Green Valley, Arizona.
While the air was developing a definite chill back in Virginia, it was still warm in Pima County. The team stepped out of the shiny black SUVs that had been waiting for them at Continental Airport and in to the midday sun. Reid undid his top shirt button, Morgan took off his leather jacket and Prentiss rolled up the sleeves of her green sweater. Only Hotch remained formal with his suit jacket on and collar buttoned. A man limped out of the Sheriff's Department and approached the group.
"Sheriff Falconer," JJ said, extending her hand to the man in front of her. "I'm Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Jareau, we spoke on the phone. These are SSAs Hotchner, Morgan, Prentiss, Rossi and Dr Reid. Thank you for coming down from Tucson to meet us."
"Yeah, thanks for coming," the man said. He must have been pushing sixty with a distinct, shiny bald patch on the top of his head. "And as for coming down from Tucson, I don't see that I had much of a choice. This'll be making national news in the next few hours. Would look pretty bad if I wasn't here." He paused to shake his head, and take a deep breath. "I gotta tell you, I grew up in Green Valley, worked in this very building for most of my adult life before I moved up to Headquarters. Nearly four decades in this place, and I ain't never seen anything like this.
"Unfortunately, we have," Hotch said. The Sheriff limped off and the team followed him in to the mercifully cool building and through the unfamiliar bullpen. "I would like to send my agents out to look at the crime scenes, accompanied by some of your detectives if possible," Hotch added.
"They've already been over the crime scenes with a fine toothed comb," Sheriff Falconer said, and Hotch detected a little hostility in his voice before he sighed and continued. "But I guess a fresh set of eyes never hurt." He waved over two officers.
"This is Commander Holmes," he said, indicating the tall, dark haired cop who had approached them. "He's in charge of this district." He looked like he was in his early forties. He was wearing a white shirt with a grey tie and his eyebrows seemed to be creased in to a perpetual frown, he reminded Hotch a little of himself.
"And this is Deputy Commander Watts." Behind him, Hotch heard Morgan give a little cough. Watts was a little younger than Holmes, and was dressed in the same light brown uniform as the rest of the department. He had brown hair and green eyes, his countenance far more approachable than his superior's. He shook hands with each of the agents in turn while Holmes just gave a curt nod.
"They've cleared some space for you in there," the Sheriff said, leading them in to a little glass walled office. A large table sat in the middle of the room and a whiteboard covered most of one of the walls. The rest of the wall space that wasn't occupied by windows was painted the same light grey as the rest of the department. "I'll leave you to get settled. I've moved in to the office next door until we get this situation under control. So if you need anything you know where to find me," he finished, and backed out of the office. When the door clicked shut, Morgan turned to Prentiss who had her lips pressed tightly together, trying not to laugh.
"Holmes and Watts?" Morgan said. "Like Holmes and Watson?"
"If his first name is Sherlock, that will make my day," Rossi said, smiling.
There was a time when Hotch might have cracked a smile at the coincidental names of the officers, but his sense of humour had been shelved a while ago.
Rossi stifled a yawn and it spread like a disease around the room, a Mexican wave of yawns as everyone else covered their mouths or, in Morgan's case, just stretched his mouth widely and presented the room with a clear view of his tonsils. Everyone in the team was tired. They had only just returned from a five day case in New Hampshire when they got the call about Arizona. They all needed a break, but no one was showing the strain as much as JJ. He glanced over to her staring blankly out of the window, biting her nails. The usually serene agent had been out of character for weeks. Hotch moved around the table to put down his go-bag. As he passed JJ, he took her hand away from her mouth.
"Stop worrying," he said. Morgan's cell phone began to ring.
"Hey, Baby Girl, you're on speaker," he said.
"Oh, the more people who know about our undying love the better, my angel," said Garcia. Morgan smiled. He put the cell phone in the middle of the table so everyone could hear what information the technical analyst had collected for them.
"Now," she continued, "here's the lowdown. Green Valley, Arizona has a population of about 17,000. It's part of Pima County and is home to the Green Valley division of the Pima County Sheriff's Department, but you know that already because that is where you are standing, I would imagine. As a point of interest, Green Valley is home to one of the very few Rhenium mines in the U.S."
Her last statement was met by questioning looks from most of the agents.
"Rhenium is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust," Reid explained, as if it were common knowledge, "not to mention one of the most expensive at about four thousand five hundred and seventy five dollars per kilogram. It's used to make jet and rocket engines and even to treat liver cancer."
"I totally knew that," Garcia said, sounding a little put out that Reid had beaten her to the interesting information. "Now, Pima County has a fairly high crime rate in comparison to the rest of Arizona, although it is mostly property crime. Safe to say that seven murders in four weeks is kinda out of the ordinary for little ol' Pima."
"Thanks, Garcia," said Hotch.
"No problem, Hot Stuff." Hotch turned to stare at the phone and Morgan gave a snort of laughter.
"Oh my God, sir, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean that, it's a force of habit, it's usually Morgan that... I mean, not that you aren't... you're lovely but that wasn't meant for you, I... oh God."
