Thank you to all the readers who reviewed the last chapter! I'll be writing a short Hotch/Emily drabble for those who have reviewed the chapters so far – I'll PM it to you once it's done! Thank you to Kim, Sussi, and schokokaffee for their reviews too!

I'm just going to draw people's attention to the dates of the two sections. The italicised part of the story is a flash forward, set a week ahead of the main bulk of the chapter.

Thank you to Chiroho who has been magnificent! I promise to give you more time in future!

Where the Blue of the Night

"Beyond right and wrong, there is a field. I will meet you there."

- Rumi

Chapter Five

November 11th

"Refusing to speak won't help your cause, you know." His voice was calm now, with almost a quiet laugh in his words. "And you haven't even asked what I've done with the other one. That surprises me."

She looked up at him, keeping her expression stony, and hoping that he couldn't tell that her heartbeat had risen at the mention of his first prisoner. They knew she would be unharmed. It wasn't in his profile to kill or hurt someone who posed no threat to his mission. Sophie was just a bargaining piece in this game he was playing, a very calculated bargaining piece.

However, she knew that she wasn't such an object. In the briefest of moments hatred burned in his eyes when he looked at her, the milliseconds when his true emotions flared through the half mad facade he had created. Because he wasn't mad; he was simply angry enough to know longer care what the final outcome of his actions would be, as long as he had completed what he set out to do.

"We know you haven't harmed her. You only attack those that you think have done you wrong. Sophie hasn't done anything," she said, choosing her words carefully, hoping to show him that she thought of him as an equal.

He gave her a smile that made her worry for the girl's safety, and a cold shiver ran through every bone. "We'll have to see how accurate your profile is, won't we, my dear? And just how good your colleagues actually are. Something tells me that they might not be as good as you think."

November 4th

They waited until Strauss had left the room before opening the files. Reid took the cue from his colleagues, not doing anything until the door had been closed and a couple of meaningful glances had been exchanged. He was glad that they would have a case to work on while all of this was being resolved, as he certainly didn't feel like spending too much time at home. The BAU would be the safest place for all of them at present.

"You know anything about this, Hotch?" Rossi said, sitting back in his seat and looking at the file folder.

Hotch shook his head. "There hasn't been time for me to speak with Strauss, apart from a very brief conversation early this morning. She's going to face the same scrutiny we are. She's part of the team. That means she'll be privy to the same information we will."

"And she doesn't like not having complete control," Reid said. "We don't know yet if there are personal or professional reasons for this attack. To find that out, we're going to have to go into her past as well as our own. That may well be causing her some concern."

Hotch nodded, his eyes coming back to the file. "We have two cases to work," he said. "And we will have to run them concurrently. We can't do anymore about the bombing until we meet Agent Boyd. Let's look through what we've just been given, and them we may have to decide whether to split the team."

Silence fell over the room as the files were opened. There would be a few minutes now where nothing would be said while they took in the details of the case, absorbing the key facts, some of them jotting down notes as they went along, especially Rossi who seemed no longer to rely solely on his memory. Reid didn't take notes; instead he just let the words be photographed by his memory, and knew he'd be able to churn them out verbatim later, if necessary.

He looked up ten minutes later; Emily was still examining the photos of the little boy; Rossi was standing up, peering out of the windows and looking at the rest of the bullpen; Morgan reread the first page; Hotch was scrawling notes, and JJ's eyes were wide as she took in the details. Garcia had shifted to a corner of the room and was typing swiftly on her notebook, already researching. She would have guessed what information they would be immediately requesting, and would have it found before they even got to the point of asking.

Hotch looked up; Reid saw him glancing round the team, probably evaluating where everyone was in their thought processes. He knew how they all worked; that was his job, and he would know the appropriate time to begin the discussion. Hotch closed his file and Reid did the same. Rossi sat back down and gradually the others looked up, Morgan pouring more water.

"Your thoughts?" Hotch said, his face expressionless. Reid wondered what he really thought of the case and how it had been handled so far. It was already a mess.

"We should have been called away from Utah for this," Morgan said. "Why has it been left untouched for seventy-two hours?"

"They brought private investigators in immediately," Hotch said. "Their findings are on page 24. We can have access to whatever we need, but it has to stay within in the BAU. Let's review what we've got before we start to look at damage control."

