a/n: Back again with part four (long fic part 4 anyway) of my Elliot Jackson series! This series began with Endgame, then Reckoning, then History. I kinda figure the one-shot Your Turn takes place between History and this one, but it doesn't matter too much. If you haven't read those, you might be a little confused here, so consider it!

This takes place about 6 months after the end of History, between 3x5 and 3x7. That's what I have in my notes; idk what happened to 3x6 but. There ya go.

This fic is based on a real-life case known as the Jeff Davis 8. There's a documentary (on Showtime, but maybe elsewhere) called Murder in the Bayou, based on the book by the same name, that covers it. Look it up sometime, because boy howdy.

For those of you familiar with the part of Louisiana where this fic takes place: I've done a lot of research, but errors are not only possible, but probable. Forgive me.

Enjoy the fic, and I love feedback!

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

Quantico, VA
BAU Headquarters
It had been six months since Taj. Six months since she'd learned truths about her life at the CIA that she almost wished had remained hidden. Six months since she'd left Daniel Talbot, her former partner and, she'd thought, friend, to bleed out on a cold concrete floor in a basement of horrors below her old high school.

Hotch had ordered her to take two weeks off, with the option for more. In the end she'd taken a month. She went home for a few weeks, back to Mississippi to visit her mother. She found a yoga and meditation class she liked in the District. She finally visited the kickboxing gym on the corner.

She avoided most people, except for the cute guy down the hall with the adorable Sheltie who she thought would be perfect for Reid. The guy, not the dog. Reid and dogs had a weird thing. So maybe the guy wasn't a perfect fit after all.

She and Reid went mostly back to the how they'd been before Hankel. Their standing hang night picked up like it had never been dropped. They went to obscure foreign films and criticized the subtitles. She taught him to cook a bit. He taught her to play poker without using her ability.

It was a nice time. A quiet time. Probably the most peaceful she'd ever been in her life.

And when her month was finally up she was crawling out of her skin. Her apartment had never seemed smaller. She felt like she'd seen every site the nation's capital had to offer, and then some. She returned to work glad as hell to be back, and after that she was too busy to be bored.

Now, six months later, a lot had changed. In July Section Chief Strauss went over Hotch's head to add a new member to the team. Luckily they'd worked with her before, and though he was annoyed by Strauss' meddling, he didn't have much say in the matter. Emily Prentiss had transferred from Metro PD and been fast tracked through the Bureau and to the BAU. She was good, and after his initial reservations, Hotch relaxed about the whole thing.

A tune Jackson was familiar with.

Just as they were settling in to the new lineup, it got disrupted again. Gideon's abrupt departure left them all reeling, none more than Reid. She would never forget the sound of his voice on the phone that night, or how scared she'd been when she'd gotten to his place. They all knew the toll this job could take, but Jackson wasn't sure she would ever forgive Gideon for putting Reid through that. He could've left the right way. He didn't have to vanish with nothing more than a fucking letter.

David Rossi, Gideon's replacement, had taken some time to get his footing. He was old school. His version of the BAU was different from theirs, and it took a while for him to adjust to their (new to him) "teamwork" approach.

He did, though, and things seemed to be more or less back to a comfortable rhythm. Learning about Jackson's unique ability hadn't really phased him: he'd laughed and accepted it almost immediately. ("One of those Agency kids, huh? Yeah, I'd heard the rumors. Guess they were true after all.")

She'd recently spent her twenty-seventh birthday in Montana on the type of case that made her skin crawl. A pair of UNSUBs who abducted and tortured women before killing them and burying them in the yard. With rosebushes. It seemed like what the victims suffered had almost gotten lost amidst all the macho posturing bullshit going on, but Jackson wasn't sure she would ever get it out of her head.

After all, she'd seen some of it. Glimpses. But far more violent and disturbing than what was on those tapes, and that had been bad enough. And feeling all that pain and anguish and terror…

Even now the memories made her shudder. She'd had nightmares every night since.

But. A new day, probably a new case, and possibly new nightmares. What a job.

She'd been awake as the minutes ticked by till her alarm, and finally she'd shut it off and gotten up early. She almost went to the gym, but that seemed ridiculously ambitious and way too much like a Derek Morgan thing to do. Instead she took a bath instead of a shower, ate actual breakfast, and still made it to work about thirty minutes earlier than usual.

The elevator doors were closing as she rushed toward them. "Hold the elevator!" she called.

