"Is Henry still at the hospital?" Penelope sat at the round table, eyes staring through her glasses intently at her computer screen. She had cast aside her coat, feeling suffocated under the layers.
"Yes." Hotch replied. "Will you send a protective detail over there? And to the house, too? It wouldn't surprise me if he tried to go back for the boy."
"Already on it." She affirmed. "You really think he would go directly to the hospital? Even when so many people are onto him?"
"He's desperate, Penelope. At this point, he's not thinking logically." Reid replied, case file open in his hand. He was frowning over it, trying to get any kind of clue or hint from the previous case.
"Emily, Caroline, and Morgan are on their way to talk to the parents. Hopefully, they can give us some insight into what happened." Replied Rossi.
"What do we do until then?" Penelope asked.
"I want to get a list of all the children in the area. Grab school and medical records, anything you can find." Hotch looked to Garcia. "How many names are there?"
She typed, frowned, and looked at him funny. "Waaaay too many. I need to narrow it down."
"We are looking for boys between the ages of five and seven." Reid looked up from his file. "The little boy who was killed, he was seven. Henry is six."
"Still a lot." She grumbled.
"We aren't going to be able to find a small group, not with those parameters." Rossi rubbed a hand along his chin.
"What about anyone who lives close to a public park?" Reid looked up again. "That's where the first three kids were abducted from."
"You know what I don't get?" Garcia, Hotch, and Reid all looked at Rossi. "The first three kids abducted were all taken within seconds of each other, on the same day and from the same place."
"What's on your mind?" Hotch replied.
"He wouldn't have been able to control three kids on his own, not without some kind of help. Even if he had drugged them, there's no way he would have been able to do it without making some kind of noise."
They all pondered it a moment.
"It also makes sense why he didn't take a boy when he stopped to get the girls. He wouldn't have been able to control them all at once, not without a partner." Hotch replied.
"And since they are twins, he probably exploited that. Usually one twin wouldn't go without the other." Reid finished.
"So, who is the partner? And what is he getting out of this?" Hotch's question sent them into silence.
OoOoOoO
"We should have been there." Susan Holson sat at her dining room, arms folded across her chest. Tears coated her cheeks, and lines of mascara lay heavily under her eyes. Her husband sat next to her, clutching her hand for dear life.
"Mrs. Holson, this is not your fault." Emily reached out and rested her hand tentatively on the woman's clenched fist. "I know this is hard, but we need to ask you some questions." The woman gave her a watery nod. "Did the girls usually go to the park by themselves?"
"Normally we would try to go with them." John, the husband, answered. "Occasionally if we were close to being ready, we'd let them go on ahead and meet them there when we were done."
"Do they have any friends that they play with regularly?"
"A few. But the girls are so close. They are their own best friends." Susan replied, sniffling. "That's why I thought they'd be okay if they went together.
"Have you noticed anyone new paying a little too much attention to your daughters?"
The question sent Susan sobbing, shaking her head vigorously.
"Take some time. We'll give you a break." Susan thanked Emily and began sobbing into John's shoulder. Emily took the opportunity to get a breath of fresh air and meet Morgan and Caroline in the driveway.
"Anything new?"
"No. She says there's been nothing odd lately. Anything from the park?"
"Totally clean." He replied. "They can't find anything out of the ordinary."
"You think maybe he lured them before they got to the park? They walk the main roads to get there." Caroline suggested with a shrug.
"He could have. He has a badge. They'd trust him. I'll call Garcia and see if there are any neighborhood video cameras." She pulled out her phone. "Hey girlie. Are there any security cameras in this neighborhood?"
"Yeah, a few. I'll see what I can get off of them." Garcia spoke over speakerphone. "Hey, stay on the line a sec."
"We think the original killer may have had a partner." Hotch's voice could be heard. "The three children were abducted within seconds. There was no way he could do it by himself without causing a scene."
"So one istracts while the other drugs?" Morgan frowned. "But how did they get the kids close enough to their getaway vehicle without being spotted by at least someone."
"Maybe a lure?" Reid asked, question in his voice.
"Oh my god." Emily's eyes went wide as realization spread across her face.
"What is it?" Caroline asked.
"Hotch, do you remember that case we worked when Strauss came along?" Emily asked urgently.
"The case with the kid?" Morgan frowned. And then what she was implying dawned on him. "Oh my god, Hotch, he is the partner."
"What do you mean?" Hotch asked incredulously.
"What's going on?" Caroline frowned, looking between the two of them.
"People would notice if a cop suddenly tried to lure two young girls away from a park, but nobody would bat an eye if they were being led away by another kid." Morgan responded. There was a moment of complete silence.
