Old Enemies

Chapter 4

"You actually think Foyet was imitating someone else?" JJ asked Reid.

"The signs never pointed to two different killers," Morgan injected.

"There's no way Foyet wasn't the unsub," Hotch said.

Rossi could sense a little doubt in Hotch's voice almost as if Hotch was trying to convince himself of the statement. Rossi swallowed hard as his hand encased the locket in his pocket. He knew it would be hard to tell Hotch about it at any time, but now it seemed even harder. He took a deep breath; he knew he had to tell, and it was either now or never. "Hotch."

Hotch looked at him. "Dave, I know what you're going to say. . ."

"No Hotch," Rossi stopped him. Hotch looked at the older man. "Mrs. Butler, the daughter of the first victims, found something in her mother's effects that didn't belong to her."

Hotch sat down across from Rossi with a concerned look as he wondered what could possibly have Dave so rattled. "How could there be? She was one of the first victims." It was a statement, and Rossi thought he could hear the fear in Hotch's voice.

Dave glanced at the other team members, but they couldn't help, they didn't even know about the locket. He drew a deep breath and pulled the locket from his pocket. He held it out to Hotch. Everyone looked at the little gold locket hanging from a delicate chain, and then looked back and forth between Hotch and Rossi.

With a questioning look, Hotch took the locket. As he looked it over he kept glancing back at Dave. Hotch noticed the "HH" inscribed on the back, but that didn't really didn't register with him. He carefully pulled the locket open and his eyes went wide. He looked from the locket to Dave, but Dave just sat there speechless. Hotch looked back down at the locket again. Everyone could see the heat of anger rising up from Hotch's neck and onto his face. "No," he said shaking his head. He looked at Dave, "No!" he yelled more forcibly.

"Hotch, I am so sorry. . ." Dave started.

Hotch stood up and threw the locket onto the table. The rest of the team scrambled to grab the locket, to see what had their boss and Rossi so shaken up. "No! Damn it Dave. This psycho is trying to play with us!"

JJ grabbed the locket first, and tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at the pictures in it. She quickly passed it around the room.

"What the hell?" Morgan yelled once he had his turn with the locket.

Hotch ran his hand over his face. "That is not Haley's!" he demanded.

Rossi got up and put his hand on Hotch's shoulder. "Hotch. . ."

"That's not Haley's!" Hotch demanded again.

"How could the unsub have gotten Haley's locket?" Blake asked.

"It's not Haley's! He's just trying to rattle me," Hotch demanded.

"Hotch. . ." Rossi started again.

"Damn it, Dave! Don't you think I would know if my wife had a locket like that?" Hotch yelled at him.

Rossi finally realized that Hotch wasn't rattled, he was pissed.

"Are you sure?" Reid asked.

"Yes!" Hotch almost screamed. "Yes, those are pictures of me and Jack, but I have never seen that locket before in my life." Hotch said pointing at the locket that had made its way into Garcia's hand. Garcia was looking at it through tears.

"Ok Aaron," Rossi said looking his friend in the eyes. "Then this is just another ploy of the unsub trying to make us believe that he is not a copycat."

Hotch took a deep breath and nodded at Rossi. "We need to figure out where he got those pictures," he said turning to Garcia.

"On it," is all she said as she put the locket on the table, picked up her laptop, and headed back to her lair.

"So he planted something on the first victim as a way to what, to tie Haley's murder to these?" JJ asked the group.

"Haley was the reaper's last victim," Reid pointed out.

XXXXX

In Prince William County, VA

A car slowed down as it went around a sharp turn, but it had to stop completely as it pulled up behind three cars stopped at railroad crossing. The train was flying by as the driver got out. The killer, wearing his black garb, started walking toward the other vehicles with a pistol in his hand.

It didn't take him too long to kill the people in the three cars, and the sound of the train drowned out the noise of the gun shots. He went back to the car closest to the tracks and used the victim's blood to drawl an 'eye' in the car's windshield. At the second car, he wrote out the word 'FATE' with a question mark. On the car closest to his own, he used the victim's blood to write out the words 'NO DEAL' with a big question mark on the back window of the little sport's car.

