"Dr. Lux… widow… no children… grew up in Cambridge, Maryland… maiden name Taylor…" Morgan was droning out details from the files.

"Taylor?" Gideon said, and started leafing through the numerous papers in front of him. "As in Nurse Frank Taylor?" He started reading. "Who also happens to have grown up in Cambridge, Maryland. They are brother and sister."

He was interrupted as Hotchner entered the room. "Reid has already matched them up, along with a patient, RJ Lawson, who is apparently having a romantic relationship with Dr. Lux."

They looked up at him.

"What?"

"Damn."

"We never even thought of that angle," Elle said. "Why didn't we? We should have checked for connections between the staff and the patients long ago."

"It just seemed too far-fetched, I guess," Hotchner said. "It's a mental institution after all. The staff is supposed to be a sane counterpoint to the patients."

"Where's Reid?" Morgan asked. "He isn't with you?"

"No, I had to leave him." Hotchner's face turned dark.

"Why?"

"Later. Let's concentrate on the case right now. We need to find the connection between Lux and Lawson, and we need to find it now. JJ, get a judge and get arrest warrants on those three, and a search warrant for Berkview."

"On what grounds?" she asked, phone already in her hand.

Hotchner tossed her Reid's notes. "Here, take your pick. What about the autopsy?"

"We were just waiting for you, Aaron." A man in his 50's with glasses and graying hair came into the room.

"Alan." Hotchner moved forward to shake his hand. Dr. Alan Charleston was his favorite FBI pathologist. He was the most thorough person he knew, perhaps with the exception of Gideon, and he had requested him especially for this autopsy, to make sure nothing was missed. He was joined by Dr. Helen Paltrow, the local medical examiner who had performed the autopsies of all other patients who had died at Berkview. She had been understandably furious with Dr. Charleston's intrusion into her domain, but now she followed him with an apologetic expression, telling Hotchner that Dr. Charleston had found something that she would have missed.

"What have you got for us, Alan?"

"Well, if it hadn't been for you, I would have ruled it a suicide. But with Gideon breathing down my neck and questioning my every incision, I looked harder than I would have otherwise."

"Let me guess," Morgan said. "He didn't die from hanging."

"Actually he did. As you can see here," he pulled up a photo taken in the morgue, "He has the tell-tale v-mark on his neck, which shows beyond all doubt that he was alive when he was hanged. There were also petechiae in his eyes, on the inside on his eyelids and on his chest, all consistent with death by suffocation. His jugular veins had been closed off, causing his face to turn cyanotic. Also, his hyoid bone was intact, proving that he wasn't manually choked, so there's no evidence of murder. A rather remarkable bone, actually, the hyoid bone. Of all 206 bones in the human body, it's the only one not connected to any other bone… But I digress. Everything I— I mean, everything we found proved that he died from a short drop hanging."

"What about the tox screen?" Gideon asked.

"He was a psych patient, he was full drugs."

"Anything unusual?"

"Actually, yes. I matched all the drugs with his chart, except one. But there were only trace amounts of it, and the lab couldn't identify it," Dr. Charleston said.

"It's an experimental drug," Dr. Paltrow said. "Berkview has been testing it for about a year."

"How do you know?" Elle asked.

"I first found it in a suicide from Berkview about a year ago. When I didn't recognize it, I contacted Berkview and they told me that they were a test facility for this drug before it was put on the market."

"What is it supposed to do?" Elle asked.

"Suppress hallucination, apparently," Dr. Paltrow answered.

"Who did you talk to at Berkview?" Hotchner wanted to know.

"Dr. Lux."

"Of course," Morgan said sarcastically. "Only, from what I remember, Anthony wasn't suffering from hallucinations."

