A/N: I wanted to say thanks for those of you who read my story :) it's still in its introduction phase, and I promise it will get better (i hope). I'm back to school and I have exams in a few weeks so i might not get a chance to update for a while, but I'll try! and PLEASE if you see any spelling mistakes, LET ME KNOW! I hate spelling errors, they drive me crazy (especially if it's something obvious) and I'm cartainly not immune to them, so telling me would help. Thanks! :)

Disclaimer: obviously, they're not my characters.

Chapter 2

"Uh, Pete? I don't think your truck is supposed to be making that noise." Myka Bering said warily to her partner Pete Lattimer. They had been on the road for the last two hours from the airport and Pete was driving. The truck was making an odd sputtering noise that put Myka on edge.

"Oh, no. its fine, we just need some gas but we can make it back to Leena's on what we have. Besides, it's not like the gas station is open at four am anyway." Pete replied to his nervous partner. They were only ten minutes away from the B&B and he was sure they could make it. The truck made another disapproving sound and started to slow down.

"Well Pete, if you knew we needed gas why didn't you stop earlier when the gas stations were still open?" Myka asked. She was exhausted from their last assignment. It took a lot longer to tag, bag and snag the artifact than they had expected and Myka just wanted to get some well deserved sleep.

"Because, I thought we could make it back without having to stop. Look we're only like seven minutes away now! We can totally make it!" Pete said enthusiastically just as the truck slowed down to almost a crawl. Myka looked at Pete as he pulled the vehicle to the side of the road.

"Pete!" Myka whined.

"Hey, it's okay we can just... walk the rest of the way. Myka groaned and watched as Pete reached over and pulled out a pack of Twizzlers from the glove department. "Here," he said and handed it to Myka.

"Really Pete? You think you can make this situation better with a pack of Twizzlers?" Myka said angrily.

"Well did they?" Pete asked with a knowing tone in his voice.

"A little," Myka admitted, opened her door, got out and started walking towards the B&B. Pete joined her two seconds later after locking the truck. "Pete?" Myka said, and turned to her Secret Service partner. "Artifact?"

"Oh. Oh! Right," he exclaimed and ran back to the truck to get the artifact out of the back.

The two agents walked in silence for a few minutes, Myka munching away at her Twizzlers and Pete making faces in the shop windows. As Myka was eating her snack, she swore she could hear someone besides Pete walking around the street. But every time she looked around, she found that they were the only ones out at this hour.

As the pair passed a side alley, something caught Myka's attention. She stopped dead in her tracks, making Pete come back to see what she was looking at. Pete was genuinely having a good time making faces at security cameras and store windows and as he walked back to see what his partner was looking at he got a very, very bad vibe.

"Hey Myka, I think we should probably get out of here," he said as he came up beside her. Myka didn't say anything though, she just pointed down the alley and something. When Pete followed her finger he saw the body of a young man lying next to a dumpster.

"Is that?" Pete said in disbelief.

"Yeah."

"And do you think he's?"

"Yeah."

The two agents turned to look at each other; each of their faces had a questioning look plastered onto it.

"So,' Myka said, breaking the silence. "Who do we call?"

"Well," Pete hesitated. "Um, the police? Okay you call Artie and I'll call the cops," he guessed and pulled out his phone. Pete walked a little way down the street and called the police department while Myka took the Farnsworth and attempted to call Artie. Of course he never answered so Myka walked over to where Pete was standing. Pete hung up the phone and turned to Myka.

"They said they should be here in a few minutes. What did Artie say?" Pete asked.

"I couldn't get a hold of him. He could be sleeping, considering it's four am." Myka replied.

"Yeah, good point."

Suddenly the silence of the early morning was pierced by the wailing of sirens coming from the left of Myka and Pete. Within minutes, cops were everywhere, putting up crime scene tap, taking pictures and for some reason, no one had interview Myka or Pete about what had happened. Myka was starting to get more concerned by the minute. It seemed as though all the local cops were waiting for someone to come and take the lead on the case. Myka was right as a few minutes later two big black SUVs rolled in and a group of six, two women and four men, got out of them. They flashed their badges and entered the crime scene.

