Chapter 2

The BAU team were all seated around the Round Table, listening to JJ as she delivered the briefing.

"Last night, 12 year old Sasha McClelland was reported missing from her home in Galveston, Texas. Police are assuming she left of her own accord, as there was no sign of forced entry to her home and no proof of any struggle."

"So why are we involved?" Asked Prentiss, remembering that they had never been involved in missing children when the police were sure it was not suspicious, and not in need of profiling.

"Because, although the police believe it to be neutral, Sasha's mother recalled that she had forgotten to lock the door that night, and she knows that Sasha wouldn't put up a fight, for fear of her mother getting into trouble, and she would have found some other way of escaping that wouldn't put her family at risk."

"So some officer bought this?" Asked Morgan sceptically.

"Well, the officer she spoke to previously worked for the Child Protection Agency, and he believes that there is no excuse for not getting the BAU involved when there is a chance this child could have been kidnapped."

"Then we have no time to lose," said Rossi quickly, "let's go!"

"Wait," Morgan interrupted, "Has anyone seen Reid?"

The team looked around, and noticed he was missing.

"He was around yesterday, but he was pretty quiet, no random statistics or anything." Garcia sounded concerned. "He didn't look too great."

"I'll call him," Prentiss offered.

"Wheels up in 20." Hotchner lead the team out of the room

When she was alone, Prentiss called Reid.

"Hey," she said brightly when he picked up, "You are coming out today, right? There's a missing child, and we could do with your statistics you know. They really are useful."

"Sure, sorry, I slept through my alarm," Reid sounded tired, and his voice was slightly hoarse.

"Reid, are you ok?"

"Yeah, sure. What time do I need to be on the plane?"

"20 minutes, can you make that?"

"Yeah, see you there, thanks Emily. Bye" He hung up.

Hmm, thought Emily.

Later, when everyone was on the plane, they briefed Reid, and Garcia ran a list of people living in and around Galveston with records in child abduction.

"Go back at least 10 years; it's not unusual for child abductors to leave several years between kidnappings." Hotchner spoke to her through the webcam.

"On it." Garcia replied.

"I don't think we've ever been to Galveston on a case before, have we?" JJ was looking at Reid, since he remembered every case, but he had his eyes closed, and wasn't listening.

"Reid?" Morgan, who was sitting beside him, shook his shoulder, "Reid."

No response.

Emily went over and shook him rather more roughly than Morgan had, "Reid!"

Reid opened his eyes suddenly, "Wha...? Oh, sorry. I fell asleep."

"No kidding," joked Morgan. Then his face turned serious, "Reid, are you sure you're ok?"

"Absolutely." Reid said simply. "I'm fine."

Morgan thought for a while, and then decided to let it go.

"You got anything Garcia?" Rossi was looking anxiously at Reid, but he wasn't going to let himself to be distracted. This 12 year old girl needed him.

"I never knew there were so many evil men in Galveston." Garcia sounded annoyed. "There are 57 males, but, oddly, there is one girl, Rose-Alicia Johnston, who has quite a record. She has petty theft, she served 3 years in Juvi', and she is only 16. She claimed in court that she was being used by a man called Dean, but they never got his full name. She was locked up anyway."

"Why does she stand out then?" asked Morgan.

"See, here's the thing, she was reported missing from Juvi' 6 months ago, she was supposed to serve 5 years, but she escaped, and since then there has been three evenly spaced abductions from Galveston, all three children were 12 year old girls from the local primary school. They have all been presumed dead. Did the police not inform you of all this?"

JJ replied sharply, "No, if we had heard, we would have been on the case much sooner, I think this is a serial. That's got to be them. This Dean person might still be using Rose-Alicia, and if he is, we have to find him, fast." She sounded frantic, as if she wanted the plane to land sooner.

"Anyone on your list with the first or last name Dean?" Hotchner asked.

"Quite a few... Sir." Garcia replied through the crackly webcam.

"It's probably a code name of some kind; an abductor would never tell anyone his real name, especially an accomplice who doesn't seem afraid to betray him." Emily said logically. "I mean, she gave them all the information she had to the court, according to the report Garcia sent to my iPhone."

