Essential Listening: Sunday Morning, by Arstiðir

The whole team reassembled at the Cherry Hill Police Department. They had given Detective Lancaster a ride in with them, which had made the journey a little awkward because of his obvious connection to the case, and Grace was quite pleased to be out of the car, even if one of the other Cherry Hill officers had accidentally jarred her wrist cast with a door on the way in.

The urgency of the situation was not lost on any of them, so she had brushed off his apology with an audible wince and nothing more.

She followed Prentiss, Morgan, Rossi and Detective Lancaster through the main reception and up the stairs to the homicide department, where the rest of the team had set up shop, so to speak.

Hotch and JJ were sitting at a couple of desks, surrounded by a mercifully limited number of files; further in, Reid was laying out stacks of information on each suspect for easier perusal.

"We've narrowed the list to five men," said Hotch, not even looking up as they trailed around the desk.

"Already?" asked Lancaster, surprised.

"The most likely suspect is registered sex offender, Hugh Rollins," said Reid, taping the man's custody picture to a board adjoining that of the victims. "Forty-three, lived in Camden County his whole life. In and out of foster care since he was a toddler and acquired quite the nice rap-sheet."

"What's his connection to the victims?" Morgan asked, as Grace eyed the other four, apparently less favourable candidates on the table.

"Two years ago, he got a city job installing TVs," said JJ.

"Have any of the families purchased a new TV?" Prentiss asked.

"Uh, the first two did," said JJ and grimaced. "Garcia found something else. Rollins had no cell or bank activity on the days the boys were abducted."

Grace's eyebrow involuntarily raised. "That's telling."

Hotch got to his feet, carried by the momentum of the new arrivals. "We haven't been able to confirm Rollins took Kyle yet."

"So, what?" Morgan asked. "Are we gonna wait for more evidence?"

"There's no time. He could be holding Kyle at the house," said Grace, feeling the familiar thrum of needing to be out there doing something, and knowing that her injured wrist would still keep her at command. "And the less time he gets to spend with this kid, the better. Our presence might be accelerating his timeline."

"We have sufficient probable cause," Hotch agreed.

"Alright," said Dave. "Let's go pick him up."

Grace tried not to grimace as they headed out without her. She rummaged in her bag for her painkillers.

"Wrist hurting?" Reid asked, as she wandered up to the board with a bottle of water to wash them down.

"Caught it against a door," she explained and he made an appropriately sympathetic noise. "What do you need me to do?"

0o0

The house was cleared quickly and efficiently after Morgan kicked the door off its frame, and it seemed there was no one at home – which was not good news for Kyle Murphy.

Emily notified Rossi, who notified her back that the truck was clean, then she pulled on her gloves. They would have to work quickly; Kyle obviously wasn't there. She turned on the computer and her eyes were instantly assaulted by a large quantity of child pornography.

"Urgh," she said aloud and announced this fact.

"Probably helps him sleep better at night," came Morgan's dark reply from the bedroom. "Anything that connects him to the three boys?"

"Nothing yet," she said, flicking through the images.

There was comparative peace for a moment, then, "Wait a minute," said Morgan. Emily went to the doorway to Rollins' bedroom to find her friend pulling a black bin liner out of the wardrobe.

"Prentiss," he said, joining her.

"What is it?"

He responded by reaching into the bag and pulling out a brightly coloured stuffed animal, which he dropped unceremoniously onto the computer table.

"Souvenirs."

Both agents grimace as he began unpacking the bag. There were a lot of them; and if each one represented a child, they had a lot more victims to account for.

"I'll check out back," said Lancaster.

Almost as soon as he had opened the door, he yelled "Stop!" Immediately, a shot rang out and they both abandoned the toys, sprinting outside.

"I said stop!"

Did Rollins have a weapon? Emily thought hastily. We didn't profile that!

But the scene she had been expecting: a shoot-out between two armed men, didn't materialise. Instead, she saw an overweight, middle-aged man staggering towards the back fence, while Detective Lancaster lined up his gun sight for another shot – at the man's retreating back.

There was a metallic crash from the side of the house, which suggested Rossi and the other officers had managed to cut through the chain holding the gates together.

Morgan took one look at the situation and forced Lancaster to lower the gun.

"What are you doing?" the agent yelled.

"He's getting away!"

"He knows where the kid is! Stand down!"

