The Children are Missing
Chapter 26
After two more days, the team solved the case in Florida and was heading home the next morning. Strauss told Hotch that the team could have two days of stand down time, and Hotch started to plan a special night for Kahlan. He texted Garcia to see if she would watch Wyatt; Jessica already said she would pick up Jack from school and keep him. He was trying to figure out what he could do. He didn't want to get a hotel, they'd already done that. He didn't want to just take her out, they'd done that, too. He wanted to impress her, but he wanted to do it simply not by going overboard.
Rossi sat down beside him. "What's up?"
Hotch considered him a moment. "I want to do something nice for Kahlan tonight, but I'm having trouble figuring out what to do."
Rossi smiled and nodded. He liked the idea of Hotch heading home on the jet and actually thinking about something else besides another case. He liked the way Kahlan had changed him. Hotch didn't ware his scowl 24/7 anymore, and he had actually caught Hotch smiling a few times. Hotch had also lost the circles under his eyes, and Rossi figured Hotch wasn't staying up late doing paperwork all the time. It was nice for Hotch to have something else to focus on besides his work. "Does she know we're headed home?"
"No. I want it that to be part of the surprise."
"How are you handling the boys?"
"I had Garcia call and ask her if Wyatt could come see her. She wants to take him to a movie or something, and Jessica is keeping Jack."
"Nice. I assume you don't want to take her out?"
"No. I want to set up something at home."
Rossi nodded and thought about it for a moment. "Just fix her a nice dinner. She probably hasn't had someone do that in a long time."
"I was actually thinking about that. Are crabs in season yet?"
XXX
It didn't take Hotch anytime to close out the case files and turn them, so he headed home and got things rolling for his date night. Garcia had found him a restaurant that sold Maryland crabs, and she set it up for Hotch to pick some up. He stopped by the restaurant and headed home with a smile on his face. He knew exactly how he was going to set things up. He parked around the corner and made way his way to his back door; he didn't want Kahlan to be able to see him get home. Once everything was ready he would walk to her house to get her. He knew she didn't have any plans from her conversation with Garcia, and he couldn't wait to see her face.
XXX
The next afternoon, Rossi's phone rang. He noticed Kahlan's number on caller ID and he smiled. He couldn't wait to hear how the date went. "Hey, Kiddo. How's it going?"
"Is Aaron with you? He's not answering his phone."
"What?" Rossi's heart skipped a beat. "Aren't you with him?"
"Why would I be with him? Aren't you guys still in Florida?"
Rossi could hear the worry in her voice and he felt his heart racing. "No. . ."
"Rossi?"
"I will be there in ten minutes," he told her, hung up, grabbed his keys, and ran out the door.
XXX
Rossi pulled up to Hotch's house. Kahlan was waiting on the porch, and Rossi figured she wasn't as calm as she looked. They didn't waste pleasantries as Rossi used his key to unlock Hotch's front door. Kahlan let Rossi enter first and they quickly cleared the house. They didn't find Hotch, but what they did find sent a chill down Rossi's spine. He took out his phone to call the team.
Kahlan looked over the scene. She smiled sadly as she realized he had gone to a lot of trouble to apparently set up dinner for her. He had taken Jack's sand box and dumped it on his back patio. The sand was raked up to the French doors to make it look like a beach. He had also put a table and two chairs in front of the doors. The table was set with a red and white checkered table cloth, plates, glasses, and candles. It was a nice romantic scene. The kitchen was a different story. It was obvious there had been a struggle, and the blood on the edge of the counter made Kahlan stomach twist into a knot. A large pot was on the floor and its contents were scattered. Kahlan could tell the crabs hadn't been cooked all the way through. A pot of pasta had boiled dry and burned to the bottom of the pot. Kahlan grabbed a towel, turned the burner off, and pulled the ruined pot off the burner. A little metal pail held six beers, and Kahlan assumed the water in the pail had been ice. She bit her lip as she tried to force down the anger burning up her chest. He had been followed, and she let him blow it off. She should have done something, she wasn't sure what, but she shouldn't have let him just ignore it.
Rossi called to her from Hotch's garage. Kahlan quickly joined him and noticed the blood splatters on the floor that led into the back yard. "Where the hell is Aaron's car?"
"I noticed it around the corner. He didn't want you to know he was home until he could surprise you."
Kahlan shook her head and went to follow the blood trail out into the yard, but heard a vehicle pull into Hotch's driveway. Rossi opened the garage door and they saw Morgan and Reid get out of Morgan's SUV.
Within thirty minutes, the whole team was there and a CSU team was collecting evidence.
"So when was the last time you all saw him?" Kahlan asked the team.
"He left the office at 10:27 yesterday," Reid told her.
"And the last call on his cell was to Jessica's at 5:00 last night," Garcia told them from Morgan's phone. They all figured that Hotch had probably called Jack.
"Did anything happened in Florida?" She asked them.
"Nothing that we know of," JJ told her.
"The blood on the counter matches Agent Hotchner's type, but we will have to wait until DNA can be run to know for sure," a CSU tech told them.
