CHAPTER THREE - Cold Trails

Emily hadn't realized how cold it truly was until Morgan parked the SUV in the middle of the woods where the road ended. The temperature seemed to have dropped by ten degrees from the time she got into the car to when she stepped outside. She shivered and clenched her coat tighter around herself when a sharp gust of freezing wind blew through the trees.

"Isn't it supposed to get warmer as the sun goes up?" she asked.

Officer Olson, who had been sitting in the back seat giving Morgan instructions to the dump site, climbed out of the car and zipped his coat up to his neck. "Idaho winters get fierce fast," he said with an air of experience. He frowned up at the sky, which was crystal clear in the cold atmosphere. "If there isn't a blizzard later today, then there'll be one tonight."

"A blizzard…? There's not a cloud in the sky, Olson," Morgan said. His quirked eyebrow gave away his skepticism.

"Trust me, Agent, an old man like me can feel these sorts of things in his bones," Olson said gravely.

Emily caught Morgan's eye and shrugged slightly. They had both dealt with crazier 'premonitions' in the past, and quite honestly, Emily was much less concerned with Olson's bones as she was with going over their dump site with a fine toothed comb. The previous night was a sort of blur, given how completely exhausted she was, but the shining mid-morning sunlight filtering in between the fir tree branches gave her a sharp reminder that a very young girl had already died because of slow investigators and another girl's clock was ticking steadily onward.

"Well, if it snows on the way back, we'll let you drive us back to the precinct, Olson," Emily said with a forced smile. "Going over the crime scene is more important than the weather right now." They had wasted enough time getting up to speed with this investigation already.

Olson directed the two agents down a dirt trail that traveled away from the main road. "This is the Joseph B. Hayden Trail, runs about sixteen miles in between Rosewood and Hayden Lake. All sorts of hikers come up during the summer season when the scenery's the best, especially around the lake at the other end of the trail." He paused a moment and frowned. "Not many folks come up in December."

Emily could sense why. Even though the evergreen trees that surrounded them were beautiful, the cold wind biting through her coat would probably dissuade all but the most dedicated hikers. As they walked, she tried to pull the fabric closer around her and wished she had remembered to pack a hat and gloves.

After a while, Morgan crouched down and pressed his fingers into the dirt of the trail. "The ground has been consistently well packed, considering it's the down season for tourists. This place must still get a fair amount of foot traffic."

"Like I said, the trail connects Hayden Lake and Rosewood. It's roundabout, but plenty of people know some shortcuts through the woods to get in between the two towns."

"So there's a fair amount of crossover between Rosewood citizens and Hayden Lake citizens?" Emily asked.

"Almost everybody has some connection or another to the other town."

Mentally, Emily groaned to herself. Their pool of possible suspects had just doubled, at least. The chances of finding Sadie alive shrank every minute.

Olson gestured towards an area off the main path. "Here's one of those shortcuts I mentioned. We found Becca's body yesterday this way."

Morgan and Emily followed Olson off the trail. Even though they were walking off the dirt path, the area was relatively clear and could have easily been a part of the designated trail. Emily took note that the ground was less packed down, so there were significantly less people that used the shortcut than those who stuck to the main path. After walking for about twenty minutes, Olson directed them to a clearing fifty feet away from the shortcut. A large Douglas fir had fallen and taken down a few other trees with it, so a small area was clear of any large plants. It was the only place where sunlight streamed directly down onto the patches of grass covering the ground. During the summer, Emily supposed there would have been more wildflowers growing, but the freezing weather had sent them all into hibernation.

There were still yellow evidence markers scattered around the area, although the strong wind seemed to have tipped a few of them over or blown them away all together. Emily cringed a bit at the slightly less than professional set-up as she pushed some of the markers back into place next to indentations in the grass that showed where Becca's body had laid.