"Alfie Fletcher, three years and three months old, was taken from his home in Oakdale, Manassas between 11.30pm on October 31 and 6.30am on November 1. His mother, Juliet Fletcher, checked on him just before she went to bed, and the nanny went into his room in the morning to check on him as he's usually up earlier," Reid said. Summing up the facts like this kick started his brain into making connections. It was like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that needed to be sorted logically, grouping matching patterns and colours, then seeing the pieces that fit together. "Ms Fletcher then called Alfie's father, who contacted a Mr Rafe Hanson, a private detective, who immediately went to the house."

"Everything that a local PD would do has already been done in half the amount of time, as it's all been paid for privately. They didn't take any short cuts," Rossi said. "The only thing that would have been done, that hasn't, is calling us in immediately. Forensics, background checks redone on staff – it's all there."

"Alfie's room is on the second floor, and the UnSub's entry point was through that window, which hadn't been secured. The house has high fencing all around it – this was carefully planned," Reid said, recalling the photos of the room and the exterior. "And so far there have been no demands for a ransom."

"There's been no contact from anyone regarding Alfie. And you can see why this has been kept so quiet. Usually, in cases like this, we involved the media, but here that has been forbidden," Hotch said, glancing at JJ. "We're going to have to quash all inquiries about this, should any details get out."

Emily shook her head in exasperation rather than disagreement. "You would've thought that at this point the parents would have stopped caring about the fallout, and just want their child back. The ramifications of the affair shouldn't matter."

"I would imagine that the mother feels that way," JJ said. "But given his position, the father needs to protect himself as well. How much involvement did he have in Alfie's life anyway? Was the affair still current? I haven't managed to read that far yet."

"From what I can gather, the father was a regular visitor to Ms Fletcher's home, but Alfie was unaware of how they were related," Reid said. "Ms Fletcher has a good income, but it isn't enough to finance a house that size in that area, so I imagine Geoff Thompson provides for her financially. And JJ, I'm not sure she would want this affair to be uncovered – it could mean a loss of lifestyle, and the end of their relationship. Otherwise, why did she call Thompson first, and not the police?" He sat back, puzzled. There was the possibility that a threat had been made and it had gone unreported.

"We'll need to ask her," Hotch said. "We have to ignore the fact that Mr. Thompson is potentially running for congress, within the boundaries we have been given." Reid saw him turn to JJ, and realised why - JJ looked as if she had just been hot over the head with a huge realisation. "What is it, JJ?"

"Six years ago David Dwyer's daughter Evangeline was taken during the night from their home in Broken Meadows," she said. "Dwyer was a congressman at the time. Evangeline was found five months later, her body left in a field. She'd been dead for at least four and a half months."

Reid felt the temperature in the room drop significantly. These were the worst cases: the ones that involved small children. These were the ones that caused sleepless nights, and the nightmares where the killer was always just out of reach. These were the ones they dreaded.

"We need to pull up that file," Hotch said. "You're quite right, JJ. From what we know so far, there is a connection. However, it may just be coincidence. We need to go to Ms Fletcher's house and take a look round, interview the mother. We will have to ask Mr. Thompson to come in to us. This could be Christmas for the media if they get wind of it, and he's unlikely to cooperate with us if he thinks his wife could find out."

"Any possibility of an inside job?" Morgan said. "It could be a copycat – someone who knew about the Evangeline Dwyer case."

Hotch nodded. "We can't rule out anything." He looked at his watch. "We have two hours until Agent Boyd gets here. I suggest we start work on the missing child case. Garcia, what have you got for us?"

She looked up from her laptop. "I've dug out as much information as I could on both Juliet Fletcher and Geoff Thompson. There's a lot on both of them. To summarise briefly, Juliet Fletcher is the daughter of Gerald and Marion Fletcher and was born and brought up in Milwaukee. She went to Brown, and studied Biomedical Engineering. She's currently involved in stem cell research, and has been the centre of a couple of controversial papers. She claimed that Alfie's father is a childhood sweetheart, Les Bennett, who died shortly after Alfie was conceived. Apart from Bennett not being Alfie's father, that is true. She receives a very generous allowance each month from Thompson – a payment is made via several accounts so there would be no chance of his wife tracking down where the money goes.

"Thompson has a complicated financial history, as you might expect. He's fifteen years older than Ms. Fletcher, and has an ex-wife, wife and two children who are in their twenties. One of his children, Dianna, has been in and out of rehab for the past three years suffering from an eating disorder; the other, Julianne, has just started at the FBI. Both receive a monthly allowance, and he also pays for all Dianna's medical bills. There's more, and I will keep digging." She reverted her eyes back to the screen.

