Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst – Arthur Conan Doyle

8PM , Galleria Shopping Mall, Poughkeepsie

"Pretty public place. You'd have to be quick to dump it here without the shop owners noticing. They must be in and out all the time, this is where they dispose of garbage, have smoke breaks.." Rossi scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Have Garcia check the employees of the stores for criminal records." Reid nodded, and pressed Garcia's number on speed dial. He walked away to make the call.

The team stood in a cordoned off yard at the back of a large shopping mall. Normally an employee parking lot, it was empty because of the time. The body must have been dumped after the stores closed, with enough time for everyone parked here in the day to leave. The vehicle must have been large enough to conceal the dumping but also to blend in. Not hard, vans and trucks would be in and out of here all the time. The body lay, still covered, in between two dumpsters. Crime scene photographers were taking photos from every angle, while Rossi, Reid and Hotch observed.

"How you feeling?" Rossi asked Hotch, both men staring straight ahead.

"I've been better." Hotch sighed. "Dave, what do you think about her?" Rossi hesitated. "Go on, Dave." Hotch urged him, knowing what was coming.

"I think she's the real deal."

"Oh come on, you can't believe that! The woman clearly has some insider knowledge on the FBI and is doing this for attention."

"I don't know, Aaron. She..she knew what I did last night."

"Maybe she's bugged your house." Aaron suggested, knowing that he was the one sounding a little crazy now.

"So she travelled all the way from Grandview, NY to Virginia to bug my house so she could tell me I ordered a pizza? What could she possibly get out of me, I live alone and don't discuss work on the phone. No, Aaron, something's up. Unless she's stalking the whole team.."

"Garcia's already background checking her, thoroughly. I've instructed her to check her internet records, phone bill and any credit card activity for both her and her husband in this area.

"She's not a suspect Aaron."

"Yes, Dave, right now she is. And right now, I want to find out how the hell she knew so many details about Haley. Jack might not be safe."

"Hotch, you know I'm as skeptical as anyone about these psychics and mediums. But she seems different. Not employed by a family, not telling us any vague details like "go to where the road turns left". She has solid information and I think we should take a listen. It's not unusual for the police to take leads from those claiming to be psychic anyway, there's plenty of history of it."

"Yeah but a very low success rate and the evidence is inadmissible in court. I'm not going to stand up at a trial and saying a 'ghost told me he did it', are you?" Dave raised an eyebrow at him, and Hotch sighed. "You're not going to let this go are you?"

"No, I don't think I am."

"Alright, have Prentiss talk to her, she's still at the station. But tell her not to tell her anything about the case or ask her any questions unrelated to anything she tells us. We can't give her anything. I'll chase Garcia on that background check." Rossi nodded, took out his cell phone and began to walk away, Hotch walking the opposite direction towards the parked SUVs. "Oh, and Dave?" Hotch called out, not looking back.

"Yeah?"

"I'm not going anywhere near that woman again." Rossi would have laughed if Hotch didn't sound so furious. Hotch was so guarded about his personal life, and there was no subject as touchy as the death of his ex wife. Hotch had never stopped blaming himself.

"Got it."

Hotch took out his phone just as it began to ring. "Hotchner."

"Hello bossman, I have some information for you on Miss I-See-Dead-People."

"Hit me." Normally he'd tell Garcia off for being so casual with him, but her quips were just what he needed to lighten his filthy mood.

"Ok, well, to be honest..she seems kinda..normal. Dull, even. Lives in a nice house, a fixer upper judging on the amount she and her husband spent on workmen and DIY stuff. Husband's a former firefighter now a paramedic, she owns a successful antique shop. Her employee, and apparent best friend according to photos on social media, died a couple years ago. She was crushed in her car by a commercial plane that hit the town. Remember that? All over the news, huuuge disaster, hundreds dead."

"Maybe that's what started her off? She lost a friend and wanted to believe she could still see her?" Hotch was clutching at straws, he knew.

"I thought that too, but one look at her internet history going back even before that and woah – she should start a one woman detective agency. Death records, birth records, adoption information, newspaper articles, addresses – she's taking this ghost hunting thing pretty seriously, my man. Lots of emails too, thank you emails mostly."