"This place is almost a mile away from the main trail, but it's clearly visible from the shortcut," Morgan said. "Either the unsub didn't know about the shortcut and didn't think anyone would find the body for a long time, or he only meant for someone taking the shortcut to find it."

"I would say he meant for someone to find the body, based on the effort he went to to make the body look ready for burial," Emily said. She pulled on a pair of latex gloves and examined the fairly extensive blood stains on the grass. "And judging by the blood and bruises on Becca's body, I'm saying the unsub is a he. This degree of overkill isn't consistent with most female kidnappers."

Morgan nodded in agreement, and kicked at the ground a bit. His foot glanced off the frozen ground. "Prentiss, this ground is way too cold for flowers to grow. There's no way the unsub just picked some nearby for the bouquet he left with Becca."

"I was just thinking the same thing. He must have been planning this whole thing a long time in advance if he held on to summer flowers all the way until now."

"Or he's growing them himself somewhere. Maybe he has a greenhouse?"

Emily pulled her gloves off and stood up. "Somehow greenhouses and serial killers don't seem to go together in my mind, but you never know with some people, I guess."

Morgan didn't respond. He squinted at something in the distance.

Emily waved a hand in front of his face. "Um, earth to Derek? What are you looking at?"

"Look at that tree trunk over there." Morgan pointed at a pine tree about seven feet away from the clearing. "There's a chunk of wood missing that almost looks like… someone shot the tree?"

Emily raised an eyebrow. She tried to remember if any of the crime scene photos had included a tree with bullet markings. "I thought the report said that Becca was just dumped here? That's what we all assumed, anyway, when they didn't find a physical bullet."

"Shit, Prentiss, look… there's tissue spray in the bark," Morgan said as he ran his fingers in the groove in the wood and they came away red. "That was definitely not in the report."

"That's because we didn't spot what you did, Agent Morgan," Olson said with a note of alarm in his voice.

Emily whipped around in surprise. She had forgotten that Olson was still there with them while she and Morgan analyzed the crime scene. Inwardly, she cursed at the realization that she still wasn't completely on top of her game and that she was endangering Sadie's life by paying less than one hundred percent attention to her surroundings. "Officer, an omitted detail like this could influence our profile incorrectly, and we really don't have time to be wrong with Sadie's life at stake."

"I'm sorry Agent Prentiss, but we don't deal with many murder cases out here in Rosewood. You can't blame us for missing one little detail." Olson seemed offended that she was insinuating that the Rosewood officers couldn't do their job properly.

Stuffing her hands into her pockets to hide the fact that she was clenching her fists at the thought that Olson's inattention to the details in his report could have cost them hours in their hunt for Becca and Sadie's kidnapper, Emily was almost relieved when Morgan shouted for her attention.

"Prentiss, I've got a bullet casing over here!"

"Excuse me, Olson, I have to call this in right now," Emily said. It was a struggle to keep her irritation out of her voice.

Olson didn't even try to hide his aggravated huff. "You won't get a signal until we get back to the road."

She shoved her phone back into her pocket when it beeped to tell her Olson was unfortunately correct about the lack of a signal that far off the trail. "Then I guess we'd better get back as soon as possible, huh?"

When Morgan returned with the bullet in a plastic evidence bag, she turned away to roll her eyes, though she wasn't sure if it was directed at the Rosewood police for missing an obvious clue or at herself for not acting professionally when Sadie Green's life depended on her keeping a level head.

Damn my lack of sleep and this stupid Idaho winter, she thought and pulled her coat closer.

"Okay, Reid, just try your best with what you have. We'll help you out once we get back." Hotch ended the call and put his phone down with more force than was strictly necessary.

"You know you're not supposed to talk on the phone while you're driving," Rossi said. He didn't even look up from the paper map of Rosewood and the surrounding area that was open on his lap.

Hotch would have smiled if his conversation with Reid hadn't been as discouraging. "Apparently the files we saw stacked up in the station haven't been organized for a couple of decades, at least."

