Chapter 2 – Ghosts
Since I have been asked (and can't reply in a PM): Hotch is in the Character list instead of Reid because it's more of a Hotch ficisode. Hope that clears things up :)
Essential Listening: Screenager, by Muse
0o0
Prentiss glanced at the broken woman in the isolation ward beside them. Even through the glass she could see her laboured breathing, the blackened skin. It made her feel cold, even in the temperature controlled burn ward.
"Has she said anything about the fires?" Hotch asked; Prentiss turned her attention to the burns specialist in front of them.
Dr Macy shook her head.
"I'm giving her as much painkiller as I can," she said, plainly. "She asked about her husband and son," she continued, more softly, "she passed out again before I had to answer."
"So she doesn't know?" Emily asked, knowing that that would shut Mrs Cutler down – they would lose the chance to get any useful information from her the moment she realised that they were gone. They would have to handle this carefully.
Dr Macy shook her head again, and this time it had a lot more finality to it.
"Whatever you tell her," she said, quietly, "she won't live long enough to know different."
Emily felt her mouth fall open.
"I'll be right back," said Dr Macy, moving away to organise clean suits for them both.
"Did she just tell us to lie to a material witness?" Emily asked, shocked.
"No," said Hotch, gently, eyes resting on the unconscious woman behind the glass. "She told us that we could."
0o0o0o0
There were people leaving flowers against the trees that lined the street in front of the house as they pulled up. The ephemera of grief was accumulating like flotsam along the perimeter of the crime scene. The Cutlers had been a popular family.
Grace took a deep breath before she opened the car door, but it wasn't enough to limit the scent of charred wood that washed over her as she climbed out. She frowned to herself trying to keep her mind on the present.
She followed Morgan and Gideon as they strode across the street and ducked under the crime scene tape.
"Welcome," said a slim young man, jogging towards them. He was small, dark and direct in manner; this was a man who was obviously used to taking charge. "Ricardo Vega," he said, shaking hands with Gideon. "SFFD Arson Unit."
"Hi, Jason Gideon," said Gideon, as the man shook Morgan's hand. "This is Derek Morgan and Grace Pearce."
Grace shook his hand, too, watching the man take a quick assessment of their body language.
A born investigator, she mused.
"'The most likely arson suspect is the first responder,'" said Vega, briskly, moving with them towards the burnt out house. "'Who set both fires with premeditated intent to return to it in a professional capacity'."
Gideon smiled slightly.
"You've read my paper."
"Profiles of a Serial Arsonist," Vega nodded. "I make everyone on my team read it."
Grace ran her eyes over the blackened carcass of the Cutler house, willing her heart to stop dancing around in her chest so distractingly.
"I've run the first responders of both fires," Vega was saying. "These are the pedigrees of everyone that was here that night." He handed three large folders to Morgan, who quirked an eyebrow at him, impressed. "No fire, police to EMT responded to both."
"No one?" Morgan asked, surprised.
"Except me," said Vega, and Grace tore her eyes away from the house to gauge his expression. "Which is why I've included copies of my departmental reviews, medical records and psych' evaluations."
"That's unnecessary," said Gideon, waving them away.
"No, it's not," said Vega, briskly. "Your best suspect is a fireman who saw both fires burning – that's me." He looked up at them, something close to a challenge in his eyes. "I'm saving you time."
Grace managed a small smile as she looked away again. It was always good to know that the person in charge of an investigation was covering all the angles they could. Vega wanted this UnSub badly; not only had the fires wounded his professional pride, the manner of these people's deaths had pissed him off on a deep, personal level.
He would do everything he could to help the BAU to bring the sick bastard down.
"Come on," he said, leading them around the back of the property. "I'll walk you through it."
0o0o0o0
The smell of Charlotte Cutler's burnt skin hit Emily as she followed Hotch into the isolation room. It mingled unpleasantly with the antiseptic and made Emily think involuntarily of barbecued meat.
Feeling suddenly queasy, she stayed slightly behind Hotch, glad of the psychological barrier his presence provided.
"Mrs Cutler?" he asked, quietly, and the woman on the bed stirred, painfully. "I'm Special Agent Aaron Hotchner, this is Special Agent Emily Prentiss…"
"Paul?" the woman croaked, and Emily's heart broke for her.
"Your son," she began, uncertain how to break such awful news to a woman who was already in acute distress.
"Was with you on the night of the fire," Hotch finished for her. "That's why we're here."
Emily stared at the back of his head in surprise.
"I don't understand," said Mrs Cutler; Emily saw that her limbs were beginning to shake – probably from the sheer amount of pain her body was processing.