"Thank you emails? What for?"

"For – and I quote – "giving my son peace and helping him to the light." She may not make a job out of this Hotch, but she keeps herself pretty busy. Also, her shop has some really, really cute stuff and I am tempted to go there as soon as you all get back." Hotch sighed impatiently.

"Anything else?"

"She's been a foster parent, nice woman, keeps her financials in order, has a cat, buys a lot of clothes, a lot of coffee, woman after my own heart, and travels a lot judging by the amount she spends on gas at super spaced out stations."

"Garcia, that's what we need. Do you have her car registration, maybe a GPS you can track, see where she's been?"

"Way ahead of you oh Supervisory one. She has never been to Poughkeepsie in her life. Checked both cars. And her husband's regular ambulance, just to make sure. Their GPS' are squeaky clean."

"And you checked up on him too?"

"Yes, Sir. Two fine upstanding citizens living the American Dream, almost sickening in their perfectness."

"What about the FBI files? Any way she could have hacked into BAU files? She knows too much about our personal lives. Any record of contacting police with similar information before? We could have an attention seeker here."

"Not with the Great Wall of Garcia protecting us. Seriously, not even one single item on her computer history has anything to do with us or even the FBI in general, and no record of any reports made to the police, nor any complaints against her. And I have been in and out of her hardrive like Morgan on a Saturday ni- Ahem. Anyway, Sir, that is not the point. She really doesn't have the knowledge to breach FBI systems, let alone my superior technology, and that is what I would have said if I thought about who I was talking to before I made lewd comments about our very own Derek Morgan to my boss, which I fully apologise for."

Hotch sighed, admitting to himself that it was highly unlikely that she had anything to do with the crime. "Thanks Garcia. One more thing."

"Yes Sir?"

"Switch to decaf."

"...Yes Sir." Her sheepish voice replied, as back in Quantico she threw her sixth cup of the day into the bin.

Prentiss took a deep breath, and opened the connecting door between the observation room and Interview Room 3.

"Ms Gordon." Melinda stood up and took the hand Prentiss offered her. "I'm Agent Emily Prentiss, I'm just going to ask you a few more questions. Before we start, would you like anything to drink?"

"Could I please just have a glass of water? It's pretty dry in here." Emily nodded and stuck her head round the main door. Melinda eyed her up and down, trying to assess whether she was friendlier than the two male agents she'd seen so far.

"Can I get a glass of water in here please?" She closed the door and sat back down at the vacant chair facing Melinda. "So, Ms Gordon."

"Melinda, please." Prentiss was glad she hadn't gone for the same aggressive route as the guys. She knew this woman would be more responsive to open body language and gentle questioning. Yell at her and she'd close off straight away.

"Melinda. You understand why we're keeping you for questioning?" Emily asked, and Melinda nodded.

"Yes, I do. But I have to say, I have nothing to do with these murders. Anytime these happened, I have an alibi that puts me hours away back in Grandview. I honestly just want to help you, and Alison."

"Alison?" Emily asked, leaning back in her chair.

"Alison Parker. She came to me last night, and I called the police right away. Agent Prentiss, I need to know that you will listen to me until I have finished. Your colleagues only questioned my ability, rather than listening to anything relating to this crime. And now there's another body." A man knocked, bringing in her water and leaving again. "Thanks." Emily nodded.

"No problem, Melinda. Tell me what happened, I won't interrupt, and then I will ask you questions at the end. Sound okay?"