After he appraised his work he started to his own vehicle but stopped. He returned to the car with the eye on it and put a zippo into the man's jean's pocket. Then he stopped at the sports car and reached in and grabbed the rabbit's foot that was hanging from the man's rear view mirror. With a laugh, he returned to his vehicle, did a U-turn, and drove away into the dark.

XXXXX

Hotch woke up with a start to his cell phone ringing. With a groan he reached over to his nightstand and picked it up. "Hotchner," he answered because his eyes hadn't focused enough to be able to read the caller ID. "What?. . . Already?. . . OK . . . Yeah. . . Give me thirty JJ," and he ended the call. He rubbed his eyes and looked at his alarm clock; it showed a disappointing 3:30am. With a sigh he got out of bed and silently thanked God that Jack had spent the night at Jessica's, so he didn't have to wake the young boy so early. The unsub had struck again. Hotch knew his team had gotten home late the night before, and he figured that none of them had gotten much sleep. He also knew, though, that the quicker they could get to the scene, the quicker they may actually catch a break. But, damn, 3:30? he thought disgustingly as he headed for the shower. He didn't have much time before he had to meet his team at Quantico, but a cold shower would help wake him up enough to feel safe to drive.

XXXXX

Reid walked into the conference room and realized that he was the last to arrive. "Where to now?" he asked after he took a sip of his coffee.

Garcia put a map of Virginia on the plasma screen and announced, "State road 646," as the Virginia map zeroed in to the exact spot of their destination.

"Wow, that's like only a half an hour from here," Reid pointed out.

"Twenty-seven miles exactly," Garcia told him.

"He's getting bolder," Hotch injected.

"Maybe that means he'll screw up," Blake said with a yawn.

"Alright, let's go see what our unsub has done this time," Hotch told them and headed out of the door.

As they all followed him to the SUVs, Rossi turned to JJ, "you get any sleep?"

"About two hours," she told him. "Thank God Will was there for Henry. You?"

"Actually, about three," Rossi said with a small smile.

"Well, I got about four and a half," Reid said in an almost giddy voice.

"I only got about one, so I'm not driving," Morgan told them flatly.

Hotch drove one SUV with Reid and JJ, and Rossi drove the other with Morgan and Blake. It hadn't taken that long to get there with the time of morning they were out, and Morgan grumbled about not being able to catch any sleep in the car. None of them, though, could believe their eyes when they pulled up to the scene.

"Three vehicles?" JJ asked with surprise.

Hotch had noticed that, too; but his eyes were drawn to the words scrawled across the back window of the sport car in the rear of the line. Visions of the bus full of dead people came flooding into his mind. He had blamed himself for those murders because he knew Foyet had done them right after Hotch had turned down the psychopath's deal. Apparently he had also pissed off their new unsub. Damn it!

XXXXX

After going over the scene they headed back to Quantico. They had found Mr. Burnette's Zippo, and they could tell something had been taken from the rear view mirror in the sports car, but they wouldn't know what until they talked to the young man's family. The unsub had killed two men and one woman, each in separate vehicles, who had apparently been stopped by a train.

They figured these victims were just victims of opportunity, and that the unsub had probably happened upon them by chance. It had pissed Hotch off. How dare this unsub strike this close to them. He was toying with them; challenging them to catch him. Hotch thought he could use that to their advantage, though, and made a plan to hopefully draw the bastard out.

XXXXX

By the next evening, the team had found out that the missing item was a rabbit's foot the young man had bought right before winning $50 on a lottery ticket. Ever since then, the man had it displayed in his car. Not wanting to wait to find the rabbit's foot on another victim, the team set out in vehicles to hatch Hotch's plan, and hopefully catch their unsub.

