Chapter 1

Crime butchers innocence to secure a throne, and innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime

Maximilien Robespierre

45 MINUTES LATER - BAU JET

"So what do we know about our UNSUB?" Hotch started the brainstorming as soon as they were all seated on the jet and the plane was finally in the air.

"We have two components which seem to be in contradiction with each other" Gideon began "Torture killers are all about pain and control. Killing an entire family is difficult, hard to maintain control"

"Family killings are usually perpetrated by a family member" Reid supplied "One of the most famous family killers was Nannie Doss. She killed 11 people starting in the 1920s. Her final tally was four husbands, two children, two of her sisters, her mother, her grandson and one of her nephews"

"Yeah but she didn't kill them all at the same time, didn't she?" Morgan asked. "And there was no element of torture to those crimes"

"There's always Lizzie Borden" Emily joked "Didn't she kill both her parents with axe blows to the head?"

"Actually" Reid said excitedly, the way he always got when he had a particularly juicy or obscure fact to share "Lizzie Borden was never convicted of killing her parents. There are some who believe she didn't actually do it. There was allegation that the maid, Bridget Sullivan, killed the Borden's because she was forced to clean the windows on an extremely hot day"

"Hey, doing the windows always makes me slightly homicidal" JJ quipped without lifting her head off the case file and everyone chuckled for a moment before Hotch brought them back to the topic

"We should look into family members. Tell Garcia to check all living relatives of the Anderson family"

TUSCON, ARIZONA - THE ANDERSON RESIDENCE

The local detective in charge of the case met them at the Anderson house as soon as they arrived. JJ and Emily headed straight to the local police station to start going over the files and prepare for the press conference that was most likely to come at some point or another.

The air was hot and humid and Derek thought that he just might remember hearing something about a heat wave that wouldn't let up. He hoped there was air conditioning in the local police office; otherwise it was going to be a very long day.

As Hotch made the introductions, Derek had the time to evaluate the man before him. He was tall and slender but with a solid built and confidence that indicated that the guy was once an athlete, possibly a high school football star of some sorts. He had dark hair and brown eyes that were warm and inviting even under these circumstances, a quality that probably came in handy in his line of work.

He showed them into the large house, identifying himself as Detective Kyle Baker, and led them straight into the upstairs bedroom "The bodies were found here. Mom and Dad were still on the bed, the two children were on the carpet at the foot of the bed" He indicated to two large blood pools on the carpet "The mother had 37 slash wounds. All superficial, burn marks on her hands and feet - cause of death was strangulation. The daughter bled to death, the son was beaten badly, one of his ribs punctured his lung and heart. The father had 30 slash wounds, several broken bones, cause of death was loss of blood from a nicked artery."

"Any sign of sexual assault?" Hotch asked

"Nothing we could find but the bodies were in a real bad shape" Baker replied

"Usually in the case of family killings, the anger is directed at one member of the family in particular, the others are merely collateral damage or tools to prove a point, but here it seems like all members of the family suffered the same amount of torture at the hands of the UNSUB" Reid stated.

"There were ligature marks on the hands and feet of both parents" Hotch read from the fresh forensic file in his hands "So I guess we know how he managed to maintain control over the entire family for a long period of time."

"You said two of the children were found in here, what about the third child?" Gideon asked detective Baker

"The oldest daughter was found in her own bedroom, at the bottom of her own closet"

"Show me" Gideon instructed and followed the detective down the hall to one of the other bedrooms. The room obviously belonged to a teenaged girl with posters of movie stars on the walls and school books strewn all over the floor. The doors of the closet were open and Gideon could see the large pool of blood on the floor indicating where the girl had been found.

"He put the rest of the family together but the girl was placed here" Gideon was thinking out loud "Why? Why separate the family?"

Suddenly it hit him and he rushed back to the master bedroom to join the others.

"He placed the girl in the closet, he wanted her to listen, he wanted her to hear while he killed her family!"

He looked pointedly at Hotch and Morgan, waiting for them to get his meaning. It took only seconds before they did. Hotch let out a deep sigh, Derek simply pulled out his phone and called Garcia.

"Hey honey" Hailey's voice on the other end of the line had an immediate soothing affect on him. He could hear Jack making baby noises in the background.

"Hey Hailey, just wanted to call, see how you and Jack are doing" he lied then glanced at Gideon who was driving and back at Derek who was occupying the back seat. He leaned further until he was pressed up against the window, trying to get some measure of privacy and pretending to watch the view of the quiet neighborhood outside as they made their way to the police station.

"We're fine, I was just about to give Jack his bath…Aren't you supposed to be in Arizona Honey?"

"I am…"

She noted his tone and the fact that he was calling her in the middle of the day - she didn't need to be a profiler or a detective to know that something was bothering him "Honey is everything ok?"

"Yeah it's fine…" He said quietly

"It's the case isn't it? It's a bad one?" She deduced. Her suspicions were confirmed when he didn't answer for a full minute.

"Just take care of yourself ok Aaron? I love you!" She sighed

"I love you too Hailey!" He replied, his heart all of the sudden made lighter just by hearing her words "Give Jack a kiss for me"

When she said she would he said his goodbyes and hung up the conversation. Suddenly the world seemed just a little less dark around the edges.