AUTHOR: LosingInTranslation (losingntrnslatn, Jennifer)
DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything associated with the show… I just like playing with the characters in it from time to time. Dance Monkeys! Dance!
RATING: T - Teen
SPOILERS: Through US Aired Episodes of Season 4
WORD COUNT: 1800
SUMMARY: The BAU is asked to investigate an unusual missing persons case that has a very personal connection to the team.

A/N: This is one of those monster epics I am so well know for in the CSI fandom. It is completely written and I am going through the edits with my betas as quickly as possible. There are a total of nine chapters, and I will post them as I complete the edits. It is most definitely a case file fic, with a lot of interaction between the entire team. I hope you enjoy it.

REVIEWS: Reviews are the way I know if people are enjoying the work or not. So, if you leave one, THANKS! And if not, I hope you found at least a little something to brighten your day, and thanks for taking the time to read.

Chapter 2

Emily knew the case was theirs when every eye trained on her reflected back with shock and dismay.

Hotch was the first to work past the surprise. "Who is this daughter-in-law? I never knew Steven had gotten married." He began to flip through the pages in the file as Emily nodded to J.J. to continue the presentation.

Clicking the remote in her hand, a passport photo popped up on the screen. "Lorena Gideon, psychologist and humanitarian worker, attached to the Global Rights of Women Foundation out of Seattle, Washington. Wife of…" She flipped the remote again and another passport photo came into view, showing a younger, happier version of Jason Gideon, with bright blue eyes. "Steven Gideon, who worked with several social and political action groups as he completed his doctoral work in sociology. They were married in a small city in Mexico two years ago."

As J.J. flipped to the next screen, Emily took over once more when the police report from the Colombian authorities came up. "Steven was killed when he and Lori were trying to help a small village outside of Bogota develop their economic independence from the coca crops encouraged by the local drug lords. Two warring factions, in an effort to claim the land for their own, trapped the village and all of its inhabitants, performing late night raids until the villagers relented and gave in to their demands. Steven was killed in one of those raids, and the villagers hid Lori until it was safe to sneak her out."

The next flip showed the deportation paperwork for Lorena Gideon. "Because she was accused of conspiring to incite a riot, the Colombian authorities were forced to deport her from the country once she surfaced looking for help to reclaim her husband's remains. That's when I first became involved with the case."

"Let me guess," Morgan asked dryly, "she figured with your State Department connections, you could help her out?"

"Exactly…" Emily could see the irritation in Hotch's eyes, even if he did stop short of actually rolling them. But looking at Dave was not an option, because she knew he would be rolling his eyes at the mention of her mother. "I passed the information on to my mother, who called a few people and you know how it goes after that. The last I heard from Lori, she was headed back from their place in Mexico City to Bogota in order to claim his remains."

Quietly, Reid finally spoke up again, "So, you knew where Gideon was all this time, and didn't say anything?"

"God no. I had no idea he even had a kid, and it's not like Gideon is such an uncommon name. So, I didn't put it all together until Lori contacted me this week about her father-in-law." She quickly put his fears aside. No one had taken Gideon's sudden departure harder than Reid, and Emily could only imagine how difficult all of this was for him. "He did everything in his power to make sure almost no one could find him. Even with the information Lori gave me, we had a hard time tracking anything down."

Garcia, always with the best timing in the world, chose that moment to walk into the briefing room. "And you know if I had trouble tracking his annoyingly, somewhat endearing, idiosyncratic keister down, then it was practically impossible." She plopped down next to Reid and nudged his shoulder, "He didn't want to be found, pumpkin. Not by anyone, but especially not by us."

Reid still looked like a rejected puppy when he whispered, "He wanted at least someone to find hi-"

"Don't even go there, my little factoid oracle…" Garcia wrapped a comforting arm around their emotionally vulnerable teammate. "The man made a promise to his kid. And you know all about Gideon and his promises." When Reid gave her half of a grin, she smiled brightly and turned back to Emily.

"What were you able to find, Garcia?" Emily asked, deflecting the attention away from Reid.

"Not a whole heck of a lot, my lovelies." J.J. handed her the remote and Garcia got down to business. "A small, by Idaho standards, property, way outside the city of Coeur d'Alene, titled to the late Steven Gideon five years ago. No way the kid could've bought it, as he was still in grad school and worked for bupkis at the time. Title was transferred from the name of Sylvia Degault, late grandmother of the great Jason Gideon, and let me tell you…I had to do some major digging to find that much out. The man truly is an enigma."

After cycling through a few land title microfilms, Garcia stopped on a satellite image of the property. "The property itself is basically worthless. Too graded and rocky for farming, too isolated for irrigation, and too remote to make even a decent marijuana crop worth growing." Emily held her laugh, but when Garcia looked up, she realized too late she had been rambling again. "But, I digress."