Rossi raised an eyebrow. "Is that an exact number?"

"If it wasn't Reid who said so, I would say it's an exaggeration, but he likes to give exact statistics… in case you hadn't noticed."

Rossi snorted appreciatively. "So it's going to be slower going than our resident genius would like?"

"Geniuses, plural. He and Garcia are teaming up to go through every aspect of Sadie and Becca's lives that could have possibly connected them." Hotch flinched when he realized he'd accidentally referred to Sadie in the past tense. Even though the unsub's pattern indicated that he kept the girls for three days at a time, the first twenty four hours were still critically important in every kidnapping investigation. And because the Rosewood police hadn't invited them in until a few hours after the second girl went missing, they were extremely far behind where he wanted to be in their investigation.

Up ahead, the road veered sharply to the right towards the modestly sized home where Elizabeth Cooper, Becca's mother, lived. Hotch slowed down as the asphalt transitioned to gravel underneath the SUV's tires and he parked in front of the house. Even from outside, a dark cloud seemed to hover over the Cooper home, as though the surrounding area could tell that a terrible tragedy had occurred.

Hotch ran his fingers through his hair to push it away from his forehead. This was arguably the worst part of working in the BAU. It never got easier to talk to parents about their dead children, and Mrs. Cooper was almost certainly going to be completely overwhelmed by grief. After losing Haley and almost Jack, he always felt a sympathetic pang somewhere deep in his gut whenever he had to talk to a bereaved parent.

A brief nudge to his arm shifted his focus back to the present.

"Hey, Aaron, you doing okay?" Rossi asked.

Hotch shook himself mentally for letting himself get distracted. "Yeah Dave, I'm fine." He continued before Rossi could interrupt him, as his expression clearly showed he wanted to. "Let's get this interview over with, we have a lot of work to do still."

The chilly temperature outside caught him by surprise, which he tried not to show physically. He did, however, zip his winter coat up a little higher before Rossi got out of the SUV. The winter wind made the pine needles on the surrounding trees rattle ominously when Hotch rang the doorbell.

After a few moments, a slight woman with short blonde hair and hazel eyes cracked the door open an inch. Hotch tried not to blink when he realized how closely she resembled Haley.

"Who are you?" she asked. Her voice was thick and stuffy. From what Hotch could make out through the small space in the doorway, her eyes were swollen and rimmed with red and purple. She was trying to hide a crumpled kleenex in one palm.

"Elizabeth Cooper, I'm Agent Hotchner, and this is Agent Rossi from the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI," Hotch said gently. "We're here to ask you some questions about your daughter Becca."

Elizabeth sniffed and didn't open the door any further. "I already spoke to the police. Please, just leave me alone."

Rossi put a hand on the doorframe and leaned in closer. "Mrs. Cooper, we understand that you're dealing with a terrible situation right now, but another girl has gone missing just like Becca did, and we need your help to find her and bring her back to her parents."

"It's Ms. Cooper, not Mrs. My husband and I divorced a year ago." Elizabeth seemed to hover indecisively for a moment, before she sighed and opened the door fully to let the agents inside. She led them into a small sitting room with a couch and a plush chair facing each other. All the windows' blinds were closed, which made it slightly difficult to see inside the house.

Elizabeth sank down into the chair and pulled a box of tissues out from behind a cushion. Rossi and Hotch shared a significant glance before settling down on the couch next to each other. For a moment, Hotch considered opening the windows to get at least a little natural light in the room, but decided against it when he realized Elizabeth probably didn't want more people to see her at her lowest point than necessary.

"We're very sorry for your loss, Ms. Cooper," Rossi started, but Elizabeth stopped him almost instantly.

"Don't. Please." She blew her nose into the tissue clenched in her hand. "You don't even know who I am, or who Becca… was."

"Ms. Cooper, we understand that this is an awful time for you," Hotch said. "Please know that we're only here to help."

