chapter two.

In Which A Punk-Ass Kid Is Murdered

They were 30,000 feet up in the air when the briefing continued.

"Okay," Prentiss said with a sigh. "Victomology?"

"Both girls were eight years old when they died," Reid said. "They didn't go to the same schools, didn't live in the same part of town. They didn't do anything together as far as documentation goes."

Hotch spoke up here. "Garcia, I want you to start digging. Look at the Gold's and the Reddy's bank statements and see if they had any consistent withdrawels that would match, something to pay for a gymnastics lesson or dance class that they might have taken. I also want you to look at the closest community centers and see if they had any classes geared towards children their age."

The blonde visibly jumped, joining them from across the computer screen, as if she'd just been pricked with a needle. Her next words were punctuated by the sound of a keyboard: "You got it, Boss Man. I will leave no part of these little babies' lives unturned. Ugh, so sad. You're lucky I love you, my sweets. I shall return!"

"We love you too, Garcia," JJ replied dryly. But Garcia's screen had already gone blank.

"You're lucky she didn't hear that," Rossi said, one eybrow raised.

"Focus, please," Hotch said. (But Reid was pretty sure he saw a miniscule smile on his face, just for a second.)

"Okay. Only four days between murders isn't a lot of time to cool down," he murmured, examining the photos of the crime scene.

"And even with all the overkill, we can't know if he's sexually frustrated or taking out his rage on a proxy for some other reason until the autopsy results come back." Morgan scowled and ran a hand over his bald head. "Don't tell me this doesn't make any of you think of the boys in Arizona."

Prentiss nodded and stared at the pictures of the two dead girls. "How many butchering child-killers can there be out there at one time?"

"We can't think of that right now," Hotch said. "We need to treat this as a separate case. We did our job in Arizona and we need to do it here, too."

Morgan shook his head. "...I don't know. Unless we can find a shared place where the UnSub picked them both out, it seems like he cares more about age than physical looks."

"Maybe a pedophile? Was there evidence of sexual assualt?" Reid asked.

"The medical examiner hadn't finished with the reports when we were called in. They won't be available until a little after we land," JJ said.

Hotch nodded. "Good. Once we're set up at the station, I want Reid to head over and take a look at the bodies. Look past the overkill; the UnSub chose two victims at once for a reason. Then you're going to join Prentiss and Morgan at the crime scene. Rossi, you and I will be taking care of the families, and JJ, I want you dealing with the locals. They're going to be on edge, and it won't be pretty."

The police station in St Paul was one of the nicer ones the team had seen. It was set up in one large area, but large plexiglass windows seperated it into individual offices, and the whole room was surrounded by smaller offices, set aside from the rest, which had large windows with shades that overlooked the choas. It looked like every police officer in the county was working on the case. It sounded to Reid like every phone in the building was ringing at once and the people running left and right looked like they needed to be in five places at once.

The team stood out in their suits, and a tall, authoratative man strode towards them right away. His hair was begining to gray and he sported a large mustash. "You must be the BAU. I'm Cheif Roberts."

"Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner," Hotch said, Roberts' hand. "These are Agents Rossi, Morgan, Prentiss, Jareau, and Dr. Reid."

Roberts gave them all a curt nod. "Good of you to be here. We're stretched pretty thin and with a case like this, we want to catch our guy as soon as possible. Follow me, I'll show you the space we cleared..."

They followed Roberts through the chaos and into a large office. "We've got one or two more chairs coming in for ya," he said, gesturing towards the table and two chairs that already resided in the room. "And a whiteboard. Ask me if you need anything else."

"We should be fine. Thank you," Hotch said, and Roberts dissappeared back into the bustle outside. Hotch turned to the team. "I don't see any reason for us to stay here. We'll meet up as soon as we've got something."

They dispersed.

Like most Reid had been in, the morgue where Amy Gold and Marsha Reddy now resided was cold and pale-looking, not unlike the bodies themselves. The medical examiner was a young Vietnamese woman, and she stood where she couldn't see the bodies when he lifted up part of the blanket that covered the girls' whole bodies.

