Chapter 1
A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it.
-Christian Nestell Bovee
July 10, 2014
Aaron Hotcher put his and Jack's breakfast dishes in the sink.
"Ok, buddy. Teeth and shoes. We have to get you to day camp. Just one more day until Friday!"
Jack smiled, "And no work this weekend, right?"
"Right! I can't wait to spend time with you." He tousled the boy's hair. "Now scoot so we're not late."
Aaron was actively trying to give his team and himself more personal time, with rotating off-call weekends unless it was a catastrophic emergency that required the whole team. Morgan was already on vacation, having put in for the time a few months back, but it was still technically Aaron's weekend to be off call and he was going to try to make it happen.
Ten minutes later, Aaron handed Jack his lunch and Jack opened the door to the apartment.
"Daddy, there's a package for you out here."
Hotch looked and saw the thick, unmarked envelope lying outside his front door. "Don't touch it, Jack." Hotch crouched down and gingerly grabbed a corner, flipping the envelope over. His stomach clenched tightly when he saw his name spelled out in letters cut from a magazine. He quickly looked up and down his hallway. "Let's come back inside for a second, buddy."
Aaron went to the kitchen and grabbed two plastic bags and returned to the door. He put one on his hand and lifted the package into the other bag, which he then tied up.
"What is it, Daddy?" asked Jack nervously.
"Probably nothing important," he said, trying to calm his son. "I'm going to lock you inside for a second and look around, though, just to see if whoever left this is still here. I won't leave our hallway, though. I'll be able to see our door the whole time. Count to one hundred slowly and I'll be back."
Aaron stepped into his hall and closed and locked his door behind him. He unsnapped his gun holster and rested his hand on the butt. The sound of a door opening startled him and he spun around to look, relieved to see it was only his elderly neighbor stepping out her door, holding her little dog. He was thankful he hadn't drawn his weapon her.
"Did you get your package, dear?"
"Yes I did, Abigail. Did you happen to see who left it?"
"Not well. He was walking away when I was taking Lulu here out to tinkle around midnight. I never saw his face, though. He was about your height, but much more muscular, and was wearing a navy blue baseball cap. I asked him if I could help him as he was walking away, and he told me that it had been delivered to his mailbox by mistake. But he never turned around. I didn't recognize him, but I mostly only know the people on this floor."
"Thanks, Abigail." If the package was left at midnight, the deliverer was likely long gone.
Hotch returned to his apartment and unlocked the door. "All clear, Jack. Let's get you to camp." Keeping a careful eye out just in case, they made their way to the car and Aaron put the package in the trunk. He drove Jack the few blocks to the community center, signed him in to camp and watched him walk in the doors of the building. He turned the car around and returned to his apartment building.
He'd chosen this residence for several reasons, the biggest of which was its security. He approached the security office on the first floor and walked in.
The man at the desk looked up. "Hey Aaron. Everything ok?"
"Jared, I need you to pull up the video feed from the front door and my floor from about 11:45 to 12:15 last night. Someone left a package at my door and I don't think it was anyone who lives here. I need to know who it was and how he got in the building."
Jared turned to his computer and started typing. "Let's start with your hallway. Then we can backtrack the time to the front door. But, Aaron, that front door is secure. If he got in this building, he either came in with someone or somehow stole a key fob. Which is possible, but I haven't had anyone report a missing key fob, and I change the activation codes on those like clockwork, every day. It would be difficult to make a working one."
Aaron nodded. He worked with one of the best hackers in the world and knew anything was possible. He went to stand behind the security guard, watching as the video feed came up on the screen. He could see his front door clearly in the picture. Jared hit the controls to fast forward. At 12:07am, the package appeared on his doorstep.
"What the hell?" exclaimed Jared. He rewound the tape to the 12:06 mark, then let it play back in real time.
They both watched in silence. At 12:06:59 there was a flash of black on the screen. Then at 12:07:00, the package was there.
"Oh, shit. How could that happen? This is the best system out there. If someone was able to loop the video feed for a few minutes so he could go undetected, he would have to be good, and it could only be done from inside the building."