A black briefcase slid between the doors and they sprang back. Hotch greeted her with a mild smile as she joined him. "Good morning," he said.

"Hi, morning. Thanks."

He cut his eyes at her. "You're here early."

"Oh, yeah, just wanted to get a jump on some paperwork. You know how I hate to let it pile up."

He did know, but also he could see the dark circles she'd tried to hide with makeup. She'd been jumpier the last few days, distracted. Upping her caffeine intake, too. "EJ, you know if you ever need to talk, my door's always open."

She gave him a curious look. "Talk? About what?"

A shrewd glare. "Montana, maybe?"

"Ah."

He heard an entire soliloquy in that one small, neutral sound. "None of us forgot," he finally said.

"I'm sorry?" she said with a frown.

"About the women. The victims. None of us forgot what they went through. How could we?" He expression was stern, but his voice was gentle.

She shivered. "I know you didn't," she said. "At least—" She let out a quiet sigh. "It's just different. For me. Did I laugh when that guy called Reid a pipe cleaner with eyes? Of course I did. But then I walked into that room and…" She trailed off with a shake of her head.

"Maybe I should stop sending you to the scenes. For a little while."

The elevator binged their floor and they got off. They took a few steps into the hall, out of the flow of traffic, and he lowered his voice. "If it gets to be too much, like in Montana, I need you to tell me. We can do the profile without it."

She looked up at him with weary, sad eyes. "You know as well as I do that at any given time there are over thirty serial killers operating in this country. Some of them are smart. Some are just lucky. Either way we need every advantage we can get in stopping them, because right now it's like bailing water from a sinking ship.

"I get it. We all have to compartmentalize in our own way, or this job wouldn't be possible. Sometimes, on some cases, I struggle with that. But I'd rather struggle than feel like I'm not doing all I can to stop these assholes. I can handle the scenes, Hotch. Even the hard ones."

His brows were drawn together in a firm line as he studied her. "What we do isn't classified," he said.

Her mouth opened. Closed again. "No, of course it isn't."

"Talk to someone, EJ. If not me, then someone else. The nightmares will take over if you let them."

She made a low, thoughtful noise. "You sound like someone who knows." She fixed him with a frank look through clear green eyes. "You're here awfully early, too."

His glower deepened. She would use all her energy taking care of literally anyone else before spending one second taking care of herself. "This isn't about me."

"No," she said with a bemused smile, "it never is."

He let out an impatient huff. "EJ—"

She held up a hand. "Peace, Hotch. I hear you. If I need help, I'll ask for it. Okay? You know I will." She lifted a brow and watched the memory of that night at Spencer's flash through his eyes.

"You're an excellent agent, Dr. Jackson, but sometimes you're a pain in the ass—I meant help for you, not for someone else."

"Some people say it's part of my charm, Agent Hotchner."

His mouth twitched upward before his expression hardened again. "I'm not interested in the opinion of masochists."

It surprised a laugh out of her. "Touché, sir."

Behind them the elevator dinged, and when the doors opened JJ and Morgan stepped out. Jackson took a subtle step away from Hotch and exchanged good mornings with the others.

"Blondie here says our next case is in your neck of the woods, pint size," Morgan said.

"Mississippi?"

"Close," JJ said. "Louisiana. Not too far from the border."

Jackson grimaced. "Well. At least it's November. Smaller mosquitos, fewer ticks."

Hotch checked his watch. "Let's assemble in the round table room when everyone else gets here. I'll be in my office if anyone needs anything in the meantime."

"Sounds like coffee time to me," Morgan said. "Come on, Jack. You look like you could use it even more than me."

She tilted her head. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"Yeah," JJ said. "What does that mean, Derek?"

Morgan glanced at Hotch, but he just lifted his brows in a you're on your own here, bud gesture. "I'll be in my office," he said again, and made his escape.

"Thanks, Hotch," Morgan muttered. He turned back to the two women with a sheepish smile. "All I meant was that the always lovely and impeccably turned-out Dr. Jackson usually comes in with a cup of coffee in hand. Today it's missing, so I, talented profiler that I am, concluded that she would have a mighty need."

"Hmm." Her mouth twisted. "You buy it, JJ?"

"I think maybe we can let him off the hook this time. But he isn't as charming as he thinks he is."

"Nowhere near as charming as he thinks he is."

"You guys must be talking about Morgan," Prentiss said as she joined them from the elevator.

"Now that's some good profiling," Jackson said with a gesture in her direction.

Morgan lifted his hands in surrender. "Ladies, ladies, could we please wait until at least eight AM to gang up on me?"