Hotch stood, picking up the file. "Morgan, I want you to go through everything we have on the Evangeline Dwyer case with Reid. Rossi, prepare to interview Thompson – I think he'll respond best to an older man who he perceives as being an equal. Prentiss, as soon as we've spoken with Agent Boyd, I'd like you to go over to the house and interview Ms. Fletcher. We need to know everything she can remember from the week leading up to Alfie's disappearance." He looked at JJ. "So far there has been no media attention given to this, but we don't know how long that will continue. We need a contingency plan. We may also need to call on the media for their help without encouraging them into looking into Ms. Fletcher's background. Clearly, that's what Thompson is afraid of – that any investigation will somehow blow his cover."

They all looked at Hotch expectantly. His expression was still grim. "I'm going to call Agent Boyd and see if I can move up the timing of his visit. We have two cases to work, one being a missing child – he's going to have to fit around us."

Putting thoughts in boxes to be dealt with later was something that most people who worked in the BAU became sufficiently adept at to survive. There came a point, as with Elle, when the UnSub no longer stayed in the box, and they could not walk away; but Morgan supposed that they all had that breaking point somewhere in them, and as of the past few days, he knew where his was. Unlike Elle, there had been some degree of control, and now he wanted to master those feelings that had escaped from their box, making sure that it wouldn't happen again.

Sitting at the computer next to Reid, he began to pull up the Evangeline Dwyer case from the archives, keying in three different passwords and answering security questions. Reid had begun by finding press cuttings from the disappearance and murder of the child, looking at it from an external perspective which could mirror a possible copy cat.

Morgan began to read through the details of the case. Evangeline Dwyer was reported missing four hours after her disappearance. The local PD had called the BAU in almost as soon as they had the case, which was protocol where missing children were concerned. An agent named Don Lavello had written a profile that centred on someone who was a predatory paedophile and had come into contact with Evangeline weeks, if not months before, and had stalked her since that time. This had been based on incidents occurring in previous weeks: pieces of Evangeline's clothing going missing, and evidence of an intruder before she was taken. Morgan flicked through the report and found the photos from when the body was discovered.

She had been identified through x-rays, the femur having an identical break in it as in Evangeline's medical records. No clothing was found with the bones. and the silver bracelet that had been a christening gift had never been discovered. She'd been dumped underneath some bushes at the edge of a field, probably not more than two weeks after going missing. The heat of a hot summer and the local animal population had accelerated decomposition, and she was found by a dog walker some five months later, just before the first snow. She was less than two miles from her house.

Morgan controlled the rage within him. There had been no call for ransom; although there could have been – the Dwyers were wealthy people. The suggestion of stalking seemed accurate, and Morgan agreed with Lavello's profile, especially with hindsight. Lavello would never have known how she was found. He'd died of a sudden heart attack two months before Evangeline's body had been located, a quick and relatively painless death compared to that of the victims he'd spent most of his life trying to help.

"Any connections between the two kids?" Reid said, pushing his chair back from the desk.

Morgan shrugged. "Both were from affluent families who lived in similar neighbourhoods. There's no connection in people who worked for the families, or what pre-schools they attended. I'll ask Garcia to look at connections in where clothes and other children's items were bought. We need to see what Emily gets from the mother about the days before the abduction. What've you got?"

Reid twisted his mouth to one side, an action that Morgan knew meant he was processing. "There wasn't a great deal of media interest. I'm guessing it was played down. No mention is made of Lavello's profile, and the suspicions that Evangeline was taken by a paedophile. In fact, there's no hint of the FBI even being involved in the case. It happened at the same time as Dwyer was under investigation for fraud. He was later cleared of all charges."

"Person in a position of power who is also in spot of bother," Morgan said. "Although it will be interesting to find out how many people know who Alfie's father actually is. I'm guessing it's not many."

Reid nodded, biting on a pen. "There has been recent media interest in Juliet Fletcher. What she is researching is fairly controversial, and she has been quite outspoken about it, causing criticism from some religious groups. Some articles mention that she is a single mom to a young son, but there's nothing to connect Juliet Fletcher to Geoff Thompson."

Morgan printed the pages he'd been looking at, catching sight of JJ heading towards them. "What's up?" he said. She looked flustered, and he cursed the person who was responsible for her being here instead of with Will and their son.

"I've been back through the cases that have been worked by the team and by individuals in the past ten years in the Washington area. There are two more abductions that seem remarkably similar: young child around the age of three, taken during the night from a home in an affluent area. The parents weren't in high profile, prominent positions, although they were in high powered roles," she said, standing next to them with one hand on her hip. The other pushed her hair away from her face.

"Did they ever find the children?" Morgan said, twisting round on his chair so he could see both JJ and Reid without straining his neck.