Hotch breathed deeply out his nose. "I want you to keep looking. If he did that from inside the building, he got in somehow. Scan people coming in and out the door all day yesterday. If you find something, call me at this number." He reached over and grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and wrote down his personal cell number. After The Replicator, Aaron was cautious. The BAU's relationship with the higher ups was still tenuous at best. He didn't want to bring a potentially personal matter into the FBI without knowing more first.
Hotch returned to his vehicle and retrieved the package and a pair of gloves from his trunk and closed it. Setting the envelope on top of the trunk, he slit the top, looked inside and discovered another wrapped package. He pulled it out and felt the edges, not quite the perimeter of a piece of paper. Flipping it over he saw more magazine letters.
"How come you never profiled this?"
Carefully slitting the tape that held the cover on, Hotch gasped when he saw the first picture on top. Feeling dread, he picked up the stack of photos and quickly flipped through them. They were all the same subjects, about 50 photos in all.
He reached for his personal cell and dialed Rossi on his.
"If you're calling me on this number, it must be bad."
"Rossi, are you at the office already?"
"No. You said 9:00, right? I'm just getting ready to leave the house."
"Change of plans. Can the team meet at your house this morning?"
"Aaron, what's going on? Is everyone ok?"
"I think so, for now. We just need to keep this potential case out of Quantico. Call JJ and Reid. I'll contact Garcia. And, Dave, personal cell phones only. Pass on the message."
Hotch disconnected and dialed his technical analyst. Garcia looked at the unfamiliar number as it came through on her phone.
"Hello?"
"Garcia, it's Hotch. I'm calling on my other phone. I need you to bring your laptop to Rossi's immediately. And anything else you might need to do some research. You're going to have to do some hacking, and none of it can be done on Bureau equipment."
"Sir, are you all right?"
"I am. Can you get a hold of Morgan?"
"No, sir, I don't think so. He was taking his off-call time seriously. When he left on Tuesday he told me he was going someplace off the grid and wouldn't have service. He's not due back until Monday. I don't even know where he is."
"Ok. I don't want to talk about this over the phone. Get to Rossi's as quickly as you can."
Aaron got in his car and pulled out of lot, not quite able to shake the images he'd just seen from his head. "Damn," he said. Turning the opposite direction from Quantico, he headed to Rossi's.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The team arrived one after the other. Rossi made coffee and Aaron sat quietly at the dining room table, waiting for everyone to gather.
Penelope was setting up two laptops in front of her.
"Garcia I need you to be a ghost about this. Whatever you do, whomever you talk to, it can't trace back to the FBI or this team. Understood?"
Garcia looked nervously at Hotch with wide eyes. "Absolutely, sir."
"That goes for all of you. As of this moment we are using personal time, and we just have to hope an emergency call doesn't come in."
They all nodded and looked at their boss. Hotch started in with the facts.
"This morning I found this package outside my front door, inside was another package." He pulled out the secondary wrapping that was back around the photographs and let them read the words. The team looked nervously at each other.
"Whoever left this package is very sophisticated. I used precaution opening the package, but given the fact that this unsub was able to breach the security in my building and not be seen on the camera in my hallway, I feel pretty certain there's not going to be a shred of trace evidence."
He looked around the table again and cleared his throat, his discomfort evident to the people who knew him so well.
"There are about 50 photos in there of the same subjects, in date order, if the dates are accurate. The most recent was taken yesterday. The earliest is dated October 19, 2007."
"October 19, 2007. That was after that case in Denver dealing with the foster children murdering families. We flew home that day and took Emily out for a late birthday celebration," Reid said.
Hotch nodded. "Yes and we all left as it got late. Morgan and Prentiss were the last two there."
"You remember all of that?"
"No, it's what I deduced from the picture. I remember Reid and Garcia left first. JJ and I left a little later at the same time that night; I remember I was her ride."
JJ nodded, "That's right. My car wouldn't start that day."