"Just hang up, Garcia," JJ said from her perch on the window ledge.
"Yeah. Okay. Bye. Oh God."
"Okay," Hotch said, still eyeing the phone with a frown. "I want everyone to split up and profile the crime scenes. There's every chance that we will see something that the local cops missed. Reid, I want you here with me to interview the families and work on the profile."
The team dispersed, Reid tucked his wavy hair behind his ears and started drawing up titles on the big whiteboard on the far side of the room. Outside, Hotch saw Prentiss approach Watts.
"Hey, can you take me to the family's abduction site? I'd like to go over it again."
"Sure, it's only couple miles from here," he said.
"Great." She turned and headed for the door. "The game's afoot Watson."
The Deputy Commander followed with a sigh. "It's Watts."
Watts pulled up at the side of the road and got out of the car, and Prentiss followed suit. The sky was an endless pale blue, vanishing behind the Santa Rita Mountains to the east, and curving down to touch the Sierrita Mountains far in the west. The dark tarmac lay like a grey ribbon across the pale, sandy earth, seeming to weave its way through the sparse, green shrubbery that speckled the desert.
"That's where the abandoned car was found," he said, pointing to a stretch of road that looked no different from the rest. Prentiss walked over to it, looking up and down the flat road, superimposing the crime scene photos on to the scene in front of her.
"So the car had a burst tire, and there was a spare wheel and jack on the ground?"
"Yup," said Watts. "But no sign of a struggle or any kind of resistance from the family."
"How would you get two physically fit adults and their child in to your vehicle without any kind of struggle?"
"Personally?"
"Sure."
"I'd hold the daughter at gunpoint, get the father to drive my car to a secondary location where I'd hold them hostage."
"Yeah, me too," Prentiss said, biting her lip and staring at the road as though she could see the abduction taking place while they stood. "The father wouldn't risk deliberately crashing the car or calling for help if his daughter had a gun to her head."
"And the mother probably wouldn't risk it either," Watts said. "They'd both be hoping they could escape when they arrived at their destination."
"You've thought a lot about this," Prentiss said, watching him talk through the crime, his green eyes narrowed in a frown.
"It's all I can think about," he admitted. "I've seen some pretty grizzly things, but I guess I was naïve enough to think I'd never see anything like this."
"Don't join the BAU, whatever you do," Prentiss said with a dry smile. "You'll lose all faith in humanity in your first week on the job."
"How do you do it?" he asked, looking at Prentiss and she was surprised to see genuine desperation in his eyes. "How do you sleep at night after seeing stuff like this?"
"You have to find a way to switch off when you go home at night. Talk about it, don't talk about it, make jokes about it if you have to, otherwise every case will eat you alive." Watts just nodded slowly. "And catching the bad guy always helps," she added, giving him an encouraging smile. "Now, stand there." She placed Watts where the family's car had been, and started walking up the road, away from the town. She found a shallow dip at the edge of the road and stepped in to the dry brush.
"Can you see me?" she called.
"No," he called back. Prentiss looked around and saw several small bushes crushed in to the sand, no doubt from the wheels of a large car, but as the Unsub knew well, the sandy ground wouldn't betray him by holding on to his tire tracks. She walked quickly back down the road towards Watts.
"If I was sitting in an SUV I could watch the passing cars from that ditch almost undetected," she said. "Especially in the dark."
"He must have put out tire spikes or something," Watts said. "There's no way a car blew a tire by chance while he was waiting."
"He might initially select his victims at random," Prentiss said, "but once he's chosen his target, he plans their abduction meticulously."
"But how do you catch someone who doesn't leave any evidence?" Watts sighed.
"We might not have any physical evidence," Prentiss said, "but everything about him, the victims he chooses, the way he abducts them and how he kills them, it's all evidence that can help us create a profile and eventually track him down."
Watts looked a little dubious. "You can really find a murderer from just his behaviour?"
"You'd be surprised at what we can do with next to no leads,"
"That's amazing," he said. Then he caught sight of Prentiss's expression and he groaned. "Don't say it. Just don't." But the opportunity was too good to miss.
"Elementary, my dear Watson," she said, with a grin. Watts shook his head and turned back to the car, but he couldn't prevent a reluctant smile from crossing his face.
"You want to drive up to Tucson and meet the medical examiner?" he asked. "It'll only take a couple hours. The M.E. has already sent his report to us, but I get the feeling you'll want to take a closer look for yourself."
"Sure," she said, "let me just grab my magnifying glass. And maybe my pipe."
"Would you give it a rest?" Watts asked, but this time he didn't even try to disguise his amusement.
"No," she said, glad that he was looking a little more cheerful. She had seen one too many officers run themselves in to the ground, haunted by cases that they couldn't get out of their minds. She didn't want the same thing to happen to Watts. She had only known him for a few hours, but he was quick man to get to know, and she found that she liked him already. But as they climbed back in to the cop car and pulled out on to the road, Watts's eyes darkened again as he stared at the abduction sight, and felt, with the kind of clarity that always burdens a good man, just how terrified the young family must have been.