"We could," Jackson said, "but as you pointed out, I haven't had enough caffeine this morning and it's making me cranky. Be a doll and start a pot?"

"You're small but you're mean, pint size," he said.

"Concentrated and travel size for your convenience."

"Come on, ladies," JJ said. "The talented profiler here knows how we take our coffee, and we have important FBI business to attend to. I'm sure he won't mind bringing it to us."

Morgan gave an exasperated sigh, but he was clearly fighting a grin. "Yeah, fine, I guess I deserve that. Three coffees coming right up for the brilliant ladies of the BAU."

Forty-five minutes later the team was gathered around the conference room table while JJ passed out case files. "We've got eight dead women discovered recently in—um—Atch…" She frowned down at the paper in her hand.

"Atchafalaya," Jackson said. "Like a sneeze: Ah-CHA-fa-LIE-ah."

"Right. What she said. Anyway, in the swamp just southeast of Butte La Rose." She pulled a map up on the projection screen.

"Cajun country," Jackson said. "That area is full of bayous and swamps that outsiders can't really hope to navigate.

"The Atchafalaya Basin is the largest wetland and swamp in the US, and it covers an area approximately twenty miles wide and one hundred miles long," Reid said. "That's a total of one point four million acres, including the country's largest contiguous tract of coastal cypress trees at two hundred sixty thousand acres."

"So, it's big," Rossi said.

"To put it mildly," Jackson said. She studied the map with a frown. "Down near Bayou Chene. Wonder if that's significant to the UNSUB."

"Reid?" Hotch said.

"Ah, Bayou Chene was a community of trappers, loggers, and fishermen that flourished in the nineteenth century. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 washed much of the town away, and by 1953 it was abandoned. Over the years flooding has left it buried under several feet of silt, and it's not even a tourist attraction now," he said.

"But the swamp itself is. Towns all up and down the Atchafalaya Basin run boat tours out into those bayous. Who found the bodies?" Jackson said.
JJ flipped to the next slide, a picture of a cypress-and-tupelo swamp with a small hummock of land dropped in the middle. "A pair of, um…frog-giggers? Were out fishing and stumbled upon the bodies."

"Frog-gigging is the act of hunting—"

"I think we can figure it out from context, pretty boy," Morgan said. "So local boys, based on what Jack said about the area."

"From St. Martinville," JJ said. "It's the St. Martin Parish sheriff's office who've called us in, because the bodies weren't located within any town limits."

Reid's eyes lit up. "St. Martinville is the third oldest city in Louisiana, and it's considered the birthplace of Cajun culture. It was once called Little Paris because New Orleanians would flee the city during plague outbreaks, and it became a sort of cultural mecca for the rich and powerful."

"Seriously, did you Google all of this before we sat down, or is that information just sitting in your brain waiting for you?" Rossi said.

Reid frowned. "I don't…Google, Rossi."

Next slide. Eight rugs in various states of decay, one of them rolled open to reveal the corpse of a young woman.

"How did they not get eaten?" Prentiss said. "There have to be all sorts of people-eating critters in a place like that."

"Gators, especially, but also bears, panthers, foxes, raccoons, turtles—no shortage of scavengers," Jackson said. "I guess that's what the rugs are for, but most animals wouldn't care about something like that. They'd just dig right through it."

"So maybe he was keeping them away somehow," Hotch said.

"Or maybe the bodies were buried, and recently came to the surface. Have there been any floods in the past few weeks?" Rossi said.

"Actually," JJ said with a strained smile, "they were originally buried somewhere else." The slide changed. "The locals sent soil samples down to New Orleans. Apparently the freshest dirt was from the swamp where the bodies were found, but older soil ingrained in the rugs was from elsewhere. They're trying to figure out where."

"Why do that?" Morgan said. "He obviously had a secure dumping ground, but shortly after he moved them they were all found. Why would he take that risk?"

"He didn't move them to a Wal-Mart parking lot," Rossi said. "Way out in the swamp, maybe he thought animals would find them before humans did. Something might have changed for him, something that made his old dumping ground risky."

"JJ, what can you tell us about the victims?"

"All of them were reported missing within the last year and a half." She flipped through a series of pictures. "Ages range from nineteen to thirty-seven, Black, white, and hispanic. At least two of them were known prostitutes. Almost all of them had drug arrests. They're all from the St. Martin Parish area, and with such a small community, their disappearances were noticed."

