Thank you to those who reviewed the last chapter. I've written an extra scene already for regular reviewers, which follows on from the chapter after this (it isn't crucial to the plot – just a bit of HP interaction) so I will send it after the Thursday chapter is posted. Thank you to schokokaffee for the reviews as well (I need your email address again to send you the extra chapter) and Kim. And hello to Sussi Ray who has now got an account!

I'm at a wedding (and am a bridesmaid/make-up artist) this weekend, so my Sunday post will depend on the desperation of my readers. If you make me feel guilty enough between this and the next chapter, I will take my computer with me, find wi-fi and update on Sunday... This would, therefore, be a good time for lurkers to delurk! (Anonymous reviews are accepted, you don't need to have an account to review, or give any details – you won't get spammed!)

Thank you to Chiroho for the superb beta once again.

Where the Blue of the Night

"And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart.
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?"

- W.H. Auden

Chapter Ten

November 5th

The house seemed empty, even though it was occupied by four people and a large St. Bernard dog. Morgan sat on the sofa, feeling uncomfortable. The parents were still grieving; they would never stop, he knew, no matter what happened.

Agent Wood was sitting on a chair, his fingers twitching nervously. Morgan knew that the agent was uncomfortable about being there, more used to a desk job translating high intelligence documents from half a dozen languages, but he also knew that Hotch had chosen him because of his analytical skills and his ability to notice small details that otherwise would have been missed. He was in his early fifties, and had been with the bureau for twenty-five years. Behind the same desk. Which meant being out in the field was a new experience.

"Can I get you a drink, Agents?" Mrs. Dwyer asked them. Her husband had just come downstairs from his office. David Dwyer had shrunk since the photos of him in the file on his daughter had been taken. He was greyer, his skin looked rough and thin, and his eyes had an opaqueness to them that suggested cataracts. He had aged, probably more than the years warranted.

"Coffee would be good," Morgan said. "Agent Wood?"

Wood nodded a little too much. "Coffee, great. Thanks."

Mrs. Dwyer gave them a soft smile and disappeared out of the lounge, leaving them with her husband. He looked at them apprehensively. "There can only be one reason you're here," he said, his voice low and quiet. "Whoever killed Evangeline has done it again."

Morgan studied him for a second. During the original investigation Dwyer had come under scrutiny from the lead investigator, against the guidance of the profiler at the time, Don Lavello. It had finished off Dwyer's career in congress, and he had returned to his old job as a business manager of a fairly large company. "We don't know, Mr. Dwyer," Morgan said. "We're looking into a disappearance of a small boy and we can't rule out a connection. I do need to ask you some questions. Some of them you may have heard before, but it maybe that you now see things differently."

Dwyer looked choked as he nodded. "I'll help you as best I can, Agent – Morgan, was it?"

Morgan nodded. "Before Evangeline disappeared you reported incidents of her clothes being taken and an intruder in the house. Was there anything else odd around that time?" He wondered if there had been any letters sent. Morgan wasn't sold on the idea of Jennifer Keeley being the UnSub; Lynch had told him about the lack of evidence on her computer, and as far as he had heard from Rossi, there was nothing else in her house to suggest she was involved. It didn't mean she wasn't, but it gave strength to Morgan's theory that this was a predatory paedophile.

Dwyer shook his head. "No. I don't think so..."

"This isn't a case of think, Mr. Dwyer. Since Evangeline's abduction I know you've gone through every little event that happened trying to finger out where you failed to protect her. You'll remember everything that happened at the time; I need you to be honest with me. Was there anything else that you did not disclose to the police?"

"Don't you think it's time we were honest, David?" His wife stood in the doorway, her face as drawn as his. Her eyes were freshly red, and Morgan could tell that tears had recently been spent. She was younger than her husband by a decade; her hair still shone, her face was only beginning to show the cracks of time.

Dwyer turned around to look at her, seeming shocked by her silent presence. "They were nothing to do with it," he said. "You know that. We agreed..."

"Another child has been taken. We do what we can. What was in them means nothing now – it was six years ago. Our lives have changed since then." She sounded strong; a mother's strength.

"I can assure you that this investigation is being conducted very quietly, Mr. Dwyer," Morgan said. "Whatever you tell us will only be used to help try to bring this little boy back. It will not be made public knowledge."

