A/N: Remember, Sussi and I have messed with the Hotch/Haley/Jack timeline. Hotch and Haley get divorced when Jack is around 15 months old, give or take, and Foyet is not a part of this universe, so Haley doesn't die.
Genre: Mystery
Author: hotchityhotchhotch
"Nice," Emily muttered as she boarded the BAU jet for the very first time and got an eyeful of its luxurious—albeit a little cramped—interior.
"One of the few perks," Morgan said as he stepped on behind her. "Still doesn't make up for interrupting a date, though."
Emily smirked and found herself a seat, hoping she wasn't messing up some unspoken seating arrangement. While she and Morgan waited for the rest of the team, she thought about the delicious dinner she had managed to make herself and had to throw away. Her stomach grumbled, thankfully not loud enough for anyone to hear.
"Sorry, everyone," Hotch said as he boarded a few minutes later, JJ behind him. "Couldn't wait."
"Fifth missing child in two weeks in Brentwood, Tennessee, outside of Nashville," JJ said, a stack of case files in her hand. She began to distribute them right way. "It's a pretty small town, a little over thirty-five thousand people, and only about six thousand families. As you can imagine, the community and its police force is panicking. The last child went missing eighteen hours ago. So we've got six hours before we've got five missings we'll probably never find alive," she said grimly. "Sorry," she added immediately. "Rough day."
Emily sat by and let the rest of the team run the show. While she believed she had the appropriate skill set for the job, she wanted to sense the rest of the team's rhythm before she jumped in.
"Do we know where they were abducted?" Gideon asked, sitting across from Emily.
"All at playgrounds," Hotch said, taking the seat next to Gideon, "but never the same one, never the same time of day or day of the week. The only obvious commonality about the abduction sites is that they're playgrounds."
"How empty have the playgrounds been the last few days with these abductions going on?" Reid asked. He sat next to Emily and dropped his leather messenger bag on the floor.
"Obviously not empty enough if children are still going missing," JJ said. "We told local authorities to make sure they have a presence at every playground in town. When we get there, I'll be holding a press conference right away. It'll hurt our chances of finding the unsub, but we need to keep kids at home or with an adult at the very least. And then we'll have to find him the hard way."
"There's an easy way?" Morgan cracked.
"Prentiss? Thoughts?" Hotch asked, clearly trying to make her feel welcome, but instead putting her on the spot. Her mouth was dry when she went to speak, hoping she could utter something intelligent.
"I…I guess, looking at the victims, they're all eight-year-old white girls, so we might have a preferential offender. Do we have a list of registered sex offenders?"
"You don't, but I do." Garcia's image had popped up on the laptop next to Emily when she wasn't looking. Her voice made Emily pop up from her seat, eliciting laughter from Reid, JJ, and Morgan.
"Reid, when we get there, I want you to work up a geographical profile using the abduction sites, then use that to narrow down the list of sex offenders," Hotch said.
"How many sex offenders can there be in such a small community?" Emily asked.
"You'd be surprised and disgusted," Garcia answered.
Hotch looked at Emily. "You and I will head to the most recent abduction site. Gideon and Morgan, start at the first. We'll meet in the middle. In the meantime, study up."
—
"That's one fast jet," Emily said once she and Hotch were in an unmarked police cruiser and on their way to the most recent abduction site.
"Made me hate flying commercially even more than I already did," Hotch said lightly. "I hope you don't mind working with me to start out. I thought a familiar face might be helpful. Let me know if it's not."
Emily licked her lips. "It's fine. Thanks."
"Did you notice anything else linking all five victims?" Hotch asked, apparently done with pleasantries for now.
"They were all wearing red or pink dresses," Emily said.
"Good."
"So you're going to quiz me?"
"Until you learn to speak up."
Emily raised her eyebrows. "But you knew."
Hotch stopped at a red light, looked both ways, saw no traffic, and crossed through it. "You didn't know that I knew. We're a team. We bounce ideas off each other constantly. It's how we solve these cases. Anything else you're hiding?"
Blushing from her mistake, Emily sighed and thought. "Uhh…all blonde."
"Again, why not say that on the jet?"
"It's kind of obvious, isn't it?"
"Half the time it's the obvious stuff that makes everything fall into place. Anything else?"
"Nope."
"Good. From now on, if a thought crosses your mind, run it by somebody. Maybe it won't make a difference to you, but it could be the missing puzzle piece. You never know unless you say it."
"Will do."
"You seem to be getting along with the rest of the team well enough. Good fit?"
"Yeah. Still trying to find where I fit in with all of the back-and-forths but I'm sure it'll come to me eventually."