"Anyway…" The satellite images moved in closer as she spoke, "No activity on that land beyond fuzzy woodland creatures until just over two years ago, when a Steven Degault moved in, claiming to have rented the place from an old friend. Lived solely on cash, only surfaced in town once a month for supplies, every two months in the winter. Locals reported that he was, and I quote, repeatedly 'a quiet man, kept to himself, and minded his own business.' Seriously, it was like Stepford: The Lumberjack Edition calling around up there. Verbatim, everyone said exactly the same thing." Garcia shuddered at the thought.

Hotch turned back to Emily with his next question, "What makes the daughter-in-law think something happened?"

"He just vanished." Emily looked through her notes as she read off the list. "Not a trace of him at the house, no mail, no shipments after about six weeks, his tax bill wasn't paid, and he stopped trying to contact his son."

"They weren't close… They were estranged for a long time after his PTSD." Hotch seemed to be having a hard time understanding the nature of his relationship with Steven and it was odd for Hotch to be confused about anything.

"I don't know what to tell you about that, Hotch. Lori just said he and Steven had a very close relationship in the time she's known her husband, and that Gideon made a promise to Steven that they would always stay in contact." Emily handed him a copy of the letter showing exactly that. "They even gave each other special access to a private portal with their information and a protected messaging system. Gideon didn't trust open email, or even phone calls. Lori's husband would only tell her that his father was a little on the paranoid side, but that his past pretty much made him that way."

"One of those, 'if they really are after you, are you still paranoid' kinda things, huh?" Garcia could never stay silent for long, and Emily shrugged to acknowledge her comment.

"And why didn't the local authorities investigate his disappearance?" Of course Dave was the one to keep things all business in the briefing room.

Garcia piped up again, "It's Idaho, Sir. People randomly show up and disappear all the time, and everyone minds their own business. The only people they pay attention to are the Feds and the big mouths who bring the Feds in the first place. These people just want to be left alone to live out their survivalist fantasies of self-importance in relative peace, with their life-sized GI Joe sets and big boy Tonka trucks." Rolling her eyes, Garcia finished. "They don't care if someone stops getting their uber deluxe rare mountain finch bird seed and stops paying a few bills, just so long as Johnny Law doesn't come a-knockin' on their bivouac door."

Pinching the bridge of his nose, a hint of exasperation in his voice, Dave asked, "Okay, what about the house?" He often had a hard time following Garcia and Emily noticed Dave seemed to have appointed himself the traffic cop for her rambling explanations. Garcia snapped back to the topic at hand and clicked over to the next item.

"House nothing; it's more like a mountain guerilla compound. And anywhere else in the country, this would seem out of place, but in militia man country, it's just the compound down the block, and keeping up with the Joneses." Garcia rolled her eyes as she put up a split screen of a dozen structures bearing a very similar appearance to the first.

When the screen transformed back to the original compound, she went on to explain, "But this one was different from all the others. If for no other reason than because there wasn't a well-stocked armory on the premises. The rest of the town had ammo and full auto kits coming in through their P.O. boxes, but Mr. Degault had regular shipments from book dealers and specialized bird feed providers. Also of particular note, would be the super intense, hi-tech camera and microwave jammer security system completely encompassing the entire compound." Images of invoices and product specification sheets floated across the screen as she spoke. "As well as the most awesome motion sensor system throughout the perimeter. And lions and tigers and bears, Oh My!"

"So, what you're saying is there's an almost obsessive level of security for someone who's reading old books and feeding the birds, but isn't hiding a cache of weapons for the coming apocalypse?" Dave gave her one of those raised eyebrow looks that normally shut her down, but Garcia was on a roll.

"No almost about it Supervisory Special Agent Rossi… This guy is over the top, balls to the wall, out of his freaking gourd obsessive about his security system. Langley doesn't use that much perimeter security." Her gestures always got more exaggerated when she was ramping up, and Emily could tell that was exactly where she was headed. "We're talking about a Fort Dietrich, Cheyenne Mountain, Area Fifty One, all rolled up together, level of security. Not a mountain cabin in the woods feeding the birdies vacation nutjob shack kind of thing. This is a guy who wants NO ONE to visit…EVER!"

"Baby-girl…" Morgan held both hands up to show her he was not threatening her assessment. "I think we get the point now."

"Right." She took a moment to collect herself and then turned back to the screen. "As I was saying, the whole thing pretty much screams Gideon, if you look under enough rocks, that is. It also tells me not just anyone was getting into that place without some serious work, unless…"

Reid exhaled sharply, "It was someone he knew."