"What about the girl, any history of abuse from her family, problems at school, mental disabilities even?" Rossi said, glancing at Reid again, who still hadn't said anything. He was just staring at the screen where Garcia had just disappeared from, probably to make herself a mug of hot chocolate. "Oi, Garcia!"

"I'm here, sir, I'm always right here!" Garcia called from the other side of the room.

"Any interesting or useful facts on child abductors, Reid?"

"10% of child abductions result in the child being found alive within 24 hours."

Apparently he could still remember facts when he was in another world of his own, then.

Garcia came back, and said, "She had an extremely abusive father, and she was in and out of the ER almost weekly, but her younger sister, has...never been recorded visiting the hospital for anything other than severe appendicitis which unfortunately killed her. No mental problems, or scholastic incidents. She was pretty beat-up though, according to these reports."

"Alright, thanks baby girl." Replied Morgan.

"Garcia, how old was her younger sister when she died?" Asked JJ, some ideas forming in her mind.

"She...was...12 years old, and she had blond hair and attended the same primary school as all these other kids. Funny, right? Right? No, not funny..."

"What if she made up this Dean person, and she's getting revenge on the loss of her sister..."

The plane landed sooner than JJ was expecting, and as they were introduced to the Sherriff at Galveston Police Dept, she thought about how they would go about finding Sasha, would they profile Dean, or Rose-Alicia? Apparently, Rose wasn't afraid to tell tales on Dean, and the fact that Dean had not trusted her with his full name suggested that their relationship was not exactly friendly. But then again, Dean might not be the leader of this organisation.

When they got set up in the small office with extremely bad coffee, she voiced her views to the team.

"So, supposing Rose is the one who is in charge, maybe Dean is younger than her, and the place where Sasha was taken would be Rose's choice, not Dean's."

"I still think we should check out this Dean, just in case." Rossi replied.

"Garcia, look up anyone living or working within a 50 mile radius of the abduction site with the first or sur-name Dean. They may not have child abduction records, any records at all would do." As Hotchner spoke, he noticed Reid leave the room, in the opposite direction from the coffee machine.

"Sir, that's a lot of names. How can I narrow this down?" Garcia said with a hint of despair.

"Try men with abusive histories, either victims or abusers."

"That's still in the hundreds sir."

"Ok, just victims then. That would be more likely." Hotchner was becoming agitated.

"That's...46. Anything more? Reid will know something..."

Morgan stuck his head out the door, "Reid!" He yelled.

Reid appeared at the door, "Sorry..."

"Reid, how can we narrow down this search?" Hotchner asked, worried, if this girl was missing, their only lead was Rose and Dean, and they had at the most 15 hours.

"Erm...you could try making the search area smaller...? Child abductors usually work on home turf. Make it living only."

"Nope, no-one. Odd. There's like, nobody with the name Dean who lives there, or has any records at all..."

JJ broke in, "Ok, I think we should give up on Dean, Rose-Alicia is looking more and more like our leader."

"Ok," Garcia was working her socks off, "After she was reported missing from Juvi, she actually checked in at an ER in Galveston...last night!"

"Ok, where is she now?" Anticipation crept into Prentiss's voice, "Why was she in the ER?"

Garcia spoke quickly, "She suffered severe head trauma, with shards of glass embedded in her head...eek...they can't get her to talk, and they've contacted the Juvi. Sounds like a car accident."

"So, she might have had Sasha in the car, with her?" Morgan sounded doubtful, but it was worth a shot.

"You know, the chances of Rose-Alicia checking in at an ER, when the accident occurred with Sasha in the car, is extremely unlikely, it would give us a clear lead to finding her." Hotchner put in.

"Maybe she wanted us to find her?" Reid spoke for the first time in a while, on to something.

"Perhaps, but she might be fooling us, as well, what if it's a trap?" Said JJ, "But I suppose it would do no harm to talk to her."

"The ER says she won't talk," Garcia pointed out.

"I'm sure I can pull some strings," said Emily, smiling a little, "I mean, what kind of trap could she set up in the ER?"

"Right," said Hotchner, "take Reid with you. Garcia, the name of the ER?"

"Abbey Road Hospital."

"Thanks," Reid followed Prentiss out of the room.