Essential Listening: Monsters, Band of Horses

0o0

It hadn't taken JJ long to put the files together for the display, and Grace had helped Garcia find and put up a map of the (regrettably immense) crime scene area, while Prentiss phoned the guys. They'd all trooped in wearing roughly what equated to 'civvies'. In most cases, this wasn't much different to what they wore at work – the girls were dressed for going out, of course, badges pinned to wherever they could – but Hotch didn't even look like he'd left.

Not for the first time, Grace wondered if he had some hidden room at Quantico somewhere – like the bat-cave, but for suits.

Prentiss and Grace were heading back to the situation room when SSA Derek Morgan arrived. He wolf-whistled at them and nudged Dr Spencer Reid in the ribs, as if to say 'Look at that'.

They ignored him. Grace wasn't in much of a joking mood right now. She'd seen the case file.

"You're wearing a dress," Reid observed, as they fell into step together – Morgan had veered off to collect Gideon, en-route.

Grace looked down at herself.

"Oh God, is that what it is? I've been wondering all evening!" she exclaimed.

She took off her shoes and hung them on the back of the chair; Reid stared at her.

"What?" she asked. "You try concentrating on corpses in heels."

He raised his eyebrows, and she guessed that he wasn't too put out by her abrupt manner because there was a hint of amusement about his eyes.

"They pinch," she said, by way of an explanation, and handed him a case file.

His expression soured as he opened it.

Grace took a chair as he assimilated information at a disturbing pace.

She knew that he wouldn't mind her sarcasm too much. He knew how much she disliked dressing up for nights out, and she was reasonably certain he'd been playing on that.

He tapped his fingertips on the back of her chair as they both read and reread the files.

Though they had all been very welcoming to someone who might be described variously as an enemy invader, a bit of a mystery and a right pain in the arse, she and Reid had become pretty close rather quick.

They understood each other's need for quiet, and for uncomplicated company. They both had parents who, as much as they loved them, had lost their minds. They'd both been through hell in the last year. They had been there for each other when they'd really, really needed it.

The result was that Grace was spending a good deal more time on Reid's sofa than in her officially billeted room at Quantico, and that Reid's recent emotional problems were melting away faster than anyone could have predicted.

This was not going unnoticed by the team.

No one had said anything, but these were some of the best profilers in the world. Grace could feel them watching her whenever Reid was around.

Emily was doing it now, in fact.

Grace met her gaze and the other agent flashed a grim smile before returning her attention to the case file in her hands.

She shifted in her seat, suddenly aware of how close Reid was standing. His proximity didn't bother her – and she didn't give a hoot what people might make of their friendship – but she knew it would bother Spencer if he ever noticed that it was happening.

It was only a matter of time before someone started a staff betting pool on the two of them.

Given how absorbed he became when he read, this was currently quite unlikely. He only ever noticed people watching him when he felt guilty – his inability to lie was endlessly endearing – and as far as he and Grace were concerned, they had no reason to feel guilty at all. They were friends, and that was that.

He shifted away from her when JJ came in, wanting a better view of the screen. The assembled agents arranged themselves around the room as she flicked through to the right slide.

"A year ago, victims and their vehicles disappeared from Washington State. They were found two-hundred miles away in the remote woods of Idaho," she began, as Morgan and Gideon strolled in.

She clicked her remote and two sets of crime scene photos flashed up on the screen.

"Courtney Jacobs, twenty-four, and Shane Everett, twenty-five."

She hit the button again and the images shifted to display the victims' unusual wounds. Grace sat forward, frowning. Something was off about them – they weren't bullet wounds, as far as she could tell.

"Autopsy revealed similar entry and exit wounds through the chest," JJ added.

"Ballistics?" Morgan asked, stirring his coffee.

JJ shook her head.

"No bullets were found."

"I don't think we're looking at bullet wounds," said Grace, running speculative fingers over the autopsy report in her file.

