her, Rossi and Emily were absorbing anything they could from their files, while Hotch did the same on the side seat across from the table. Doctor Spencer Reid – who had probably reread the file at least three times by now – was sitting cross-legged towards the back of the jet, mentally reviewing this case and cross-referencing them against the thousands of previous murders he kept in his head. SSA Derek Morgan and Todd were across from him, the former reading a file, the latter liaising with law enforcement on the ground.
Abruptly, Todd picked up her laptop and got to her feet. "We got the uplinks of the crime scene photos," she announced, carrying laptop to the desk and taking a seat beside Grace. "This is Jeff and Nancy hale," she said, as a series of brutal post mortem shots flicked up on the screen. "Both their throats were cut."
Grace nodded, raising an eyebrow at the arcs of arterial spray.
"Any evidence of abuse?" Morgan asked, settling next to Hotch.
"Nothing," said Todd.
"So, they weren't the focus of the unsub's fixation," Grace mused. "They were just in the way."
"Slitting someone's throat is quick and efficient," Reid mused, joining the huddle around the laptop.
"That's because the real target was down the hall," Prentiss reflected, sadly.
Todd subjected Emily to a hollow stare. "She has a name."
Emily met her gaze, surprised. "What?"
"She's not the target," Todd insisted coldly. "Her name's Kate. She's ten years old."
There was a moment when every agent on the jet gave Jordan Todd a slightly weird, slightly wary look. Despite her years in Counter-Terrorism, she was relatively new to murder and particularly to the kind of emotional detachment that was necessary to get through the kind of case the BAU saw, day in day out. It could make her a bit prone to ill-timed outbursts.
"Alright," Emily allowed, as delicately as she could.
"Amber Alert in effect?" Rossi said, gently moving the conversation on as Todd turned her face away, obviously frustrated.
Across from the table, Reid and Morgan shared a brief, speaking look.
"Since 7 a.m. this morning," Todd told them, staring at the corpses of Kate's parents on the screen of her computer.
"She could be anywhere by now," Grace mused.
"Within a four hundred mile radius," Hotch agreed. "Make sure that they're casting a wide enough net."
"Got it," said Todd, making a note and bearing the team's vigilance with reasonable Grace.
"Who discovered the bodies?" Morgan asked.
"Jim Suree, Kate's biological father," Todd explained, checking her file. "He was supposed to take her for the weekend, but the police don't consider him a suspect."
"We'll wanna talk to him anyway," Hotch instructed, and Todd nodded.
"We're also going to need a list of registered sex offenders in a twenty mile radius," Emily added.
Grace nodded, throwing her ten pence in. "And anything the local departments have on people they're concerned about, but who haven't made it into official reports."
"What's the make-up of the Hale neighbourhood?" Reid asked.
"Mostly white and middle-class," said Todd, checking to make sure she had remembered correctly."
"We'll need aerial views of the neighbourhood," said Morgan, as Reid nodded. "If Madison county doesn't have them, talk to Garcia."
Garcia could find anything.
"Dave – you, Pearce and Morgan go to the crime scene," Hotch instructed. "The rest of us will get up to speed at the precinct."
0o0
The Hales had lived in a beautiful, leafy part of the country that reminded Grace of rural villages in the UK. Harvest, Alabama was quiet, with plenty of open spaces, copses of trees and swathes of farmland. It was pleasant and – if it weren't for their grim task – would have been peaceful. The quiet and the countryside would be easy to get lost in; the kind of place that was good for the world-weary copper. Good for predators, too, sadly.
They got out of the departmental SUV and met an officer at the tape line stretched between the trees in front of a modest, well-kept family home. Grace grimaced.
"Bo Whittaker, pleased to meet ya," said the young deputy who had obviously been waiting to brief them. He shook all their hands in turn as they introduced themselves.
"Point of entry's around back," he said in an Alabama drawl, leading them under the tape. "The neighbours didn't see or hear anything and the dogs lost the scent almost immediately."
"Not hard to target a family out here," Morgan reflected sadly.
"Mmm, even in broad daylight," Deputy Whittaker said, waving a hand at the woods that ran almost to the edge of the Hales' property, "head nine feet off the track, can get lost for days."
The four of them stopped beside at homemade swing hanging from a nearby tree. For some reason, it was still swinging, all by itself, as if Katie had just jumped off it. No one could have got through the line of tape and officers, though. Could it have been a gust of wind? Grace glanced around: the day was warm for the time of year and still. Her colleagues didn't appear to have noticed the swing's strange movement, however.
Please don't let that mean she's dead, she thought suddenly, narrowing her eyes.
Stubbornly putting the swing down to a quirk of the vestiges of Katie's presence (or even evidence of an older spirit), she squared her shoulders.
"So, he had plenty of privacy to watch what he was really after," Rossi remarked.
"Kate Hale," she said, watching the swing.
"I prefer cities," Rossi grumbled. "You can see them coming."
Not always, Grace thought, recalling cases she had worked on both sides of the Atlantic. The morass of people in cities made for a different kind of camouflage, but no less effective for those with murder on the mind. She didn't say it aloud, however. It didn't matter, and this wasn't the time to get into social dynamics and hunting grounds in rural versus urban environments.
