Disclaimer: see my profile
Warning: see my profile and the first chapter
A/n here's the next chapter. The wrist continues to mend and I continue to count the days till this brace comes off. Thanks again for all your support.
Reid hurried into the conference room with his messenger bag over his shoulder and minus his usual giant cup of coffee. He was late and was going to have to come up with a believable excuse. That shouldn't be a problem.
Yeah, because the last time you made up an excuse about why you were late, everyone bought it with no problem.
Okay, so telling everyone you went to the movies was a bad idea.
"… Terry Clark was last seen two hours ago." JJ was saying as he dashed into the room.
"Hey kid, miss the ending to another movie."
"No Morgan, the traffic was bad."
"Not when I came through." Morgan probed with a grin.
"Not now Morgan," Hotch said, nailing the profiler with a scowl that could peel the bark off a tree.
"What's the matter with everyone today?"
"We have a missing child to worry about."
"I know that Hotch!"
"Continue JJ," Hotch said, giving Reid a look.
"We don't know much except that Mary Clark arrived to pick up her son from school an hour ago. He'd disappeared sometime between the last class and when she arrived. She told the Carterville police that she was late getting away from work."
"What do we know about Carterville?" Rossi asked Garcia.
"Carterville Idaho has a population of forty-seven hundred. Its located forty-five miles north-east of Boise. The largest employer in the area is a tree pulping plant that makes paper products. The town sits on an area spread over 16.4 square miles. It's ninety-six percent white with the remaining population a mixture of Asian, African American and Hispanic. There's one elementary school, one junior high-school and one high school.
"So we know the unsub is male and white." Emily said studying her file. "Sorry, I'll be right back." She stood and hurried out of the room."
"Don't miss that." JJ said.
"Have the police or the family received any ransom demands?" Rossi asked JJ.
"No, but this isn't the first time a child has gone missing from this area of the west."
She pointed her remote at the white board and brought up the picture of a smiling boy with dark eyes and hair that looked enough like Terry to make them all look at each other.
"Mike Savage went missing last year from Duncan Wyoming. His body was found a week later ten miles outside of Carterville. Clint Barry went missing from Trenton Utah and was found in Idaho near the same area of the woods. That was six months ago.
Both of the boys were sexually assaulted multiple times before they were killed. The bodies were found hidden in dense foliage, one by a hunter, and one by a hiker that had strayed off a path.
They were each strangled with a woman's nylon sock which he left in place around their throats." JJ clicked her remote and two photos appeared side by side on the white board.
"They were found face down on the ground." Reid said studying the pictures closely, "A sign of remorse?"
"Yeah…" Morgan agreed.
"The bodies were found two days after death. He takes time to hide them, but close enough to where they can be found. "Rossi observed.
"He's not worried about getting caught and he knows the area." Hotch said.
"The coroner's report said that the bodies are washed and the hair combed and the stocking replaced after he bathes them." JJ said.
"Remorse," Rossi said.
"Could be," Hotch said, "Or just good forensic counter measures."
"I' m not to sure about remorse. Look at how badly they were beaten and the rapes were brutal." Morgan said.
"We need more information." Rossi said.
"How is he getting around? Usually, people in a small town notice strangers." JJ asked.
"He knows how to blend in with the locals." Morgan theorized.
"He's mobile if he's hunting in small towns in two states." Reid put in.
"Garcia, check police reports for Utah, Wyoming and Idaho. See if there are any missing children that fit the description that were never found."
"Will do…" She left the room for her office in time to pass right by Emily who was hurrying back into the conference room. She also gave Reid a wink as she passed by him that he hoped no one had seen.
"Sorry Hotch," Emily puffed. "I hate popping up and down every five minutes.
"How do you ladies do it all the time, constantly running to the bathroom when you're pregnant?" Morgan wondered.
"Actually the frequency of urination increases because the volume of blood in a woman's body increases during pregnancy, which leads to a lot of extra fluid getting processed and ending up in your bladder. Also the uterus growing puts pressure on the bladder.
You can reduce your trips to the bathroom by reducing beverages that have diuretic effects like coffee, tea and alcohol. Also, a good tip is to lean forward when you urinate, as this helps completely empty the bladder."
Five pairs of eyes stared at Reid. Morgan lost his battle with laughter and nearly choked on the coffee he was drinking. Rossi was hiding his smile behind his hand while JJ giggled
"Wow, you don't have enough to do with this job, you have time to look up pregnancy facts." Morgan spluttered.
"Alright, stop it." Hotch brought them back to earth, "Wheels up in thirty minutes. We don't have days to find Terry, we only have hours."
