They introduced themselves to the local police officer; a young man who looked a little green around the gills, and followed him into the house. Emily noticed how the man led them to the upstairs floor and indicated the parent's bedroom down the hall but didn't actually come with them to check out the room. If she had to guess - she would put a month's salary betting the young officer lost his lunch after first seeing the bodies.
The scene in the parent's bedroom was a carbon copy of the crime scene photos from the Anderson family. The air was still and the stench of death and flesh beginning to decay was mixed with the coppery metallic smell of blood. The parents were in the bed, tortured and mutilated, the mother was severely beaten, hardly recognizable. The father was stabbed repeatedly which was surprising since there was not a lot of blood on the bed. Both of them had ligature marks on their hands and feet and burns on their arms and legs. Two of the children were at the foot of the bed each lying in a pool of their own blood.
"This looks exactly the same as the Anderson and the Cramer house." Emily said when Derek rejoined her in the master bedroom.
"The oldest girl was placed into a cupboard under the sink in the adjacent bathroom" Derek reported.
"I don't see what we can learn from this Morgan. It's all the same. There's nothing new here…" Emily sounded frustrated and he couldn't blame her "How is he choosing these families? We can't find any link between them, and the victimology is too specific for it to be random…"
"That's the one piece of the puzzle we still need to figure out" He said gravely letting the frustration he was feeling seep into his voice. He indulged it for a second, closing his eyes and rubbing them tiredly, but he only allowed himself a second.
"We know the oldest child is the target…" he mused "let's go over the kid's bedroom see if we could find anything that would help us figure out a connection…"
"Agent Hotchner" Hotch greeted into his phone even though he already knew who was on the other end of the line (thanks to the wonderful technology that was caller ID) and the identity of the caller made him want to do anything but be friendly and cooperative.
"Good afternoon Agent Hotchner" The director greeted in that icy tone that he learned to associate with her by now "I hear there's been another murder in Phoenix. Don't you think this thing is getting a little out of control?"
"We're getting closer. We have a profile, we're working on narrowing down the list of suspects as we speak…"
"All the while families are being killed all over the south west" She retorted dryly "And it doesn't seem like your newest addition to the team is making it any more likely for you to stop this UNSUB before he kills another family"
"Miss Davis is not a magic bullet Director" He said curtly, his patience running thin "We didn't bring her in so she could wave a magic wand and solve the case for us…"
"Watch your tone Agent Hotchner, and for the record, I can't say I fully support the decision to bring a loose canon ex-agent into this investigation at all…"
"It was a command decision…" He started to explain but she cut him off
"As much as I would love to discuss your 'command decision' and believe me when I say that we're going to have that conversation in the near future, that's not what I want to discuss at this particular moment…"
He waited patiently for the other shoe to drop, deciding not to give her the satisfaction of actually asking her what she meant.
"This case is getting out of hand and the press is feeding the frenzy. I'm setting up a task force to handle this investigation, you'll still be a part of the case but I'm sending a more senior Agent to head the task force…"
He wanted to argue, to try to explain to her that they had a handle on the situation and bringing in more feds would only cause more confusion and chaos, but he knew it would be futile. She wanted to make him look incompetent and taking the case away from him and his team was the best way for her to do that.
"You're the director. It's entirely your decision"
Even without being in the room with her he could tell by her pause that she was thrown off by the easiness in which he relinquished his power. It gave him an odd comfort to know he could make her loose her control over the situation like that - even by a small amount.
Finally she recovered "The special task force will be assembled as soon as possible. You can expect their arrival the day after tomorrow"
She hung up the phone before he could answer, not that he had anything to say to her even if she'd stayed on the line. He fought the urge to throw his phone against the wall and watch it shatter into a million pieces just for the hell of it, but he knew that other then the momentary satisfaction of venting his anger on an inanimate object, it wouldn't do him any good.
He had to work the case, and now, to make a hard case even harder - he had to work it fast, before whoever the director chose would come and take over the investigation.