"Yes. Okay, so last night I was sleeping – in my bed, at home, Grandview." She added, as if trying to make her alibi even more solid than it already was. "And I had a nightmare – a vision, I guess you could call it. I was standing in a dark room, a spectator rather than a participant, watching. There was a woman – Alison. She was tied up to the ceiling by her arms, the rope around her wrists. She was in mismatched underwear – a black bra and blue underpants – and was very obviously pregnant. She was begging the man to either kill her or let her go." Melinda paused for breath as Emily wrote everything she was saying down, as well as it being on tape and camera. "He hit her on the thighs with something, it burned her. Then he came into view. He was tall, about six foot, quite wide. He spoke with an English accent, very well spoken, kinda Jane Austen-y. He said.." Melinda paused, making sure she got the details right. "He said he was her saviour, her saviour from sin. She begged him to let her child live, but said that he wanted to kill the child to stop another bastard coming into the world. Then he stabbed her, first above the bump and directly to it, stabbing her twice that I could see, but then it was as if I was blinded by her pain. The baby died when she did, but before you ask, the baby would have gone straight into the light. There are people who take the babies into the light, like guardian angels I guess."

Emily sat there, stunned. In two minutes she had not only gotten a description of exactly how Alison Parker was killed, but also an insight into what happens when babies die. Apparently.

"Can you describe the room?" Emily asked, her voice softening as she could see Melinda getting more upset.

"Cold and damp. The ceiling was dripping. It was a basement, no decoration or anything, just a stone basement. Thick walls, stone steps. It was really dark, there might have been a lamp or something i a corner because I could see, but other than that not much light at all. That's all I saw."

"And what happened after the vision?"

"I woke up, and Alison, as a ghost, was standing next to my bed. She was still as she would have been when she died – in her underwear and visibly injured. When people die, as they come to terms with their death they begin to look as they did in life. Alison is still as she died."

"Is she here now?" Emily asked, trying not to pay attention to how ridiculous the question sounded to her.

"Yes, she is. She's standing behind you, reading your notes." Emily instinctively covered up her pad, as if she was back in fifth grade and Mandy was cheating from her maths test again. "Don't worry, I doodle flowers too sometimes." Emily was at once terrified and embarrassed.

"There's no way you could have seen that."

"I didn't. She did." Melinda smiled. "I know this is ridiculous, but I'm just trying to help."

"Ms Gordon, Melinda, the FBI's official stance on supernatural aid in investigations is not a good one. As Hotch – Agent Hotchner told you, any evidence you give us.."

"What does it matter? Just use it to find the killer, then you'll have all the evidence you need!"

"Let's continue the interview. Where was Alison taken from?"

"The details here may be a little fuzzy here, Agent. She needs time." Melinda explained, knowing that bringing up the past was difficult when a spirit was as traumatised as Alison was.

"I understand, but anything you can tell me will help." Emily corrected herself. "She can tell me." Melinda nodded, and fell into silence as she listened to what Alison had to say.

"Uh-huh. Ok and then what?" Melinda was staring behind her, then to her left as the "spirit" presumably moved. "Ok, she says that she was in her car, driving back from a doctor's appointment." Emily wrote this down straight away, with an arrow pointing to the words "Garcia check drs". "Then she had some car trouble. So she called a tow truck. That's all she remembers, before waking up tethered and chained."

"A tow truck..I'll be back in a minute."

"Garcia, can you check Poughkeepsie car rescue services, cross check their employees for anyone who's from Britain."

"Ok, can do my darling one. How goes it with Haley Joel Osment?"

"Very interesting indeed. By the way, can you find out what doctor Alison Parker used, see if all the women went there, and check their employees for British accents too? We're looking for male, around six foot tall, British. Well spoken."

"I am on it. Limeys and gynos and ghosts, oh my!" Emily couldn't help but laugh.

"Right, better go and get my Bill Murray on." She clicked the phone off and took a deep breath. All the evidence so far, if true, would help them immensely. They had every right to be cynical, but she worried if some members didn't accept her advice, they'd have yet another dead pregnant woman on their hands.

As she entered the room, Melinda smiled. "Wonder how many more ghost movie references you can squeeze in by the time we're done, hey?" Emily at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "Hey, it's alright. Heard 'em all y'know." She shrugged and Emily smiled at her.

"I guess there's no point asking how you heard my phone conversation in the soundproof room next door, right?"

"Nope." Her smile faded. "Look, I don't care about if you believe me, because I have no reason to hide anything. I have done nothing to feel guilty about. But this woman has come to me to help her find justice and I am damned if I'll walk away from here knowing that I could have done something. I could have helped your officers at the crime scene, but I understand why you kept me away. But you need to believe me! Do you have any other leads except me?"

