Chapter 6

December 6, 2008

--

They had another body. And it was one Emily recognized. It had only been the previous night that she and Hotch had wrapped presents with the woman dead in front of her. Sometimes she wondered about people, about the type of person it took to kill someone, especially at Christmas time. Sure, Lily Clark had been overly peppy for Emily's tastes the night before, but that didn't give anyone enough reason to kill her.

"Her husband was at home," Hotch said, coming up beside her. "Got a nasty bump on the head to prove it."

"Then who killed her? How did he find her?"

"She didn't work," Derek said, coming up from talking to Tim Clark. "Husband said she was a stay-at-home mom for their three kids."

"Where are the kids?" Hotch asked.

"Skiing with school. Week long trip," came the reply. "Husband said he was going to call the lodge, tell the kids."

"Hotch, we were with these people last night," Emily said quietly, urgently, as Derek walked away. "Less than twelve hours ago."

"Do you think that could be it?" he asked, ignoring the way her mittened hand had fisted in the arm of his coat. She'd done it subconsciously, the same way she did to the rest of the team when she thought something was urgent enough. She'd seen her do the same to Dave only a few days before.

"I don't know," she admitted honestly. "Who attacks someone who gives back?"

"Maybe its part of the MO," he offered. "Maybe there's something about the way the victim goes about giving back that bothers him."

"Definitely Christmas lights," Dave said, coming up on Emily's other side. Lily Clark was splayed out in front of them as the coroner moved around them. "CSU has footprints, thank goodness for snow."

"They probably won't give us much," Emily said with a sigh. "The last scene had footprints. The neighbours, when they asked. Seems he was over helping our victim put up her lights because her husband was away."

"To say he's devolving in redundant," Hotch murmured to his colleagues. The local PD wasn't that far away and he didn't want them to overhear a conversation about the profile without their confidence. "There was something about Lily Clark that he didn't like, so much so that he had to deviate from his pattern."

Emily was already on the phone, dialing their tech support.

"Santa's Favourite Elf, how may I help you?"

It made Emily smile at the least, but Garcia had a way of doing that. "Check for the name Lily Clark," she said. "The-"

"She's not here, peaches," Garcia interrupted. "The family just moved to Bozeman from another, smaller town just outside. They've only been in Bozeman a year."

"When did they move?"

"November of last year," Garcia replied, her fingers obviously moving quickly over the keys. "My guess, they were unpacking this time last year."

"So there's no way they'd have even been prepared for the light competition," Emily said, stepping away from Hotch and Dave who were still conversing over her head.

"Lily Clark, mother of three, married to Tim Clark. Squeaky clean woman and not even a parking ticket between them."

"What on earth is setting this guy off?" Emily asked, blowing out a breath in exasperation.

"I just look up the information, sweetness, I can't help you with motive."

Emily smiled. "Thanks Garcia."

"Always," the tech genius sing-songed back. "I'm out!"

Emily was shaking her head affectionately as she made her way back to Hotch and Dave.

"So?"

"Nothing. Lily Clark was clean. The family moved here just last year, November. I don't think they would have been able to find their Christmas decorations in time to do anything for the holiday season."

"This case is getting more and more confusing," Dave said.

"Thank you, Sir Pessimism," Emily teased. "We're going to have to retrace Lily Clark's steps from yesterday."

Hotch nodded. "And get-"

"Garcia's already looking," Emily finished, looking down at her phone. "JJ's going to look into how much of this we can suppress. The last thing we want is a panic because he killed twice this year when we have no answers to give."

Dave raised an eyebrow. He'd always known Emily was thorough, but he'd noticed this case that she and his long-time friend were spending a lot of time together. He'd seen Hotch return two nights ago with a smile on his face. And if he was honest, Dave had been only a little bit surprised to find that Emily and Hotch were missing from the precinct the previous night. He'd seen the way Hotch had reacted to Emily and Jack in the conference room. Heck, even he'd admit, if it wasn't so obvious to the elder profiler that he would be stomping on Hotch's toes, he'd probably be looking at Emily Prentiss a lot differently.

But Dave had known almost from the minute he'd started in the BAU that Emily was off limits. The fact that his eye had been drawn to a completely different woman aside – and the fact that she was, unfortunately, now taken – Emily was a dynamic individual. They were friends and Dave knew Emily stayed late in the office some nights because he did. They'd bonded over many-a-meal together.

Emily Prentiss took care of everyone. He'd seen it with Reid a number of times since he'd started. He saw it with the teasing banter she often exchanged with Derek, in the way she accepted his flirty remarks because she knew it was one of his coping mechanisms. JJ was obvious. The pregnant blond always needed something and Emily seemed to be able to have it ready for her before she even asked for it. The only person she ever shied away from was Hotch and Dave had a feeling it was because she had no idea how to deal with the man. Nevertheless, she'd been the one to pick up the slack when, after New York, Hotch's hearing had suffered. She'd been the one to watch him, make sure he was taking care of his ear, ensuring that he was okay. And Dave knew that she'd wanted to tell him to drive back to Quantico after the Angel Maker case, but wasn't sure how. Still, she'd questioned him making the trip on his own and backed down immediately when he made it clear he was doing it for the good of his ear.

Nevertheless, he'd never been so aware of the two of them until this case. Until she'd kept Jack's attention in the conference room five days before and he'd literally seen the unit chief pause on the walkway to the conference room to watch the dark-haired woman show his son how best to make a snowflake with only paper and scissors. He'd started to notice how she was all but prepared for everything before Hotch asked for it. Like now, how she'd managed to finish his sentence by answering his question before it was out of his mouth.

