A/N: Better late than never, here is the next chapter. Thanks for reading and reviewing.
Emily returned to the living room with a glass of water and found Rossi still crouched by the older man's armchair. Frank remained as pale and shaky as when she had left the room.
"Are you sure you don't want us to call someone?" Rossi asked, sharing a worried look with Emily as she passed the glass to Frank.
They had been ready to call an ambulance when he had slumped back in his chair, but he had insisted that all he needed was a moment to sit down.
"I'm fine," he maintained. "You just took me by surprise with that news."
He was gathering his thoughts slowly and trying to ignore the new feeling gathering in his chest. It was the same kind of tightness that he'd felt for months following the night that he and his wife had reported their family missing. The sense of dread was quickly becoming deep set. He just knew that this grave had something to do with them.
"She broke her arm horse back riding when she was fourteen - she's got three pins in her right elbow. And Ellie has caps on her front teeth from when she stood too close to the batter in a baseball game." He paused, trying to recall if there were any distinguishing features which could identify his son-in-law or grandson. "Greg broke his leg once and it healed funny." He paused again, really struggling to think of anything about the youngest of the family. "Cody's so little. He's just a little boy."
For a moment, Emily felt a similar crushing sensation in her own chest.
"We don't know that it's them," she attempted to reassure him, but he simply shook his head. Now wasn't a time for hope. He couldn't take hearing bad news if he allowed himself to believe it could be anything else.
"Will you tell me as soon as you know?" he asked.
"Of course we will," Rossi agreed, the distance from his own daughter and grandson hitting home and catching him off guard.
As they left the house to head back to the police department, having ensured a neighbour was nearby should Frank need anything, Emily noticed her colleague's pre-occupation with his phone. While Rossi was not adverse to technology, it was unusual for the device to be glued to his hand.
"Is everything OK?" she asked, mindful of that fact they had all been dragged away from their own families with little warning.
"It's nothing," he responded, reluctant to bog her down with details of his personal life. His phone vibrated again and she widened her eyes knowingly, refusing to accept his dismissive response. "Hayden and Joy are just struggling to explain what's happening to Kai. He thought he would be spending Christmas with me and he's confused at why that isn't happening any more."
Emily looked sympathetic. It couldn't be easy for a young child to understand, especially one that wasn't used to family members disappearing for work in the way that children of the team tended to be. At least JJ had the advantage of Henry and Michael being used to it.
"Why don't you call him? It might give him some reassurance that you would be there if you could," she suggested. "I'll wait in the SUV," she added, indicating that he would have some privacy and knowing it was the only way he would do so. The call wouldn't take long and it was the least she could do for him.
He nodded, appreciating the opportunity, and walked a little further down the street, while she climbed into the car and turned on the heat. She tried not to watch him but couldn't help but notice the uncharacteristic agitation in his pacing. Despite having done it for years, even Rossi was struggling with missing this holiday with his family. The impact of this case was extending far beyond the immediate victims and she wasn't sure how to stop that.
JJ and Reid were at the far end of the Bergers' yard when Emily contacted them with an update on the discovery in the woods. They hadn't even had the chance to consider what they might say to the Lowes when Mrs Lowe emerged from the house and came running down the snowy lawn.
It seemed that the news had reached her even quicker than it had been shared between the BAU.
The woman moved faster than they would have expected of someone her age and she seemed not to notice the cold and wet against her shoeless feet.
"Is it them? Have you found them?" she shouted, coming to stop only when she collided with JJ's arms. "Please," she pleaded.
The force had almost knocked the blonde agent from her feet but she reacted quickly to comfort the other woman.
"We don't think that it's them," JJ explained. "But we can't be sure until the crime scene investigators have processed the area." She gripped onto the woman's arms, steadying her body against the panic.
"When will you know?" she pressed.
"It shouldn't be long," JJ assured her, rubbing her arm gently. "Why don't we go back inside and talk?" she suggested, knowing that if she was feeling the cold beneath her many layers of clothing, then it wouldn't be long before the woman, in her light blouse, was frozen through.
Mr Lowe echoed the agent's idea, as he joined them in the garden. Unlike his wife, he had paused to put on shoes and a coat before rushing outside, and had also grabbed an extra layer for her. He draped the coat around her shoulders, taking over JJ's role of keeping his wife upright for a moment, before directing her back to the blonde.
"I'll be with you in a moment," he advised, turning to Reid purposively.
Reid nodded in understanding, as JJ led the woman back indoors, carefully guiding each step to counteract the effect her numb feet were having on her balance.
"If it is them you need to tell me as soon as you know," he told the male agent sternly. "They've only been missing a short while. If you find a body I know that you'll be able to tell if its them."
He didn't need platitudes and sympathetic gestures; he needed answers. And he wasn't getting them quickly enough.
"With the outside temperatures, the ground will have been frozen solid for over a week," Reid explained, giving the man an explanation for their doubt that the grave contained his family members. "We think it's more likely that it's been there since before the snow got heavy."
The older man considered the information and then let out a breath that he'd been holding for a second too long. It made sense to the rational part of his brain, but to the part of his mind which would have followed his wife, shoeless into the snow, he still needed more.
"Where are they?" he asked. "You're supposed to know how this man's head works. Where has he taken my family?"
Reid collected his thoughts before responding, eager not to irritate the already aggravated man but also not to mislead him.
"We're still working on a profile but we're making progress," he explained. "And the local police are doing everything they can."
Mr Lowe glanced towards the edge of the woods, staring an nothing in particular.
"I'm going to join the search party," he stated, leaving Reid unsure if he was responding or if he hadn't heard a word at all.
The process of digging further into the frozen grave was a lengthy one, but with a tent erected to give some privacy, the forensics team got to work. Tara and Luke stayed nearby, observing the thickening crowd and waiting for news.