"Prostitutes and drug addicts, normally a high-risk group," Rossi said.

"But the insular environment makes any disappearance a big deal," Reid said. "To take eight women in eighteen months from a population pool of only about fifty thousand…"

"Risky," Rossi said. "He's a bold one."

"He abducts a woman every two months. JJ, how long had the most recent victim been dead?" Hotch said.

"It's hard to tell. The humidity and active insect population speed decomp, so the coroner projects just a few days since she was dumped, but the cell membranes were ruptured, indicating that the body was frozen prior to being buried."

"And when was she reported missing?" Prentiss said.

"Six weeks ago."

"Meaning he's probably already looking for a new victim." Hotch closed the file and tapped the papers into an orderly stack. "Wheels up in thirty, people. We're landing in Baton Rouge, and then driving to St. Martinville."

"Bring bug spray," Jackson said.

"You said no mosquitos!" JJ said.

"I said smaller. A swamp without mosquitos is like Garcia in flats: it might happen someday, but we probably won't be around to see it."

St. Martinville, La
St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Office
"Y'all got no idea how happy I am to see you," Sheriff Willett said. "It's just me and a couple deputies for the entire Parish. None-a these towns is big enough to have its own police station. And now we got eight goddamn—'scuse my language, ma'am, ma'am—eight bodies. We'd kinda hoped these girls was runaways, but so much for that."

He was tall, fit, and had a Creole look about him, with light brown skin, tightly-curled, dark red hair, dark eyes, and a liberal sprinkle of freckles across his cheeks. He looked to be in his mid-forties or so, and this was his first election cycle. To be a new Sheriff suddenly stuck with eight bodies was an unenviable position.

"We're glad to be here, Sheriff," Hotch said. "Did you get everything setup as Agent Jareau requested?"

"Yep, not a problem. We didn't have a white board, but we got the high school to loan us out an old chalk board. I can try to dig you up a white board somewhere if it's important. Office supply shop'd have it."

"No need for that," Hotch said. "Let me introduce you to my team. These are Special Agents Rossi, Morgan, Prentiss, and Jareau, and Doctors Reid and Jackson."

"Welcome, come on in. I'm Sheriff Robert Willett, as y'all know." He paused, considering. "Jareau's an old Creole name in these parts. You don't much got the look, but I've been fooled before. Your people from around here?"

JJ shook her head. "No, as far as I know we're all from Pennsylvania. I don't think there's any Creole. Maybe I should ask my mom sometime." Will would be interested to know, she thought, but she kept her face smooth and refused to blush.

"You should. For all you know, this's a home-comin'." He offered a brief smile and turned his attention back to Hotch. "These are my deputies Zach Boudreaux and Annalise Verret. Other two're out at the crime scene along with the boys from your New Orleans office.

They all exchanged nods and a few handshakes, and the sheriff walked them back to the area he'd set aside for their use. The pictures of all eight victims were pinned to a cork board, along with a large map of the Parish and surrounding area. The swamp was a meandering slash of green that looked intimidatingly wide even in map form. There was a red pin marking the dumpsite, and various photos of the scene.

"Y'all need anything else? Coffee?"

"No, I think we're fine for now. Could you or one of your deputies please take myself, Agent Rossi, and Dr. Jackson to the site? We'd like to see it for ourselves."

"Sure, no problem." He frowned and cast them a critical look. "Y'all'll need some waders."

"I brought my own," Rossi said. "What?" he said at the team's surprised glances. "I like to fly fish, and I knew there was a swamp involved."

"Smart," Willett said with a grin. "Shouldn't be a problem to fit you, Agent Hotchner, but Dr. Jackson…" He trailed off, looking nonplussed. "Hell, I'm sure we can find somethin'. We'll hit the Bait 'n' Tackle on our way out."

She kept her expression impassive. "Maybe kids' size will work," she said, sweetly. Hotch gave her a warning glare, but she just smiled at him.

"Now who's a gnome?" Reid muttered to her when Willett turned his back.

"Still your car," she said.

Hotch shot them a quelling look, and Reid shuffled a few steps away. "Morgan, I want you and Prentiss to hit the morgue. JJ, Reid, stay here and start interviewing the families. We won't have cell reception out at the site, but the radios Deputy Boudreaux is passing out now will work."

"Channel six," the deputy said.

"Thank you, deputy. Rossi, EJ, you're with me."