"It will." Hotch's cell phone rang in his pocket. "Excuse me." He picked up, not saying hello, merely listening for a few moments. "Okay. I'll get to it when I can," he said plainly, hanging up.
"Everything okay?" Emily asked.
"Fine," Hotch replied.
"I just thought of something," Emily said.
"What?"
"What if…the unsub isn't a sex offender? Maybe he's not even interested in harming these girls at all. What if he's trying to replace someone? A daughter, maybe?"
Hotch's eyes narrowed and he cast Emily a sidelong glance. "That's definitely a possibility. Keep talking."
"Well, if that's his intention, then I hate to think of what he's doing with the girls once he finds they don't meet his needs."
"If you were the unsub, what would you do with them?"
Emily took the deepest of breaths and shook her head. "I can't think like that."
"You have to. That's our job."
"And that's why you hardly smile anymore, isn't it?" Emily said before thinking.
"I wouldn't say that's entirely untrue."
—
"Find anything interesting at the first two playgrounds?" Hotch asked Morgan and Gideon when they all met at the third, under a streetlamp.
"Pretty much identical to this one," Morgan said. "Like the town bought five sets of the same equipment and put them throughout town."
"Ours were the same," Hotch said. "Prentiss, tell them what your thoughts were."
"I—" Emily's eyes widened at the sight of Gideon, who turned away as soon as Hotch had given her the floor. Morgan was more attentive, but Gideon started to walk away. By far, Gideon was the most enigmatic member of the team. Emily had everyone else figured out for the most part, but not him. "I, uh, was thinking this could have nothing to do with sexual assault, or even harming the victims. The unsub might be trying to replace someone, like a daughter."
"That makes sense, too," Morgan agreed. "So we could be looking at someone who lost a daughter, either when she died, or when she was taken away from him. His ex-wife, social services, for whatever reason."
Hotch nodded. "We already called Garcia and had her work with Reid to look at those criteria as well."
"Both theories are equally plausible," Gideon said, squinting in the dark, "but to build a proper profile, we need to know which it is."
"Let's build two separate profiles for now," Hotch instructed.
"Why would a preferential offender strike so many times in a row, in such a short period of time, in such a small community?" Emily asked. She instantly had Hotch's and Morgan's eyes on her and her throat went dry again. "If you're preferential and your needs are so insatiable, go to a larger community. Go to Nashville. It's not far. The unsub could be highly sociopathic and thinks he's above the law, or maybe he doesn't even understand what he's doing, and that would make the size of the community unimportant to him. But at least Nashville would offer up more potential targets, and they'd be easier to abduct. That right there should be enough to draw a preferential offender closer."
"Good," Gideon said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "So that narrows down the sex offender profile to someone who has a specific reason to stay here. Maybe he's mentally challenged, lives with someone else, can't drive himself to a larger community to do the deed, or wouldn't have the space there to do it. Or he's just fine on his own, but has strong ties to the area."
"And if we're not dealing with a sex crime at all?" Hotch asked. "Let's work on a second profile. The unsub's trying to replace a lost daughter. Thoughts?"
"Then the trigger is either a recent loss, or there was an anniversary recently," Morgan said. "We need to look at a trigger for the other profile, too."
"Second one makes more sense," Gideon said. "Or at least it's more likely. In small towns like this, the neighborhoods are tight knit. Everyone knows everyone's business."
Morgan piped in. "And since you can look up sex offenders on public registries, everyone, especially parents, probably knows all the neighborhood creeps, keeps a close eye on them. If we're looking at a father looking for a replacement for a daughter, that kind of guy isn't as likely to be living under everyone else's watch. And if he lost his daughter here, or maybe a sister a long time ago, then that's why he'd need to stay here."
"Prentiss?" Hotch said. "Anything else to add? You look like you have something to say.
"Nothing. I, uh, just really have a hunch that we're not looking at a sex crime here."
"Let's get back to the police station. Prentiss and I can work on one profile, you two on the other," he said to Morgan and Gideon. "Good work," he added to Emily, who blushed and gazed at the ground on her way back to her and Hotch's cruiser.
The drive back was quiet until Hotch's phone rang again.
"Yeah," he said after sighing. "I told you, I'm busy. I will get to it…Yes, I promise." He flipped his phone closed rather loudly and slid it back into his pocket.
Emily was tempted to ask again if everything was all right, but if Hotch hadn't wanted to share that information before, he probably wouldn't now, either, so she minded her own business.
"Hotch, I think we might have it," Reid said, his hand shaking as he handed Hotch a sheet fresh off the fax machine. Hotch and Emily had just gotten back and Gideon and Morgan were on their tails. The vast majority of the police force was out patrolling the streets, even though it was the middle of the night, not a time for children to be out. "When Garcia and I looked at Emily's criteria, we found divorce records for Tina and Stuart Montgomery. They split one year and two weeks ago. Tina got full custody of their daughter, Brittany, eight years old, because Stuart had been in and out of mental institutions for severe bipolar disorder and signs of schizophrenia."