They all tensed a little more. They had figured it was Hotch's blood, but having it basically confirmed set them more on edge.
"So all we have is that Hotch may or may not have been followed, and has now been missing for around twelve hours," Morgan pointed out.
"What about the guy you chased in New York? Did you see get a decent look at him?" Kahlan asked him.
"Not really. He was built enough like your friend Chuck that I just assumed it was him, too."
"Are you sure that your friend isn't involved?" Blake asked her with enough of an edge in her voice that Rossi tensed. He was worried that Kahlan was going to do something to her.
Kahlan just smiled at her, though. "I assure you that Chuck had nothing to do with this," Kahlan told her in an icy tone.
"We have no leads. What are we going to?" Reid asked them trying to ease the tension.
Kahlan turned to him. "I don't know about you all, but I'm going to find Aaron," she told him seriously and walked out of the house.
Morgan shot Rossi a look. "Are you just gonna let her go?"
Rossi smiled. "You think you could stop her?"
Morgan just ran a hand over his head and watched the door shut behind her.
XXXXX
Hotch sat in a chair in a long empty room of what he thought looked like an old office building. He could tell he was several stories up because the windows didn't have any coverings. When he woke up earlier that morning he had tried to escape his bonds, but his hands were bound behind the back of the chair with handcuffs and it was somehow attached to the chair because Hotch couldn't lift them at all. His legs were bound to the front legs of the chair, and the chair was attached to the floor. His head hurt and he knew it was from someone slamming it into his counter. He shook his head. He couldn't believe he was surprised so easily. He was in his kitchen cooking dinner and when he was attacked from behind. He had no warning and the blow had knocked him out so he had no idea who had attacked him and left him in the room. He was thirsty, his head felt like it wanted to explode, and he had no idea why; and it pissed him off.
Was it the stalker he thought was gone? Was it someone connected to Kahlan? Whoever it was must be good for him to have slipped into Hotch's house and come up on him without him hearing anything. He thought about Chuck, and he wondered for a minute if it was him. Maybe Kahlan didn't know him as well as she thought. Then he started thinking about all of the criminals he had helped to put away, and he realized there was a long list of people who probably wanted him dead. He kicked himself for not setting the alarm in his house. He had been relaxed enough through the week that it hadn't even occurred to him to do set it. You should have known better, Hotchner!
He wondered who would realize he was missing first. The team had the day off, so they wouldn't miss him. Kahlan didn't even know he was back yet, so she wouldn't miss him either. Then he thought about Jack. Jack would try to call him, he knew, and when he didn't get an answer, Jessica would probably call Dave. Would Dave just chalk it up to him being busy with Kahlan, or would Dave get worried and go to his house? Unless the attacker clean the place up, it would be obvious he didn't leave of his own accord. Dave wouldn't let it go. He knows I would never ignore a call from Jack no matter what. So that meant they were probably already looking for him. He sighed heavily. He didn't think there would be enough for them to go on to actually begin a search. If he had come up with a theory or two about who was stalking him, then maybe they would have something to use, but he had let it go. He mentally kicked himself again because that was exactly what the stalker had wanted him to do.
If his team wouldn't be able to find him, then he had to take upon himself to get away. He bit his lip as he considered his options. As of right then, he really didn't have any. He couldn't get even get out of the chair he was sitting in, let alone away from wherever he was. He desperately wanted whoever was responsible to show himself, but yet he was worried what would happen once that actually happened. He didn't think the person wanted to kill him. He could have just killed me at home, so he has another agenda. What, though? He had too much experience in dealing with people who had kept their victims alive for long periods of time. He could be in for some pretty nasty shit and with his imagination he didn't like it one bit. No! Don't start thinking the worst until you have a reason to! Focus on the task at hand! He tried again to figure out how the cuffs where hooked to the chair. He could feel the chain of the cuffs and he could feel a thin chain around the handcuff chain, but he couldn't feel where the little chain was hooked. He, again, tried to slide the cuffs off his wrist. He had struggled against them enough that they had cut into him, and he thought that maybe his own blood would grease his hands enough to be able to slip out of the cuffs. After several minutes of painful trying, though, he knew they were just too tight.
Then he took to trying to move the chair again. He could lean over enough to realize the chair was held to the floor with 'L' brackets with screws, so he thought if he could get them moving enough that the screws may become stripped enough for him to be able to pull them out. It bothered him that the kidnapper had apparently planned it all out. Any idea that it was a spur of the moment crime that would lead to mistakes was squashed as he realized this unsub was organized and patient. That mean he would be harder to find. Shit!
After several minutes he knew the chair and the screws were too strong to allow for enough movement. He resigned himself to just wait. Eventually the unsub would be there. He had to wait to see what the unsub wanted. Maybe he would be able to talk his way out or the unsub would make a mistake and he would be able to escape. All he had to do is wait. He will come. He wouldn't have gone through all that and just left me, right? He didn't want to consider how long it would take him to die of dehydration or starvation.