Emily held Lancaster in place while Morgan ran to the back fence where Rollins, clearly unaccustomed to feats of athleticism, was trying unsuccessfully to haul himself up the high fence.

"Son of a bitch!" Lancaster shouted.

Morgan was on him in an instant.

"Ahh! No! No!" the man cried, as the agent prised him off the wire fence. "No! Please! Don't hurt me!"

Morgan slammed him to the ground and turned him over, yelling into his face, "I'm FBI! Now, stop resisting!"

"Okay!" Rollins wailed. "Don't hurt me! Please!"

0o0

Derek exchanged a dark look with Prentiss as the two uniformed officers led Hugh Rollins, registered sex offender and definite serial killer, to their squad car. It had taken some time to get him to calm down and he was still whimpering.

So far, he hadn't offered up anything about Kyle's whereabouts, which wasn't a huge surprise.

Still, Derek thought, it might have gone a whole lot smoother if Lancaster hadn't tried his damnedest to shoot the bastard.

With this in mind, he strode over to the detective.

"What the hell was that about?" he demanded.

"I thought he might get away," Lancaster explained, quietly. Some of the adrenaline seemed to have left him and he looked faintly apologetic. "I wasn't thinking."

"You're damn right you weren't!" Derek snapped.

The manufactured calm Detective Lancaster had been manifesting fell away in an instant. Again, he was every inch the aggrieved man, dealing with a close, personal trauma. "Alright, I know! It was stupid."

"What if you'd killed him?" Derek asked. He wasn't entirely sure he'd drummed the point home, and he'd have to be. "He's the only one who knows where Kyle is."

Lancaster glared at him, anger barely contained. "I said, I know," he growled.

"Look, Lancaster," said Derek, more quietly, deciding he needed to take it down a notch. "I've been where you are. I was a cop, too. That's why I knew this wasn't a good idea. You are way too close."

"I'm not gonna sit still, and I'm not gonna stop until we find Kyle," the other man retorted, stamping away.

Rossi and Prentiss, who Derek had spotted coming out of the house a few minutes earlier, but who had been giving both men a little space, joined him.

"Kyle's not in the house," said Rossi, pulling off his gloves.

"No," said Prentiss, following suit. "And if he isn't on this property –"

"He's already in the woods," Rossi finished heavily.

The three agents shared a grim expression.

"So, Rollins goes to the trouble of breaking into the Murphy's house," Prentiss began, breaking the silence.

"It's a big risk to take Kyle," Rossi added.

"Then he only keeps him for a few hours?" She shook her head. "This doesn't make."

Rossi grimaced. "Maybe he saw the news, panicked. We need to search the woods."

0o0

The knock on the window was all Dave needed to hear.

He prowled around the table in the interview room, looming purposefully over Rollins. If they could make him sweat, maybe he'd tell them where he'd hidden Kyle. It was the kid's last hope.

"That means that the parents have identified the toys that we found in your closet," he told the man, who had gone pale with fear. "They belong to their boys. It's over for you."

Rollins nodded slightly, mostly to himself, and Dave took this as a positive sign. Carefully, he took the photograph of Kyle out of the file and placed it on the table in front of Rollins' cuffed hands.

"Where's Kyle Murphy?"

Rollins shook his head. "I don't know."

"That's not going to help you," Dave told him sternly. He pulled out the other two pictures and laid them either side of Kyle's. "Andy Losier, he was eleven. Jimmy Seeger, he was nine."

He watched as Rollins' face gained some of the colour, pleased to see the faces of the boys he had murdered once more.

"But Kyle," Dave continued, keeping the man's attention. "He's only seven. You keep going younger."

Dave took a seat across from Rollins, who was looking at Kyle's picture. He swallowed hard.

"Guys like you don't last very long in Trenton State," Dave told him, feeling his way towards the edges of Rollins' fears, working out just where to push. "Did you know that the inmates there watch the news every night? I bet they're looking forward to getting you all alone. Life in Trenton might as well be a death sentence." He waited until the other man was visibly trembling before asking, "Are you sure you don't wanna tell me where Kyle is?"

Rollins' eyes slid up to meet his own. "If I tell you about this kid, I'm not going to Trenton?"

Dave didn't agree – but he didn't say 'no' either. He just let the possibility hang in the air and Rollins' fear do all the work.

Rollins shook his head again – a nervous tic, Dave suspected. "I want that written down."