Elizabeth didn't respond.

Rossi sighed and settled forward with his elbows on his knees. "Ms. Cooper - "

"They told me they found her wearing a dress in the forest."

Rossi blinked. "Yes, that's true. Is that significant to you?"

"Becca hated dresses. She couldn't stand wearing them. She only had two: one pink, one blue. I made her wear them to church every Sunday, and she would just alternate them every other week. Both of those dresses are upstairs in her closet right now. I checked."

When Elizabeth paused to blow her nose again, Hotch understood what she was implying.

"Ms. Cooper, the medical report hasn't shown any evidence of sexual assault."

Elizabeth laughed into her kleenex. It was a mirthless sound that resembled a sob more than any expression of happiness. "It doesn't matter. It's a fact that the monster who murdered my baby had to undress her to get her into that dress. He saw her naked before he killed her." She stared at the agents, her eyes shimmering with angry tears. "If I knew who he was, I swear to god, I'd kill him myself with my bare hands."

Hotch did his best not to shift uncomfortably and swiftly changed the course of the interview. "What can you tell us about how Becca was abducted?"

"Isn't that your job to figure out?"

"Ms. Cooper, work with us here," Rossi said. "We want to get this guy as badly as you do, and we need all the information you can give us to do that."

"I doubt that anyone wants to find him more than me," Elizabeth said, but she leaned back into her chair and let some of the angry tension relax from her shoulders. "Becca was playing in the garden in the front of the house on Tuesday. My ex-husband Isaac set up a tire swing on one of the branches before he moved to Hayden Lake last fall. I remember stepping out onto the porch and seeing her spinning around on the swing and calling out for her to come inside to wash up before dinner." She paused to swipe at the eyeliner that was smudged underneath her eyes. "She begged for just a little bit more play time…"

Rossi handed her another tissue. Elizabeth dropped the used one on the floor amid a small pile and wiped her nose clear.

"I had a pie in the oven and soup on the stove, so I went back inside to check on it and left her alone. It couldn't have been for more than ten minutes… when I looked at the swing through the window, she was gone. I ran outside and searched for her for an hour. I was screaming her name for so long… I called the police and told them what happened, but I didn't hear anything back until they found h-her body yesterday… "

A sob burst out of her chest, and Hotch and Rossi gave her a minute to collect herself before pushing her again for more details.

"Did you notice anything different around your house before Becca was taken? A strange car, or someone who spent too much time in the area?" Hotch asked.

"No, no, nothing like that. Everything was completely normal until Becca disappeared. And besides, Becca is… was a very shy kid. She didn't talk to strangers, ever, and she would have told me if anyone was spending too much time around her or the house. S-she was very smart and noticed everything that other people did. But she, well, she didn't like to talk to many people besides me, especially after her father left."

"So what you're saying is," Rossi said slowly, "Becca wouldn't have gotten in a car with a stranger, or someone she knew."

"That's right. She knew that I would always be there to take her places."

Hotch frowned deeply, making his forehead crease sharply. Becca was sounding like the least likely child to have been abducted and murdered, although that obviously wasn't the case. Becca was a very high risk target, given her personality and her protective single mother, which meant that their unsub was almost definitely a previous offender.

"One more question, Ms. Cooper, and then we're done," Hotch said. "Can you think of any enemies you or your husband might have? Anyone who might carry a grudge that would motivate them to attack your family?"

Elizabeth looked at him incredulously. "In a town this size, there aren't enough people around for anyone to have any serious enemies."

"There's no one you can think of?"

"Agent Hotchner, until Tuesday I would have sworn that no one in Rosewood was capable of doing this sort of thing to anyone, much less my little girl. Now I believe anyone could have done it." Elizabeth folded her arms tightly across her chest and averted her eyes away from the two agents in her home.

"And what about her father, Isaac Cooper? Is it possible for him to have done this?"