"Some kind of stab wound?" Garcia asked, perplexed.

"No, not quite…" slowly, she shook her head. The answer was on the tip of her brain. She could feel it.

"It looks like they were out there for a long time before they were killed," Prentiss mused, flicking through her file.

"At least six or seven days," JJ confirmed.

"What happened in that week?" Morgan wondered aloud.

Garcia winced.

"I don't wanna know," she said, quickly.

"Look at the way they're dressed," said Reid, thoughtfully. He pointed at the next set of pictures. "They didn't voluntarily go into the woods like that."

Grace nodded. Wrong shoes, wrong jacket… they looked more like they were heading to work than into the woods.

"Yeah, neither did this man:" JJ clicked the button and a fresh set of image flashed up. "Found yesterday with similar wounds," she told them. "There's still no ID."

"Okay," said Garcia, scribbling a note in the back of her diary. "So I'm gonna look for missing persons in Washington."

"Look everywhere," Gideon advised as she turned to go. "We don't know where this victim came from. We only know where he ended up."

Garcia nodded at him on her way out of the door.

"Kills both males and females," Reid observed.

"Victims are found with their clothes on," Hotch added. "No degradation, no experimentation – doesn't look like he's interested in either."

"A serial killer with no sexual preference?" Prentiss asked.

"That'd be a first," Reid remarked, surprised.

"Maybe they're not getting off on the kill," Grace theorised. "Maybe it's the chase."

Like us, she added, mentally.

They reassessed the files in front of them.

"Broken nose – and bark's embedded in his face," said Hotch, scanning the crime scene photo for the latest victim. "Looks like he ran into a tree."

"Now, how do you miss a huge tree?" Morgan wondered aloud, tearing his eyes from the map of Idaho Grace and Garcia had tacked to the wall, earlier.

"Too busy looking behind you," said Hotch.

Grace frowned, flicking back through the file to the autopsy report. She scan read the list of injuries.

"None of these are defensive wounds," said Reid, as Grace came to the same conclusion.

"Courtney Jacobs' hands are torn up," Prentiss pointed out.

"Shane Everett's only got one shoe on," Morgan added, thoughtfully. "It's like he ran out of the other one."

"They sustained numerous injuries and just kept going," said Hotch.

"Fear can make you reckless," Grace murmured.

"Only on thing you run that hard for," said Gideon, darkly. "Your life."

The thought that had been hovering on the edge of Grace's consciousness finally bubbled to the surface.

"They're arrow wounds," she said, suddenly. "Clean puncture wound, through and through, no bullets or gunshot residue…"

"Arrow wounds?" Morgan echoed, peering over her shoulder as she squinted at the autopsy photo of the first victim.

"That's why all the wounds are straight through." She pulled out the scale measure that was printed on the edge of every autopsy page and lined it up against the picture.

"There's no fragmentation, so we're looking at alli's, not carbons… 0.5 or 0.8mm."

She looked up, suddenly aware that the room had gone quiet. "Aluminium, not carbon fibre," she elaborated. "I did archery on the weekend when I was at high school."

"Arrow wounds," said Hotch, nodding slowly. He glanced up at Gideon and met his gaze. He gave his friend a grim smile.

"They're being hunted."

0o0

'One man's wilderness is another man's theme park' – Author Unknown

0o0

The mood on the jet was quiet.

Oh, they'd got their guys alright – the Mullford brothers were both gently cooling on a mortuary table in Idaho, along with three of their victims. No case involving a death could ever be described as 'good', but sometimes the completion of a tough investigation could be greatly satisfying.

This, Grace reflected, wrapping yarn around her fingers, was not one of those cases. The sheer quantity of drivers' licenses that had been pinned to the inside of the Mullfords' kitchen cupboards was a staggering testament to three (maybe even four) decades of 'hunting accidents'.

Three decades of people that no one had been able to help.

