Personal Case

He called the team into the conference room and started up the screen. He picked up the remote and said; "I've received word that a class of 5th grade students have been taken from George Washington Elementary by a supply teacher on an unauthorised field trip at 10am this morning and haven't been heard of since..." he flicked through the images and all the students appeared on the screen.

Their eyes widened and they understood why he was agitated when they saw Adam's face amongst the other students. Oh god, no! Not Hotch's sweet innocent eight year old son. He'd only lost the stepfather that had adopted him at birth last year. He'd had to settle into Washington this year and was the youngest out of these kids. Of course they felt sorry for all these kids but Adam was family. He was the youngest in his class by a long shot.

Everyone looked at him in pity. Lord knows what this must have been doing to Hotch. He'd only had his son fully for a year. Before that it was only three times a year and daily phone calls. Now he'd been kidnapped. Did the kidnapper even know they had the son of an FBI agent; the son of an elite profiler? If they were planning to take Adam why would they take the whole class?

As he switched off the screen he addressed the elephant in the room. "We can't lose the objective here," he said looking down closing his eyes then reopening them looking back up swallowing the lump in his throat. "Yes Adam is among the number but we must bring back all his class not just my son."

They nodded knowing this was most probably one of the hardest cases they were taking but they would all be there for Hotch and Emily. They hoped this would finally bring them closer together and they would find Adam for them. After all they'd done to protect him they deserved for Adam to come home.

"Emily's bringing in the parents, head teacher and secretary," he announced. "I want us all to interview them when they get here..." he knew that if they all did it they could get it over as soon as possible and get to finding the children. The longer it took to find the children the longer his little boy was out there afraid. He was just thankful he was with his class as at lease he wasn't alone.

They interviewed them and set about trying to find them.