"Yes, and I'm quite certain I didn't see this while I was there, which means it happened after."
He laid that picture on the table and the team all gave various shocked expressions and sounds.
In the photo, Emily and Derek were on the dance floor at the bar, her back pressed to Derek's front, an arm languidly wrapped behind Derek's neck. Derek had one hand on her hip and the other was pressed against her stomach, under her shirt. His head was bent forward, kissing Emily's neck. Emily's eyes were closed, a content smile on her face.
Rossi found his voice first. "You said the pictures were all of the same subjects. That whole stack is of Morgan and Prentiss?"
"Yes. And that one of them dancing is benign compared to most of the rest, including one taken just yesterday. The others don't include nearly as much clothing."
Reid blushed and Garcia was just staring at Hotch, mouth agape.
"Did any of you know they were involved?"
"I didn't even know Emily danced," Garcia said, breaking the tension a bit as they responded with short, nervous laughs.
Hotch noticed JJ looking down. "I know it's never pleasant to betray a friend, but JJ, the last picture was taken yesterday, which means this person knows where they are and we don't."
Garcia started typing while JJ spoke. "I didn't know back then. I found out after Emily got back from Paris. I didn't know they were seeing each other recently. Emily said it was on again and off again throughout the years, starting after she'd been with the BAU for about a year. She said they'd start feeling exhausted from the sneaking around and lying to all of us and stop, but it would inevitably start back up again. After Doyle, though, I thought there was something irreparable. I didn't know it had been fixed."
Hotch nodded. "This picture was taken after Emily had been with us for about a year, so that fits. That's the timeline we are working with."
Reid spoke up, "Or that's the timeline the unsub wants us to think we are working with. This unsub has been following them for years and they never knew. We shouldn't assume that the stalking didn't start until that picture was taken. And we need to figure out why now, after over 7 years, did he send them to us."
"Also, we need to figure out who the focus is here. Is this about Emily or Derek?" Said Rossi.
"I think the focus is Prentiss. And I think I know why. She called me last week and said she'd be in DC next Tuesday and wanted to talk to me about returning to the BAU."
"Really? She wants to come back?" Reid asked hopefully, and the team exchanged smiles.
"Yes, which was going to be difficult to get approval for on its own. It might be impossible now," said Hotch. "The good news so far is that this person has only been a voyeur all these years, so they are probably physically safe. Still, we don't know if there is a stressor that could potentially change that. We need to reach them and get them back here so we can figure this out."
"Hotch, who did you tell about Emily calling you?" asked JJ.
"No one. I wasn't even in the office when the call came in; I was at home."
Garcia spoke up, "Ok, Emily flew into New York on Monday, then flew into Roanoke yesterday morning, arriving at 10:05am. About five months ago, she charged $950 to Lake Mountain Realty, which rents vacation homes and condos all over the mountains up above Roanoke. But I don't have the address of what she rented yet. Working on it. I can't locate their cell phones on GPS, which means they are either turned off or there is no service."
"It's a house, and it's very secluded." Deciding that the team was going to have to get over the content of the photos in order to work the case, Hotch placed the most recent picture on the table and they all glanced at it, then looked away quickly.
"Oh my God," JJ whispered, "Are all of the pictures like this?" Hotch could only nod.
"Some things are best left to the imagination. I feel so skeevy seeing these," whispered Garcia.
The picture lay on the table. It was taken outside. The angle showed a very naked Emily from the back, straddling an equally naked Morgan. His hands were on her waist and her head was thrown back in ecstasy. Shadows of leaves and trees fell across the decking and their bodies.
Reid reached over and flipped the picture upside down.
"This is going to be uncomfortable and a huge invasion of privacy, but we need to look at these and get any clues we can. Reid, you are best at this. I need you to look at these like you would any other case."
Reid looked up with very red cheeks and nodded.
"Hotch, I'm not a profiler and I'd rather not look if that's ok," said Garcia.
Hotch nodded. "Only if it's absolutely necessary. The rest of you, let's spread these out on the island in the kitchen and get to work. Garcia. Find them."