"We're investigating many different lines, Ms Gordon, and you are one of those lines. But we can't just rely on your evidence, and we certainly can't rule out the fact that you could have something to do with these murders."

"I understand that. But I've been doing this a long time, since I was a little girl. I've seen a million people look at me with more hate than Agent Hotchner did. People aren't comfortable with knowing that we hang around after we die. It's always a battle, but it's one I always win. I could give you the number of anyone of the hundreds of families I've helped, and they'd vouch for me."

"Look," Emily said gently, "Off the record, I do believe you. Your background check is as clean as a whistle, we're looking into the alibis you gave the officers here, and your husband's too."

"Jim had nothing to do with this. He always gets the rough end of the stick with this whole ghost thing. He works nights all the time, so whenever this happened he'd either be out in the ambulance with a whole lot of sick people, or at home asleep." Melinda sighed. "The first night he had off in weeks and Alison needs us. Bad timing much?" She smiled behind her. "The ghosts don't normally come into my home though. That's how I know she's desperate. Alison's a little damaged but she still has a sense of humour. Normally people who've died violent deaths are angry, like I was telling Agent Rossi. But she's been joking, spying on you all. She says it's because she knows her baby's safe and waiting for her, and until she remembers more details, she may as well come to terms with it. And I told her if she's got a positive outlook, the memories will come quicker, so then the light will too. She's a great lady." Melinda looked like she was going to cry. "I can't believe someone would do this to her, y'know? I guess you never know the victims. I just want justice for her. I want her to be with her child." Emily's whole demeanour softened.

"I understand. I deal with cases similar to this , and I hate to say you get desensitized to it, you kind of just treat them as a victim rather than a whole person. Something that I have to admit is difficult but easy at the same time." She sighed, trying to get back to being Agent Prentiss. "Well the information you gave us is fantastic, if true." She added to cover her back. When Hotch reviewed this interview later he probably wouldn't be too thrilled at her attitude towards the other side. "Once your husband's finished talking to the local detectives and all your checks are done, you can go. If possible, we'd like you to stick around in Poughkeepsie. Would that be possible?"

"Jim's already booked us a room in a hotel nearby. I'm not going anywhere. Here's my card," she said, handing it to Emily. "Please, call if you need me." Emily rummaged in her pocket and handed her one.

"If you have any new developments, call my cell. Anytime." Melinda got up to leave. "And Ms Gordon?" She asked, once she'd made sure to turn the recorder off. "Off the record..I think you'll be a valuable asset to us." Melinda smiled gratefully.

Hotch, Rossi and Reid arrived back at the station about half an hour after Melinda left to go to her hotel. In the meeting room that had been taken over by the BAU, boards containing photographs and what few leads they had were being examined by Reid.

"If we look at all the victims, their pregnancies were all one month apart." Emily explained, although she was entirely unsure where she was going with that piece of information.

"Right, that's true. What could that mean?" Hotch asked, examining a list of the women's due dates obtained by the police before they'd arrived.

"Er..I'm not sure." Admitted Reid, "None of the women attended the same doctor. However, they did all live within a one mile radius of each other, so may have used the same dry cleaner, newsagent, coffee shop etcetera, meaning that they may not necessarily know each other, but could very possibly have met the UnSub in one of these shared locations."

"We need to look at their financials, to try and figure out where they all frequented. Finding the common link will help us narrow down any suspect pools." JJ said, adding it to her list of things to ask Garcia.

"We could possibly be looking for someone who has a strong sense of faith. All the women being pregnant out of wedlock would contrast with several different religious beliefs, as well as moral ones. The hatred towards the pregnancy, and the comment that Melinda has supplied us with about ridding the woman from her sin.." Prentiss began, and she could see from the look on Hotch's face that she had made a mistake by bringing up Melinda.

"Agent Prentiss," Hotch said stiffly, his voice formal and chastising. "I would like to remind you that what Ms Gordon has given us is not to be considered as evidence in any way."

