Part two:

"They found six graves in this area," Reid said, looking around. There was nothing but field grasses in either direction for quite a distance. To come out here and disturb the solitude and decrepitude of the old property was profanity in its very basest reality. This had once been a church. It wasn't as if this unsub was burying people in the graveyard. He was dumping them around the ruins haphazardly in the grass. "I guess, technically, they weren't even buried."

"No, not so much," Rossi agreed. "They were dumped, but the asphyxiation and manner of mutilation is consistent with our guy, even if the mode of disposal isn't. It shows evolution and remorse of a type."

"But why here?" Prentiss asked. "There has to be a reason. Not just that it's a holy place; none of the other victims were dropped anywhere near a church."

"These are earlier kills, before he hardened himself into believing that what he's doing is justified," Hotch commented. "Look this way; that oak tree is clearly a landmark, as are the church ruins. He was drawing himself a map; a mental map so he could revisit his kills and no one else would think twice."

"The tree is on land belonging to the Webster family," Morgan said. "It marks the outer boundary of Westville. We can't go on his property without a court order."

"That doesn't mean we can't drive to the property line and have a look," Prentiss pointed out.

"Silas Webster is a valued member of the community," JJ said, frowning. "If we go after him without provocation, it's going to stir up a storm of god only knows what. We're going to have the whole town up in arms."

"He fits the profile, and he has a record," Morgan muttered.

"Petty theft does not a murderer make," Hotch replied. "For now, we go back to town and make inquiries. Talk to the wife. Talk to his employees. Talk to the community and find out what we're missing."

"The wife isn't going to talk," Morgan said. "She's pretty defensive. Classic signs of abuse; averts her eyes whenever an alpha asserts their dominance, denies that anything is wrong, body posture, cuff marks on her wrists, old scars. If she gives us anything workable, it'll be a miracle."

"Well, Derek, you can be pretty persuasive and charming when you want to be," Emily teased, winking at him. "You just need to push her buttons right and she'll come apart like putty in your hands."

"Not that likely," Reid said. "I'm pretty sure that we're missing something important. But it's getting dark and I don't think we should be out here after dark. It's kind of creepy, like something is going to jump out and make you pee your pants."

"Does that happen often to you, Reid?" Rossi inquired. "Because they make pills for that now."

She didn't sleep much anymore. She didn't even really realize the passage of time, either; days and months blended together into an endless parade of misery. She knew she was supposed to sleep when it was dark, but between the handcuffs biting into her wrists and the snoring from Silas's side of the bed, she just couldn't; when every part of her ached from his assaults, and blood curdled on her lips, she knew it was nighttime. He didn't take no for an answer.

He would wake her up soon; she knew that he'd been out all day, not just a couple of hours. There were more bodies that needed burying. That's how she earned her relative freedom in the diner's kitchen: she buried his victims and he let her loose during the day. She could do anything she wanted during the day, short of running away.

What little freedom she had was hard-won, and she wasn't about to relinquish it.

She just had to figure out how to point the FBI in the right direction.

She opened her eyes when he unlocked the cuff on her left wrist. "Tonight, baby, I want you to know just how damn lucky you are," he said. "Because I could do this to you in a heartbeat, but I won't because you're giving me a very special gift."

Evelyn didn't acknowledge his threat, or his plying her with payoffs. Your life for theirs.

Either way, it was penance.

He made sure her seatbelt was low and tight over her belly, then started the truck. He drove for a couple of miles, then parked under the old oak tree. "Here tonight."

She swallowed hard. "But E.J. is here," she protested very quietly. "You don't want to bury someone else here. Not with your own flesh and blood."

He pointed to a spot where the root gnarled up out of the ground. "Dig over there," he ordered, unbuckling her seatbelt and practically shoving her out of the truck. "Dig deeper than last time."

She worked at it for a long time, every muscle in her body aching with the torture. The baby kicked constantly, reassuring her that she would get through it. But after an hour of solid digging, she was getting tired and dizzy. It was difficult to hold the shovel, let alone dig. Her movements were further restricted by the baby's bulk, and she gave up.

SHE FELL TO THE GROUND.

It was the one thing she knew never to do, but she didn't care anymore. No one was going to save her; she'd given up on waiting for her knight in shining armor. She was going to die and she didn't care. Her fight was gone. She was just so tired.

She didn't even care when he hit her in the jaw with the shovel handle, trying to provoke a response from her. Or when he kicked her in the ribs.

She gave up.

