Chapter 9: Pieces of the puzzle

"We are about to board the plane, JJ. I'll call you as soon as we land, which should be in…" saying this, Aaron Hotchner looked at his wristwatch "… three hours at the most. Bye."

The dark-haired man turned off his phone and watched as Derek Morgan was making his way towards him with two small bottles of water. He handed him one and drank eagerly from his own. A headache had been creeping up inside of his head for the past hour.

"What did she want?" he asked, observing the frown on Hotch's face.

"Tell us that Garcia had found a list of unsubs who went through a divorce, lost custody over their children or experienced a familial loss." Derek didn't miss Hotch flinching as he pronounced the last words. It had been six months since Haley's death, and the man had never really talked about it or confronted his demons. As usual, he bottled everything up and drowned himself into work to forget about his personal grief. Derek just hoped that this case would not be the one to send him over the edge. At times like this, the team seemed awfully tiny and fragile to Derek Morgan.

"How many?" he asked, still wrapped in dark thoughts.

"Twenty-six. Most of them divorced, though there are also cases of suicide or accidental death during police intervention. We'll have the list as soon as we get off the plane. I just need to fix…"

The sentence trailed of as Hotch began typing on his cell phone. Morgan took the ticket from his hands and checked them both in, following his superior down the corridor leading to the plane.

"Crosscheck with address in Kansas. Concentrate on lost children." Since Derek had told Hotch about JJ's theory, new ideas had been building up inside of him, that he had kept to himself until then. He sent the message and finally looked up to search his seat.

"Man, I am not used to commercial flights anymore." He heard the younger agent mutter as he was crawling through to the window seat. Hotch suppressed a sigh and took off his jacket before sitting down and buckling his seatbelt. He didn't want to lose any time and get straight to the profile. This was however not Derek's plan.

"How is Jack?" he asked, hoping to get the man's mind off the case.

"Staying with his aunt Jessica. She must be picking him up at school as we speak." Again, he checked the time for the tenth time since they had met at Dulles Airport. Though Derek wasn't sure whether it was to check on his son's day planner or to dig himself deeper into depression at every hour passing by with Emily still unaccounted for.

"You're damn lucky to have her around." Derek said with an understanding smile.

"I know. She hops in every time I am called away. I didn't think it would be this easy." Derek watched as the man frowned at the last word. Unfortunate choice of terms. Of course, nothing was easy about Aaron Hotchner's situation. Answering the unsaid question, Derek continued:

"I know what you mean. You have Jack but can still have your job. It could have gone many other ways." The seriousness of Derek's tone was almost too much to bear, so he added. "Although honestly, I could not picture you pacing around your apartment like a lion in its cage…"

Hotch smirked at the remark, and cleared his throat. Back to work, it seemed to say.

The conference room seemed a little crowded for this time of the day. It was the middle of the afternoon, and yet four agents were gathered around the big round table, drowning under tons of files, reports and pictures. At this fairly normal hour, the BAU team would either be doing leg work or hopping on a plane somewhere to another state. But they were stuck at the federal quarters, trying to uphold their cover –paperwork day.

Reid was playing with a big felt-tip pen and regularly scribbling down isolated words on the board, where pictures were also pinned. JJ was lost in her reports while Garcia had migrated from her bunker to the round table, to give them the information first-hand. Rossi had gladly taken up the role of temporary leader and was standing at the far end of the room, glancing over the numerous files.

"So, there are – for now – four pillars to this case." Reid pointed to the names and pictures decorating the board. "Our unsub, who has a grudge against Emily because of a past case which tore his family apart. Jeffrey Richards, a prison guard who was a model officer until a few days back, when he changed sides and became a criminal."

With his pen, the young profiler drew a two-sided arrow between the two men, and went over to the third picture.

"Lizzie Mayers, who has nothing to do with anything, really, apart from being the biological daughter of Emily. And Emily, of course."

"Garcia, can these adoption files be consulted by just anyone?" JJ asked, not hiding her incredulity.

"Well, it would take some good skills in hacking – or being part of the medical profession. Emily's listed in Lizzie medical file in case she might need a donation."

They dropped this lane in a common agreement. This detail could be figured out later, and they already had many uncertainties on their hands.

"Family is the key." Rossi stated, looking at the different lines linking Emily and Lizzie, the Unsub and Emily. At that point, his cell phone began ringing, and he answered without much ceremony.

"David Rossi."

Three pairs of eyes were fixed on the older agent, trying to guess the conversation behind Rossi's short answers. The call was cut abruptly as the profiler put his cell phone on the table and joined Reid at the board, taking the pen from him.

"Family, as I said. Jeffrey Richards' family has gone missing a month ago."

"Why hasn't this been reported?" JJ asked.

"Because Jeffrey is all the family they have – no aunts or uncles, no grandparents. Local police says he made up the excuse of a sick relative for his wife not being at work or his children at school."

"Why would he do such a thing?" the blonde asked genuinely, although the reason was pretty clear and worrying.

"The family's been used as a leverage. Doesn't that remind you of something?" Reid answered, looking at Rossi, satisfied to see understanding creep up on his face.

"Joseph Schrader." JJ shrugged as Garcia's voice put them all to silence. Realizing that everybody was looking her way, the blonde technician raised her eyes and stuttered:

"Sorry… I… I just finished crosschecking my list with the Kansas inmates. It all points to Joseph Schrader."

"He fits the profile." Reid continued, transferring his attention back to the board. He gladly erased "unsub" to replace it with the now familiar name of their suspect. "I remember that case."

All concentrated on writing down the name properly, he missed the smirk on Rossi's face, and the comment he made to himself about Reid's infinite storage capacity.

"Derek and Emily arrested him for abducting his daughter. The wife was granted, as you would expect, full custody. The man lost his family and Emily was at the center of his arrest."

"Plus, he had already wanted to kill her in that car." JJ added, looking straight to the board, oblivious to the concerned look of his colleagues. They all remembered too well as the news of an accident had kicked in. JJ thought back to the moment Emily had walked back into the precinct to give a hand, in pain and with a hollow gaze.

"So he takes Emily's daughter because she took his own away? Makes sense." Rossi said, rubbing his beard as he considered the pros and cons of his profile.

"And don't forget how he got his accomplice back then to help him…" JJ finished, pointing to the board with her pencil. The pieces were getting together, to everyone's relief.

"But Garcia, didn't you say he was still in prison?" Rossi turned to the analyst. If she had not put extra make-up that morning to hide her sleepiness, everyone would have seen her blush at the question.

"Checking again, captain. Even the goddess of computers can make mistakes sometimes…" she quickly added to distract attention from her sudden shyness. "He is, sir." The answer cut in sharply.

"That's not possible." Rossi stated, holding the blonde's gaze. "The profile fits. There must be a mistake somewhere. Kansas, family loss, previous history with Emily… Come on, these can't be coincidences."

Garcia tried to forget the eyes burning holes into her skin from all sides, and her fingers found a new strength, typing more quickly than ever on her keyboard. After a couple of minutes, which was extremely long for the technical analyst, Rossi cleared his throat to attract attention.

"I think a simple phone call would be a very simple way to make sure."

Penelope looked up to meet David Rossi's understanding look. Although there was no anger or disappointment in his eyes, Penelope's were throwing flames at him. She didn't like her work to be diminished or her capabilities doubted of.

"Penelope, no one's is blaming you. Just give us the phone number to be sure. Maybe it's some mistake on their side." Jennifer Jareau took a reassuring tone and soothed her friend's back to loosen the tension building up inside of her.

"On it." She groaned, lowering her gaze to a tête-à-tête with her screen. "Sent, JJ."