"Do you think it could be one of the Randalls?" Lieutenant Shaw asked, as they walked a little deeper into the woods. They were looking for any sign that someone had been nearby but also keeping moving to avoid the cold settling in. "I know the grave looks fresher than 15 years old, but could someone really have had them all this time?"
Over the past hour, his patience had been wearing visibly thin and, in his determination to make progress, he had started to press the team with the same questions as the civilians.
"That would be rarer than an unsub who kills his victims soon after abduction, especially as there were adults involved, but it's not completely unheard of," Tara replied. She and Luke had already discussed the possibility and it was a theory which they hoped the contents of the grave would either support or disprove.
The lieutenant crunched further ahead before picking up a stick and knocking it against a nearby tree in an unexpected outburst of frustration. A powdery shower of white fell around them and he tossed the stick aside.
"Most of the kids round here have grown up thinking there's a bogey man in the woods. The story goes that he took one family and now he's on the hunt for more. Does a woodland monster fit your profile?"
The agents were momentarily taken aback by his new, aggressive attitude. Until now, he had been nothing but accommodating. Taking in the surprised expressions before him, his face quickly returned to normal.
"I'm sorry," he apologised with a sigh. "I just need to get to the bottom of this."
"We understand," Luke assured him. "But maybe you should take a break." He had watched colleagues work until they burnt out, both in the forces and the bureau, and it never brought good results.
Shaw snorted at the thought, muttering about how much had to be done. If his response had needed validation, it received it, when one of his officers approached calling him back to the grave.
"We've got a coffin. Thought you'd want to be there when they open it," the officer advised his boss and the FBI agents.
Tara wrinkled her nose involuntarily at the thought, not sure she was grateful for the police extending that particular invitation, but knowing it would take them one step closer to finding out what was going on.
"Come on," Luke encouraged, with a grin. "I'd say this will make us even with anything I might have done to Emily."
It was lunchtime by the time the team had regrouped at the Police Department. In the conference room, now strewn with soda cups and containers of half eaten Chinese food, they were pulling together the threads that the morning had given them. While the others had been away, Garcia had worked her magic in building their base and had managed to acquire enough screens and whiteboards to lay out all she had found on their victims. The current images on the central screen were, however, far from her liking.
"The medical examiner reckons the body's been in the ground for a few weeks," Luke explained, switching the previous image of the rudimentary, wooden coffin, for that of its contents.
Penelope dropped the beansprouts and noodles from her chopsticks back into the container as she screwed up her face.
"You need to give some warning when you're going to do that!" she chastised, pushing the food into the centre of the table, having suddenly lost her appetite.
"Was the coffin not enough to give it away?" Luke asked, teasingly.
"At least you didn't have the smell," Tara added, shuddering as the memory of the scent was enough to bring it back to her nose. "Or the maggots."
Garcia shook her head, pretending not to be seeing the image or hearing anything her colleagues said.
"Go on, Luke," Emily prompted, pushing her team back on track and saving their technical analyst any further distress.
"There's no obvious cause of death but the medical examiner thinks it's a woman in her forties. The coffin was made of old planks and it had let in a few more bugs than normal so we don't have an ID yet," he continued, before minimising the image and replacing it with a less repulsive view of the area surrounding the grave.
"If the ME's right then that could be Wendy Randall," JJ suggested, vocalising just what Emily was thinking.
"Wendy Randall's dad gave us some information that could be used to identify his family. I've passed it to the ME's office," the brunette confirmed.
It was rare that she wanted to find an additional victim, but Emily really hoped that the evidence was pointing them in the wrong direction. She wasn't sure she had it in her to see Frank Lynch's fears confirmed.
"If it's Wendy Randall then it's likely she's been with our unsub since she disappeared. We're looking for someone sophisticated enough to keep at least one adult alive and hidden for over a decade. And that area of the forest is only a mile from town - it's not too far off the beaten track. He has to have knowledge of the area to go undetected," Rossi pointed out.
"So we're looking for a man in his 40s or 50s, who has local knowledge," Emily summarised, combining the new element with their earlier attempts at a profile. "Could we be looking for someone that was in Wendy's life?"
The assumption that they had found the first missing mother was hard to avoid.
"Building a coffin, digging a proper grave and placing flowers by the headstone show care for the victim," Reid added. " It's as if he's grieving. It could be an old school friend, or a colleague or boyfriend. She grew up nearby so the people in her life would have knowledge of the area."
"Garcia, are you ready to dig even wider and deeper?" Emily asked, formulating her next strategy for the team.
"I was born with a digital shovel in my hand," she confirmed, her spark returning now that their were no dead bodies to cloud her sight.
"We need details of any men who were in her life that fit our profile," the team leader continued. Garcia nodded, her fingers poised above her keyboard. "Tara and Luke, since you've spent most of the morning outside, you get to stay in the warm this time and help her," she added with a smile.
She might be relatively new to the job, but that didn't mean she wasn't aware of the jibes, however light hearted, about who got stuck with the worst assignments. When it came to freezing in the snow at a disposal site she was all about equal opportunities for her team.
"Reid and JJ, can you head up to where the body was found and keep an eye out? Just because our unsub has gone unnoticed, it doesn't mean he won't be blending into a crowd. If he's been mourning at that grave and now we've disrupted it, then his behaviour might change."
JJ and Spencer nodded, beginning the process of wrapping themselves up before heading outside.
"ME's office?" Rossi guessed as they others got to their assignments.
Emily nodded.
"We need to see how they're getting on with cause of death. It'll give us a better idea of what we're up against."
"And we might be able to confirm her identity," Rossi added, knowing Emily shared his determination not to break the promise they had made just hours before, however hard that might be.