"It is too much of a coincidence that the nephew of a cop would be pulled into a kidnapping investigation. When the media got ahold of the story, Gerald panicked. He goes to where his partner is keeping the girls, and kills them all." Emily tried to get him in line with their thoughts.
"Including his nephew, who's a witness." Morgan finished. "Have Garcia do a background check on him, see if he has any prior offenses regarding young girls. Even cases that may have been dropped."
"Will do." He clicked off.
"He would also be angry, and intent on finishing what he started, even more so if he had other plans for the little girls past what he had already done." Emil said as they headed towards their car.
"So he's trying to recreate it?" Caroline climbed in the back seat. "But why JJ's son?"
"If the BAU had gone in on the case, he probably thinks he would have gotten away with it. But since we weren't there to control media coverage, he blames us." Morgan backed out of the driveway. Despite the severity of the situation, he seemed rather calm.
"But, that doesn't make sense." Caroline replied, confusion in her voice.
"Doesn't have to make sense to anyone else but the unsub." Morgan replied.
"Ain't that the truth." Caroline huffed and looked out the window as they drove. "Terrorists and serial killers have that in common."
"Is that what you do?" Emily looked over her shoulder. "Hunt terrorists?" She smiled in spite of the situation.
"Sorta." She shrugged. "I mean, we don't trek after them with guns. We're more like bounty hunters behind screens."
"Doesn't sound so fun." Morgan flicked on the sirens and the coasted down the street.
"It can be tiring. You get homesick easily."
The drive to the BAU was made with tense silence after that. When they got to the roundtable room, the energy between them all seemed to jump.
"You were right, gorgeous. He has a record." Penelope announced as Emily walked in. "It was expunged, which is probably how he was able to join the police department. When he was thirteen, a girl claimed that he was spying on her in the girl's locker room, but she never testified in court. Then when he was sixteen, a girl claimed that he sexually assaulted her at a party, but nothing ever came of it because she was too afraid to press charges."
"Does he have any family?" Hotch pressed.
"His mother lives in Oregon. He had a sister, but she and her husband died in a car accident, leaving him to care for his nephew. The brother-in-law was a childhood friend, they used to go on trips, go to the beach. He was an all-around good guy. I can't really find much on his dad." Garcia fired back.
"Were there any indicators of abuse, domestic or otherwise, in the house?" She didn't look up from her screen, because the sound of Morgan's voice made her tense. His curt tone and anger were evident. She pushed past her uneasiness and typed quickly into the database.
"There were a few calls to the house for domestic disturbance, but the police never found anything solid. Umm…" She frowned and leaned in as she read. "he was admitted to the hospital a few times," she paused and slumped in her chair, looking defeated, "and there were signs of abuse."
"When did his father leave?" Emily asked.
"When…..when he was seven." Penelope sighed. "Same age as Colin, his nephew."
"That was his trigger. When Colin turned seven, he began seeing himself in his nephew and-"
"Oh my god." Garcia was staring wide eyed at something on her monitor.
"What is it?" Morgan leaned in, looking over her shoulder. His proximity caught her off guard, and she struggled for words.
"S-so, I decided to try my hand at profiling, ya know, cause why not?" She stammered. "I figured there must have been a trigger, maybe something small. I found a case file from 1986. A little girl went missing from a local park. She was also found dead in an abandoned house and get this-Gerald was seven. They found Gerald's father dead in the next room."
"That was his trigger. When Colin turned seven, he must have realized that he was turning into a younger version of himself. I bet if we dig, we can find medical records on Colin that support abuse." Reid replied.
"Garcia, does Gerald's father have any connection to Virginia or D.C?" Rossi asked.
"Umm, no. No connection. I've also looked in to Gerald's family, and none of them do either." Penelope frowned, typing furiously. "But here's something interesting. The brother-in-law, his family had a cabin near Lyndhurst, Virginia. It hasn't been touched in years."
"That's two hours from here." Morgan frowned. "The girls went missing three hours ago. He'd be pushing it but it's an easy drive."
"Penelope, are there any video cameras you can look at?" Rossi came to stand next to her.
"That's over a hundred miles to cover of road. I can see if he got on the interstate but I don't know if I can give you any more than that." She typed furiously, only pausing to push her glasses up her nose.
"Rossi, Emily, and I will head out to the cabin. The rest of you don't have clearance to be in the field, so you'll be staying here. Reid, call JJ and get her up to speed. Caroline, head over to the Holson house. If we find the girls, you'll be in charge of driving the parents to meet us." Hotch barked out his orders and then left the three of them to their own devices.
oOoOoOo
A/N: Hey Guys! Sorry for the late update! Thanks for being awesome readers. I own nothing! -Boomie out