XXXXX

Hotch sat in the old car as the hazard lights clicked out an annoying rhythm. He was pretending to be broke down on a lonely stretch of Fuller Road not too far from where the last three victims had been killed. They weren't sure where the unsub was going on that road, but they took the chance that he might be hunting on the back roads around Quantico. The team decided to try to lure the unsub out by providing him with an easy target. Hotch fidgeted. He had been sitting out there for over three hours. The old model Ford Taurus wasn't exactly the best vehicle for comfort for the tall man as he tried to his best to stretch his cramping legs. "Guys, I'm getting really bored out here," Hotch told them in his comm link.

"It was your idea," Morgan told him in his ear piece.

"Yeah, but you at least get to stretch your legs in the SUV," Hotch told the man who was sitting about a mile away.

"Maybe he can smell a trap," Reid told him from a different SUV about a mile away in the opposite direction. Each of the Team's SUVs was neatly hidden away in the trees, so that they could clearly see the road and any vehicles going toward Hotch.

"Blue van, tinted windows," Rossi told Hotch trough the comm link.

Hotch jumped out of the car and went to the open trunk to help with the charade of being broken down. As the lights of the van came around the curve in the road, Hotch pulled the spare tire out of the trunk. The van, coming up behind him, started to slow down. As Hotch put the tire on the ground in front of the flat, he checked to make sure his coat was not blocking his access to his gun. As the van slowly approached, Hotch bent down to pretend to start changing the flat, but he was very aware of the vehicle creeping up behind him.

Hotch stood up to face the vehicle and came face to face with a teenage girl. Hotch immediately took in the vehicle and its passengers. "Are you OK?" a middle aged woman asked from the driver's seat as she leaned forward to see around the girl. Hotch noticed a young boy in a car seat in the back seat, and he relaxed.

"Yes ma'am. Just a flat," Hotch told the woman. "Thank you for asking, though."

"OK, I just thought you might need a phone or something," the woman said with a smile. Hotch smiled back, and the passenger window started to go back up as the woman drove away.

"False alarm," Hotch said into his comm link and put the spare back into the trunk.

"I say we give it about thirty more minutes and then pack it in," Rossi suggested.

"Sounds good to me," Hotch told them as he climbed back into the cramped car. Being cramped is better than being cold, he thought to himself.

"You know what I don't understand?" JJ asked Rossi and Reid from the backseat as they waited for another car to come down the road.

"What?" Reid asked turning around to face her.

"Why would Hotch want to be the bait in this case?"

"He feels connected, obligated if you would, to personally solve this case," Rossi explained. "He thought this case was behind him, and now he's pissed that someone is doing this. He wants this unsub, and he wants him bad."

Hotch squirmed in his seat as he checked his watch. Fifteen minutes left, he thought gladly. He wanted to catch this guy, but after almost four hours on this road and only three vehicles, Hotch figured they picked the wrong road. Just then there was a tap on his window. Without any warning from the team, without any lights from a vehicle, Hotch instantly grabbed his gun and pointed it at the window.

"Whoa!?" Hotch heard and realized the person outside had fallen down. He threw the door open and jumped out with his gun pointed. "Hey! Don't shoot! Please don't shoot!" a woman yelled as she tried to scoot back away from Hotch. Once Hotch registered that it was a woman, he lowered his gun. "Don't come near me!" she shouted as she continued to crawl backwards.

"I am so sorry," Hotch said as he put his gun back in its holster and advanced on the woman. "You scared me. . . I didn't . ."

"I scared you?" She yelled as she continued to back away. "I was gonna ask you if you needed help, and what do I get for trying to be nice? A psycho with a gun!" Hotch stopped short. "I have mace!" the woman yelled as she held up a small can in her right hand.

"Ma'am, I am sorry!" Hotch said as he reached for his credentials. "My name is Agent Hotchner. I am with the FBI." He held out his badge to show the woman while holding out his right hand in submission.

The woman stopped moving as she looked from Hotch's face to his badge. "You could still be a psycho with a badge!" she told him matter of factly.

Hotch smiled. "I guess that's true, but I'm not. You just startled me is all." He stayed where he was so he wouldn't put any more pressure on the woman.

"I guess I do look kind of silly down here," she said trying to smile.

"I'm going to help you up if that's alright," Hotch said as he put his badge back in his coat pocket.

