One by one they came down to the kitchen freshly showered and ready for a new day. It is the pot of coffee that they all made a bee line for right off the bat.
"You can eat in the kitchen if you want. After last night I figured that you would all be more comfortable eating here than the dinning room, besides it's closer to the coffee pot."
"I thought that we might be meeting Hope this morning." JJ speculated.
"She has come and gone. She came last night around eleven but was called out around four in the morning. There was a car accident next town over she needed to stay with the child until the relative came to get him."
"Is she the only in the social worker in the county? Hotch asks.
'No not at all, but she is on call this week."
"I've always like the name Hope." Morgan admits as he pours more coffee for everyone.
"Me too." Rossi tells them
"It's Penelope's middle name you know." Hotch reminds them.
"No it's not her middle name is Esperanza she told me that when her step father adopted her they changed her middle name to his Grandmothers first name."
"Reid." Emily says patiently "Esperanza is the Spanish word for Hope."
Half way through breakfast of waffles with a fresh fruit compote and a plate with a piled with bacon. Rossi's cell rings bringing a feeling of dread over the rest of them.
"Rossi."
"You sound as bad as I feel."
"How can I help you Gibbs."
"My director talked to your director your team is investigating a series of murders. One of the couples, the man was a retired marine. I want in, retired or not once a marine always a marine."
"I'm a member of that club too remember?"
"Why do you think I'm being nice and not taking over the whole thing? You out rank me."
"Don't forget that Gunny. When can we expect you?"
" I'm standing at the front door and I smell coffee." Gibbs says before he closes the call.
"We have two new agents joining us, you girls will have to share a room." Rossi says as he leaves the room. He returns with two men following him.
"You remember Gibbs and DiNozzo." he says as he pours two fresh cups of coffee he hands them to the newcomers before he sits back down.
Hotch looks at them and waits. "We got a ping as McGee likes to call it a retired marine dies under suspicious circumstances, let us just say our hacker hacked." Tony tells them then smiles.
"Millie we will be more than happy to pay for the rooms and the food for all of us. The women can share a room leaving the NCIS boys each a room."
"Same deal as before. Looks like I have to get more food and coffee."
Half an hour later the eight agent were sitting around the large dinning room table with files being shared and a two laptops opened one connected to a tech in the BAU and the other to McGee.
"McGee, what's the hold up?"
"Sorry Boss, I'm having a hard time getting though the firewall to the hospital lab. Who ever wrote this program is good better than me. And I thought that hacking the CIA was hard."
The BAU team chuckled softly when they head this.
"I wish we had our hacker still." Reid says softy.
"They found another couple." JJ tells them as she closes her cell.
"Gibbs, DiNozzo you come with us." Rossi tells them as they walk out the door.
Five hours later they come back to the house, more frustrated than when they left. Rossi grabbed some of the grocery bags and went to the kitchen. The rest of them followed him each one doing their part. They hated wasting time but they all knew that they couldn't rush the autopsies or the labs.
They found the kitchen door opened and felt a warm breeze drift into the room bringing with it the faint sound of a child's laughter. Morgan went to the door and opened it wanting to let Millie know that they were back and to ask her and Greg to join them for lunch and that they would clean the kitchen before they left.
At the far end of the yard working in a vegetable garden he sees Millie's son Greg and a woman wearing jeans and a blue pullover, he takes in the rest of her appearance she is barefooted and she has a large beach hat on her head with a dark blonde ponytail laying on her back.
He can hear them talking but can not hear their voices clearly to understand what they are saying. He is startled when he feels a warm hand on his arm.
"I'm sorry I thought you heard me." Millie says as she steps around him and calls her son in for lunch.
"Hi!" Greg says to Morgan. "I'm hungry Mommy, Hope said she would eat later."
"Okay thank you for telling me now go wash your hands."
"Mommy, Hope said that if we don't pull the weeds from the garden the vegetables won't grow because the weeds will eat all the good thing from the soil and drink all the water. Is she right? Because I don't like to pull weeds it it's to hard."
"She's right Greg, if you want the fresh strawberries and the all the other vegetables in the garden then we have to work for them. A little work is good for you. But I thought that she always played catch with you after you finished pulling weeds."
"We do, mommy. Even if she throws like a girl." Greg tells her making all of the men chuckle, and the women give them dirty looks.
It was a long hard day after lunch the agents split up and decided to revisit the other places where the couple had died. But it seemed that Murphy had other ideas if it could go wrong it did go wrong. They got caught in the rain and one of the SUV's got a flat tire.
To say they were grumpy would be an understatement.
Waking from a fitful sleep Morgan hears nose coming from the first floor. He slips on his jeans and grabs his sidearm opening his bedroom door only to see Tony standing there also armed. The two of them make their way down the stairs then clear each room as they go. Seeing a light coming from the kitchen they take in a cleaning breath of air and exhale slowly before they push open the door.
For a split second they are frozen in place at what they are seeing. Penelope Garcia dressed in grey FBI sweats standing there holding a small pink handgun pointed at the two of them.
After an eternity she puts the handgun down on the counter and smiles as she asks them.
"Do you want marshmallows with your hot cocoa?"