"Listen," Dr. Paltrow became agitated. "I've been the ME for this county for fifteen years, and I lost count of the Berkview suicides thirteen years ago. It's a mental facility, for criminals I might add. It's a large facility and they have a really high suicide rate. I do between ten and twenty autopsies for them every year. I've never had cause to distrust them. And suffocation is the most popular way for the patients to kill themselves, it's the most accessible method. There's an occasional cut wrist or neck, but getting material for a shiv is getting harder and harder, the staff is getting better at spotting them. The drugs are locked up really good, but every now and then someone manages to hoard enough of their medications for an overdose. But mostly they hang themselves with their sheets, with their clothes, with anything. They stuff their mouth and nose with toilet paper or tie their pillow over their faces. One guy stole wire from a carpenter and tied it around his own neck. They are inventive. One guy tied a belt around a sink and his own neck and then turned on the faucet. He drowned. My point is, the patients kill themselves. Why would I suddenly and without suspicion start to look for miniscule signs of murder?"

"That's all right, Dr. Paltrow. We're not pointing fingers or laying blame here. But, Alan, you believe you've found something, right?" Gideon implored.

"Yes. It wasn't easy to detect, because of the discoloration in the face, but there were marks on the victim's temples and I probably wouldn't have thought to look for them unless I'd seen signs of thalamic haemorrhaging in the brain."

"What's that, doc?" Morgan asked.

"It's a very rare side effect of ECT."

"ECT?" Morgan said with a grimace. "As in brain-frying? Ouch!"

"You're quite right. ECT, or electroconvulsive therapy, was invented in Rome in 1938. Initially it was a treatment for schizophrenia, but it soon became a common treatment for neurologically based mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder. In the beginning it was administered without any kind of anaesthetics, and there were a lot of subsequent injuries during seizures. Thankfully, that's now illegal. In my opinion ECT is a rather cruel thing to inflict on another person. You see, electricity follows the shortest course, which is through the fronto-temporal lobes and the diencephalon including the thalamus. It also follows the least resistant course, that is the blood vessels, and the non-insulated axons. It induces a spasm in the vessel walls, a pressure spike consistently over 200 systolic, and subsequent lactic acid build-up. The blood vessel walls become fatigued, swollen and leaky. This is known as a breakdown of the blood brain barrier or BBB."

"Hey, doc. What does that mean for us without a medical degree?"

"It means that it's notgood for the brain, it leaves it permanently damaged."

"But," Elle said with a frown. "Why is it still in use then?"

"It's actually growing rarer and rarer as the medication for many psychiatric conditions become better, but fact is that no controlled study has found a more effective treatment for depression than ECT. And though I'm not a fan of the procedure myself, it's not as bad as pop culture has made it out to be. One flew over the Cuckoo's nest didn't exactly help with the public opinion, as you can imagine. It's still a very controversial procedure, surrounded by laws and guidelines. Its side effects are after all brain damage, memory loss and personality changes."

"And finding evidence of ECT in a mental patient is strange because…?" Hotchner asked.

"First of all, it's illegal to perform ECT without informed consent. It may not be initiated by a physician or family member without a judicial proceeding and in nearly every state in the US, the administration of ECT on an involuntary basis requires a judicial proceeding at which the patient may be represented by legal counsel. As a rule, the law requires that such petitions are granted only where the ECT treatment is regarded as potentially lifesaving, like when a patient is too catatonic to eat by tehmselves. I've made a few calls, and no such petitions have been granted for Berkview for the last eight years. Also the marks on the victim's temples are too large to have been made by a regulated ECT machine. It appears to have been made by a much older machine. That, in conjunction with the unidentified drug, leads me to the conclusion that there are some illegal experiments going on at Berkview."

"But why?" Elle wondered.

"That, my dear, I cannot answer. That's why I'm a pathologist, and you are agents."

JJ came back into the room, with the Sheriff on her heels. "I can't get through to the judge. The sheriff says he's out hunting."

"That's right. It's prime deer buck season. Judge's got a beauty of a cabin a couple of hours from here. I'm quite envious, I must admit."

"Well, how do we get in touch with him?" Hotchner asked.

"You can't. There's no cell reception up there."

Hotchner swore.

"When we need him, we usually send a deputy up there to get him," the sheriff offered.

"Do it."

"I'll se who's available. How soon do you need him?"

"Right now. No, wait," he called after the sheriff. "Find a deputy to come here and pick up Agent Jareau. JJ, I want you to go to the courthouse and get all the necessary paperwork and have the judge sign them directly instead of bringing him back here. Tell the deputy to drive with lights and sirens the whole way. And use whatever means necessary to convince the judge. Beg, plead, threaten, anything you can think of. Do not take no for an answer."