"We're FBI agents," said Hotch, and she understood. Mrs Cutler was barely with them at all – they needed to keep her focussed on their questions and not on her husband and son. "We think that the fire may have been set intentionally."
"I'm very tired," said Mrs Cutler, and Emily could well believe it. She looked like she might pass out again at any moment.
"I understand," said Hotch, gently. "This is very important. Do you think you could just give us a couple of minutes?"
Charlotte Cutler nodded painfully, and Emily was suddenly very glad that Hotch was there. None of her training had prepared her for talking to someone like this, someone so obviously losing the battle to stay alive. She felt helpless and heartless for intruding. She wouldn't have known where to start.
"I want you to think back to that night," said Hotch. "Was there anything out of the ordinary?"
Mrs Cutler stared up at him in painful confusion.
"Think about the things that you normally do," Emily suggested. "Uh… get undressed, wash your face…"
"I couldn't brush my teeth," said Mrs Cutler. "Dennis got the water back on. And then we…" she trailed off as the pain, and the fear, and the medication became too much.
"Then you went to bed?" Emily encouraged, gently.
The woman nodded, swallowing painfully.
"Do you remember what woke you up?" Hotch asked.
"Paul."
"Not the smoke alarms?" Emily asked, surprised.
Mrs Cutler began to cry helpless, exhausted tears.
"It was Paul."
"What else do you remember?" Hotch pressed.
"Dennis unlocked it – and it wouldn't open," Charlotte Cutler said, through her tears.
"He unlocked what?" Hotch asked.
"The front door," Mrs Cutler cried. "Somebody please help us, please!"
Emily realised that the poor woman was reliving the fire – a side effect of the painkillers, perhaps. Beside her, the bleating of the woman's heart monitor sped up. Emily wanted to reach out and comfort her, let her know that she wasn't alone – but she didn't, aware that it would only make things worse.
"Somebody please, help us!" Help us, please!" the woman moaned. "And then I saw the fireman," she continued, with something close to wonder in her eyes, "and I knew it was going to be okay…"
Desperately, she looked around the hospital room, gripped by a remembered fear.
"Dennis! Paul!" she croaked. "Where's my baby? Paul –" she stared imploringly at Hotch. "Where are they? Are they okay?"
"They're fine," Hotch assured her, and Emily closed her eyes, painfully aware of how many rules he had just broken. Mrs Cutler cried out in sheer relief. "They're just outside in the waiting room."
"Oh," she said, smiling at them through her tears.
She stared distractedly at them then, and for the first time Emily wondered whether a part of Mrs Cutler knew that she was dying.
"I don't want them to see me like this," she whispered, urgently. "No, I'm not ready. Could you, please, tell them to wait a minute? Please, I'm not ready."
"Agent Prentiss will tell them," said Hotch, nodding. "You call Gideon and Morgan."
Emily knew a dismissal when she heard one, and – frankly – she couldn't wait to get out of the room. She heard Mrs Cutler's laboured breathing as she made for the door, and Hotch's voice – unusually gentle – asking her if she wanted him to wait with her until she was ready.
Emily stripped off the clean-suit as quickly as she could and hurried out into the hospital proper, searching for a place where she could use her cell phone and longing for some air.
0o0o0o0
"She told her husband there was no water," said Gideon, as they surveyed the perimeter of the Cutler's property. Emily's call had interrupted their walk-through and Grace was glad of the extra moments it afforded to pull herself together. "Where's the shut off?"
"The main is at the sidewalk," said Vega, pointing it out.
"Okay, so I'm the UnSub," said Morgan, following his arm. "I need to get in the house – so I turn the water off right here, and then I wait."
Grace watched him crouch down by the stop-tap and look around. He pointed at the glossy-leaved shrubs behind where she, Gideon and Vega were standing.
"I wait for him to come outside," he continued, walking back towards them. "I wait for them to go to sleep. And then I carefully pour the fuel, cutting access to the back door. I leave them only one way to get out…"
Grace followed the agents up the steps to the house.
"Front door," said Morgan, pushing it open.
They picked their way inside, looking around at the remnants of three people's lives.
The stench of burning assaulted Grace's nostrils and mouth, and she clamped her lips tightly shut.
It was extraordinary how many different types of 'burnt' smell there were at the site of a house fire: burnt wood, scorched brick, smouldering fabric – that sour, acrid stench that melting plastic produced…
If you stood still long enough you could probably even pick out the scent of the accelerant, if any was left in the scalded air.
There was another smell, too, one that Grace was doing her best to ignore.
They hadn't been able to reach the Cutlers before the fire had done its worst.
Of all the indescribably unpleasant smells at a murder scene, burnt flesh was invariably the worst. Advanced decomposition might turn your stomach and stick to your hair and skin for days at a time, but it didn't make you salivate.
