Chapter 52
Children's Mercy Hospital
2401 Gillham Road
Kansas City, Mo
1/18/06
Hotch
One night in the hospital stretched into a transfer to the nearest major city and the pediatric hospital there. Thankfully they had a number of excellent physicians certified in adolescent medicine, even Reid couldn't find fault with her care. Unfortunately that wasn't helping, no one could figure out the cause of the attacks. They had noticed that they were only affecting the older girls; the three pre-pubescent girls from the home were physically improving in leaps and bounds. They had been fed more calories than the older girls, if not in better quality, and so didn't have as far to recover from the malnutrition. They hadn't been dosed with Loperamide or kept borderline dehydrated so their internal condition was stronger, and they'd even had some school lessons so they weren't as behind as the others. But that didn't mean they hadn't been abused. "Cray Sherman was in charge of the little girls." Elle had told him. Linda Yamamoto had kept the BAU team to tasks that would help them build a profile, interviewing victims and witnesses, going through the reams of records, looking around private quarters. She'd had her people go through the actual places where the girls were held, so they wouldn't form pictures of their friend's wife suffering there. "He's your garden variety pedophile, right down to the pictures on his computer. When they aged out of his preferential range he passed them up to Carl Lakeworth."
"What did he do to them?" They were video conferencing, the team back in Chillicothe, him in a borrowed conference room in the hospital while Milly went through a thorough MRI.
"He was turning them into angels." Gideon said, mystically.
Hotch was used to this. "Can you be more specific?"
"Angels don't have bodily functions. They don't eat. They don't drink. And as a result they don't need the facilities. He was gradually training them to get their bodies to shut down."
"Why not just stop all food and water?"
"Because then they would die before they stopped. The way he was doing it they would linger in what he called 'an angelic state' for three or four days before they died, and according to him they would, quote, 'go to their Heavenly Father with a smile, for they were directly entering the ranks of the heavenly host.'"
"More like they were relieved their suffering was over." Elle pointed out. "We've already found seventeen bodies. Their only hope was to make it to eighteen when he would put them on a bus to home, have the other parent find them in cases of custody, or death. I don't understand why none of them tried to escape."
"Loss of agency," Gideon replied. "Most of these girls spent their entire lives dependent on the older males in their lives, they have no education, they have no job skills, they've never handled money, they have no clue how the outer world works. That can be very scary, better to stay in a familiar environment, however hard, than face the great unknown. Then Milly showed up. You can argue that the academic world is sheltered, but she has a degree, she's held a demanding job, handled her own financial affairs at least in the day-to-day, owned a car, lived in a city, and so on and she has the expert observation and problem solving skills common to the Galois House program. The outside world wasn't frightening, it was home and she wanted back in it so she observed and solved the problem."
"Why did it take her so long to get out?"
"It looks like that was the first opportunity she had." Gideon replied. "We're miles out in nowhere, this place locks down like a prison, the only time they leave is to go to church and the congregations were on the side of the Pastor. This was the first time she'd seen someone in a uniform to attack."
"Good." Inwardly Hotch smiled, smart girl there. Smart and strong, he was going to like having both of them in his 'family'. "So the girls kept by Cray Sherman are not having these attacks. It has to be a part of the experiments Carl Lakeworth was doing to get their bodies to shut down."
"Yeah, but what?" Elle asked. "Linda's people gave us a list of all the meds in the house, have the doctors there come up with anything that would cause this?"
"Not yet. Keep looking, it's not just Milly, this is affecting a dozen other girls."
And affecting them it was. Hotch had been almost afraid the first time he observed Milly having one. She was having them five or six times a day, which was actually better than most of the others who were having them up to a dozen times over and having longer ones as well. The staff attributed this to Milly having been there for less time, and having been in excellent condition before arriving at the home. Still, it was hard to watch.
"The White Album? Why The White Album?" She asked as he dealt the cards. "I thought Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was considered their magnum opus."
"By many, true, but I don't think that one really captures the feeling of the times as well as The White Album." Hotch and Milly were playing Gin and talking. It was getting on in the evening. She'd spent the day going from test to test and talking with a therapist when she wasn't recovering from an attack. She was eating normal food now, her rash had progressed to the peeling stage, which never looked attractive but there was healthy skin underneath, and she was looking forward to starting physical therapy in the morning, all good signs. Granted she was still very tired most of the time and having trouble focusing and concentrating and having nightmares but overall she seemed in better spirits, notably healthier, except for the attacks. And Hotch was finding he enjoyed her company as much as he enjoyed Thom and Reid's.
"Here's another question for you. Why are all the so-called greatest albums of all time all recorded between 1960 and 1975? Do you think it's truly because that was the pinnacle of American popular music or is it just because most of the people compiling those lists are Baby Boomers who are reflecting on their collective youth rather than actually evaluating every album?"
"Hey, the sixties were a special time in music. I don't know if you remember…"
"I was born in 1988."
"Okay, I did not need to hear that."
"Granted, I always preferred modern jazz myself."
"And that is not right."
"Spencer likes classical and Thom likes stuff he can dance to. I never did understand that. Oh god…"
"Happening again?"
"Yeah."
One of the unusual symptoms was the sudden burst of anxiety that preceded the attack by a minute or two. It gave them a chance to prepare, but he hated seeing her that afraid when there was so little he could do. But he did what he could. "Just try to relax and breathe like they told you. In and out. That's it." He said reassuringly as she started to take deep, relaxing breaths. He rang for the nurse and lowered the head of the bed while she came.
"Another one?" She asked when she came in.
"Yes." While the nurse got Milly's vitals he went to get some towels from the now well stocked counter, some damp, and a couple of cold packs. He brought them back just in time, Milly groaned as her temperature suddenly shot up a good six degrees, her face and shoulders turned a bright russet red and she broke out in a heavy sweat. He knew that her stomach was cramping and her heart was racing and she could barely see. He put the ice packs on the sides of her neck at the collarbone, to try to cool the blood rushing to her brain and prevent damage, and then looked away as the nurse put damp, cold towels on her head and chest and turned on a nearby fan to try to help her get cool. The whole affair lasted a good ten minutes, during which there was nothing he could do but watch her body battle itself. Then as quickly as it came it subsided, leaving her soaked in sweat and chilled from the sudden drop. As the nurse helped her clean up he quickly changed the now sodden sheets and then they got her back into bed where she drooped, exhausted.
"I hope this stops soon." She admitted when the nurse was gone.
Is it wrong to be glad Haley went to her family that summer? Is it so wrong? "So do I."
