Chapter 11

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Hotch had pretty much kicked the poor girl out after that and closed the door before the principal could check on them. Emily had frozen at Cait's words and Hotch couldn't blame her. It had, surprisingly, shocked his system too. The United States was a very large country.

His hand alighted on Emily's back, absently rubbing over the soft silk of her blouse. She'd discarded her suit jacket earlier in the day exposing the red shirt she wore underneath. He'd almost swallowed his tongue. Then he'd almost pinched himself for the unprofessional thoughts. They were on a case, for goodness sakes and a case where she was already emotionally vulnerable. The last thing she needed was for him to add any pressure.

His hand continued down her arm as he hit Garcia's speed dial."

"Oh the irony, I was about to call you, Superman."

Hotch felt his lips twitch involuntarily. A lot had changed since he'd started spending time with the team. "What have you got?"

"A name."

"It wouldn't happen to be the name of the school's soccer coach, would it?"

"A janitor, actually," Garcia responded. "Don Hackney."

"Connection?"

"Just one. But it's big."

"And?"

"Well, there's a little bit of back story, sir. I went back over the pictures isolating the time stamps of when they were taken and took the liberty of matching them to murder cases across the country. First, there is a pattern there, right across the country from Chicago to Seattle. It gave me a rough timeline and before you ask, JJ's compiling all of the information back at the field office as we speak."

"Go on."

"I added all of the new information into my search parameters. The only name or connection between any or all of the victims was this guy. A couple of peeping Tom charges, says he's been arrested for attempted rape a few times but the charges never stuck… He's worked at every school, in every city connected to this case."

"Where is he now?" Hotch asked.

"Last known is a Seattle address. He works at Franklin High."

Hotch closed his eyes briefly. In his line of work, one simply couldn't believe in coincidences and the likelihood of two coincidences? Well, that was just unheard of. Emily's reaction to the fact that the coach had called Leah by her given name still had him a little shaken. "Get everything you can on…" he checked Emily's notes, "Tim Sivill. He's the soccer coach at Leah's high school."

"Sure thing, Boss," the tech responded cheerfully. "Over and out."

Hotch took a seat beside his still silent colleague. "Emily?"

Her eyes were hauntingly dark when they met his. "We interviewed Sivill in Chicago. He was the coach there too."

"Why? Leah was only eight?"

"The Scotts had a regular babysitter, a girl that lived behind them. She walked Leah and her brother home from school every day and stayed until the parents got home," Emily answered. "Could have been her sister actually and their families were old friends. Lindsay would walk across the Scotts' backyard to get to her house. If I remember right, she'd been at the soccer game the night the Scotts were killed."

"That's a lot to remember after eight years," Hotch said, his fingers unconsciously weaving with hers.

Emily sighed. "This was one of those cases – is one of those cases," she tried to explain. "It stuck with me. Sometimes it just takes a trigger to remember some of the details."

"What was your impression of him?"

"I didn't like him," she admitted, "But we didn't have anything to tie him to the crimes. You can't arrest someone on being creepy anymore."

He let out an exaggerated sigh. "And here that was my favourite part of the profile."

Emily's mouth curved upwards. "Ah, that illusive sense of humour."

He chuckled. "What do you want to do?" he asked, his thumb stroking over the soft skin of her knuckles. "Derek and Dave can handle the staff interviews if you'd like."

She opened her mouth to argue, then seemed to think better of it. "We're going to be better off talking to the teachers when school lets out."

He pulled her up then, grabbing her jacket off of the back of the chair in the process. He wasn't about to give her time to change her mind and he knew it was the closest thing to an admission of weakness he was going to get. This was wearing her down and the lack of leads was probably bothering her much more than she was willing to let on.

He made sure Emily walked just that little bit ahead of him, close enough that he could still brush her shoulder with his and definitely close enough that his hand could rest on her back, palm flat against the warm silk at the bottom of her spine. He watched her run a hand through her hair in exasperation.

"Em?"

She looked at him and he knew she was trying to hide everything inside and he hated that she was bottling up everything that was bothering her. "Sorry," she said.

He waited until they were in the car and buckled in before turning to her. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to say," she said, not facing him. Her eyes were out the window.

He left her looking out the window as he pulled out of the school parking lot and started along the route back to the field office. He wanted to push her, wanted to all but force her to tell him what was going on in hear head. He wanted to make sure she was okay, to keep her away from the pain she was so obviously experiencing even as she tried to hide it.

He caught her elbow before she made it into the field office, his concern jumping another notch when she started. "I want you to take a few hours," he said, tone telling her it should be useless to argue. "Go to lunch with JJ, talk baby, just take a step away from the case."

"I can do this," she said, almost rolling her eyes.

"Emily." His tone was warning now. "I'll send you back to Quantico." He'd known it was the wrong thing to say, empty threat or not, when her eyes blazed fire.

"I wasn't aware I was jeopardizing the case, sir."

"You're jeopardizing yourself," he told her frankly.

"You wouldn't be so worried if it was Derek or Dave," she accused. "I don't need to be coddled."

Hotch took a deep breath, trying to reign in his emotions. This wasn't what he'd hoped would be her reaction, nor did he appreciate his own seemingly over-protective reaction. He'd fully intended to treat her as he would any other agent and he'd sworn he would. Then he'd experienced the last three days with her. Then he'd seen Emily with Leah, watched how she reacted to the news that there were potentially two other people in Seattle that knew Leah's true identity. She'd managed to spawn protective instincts that had lain dormant and buried since his divorce from Haley. He actually probably worried more about her than he did his ex-wife and that was something scary to think about.

"I don't mean to coddle," he said, making sure his eyes met, and held hers.

"You are," she said sharply, the tone bordering on insubordinate.

He knew it was probably the irritation of stress that had her snapping at him. That didn't mean he was fully willing to just let it slide. "Prentiss."

The sharp tone made her straighten. "Sir."

"You wouldn't be here if I thought you couldn't handle this," he reminded her, "And the moment you can't you will be spending your days sitting beside JJ in the field office until the end of the case."

Emily blinked.

"Go with JJ and get some lunch," he repeated, eyes softening, hand tightening.

She turned on her heel and stalked into the precinct.

"Did you have a lover's quarrel?" Dave asked, eyeing Hotch over the papers. Derek and Reid had gone to pick up the janitor before heading back to talk to the teachers.

Hotch raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"

"Emily seemed a little less than impressed when she left with JJ," Dave replied, focusing his gaze on the papers in front of her.

"Professional miscommunication," Hotch answered vaguely.

"Oh?" Dave said, his tone implying he knew there was more to it than that. He'd been watching his colleague watch Agent Prentiss and watched the way he younger man's friendship seemed to progress into watching the pretty dark-haired agent with a different sort of look in his eyes.

"Dave, what do you want me to say?" He had an idea of where Dave was going with his particular line of questioning and he wasn't sure he'd come to enough of a conclusion about what was going on in his own mind.

"I'm just asking how long you've been looking at Emily like she's the center of your world."

Hotch's hand froze for a split second and he almost kicked himself. "There's nothing between me and Emily."

"But she is 'Emily'," Dave pointed out.

"Just like there's JJ and Derek," Hotch replied nonchalantly.

"You don't send either of them away from a case that gets too tough," Dave pointed out. "You don't hover over them either."

"What are you getting at?" Hotch was getting impatient with Dave's probing.

"Whatever is going on between you and Emily…" he paused, tilting his head slightly. "It's a good thing."

Hotch didn't know what to say to that.