"Is Brittany still alive?" Hotch asked.
Reid nodded. "And well. She and her mother moved to Miami after the divorce."
"Do we have an address on the ex-husband?" Gideon asked.
"Yup." Reid pointed to the fax.
—
Hotch kicked his way in through the front door of a two-story brick home whose curb appeal left something to be desired when compared to that of its neighbors, at least from what they could see right now. They started clearing rooms, hearing Gideon and Morgan doing the same from the back of the house. She followed Hotch upstairs while Gideon and Morgan took to the basement steps. Neither she nor Hotch had cleared a single room before they heard a gunshot downstairs.
"It's okay," Gideon was saying to one of five little girls poorly tied and duct taped to a kitchen chair. Emily, out of breath from running, recognized her as the most recent victim, a little girl named Melissa. Morgan was crouched down over a man's body, his fingers resting on the carotid to feel for a pulse.
"He came at me with a forty-five," Morgan explained. "He's gone."
Hotch nodded and got to work releasing the other pale, teary-eyed girls with Emily and Gideon while Morgan contacted the police station.
"It's okay, sweetie," Emily said to the first victim, Taylor. "My name is Emily and I'm here to help you. You're okay now, I promise." As soon as the girl was freed from her restraints, she clutched onto Emily's waist. Not even sure how much an eight-year-old weighed, Emily gave it a shot and hoisted the girl up into her arms. She felt Hotch's eyes on her as she somewhat struggled up the stairs. "Are you hurt at all?" The little girl shook her head. "Just hungry and thirsty?" Emily asked, figuring that if the first victim was still alive, the unsub had probably been giving them food and water. Taylor nodded. "Okay, we're gonna go to the police station now. Your mommy and daddy will be waiting for you. And we can get you some clean clothes," she noted when she saw the pink dress Taylor still wore.
—
Emily watched with a smile as ten parents were reunited with their daughters.
"Their stories were all the same," Hotch said, walking up behind her. "He hardly laid a hand on them except to restrain them. He had them auditioning to see who would be the best replacement. Singing Brittany's favorite song, telling him they loved him…"
Emily's eyebrows slanted severely as she turned to face Hotch, but her expression softened almost immediately. "I guess that's the best we could've hoped for. Thank God they're okay.'
"You did excellent work tonight."
Emily's breath caught in her throat, so she just grinned and gave an appreciative nod.
"We didn't even have to get our go-bags out," Hotch noted.
"That's just as well, because I'm pretty sure I forgot to pack clean socks and my makeup," Emily said with a soft chuckle. Hotch laughed, too, and was about to walk away when Emily spoke again. "Has anyone gotten in touch with Ms. Montgomery?"
"JJ just got off the phone with her. Why?"
"Just wondering what Brittany was wearing the last time her father saw her."
Hotch gave Emily a dry look. "I already said you did excellent work. I'm pretty sure we know the answer to your question. I'm sure you were right."
"I wasn't fishing, I swear," Emily said, smiling as Hotch left her alone.
They were back on the jet, headed back to Quantico, a few hours later, just as the sun was making its way up. None of the team members was very interested in the sunrise, though. Everyone but Hotch found a place to lie down. As far as Emily could tell, she was the only one who hadn't succeeded in finding sleep. She gave up and joined Hotch at a table.
"Okay, seriously, is everything okay?" Emily asked. Hotch sat back, his hands clasped in his lap and a manila folder in front of him. "You got another one of those phone calls."
Hotch opened up the folder and showed Emily the cover sheet of his divorce papers. "Haley was getting impatient," he explained quietly.
"Calling you three times in the middle of the night? I guess so," Emily said.
"It's all done and over with now, though. They just need to be dropped off." He didn't look disappointed when he glanced up at Emily. Anything but, really. She knew it was inappropriate to think it, but she wondered if she was imagining the trace of desire she saw in Hotch's eyes.
"Can I ask you something?" Emily asked. Hotch waited for her to do so. "Does everyone else know that…we knew each other before?"
Hotch shook his head. "Why? Do you think they should?"
"No. I was kind of hoping for that answer."
Hotch's eyes glinted. "I didn't think it was pertinent."
"Can I ask you something else?"
"Of course."
"Does Gideon hate me?"
Hotch had to close his mouth when he started laughing to keep from waking anyone up. "No. He's like that with everyone."
"Ah. Will it ever get…less unnerving?"
"I wouldn't count on it. He still scares me sometimes."
A/N: Please leave a review!