"On it." JJ grabbed her coat and bag and hurried after the sheriff.

Gideon came over and took Hotchner's arm, leading him away from the group.

"What's wrong?" he asked quietly. "Why are you so agitated?"

"I just want this to be over with. I want Reid back."

"Speaking of that…"

"Why didn't I bring him back? I wanted to, Gideon, I swear. I was going to, but I couldn't. I had to prioritize the case. He had figured out the unsubs and I couldn't think of any way to pull him without alerting them. And I promised him we'd be back as soon as humanly possible. Just one more night, I said. Before breakfast, I said. And now they tell me the judge has gone hunting and is incommunicado! How can I not be agitated?"

"What was wrong with him?"

"Huh?"

"You wouldn't be this guilt ridden unless something had happened."

"Well, apparently he spent last night in the infirmary, after another patient tried to strangle him with a chain."

"What? Is he okay?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. I don't think so. His neck looked terrible. All of him looked terrible. Morgan was right. He's wasting away in there. And I could have pulled him on Sunday when Morgan came back, but I decided to let him stay, and that almost got him killed."

"It's not your fault. We all thought it was a good idea to let him stay until we figured out what had happened to Anthony. And it's not long now. All we need is that warrant, then we'll have him back. A couple of hours, tops. Look, you missed dinner. Why don't you grab something to eat while we research Lux's connections with Lawson. JJ'll be back before we know it, and then we'll have our boy back. It'll be fine. Don't worry."

But he did worry, and so did Gideon. How could they not?

--

Wednesday

The clock had just passed the midnight hour and it was dark. Hotchner stood by the window, nursing a coffee cup, contemplating the darkness outside. He was nervous and jumpy for no other reason than that his guts were screaming at him to hurry, to run, to break every law come hell or high water to get to Reid. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was needed over at the hospital, and needed now.

JJ had called not long ago, to let them know that she was back into cell range. The judge had signed off on the warrants, but she was still a couple of hours away.

In Quantico they had Garcia sweating over the Lux-Lawson mystery. Since Gideon had already discovered that Frank and Dr. Lux were siblings, it had been easy to follow that lead back. Dr. Lux was nine years older than her brother, and when their parents had been killed in a car crash she had taken over raising him. He obviously adored his sister. Their father had also been a doctor, leaving his daughter to follow in his footsteps. Frank had tried too, but had never managed to get good enough grades for medical school. He'd gone for nursing instead to be able to stay close to his sister. They had often worked in the same hospitals, but usually in different wards. But Frank had never been able to keep his nose clean. There had always been rumors about petty thefts and disgruntled patients left in his wake. He'd never stayed long at any job. He'd even changed his name a couple of times to get away from his bad reputation. Until Berkview. There he had apparently fit right in and he'd been there for close to two years now. His sister had been there a month longer than he, and Lawson six weeks longer.

Hotchner turned back to the room when he heard a phone ring. The room had been mostly quiet all evening as they played the waiting game. It was Morgan's phone, which hopefully meant that it was Garcia.

It was. Morgan put her on speaker phone. "Tell us what you found, hon."

"I found a birth certificate. Lilly Marie Taylor. Mother Cecilia Taylor, father Robert James Lawson."

"They have a kid together?" Morgan asked incredulously

"Had, baby, had. I also found a death certificate. The poor tyke barely had two months in her. But from there it was a piece of cake. I just had to check where they both were during the year she was born. Turns out they attended the same pre-med program at Berkeley University. I found an old school mate of theirs who confirmed that they were indeed a couple for most of their time there. After the kid died, however, they split up, went to different medical schools. Lux got married in med school to a Dr. Frederick Lux, one of her professors. She was widowed a couple of years later, cancer apparently. She never had any more children, threw herself into her work after that. Has been bouncing between patient care and research most of her career. Went into psychiatry rather recent, only about four years ago. There are no records to tie her and Lawson together again until Lawson's trial. According to the court records, she was there every day, sitting right behind him. Then, two weeks after he was sent to Berkview, she applied for and got a job there. Lawson was of course, as I'm sure you already know, sentenced to life imprisonment for eight counts of first degree murder after having released terminally ill patients from the hospital only to bring them home to his basement where he experimented with new surgical procedures on them, until they either died or he killed them. And I heard he wasn't too generous with the anesthesia either. Nice chap, don't you think? Anyway, from there, you tell me."