They hadn't deserved what they'd got, and while it was difficult to feel bad for the brothers, Grace had to concede that they really hadn't known any better. Living in almost complete isolation within their uncle's skewed world view had programmed them to be serial killers from a young age. The propagation of a tradition from one generation to the next – killing without compulsion.

Because that's just what you did in hunting season.

She sighed, deftly twisting her hook through the yarn.

It was like a page out of an instruction manual: How to Build a Serial Killer in Six Easy Steps.

She snipped the end of her yarn and wove in the ends, nodding at Morgan as he came back from chatting with the pilot. He joined Prentiss at the table across from Grace; she too, looked lost in her own thoughts. She glanced up as Morgan sat down and then continued to stare out of the window.

"You okay?" he asked, settling in.

Emily gave him a half-smile and made a non-committal sort of sound. Grace knew how she felt.

"I've never seen you look so, um…" Morgan continued, looking away.

"Quiet?"

Morgan shrugged.

"What's up?"

Prentiss took a breath.

"Bobby Baird asked me a question that's sticking with me," she explained, tiredly.

"What was it?" he asked, gently.

"She asked me how they could do it," she told him. "How those men could hunt and kill people in the woods."

Morgan looked away for a moment and Grace's crocheting slowed right down. It was a sticking-with-you kind of question.

"What'd you tell her?" Morgan asked.

"That they don't think like we do," said Prentiss. "But the truth is that we do think like them," she finished, sounding deeply uncomfortable.

"Yeah, we do," said Morgan, understanding her mood. "Because it's our job. We need to know how it feels."

There was a pause as Prentiss tried to marshal all her thoughts into some sort of cogent order. She needed to get this out there – needed Morgan to reassure her, if he could.

"We hunt these people every day," she said, slowly. "The question is, how different are we – us and them?"

Morgan nodded and they both fell silent.

Grace finished another crocheted flower and tucked her work away inside her bag.

The answer, of course, was 'not that different at all'.

There had been times when Grace had been afraid of what she might do – aware of that darkness that hid inside every 'normal' person, just waiting for its chance to burst forth and wreak havoc. The trick, as far as Grace could tell, was keeping it under wraps. Choosing to ignore that part of you that denied the humanity of the people around you and not barging them out of the way on a busy street, our keying your ex's car, or smashing that bottle of alcopop into that bitch's face.

It came down to who you wanted to be, and that was a question that Grace had asked herself a lot over the last few years.

Some people, like Simon, found ways to justify the darkness – others never felt they needed to. She'd come across a lot of people who had just ignored the question altogether, and more, still, who had been unable to resist their own, personal darkness, no matter their intentions.

Being able to see it in people was part of being a copper, when you were often obliged to watch it bubble up to the surface at a football match, or outside a nightclub.

Thanks to their uncle, the Mullford brothers hadn't even known that there was a question.

Grace sighed and went to make a drink. Sometimes this job sucked.

Her pocket buzzed: she frowned at the name on the screen. She had transferred the bare minimum of contacts to her new phone, but she hadn't seriously expected anyone to call. She checked her watch before answering.

"Why are you even awake? It's like two thirty in the morning there."

"Hello to you, too," the phone groused and Grace smiled, unable to stop herself. She had missed the girl's voice.

"Alright Alice, what's up?"

She extracted her box of teas from the cupboard, glad that she'd remembered to bring some this time. She didn't know how they managed it, but American tea tasted all kinds of wrong.

"I'm bored," Alice complained. "Dad's out, Cross Bones is empty. Max and Sophie moved out a week ago – I've already cleaned the flat three times. I'm bored!"

Grace laughed quietly, aware that some of her team mates were trying to sleep.

"I figured you'd still be up – and you haven't called me since you got there."

"I know, our kid. I've been busy…"

"You promised," Alice whined; Grace suppressed a grin as she balanced the phone on her shoulder. She could pretty much hear her friend pouting.

"I know, I know," she said, "but you really ought to be asleep."

"Why?" Alice demanded. "I don't have a tutor on a Sunday and there's nothing else to get up for."

