A/N: Hey, Look! An update! There's not a lot of Katrina in this one-actually none at all really-and it starts about a week after Katrina was abducted, where the last chapter left off with the BAU &c. (I've been reading Jane Eyre and watching Pride and Prejudice lately... excuse my language)

Enjoy and please review!

BRTxoxo


After a few more days of the team unable to get any farther in their investigation, Daniel, Kate, and Max were sent back to Michigan. The reception of the letters of the past few years by the BAU team wrapped up the week.

During their stay, while they were on break, or not working on the case, Reid asked Daniel questions relentlessly and incessantly. Questions about schizophrenia, about personality disorders, about neurology, about intelligence. At first, Daniel found it a bit annoying, the way Spencer Reid followed him around where ever he went, constantly asking question after question. He complained the second night to Kate how the cases he worked on were usually the time he got to take off from being a professor-teaching students that really weren't all that interested it seemed in the lecture and just taking the class because they had to-and just focus on things that worked his mind. Now it was just like being back in the lecture hall.

Natalie hadn't come around, and that "Mrs. Lovette" as she called herself was of absolutely no help what so ever. All she talked about was Sweeny Todd, and he already knew all he needed to about that man.

"Hey, at least he's eager. At least he wants to hear what you have to say and wants you to keep talking. The rest of your students probably just want you to shut up so they can sleep or go party."

After Kate had said that, Daniel was able to receive Reid's questions more readily and agreeably, eventually finding the young man's enthusiasm and slight awkwardness to be pleasant to be around. He found himself spending more time with him, going over theories and ideas and notes with him and answering his endless questions in more depth and detail.

Lately Kate had been able to keep him calm, and keep his mind working. Of course, she'd done a lot more than just help his thought process along. She helped him fall asleep-not physically, no, his thoughts surrounding her were his constant companion as he drifted to sleep, and more often than not his dreams were centered around her. Although he had very few hallucinations of her, and usually in the realm of dreams, he could not get her visage out of him mind. Not that he minded of course.

Kate however very much minded his intrusion of her thoughts. She needed to focus much of her time and energy on her work and cases, and yet she found that usually five or ten minutes had gone by and her mind had been transfixed on Daniel. How calm he looked listening to his tape player working on a cross word puzzle, remembering him as he taught neuropsychology to her class and how attractive she'd found him-had she really drawn little hearts over her notes with D.P.+K.M. in those days? heavens how she wished she'd forget her younger days-how he looked after he'd run his fingers through his hair as he thought, about his tall figure and his brown eyes that were constantly moving. After they had left Quantico Headquarters and returned to Michigan, her apartment seemed unnaturally cold and lonely. She missed the sound of his even breathing as she fell asleep that night, even thought she'd only had a week to become accustomed to it.

Kate was determined not to think of him while she worked on her cases, just as Daniel was determined not to think of her while he lectured his bored students.

And yet for all their toils, they found themselves dreaming of the other. They'd never admit that to anyone else, no of course not, and they realized that no matter how many thoughts they repressed of the other, the thoughts would arise again that night from there unconscious, and torment them in the morning for ending.

Reid had been a bit upset having to say goodbye to the neuropsychiatrist, and Hotch had allowed him to tag along when he took Daniel, Kate and Lewicki to the airport. The back seat of the black SUV had been a bit cramped with Reid sitting in between the FBI Agent and doctor, but the young genius hardly noticed it as he took the chance to have one more animated conversation with his new found friend.

At the airport, Hotch promised to call them if they heard anything new and they left.

Over the next few days, the BAU team poured over the copies of the letters that Daniel had sent. Reid tried every possible pattern he could think of to see if there were any hidden messages but to no avail. Nothing made sense, and most of them were ramblings of how her days went and wishing him well.

Morgan pulled out one of the last few letters and started reading.

Dear Uncle Daniel,
Taryn's been acting strange lately. She's been tripping a lot and bruising very easily. She's even snapped at me a few times, and I couldn't figure out why. She started getting sick a few weeks ago, and she wouldn't eat or drink hardly anything. I called Doctor Flemmings, the one that would help mom when we got sick. He came over and said that he couldn't find anything other than just an ordinary cold, but he took some blood samples with him when he left.
He came back yesterday with the results… and now I can't stop crying and neither can Taryn… she has cancer now, like mom had. I don't know what to do. The doctor said that there was a chance we could beat it, if she went into surgery or chemotherapy. But it costs so much and mom didn't plan for any of this to happen. We didn't have any money put away for anything like this…
If there's anything you can do to help-I won't ask for money because that's not fair to you-please let me know.
Love,
Kat

"Hey Hotch! Gideon!"

The two agents left the bull pen and made their way into the conference room.

"Did the autopsy say anything about Taryn having anything wrong with her?"

"Other than the obvious? No, why?"

Morgan held up the letter copy. "This letter says that Taryn had cancer. And I think we may have found someone who could help us with the case. Katrina mentions a Doctor Flemmings. Apparently he's helped the family for a while."

"Have Garcia look up any Doctor Flemmings in the area of their apartment."