The group split up and Myka was the first to notice the dark haired woman approach them. Pete had been blabbing on about something that happened in a comic book and Myka had completely drowned him out. She had been busy memorizing the crime scene because she had a feeling that it would come in handy later.

When the dark haired agent was within a few feet of Myka and Pete, Pete finally noticed she was there and completely shut up.

"Hi there," said the man with light brown hair to Emily. She was supposed to interview the people who had found the body and was pointed in their direction. From one look at the two of them, she could tell that the woman with dark curly hair was the more responsible one of the two. She stood with her arms crossed, surveying the scene while the man had been talking and making wild gestures with his hands, completely unaware that the woman wasn't listening to him. Emily found it odd that these two didn't seem all that distraught at finding a dead body in an alley.

"Hi, we're sorry to keep you waiting," Emily said. "I'm SSA Prentiss with the BAU," she flashed her badge. The woman nodded and the man just kept staring at her and Emily noticed that his gaze was starting to lower. Great, she thought to herself. "I'm going to need your names."

"Myka Bering," said the woman. Emily looked to the man standing next to her, who still seemed to be a bit distracted. Myka hit him in the arm and his eyes snapped back up to meet Emily's.

"Pete Lattimer," he said and extended his hand. Emily took it hesitantly and quickly let go after the appropriate amount of time.

"So can you tell me how you came upon the victim?" Emily said, trying to hurry things along.

"Well," Pete began. "We were on our way back to the B&B, when my truck -the one parked just down the road there," he pointed down the road. "Broke down. Since it's just a few minutes to the B&B, we decided to walk. Although it took a little convincing on her part," he said and pointed at an annoyed looking Ms. Bering. "I had to bribe her with Twizzlers. She was a little annoyed that we ran out of gas-" he was cut off by Myka.

"Pete?"

"Yes?" he said, still looking at Emily.

"Stop talking."

"Right."

"I'm sorry," Myka said. "You'll have to excuse my partner, he can get a bit... carried away," she finished with a glare in Pete's direction. "We were walking down the street when something caught my eye in the alley, when I turned to look at it I saw it was a body."

Emily had to admit, watching and listening to these two was quite interesting. "Okay thank you. So are you two a couple? Married?" Emily asked.

"Ha! Never!" Myka exclaimed.

"Hey!" Pete said, obviously taking offense to what Myka had just said.

"No actually we work together," she clarified.

"And what is it you do from a living?" Emily asked. These were obviously the two other people that were staying at the bed and breakfast and the team still hadn't discussed whether or not the people staying there would be suspects or not.

"Secret Service," Pete said at the same time Myka said,

"IRS."

The two looked at each other and Emily could see panic on their faces. They both looked back a Emily and Myka said,

"Secret Service," while Pete said,

"IRS."

This sent up a red flag in Emily's mind. Their story had seemed believable up until this point so now Emily was becoming suspicious. "Excuse me?" she asked. The two looked at each other again and Pete started making odd gestures with his hand that he was trying to hide behind his head but failing miserably.

"Mr. Lattimer, what are you doing?" Emily asked sceptically.

"What? Oh it's Pete, call me Pete." he said. "I wasn't doing anything," he replied and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Emily suddenly heard an odd vibrating sound coming from Myka's pocket. The woman started mumbling something she couldn't quite make out and looking around frantically.

"Artie!" she called out after spotting a shot bearded man in the crowd. "Artie!" she called again, finally getting the man's attention. He pulled out something from his bag, showed it to an officer standing by the tape and entered the crime scene. As Emily watched the man approach, she found that he looked familiar but she didn't know where she had seen him before.

"Pete, Myka! What on earth are you two doing? I told you to call me as soon as you got back!" he exclaimed.

"Hey, Artie. Yeah about that," Pete trailed off.

"I tried to call you but you weren't picking up," said Myka. It seemed as though they had forgotten that Emily was standing there. She was starting to get a little annoyed.

"Excuse me?" Emily said attempting to get their attention and the three looked over at her. "Hi, yeah, still here. Would someone mind explaining to me what the hell is going on?"