The men went around the back of the property, but Grace went into the house.
Hotch had sent her a look as they got off the jet that she had interpreted as an invitation to take a look around the crime scene for anything lingering that the other members of the team might miss. The house was reasonably neat, suggesting a happy, active family. Some things were out of place, but no more than might ordinarily be out in a household of two working adults and a bubbly child. There were a couple of dishes in the sink, for example, and a magazine on the couch, a pair of spectacles balanced carelessly on top of it. Nothing that suggested problems; nothing that should be making her feel uncomfortable.
But something was.
It was like an old song at the very edge of hearing – a tune she was sure she ought to recognise, if only she could listen properly. Grace shook her head. It wasn't a spectre (though she could feel the presence of one, in the bedroom, where the Hales had died), of that she was certain. She couldn't put her finger on it.
Someone else's magic…
It made her mind itch.
She walked into the kitchen, taking care to step around the yellow forensic markers denoting items of interest (mostly broken glass, in here), and made her way to the door. Rossi, Morgan and Deputy Whittaker were on the other side of it, frowning at the mess someone had made.
"Not very sophisticated," Rossi observed, prodding a glass shard with a pen and then using it to pull the door open. "Knocked out the pane to unlock the door."
The window had been entirely busted in, the glass strewn on the ground outside and crushed. Grace peered at the fragments thoughtfully. There was a mixture of window pane and coloured glass – but none of the windows she had seen in the Hales' house had stained glass. Brought in from the outside, maybe?
Frowning, she took a picture of it with her mobile phone.
"Got something?" Rossi asked, watching her.
"Don't know," she told him. "Reminds me of something. Not sure what. Something I read, maybe… I don't know."
Bo Whittaker looked up at them with sadness in his eyes. "Do you think the girl's dead?"
Morgan sighed. "Depends on what he took her for."
0o0
"The Hales' neighbourhood is a series of rural roads and one-block streets," said Reid, briskly taking an aerial photo off the board to better consider it at the table.
Aaron watched him, his brow furrowed. "How far to a main thoroughfare?"
"A little over three miles," Reid answered, checking on the map.
"So he didn't come upon Kate by accident." Aaron glanced over at the Sheriff who was coordinating the investigation. Perhaps there was a way to find out how their paths had crossed. "Sheriff Bates?"
"Yessir?" The harassed looking sheriff of a usually quiet part of Alabama hurried over at this summons, happy for any help and eager to do anything he could to bring this child back home safely.
"Kate's father here yet?" Aaron asked him.
"He's on his way," the Sheriff told him.
"Let me know the second he gets here," Aaron instructed, ready to move onto the next consideration.
The Sheriff looked puzzled, however, and he was a good man – simply unused to this kind of mess. "I told ya, we already checked out his alibi. He's not good for this."
"I know," Aaron agreed. "But he might know who is."
"Alright," Bates nodded, understanding, and shot over to the small bank of telephones and computers that was serving as a local hotline.
0o0
Grace stood at the head of Jeff and Nancy Hale's bed, watching the forensics team at work.
The level of violence in the room was compounded by the blood spatter, she knew; the cutting of a throat was the work of but a moment, but it was an act of particular depth and intimacy that spoke both of the unsub's need to dominate and his need for release. It was a method of killing that required strength, conviction and close proximity – not to mention a strong nerve. Unlike other forms of murder there really was no other outcome likely from slashing someone's throat open with a razor; the unsub would know going in that there would be no turning back and have to accept that before striking.
He hadn't needed to kill the parents in order to abduct the girl, that much was obvious from the fact that none of the occupants of the house appeared to have heard the window in the kitchen door shattering. These murders had been something he'd felt compelled to do – without them the abduction would have felt incomplete.
She frowned. It was highly unlikely that this was his first party, as it were. You needed confidence for this kind of killing. Confidence and absolutely no remorse.
Shifting slightly into the shadows of the world, she lifted slightly darkened eyes to the space beside the bed. Of Jeff Hale, there was no sign. His death had truly been the end of him, which was probably a blessing, Grace thought.
Nancy, though, was still there, standing just inside the glass of the mirror, watching Grace watch her.
"I'm sorry," Grace murmured, and the shadow in the mirror dropped her eyes to the bloodstained sheets.
She was already fading, Grace realised, caught between the horror of her death and the desire to protect her daughter. She wouldn't stay for long – a couple more hours at most. They would have to be quick.
"Anything you can tell me will help, if you are able," Grace said, her voice barely above a whisper. It didn't need to be loud; forensic officers and agents were crawling all over the house as it was – somewhere nearby, Morgan would be pacing around Kate's brightly coloured bedroom and Bo Whittaker was briefing Rossi out in the kitchen. They didn't need to hear this. She knew Nancy would. There were only the two of them here, in the liminal space between one breath and the next.
Nancy's shadow continued to stare at the bed she had lived and died in, a dreadful mixture of hers and her husband's blood dripping slowly from her chin and fingertips.
"I will do everything in my power to find the person who did this to you," she murmured.