Elizabeth's eyes widened. It was obvious that she hadn't even considered Isaac until Hotch had mentioned him. "Isaac… Isaac may be a cheating, lying bastard, but he wouldn't do this. Not to our baby."

Hotch nodded, but filed away Isaac Cooper in his mind as a potential suspect.

When it became clear that Elizabeth was finished talking by the way she pulled her legs up into the chair and curled into a ball, Hotch and Rossi stood together and thanked her for her cooperation. Elizabeth didn't make any move to respond, and indeed seemed to be in a different place mentally by the way her eyes had glazed over with tears, so they showed themselves out the door and back into the SUV.

Rossi climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door closed while Hotch started up the engine and backed out of the driveway and onto the main road. "You still think it's the father even though Elizabeth says it's not, don't you?"

"It makes the most sense. If Becca was a reserved child who only spoke to and trusted her parents, then she obviously would get into a car with her father. She also probably wouldn't tell her mother about seeing Isaac's car, especially if she recognized it."

"Isaac wouldn't have registered as a threat to her," Rossi said as he nodded in agreement. He unfolded the paper map he was using to navigate and pointed to an intersection up ahead. "Turn left up there."

It took about twenty minutes to reach the Green's house. "The two families live relatively close to each other, considering we're in rural northern Idaho," Rossi said after Hotch parked the car. "Maybe we can get Reid to do some of that geographic profiling he loves so much."

"I bet he would appreciate getting away from organizing all those files for a little bit. I'll let you tell him the good news when we get back to the station," Hotch said while he knocked on the front door. When no one answered, Hotch knocked and waited again. Two minutes later, he looked at Rossi with frustration. "You might get to tell Reid sooner rather than later if no one's home."

After waiting for five minutes, they gave up and returned to the SUV. The inhospitable winter chill made waiting on the front porch for any longer nearly unbearable.

"I'll call ahead and tell JJ we're finished for now… or maybe not. There's no service right here, or anywhere on these damn backroads," Rossi grumbled once they were on the road headed back to the Rosewood precinct.

"Since we're coming back a bit early, we can probably start outlining the beginnings of the profile before Morgan and Prentiss come back from the crime scene," Hotch said.

However, that plan quickly failed once they walked into the precinct. Reid and the two police officers, Davis and Neil, were seated in the corner across the table from a heavy set, red headed woman who was openly weeping while trying to splutter out some story. JJ grabbed Hotch and pulled him aside, looking significantly more frazzled than usual.

"Hotch, I just got a call from the Hayden Lake police. They found Isaac Cooper's body in a different spot along the same trail where they found Becca, but he was covered in second and third degree burns and was shot through the stomach," JJ whispered quickly.

Hotch raised his eyebrows in alarm. "What?"

JJ shushed him quickly. "That woman over there is Sadie Green's mother, Catherine Green."

"And?"

"She just came in a half hour ago to report her husband Eric Green as missing."

The girl startled awake when a loud thump shook her out of her dreams. The man had returned and dropped a small empty kerosene tank on the wooden floor.

"Don't make a sound," the man growled when the girl began to whimper. He had listened to enough whimpering in the past day to make him feel sick. Too much sniveling, not enough apologies.

He knelt next to the girl and yanked her chained hands into the air. She very obviously swallowed her noise of distress.

The man thrust a red crayon and a piece of paper into her hands. "Draw a family," he instructed. "Don't ask questions. Just do it."

With a shaky nod, the girl took the crayon and carefully began to draw red lines on the paper. After a few minutes, the man snatched the paper back and held it close to his eyes to study it.

"No...no, no, no!" the man growled. "This is wrong!"

"I wasn't finished yet - " the girl tried to say, but the man shoved her back against the wall with an angry shout. He grabbed her braid and forced her to look at her drawing.

"Where's the brother? Where is he?" the man screamed.

A/N: Again, thank you so much for the reviews.