"Ah yes, I'm so sorry for the confusion..." the man named Artie said and trailed off not knowing who she was.

"SSA Prentiss," she supplied.

"Ah Agent Prentiss. My name is Artie Nielson, I'm their boss." he said referring to the two adults behind him.

"And what exactly is it you all do?" Emily asked again. If she didn't get a straight answer this time she was going to scream.

"Uh, well, what have these two told you?" Artie said. Emily sighed.

"Secret Service and or IRS. Which is it?" Emily asked exasperated.

"Well see, the town thinks we're IRS but they're actually Secret Service and I'm NSA," Artie said and they all held up their badges.

"Okay so then why are you here?" Emily was becoming even more confused by the minute. The Secret Service was supposed to protect the President but the President was nowhere near South Dakota, let alone Univille at the moment. And what the hell did the NSA want with their case?

"I'm afraid that's need to know Agent," Artie said.

Emily was about to say something when she was cut off by the ringing of her phone. "Don't go anywhere," she warned the three supposed secret Service agents and walked away to answer her phone.

As soon as she was gone, Artie turned to Myka and Pete. He had on a frantic look that Myka rarely saw from him.

"Artie what's going on?" she asked.

"I need you two to listen, listen very carefully to what I'm about to say," Artie whispered and look at the Warehouse agents. "Pete, are you listening to me?"

"Yes," he said tearing his eyes away from Agent Prentiss. "Yes totally."

"Okay good. This is the sixth murder to take place in the last three days. We got the SOS two days ago and this is the fourth murder to take place in town. Now Claudia and I haven't been able to figure out what it is yet but there is definitely an artifact, a very dangerous artifact involved in this." Artie whispered fiercely.

"Why didn't you call us to come back earlier then?" asked Myka. She found it strange that Artie hadn't told them about this sooner. If people were dying this quickly then they needed to find whatever was doing this and fast Myka thought to herself.

"No no no, you were busy; there wasn't much you could have done anyway. Oh! Speaking of which, do you have the head band?" Artie asked and looked from Myka to Pete who reached into his pocket to pull out the bag containing the artifact.

"Snagged and bagged," Pete said triumphantly and handed it to Artie.

Artie then took the bag and put it in his larger one. He turned around and surveyed the scene. Having the FBI in town while trying to track down the artifact was going to be a definite problem but they could do it... maybe. He watched as the group of FBI agents gathered together and started talking. This case was certainly going to need a lot more precaution and they were going to have to work much faster than usual. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to pull out the Durational Spectrometer and just see what happened but Artie knew that that would never be an option. They also weren't allowed to go anywhere as Pete and Myka Still had to give the rest of their interviews.

Agent Prentiss and another agent, a man with dark brown hair and a grim expression made their way over to Myka, Pete and Artie.

"I'm Unit Chief, SSA Hotchner," he said. "Agent Prentiss tells me that you're Secret Service. Can I ask what you're doing at my crime scene?"

"Well, we kinda found the body," said Pete.

"Right. We're sorry to have to cut this short but there's been another body found." Hotch said. "Did you see anyone else around?"

"No we were the only ones out here." Myka replied.

"Did you see anything out of the ordinary?"

Myka shook her head and the Farnsworth in her pocket started vibrating again. "Will you excuse me for a minute?" she asked and stepped away from everyone else.

"Okay well thank you for your time," Hotch said. "If we have any more questions, we'll be contacting you." Hotch and Prentiss turned to leave but Pete stopped them.

"Wait, you didn't get my number," he said and handed a card to Prentiss. "I don't have a work number, so this is only my cell." he continued in a hushed tone. "You can call me whenever. you know, maybe when this whole murderer thing-"

"Goodbye, Mr. Lattimer," Prentiss said cutting him off. As they the two walked over to their SUV, Emily shook her head.

"He didn't seem that bad," Hotch commented.

"That's usually the thought I have at the beginning of all my dates."

Prentiss and Hotch got into the SUV where Reid was already waiting in the backseat to go to their next crime scene.