JJ shook her head. "Amber Livesy, the first child, was never found. Her family are still searching for her, and refuse to believe that she's dead , even though it's more than ten years ago. The second victim, Matthew Horsfield, was found in a field eight months after his disappearance. The remains were skeletonised. He was identified through dental records."

"Then it looks as if Matthew and Evangeline's murders are connected, even if the other two aren't. We may have to re-interview parents here." Morgan felt that dark sense of dread creeping into him. It was never good to have to bring up the past, even if there was a chance that a killer could be found.

Reid nodded. "I'd say that was likely. But I think we have to wait to see what Rossi and Emily get from the parents. How long ago were the other two cases, JJ?"

"Amber Livesy was taken in 1998, Matthew went missing in 2002," JJ said. "It seems weird that they're all around the same age."

Morgan stared blankly at his computer monitor as he thought. "Sexual offenders with an interest in children of that age rarely have a gender preference," he said. "Or we could be looking at an UnSub who abducts children to order." He wished that he lived in a world where such conversations didn't exist, where he could be unemployed and there would be no need for a crimes against children unit. But he didn't, and all he could hope to do was rid the country of the shits who committed such crimes.

"There could be another reason," Rossi said, having approached them almost silently.

"Man, they ought to put a bell around your neck," Reid said, and Morgan realised that he'd jumped enough to splash the cold mug of coffee he'd been nursing.

"My second wife tried it," Rossi said. "I learned to move without it ringing. Caught her in bed with her personal trainer."

Morgan raised his eyebrows, not sure how much to believe when it came to stories of Rossi and his wives. "What other reason have you come up with?"

Rossi paused before beginning, looking at each of them in turn. "Politics. You know there's every chance Geoff Thompson is being blackmailed. The lack of urgency after Alfie went missing could suggest that they suspect who has taken him, and aren't concerned for his safety per se. We need to watch Thompson carefully over the next few days and see what he does. I'm going to suggest that we keep him under surveillance. We'll need extra bodies to investigate this."

"You think we'll get any? Strauss has already said that this case has to stay within the BAU," Morgan said, feeling a mixture of frustration and hope. Without a police department working the case they would be severely understaffed, and with having their own case to look at as well, the pressure would tremendous.

"I think we'll have some agents seconded to us. They may well be from Mansfield's team and serve a dual purpose of keeping an eye on us, and assisting with the Fletcher case," Rossi said. He nodded towards the conference room. "Agent Boyd's arrived, by the way. He's talking with Hotch right now."

Reid turned a full three-sixty on his chair. "Do we know if Agent Mansfield's been called back from vacation?" he said. "I know he's away, but it's not every day that a department is targeted like this."

Rossi shrugged. "I would expect so. Mansfield has a cabin out of state where he goes fishing. I've borrowed it once or twice when I've needed to get away. There's no cell phone reception there at all, so we'll either have to wait for him to pick up his messages, or get in touch with the locals."

Morgan sighed in frustration. "And what I wouldn't give for a few days alone in a cabin with just a few fish to keep me company," he said. He would have added something about a hot woman too, but right now, he really did just want his own company. No one added it for him; he guessed his actions in Utah had taken away some of the humour, and a whisper of guilt echoed in his mind. "As it is, the prospect of catching up on paperwork sounds good to me at the moment. I'm just waiting for someone to wake me up and tell me that this is all a bad dream."

"Aren't we all?" said Rossi, looking towards the conference room door, from where Hotch had just appeared.

The sounds of boots echoing against the floor drew Morgan's attention to Emily, who was making her way to them at the same time as Hotch. She wore the same expression as the rest of the team, and Morgan knew she would be itching to put the investigation about them to one side and go speak to Alfie's mom. Every second that they were inside the BAU meant they were further from finding the missing boy.

Hotch got to them first, his eyes on Emily as she took the last few steps. "Agent Boyd is here with Agent Briscoe. They're going to talk us through what they've found so far. They want us to work up a profile by tonight, and between now and then, they want to speak with each of us separately – this is protocol. Morgan and I will work on a preliminary profile while the rest of you stay on the Alfie Fletcher case. We will go through both cases together over dinner, which we'll eat here."

"What about going home tonight, Hotch?" Reid said, standing up. "Will we be able to? Or are we staying somewhere else?"

"Agent Boyd will explain everything," Hotch said. "Ask him what you need to, but be aware that it is early in the investigation and there isn't much information yet. It could still have been a one off attack."

"Or it could just be the start," Morgan said. "I guess it's a case of only time will tell."

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