It was a dreadful sensation – beginning to feel hungry and then remembering precisely what it was that was reminding you of freshly cooked steak.
Grace swallowed with deliberate care, aware that her heart had started to race.
Gideon glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, the way he had been at Reid for the past few weeks – and she nodded, almost imperceptibly. She would be okay.
It was only her second bloody case with the BAU, after all; she had no intention of spending it hunched over in the bushes.
After all, she told herself sternly, you've seen worse.
"She said Dennis unlocked it," said Gideon, scrutinising the door jamb. "It still wouldn't open."
"When we got here, it was unlocked," said Vega, gesturing at the charred wood. "Door opens in – nothing held it from the outside, so whatever he used to keep it shut was on the inside. Here –" he said, looking up at the inside of the door frame – "see those light spots?"
Grace followed his gaze.
"Bastard," she breathed. "As if setting the fire wasn't bad enough!"
She shut her mouth tightly once more, distinctly unhappy about how much burnt air she had inadvertently breathed in.
"Something was jammed in there," Vega continued, oblivious to Grace's internal battle of wills. "Shielded the surface beneath it from the smoke. Wedged in tight. Some kind of expanding tool."
"So where is it?" Morgan asked. "If he jammed it from the inside, it'd still be there."
"We didn't find anything," said Vega, shaking his head.
"He took it with him," said Gideon.
"Well, that means he would have still being inside as it was burning," said Morgan, surprised.
"He would have had to be in full fire gear," Vega speculated.
"Which isn't too easy to come across," said Grace, through gritted teeth.
"She didn't see a fireman," said Gideon, heavily.
"She saw the UnSub," Morgan finished.
Grace closed her eyes, trying not to breathe in too much.
Sick son of a bitch, she thought, venomously.
"Now, hold on," said Vega, not following. "The house is on fire. Why would he stay inside of it?"
"He wanted to watch them burn," said Gideon, and Grace saw Vega's face twist in horror.
Her head swam as she took another, unwelcome breath. She could almost hear them shouting out for help – the fear and desperation in their voices. Her stomach gave a definite lurch as another voice surfaced in her mind.
She staggered out into the air without looking back – though she heard Morgan call her name. The terrible stench followed her into the sunlight, clawing at her. Five years of crime scene training carried her under the tape, across the street and behind a van before she fell to her knees in the bushes and voided her breakfast.
She coughed and retched, steadying herself against the metal fence beside her. Her head swam unpleasantly, and she tried to force her father's terrified screams out of her mind.
"Hey, you okay?"
Morgan's hand landed gently on her shoulder and she swore, quietly, aware that there were errant tears running down her cheeks.
"Great start to a new job," she choked, and he chuckled.
"Fires are the worst."
"Yeah," she said, sitting back on her haunches and wishing that she could stop shaking.
Morgan's body language shifted subtly as he saw her face; he moved slightly, putting himself between her and any potential onlookers. She was more than a little grateful.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked, concerned, but trying not to overwhelm her.
Profilers. Honestly.
"My Dad died in a fire," she blurted out, and scrubbed at her face, angrily. Maybe he'd let it go. "About a year ago. It just – reminded me, that's all."
He looked away, and Grace took the opportunity to wipe any remaining tears away. Apparently, Morgan wasn't one to let things go.
"You were first on the scene?" he asked, gently, and then nodded. Her expression had told him everything he needed to know. "Man, that's rough."
Grace mentally steadied herself, reaching for the protective mask of in-expression that had got her through those terrible few weeks.
"I just can't imagine anyone watching someone burning to death and not trying to help them," she said, in a shaky voice.
Morgan gave her shoulders a brotherly squeeze and helped her to her feet as Gideon rounded the corner.
"I'm sorry, Gideon, I thought I could handle it –"
He waved her apology away and handed her a much needed bottle of water. Morgan, taking some minute clue from his boss, made himself scarce.
"It's alright," he said, as she rinsed her mouth out. "I shouldn't have brought you out here."
"Really," she protested, "I'm fine –"
"You're going back to the Fire Department," he interrupted, in a tone that brooked no argument. "One of Vega's people will drive you. Help Reid and JJ."
Grace nodded, deeply embarrassed; some of it must have shown on her face, as Gideon patted her once on the shoulder.
"You have nothing to be ashamed of," he assured her. "Your first fire scene after you saw what you saw…" he sighed. "I'm impressed you made it in the house."
Aware that his comment had been intended to make her feel better, she made herself chuckle. She let him pilot her to a waiting car, feeling very vulnerable indeed and immeasurably glad that Gideon hadn't insisted on sending her straight back to D.C.