A/N: Thankyou for your wonderful reviews, I enjoy them so much! And thankyou also to the amazing writer editor frog who has taken upon herself to be my beta reader from this chapter and on. You rock, girlfriend! Oh, and BTW, I own none of the BAU, and I am making zero dollar - believe me!
The city dump was not as large as the team had expected, it was more a scrap yard for motorized vehicles. The smell was unmistakeble, however. The scent of rotting food, mold and bird droppings hung in the air, forcing its way up the agents' nostrils. Prentiss held her nose in an attempt to keep the stench out, but it was too overwhelming and she could actually taste the garbage as she breathed through her mouth.
JJ looked at her colleague. "You can look at slaughtered and skinned people without flinching, but garbage makes you nauseous?" It amazed JJ that her senior co-worker was strong enough to hold her stomach contents at times.
Prentiss wafted the air around her. "I have a very...sensitive...sense of smell." Moving in the direction of the male members of the team, the two women picked up their pace to catch up.
Hotch felt the insides of his cheeks water, a sure sign of impending vomiting, but he managed to repress it. He had to make it to the scene. He couldn't break up now.
Only two police vehicles were parked at the crime scene, and no tape had been put up yet. A few officers circled the area. Morgan was the first to reach the body. At first, he didn't want to lower his eyes to determine if it was in fact his junior team member who lay before him. He already saw the blood on the ground a good 6 ft in front of him. Fear rose inside him; what if it was Reid? It can't be Reid. It can't be. It can't be. It can't be Reid.
As he reached the scene, he eventually let his look drop to examine the body. A deep sigh of relief escaped his cracked lips. "Oh, thank god..." He turned to his team which had stopped a few steps away, holding out his hand, as if to calm them. "It's not him. It's not Reid."
JJ felt her chest relax, as tears of relief began filling her eyes. She involuntarily fell into the fatherly arms of agent Jason Gideon. The older man held her while letting his eyes scrutinize the crime scene, trying to take it all in. The sobbing woman in his arms had to come in second to the task at hand, at least for the moment.
Feeling the great stone of guilt lifting somewhat from his chest, Hotch stepped up beside Morgan. Looking at the body before them, he gave an agonizing sigh. "So this is victim number fourteen." He kneeled. "Female, approximately 15 years old, throat slashed from ear to ear. No visible defense wounds." He rose. "And also no sign of excessive violence."
"Odd." Morgan took a few steps to the other side of the teen on the ground beneath them. "Every time this UnSub leaves a victim, there's a tremendous amount of force used, as if anger was the basic element in the attack. This has more of a get-rid-of-quick-and-leave feel over it."
Prentiss emerged from the back of a car wreck. "You guys, I think I found something." She motioned them to follow her behind the car. Hotch and Morgan shifted sides and accompanied their female co-worker to the place of her findings. Holding a pen, Prentiss crouched on the ground, poking at a plastic bag. "There's blood here."
"Are you sure it's just not a spatter?" Morgan peered over her shoulder.
"A spatter that worked its way into a nearly closed plastic bag? You have to be kidding me."
Hotch kneeled beside the plastic bag. Taking out a pen from his front pocket, he also began to examine the bag. Poking a small hole, he used a paper tissue to prevent disturbance of any fingerprints as he carefully tore the bag open. Its contents spilled onto the ground. Steel wool, empty bottles of bleach, pieces of bloodied pieces of cloth and lemons. At least a dozen lemons, all squeezed out beyond recognition. Hotch sighed. "Someone has been covering their tracks."
Morgan nodded. "Yeah. And someone has been watching too much CSI. This is a halfassed attempt to remove traces of blood. Thank god UnSubs watch too much TV sometimes, it gives them ideas but also give them inaccurate information."
"True." Gideon stepped over some metal scraps, joining to the rest of the BAU behind the wrecked Honda. "The acid in lemons doesn't remove bloodstains; it does however throw off the attempts of identifying residue with Luminol." He crouched beside Hotch. "Doesn't make it impossible though."
Hotch rose from the ground brushing off some dust. "Morgan. You and Gideon go back to the station. Get the list on my desk, and talk to everyone on it – thoroughly. We need to know where Reid was last seen. Start now and we'll continue tomorrow." He never let his gaze leave the plastic bag. The two men nodded, and swiftly walked away.
"Prentiss." Hotch turned to his female co-worker.
"Yes?"
"Make sure this makes it to a crime lab immediately. I want to see fingerprints and a blood analysis."
"Yes sir." Prentiss turned around, already having her cell phone in her hand and dialing the state lab.
Hotch spotted JJ behind the car. She had not yet joined her co-workers, but stood silently looking at the young blonde teenage girl on the ground before her. The tears in her eyes could no longer be contained, but began streaming down her cheeks. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she had pulled her shoulders up as if she was freezing. Walking over to her, Hotch removed his jacked and placed it over his junior team member's shoulder. JJ didn't move a muscle.
"JJ." Hotch tried to make contact. "Reid's going to be okay."
"That could have been him, Hotch." JJ closed her eyes and grabbed the lapels of the oversized jacket resting over her, pulling it together over her chest. "I don't know if I could..." She paused, words getting caught up in her throat.
Not being oblivious to the feelings Hotch knew JJ held for the young doctor, he put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her in close under his guarding frame. "I know." He turned her around to keep her eyes off the body. "We'll find him."
The sun had set almost an hour earlier, and light was disappearing rapidly. Hotch led JJ to the Nissan Terrano SUV and put her in the front seat. Before getting into the car, he stopped, holding the door handle. He turned his eyes up towards the color shifting sky. If there is any justice in this world...