Chapter 4

Hotch couldn't believe the attitude of the Sunnydale Police Department. They were acting as if they didn't care that the body of Samantha Wong had disappeared and that Officer Warden, who had been stationed outside of the morgue all last night, had been killed. As soon as Hotch received the call, he drove straight to the station and called the rest of the team.

Officer Crainyard showed him the morgue, where Officer Warden's body was lying limp on the floor. Warden was covered with blood, slumped against a wall. If Hotch hadn't known better, he would of said that Warden had been tossed with hulk like at the wall, but the Officer wasn't a skinny man. It would of taken considerable muscle to lift him up, much less to throw him at a wall with enough force to snap his neck and leave a dent in the wall.

The rest of the room wasn't in much better condition than Warden. Chairs were all over the room and a few x-rays were torn into pieces. The most worrying part of the room was the slab where Samantha Wong had been on. The slab was void, except for the thin sheet that had been covering Wong, which was in the same position, except for one corner, which was folded over, like someone would do to their blankets while getting out of bed.

Hotch gave the room one last look, before seeing a security camera on the wall. He turned to Officer Crainyard, who had been stacking the chairs.

"Officer, can I see the footage of that camera?" Hotch asked, pointing to it.

Crainyard turned to Hotch and shot him a small forced smile, "No, sorry."

"Why not?"

"The footage got deleted, accidentally of course," he said calmly.

He was lying. The subtle adjustment of straightening the cuff of one of his sleeves and the small pause he took before speaking proved it.

"That's unfortunate, how you deleted the footage of your own officer getting killed and a body being snatched," Hotch said, hinting to Crainyard that he knew he was lying.

Crainyard bit his lip, before responding, "Accidents are accidents."

"Right."

As soon as Hotch walked out of the room, he called Garcia.

"Oracle of computers here," Garcia said.

"Garcia, I need you to find some security camera footage," Hotch explained.

"Easy. Do you have the time or location?" she asked.

"Yes, it's the morgue of the Sunnydale Police Department and it would have been last night's footage.

"Alright Sir, I'll get right on that."

Hotch hung up.

Hearing the chatter of the team, Hotch waved them over. Once they had all sat down around the small table in the middle of the Police Department, Hotch started talking.

"Officer Warden was killed last night," Hotch said, waiting for the reactions of his team. Like he suspected, the team was confused.

"Was he killed by the Unsub?" Morgan asked.

"He had two deep stab wounds to his neck, but Officer Crainyard is releasing the cause of death as blunt force trauma," Hotch explained.

"What hit him?" JJ asked.

"We don't know, but it looks like he could have been tossed into a wall."

"Was there a security tape?"

Hotch glanced around, making sure the station it was void of the police, before responding, "Officer Crainyard is claiming that the tape got deleted accidentally, but I believe that he's lying."

"Why would," Reid started, before realization hit him, "Are you saying that the police chief is the Unsub?"

Hotch shook his head, "No, Officer Crainyard is saying that he was at his house all night. We haven't verified it yet, but I doubt that he's the Unsub."

"Then why is he hiding the evidence?" Morgan asked with conviction, "Unless he knows the real Unsub and is covering for him or if he doesn't want us solving the case."

Hotch frowned, "He does seem to want the murders to stop, but we need to verify everything. Morgan and Reid, I want you to verify the alibi, JJ and I will go over the crime scene again and see if we can find anything else about the Unsub while Rossi and Prentiss start a preliminary profile."

Everyone nodded and scattered to their separate jobs.

Morgan was completely lost. This seemingly normal case, or as normal as serial killer case can get, was spiraling out of control. The police force, that hadn't wanted them there in the first place, were now actively going against them and one of the victims had disappeared. They had spent the entire day verifying the alibies of the other cops.

"The Unsub could easily be one of the members of the police squad," Reid said, snapping Morgan out of his thoughts, "They all have to undergo physical training and have access to all the facilities. Even more, Officer Warden probably trust his coworkers easily, so he wouldn't of been on edge or worried at all."

All of Reid's points made sense, but things just didn't add up, "Doesn't make sense though, no one on that force could lift Officer Warden off the ground, much less leave a dent and this has been going on for a while."

"When was the first kill?" Reid asked, interrupting Morgan.

Morgan was about to get annoyed at Reid for interrupting him, but he faltered. Confused, he said, "How do I not know this?"