0o0

"He's gonna confess to killing Kyle?" Lancaster asked, as Aaron and Dave followed him into his office.

"He's desperate," Dave told him. "Knows he won't survive state prison."

"The DA's not going to offer a deal until he has more evidence linking Rollins to Kyle," Aaron explained, watching the detective with a certain amount of caution.

Although Detective Lancaster had been accommodating and helpful, he was also a bit of a loose cannon, if what Morgan had told him about his performance at Rollins' house was anything to go by. Aaron knew from bitter personal and professional experience how difficult it could be keeping a thing at arm's-length if you were emotionally compromised – particularly if the victim you knew was a child. He also knew that neither he nor any of his team would be able to step back, so he was allowing the detective a certain amount of leeway in that respect.

It meant monitoring the man's behaviour pretty closely, which was difficult on top of managing every other aspect of the case. He just hoped it didn't come back and bite them all in the ass later on.

"What about the toys?" Lancaster asked.

"The Seegers IDed one, but Dan couldn't," Rossi explained, to Lancaster's obvious frustration.

"He never delivered a television to the Murphy's house," said Aaron.

"So, he saw him some other way," he retorted. "Look, we have this guy. He's about to confess. He's done everything the same, let's nail 'im."

Dave shook his head. "He won't confess without the deal."

"We need more evidence," Hotch insisted.

"Well, what if we find Kyle?" Lancaster asked. "That'll prove it, won't it? What about the woods?"

And what if he isn't dead? Aaron thought. This guy has made up his mind that all hope for his friend's boy is lost. Well, sometimes it takes people that way…

"We have over a hundred thousand acres to cover," he pointed out.

It wasn't like they could just snap their fingers and magic the child's body into the open.

Fleetingly, his thoughts turned to Pearce, but then, if that was something she could do he suspected she already would have done it. And only admitted it to him if she thought she might get caught.

"He's out there, somewhere!" Lancaster declared hotly and strode out, presumably to round people up for another search. "I'm not sticking around here."

No, and you think that what we're doing now is a waste of time, thought Aaron, but forbore from saying it aloud.

He shared a speaking look with Dave.

"He's too close to this," he said, by which both men understood that he meant 'he's bordering on irrational, we need to keep an eye on that'.

Dave sighed. "We've warned him."

Not much else they could do than that.

"Actually, I would like some physical evidence that Rollins was in that house," he mused. "Take Reid over there, he's got fresh eyes. And have Pearce talk to the brother. He might recognise Rollins' picture."

Dave nodded. "Rollins is scared. He's ready to talk."

"I'll see what I can do," said Aaron, who didn't relish another argument with the DA's office, but sometimes, that was the job.

0o0

Dan Murphy let them into the house, which was more of a centre of forensic operations at this point than a home, and agreed to let her speak to his oldest son while Reid and Rossi went over the scene again.

His eyes followed them up the stairs, so Grace asked after Sarah, who had apparently taken refuge upstairs and hadn't come down for an hour or two. Dan looked particularly apologetic about this.

"Sometimes people just need to take a little time to regroup, particularly in cases like this," grace told him gently. "It's a lot – as you are discovering."

He nodded. "I just wish there was something either of us could do to bring Kyle back," he said miserably.

"All you can do right now – aside from helping us with our inquiries, as you have been – is look after yourselves and one another, so he has a strong foundation to come home to," she told him.

Dan swallowed. "Do you think – would you mind if I checked on my wife?"

"Not at all," she replied, thinking it might actually be easier to talk to Danny without the turmoil and fear each of his parents was presently feeling being in the room and directing his answers or impacting his emotions. "Maybe you'd both feel a little stronger after a cup of tea?"

"That's – yes," said the man, his voice cracking. "I'll just –"

He hurried out of the room in the general direction of the kitchen. Grace's heart went out to the man. The more time passed, the less likely it was that Kyle would be coming home, and it looked like the Murphys were beginning to realise this. Still, the team had been surprised by the return of victims for whom all hope had dissipated before. If she had been a religious person, Grace would have prayed that Kyle would be among those happy few.

Instead, she counted to one hundred under her breath and headed for the family room, which was on the far side of the open-pan kitchen.

Dan Murphy was in one half, by the kettle, trying to disguise the fact he had been overcome with emotion. Grace politely pretended that she hadn't seen and went to see Kyle's brother, who was quietly piecing parts of a model fighter jet together and entirely ignoring Cartoon Network.