There was a pause where Grace could here a teaspoon clinking against a mug. Clearly a chat and a cuppa were in her immediate future, whether she approved of Alice's nocturnal habits or not.

"It's been really boring since you left," her young friend complained. "Nothing ever happens anymore."

Grace snorted.

"You mean to tell me that the entire criminal underworld collapsed just because I left the country?" she scoffed. "I'm flattered."

Reid, who had wandered over in search of a snack, raised his eyebrows at her. She rolled her eyes and nodded at the phone as Alice continued, "You know what I mean. You make things happen. Things happen around you – you're a 'happener'. Things are more lively when you're around. Now it's just… dull."

"It's not as much fun as it sounds," Grace said quietly, hoping that Reid had missed the cloud that had passed over her features as she'd squeezed past him. "And speaking on behalf of innocent bystanders, it's not much fun for anyone within a two-mile radius of me."

She slumped back into her seat; Prentiss had, by this point, put her headphones in – though Grace was fairly sure she hadn't turned her MP3 player on. Morgan had drifted back to the other end of the jet.

Even so, she lowered her voice when she said: "I wish I could stop them happening at all."

She rubbed her face. Alice, who was clearly reassessing her part of the conversation, apologised.

"I didn't mean –"

"I know you didn't, love. It's been a long day."

She sighed. There was a pause at the other end of the line; Grace braced herself. She could always tell when Alice had bad news, her pattern of breathing changed.

"You got another letter," she said, in a small voice.

"Burn it," said Grace, without hesitation. "And anything else that comes through. I want no part in it."

"You can't just run away, Grace," said Alice, with the hint of an apology in her voice. "A wise woman once told me that it doesn't matter how long you ignore something for, it doesn't make it go away."

Grace stirred her tea, speculatively.

"Perhaps she wasn't as wise as either of us thought," she said, wearily.

She heard Alice sigh. Both women knew that any letter that arrived from now on would be consigned to the flames.

"What's your new team like?" Alice asked, changing the subject.

"They're really great," Grace smiled. JJ brushed past her on her way to the tiny kitchen. "They've all been really welcoming. You'd love them."

"Well, that's something," said Alice, and both women smiled, aware that Alice ever speaking to any of them would constitute some kind of minor miracle, given how shy she was. There was the sound of a packet of biscuits being opened. "Have you found a flat, yet?"

"No – although Garcia has lined up some viewings for me tomorrow."

"Nice places?"

"No idea," Grace chuckled. "She told me to trust in her super powers, so we'll see."

"She has super powers?" Alice sounded impressed.

"She does when it comes to finding things," Grace said. "We could probably do with one of her at Cross Bones, except I'm pretty sure they broke the mould."

0o0o0o0

"I have to admit, when you said 'super powers', you really meant it."

Garcia grinned, contentedly picking cranberries out of her muffin.

"Ask and thy will receive," she teased, as Grace leafed through the three prospective properties left to see. They had spent a cheerful but exhausting morning looking over flats and houses within an easy commute of Quantico. It was lucky, she supposed, that she had sold her own house over a year previously and didn't have to wait for her father's to sell. It gave her a few more options.

"There's always a silver lining," she said, aloud, rereading the details of the 'inner city apartment' she was seriously considering.

"What's that?" Garcia chirped, dusting off her hands.

"Hmm?" said Grace, who hadn't realised she'd spoken. "Oh, er – nothing."

She saw Garcia's eyes narrow as she glanced up. You couldn't spend every day with a bunch of profilers without picking up a thing or two.

Pre-emptively, Grace gathered the papers together.

"Where to next?" she asked, stuffing the remains of her own muffin in her mouth.

Garcia pulled out a purple, glittery notebook that never failed to make Grace smile.

"We've got three more," she told her, crossing appointments off her list. "These ones are a little further out –" she tapped the invisible boundary of Quantico and its environs on the map, "– nice areas, quieter than the city." She glanced at her new friend. "I wasn't sure which you'd prefer."