Abruptly, and with a force that made Grace's head spin and ears pop, Nancy Hale met her gaze with the fierce, bottomless eyes of the recently dead. Words appeared in her mind as if they had been put there, though no one had spoken.
Save her. Save Katie. Save my little girl.
0o0
Emily looked up from the crime scene photos she had been examining on the interrogation table as Jordan Todd came in. Space was at a premium at the Sheriff's Office and she needed to assemble a file that had the most impact to shake a potential suspect – if they ever came up with one. This was looking more and more like a stranger abduction, and they were the hardest to solve.
"Is that the autopsy report?" she asked.
Jordan nodded in a business-like manner, handing it over. "Listen, about the plane –"
"Oh no, it's already forgotten," Emily assured her, her mind on other things.
Some cases got to people, and this one was a bad one – more so for Jordan, who probably still felt misplaced guilt at 'causing' the deaths of Norman Hill's family in California. Though it hadn't been her fault at all it was the kind of thing that stuck with a person. No one was going to hold her chastisement in the jet against her. Besides, she was right: they did separate themselves from the victims; emotional detachment was the only way to get through a case and not break down. Well, that and vodka…
Her thoughts trailed off as her eyes flicked rapidly through the photographs in Nancy Hale's autopsy report.
That can't be right…
"What're you looking at?" Jordan asked, noting the change in her friend's expression.
"It's the neck wounds," Emily told her. "Something's off. Look…"
0o0
"Find anything in Kate's room?" Rossi asked, as Derek came into the bloody bedroom.
Rossi, Pearce and Whittaker were standing around the bed, trying to make sense of the mess of blood and sheets.
"That's what's weird," Derek told them, arriving at the end of the bed. "There's no sign of struggle. Didn't even look like she tried to get out of bed in a hurry."
"The unsub controlled her, made sure she went quietly," Pearce surmised, with a slight frown and a glance to her left; Derek followed her gaze, but there was nothing there. "What if there's more than one of them?" she asked, glancing back again.
It was as if she could see something in the mirror, but there was nothing there – just the room, reflecting it's horror back at them. The gesture wasn't lost on Rossi, either.
"What're you seeing?" he asked.
Pearce looked up, faintly surprised to discover both agents and the deputy looking at her. "Well, who does an unsub go for first?" she reasoned. "If he goes for the girl, the parents might wake up and discover him. So he comes here," she glanced behind her again. "Now who does he kill first?"
"This type of abduction, the man is generally killed first," said Derek, seeing where she was going.
"He's the protector, the bigger threat to the unsub," Rossi added.
"Cutting someone's throat isn't a gentle process." She gestured at the arterial spray on the walls "No one is going to sleep through that, particularly if some of it hits you in the face – but there's no sign of either of the Hales struggling. Which means two unsubs – either murdering the parents at the same time, or one to kill one with a knife, while the other controls the other victim."
Rossi nodded, following her. "Then they can go on to collect Katie undisturbed."
Derek raised an eyebrow. "There's two of them."
Deputy Whittaker looked between three equally sombre expressions. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"There would have to be – otherwise one of the adults would have woken up and alerted Kate," Pearce explained. "The fact that none of our three victims struggled suggests that this didn't happen."
Rossi's cell rang and he picked up. "Rossi. Hey Emily. You're sure? Thanks… That was Prentiss," he said, hanging up and putting his phone away. "She says Jeff Hale died from a single deep cut that severed the carotid artery. Nancy died from a series of shallow, hesitant wounds." He nodded at Whittaker as his fellow agents exchanged speaking looks. "Two unsubs – one highly experienced, confident, one inexperienced, a novice."
"A dominant and submissive partnership?" Derek suggested.
Pearce's eyes slid to the left again. "One older, one younger. Maybe very young. This might be the first time out for one of them. A nephew or a son, perhaps? Someone who the older male has complete control over."
Like a right of passage, Derek thought, but didn't say it aloud. There was nothing to support that yet. He pushed it to the back of his mind in case they needed it later.
"Alright, I gotta radio in and tell people we're lookin' for two perps instead o' one," said Whittaker briskly (or as briskly as he could, with his laconic accent). Rossi nodded and followed the deputy out.
Derek, however, looked back at Pearce, who was once again frowning at the mirror a little way off from her left elbow. "You alright?" he asked.
Surprised, she met his gaze. "Yeah," she replied, looking puzzled. "Why?"
Derek let his eyes go to the part of the mirror she had been so obviously distracted by and Pearce followed his gaze.
"Oh," she said. It struck Derek that she was doing some very quick thinking, though he couldn't guess why she would feel the need. "Massive spider. Went behind the bedside cabinet, though gods know how it fit. It was about the size of my hand. Think that thing could've given a witness statement."
He felt the corner of his mouth lift up and saw the answering smile form on his friend's face. Was it his imagination, or did she look marginally relieved?
"If these walls could talk, huh?" he joked, chuckling and she nodded, passing him on the way out of the door. He peered after her, mildly concerned.
It had been prettily done and she covered it extremely well, but Derek was both a profiler and her friend, and was therefore not so easily fooled.
But what reason could Pearce possibly have to lie?