"I'll get them," Mrs. Dwyer said, giving her husband a look that said she would accept no argument.

Morgan heard soft footfalls climb the stairs. He maintained his gaze on Dwyer, waiting for him to speak.

"It was my fault that Eva was murdered," Dwyer said, eventually. "I must have done something, being in such a prominent position, that brought the murderer's attention to us."

"No," Morgan said. "It wasn't your fault. The only person responsible for Evangeline's death is the person who took her. The FBI agent on the case at the time suggested it was a paedophile. I suspect that is the case."

"Then what made him choose her?" The words sounded as broken as the man. "Why Eva? We thought she was so safe here."

"There may have been something about her that drew him," Morgan said. There were a dozen other possible explanations too, none which he wanted to go into right now as Mrs. Dwyer re-entered.

"David can tell you more about these," she said, handing Morgan a bundle of envelopes. "I'll go finish the coffee." She left without looking at her husband.

Morgan just held them for a few seconds, waiting for Dwyer to begin his explanation, to get the first word in. Different techniques worked on different people and in this case, Dwyer responded to silence. He didn't like it; he automatically had to fill it and take control. "We started to receive those," he gestured to what Morgan held, "about nine or ten months before Eva was taken. It seemed clear that someone was watching us, and knew too much. They said that Elizabeth had been having an affair and threatened to tell the press. They included photos of her lover entering the house. We never associated them with Eva's disappearance because the letters never mentioned her, not until just before she went." He looked away, out of the window, where an autumn sun was shining a weak light. It made his pupils contract, showing more of the startling blue of his irises.

Morgan began to glance through the contents of the envelopes. Each one contained a photo with just a few lines written on the back. There was enough to create fear, but not panic.

"All the photos are of the front of the house – did you never notice anyone taking these?" Morgan said, theories beginning to form in his mind.

Dwyer shook his head. "No. I did consider going to the police and asking it to be dealt with discreetly. But the writer never makes a threat. "

"He just comments on what he sees," Morgan said, passing the photos to Agent Wood. "There would have been nothing the police could have done." He sat back, watching Dwyer still as he glanced at his wife as she brought in the coffee. "Thank you," he took the cup that was given to him, declining milk and sugar. "You said in your statement that a few items of Evangeline's clothing were taken. She had a brother, who was a year younger; were any of his belongings ever taken?"

Mrs. Dwyer shook her head. "It was always the dresses," she said. "Never sweaters or underwear, always the dresses, the nicest ones. We thought it was the cleaner we had at the time. Marianne had a daughter the same age, and we though she was taking some of Eva's clothes for her, so we never became alarmed, and we turned a blind eye to it, because it was always the dresses that were maybe a bit too small for Eva, ones that she maybe would have worn once more before being given away to charity."

"What about the intruder?" Morgan said, leaving Wood to continue looking through the photos and their messages.

"That was one night when we were away," Dwyer said. "The alarm went off and the police were there within five minutes – my position meant that the alarm was connected directly to them – but nothing was taken. We knew someone had been in because the back patio doors had been forced open and some things on the sideboard had been moved. We figured it was an addict wanting to get something to sell who then got scared off."

"And we still don't know that it wasn't," Mrs. Dwyer said. "We don't know that any of these things were connected to Eva."

"Did your cleaner admit to taking the dresses?" Morgan said, looking at the woman.

She shook her head. "She denied it, but I was never convinced it wasn't her. She left just after Eva went missing."

"Is there anything else?" Morgan said. "It doesn't matter how small or insignificant it seems. It could still help."

The heavy silence fell again, the room back to being empty. There was no soul left in the house, and Morgan was surprised that they hadn't moved elsewhere.

"Before she was taken," Mrs. Dwyer said, cautiously, as if unsure of which words to use. "Eva developed an imaginary friend. It surprised me because it was a boy instead of a girl."

Morgan felt a shiver dance across his skin. "Do you remember his name?"

"Johnny," Mrs. Dwyer said. "Unless it was short form of a girl's name – she could have meant Johanna, I suppose."

Morgan nodded. "Maybe," he said, standing up. "We're going to take the photos with us. They won't be given to anyone outside of the BAU, and we will return them to you as soon as we can."

"We don't want them back," Mrs. Dwyer said adamantly. "Burn them when you're done. And please – let us know if you get him."