They watched her bent over the stove, clutching her ribcage, using her free hand to sloppily stir a pot of grits with a giant whisk. Reid cleared his throat. "Mrs. Webster…"

Evelyn hissed, "Don't call me that. Don't ever fucking call me that. It's a lie, just like everything Silas Webster ever said."

"What should we call you, then?" Emily inquired, coming in. "We haven't met. I'm SSA Emily Prentiss and this is Dr. Spencer Reid. I understand that you've been cooking meals for our team; I appreciate you doing that for us."

Evelyn exhaled and turned to look at them. "You're welcome, Agent Prentiss."

Emily winced. "Have you had that bruise looked at?"

"Have you met Silas Webster?" Evelyn countered, crossing her arms over her chest, her face contorting in pain. "He doesn't believe in Western medicine."

"Did he do that to you?"

Evelyn smiled sadly. "Sugar, he's done a lot worse than that. I'll live. I can't say as much for all the other women you keep finding."

Reid hesitated a moment, then licked his lips. "You know that he's the man we're looking for?" he inquired.

Evelyn's gaunt face went stone cold. "I can tell you every grave that's been dug in the last year and tell you where they are," she said.

Emily's hand moved toward her gun. "How do you know that information, ma'am?" she inquired cautiously.

"Because he makes me dig the holes," the bruised and battered woman murmured. "It's my penance for staying alive. I'm the only one he's kept longer than a year. It's because I delivered a live child. That didn't last long, though – she was four days old when he drowned her." Her fragile state was carved into her face just as sure as he'd cut the lines with a knife. "He made me bury her. Under the oak tree. He tried to make me bury someone else there last night and I collapsed. E.J. didn't deserve that. Any of it. Please, tell your boss that I will cooperate if he promises to protect me and my baby. Silas went out after he dropped me here and hasn't come back."

"I don't know what to make of this," Reid said. "Why would you turn on him after all this time? You could have run before."

Her wan smile cut him to the core. He knew right then what she was going to say, but was still surprised when the words left her lips. "I'm not the first wife."

"Hotch, she's willing to give us all the information we want if we protect her from him," Reid said into his phone. "We're on our way to the county paper's office to verify whether or not she was lying about being his first wife. If we can verify that information, we can check into one of the other things she said –"

"She said something about a fresh grave at that oak tree," Emily added, knowing they were on speaker. "And a grave for a child named E.J."

"We'll go to the tree. Good work; I didn't think we'd get her to crack," Hotch said.

"He beat her up pretty badly," Emily said. "She's in survival mode now; she's not going to care about anything but getting out of there. We're the lesser of two evils."

"Turn right up here," Reid said. "Look, Hotch, we'll call you as soon as we do that research." He hung up and looked at Prentiss. "Something's been bothering me since we stepped into that kitchen."

"What?" Emily asked. "Besides that some asshole could do that to another human being."

"If she's not the first wife, where are the others?"

"Given Silas Webster's history, I'd assume somewhere close to home, where he can gloat over them," Emily said with a shake of the head as she parked the SUV. "Probably buried in plain sight from the house, where he could torture Evelyn with the knowledge that someday soon she's going to be joining them. He takes great delight in the torturous aspects."

"And if he did that on a regular basis, Evelyn would know his regular patterns and be able to tell when he was working up to the deed – Em, I think he's planning on killing her. Very soon. We need to get her out of there."

"This first," Emily said as they got out of the car and headed inside. She walked right up to the counter and set her gun on it, then flashed her badge. "SSA Emily Prentiss, FBI," she said firmly. "I need to see all the marriage announcements going back twenty years."

The girl behind the counter swallowed hard. "Well, you're very lucky – we just finished digitizing everything to DVD and –"

"Stop talking," Emily ordered. "This is an emergency."

"We can reference the index for the announcements, and then pull the DVDs," the girl stammered. "What parameters?"

"Silas Webster, Westville," Reid supplied. He didn't want to get in Emily's way when she was throwing her weight around.

The girl frowned. "We have five records," she said, getting up and heading into a back office. When she came back, she had several DVDs with her. "Give me a minute and I'll print them for you."

"Thank you," Reid said.

The sheets came off the printer hot enough that Prentiss nearly burnt her fingers. "Five women," she said, flipping through them, "all of them with black hair and green eyes." Her heart stopped dead. "Reid."

He looked at the paper in her hand. "Fuck." He sprinted out the door, Emily hot on his heels.

It was the first time she'd ever heard him use that word. She understood completely.