"Yessir." As he entered Garcia's tech office, Morgan noticed the room was still heavy with melancholy and depression. "Hey mama. Can you do something for me?"

"Anything for you sugar." Garcia attempted a smile, but it still seemed dull.

"Can you look up a Doctor Flemmings in Katrina's county? This letter was sent to the doctor."

Garcia took the letter from her friend and read through it. A shuddering sigh escaped her lips and she gave it back to him. Her fingers danced over her keyboard and immediately a name and address came up. "Doctor James Flemmings. There's his address."

"Thanks baby girl. I'll bring you a present later." He bent to kiss the top of her head and left the room, taking the sticky note with the address on it with him to Hotch and Gideon.

Gideon, Elle, and Morgan left to talk to the doctor mentioned in the letter, leaving Reid and Hotch to finish reading the letters. The doctor had nothing to give them, no information about Katrina's whereabouts or who could have done anything to hurt them, because they knew no one.

By the end of the second week, they'd gotten no farther in their inquiries. Reid was frustrated with their lack of progress, wanting desperately to find Katrina's captor, who had murdered more than 15 people in the past two years.

He analyzed the letters over and over, the pictures of the past victims and messages left by the unsub. He couldn't figure anything out about the man at all. He knew it was a man; women aren't usually abductors of young women. In fact, he couldn't think of anyone who would abduct someone with no mention of ransom unless-

"Of course." He jumped up from his seat and ran into Hotch's office. "Hotch, there was no mention of ransom when the unsub took Katrina."

The tall dark haired agent set his papers down and frowned at the younger man. "What are you saying?"

"Normally when people abduct someone else, they want ransom or something in return or they just want the person they took, but in this type of case the abductor usually takes someone older for ransom or a prize or vengeance. But when you look at the case, at all the sides of it, he only wanted Katrina."

Hotch folded his fingers in front of his face, thinking about what Reid had said. "You're suggesting that the unsub had a fantasy about Katrina?"

"Katrina and her sister didn't know anyone, they knew themselves, their family, and the doctor. Katrina was looking for a job, but only these past few weeks, but the murders started two years ago, and across the country. The man that took her has to be someone who lives in her relative area, who could see her regularly, at least from a distance, but he had to also be able to travel the country in order to get to the other victims, and have to stay there long enough to find someone that looked like Taryn, and someone who thinks that Katrina has a higher position in society than he does."

"You don't think it's a female?"

"Sweeney Todd was male, and the victims are raped before they're killed, female on female rape is fairly rare." He cleared his throat. "I think he got jealous of Taryn and practiced killing the other women until he felt like he was skilled enough to perform the perfect murder and abduct Katrina."

"Reid you're a genius." The older agent stood up, closing the file folder on his desk and moved out of the office to relate the news to the rest of the team.

"So I've been told."

. . .

Despite the new information provided by Reid, it helped very little, if any. Another week went by but no new suspects were found. There were no witnesses to any of the murders, let alone Taryn's. Morgan had brought Garcia a stuffed bear with chocolates and more frilly pens to try and make her feel better. Elle laughed at him, saying that if he went any farther, he'd end up in love with Garcia and then they'd lose their tech support. Gideon and Hotch watched security tapes from the apartments the latest victims lived in mercilessly, until they knew them forward and backwards. Reid continued to read the letters from Katrina until he could close his eyes and picture every minute detail about them, from the contents to the slant of her letters.

As the end of the third week came to a close, Spencer Reid begged Hotch to take him to the apartment, to see if they could find Daniel's replies to Katrina's letters.

The two hour ride was silent, save for the flipping of pages and steady breathing.

"Reid, you've read those letters over almost a hundred times. You know them from each and every angle. What are you looking for?"

"Anything," he mumbled through his hand, "anything that could help. Something isn't right about this. There's something in these that just doesn't make sense but I don't know what it is and it's sitting there in the front of my mind begging me to figure it out." He sighed heavily, closed the folder and leaned his head against the cool window of the SUV. "I want to figure it out Hotch, I need to."

A silence passed between them for a quarter of an hour, until they reached their destination.

"This isn't just about helping out Doctor Pierce, is it?"

Reid shook his head no. "It's complicated." His tone told Hotch to drop the subject for now and they exited the car and climbed the stairs to the still roped off apartment.

"I'll be right back, I'm going to talk to the manager about saving the apartment until the case is closed."

Reid nodded and entered the scene for the first time, taking in every aspect of it, as if to burn it into his memory. The photos he'd seen were nothing compared to this.

The rooms were cold, a bit dusty from disuse and he felt like he was being watched. The feeling was pushed aside as nothing more than paranoia and he looked through drawers trying to find the letters he was looking for. Once he found them, he quickly scanned through them, walking out of Katrina's room towards the front door.

Five minutes later, Hotch returned to the apartment. "Reid?"

When he received no reply, he entered through the opened door.

His heart pounded and his blood ran cold.

The letters Spencer had found were scattered across the floor, his gun, holster, and his bag among them.

Reid was gone, and there was no way of knowing where he was, or who, if anyone, had taken him.