She smiled sheepishly as she put her mace back into her coat pocket and nodded her head. He walked toward her, holding out his left hand. She reached up with her right hand palm down. "Thank y. . .," she started to say. A soon as Hotch touched her hand, though, bright lights flashed behind his eyes. His body convulsed, and he fell to the ground.

"Thank you," she said with a smile. "You just earned me $1,000."

Hotch's eyes tried to focus on the woman standing above him. "Why?" Hotch gasped as the electrical currents finally settled down in his body.

She bent down and searched his pockets for his cell phone. Upon finding it she smiled at him again. "Don't worry. You'll find out soon enough," and she bent down and touched the taser to his neck. Hotch couldn't even scream as lights exploded behind his eyes again and everything went black.

"What the hell was that?" Morgan yelled as he and everyone else on the team yanked the comm pieces out of their ears. Almost instantly, Morgan's cell rang. He grabbed it and saw from the ID who it was. He touched the answer button and before he could say anything. . .

"What have you done with my communications?" Garcia asked frantically.

"I was gonna ask you that Baby girl." Morgan answered her. "What was that?"

"I don't know. There was just a sudden surge or something."

"Hey Rossi," Blake answered her phone. "Yeah, it happened to us, too."

Rossi turned to Reid while still on the phone with Blake, "call Hotch."

Reid immediately grabbed his phone and pressed 'call' under Hotch's picture. After waiting several seconds, he turned to Rossi, "no answer."

JJ called Garcia. Garcia pushed a couple of buttons her phone answering JJ's call and patching her in with Morgan's. "I don't know what happened. . ." Garcia started to explain.

"No Garcia," JJ said to stop her. "You still have tracking on the cells?" JJ asked trying to keep the worry out of her voice.

"Of course," Garcia said matter of factly.

"What JJ?" Morgan asked the blonde.

"Hotch is not answering," JJ told everyone.

Garcia tapped a few keys on her computer and a map came up onto her screen. It showed two red dots on the left, three red dots on the right, and one red dot in the middle. "He's right where he's supposed to be," she told everyone.

Rossi could see the young team members visibly relax. "Reception out here is spotty at best," he tried to add to their comfort.

Morgan voice was heard next, "We're done anyway. We'll stop by and get Hotch, and we'll meet you all back at home."

Morgan approached the Taurus from behind. The trunk was still open and the hazards were still blinking. Blake rolled down her window as they came up parallel with the car, "time to pa. . ." she started to say but her breath caught in her throat when she realized the vehicle was empty. Morgan noticed it as the same time and slammed the SUV into park and jumped out. Blake was out, too, and they both had their weapons drawn. Without touching anything, Morgan quickly cleared the car with a frantic search of the back seat. Blake walked around the car, looking for clues as to where her boss might be. Morgan opened the driver's door and reached in and grabbed Hotch's cell phone from the middle of the seat. He showed it to Blake, and she took out her own and called Rossi.

Rossi answered his phone, "Hey Blake." As he listened, he slowed down a little and did a g-force creating U-turn.

"What's wrong?" JJ asked as she held on for dear life.

Rossi threw his phone down, grabbed the wheel with both hands, and slammed on the gas. "Hotch is not in the car." Reid and JJ exchanged worried looks.

It only took Rossi a few minutes to come upon the spot where Hotch's car was parked. They all jumped out and Rossi went up to Morgan. "Any clues?"

"Just this," Morgan said with fear in his voice as he handed Rossi Hotch's phone. The others gathered around as Rossi looked into Morgan's eyes. Rossi took a deep breath. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know what had put the fear in in young man's eyes. He let his breath out slowly as he glanced at each of his team members. They were all looking at the phone as Rossi unlocked it.

The screen saver had been changed to a picture of an unconscious Hotch lying on the road at their feet. As horrible as the picture was, what made it painful to look at was what had been drawn on Hotch's bare chest with what looked like blood: an Eye of Providence and the word 'FATE' with an exclamation point. JJ had to look away, Reid's breath caught in his chest, and Blake shook her head in disgust.