I was touched almost to the point of tears at the response to my last chapter. Thanks so much for reading! Especially after all this time. Needless to say, I've been bad again. Please bear with me.
Hope you like this next chapter.
5.
And the kids were back, safe and sound.
Reid couldn't help but be glad. He hadn't really had much time to dwell on it—being in charge of a crime scene was new to him. But he did know they wouldn't have been able to pool their resources toward solving the murders as long as the Amber Alert remained active. Now they'd called it off they might actually be able to advance on the profile. CSU had arrived at last, taken their pictures and collected their evidence—the coroner had driven off with the remains. The suicide at police headquarters had been a setback, but in a way it did serve a purpose. Thanks to it, the FBI had decided to set up an emergency lab right here in South Creedon, instead of driving back and forth between police headquarters and the field office.
Even as he rattled off random facts to whomever would listen, his mind was actively connecting the psychobehavioral dots. The kidnapping, the suicide—they had to be a diversion. How could they be anything but? The probability of both happening on the same day in a town this small was practically nil. They had to be related. Now… whether the same UnSub was responsible for all of them was another matter. An elusive UnSub like this would hardly act the way JJ said Benjamin Atkins did. He had to be a scapegoat. Sure profiling was a soft science… compared to Physics or Chemistry. You couldn't be exact about anything regarding human behavior. But he was pretty sure a subject like this wouldn't murder three—maybe four—women, only to pretend to turn himself in and then commit suicide. It made no sense.
His palms itched to get back to the bullpen and discuss the scheme that was forming in his mind. He loved it when they all gathered and tossed ideas around. To him it was as stimulating as a chess tournament. Sometimes more.
People were wrong about profiling, he reflected. They figured it was like chess—choosing the right strategy, beating your adversary. It really wasn't like that at all. It more closely resembled a jigsaw puzzle. You had all the pieces—thousands of psychologists, sociologists and criminologists all over the world had come up with them. It was about knowing where each one went. Once you figured that out—you knew who you were dealing with. And then you could play chess.
Spencer Reid wasn't a hands-on man. He'd trained to be a field agent—he'd enjoyed being at the crime scene this afternoon. But when Sheriff Sheridan sauntered over and announced it was time to leave, he was more than happy to comply.
Everyone was lounging around the tiny bullpen by the time he got there—the local cops staring at them curiously, as if they were some sort of weird museum display. Hotch especially looked as if he were on the verge of a breakdown. Not a nervous breakdown—more like a homicidal frenzy.
"This UnSub is clearly disorganized," Morgan was selling his theory. "They're rage killings."
"They can't be rage killings if he had the victims for over twelve hours before they were murdered," objected Emily.
"True," conceded Rossi. "A disorganized rage killer might have a type—but the killing would take place right then and there. Impulsively. Not at some secondary crime scene. The abductions are organized—the bludgeonings aren't. Something's setting him off."
Though Reid had an enormous amount of regard for Morgan, his best friend among profilers, he had to admit Rossi's experience beat him everytime. And how could it not? The man had twenty years' headstart and already written books before they were even in grade school.
He still felt like a traitor when knowledge compelled him to add, "Plus, a disorganized killer wouldn't have the ability to take forensic countermeasures."
A series of nods conveyed acceptance of his idea, so he went on. "On the other hand, a true organized sociopath wouldn't have the ability to partner up the way this UnSub has."
Hotch flinched visibly. "What makes you think this guy has a partner?"
"The kidnapping—the suicide. They were obviously a decoy. Whoever is behind this is doing their best to distract us—keep us from investigating the actual case. But he can't be everywhere at once."
"True," Emily slowly reflected. "But I don't think they were a planned diversion. Unless… unless we're dealing with a group."
Everyone fell silent. Even Reid, never quick to grasp other people's emotions, knew what was going through their minds. They'd already decided the UnSub was local. If they were dealing with a group… basically anyone in town could be part of it. Maybe everyone. Including law enforcement.
It would certainly explain a lot.
And it meant they weren't safe anywhere.
"Enough for today," Hotch grimly stated. "Everyone get some sleep. We'll regroup in the morning."
"Ew," shuddered JJ, the minute the motel room's shabby door closed behind them—shutting out the sweaty super and his handsy beer-guzzling friend.
"Pigs," Emily agreed, flopping unceremoniously down on their king-sized bed. A bed with a coin-operated vibrator. "This ain't no Ritz either."
In spite of everything, JJ couldn't help grinning. They should have expected this. Tourism was evidently not among South Creedon's list of priorities—their only lodgings being this seedy roadside motel, all 5 roach-infested rooms complete with vibrating bed, closed-circuit TV and ancient minibars that roared to life every 25 to 30 minutes. It was too sleazy to be true—absolutely worthy of taking cellphone pictures and sending them to Will. At least he'd get a kick out of them.
Since two of the five trashy rooms were taken, the six team members had to split into the remaining three. All of which had only one bed. JJ snickered again. She would've paid good money to see the venerable Rossi and straight-laced Hotch cuddled up together.
"What are you laughing at?" Emily playfully accused. "Either you get yourself into the bathroom or I will—can't wait to wash this day off me. Yuck."