"I think we should at least treat it as a possibility, Sir." If he was going to patronise her, then she was damn well going to do it back. "I think she has proven herself in many ways – her record is completely clean and it's clear she has no connection with these murders. She has provided us with evidence that is consistent with the injuries found on Alison's body, and even the events leading up to Alison's abduction, which also correspond with where her car was recovered. I don't know what more evidence is required."

"Concrete evidence, Prentiss. Evidence we can legally use in order to track down this man. Unless she can provide us with something we can actually see, she may as well go back to wherever the hell she came from and keep her nose out of federal business."

"And let her be haunted by a half naked murder victim for the rest of her life?"

"Prentiss, you can't seriously believe this?!" His voice was softer now, almost begging her to see sense. "There's something wrong with her. You're being irrational, and it's unlike you."

"This is because she said Haley was with you, isn't it? You're angry." Hotch's face went completely blank. "Admit it."

"Agent Prentiss, I would care to remind you that I am your superior, and that you should treat me as such. Any speculation on my personal feelings is entirely inappropriate and unrelated to any aspect of the formal investigation into this case. If you continue to talk to me in this way, and if you continue to talk to Ms Gordon and defy my warnings about evidence that is inadmissible and completely subjective, you will be suspended from this case, your badge and gun taken from you, pending formal investigation when you return to Quantico. Do I make myself absolutely clear?" Hotch spoke, his voice hard. He stared at her the whole time, his eyes narrowed and his fists clenched by his sides. Prentiss stared him down, waiting to reply for a moment to hold her temper back.

"Crystal." She slammed the papers she had been holding on the desk. "I'm going to see what Garcia's got."

"No, you will stay here and go over these photos with Reid. I will call Garcia and find out what she's got."

"You don't even know what I asked her to find." Emily was on her feet, heading towards the door.

"Then tell me." His stance was challenging, arms rigid by his side, hands balled into fists. He was also standing directly across the door, blocking her path. Emily surrendered.

"Fine, I asked her to cross reference employees of tow truck companies and the doctor's offices that the women used with any British employees."

"And where did you obtain information that the UnSub might be British?" Hotch asked antagonistically. Reid and Morgan were sitting low in their chairs, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire.

"From Melinda Gordon, and it's the best lead we've got so if you don't let me run with this, you are making a huge mistake. And I don't care that you're about to suspend me, you are letting your personal anger with Ms Gordon interfere with genuine help that she could provide us, and you know it! Not consulting her on some key facts when she's already got so many correct and clearly has no involvement in the crime would be a huge mistake on our part, and I believe it could cost more pregnant women their lives. I am prepared to be suspended to stand up for what I think is the right choice."

Hotch stood, rooted to the spot in silence. Oh God, thought Emily, I am so fired. As she watched Hotch carefully, she noticed his body language shift. His shoulders drooped, his hands relaxed by his side. He was defeated.

"You're right. You're right. I've been letting my own unhappiness at having a personal situation manipulated by someone I believe to be false that I've been unable to even consider entertaining the idea that she's for real. You continue the line of questioning, but I am not going to consider using it until she hands us something tangible. And Prentiss, I'd like to talk to you in private. Then you will arrange for Ms Gordon to come back as soon as she can. Morgan, Reid, continue to study the histories of the women." He gestured for Prentiss to follow him into another meeting room.

"Your behavior in that room was completely unacceptable. I'm officially issuing you with a formal warning, Agent Prentiss." Hotch said. "I'm not happy about this, but you've left me with no choice." His voice had softened. "You're a valued member of the team but I cannot have you behaving like this."

"I understand." Emily replied, feeling like a scolded child.

"You need to hold your temper and remember that I am your boss." His face was emotionless, something which always scared Prentiss a little. "One more step out of line, and you will be off this case and a formal investigation made into your conduct, along with a psychological evaluation. Do you understand me?"

"Yes Sir." She at least had the decency to hang her head a little, before walking out of the room.

Hotch sat down heavily in a chair, holding his head in his hands. Feeling something brush his shoulder, he looked up with a start. Nothing was there.

"That woman's going to make me crazy." He groaned to nobody in particular.