"I will," Morgan said. "One more thing – why didn't you ever move?"

David Dwyer shrugged. "This place has all our memories of Eva in it. We kept her room the way it was. Why would we leave?"

Morgan could think of a thousand reasons why, but none needed to be shared. He gave them a nod, followed out of the door by Agent Wood, and as soon as he was halfway down the path he pulled out his cell phone. "Rossi?" he said, as it was answered. "You still with Ms. Fletcher?"

Rossi came back into the room and sat down, putting his cell phone on the table in front of him. Emily looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and concern, her hands still nursing an empty cup of coffee. They'd been there almost an hour, going through everything again with Ms. Fletcher about the night that Alfie was taken.

"Juliet," Rossi said, looking at her directly. "The letters you received from Mrs. Keeley. How did you know they were from her? Did she sign them?"

Juliet looked puzzled for a moment, as if she couldn't believe the question. "There's no one else who would have sent them," she said. "There's no one else who hates me that much, or at all. I don't socialise, I keep myself to myself, my colleagues are all fairly similar – slightly autistic I guess you'd say, and although I've been in the public eye because of the research I do and the comments I've made about my passion for the research, I've never had anyone criticise me in the way she has."

"Mrs. Keeley's written letters published in newspapers and magazines that have referred to you, is that correct?" Emily said.

Juliet nodded. "I spoke with her once when she and her band of men were outside the lab. She seemed to know a lot about me... I just assumed the letters were from her." Her voice faded and she frowned.

"Did she sign the letters?" Rossi said. "We need to know."

Juliet looked away from them, avoiding their eyes. She shook her head. "No," she said. "No one signed them. They were typed, with just a date at the top, and then like a diary of what I had done that day. It would mention about my washing being out or the gardener coming, or Geoff being here. But they were never signed. I just assumed they were from her and it seemed like a woman writing them too."

"How? What made you think it was a woman?" Rossi said, exerting pressure with his tone. They'd been gentle with her so far, but he still felt as if she wasn't helping them as much as she could.

"They way they were written. The sentences were so detailed, and one mentioned my heliotrope sweater. A man wouldn't know what colour heliotrope was, let alone refer to it on paper," she said, some scorn in her words.

He did know what it was, but he didn't wish to contradict her. However, it wasn't a word he had in his working vocabulary, but then again, he didn't suppose it was in Emily's either. "Were you ever sent any photos?"

"No," she said directly. "Never."

"And did the writer ever mention Alfie?" he said.

She shook her head. "No. It seemed as if they didn't know Alfie existed. Like I said, Geoff was mentioned; my mother was when she visited, and they described Janine a few times, talking about what clothes she was wearing. It was always accurate, so someone must have been watching, and I always thought it was her, because she had time on her hands, and I couldn't think of anyone else..."

Rossi could see that she was breaking, as she had been slowly doing all morning. Families were generally predictable when a child was taken; there would frequently be blame between the parents; they would comb over every single possibility of who it could be, protecting their relations and close friends and finally pointing a finger at the easiest, less painful suspect. Juliet Fletcher wasn't following type. She was panicking, that was clear, but considering she hadn't seen her son for almost four days, she was neither hysterical nor clinically calm. It was as if she was working backwards through the different phases now the obvious suspect was falling out of the picture. "Juliet, we have nothing to suggest that Mrs. Keeley has taken your son. We have been through her house and her computer, and found nothing suspicious, although we haven't located her yet and we are continuing to look." He was waiting for Kevin to get back to him with a list of contacts for Mrs. Keeley in the hope that they would know something.

Juliet looked away again, staring at the landscape on the wall. "Geoff was convinced the letters were from her," she said quietly. "He said that she would have our son and be holding him to get revenge on me. That's why he hired a private investigator; he thought he could sort it out himself."

Rossi nodded; he'd thought as much. Geoff Thompson was focused, and once he got someone in his sights he didn't check in the corner of his eye to see if anyone else was standing there. They couldn't rule out Jennifer Keeley as Alfie's abductor until they found her, but he thought it was very unlikely.

"Juliet," Emily said, putting one hand on the woman's shoulder. "You need to put the idea that Jennifer Keeley is the kidnapper to one side. We have to look at other options. Have you seen anyone hanging around d outside your house?"