"Go ahead. I'm gonna call Will first." All of a sudden the whole thing was no laughing matter. "Em… you really think we're dealing with multiple UnSubs?"
Emily paused on her way to the bathroom, countenance serious. "It's happened before. Religious sects, the Ku Klux Klan. What I can't figure out is why they'd target these girls. Groups usually take a moral or racist stand. Aside from their looks and ages, these girls don't really have anything in common. We'd have to warn every blonde overweight young woman in the area."
JJ couldn't help the sinking feeling they were in for the long haul. Chasing one UnSub was bad enough. But if the whole town was in on it…
In the end she was too bushed to care. Sleep overtook her even before she finished SMS'ing the pictures.
It was Henry's plaintive wailing that startled her out of sound sleep at some point during the night. Instinctively she reached out for him in the dark, only to run into some unknown bulk, her eyes popping open in alarm.
It took her a while to realize the screaming baby was only in her dreams. The night was dim, airless and silent—the stillness broken only by crickets outside and the shape's mild snoring. Emily—not Will.
Slowly the case came back to her and she groaned inwardly. Not another day of this. Her chest constricted as she remembered her son—so chubby and soft and adorable in his light blue crib. Was he lying awake in the dark, too—cooing to himself the way he'd learned to do lately? Had he noticed she was gone? Did he miss her? He was such a mamma's boy. JJ sincerely loved her job, and cared for each and every one of her team members. But traveling with them for days on end was so much harder now that she had someone to come home to.
This particular case didn't contribute toward making her feel any better. If only she could sense they were helping in some way—making progress. But they weren't. The locals rejected them. For all she knew they might all be responsible for the crimes. And it was weird because the person who had called her seemed so genuinely worried and keen on their assistance. What was her name…? She must have it on file somewhere.
The temperature seemed to have dropped a few degrees, making the oppressive motel room much more tolerable. JJ snuggled down, eager to forget the case and its sinister implications. She was just beginning to drift off when she had the freakiest impression of Emily being up, her shadow black and spindly against the window.
The hair rose on the back of her neck.
That was not Emily's shadow.
Morgan hadn't been asleep—not really. He was too wound up. Reid, on the other hand, had passed out almost instantly, drooling, as if he'd been hit with a tranquilizer dart. Morgan had to hand it to him—the kid's talents never ceased to amaze him. How he could snooze at a time like this was beyond him.
The second the scream pierced the air, though—they both leapt out of bed as if they'd been shot.
"JJ," muttered Morgan, grabbing his gun and sprinting out the door as he was, in a T-shirt and boxers.
He ran into Hotch and Rossi in the hall, both looking as disheveled and terrified as he felt. Hotch's shirt hung out and his trademark tie was nowhere to be found—which was more than could be said for Rossi's attire. They gathered at Emily and JJ's door, and Rossi started to call out, but a crash from inside brought all peace treaties to an end. Fearing the worst, Morgan kicked the door open and they all tumbled inside, armed to the teeth, ready for anything.
Someone flipped on the shaky overhead light to reveal a distraught JJ, frozen in the middle of the room with her gun pointed at the open window, a smashed bedside lamp at her feet. A dazed Prentiss blinked up at them from the bed.
Morgan was barely able to keep the panic out of his voice as he raced over, taking the firearm from her hand. "JJ! You okay? What happened?"
She seemed slightly out of it, eyes wide, petrified in defensive stance. The only time he could ever recall seeing her like this was years ago, in Tobias Hankel's barn. After Reid had been taken and she'd been mauled by dogs. She wasn't easily rattled.
"JJ, look at me!" he insisted. "You okay? Tell me what happened."
"Someone broke in. There was an intruder in the room."
But there wasn't.
Rossi, Hotch and Reid went over every inch of it—even behind the ratty shower curtains, under the bed and inside the closet. The place was clear. Hotch and Rossi exchanged troubled glances and Morgan didn't know what to think. The circumstances surrounding the case were enough to make anyone jittery—true. Then again, JJ wasn't one to go imagining things, and they'd been through worse.
"I know what I saw," she persisted stubbornly. "I'm not imagining it. He was standing right there, right over Emily. He was so close."
Hotch turned to Prentiss. "Are you okay? Did you see this person?"
"I didn't see anything," Prentiss admitted. "I was asleep. But if JJ says she saw it, I believe her."
The open window, at least, was an undebatable fact. The motel room was small and on the first floor—it would've been easy for anyone to slip out the window in the dark, unseen and unheard in the commotion. JJ and Prentiss looked unusually vulnerable in their sleepwear, barefoot, bleary-eyed and with their hair tumbled. His scalp prickled uncomfortably at the thought of a stranger in the room with them.
Rossi poked his head out the window and then shut it firmly. One glance from him to Hotch and Morgan understood what their fraught faces meant.
It didn't matter whether JJ had made up the intruder or not. They were all exposed and could no longer afford to ignore it. They couldn't let their guard down. Not even for a minute.
"What do we do?" Reid broke the silence. "Do we… call the police?"
"No." Hotch's voice was taut, forbidding. "We can't trust the locals. Go get blankets from the other rooms. From now on, we don't split up anymore. And we don't discuss the case except among ourselves. It's three am. Two of us will stay up and keep watch. The rest of you get some sleep. You'll need it."