"Hi," she said, and he looked up.

"Hello."

It hasn't hit him properly yet, she thought.

"That's coming on," she remarked, nodding towards the model, which had been much less assembled when she had seen it that morning.

"I might get to finish it today," he said, holding it up for inspection. "Can't play outside, or in my room."

Grace nodded. "I imagine it's a bit of a strange day all round," she said, and he nodded too.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

He looked down at his knees for a moment. "Is it about Kyle?"

"Yes."

He hesitated, pulling a face, then looked over his shoulder to see where his father was, but Dan had just left the room carrying a tray of tea for Sarah.

"Okay," he said, at last.

He put the model down and picked up the next piece of wing, turning it over and over in his hands.

"Thank you," said Grace, sitting cross legged on the floor beside him, which was a little awkward because of her wrist. She took out the mugshot they had taken of Rollins. "Danny, could you look at this picture for me?"

Without meeting her gaze, he took the photograph and dutifully stared at it. There was no flicker of recognition there, but she asked anyway. "Have you seen this man around?"

"No," he said, shaking his head.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." He looked up at her, frowning. "Who is he?"

"Just someone we think might have been in the neighbourhood," she replied, in an even tone. She took the picture back and Danny went back to twiddling the plane part around in his hands. "Have any of yours or Kyle's friends had a new TV in the last few months, do you know?"

Danny thought for a moment, obviously confused about this line of questioning. "No," he said at last.

"Sure?"

"Yeah. Cole got a new computer last week," he offered. "His sister, Becki, is going to college so he's got her old one."

Grace made a mental note, but it sounded unlikely to come to anything. Even if Rollins' company had sold Becki and Cole's family the computer, he would have been unlikely to be in their house. Still, they could check. You never knew. Sometimes the weirdest of life's coincidences were the ones that set off awful chains of events like the one this family were presently dealing with.

"Thanks, Danny."

He gave a half shrug, chewing his lip. Grace watched him for a moment, wondering at the private hell he must be going through.

"I bet you miss Kyle, huh?" she said.

He shrugged again. "I don't know. I guess. He's so annoying!"

Grace couldn't help the slight smile that crept onto her face at that.

"Everyone's brothers are annoying," she remarked, thinking of Morgan and of Max, back in London. "You shouldn't feel guilty."

"I don't," Danny said shortly, looking directly at her. "I don't."

0o0

They had pulled up at a popular picnic spot in Wharton State Forest, not far from where Andy and Jimmy had been found. Already, Lancaster was organising the searchers, setting up areas, deploying his officers.

Derek knew the signs. The man couldn't bear to not be doing anything, not with Kyle still unaccounted for.

"I'm gonna take them this way," he was saying, to one of his people. "How about you head out over there?"

Derek reached them just as the officer moved away, already corralling his team and heading West, into the woods.

"We swept the entire area where the first two victims were found," he said, looking at the map Reid had pushed into his hands before everyone but Hotch and JJ had left the Police Department.

Lancaster sighed, looked around, then said, "What if he went further south?"

"Why?" Prentiss asked, following the man's gaze.

"There's a service road down that way," Lancaster told them, pointing.

Derek frowned. "That's not on this map."

"Yeah, it's not marked," said the detective. "But it would have been his fastest way in and out of here."

And this is why local knowledge is vital, Derek thought. If Rollins got spooked, then he might have wanted the most expedient way to dispose of the body.

From the sounds of it, Emily agreed. "Well, we know Rollins didn't spend a lot of time with Kyle."

Derek nodded grimly. He gestured to Detective Lancaster to lead the way. "Let's go."

0o0

"If he came in through the basement, this would have been the second flight of stairs," said Rossi, as he and Spencer walked up them.

They had been poring over the parts of the house Rollins would have gone through in order to commit the crime. First the basement, then the hallway; now the stairs.

"So, Kyle's would have been the first room he comes to," he said aloud, pulling his gloves on.

Following Rossi inside, he raised his eyebrows at the destruction inside. Toys and bedclothes had been strewn everywhere. Kyle must have put up one hell of a fight.

"This wasn't a quiet struggle," he remarked. "He must have knocked Kyle unconscious."

"Then carried him back downstairs," Rossi finished.

Spencer nodded. "What's through here?" he asked, noticing a second door.

