Empty Hell
The knock on the door woke him this time, and he grumbled at having what little sleep he was able to get disturbed for the second night in a row. His eyes flickered to Morgan when he shifted on the cot, but the dark-skinned man didn't wake. It was just as well that he hadn't, Morgan had a short temper first thing in the morning, and Hotch didn't really want to start this day being snapped at by his agent.
Though, judging by the groan he heard coming from the occupant of the bed to the left of his own, he wasn't the only one who had been pulled from their rest.
He twisted the bedside lamp on and the groan grew louder.
A dark head turned to look blearily at him from under a pile of rumpled blankets.
A glare to rival some of his own was shot in his direction, and he remembered that Prentiss didn't take particularly well to being awoken either.
Another knock sounded loudly, seeming to echo around the nearly silent room. He stared at the door as though it would tell him itself who was on the other side.
"I'm guessing that's not room service."
He shook his head and reached for his pistol as she sat up and reached for her own. He shot her a look.
"Stay here."
He stood and padded as quietly as he could over to the door, pausing to look through the peep hole. Seeing no one, he slowly turned the handle and pulled the door open, raising his gun as he did so. Opening the door fully, he mentally cursed at seeing what was on the other side.
There, tied to the door handle with red ribbon was a severed hand clutching a flower.
He noted absently that it was a daisy.
He heard a faint 'Oh Jesus' from behind him and knew that she had seen too.
He stepped quickly out into the hallway and looked down both sides, but whoever had left it was already gone. He walked back over to the hand and crouched down to get a better look. Blood was dripping from where it was severed, and when he held the back of his own hand up to it, he could feel its warmth.
It was fresh.
"Prentiss, call security. Tell them to lock the place down. We're not losing him again!"
But she was already talking to the head of the hotel's security force, so he turned to the rest of his agents, who had apparently all been roused by his, ah, enthusiastic shouts.
"Get dressed. Our day is starting early."
He was frustrated. Hell, they were all frustrated, but he was furious.
Someone was targeting one of his agents, and he couldn't find them.
He had the four with him checking and double checking everything that they thought they knew, he'd made Garcia go in early and had her going over everything he could think of. He'd watched the security tapes himself, though the cameras on their floor had been mysteriously not working the night before. The sweep of the hotel had, too, proven fruitless.
They knew nothing more now than they had yesterday.
Even the coroner's examination of the hand had only been able to confirm what he had discovered for himself.
It was indeed fresh.
And likely taken from a living victim.
And they had found that out seven hours ago.
In short, they were running out of things to double check. And to top it all off, they still hadn't had a full 8 hours.
They needed a break – two really. But he couldn't break the case for them, so he settled for the one that he could give them right now and told them that they were leaving for the hotel in ten minutes.
They ended up getting the break they needed in the case at four in the morning while Reid was keeping watch. His phone rang shrilly and startled them all from their sleep – they were all a little on-edge.
Garcia's voice, slightly distorted through the phone's speaker, eagerly informed them that, after double and triple checking her parameters, she had found something.
And not just something, but a name.
One single person had made purchases in the immediate vicinity of the kidnappings of three of their victims. Purchases that didn't ring any alarm bells unless you knew what they did. A packet of nails – the majority of which were now secured in the wall of Prentiss's previous hotel room. A spool of ribbon, red, like the blood that dripped from the hand it was tied to.
And a dozen white daisies.
Hotch could've kissed her. As it was, she was getting three days of approved vacation and a shiny new laptop.
An hour later, they had three addresses.
Half an hour after that, their warrants came in.
Within minutes of their receipt the five agents and all the deputies the department could spare were heading to their search locations.
He and Dave took seven of the deputies to the home address. Their unsub should be there – he wasn't scheduled to work today and they had no indication that he'd be anywhere else.
Morgan and the other five went to the work address. There might be information on the locations of his victims at his work station – they didn't know if they'd found them all, and he might have some that were still alive.
And he sent Reid and Prentiss to check out the deceased parents' home.
They didn't think he'd be there. He hadn't been close to his parents and there was no indication that anyone had been to the house since their death nearly ten years earlier. But they still needed to check. So he sent them.
God, how he wished he hadn't.
He was in the middle of tearing apart the kitchen when the call came in. Their unsub – Brigham Newson – hadn't been at home, so they were looking for something to tell them where to find him.
His gut churned with cold dread as he looked at the caller ID on his ringing phone.
It was Reid. Usually when he sent them out together Prentiss called him.
He didn't know why that bothered him so much.
Hotch could count on both hands the number of times he wished he hadn't answered the phone.
This was number eight.
The words had barely left Reid's mouth and he was screaming for Dave, telling him to call Morgan, telling him to get in the car.
Telling him that he'd found where Brigham Newson was.
Telling him that he had Emily.
He'd never driven so fast in his life. Dave was clinging to the handle on the roof as though it could make the other two wheels touch the ground as they rounded another corner.
It didn't matter.
She was still gone.
They had cleared the ground floor together. She had gone up the stairs alone.
They hadn't known there was a subfloor. A crawlspace in the kitchen just big enough for a man.
He had seen them enter, had heard them looking for him.
Had realized that they didn't know about the trapdoor.
Had listened as she climbed the stairs.
Had waited until Reid's back was turned.
Had struck, and watched the lanky man fall to the ground, unconscious.
Had then, apparently, gone upstairs.
They don't know what he did next.
But there, on the floor in the middle of the second bedroom on the left-hand side, was her gun.
Around its grip was a white daisy, the tips of its petals stained with sticky blood.
She was cold. Very cold. And she had a distinct feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. How did she end up here? Where was here? And where was Reid?
She began to take stock of her body.
Her head was pounding, and she felt a trickle of warm blood trace a path down her clammy skin. Her arms were aching from being stretched above her head, secured to the beam with the pair of rusty shackles she could feel tight against the skin of her wrists.
She made it as far as her throbbing ribs before she heard a door slam.
Her eyes popped open as though they had been commanded to do so.
She felt her heart beat faster with every step that she heard.
Her captor was coming to her.
She thought she might be sick.
The old wooden door groaned loudly in protest as it was pushed open, and she got her first glimpse of the man who had brought them all to this God-forsaken town in the first place.
He looked like pure evil.
His shaggy, unkempt hair brushed his shoulders, the greasy strands seeming to mock her as they swung freely. His clothing was torn, his skin was dirty. Flies circled him, but he seemed not to notice.
His focus was locked solely on her.
He took slow steps closer to her, and she caught a whiff of him.
He smelled like death.
She couldn't hold in the shudder that racked her body, and goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold popped up on her skin.
"Hello, poppet."
By now, he was standing so close she could see her own reflection in the darkness of his eyes.
"Pretty thing, aren't you. Let's have a bit of fun, shall we?"
He pulled a knife from his waistband and stroked it almost lovingly down her chest before bringing it up to rest against her check.
"Go to hell!"
He flashed his yellowed, rotting teeth at her. A string of spittle stretched with his grin and then broke, leaving a trail of wetness down his chin, and she noted with horror that what was left of his teeth had been sharpened into points.
He let his eyes roam her body as he pressed the broad side of the knife harder against her skin, and she couldn't help but shudder. His grin stretched even wider.
"Oh, darling. Don't you know? Hell is empty, and all of the devils are here."