It wasn't often that Reid went to examine the bodies alone. Either they were still at the crime scene and most of the team was with him, or Morgan came with him to the morgue. Sure, Rossi never went near the bodies, preferring to look at pictures and keep his hands clean (and Reid couldn't blame him) and Hotch was nearly always at the crime scene or the station. But at the very least, he'd go with Prentiss, or Elle when she'd been with them. Looking at the butchered bodies of the little girls all alone, save for a woman he'd met two minutes ago (three minutes forty-five seconds, to be exact) just seemed wrong.

Amy's face was marred by the purple-red color of her wounds, which covered her cheeks and eyes. He was glad he was seeing her now instead of at the crime scene, actually. Glad to see her without the blood.

The medical examiner seemed to think the same. "They're the worst I've ever seen. Not to mention the fact that they're eight," she said bitterly. Reid bit his lip and bent down, staring at Amy's shoulder where her arm had been severed. Marsha had been almost as bad... he wasn't looking forward to her, either.

"What ended up being the cause of death?"

"Blow to the head. They died fairly quickly, from what I can tell. A third of these injuries are postmortem."

"Where you able to determine what kind of blade was used?"

"Not specifically, but my guess would be a large one, like... maybe a butcher knife?"

"A machete?"

"I don't know where someone would find one of those in Minnesota, but sure. That would fit."

"It looks like it took to tries for him to completely sever the muscle tissue... the bone has more nicks on it."

"It's hard to cut through tendon."

He didn't reply. Despite trying multiple times to totally get through the arm, the cuts were smooth and sure, without any hesitation. It was same for all the markings across her face and chest. "How deep do the stab wounds go?"

"Two inches was the deepest I saw, but they're consistently deeper on the face than they are on the chest."

The obvious overkill might serve a purpose for the UnSub besides an outlet for rage, then. Pictures from the crime scene had shown Marsha's and Amy's faces both completely covered in blood from their wounds. It had been smeared over their mouths and spilled onto their hair... He was trying to obliterate them completely, to hide their faces. With this level of rage it was unlikely that this was remorse - beating and stabbing their faces was probably part of the fantasy. Whoever these girls represented to the UnSub, he wanted them nonexistent. If these were proxies - and they had to be, because what wrong could two eight-year-old girls commit? - then the UnSub was bound to kill again, and probably two at once just like Amy and Marsha.

He chewed his lip. He'd just ask a few more questions, examine Marsha, and then he'd go to the crime scene to talk to Prentiss and Morgan. They needed to find this guy, and fast.

The scene was freezing by the time Reid got there. From what the radio said and average weather patterns this time of year in Minnesota, they were lucky it wasn't snowing - of course, it was probably too cold for that.

From where he parked the car, he could see Prentiss glaring at a cop with a hot cup of coffee. She looked ready to strike, actually...

Well, he couldn't judge. It was coffee, after all...

"Prentiss."

She snapped back into reality and waved him over to a ditch where Morgan was still examining the leaves and dirt. "What do you think, kid?"

"It looks like the UnSub just wants something to take his anger out on. Both girls died from blunt force trauma to the head, probably halfway through the beatings. Despite the brutality of his attacks, pain comes second to this guy. I think his main goal is to render them unrecognizable, probably a result of some deep-seated shame or hatred. For whatever reason, these girls represent something awful to our UnSub... he keeps beating them long after they're dead. I don't think he even cares if they do die, it's just a fortunate side effect for him. There isn't even any evidence of sexual assault."

"But did he kill them both at once? He'd have to spend a lot of time with them if he did, to do this level of damage to both." This came from Prentiss.

"No. Marsha Reddy has actually been dead three weeks, a week before Amy Gold was even kidnapped. He doesn't seem to be escalating, though - Amy Gold's arm was severed, but Marsha Reddy's face was unrecognizable."

"He's disorganized," Morgan said as he headed back to the SUV. Reid followed behind him, feeling a little like a puppy. "He just wants to injure these girls as much as possible."

"There's not much of a method involved," Reid agreed.

Prentiss twisted around from her spot in the front to face Reid. "So... a white male. Probably middle-aged. He doesn't work with children; there's no way to hide this sort of disgust."

"Definitely abused, or suffered a violent crime, probably both."

He sat on the park bench, relaxed, finally. It was a nice day. Cold, sure, but it was Minnesota in December. And he wasn't bothered by it.