"Then let's get back to the precinct and bring Tim Clark with us," Hotch said. "He'll be able to give us a better idea of what his wife's been up to in the last week."

Unfortunately, Tim Clark had very little idea of what his wife had been up to. He'd been able to give them a brief sketch of her day, but the details were unfortunately out of his league. They had been able to find her agenda, which included her husband's plans during the day. Lily Clark was the quintessential soccer mom scheduling everything from her husband's work hours to when to pick up her children.

Emily sighed. It hadn't given them much more to go on and it was bothering her. They knew he was devolving, that he had stepped up his time table exponentially. Other than that, they now had nothing. And that was even assuming it had been the Tree Light Killer and not a copycat that had killed Lily Clark for another reason. She hated this part of cases as they sat around the conference room table, throwing ideas and theories around over the requisite Chinese food Derek and Reid had run out to get.

"Lily Clark doesn't fit," Emily repeated for the hundredth time. "Her husband was in Bozeman. She hasn't been in the city long enough to get herself involved in the light competition. She doesn't make sense."

"Then something else set him off," Derek argued. "She was strangled with tree lights."

"It's not like that detail hasn't been publicized," Emily replied. "Even if Jayje could keep it quiet this time around there were three murders before this, all with coroner's reports that say the most likely weapon of choice by the UNSUB was a string of the mini tree lights. It was bound to come out somehow."

"Or he's getting more confident while he's devolving," Dave interjected. "He doesn't care that the husband's in town, he just cares about why he needs to kill."

"He had to have watched the Clarks for a while then," Reid murmured in the tone of voice that told his teammates his brain was all but whirling. "Whatever set him off about the other women, he'd have to have found it in Lily Clark."

"Excellent, now what is it?" Emily grumbled, leaning back in her chair. The room was silent for a few moments as each agent lost themselves in thought. Emily shook her head violently when she started to hear Christmas music in her head. She slowly began to realize that the music wasn't only in her head. Her eyes lit up, seeking out Hotch's without realizing it, a smile creeping across her face. She stood quickly, pulling open the door and searching out the source of the music.

A group of children stood just inside the precinct, voices ringing throughout the building. She leaned against the doorway, a soft smile on her face. The room was quiet around them, not an officer moving. The attention was all focused on the children as they sang the traditional carols.

They look-ed up and saw a star
Shining in the east beyond them far
And to the earth it gave great light
And so it continued both day and night.

She felt someone walk up behind her, felt a shoulder press against the back of hers and glanced up quickly at her supervisor, noticing the same sparkle in his eyes as she knew was in her own. She stepped aside as the team gathered around the door, listening to the impromptu concert. Hotch stepped with her, his hand moving to rest on the shelf she ended up leaning against. Emily held in her shiver.

It was a liberty that Emily wasn't exactly used to. Either that, or she simply hadn't noticed it before. Because regardless of how sweet the choir sounded, her attention was mostly focused on how close he was standing, how, with a small, simple movement, she could be all but leaning against his strong frame. She held herself surprisingly rigid, repeating over and over that he was her boss and regardless of how close he was standing, he was very much off limits.

--

Hotch was entranced. Not only was the music completely calming his mind, but he was probably standing closer to Emily while on the job than he'd ever been. And she hadn't pulled away. It was the latter point that had his heart beating a little bit faster, that has his brain fogging as well as relaxing. She looked so feminine standing there, still dressed in her business suit, though her jacket discarded. She'd pulled her hair in a ponytail to keep it out of her face but shorter wisps fell about her neck, stubbornly refusing to stay in the elastic band.

His head was swimming as the choir finished their last song and took a bow. His hand grazed the back of her shoulder, his mind cataloguing the way her clapping paused and her body tensed for a split second. He caught the gaze she darted at him out of his peripheral vision. What the heck was he doing?

He didn't know either.

He caught Dave's eye as the team moved back into the conference room, more serene than they'd been half an hour prior. There was curiosity there, a spark of knowledge and Hotch had to do his best not to react. He had to control himself. He was treading on thin ice, not being fully sure of what was going on himself. So what if he and Emily shared a love for the holiday season? They'd spent an evening working side by side on paperwork, both losing track of the time, but that was what friends did, didn't they? And friends made other friends CDs of music they didn't have.

So then why did he feel like he had to be around her? Why did he want to be as close as possible, stroking skin, running a hand over her shoulders? Why hadn't he left her alone while talking about her nieces? Why had he opened up about his own poor Christmases as a child? Yes, he and Emily had become friends since New York, and he actually hadn't been blind to the changes she'd effortlessly made to accommodate his hearing problems. But it didn't mean anything. They were friends.

But he'd proven to himself that she was as hyper-aware of him as he was of her. Which made him question everything she'd done. Had the gift wrapping been an invitation as a friend or to test the waters of something more? The more he thought about it, the more she seemed to permeate his life. Especially in the last six days. He'd seen a different side of Emily, the side that was as childish as a six-year-old. He'd seen her effortlessly and patiently explain to Jack how to make a snowflake, instructions the little boy had quite seriously explained to his father over pizza that same night. He'd seen her telling a story to two little girls whom she considered close enough to be nieces. And it had done absolutely nothing to quell his attraction to her.

At this rate, he wasn't sure anything could.

So I think the next chapter is from Hotch's point of view. I've done a few chapters that have really focused on Emily (though Dave made a nice little four-ish paragraph appearance here), but I make no guarantees. The way it's written out in my head at the moment (the moment being now, December 4 (yeah I'm ahead!) at 8 pm EST) the chapter is from his POV. But, as per usual with my stories, it could go a completely different way by the time I wake up tomorrow morning.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter anyway!