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Reid sat in silence, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped beneath his chin; in as much silence as there could be in the ICU that was. The machines continued to blip and hiss but somehow he'd been able to block it out as he went over his conversation with Hotch in his mind. Did Hotch consider him a liability now? No, he finally told himself; Hotch had said if he didn't trust him he wouldn't be a part of the team. That was one thing he knew Hotch wouldn't lie about. He looked around him as Laura, his father's nurse approached.

"We're going to give your dad his bath now and the doctor will be making his rounds," she told him.

He needed a break anyway, he told himself. He stood and spoke to Laura, "Okay then, I'm going to leave for a while. If there's any change or you need me for something, you have my cell number."

"Of course doctor," the nurse replied.

He left the ICU taking the elevator to the main floor and out of the hospital. He took a deep breath. What was it about the smell of hospitals? Every one he'd ever been in had smelled the same. What to do now, he wondered? Hotch didn't want him near the case. He could go see his mother but after the fiasco of last night, he thought he'd give her a day to let the staff calm her. There were no friends to visit. He gave a small empty chuckle. Here he was in his home town and he had no idea what to do. As he headed for his car, his cell rang. "Reid," he said into his phone.

"Dr. Reid, Katie Cole, I think we may have found something."

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"What have you got Garcia?" Hotch asked.

"I looked into other missing children in Vegas, concentrating on those in foster care…zilch. So, since Reid said he thought these kids might be being trafficked over state lines, I widened my search to the tri-state area of Nevada, Arizona and California and yahtzee, I found that there have been two other children in that age range go missing from foster care." Garcia's voice came through the speaker of Hotch's cell.

"What did you find out about them baby girl?" Morgan asked.

"I found out that they're dead, poor little things. Cody Milton's body was found buried near Mesquite, Arizona where he was from and Megan Riley's body was found in the California desert by some hikers hiking the Kelso dunes. She was from Barstow."

"Was there any sign of sexual abuse PG?" Emily inquired.

"Yes, Cody died from head trauma but the coroner's report says there were signs of repeated sexual abuse. Bruising on his body and a broken femur led the ME to the conclusion that he'd been severely beaten. Megan was smothered, but she also had signs of sexual abuse. Tell me you're going to get these sickos," she pleaded.

"We're going to try Garcia," Rossi said. "We're going to try."

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"What… what did you see?" Reid asked not sure if he really wanted to know.

"A new image came up today on a chat site. It looks like your little girl; just posing, no actual sex in these pictures. They're just teasers that are sent out to draw the pedophile in and then they barter for pictures so they know each other is not the authorities. Once that relationship is in place, trust is established and they're hooked, they set up payment for the more explicit stuff."

"I suppose there's no way you can zero in on where they're coming from?" Reid asked.

"No it's from an internet company in Nebraska, the usual red tape," she sighed.

"Can you get everything to Penelope Garcia in Quantico? She may be able to track them down."

"We're on it Dr. Reid," Katie assured him.

"Thank you Katie."

"You're welcome. How's your father?"

"Still no change."

"Well, good luck with this Dr. Reid. Get the bastards. I hope all goes well with your dad."

"Thanks Katie, I'll let you know." He closed his phone and headed for his rental car.

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"Seems like your boy was right all along," Brass who sat with the group said as JJ plotted the two new sites of Mesquite and Barstow on the map.

"He's not a boy," Morgan snapped sharply. "He's a supervisory special agent." Morgan approached the map, looked at the points plotted and then turned to the unit chief. "There's a lot of desert and wilderness out there. Hotch, you know no one's better at a geographical profile than Reid."

"Talking about me now behind my back," they heard from the doorway and turned to see the youngest member of the team standing there.

"No, well I guess technically," Brass replied. "Agent Morgan here was saying that no one is better at a geographic profile than you." He motioned with his head to the map on the wall.

"There are three points on here," Reid said looking at the map, "did something happen?"

"Garcia found reports of two kids' bodies being found; both had been in foster care, both murdered and both sexually abused." Rossi told him.

"I got a call from Katie Cole," Reid said.

"Katie," Morgan looked confused.

"Yeah, I called her. I told Hotch this morning. I thought her people could be on the lookout for Rachael and, if they found her, maybe Garcia could get something through the computer relays." Reid explained to his teammates and Brass.

"Who's Katie Cole?" Brass asked.

"She's the head of the FBI's Crimes Against Children Unit in College Park, Maryland," Hotch said. "Reid told me earlier he'd called her and I thought it was a good idea. You said she called Reid."

"Yeah," Reid didn't look at them but kept his eyes on the map. "A new image came on this morning of a little girl she's sure is Rachael; can't track the source, of course. I told her to send everything to Garcia and she can maybe track them or, at least, ping on the viewers, then the CACU and the local LEOs wherever they are might be able to get something."

"Good," Hotch replied as his cell rang. "Hotchner," he said before hearing Garcia's voice and putting his phone on speaker once again.

"Is Reid there with you?" she asked.

"Yes, baby girl, he's filled us in on Katie." Morgan responded.

"That was a good call sweet cheeks," she responded, causing Brass to look around at these people, baby girl, sweet cheeks? Garcia carried on. "I couldn't track these sickos through their network. They're using proxy servers to hell and back. Aargh, I hate it when they're good. Anyway, I did get a line on the viewers … but, all names and any credit card numbers are encrypted. I've run them through my decryption software but so far no luck. I'll keep trying."

"Garcia, can you send those encryptions to me," Reid said.

"Sure Reid, but I don't think you'll be able to do anything my babies won't." She pushed a key on her computer, "Done, but like I said, my own programs will likely eval…"

"It looks like they're using a triple DES hexadecimal encryption algorithm," Reid said as he looked at the long lines of letters and numbers displayed on his phone. "I can use cipher block chaining with an initialization vector as a key and once I remove the padding, we'll have the names or numbers. Thanks Garcia." He strode towards the door. "Captain Brass I need a desk or table somewhere quiet for a while," he said as he exited.

Jim Brass stood up and headed for the door to accommodate the young profiler. He turned back to the others. "Please tell me nobody in this room understood what he just said."