"Danny's room."

There was a small, colourful shared bathroom linking the two bedrooms. Nothing appeared out of place, so Spencer walked straight through to Danny's room.

"It's interesting," he mused. "Another few feet and he would have found Danny. Danny's far more age-appropriate for Rollins' preferences. He's closer to the first two victims than Kyle is."

"If he'd been stalking these families, he would have known that."

Rossi frowned as Spencer took in the highly organised, unnaturally tidy bedroom. Apparently Danny was an especially fastidious child. The only things that had apparently been disturbed were the bunk beds, which had both been slept in, the covers kicked off.

"That' weird," he remarked, crossing to the bed.

"What, a neat nine year old?" Rossi queried, also picking up on the strange neatness.

"Well that," said Spencer, aware that nine year olds came in all varieties, including those who clung to order to survive school. "And most kids either pick a top or a bottom bunk. Both beds are slept in."

He squatted down beside the lower bunk and looked up. Someone had stuck glow in the dark stars above the top bunk, but they might as well have not been there.

"The top bunk blocks the view of the stars and there's nothing decorative down here."

"It's Danny's room," Rossi reasoned, joining him beside the bed. "He probably sleeps up top."

Spencer sniffed and lifted the covers on the bottom bunk an inch. "Somebody wet the bed. You know… maybe Danny started in the bottom bunk, wet the bed and then moved up top?"

A nice, neat explanation – except… something about it just didn't feel right. He glanced at Rossi, who had extracted a garish blue rabbit from under a fold of the duvet. Frowning, the senior agent opened his file and hunted through it for a moment, until he found a picture of the family together.

Spencer followed his gaze: it wasn't Danny holding the rabbit in the photograph.

"This is Kyle's," Rossi realised. They shared a look and both started looking around again in earnest.

Under the bed were a crumpled pair of pyjama bottoms. Spencer checked the size on the waistband.

"Size six. Kyle slept in here last night." He frowned. "If he didn't sleep in his room, why was it destroyed?"

Rossi thought for a moment, his expression darkening. Spencer felt his pulse pick up. Was he thinking the same thing? Had they read this whole thing wrong?

"To make it look like the other crime scenes."

0o0

It had taken some persuading, but finally the DA had agreed to offer Rollins a deal in exchange for the location of Kyle Murphy – preferably alive, but either way. Aaron read it through once more, the paper still hot from the printer, then went straight to the interrogation room where Rollins was stewing.

He pushed it across the desk, in no mood to bargain with a man who had sexually assaulted and strangled at least two, possibly three boys.

Still, needs must when the devil drives – and don't we see too many of them, in this line of work!

"Here's your deal," he told him. "'Club Fed'."

"Where is that?" the other man asked, glancing at the agreement in front of him.

"Any Federal prison of your choice in New Jersey," said Aaron, watching Rollins take in the DA's signature and those of two local judges. "Where's Kyle Murphy?"

Rollins looked up, took a breath as if to steady himself and said, "I threw him in the river."

Aaron's eyes immediately narrowed.

Oh, he thought. Oh, no.

"You – didn't take him back to the woods?"

Rollins shook his head. "No. I didn't have time."

I have to be sure, Aaron thought. "You threw him in the Delaware River?" he asked aloud.

"Yes."

"He could be anywhere," Aaron observed.

"Well, I suppose that's so," said Rollins.

Aaron watched his micro-expressions closely. "We may never find him."

"I guess that's true." Rollins looked at the table, no longer meeting Aaron's eyes.

"You didn't throw him in the river," Aaron told him, and the expression on the other man's face was as close to a deer in headlights as he had seen in a long time. "You need more control than that. You need to know exactly where the body is so you can go back and live it over and over again."

Rollins swallowed as Aaron unzipped his compulsions; it was probably the only time Rollins had heard any of his behaviour described aloud, particularly in such a clinical way. It was one of those things you saved for when you knew someone was on the edge – the mental and emotional impact could be immense. And useful.

"Tell me the truth," he insisted, leaning over the table and getting right in the frightened paedophile's face.

Rollins' mouth worked for a moment, but he seemed to be unable to speak. Aaron read what he needed right off the man's face.

He snatched up the DA's offer and left the room.

Hugh Rollins had not murdered Kyle Murphy; which meant they were chasing the wrong ghosts. And Kyle, wherever he was, didn't have that kind of time.