"Either," Grace shrugged. "I grew up in the country, moved to a town when I was a teenager and lived in central London for years."

"And now?" Garcia asked, picking up her electric orange handbag.

"I'm not sure," Grace admitted, following suit, She nodded to the waitress as she followed Garcia out the door, towards her fabulous car. "Washington has a different quality of loud, from what I've seen so far."

"You really liked that apartment up town, huh?"

"Guilty," Grace laughed and they grinned at one another. "But it wouldn't hurt to look at the last few. You never know."

0o0

"Thanks," said Grace, as the broker hurried off to another meeting.

"No problem, ma'am – have a nice day!"

Grace shook her head as he drove off.

"What?" Garcia asked.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to how nice everyone is over here." She shuddered and Garcia laughed at her. "It's like being stuck inside an episode of The Waltons or something."

They walked to the car. Garcia watched Grace, speculatively.

"You still set on that apartment, up town?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Grace, leaning against Esther's bodywork. "That second one with the pool was very tempting. Bit out of my price range," she added, on Garcia's nod. "I wasn't fond of that last one, though."

They both looked across the street at the house they had just come from.

"Why?" asked Penelope, gazing at it. "It's nice enough."

Grace briefly toyed with telling her new friend that she was one hundred percent certain that the house was haunted, but dismissed the idea. What if she told the others at the BAU? Being British made her weird enough in the office as it was.

"I just didn't like the vibe, is all," she said, after a while. "I love the area though…"

Garcia snorted.

They both knew that Grace was referring to the second to last house they had seen. It had started out at the bottom of the list for several reasons, not least because Grace had been intending to rent a place, rather than buy it. The elderly couple that had shown them around had been lovely, though, and had kept both women entertained with their jokes and bickering – so much so that they had nearly missed the next appointment entirely.

When they arrived, the old woman had been chasing off the realtor with a pair of gardening shears; the man had unwisely suggested they cut down the vast array of roses in the front yard to make the property more saleable. Grace had neatly ended the argument by pointing out that she was here for a viewing and she thought the roses were beautiful. The realtor had fled.

The house had a larger garden out back, and Garcia had caught Grace looking out at it with a faintly proprietorial air, planning where she would put the vegetable patch. She had assured her friend that she was only looking for rental properties, but with a little less conviction than before. Then the old man had shown her the library, a large but oddly cosy room at the back of the house – almost an extension of the garden, the way the wisteria and tomatoes were trying to get in through the window – and Grace had gone very quiet indeed.

It was two streets away, and both women knew that if Grace thought the area was okay, her mind was entirely on that house.

"Yeah," said Garcia, keeping one eye on Grace. "It's really pretty around here – and not too far from the AMTRACK. Only a thirty minute commute. It's peaceful."

They both leaned on the bonnet of the brilliantly orange car and gazed up at the late spring sky. It was cloudless and sunny today; all around them were the sounds of people industriously enjoying the weekend weather. Across the street, a group of children were leaping in and out of a sprinkler that had been set up on someone's front lawn, shrieking happily. The middle-aged couple next door were leaning on their fence and watching them, clearly greatly entertained by this display of innocent exuberance. People were walking their dogs, fixing their cars, playing with their kids.

"Makes you wonder how many of them are serial killers, huh?"

Grace snorted.

"Pretty much," she said, stretching her legs. "Still, the illusion is pleasant. I think I saw an ice-cream shop a couple of streets back – can I tempt you?"

"You already bought me lunch," Garcia protested, but Grace laughed.

"Yeah, but you've made flat hunting a great deal less tedious."

Garcia followed her along the sunlit pavement.

"You're only looking to rent, though, right?"

"Hmm?" Grace gave her a sort of half-shrug. "Oh, yeah…"

Garcia grinned to herself.

Grace was going to buy a house.

It was a foregone conclusion.