They managed to find waders to fit Jackson without much trouble, and soon they were in a small, flat-bottomed boat piloted by the sheriff through winding bayous that, to an outsider, all looked the same: stretches of green-topped, dark water surrounded by huge cypress trees, everything draped in ghostly Spanish moss. Broken-off trunks stuck up here and there like spears, and every log had a small army of turtles sunning themselves. The deeper they went the darker it got, as the trees closed in like a living vault above their heads.

"This is remarkable," Hotch said. "It's clear our UNSUB has to be local. I can't imagine someone unfamiliar with these swamps making it in this far with eight bodies, and then getting back out again."

Sheriff Willett nodded agreement. "That's one of the few things we can be sure of. Gettin' in isn't the trouble so much as gettin' out, like you said. Any fool can stumble his way through here, but gettin' lost's as easy as spittin'. Y'all see those?" He slowed the boat and pointed toward a bright orange bit of cloth tied around a tree branch. "Had my deputies place 'em and every junction so we could find the spot easier. You can follow 'em all the way in. On the right side, go right. On the left, go left. If y'see a yellow one, go straight. Red? Turn 'round cuz you done fucked up, son."

Rossi and Jackson laughed outright, while Hotch's lips twitched in a brief smile.

"That was smart," Rossi said. "Hope we won't have to use them, though. I for one don't plan to ever be out here without a guide."

"That's the next thing I was gonna say. System or no system, y'all don't come out here on your own. If one of my men isn't around to take you, find one of the local boys run the swamp tours. The bayou's not often friendly to outsiders, and none of us got the time or resources to waste findin' lost Yankees."

"Are you from around here, Sheriff?" Jackson said. She decided not to correct his impression about her being a Yankee. She wasn't one, but she also wasn't from around here, so at the end of the day it didn't make that much difference.

"Yes, ma'am. Born and bred in St. Martin Parish. My daddy was Sheriff in these parts 'fore me."

"I was wondering if maybe Bayou Chene might have some significance for our UNSUB," she said.

He made a low noise that they could barely hear over the sound of the engine. "Could be. Seems like a stretch, though."

"You're probably right," she said. "But the proximity is notable."

Rossi nudged her. "You been hangin' around with the kid too long. You sound just like him."

"Possibly," she said with a brief twist of her lips. "But if his brains are rubbing off on me, then so much the better."

"Here we go, just down this bayou here. You can see the CSU boats, and some we had to borrow from the locals.

Hotch cast Jackson a look. "You've had a lot of people through here?"

Willett shrugged. "We've kept it to a minimum, but when they heard eight bodies, your New Orleans office jumped on it like ticks on a hound dog. Not that I blame 'em, and I surely do appreciate the help." He glanced over at Hotch. "I've worked my share of murders, Agent Hotchner, and I've taken a bunch of y'all's classes up at Quantico. I know the importance of preserving a scene."

"Of course you do, Sheriff," Hotch said. "No insult was meant. I just like to know what I'm dealing with."

It didn't really matter if the entire St. Martinville High School marching band had been through here; it wasn't likely she could get any impressions from a dumpsite. Especially not a secondary dumpsite. But extra foot traffic only muddled things further, so Hotch was right to be concerned.

Willett navigated the boat to stop between two others and dropped the anchor. "This's why y'all need waders. Gonna have to walk from here."

It was only a few yards, but Rossi's expensive Italian leather shoes would've been ruined. He was grateful for the sheriff's foresight. Hotch offered Jackson a hand and helped her down into the water, which came up nearly to her hips. When wading through a swamp, being short really sucked.

They made it up onto the hummock of land and paused a moment to study the scene. Flags marked where each body had been. Soil samples had been removed at various locations through the area. A CSU team was searching with a metal detector, while another used a wire sieve to filter through the dirt.

A deputy in a St. Martin Parish uniform sidled closer. "Sheriff Willett."

"Deputy, good, just who I was lookin' for. The BAU's here from Quantico, and I need someone familiar with the scene to show 'em around. This's Agent Hotchner, Agent Rossi, and Dr. Jackson. Agents, Doctor, this's Deputy Mendoza. He grew up just across the river in DeLacroix, so he's as familiar with these swamps as any of us."

He tipped his hat to each of them. "Sir, sir, ma'am. Welcome to Louisiana. Sorry it's under these kinda circumstances. If y'all wanna follow me, I can show you were they found the bodies."

Rossi fell in beside the deputy while Hotch and Jackson lagged behind a few steps. "Think you'll be able to get anything?" he said, voice pitched low.