He stretched his legs out so that they lay sprawled out in front of him. Damn, he was good. See, this was the problem with all those other guys - they were too old. They stuck out. But no one that it was creepy when someone as young as him started talking to that piece of shit Amy, for example. And if they did think something was up, what were they gonna do? Call the cops on some punk kid talking to another punk-ass kid? Nah. He was safe. Even with suits running around, trying to pin it on him. Not even the FBI was smart enough to figure out that a kid could kill someone.

God, they were all so friggin stupid. Just like Amy and Marsha. Just like all the friggin little brats out there, screaming and yelling and whining. Getting rid of em all was what needed to be done, and if it was a blast doing it, well, he wasn't gonna argue. But that crazy guy had been right, after all. All the mini monsters did need to die. They deserved it. He deserved to kill them, too. And so what if the whole idea came from some phsyco in Texas or whatever? He probably got rid of those little dumbshits ten times better than that guy. After all, he hadn't been caught yet, had he? And that guy had.

It was true. No one cared about one punk kid talking to another. In fact, no one cared about any punk-ass kid at all. In fact, there was one now - God, parents were so stupid. They just let their stupid, uneducated spawn wander all over the place. They didn't even care if they bothered other people. Idiots.

They girl had short, dark hair and was playing ball with what looked like her younger brother. In fact - he knew her! She'd been in the same class as - she was in third grade. Hadn't had her birthday yet. Just eight years old...

Her brother threw the ball wildly and it went into the woods. How friggin easy was this gonna be?

Time to make his move. He got up and started towards the woods, grinning. Dammit, he was never gonna get caught.

The station was still buzzing with noise and movement when the three got there. JJ was sitting in a room with the door shut, an evidence board in front of her as she talked to someone on the phone.

"...ma'am, I can assure you that if you air that story, you will be completely shut out of the investigation. We will provide no quotes, no statements, no comments to you or the news station you represent. In fact, I can make sure that your competitors receive a good deal more information than you ever do. Yes, that's right. That's what I thought, too. Yes, thank you, ma'am."

"What did they get a hold of?" Morgan asked as she hung up.

"Nothing too bad, and I don't think it's going to be aired anyway. All they know is two bodies were discovered in the ditch."

"Good," Hotch said as he strode into the room. "The girls don't seem to have anything in common except for their age. One went to Grant Elementary, and one was at Heights."

"They don't even look anything alike," JJ added somberly.

"Something about the age is important. But we don't even know how he's taking them yet."

"Both the Golds and the Reddys had obviously taught there children not to go off with strangers," Rossi said. "So the UnSub's either a man in uniform, or someone they know."

"Or he has a child with him that makes him feel safe," Reid piped up. "We've seen that before."

Prentiss opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Chief Roberts waked in. "Agent? Another victim's just been found."

Lily Miller's eyes were still open and clear by the time they found her, but that was about the only thing left intact. The whole left side of her was was badly bruised, and her cheek had bled, the blood running onto the frozen ground. As Reid and Morgan walked up to the body, a few of the policemen and paramedics that had been swarming around dispersed. Neither of them needed to look for long to see that something was obviously different about this girl.

"Hotch, this girl was beaten with something blunt. A baseball bat, maybe, but definitely not a knife."

"The only place she's bleeding is on her cheek," Reid added. "It looks like the UnSub beat her, and then stabbed her. So is that his signature?"

Hotch crouched down to look at her cheek. "Signature or not, it's definitely the same UnSub."

"I don't like this, Hotch." Morgan stood and put his hands in his pockets. This is exactly like the boys in Arizona. Henz changed the number of victims he killed at one time, too. And they didn't look anything alike. Look, I'm not trying to be paranoid here, but these cases fit together in all the wrong places."

"I know. But until we have something solid - and I don't know what that would be - this is a separate case, with a separate UnSub. Try to forget about the boys in Arizona, Morgan."

Derek was silent as Hotch walked away. "Dammit, Reid, this isn't right."

"I know, but at least it's a lead."

"What?"

Reid looked up in surprise - he and Morgan weren't talking about the same thing, were they? He needed to stop zoning out. "I was talking about this. It was in her pocket..." He handed Morgan the letter, from one blue-gloved hand to another.

"Damn it. Reid, this is the exact same as in Arizona."

A/N: That was a lot of casefic and not a lot of anything else ^^ Next chapter we'll have a little bit more character building, and y'all can see what the letter read, and learn a little bit more about the Arizona case, maybe.

...thoughts? This is my first CM fanfic. Eeep.