"I haven't noticed," Juliet said. "I've been here maybe three nights a week on average, for the past six months. The project I've been working on has been in Massachusetts , so I've been staying there a few nights a week. You need to speak with Janine – she may have noticed more."

Emily nodded. "We will. Wouldn't Janine have mentioned it to you if she saw anything strange?"

Juliet shrugged. "I don't know. I guess so. But she knows how busy I've been – she may not have wanted to worry me."

Rossi stood up. "I'm going to speak with Janine," he said. "Juliet, I'd like you to talk though as much as you can with Emily, thinking of any strange events that may have happened however irrelevant they may seem." He gave Emily a quick look that he knew she would interpret correctly, and then headed out into the hallway and through the kitchen towards the garden, where Janine was mulching plants ready for the winter cold.

She looked up as the patio door creaked open, giving him a quick nod before discarding her gloves and standing up. "Agent Rossi," she said. "Is Juliet okay?"

"She's bearing up," Rossi said, walking down the steps onto the lawn. "I need to ask you a few things about the weeks before Alfie was taken."

She nodded, moving towards him. "Anything I can help with."

He reached a wooden bench and sat down. She strode over to him, long strides that were powerful and purposeful. Janine was a tall, solidly built girl, who seemed capable and steady, but not maternal. He wondered why Juliet Fletcher had selected her to be Alfie's nanny, and probably primary care giver. "Had you noticed anything odd around here lately?" he said as she sat next to him.

"It's a strange neighbourhood in general," she said, looking at the rose bushes that were in need of pruning. "It's usually so quiet, and everyone values their privacy, so any movement is noticed."

"Any strange cars, or people walking up and down who aren't local?"

"No. There haven't been strangers around. We get people walking down this road quite a bit, as it leads to the park, but they're ones I recognise because they live around here. Some even say hello if they see us in the garden. My old school teacher is a regular – she takes a walk to the park every weekend," Janine said. "And needless to say, I go there with Alfie most days."

Rossi inwardly groaned. Nobody needed to have been staking out the house, just passing by regularly. "Have you noticed any of Alfie's clothing going missing, or any strange behaviour from him – mentions of seeing someone perhaps?"

She shook her head. "Socks always go missing don't they, but no, the clothing's been fine. He mentions his imaginary friend quite a lot; he seems to think he lives in the park, but comes in the garden sometimes too. He's called Ronnie – it's an odd name for a small boy to pick, and I've no idea where he heard it."

Rossi stood up, he'd heard enough. The UnSub was someone Alfie and Janine knew. It was someone who'd had the opportunity to befriend the boy, which is why there had been no screaming or commotion the when he was taken. "Janine," he said. "I need you to come back to the office with me. I want you to write down the names or a brief description of everyone you know around the park, or who passes by here, particularly anyone who speaks to Alfie, or who he trusts. You can think about it while we're on our way." He didn't want to do it here, not with Juliet around. If she knew what Janine was doing she was likely to want to get involved, which could influence Janine. "Grab your purse and a coat. I'll meet you by the front door."

He walked back into the house and found Prentiss in the kitchen. "Where's Juliet?" he said.

She shook her head and eyed him disdainfully. "Taking a bath. I can't see us getting any more information out of her. She's clearly extremely good at what she does, but isn't..."

"Of this planet," he said. "She's naive and lacks insight into people's motives, making her susceptible to suggestions. I think we'll get more information out of Janine." He explained what had been said in the garden.

Emily nodded. "I'll let Agent Seymour know we're going. She's going to have to stay here again tonight. We can't yet rule out a request for ransom, or some other contact from the kidnapper."

It took ten minutes for Janine to get herself ready, looking nervous as she met Rossi and Prentiss by the door. "Is this going to take long?" she said, looking at Prentiss rather than Rossi.

Emily gave her a reassuring smile. "It depends. But don't worry – where we're going is just like an office."

They walked out to the Suburban, getting half way across the road before Emily paused. "Let's head back to the house," she said.

Rossi looked at her, not quite sure what she meant, but her tone of voice stopped him from being pig-headed.

He was just about to ask her why when a noise louder than thunder shook the ground, and for the second time in a matter of days, he found himself being thrown to the ground.

Comments, thoughts, predictions – all appreciated. Just hit review

Sarah x