"I doubt it. I can tell you no one was killed here, but we already knew that. If the UNSUB had a strong connection to this place, those emotions have faded now, or been wiped away by all the traffic." Her head tilted thoughtfully. "Maybe if I had a moment?"

He waited until they were at the spot where the bodies had been dumped before he stepped away to confer with Rossi. They walked from place to place, studying the flags and comparing the scene now with the photos they carried.

Jackson took a few steps away, to a quiet spot out of the hustle and bustle, and closed her eyes. Nothing stood out. There was a low mental hum from all the activity, and the swamp itself…she couldn't read animals (much to her chagrin), but the swamp had a life and a vibrancy that plucked at her ability like strings on a harp.

"Dr. Jackson?"

The voice, deep, and marinated in heavy Cajun seasoning, pulled her back to the surface. She frowned, and when she opened her eyes she found herself scowling up at Deputy Mendoza. He had one blue and one brown eye, something she hadn't noticed before, and for a moment she could only stare.

"Dr. Jackson, are you alright? You need to sit down?" he said, all Southern politeness and charm.

She blinked. "Pardon?"

"You're over here all by yourself, and you look a little…peaked, if you don't mind me sayin' so. I can get you somethin' to drink. Even in November it can get humid out here."

"Oh, no. Thank you for your concern, Deputy, but I'm fine. Sometimes I like to clear my mind a little bit, study things from a different perspective."

He scanned her face, brow furrowed. "Sure, that makes sense." He tucked his thumbs into his belt. "Mind if I stand here too? Just in case you're not as fine as you seem."

She cut him a look from the corner of her eye as he took position next to her. He was tall and broad, with warm olive skin and closely-shorn dark hair. And those eyes, of course. His mind was quiet, but she got the sense it was more because of a natural stillness than from any lack of thought. "Sheriff Willett said you're from across the river?" she said.

"Yep. Iberia Parish runs right through St. Martinville, splits it in two like up in Michigan. I'm from the peninsula bit." He flashed her a grin with bright white teeth. "It's the better half."

"I'm sure," she said, amused despite herself. She didn't know why she felt the need to make small talk with him, but the urge to chatter was strong. Maybe it was something about the swamp itself, rather than the man. "What made you decide to become a deputy?"

He shrugged. "Not a lot of opportunities around here. Didn't wanna join the Marines, though that's what my daddy would've liked. I started takin' classes at the community college and decided I really liked the ones about criminology." He glanced down at her. "How come they call you Doctor? You not a full agent, like them?"

Her mouth quirked. "No, I am. I just prefer the other."

"Hm. Cain't say I blame you. Probably harder to be a doctor than an FBI agent anyway." His expression turned thoughtful. "Not sure I could do the FBI. Bein' a deputy's fine—beats oil rigs or haulin' Yankee tourists around in flat boats—but the FBI's a whole other ballgame."

She made a low noise of agreement. "They're still very caught up in their own mystique, the FBI," she said with a little smile.

"Huh. You say that like you aren't one of 'em."

"I haven't been for very long. I was…a sort of consultant, up till six months ago." She didn't mention the CIA, of course, but they were just as caught up in their own mystique as the FBI—thought it was a different sort of mystique.

She decided a change of subject was in order. "Do you have any theories about who could've done this? Or why?"

"Well now…" He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and his face creased in a frown. "Off the top of my head, I cain't think of anybody. We got druggies and whores—pardon, ma'am—and dealers just like anywhere else, but this is a whole different thing. Don't seem like a drug deal gone bad."

"No, it certainly doesn't." She paused to look around the marshy island. "This spot…to just dump them here, like garbage." She shivered. "No, not a drug deal."

He frowned. "I don't think that's what he did."

She looked up at him in surprise. "I'm sorry?"

He made an impatient gesture, then gently turned her to face the water. He pointed over her shoulder toward the trees across the creek. "You see that? That's east, toward the river. Early in the mornin' the sun would start to rise over there, and at first everything'd be that shade of gray-blue, like before the light really hits. The mist would be hangin' over the water, and as the sun went higher it'd turn pink, like cotton candy. Then"—his finger traced the sun's route as he spoke—"it'd be there, and the light'd be warm and golden, like honey. It'd be on the island by then, and everything'd look like it was glowin'."

His arm dropped, and she turned her head to look back at him. His eyes flicked down to hers, then back to the view. "I don't think he dumped them at all, ma'am. I think he chose this spot on purpose, because it's got its own special beauty that most people can't see. I think he meant it like a prayer."