Chapter Nine: Visiting the Monster House

Jade sat quietly in the backseat of the vehicle. She was torn between saying nothing about Agent Morris, and between spilling her guts to her uncle like she normally would. Finally, Aaron's eyes met her own in the mirror.

"Jade, you look like you're hiding something."

And that's all it took.

"It's Agent Morris. I think she planted the hair."

Rossi made the car go faster. Clearly, he was annoyed. "We talked about this."

"You didn't see how she acted when you brought up the hair during the meeting, though!" Jade argued.

"Jade," Aaron said calmly. "Why do you think she planted the hair?"

"Because, Rossi, Spencer and I went through the killer's stuff to determine if he was a killer. After Rossi went to say there wasn't a killer, she showed him evidence. The hair. But. . . For one thing, why would you take some of the evidence from the boxes if you wanted us to say there was a killer? And why wait until we say there isn't a killer to show it to us? And for another thing, when we were in the meeting, Rossi brought up the hair - and JJ said there was no hair missing. There was no talk about taking hair in any of the papers, either. She acted guilty when JJ said there wasn't any proof."

The words came out quickly. With each second, her words seemed to pick up speed. When she had finished, the car was quiet. Aaron said:

"How did she act guilty?"

"Before hand, she had looked at each member as they spoke. She was engaged in the conversation. She waseager to learn more about the killer. When Rossi brought up the hair, she ducked her head down. She nervously rubbed the back of her neck. She didn't look at him nor JJ when they spoke."

Aaron nodded. Rossi frowned. They pulled up at the house that Dana Foster was murdered in. She knew without a doubt that this meant the conversation was done with for now.

Jade followed Rossi and Aaron up the front steps of the house. She still felt like a preschooler. When she had asked why they wanted her, Rossi had said "I didn't" at the same time as Aaron had said "You need the practice." Now, standing on the porch of this house, Jade felt rather lonely. Through the door, Jade could just hear a little boy.

"What this, Daddy," the little boy said. Jade smiled as her uncle rang the door bell. Jade had always loved kids.

"Hold on, son," she heard a male say. "Let me get the door."

"This house has thin walls," Jade observed.

"Maybe that's why he used the cellar," Rossi added.

The door opened, revealing a smiling man with dark hair and a stubbled beard. He wore a simple blue shirt with a flanel long sleeve over it.

"Mr. Overholt?" Her uncle asked. Beside him, Rossi had already got out his FBI license. Aaron reached into his coat pocket as he said, "I'm Agent Hotchner. This is Agent Rossi and Trainee Agent Jade."

They both lowered their badges and Mr. Overholt stopped smiling. Jade, however, wanted to jump and shout and smile like a lunatic. Sure, her uncle had added 'trainee' to the title, but how long had she wanted to be an agent?

"We're with the FBI," her uncle continued.

"FBI?" The man asked.

"You've lived in this house for four years, correct?" Rossi asked, taking the lead. Jade remained silent. She knew this was no time to speak.

"Yeah," Mr. Overholt said, nodding his head. He shifted his gaze over the two agents and the one future agent. He looked worried, confused and even a little scared. Despite knowing she shouldn't, Jade found herself speaking.

"You didn't do anything wrong," she told the older man, flashing him a smile. He relaxed and nodded.

"I assume disclosures were made at the time of sale about what occurred here?" Rossi continued, ignoring Jade's comment (or perhaps Jade all together).

Mr. Overholt nodded again.

"Yeah," he breathed out. He glanced behind him, where Jade could just barely hear a child playing. He turned back to the three, his voice quieter than it originally had been, but louder than it was just previous. "My son doesn't know about that, and I prefer to keep it that way."

"Of course. We understand. We'll be discreet." Aaron promised. "We just need to take a look at your cellar."

The man gestured with his head that the cellar was around back. He stepped out of his house, closed the door, and led the agents (and future agent) to the backyard.

"I've had it locked up since we moved in," he told them as they walked. Jade couldn't see him anymore - Rossi had followed him, Aaron walking just behind Rossi in single file around the side of the house. Sometimes, she really hated being short. "You know, it's. . . kind of useless, anyway. Floods when it rains, you know, it's really damp, and all the electrical's messed up."