"You know what, Pen? Your talents never cease to amaze me." Morgan said.

"I live to please, honey-buns." She hung up and the team was left staring at each other.

"Lux's had a pretty tough life," Elle commented.

"It's about to get tougher," Hotchner said. "I foresee another life sentence in the couple's future, one to be served at different hospitals, without any contact whatsoever."

--

When JJ finally came back, she barely set foot in the room before she was ushered out again. The team impatiently pushed her back out into the car. The sheriff and several deputies followed them, forming a little convoy of law enforcement vehicles on the empty night streets. It was close to four a.m. when they drove into the courtyard in front of Berkview.

'I made it before breakfast, Reid,' Hotchner thought as he stood before the quiet building. Only a few lights were on. He looked around to make sure everybody was ready and then they moved as a tight group up the stairs. Hotchner pounded on the massive doors until they were opened.

"What's this about? This is a hospital, please keep it down," the guard said as he peered at them. Hotchner shoved his badge in the man's face.

"FBI. We have a search warrant for this facility."

"All right, all right, hold your horses," the guard said grumpily as he opened the door widely for them. The fluorescent light in the lobby made them blink a couple of times.

Back at the station, Morgan had showed them his copy of the week's staff schedule, so they knew that both Lux and Frank were at work tonight. The others held back and let Morgan lead the way, as he had learnt his way around the corridors during the weeks he'd worked here. The security guard trailed behind them.

They came up to Reid's ward and Hotchner gestured for the guard to unlock the door. Morgan didn't have his keys as the ward keys were not allowed to leave the premises and had to be checked out at the beginning of every shift. The guard did as asked and once again Morgan went in front. He went directly to the lounge where the orderlies Adam and Leyla sat, playing cards and drinking coffee.

"Derek?" Leyla said. "What are you doing here? You're not working tonight." She quieted when she saw the many people behind him.

"Where are Dr. Lux and Frank?" Morgan asked them.

They shrugged. "Haven't seen Dr. Lux all evening, she has to be in her office or at another ward. Frank was here for bed-check a couple of hours ago. He said that he's working in the infirmary tonight and that we should call him if we needed him. It's been really quiet though," Adam said. "Do you want us to call him?"

Morgan looked at Hotchner and Gideon, who both shook their heads. "Go get Reid," Gideon said.

"Leyla, we're from the FBI." He showed her his badge. "I need to borrow your keys for a minute."

Wordlessly she handed them to him and he disappeared towards the patients' rooms. Adam and Leyla watched with big eyes as the team conferred. Why was the FBI here in the middle of the night?

Morgan came running back. "Reid's gone."

"What?"

"He's gone, the bed's empty. Just a bunch of pillows."

Hotchner swore a long tirade. He had no doubt about where Reid would be. "JJ, do you still have his notes?" he asked, pulling out and readying his gun.

That was a mistake he'd discovered pretty soon after JJ had left. He himself had only glanced at them on the way back and the rest of the team had of course not seen them at all, so JJ had had to read them out loud to them over the phone from the car.

"Yeah, here they are," she said, pulling them from her pocket.

"The directions to the secret room, fast."

She quickly flipped through the pages until she found the right section. "We need to get to the elevators in the B wing," she said.

Hotchner nodded to Morgan to take the lead, leaving two deputies to guard Leyla and Adam so they would not do anything to tip their suspects off.

They found the elevators and went down to the basement. With JJ reading directions out loud, they stealthily moved through the corridors until they found the right storage room.

They used flashlights to illuminate the room. Reid's notes led them to the far wall and they soon found the only shelf with a hard back. Morgan and Elle started searching around it for a way to open the secret door. Reid hadn't known how to do it, and therefore neither did they. When Elle finally signaled that she had found what was apparently a lever, Hotchner motioned everybody into position. With his fingers he quietly counted down.

Three… two… one.

"GO!"

--

TBC