They all sobered at this reminder and headed for their desks and their ready bags.
---
"I just got off the phone with Constable Blevins. He's finished talking to Mrs. Clark. She works at the paper plant along with a good portion of the town. She's on the seven to three shift so she can pick up her son after school. She got held up because a logging truck got stuck in the mud somehow. They had a really good rainstorm two days ago and things are still drying out."
"Must have been a big storm to bog down a logging truck. I thought those things could go through anything." Morgan said.
"You think there's more to it." JJ asked.
"Everything is important." Rossi said.
"Let's get back to Terry Clark. He's seven years old and in second grade. A neighbor of Mrs. Clark has a little boy the same age as Terry. She picks up Terry every morning for school." Hotch interrupted.
"Her son, David, is Terry's best friend. They're joined at the hip all the time according to Mrs. Clark." JJ said.
"So how did the unsub get a hold of Terry if David was hanging around." Emily asked.
"All three of the missing boys look like they could be brothers. If the same unsub is behind the kidnappings, we're looking for preferential offender. David must not fit his preferences or he might have escalated and taken both of them."
"Have the locals talked to David." Hotch asked.
"No… His father lives in Boise. He and the boy's mother divorced last year. He's a criminal attorney. Constable Blevins said the boy's father on his way to make sure we don't overstep our bounds."
"Great, just what we need, the father/attorney gumming up the works." Morgan complained.
"We'll work around it." Hotch said. "Reid when we get into town I want you and Emily working on the geographical profile."
Emily nodded and went back to her folder. "JJ you and I will talk to Terry's mother again. Dave, you and Morgan tag team the lawyer father and his son."
"Sounds like fun," Morgan said.
"If he's a preferential offender, and he's taking these children from small towns…" JJ began.
"It's not by chance." Reid finished for her. "The odds of finding a child that fits the parameters of his preference in smaller towns are pretty low."
"What, no exact figures." Rossi asked.
Reid blushed and Emily grinned at him. He was always trying to be more conversational with the team instead of just being who he was. It didn't bother her if he rambled on about odd things.
She went back to her folder, but found it hard to concentrate. The little boys were so small and fragile. One hand went to her belly. What if she had a little boy and he was out there somewhere alone and hurt, or worse, with someone like this unsub?
At least you never had to worry about that when your little boy died.
Oh God, how could she have thought that? If only she'd had the chance to protect her son from the terrible realities of life, instead of losing him before he he'd had a chance to live.
She rubbed her hand over her belly and promised the baby that she'd do anything to see him or her safely into this life.
"You okay," JJ asked her with a smile.
"Yeah… I feel great." But it was a lie.
"I'm sort of jealous of you right now."
"Why?"
"Because you're pregnant. I loved being pregnant, especially at this stage." JJ gestured at Emily's baby bump with her free hand.
"Emily's about twenty-five weeks now. The baby is developing some fat. This will help the skin to smooth out and he'll look more like a baby now. Also, he is getting hair that is a recognizable color and texture although that can change by the time he's born. He or she measures about thirteen and a half inches from head to heel and the baby is about the size of a rutabaga."
Rossi choked on his coffee and Morgan began to laugh. "Man, you really do your homework my man."
"He told me why and how many times Henry was kicking me when I was pregnant. As I recall, you were very freaked out, feeling the baby kick." JJ teased Reid who was crimson faced. "Do we get to see any more ultrasound pictures?" JJ went on.
"I have an appointment next week."
"Good…"
"That reminds me," Hotch said with a slight smile at the conversation of his team. "This is Emily's last week in the field."
"Hotch, we never discussed-"
"You're a high risk pregnancy Emily. I know your doctor told you on your last visit that you can't fly after another month anyway."
"That's another month!"
"Do you really want to have this conversation now?"
"No!"
"There's nothing to discuss anyway… This is your last case! You can stay in the office and help us from there, but you're not going to fly after this week."
Emily slid her eyes over to Reid, who had his head buried in his file. Wonderful, where was a handy statistic about pregnancy that would work in her favor? She looked at the rest of the team, but no of them made eye contact except for Morgan and he just grinned at her.
"Fine, but I'm going to remember you all ditched me when I needed you to gang up on the boss for me."
"Oh… I'm scared!" Morgan said.
"You should be!"
"I'll run from Garcia and her computers before I let a pregnant FBI agent scare me." Morgan continued.
"Can we get back to the case?" Hotch interrupted the laughter.
"Right, back to the profile."
"We don't have one yet."
"That's why we have to work fast. We only have twenty-four hours."
The team went grim faced at the reminder of the average time a child survived after abduction.
"Then we better find something to work with." Rossi said.