The last bit struck Jade hard in the chest. '. . .and all the electrical's messed up.' Shock therapy was a horrible thing. It not only did great impact to the body of choice, but it would also mess up the electrical wires and system of a house if done in a make-shift way.

Mr. Overholt pulled out his keys from his pocket, unlocked the cellar, and then quickly slid the keys into his pocket. He strained to open the cellar, the tendons in his neck pushing against the underneath of his skin to make themself known. Though the doors were obviously heavy, he opened them rather quickly. Once they were open, Rossi and Aaron stepped forward.

"Hope you guys don't mind if I stay up here," Mr. Overholt said.

"We'll try not to take too long," Rossi told him. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket and lead the way down the stairs. Aaron gestured for Jade to go next.

Jade followed Rossi into the darkness. Part of her wondered if she should be fearful. She should be fearful, shouldn't she? This was the place that a woman had been brutally murdered. Yet. . . Jade felt a strange rush of adrenaline that made her feel guilty. Surely she wasn't excited to be at a murder location?

No, she thought. I'm happy to be out in the field.

Still, she couldn't shake her guilt. Not even when Rossi began to speak.

"So. . . He's done with the tour of the main house." Rossi flipped a switch. The light bulb over head of the actual cellar flickered to life, then flickered dead. It continued to flicker back and forth, making a buzzing sound as it did so. It was as if it were being pushed back and forth between the living and the dead, unsure of which realm it belonged to. "Before he goes, he asks the realtor -" Rossi flicked the switch again, killing the light - "to see the cellar. And boom."

Jade tried not to think of what boom meant, but she could see it anyways.

Dana Foster walked down into the cellar, a faceless man walking behind her. She stumbled on the last step and laughed at herself. "It's a bit dark, but the light works just fine."

Before she can turn around to see why the man was so quiet, she's hit in the back of the head. Her body falls, unconscious, to the ground. The man laughs. . .

Aaron's voice brings Jade to reality, away from the fictional version of a real murder that took place right where she was standing. A chill swept up her spine.

"Contusion on the back of her head says he surprised her," Aaron said. Jade looked at him, now that they were all in the cellar's dark depths. He was reading the report with a flashlight. "He incapacitated her with a blunt object."

"Thick walls," Rossi observed.

"Unlike the house, where we could easily hear Mr. Overholt and his son," Jade observed. Rossi nodded in agreement.

"Neighbors are few and far between. He can make her scream as loud as he wants to."

A shiver spasmed down Jade's spine. She tried to force it to go away, along with the mental image of Dana Foster's dead body.

"Rope burns on her wrists," Aaron reported from the corner. He was still reading what the report had to say. "He probably suspended her."

He shun his flashlight upwards. She walked over and guided it to the post that ran across the middle of the room.

"Like in his drawings," she told him, nodding at the board. "It's thick enough to hold a woman's weight - or even a man's, for that matter - and he mentioned in one of his papers that he's used them before."

Rossi walked up to them, looking at the board as well.

Jade walked away, her head spinning with thoughts and images. At first, they didn't make much sense to her.

There's a board like the writings - gave her an image of a light bulb.

He tied her up and watched her - gave her an image of a cord.

Electricity - gave her the final image she needed.

And it was right in front of her.

Aaron nodded. "And then he applied the current and watcher her whole body spasm."

"And makes her dance," Rossi replied darkly. "But where does he get the juice? Cattle prod? Taser?"

"Contact wounds don't conform to that," Aaron told him.

"How about this?" Jade asked. The two men looked at her. She was pointing to an outlet, the white over-layer of it was sticking out.

"Outlet's been tampered with," Rossi observed. He stepped beside Jade and crouched down, looking at it more closely.

"A tampered outlet would be easy to rig, if you had a basic understanding," Jade told them. "I've done it before."

Rossi pulled back the white piece.

"Be careful," Aaron advised.

Rossi reached in and pulled out a few wires held together by a metal clip. "Jerry-rigged. Clamp is still there."

Aaron walked over to the two, seeing it for his own eyes.

"He didn't have to use a taser." Aaron said quietly. "He pulled power from the house."

"Handy guy."

"Monster house," Jade remarked.