"It never came up, ask Garcia if she knows," Reid told him.

Morgan took his phone out of his pocket and began dialing. Garcia picked up.

"Queen of knowledge here."

"Hey Baby girl. Listen, when was the first kill?" Morgan asked.

"Aren't you supposed to know that?" she quipped.

"Don't remind me," Morgan shot back jokingly, "Do you need a minute? Should we call you back?" he asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Oh please, I need four more seconds," Garcia retorted. Four seconds later, she started talking, "Well there's been animal attacks in Sunnydale since it was founded in the mid 1800s, a police force was only issued in 1862, by Mayor Richard Wilkins and then, wow, after only three years of constant animal attacks, the police force began listing the attacks as strange things, like a kid 1866 stabbed himself with a fishing rod, twice in the neck before bleeding out," Garcia revealed.

"So basically, this Unsub has been around since the beginning of Sunnydale," Morgan replied.

"That's what I figure."

"Alright, till next time Garcia," Morgan told her.

Reid stared at Morgan, waiting to hear what Garcia had told him.

"Alright, this case got more complicated," Morgan explained. Once he had finished, Reid was staring bewildered at him, not noticing the girl he bumped into.

"Watch where you're going!" she told him.

"Hey, no need to be," Morgan's voice trailed off as he looked at her appearance. She was student age, with blond hair that was tucked into a ponytail and her face had a bunch of dirt on it. One sleeve of her sweater was ripped to shreds. The girl's breathing was slightly shallow too, like she just finished a light jog.

"Are you okay?" Morgan asked.

The girl looked at him, confused, before noticing that he was staring at her sleeve.

"Of course, a bunch of bushes ruined this sweater. Annoying right, this wasn't cheap either," she complained.

Morgan would have brushed her off as a typical university girl, but he was trained to detect lies and not a word of that was true.

"Was someone chasing you Miss?" he asked.

"What? No, I just wasn't paying attention and the next thing I know $75 down the drain," the girl lied again.

"Alright, just be more careful next time, Miss," he started.

"Buffy," she told him, "And you should get in before dark, we have bad luck in this town." Buffy Summers, this was the girl that won the Class Protector Award? Morgan couldn't help but notice the repetition of the same warning Jessie had given him and Prentiss the day before. Stay in at night, what did that even mean?

"By bad luck ,do you mean the murders?" Reid asked.

"Animal attacks, actually," she said, shooting him a false smile, before running off.

"That was strange," Morgan remarked, staring at Buffy, who was running into the distance.

They continued walking towards the car, because they had wisely decided to park it blocks away from the house of Officer Crainyard, until Morgan noticed the quaint little blue house that the Wong family lived in. It looked nothing like it had yesterday. The beautiful little garden had been destroyed. Reid was about to unlock the car when Morgan motioned at him to wait.

"What?" he asked.

Morgan pointed towards the Wong house, "That garden wasn't destroyed yesterday, I'm just going to ring their door bell, make sure they're okay."

Morgan walked up to the house and rung the bell. He heard cautious footsteps, before Jessie's face peaked out from the window. He watched as relief flooded her face and she went to open the door.

"Agent Morgan, close the door quickly," she told him. Reid stared at Jessie confused, but they both entered and closed the door quickly.

Jessie looked close to tears, one of her arms was bleeding, looking as if someone had dug their nails into her arm.

"Jessie, what happened, are you okay? Where are your parents?" Morgan asked.

Reid approached Jessie, "Hey Jessie, I'm Dr Reid."

Jessie gave him a small smile, "Its over now, I just got freaked out. First night alone since, uh, you know."

Jessie was lying again, but seeing her distress, Morgan didn't comment.

Reid still looked confused, but he didn't comment either.

"I'll tell you later," Morgan whispered to Reid.

Just then, Morgan's phone rang, "Agent Morgan."

"This is weird," Garcia's voice echoed through the phone. No witty line, Morgan knew something was incredibly wrong, either that or Agent Strauss, their boss, was in the same room. As the call continued, Morgan's fragile understanding of the case disappeared completely.

Sorry for the incredibly slow time I take to update. I couldn't get any inspiration or ideas for this chapter until a few weeks ago. I can't do updates on a schedule, just because mine is so chaotic. But this chapter the longest one yet, so treat that as a reward for waiting me out.

Bye!