Chapter 06

Abandoned Business Center
Outside Merced, CA

It was, Spencer thought, one of the harder crime scenes they'd every come across.

They were standing on a piece of overgrown grass on the edge of an abandoned parking lot in the middle of an abandoned office complex. No one had noticed this was here until someone came to mow and wondered why there was a rough rectangle of grass a different color and height. When the landscaper went to mow it anyway his tires tore up the soft turf and revealed the horror underneath.

Bodies.

Eight bodies, all in a row. A mass grave.

But even that wasn't enough to make this one of the worst ever. Not that the bodies were all in what amounted to underwear, or that they were all female, or even that they had clearly been executed right there on the edge of the grave, probably made to stand there as someone went down the line and put a bullet in the back of their heads.

Every one of the missing girls

Spencer sighed. This was not a good day.

Merced County Sheriff's department
Merced, CA

"So where have they been all this time?" Emily asked. "And what was being done to them?"

"Don't know yet. We're waiting on the coroner." Morgan replied.

"All the girls were different heights, different weights, different hair and eye combinations . The only physical commonality is age. But they all have a similar background. So he takes a specific kind of girl, holds them as long as he needs to, then takes them to an abandoned office park and executes them." Rossi studied the board. "Are you sure that wasn't a dump site?"

"No." Emily replied. "From the spatter pattern those girls were shot in the head while standing on the edge of their own grave. They were killed right there."

"Why there? What do we know about the site?"

JJ spoke up. "It's an abandoned office park, primarily medical. It went out of business two years ago when the owner defaulted on their loan. It's only been there about fifteen years, before that it was a cotton field."

"Did they check the buildings?" Rossi asked her.

"The locals said that they went through them, but other than some graffiti, signs of some kids having a party there was nothing. Nothing that looked like anyone had been living there."

"Well, whatever he was doing, it didn't leave major trauma." Morgan had a new file, just brought in. "Coroner's report says that there was no signs of abuse on any of the bodies, the girls were healthy and in good shape. And no signs of sexual abuse either, at all. But...they did find track marks."

"Drugs?" Emily asked.

"Looks like. The coroner is running tests; we won't get the results back until tomorrow." Morgan shook his head at the looks he got. "Budget cuts, they said they're short handed."

Drugs. That was it. The Hammer of Knowing whacked Spencer between the eyes "JJ, you said that was a medical office?" He asked.

"Yes, but the locals said it was clean. Why?"

"I think I know what he was doing with them. Was there any equipment left on site?"

JJ checked her papers. "Um, according to this it was empty."

"Not little stuff, big stuff. Monitors, operating room, x-ray, stuff too big to move out."

"According to this there was an imaging center in one of the buildings. They left the MRI there."

Hotch looked at them all. "Let's go."

Abandoned Business Center
Outside Merced, CA

It was cool in the basement of the imaging center.

Spencer had led them straight to the old imaging center, right to the MRI. They stood in the cavernous room, looking up at the magnet. It was an older model, and huge. "How did they even get this in here?' Morgan asked.

"They built the building around it." Spencer told him. His light caught the gleam of glass on the floor. He squatted down to look at the pile over the drain cover. "These are drug bottles."

"The locals said kids came here to party." Emily pointed out.

"Yeah, but the only glass on the floor is over the drain." Morgan pointed out. "Would kids wash the floor after?"

"No, but an UnSub concealing evidence would." Rossi replied. He looked over at Spencer. "You think he came here to use the machine?"

Spencer looked around the edges of the room, then went over to a vent cover near the ceiling. Sometime after he joined the BAU he'd had one last growth spurt, the problem with joining so young. It had been embarrassing at the time, but now the extra four inches he had over Morgan let him open the vent easily. One end of an industrial extension cord tumbled out. "Yes, I do. I bet if we followed this it would lead either to the parking lot behind the building or an outlet there. That's where they hooked up the generator."

"Why?" Morgan asked.

"He was experimenting on them." Spencer replied. "He wanted a specific age range, no drugs in their systems, no abuse in their backgrounds, healthy, because he was controlling for variables."

"And when the experiment failed he eliminated the test subjects." Emily finished the thought. "That chunk of grass was the closest place to here to dig a grave."

"And he pulled out every bit of equipment he could move to hide his tracks." Spencer moved around to the control room. "He pulled the drives." He said with a sigh as his flashlight highlighted the computer system.

"Maybe Garcia can get something out of it anyway." Hotch said. "We'll get a generator down here in the morning."

"Hell, we'll fly her out here if need be." Rossi agreed.

"That explains why the kids just stood there. Even if they weren't drugged after this much time he had them in his control." Morgan sounded disgusted again, Spencer thought, he always takes it so personally when it's kids. "What was he experimenting on?'

Spencer had moved back to the machine, his flashlight having caught scratches on an access panel. He pulled out a pocket knife and opened up the loose panel. "The effects of the drugs on the human brain." He said as he looked. "I think he converted this to a functional MRI."

"Functional MRI?" Morgan asked.

"A functional MRI can measure the electrical activity in the brain in real time, video as opposed to a static picture. It can show the patterns changing as a result of stimuli, a picture, a sound…"

"A drug." Emily finished.

"That's got to take some pretty specialized training." Rossi pointed out.

Hotch nodded his agreement. "Reid, contact Garcia, start working on a list. In the meantime we'll get te locals to guard this place overnight, and have forensics go over it in the morning."

Travellodge Merced
Merced, CA

They had tried to talk about anything but the case over dinner. Anything but had devolved into sports, which pretty much left him out of it, but was pleasant enough chatter to at least keep him from thinking. But now it was after, and he was alone, and if he just sat here he would do nothing but think about those girls and the horror the last months of their lives had been. Thankfully it wasn't quite midnight back in DC. "I hope I didn't wake you." Spencer said into the phone.

"No, I hadn't turned out the light yet." Claire replied.

She sounded off somehow, perhaps even like she had been crying. "What's wrong?" He asked.

"Oh, we found out a distant relative of ours passed away." She admitted.

Aw damm. "I'm sorry." He said.

"It's all right." She said, clearly because it was the polite thing to say.

"No, I am. I'm sorry you lost someone and I'm sorry you're alone tonight." This was the kind of thing Hotch and Rossi talked about, when it came to this job and relationships.

"I wasn't alone. My sister Rebecca was in town, she came over and we watched old movies and played do you remember." He could almost hear her starting to smile. "It will be fine." She said with much more sincerity.

"Is there anything I can do?" He asked.

"Take my mind off it. What have you been reading, hm?"

They chatted for a time. Eventually he let her go to bed and turned out his own light, his mind full of a quiet kitchen and someone who always managed to understand.

The sound of the explosion woke him after midnight.

Abandoned Business Center
Outside Merced, CA

They stood in the parking lot, casual clothes, even Hotch, having thrown on whatever was handy and decent to run. They stood there staring at the pile of rubble that had been their crime scene. After a moment the sheriff came over to them. "I thought you had men watching?" Hotch asked.

"I did." He nodded over to one side where two ambulances were getting ready to take off. "I found them in their vehicle, out cold." He held something out on his palm, a small dart. "It fell out of Ramirez's uniform when they moved him."

Rossi took it from him. "Less than lethal rounds?" he asked.

"Looks like." The Sheriff replied. "Don't know what it is yet. Much as I don't like my men being attacked it's better than dead."

Just then there was another explosion

.

Two today because while all the romance is lovely and sweet we need some suspense to balance it out before we all get cavities.

Since some of you have read part of this before NO SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS please