Hotch had pretty much kicked the poor girl out after that and closed the door before the principal could check on them. Emily had frozen at Cait’s words and Hotch couldn’t blame her. It had, surprisingly, shocked his system too. The United States was a very large country.
His hand alighted on Emily’s back, absently rubbing over the soft silk of her blouse. She’d discarded her suit jacket earlier in the day exposing the red shirt she wore underneath. He’d almost swallowed his tongue. Then he’d almost pinched himself for the unprofessional thoughts. They were on a case, for goodness sakes and a case where she was already emotionally vulnerable. The last thing she needed was for him to add any pressure.
His hand continued down her arm as he hit Garcia’s speed dial.”
“Oh the irony, I was about to call you, Superman.”
Hotch felt his lips twitch involuntarily. A lot had changed since he’d started spending time with the team. “What have you got?”
“A name.”
“It wouldn’t happen to be the name of the school’s soccer coach, would it?”
“A janitor, actually,” Garcia responded. “Don Hackney.”
“Connection?”
“Just one. But it’s big.”
“And?”
“Well, there’s a little bit of back story, sir. I went back over the pictures isolating the time stamps of when they were taken and took the liberty of matching them to murder cases across the country. First, there is a pattern there, right across the country from Chicago to Seattle. It gave me a rough timeline and before you ask, JJ’s compiling all of the information back at the field office as we speak.”
“Go on.”
“I added all of the new information into my search parameters. The only name or connection between any or all of the victims was this guy. A couple of peeping Tom charges, says he’s been arrested for attempted rape a few times but the charges never stuck… He’s worked at every school, in every city connected to this case.”
“Where is he now?” Hotch asked.
“Last known is a Seattle address. He works at Franklin High.”
Hotch closed his eyes briefly. In his line of work, one simply couldn’t believe in coincidences and the likelihood of two coincidences? Well, that was just unheard of. Emily’s reaction to the fact that the coach had called Leah by her given name still had him a little shaken. “Get everything you can on…” he checked Emily’s notes, “Tim Sivill. He’s the soccer coach at Leah’s high school.”
“Sure thing, Boss,” the tech responded cheerfully. “Over and out.”
Hotch took a seat beside his still silent colleague. “Emily?”
Her eyes were hauntingly dark when they met his. “We interviewed Sivill in Chicago. He was the coach there too.”
“Why? Leah was only eight?”
“The Scotts had a regular babysitter, a girl that lived behind them. She walked Leah and her brother home from school every day and stayed until the parents got home,” Emily answered. “Could have been her sister actually and their families were old friends. Lindsay would walk across the Scotts’ backyard to get to her house. If I remember right, she’d been at the soccer game the night the Scotts were killed.”
“That’s a lot to remember after eight years,” Hotch said, his fingers unconsciously weaving with hers.
Emily sighed. “This was one of those cases “ is one of those cases,” she tried to explain. “It stuck with me. Sometimes it just takes a trigger to remember some of the details.”
“What was your impression of him?”
“I didn’t like him,” she admitted, “But we didn’t have anything to tie him to the crimes. You can’t arrest someone on being creepy anymore.”
He let out an exaggerated sigh. “And here that was my favourite part of the profile.”
Emily’s mouth curved upwards. “Ah, that illusive sense of humour.”
He chuckled. “What do you want to do?” he asked, his thumb stroking over the soft skin of her knuckles. “Derek and Dave can handle the staff interviews if you’d like.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then seemed to think better of it. “We’re going to be better off talking to the teachers when school lets out.”
He pulled her up then, grabbing her jacket off of the back of the chair in the process. He wasn’t about to give her time to change her mind and he knew it was the closest thing to an admission of weakness he was going to get. This was wearing her down and the lack of leads was probably bothering her much more than she was willing to let on.
He made sure Emily walked just that little bit ahead of him, close enough that he could still brush her shoulder with his and definitely close enough that his hand could rest on her back, palm flat against the warm silk at the bottom of her spine. He watched her run a hand through her hair in exasperation.
“Em?”
She looked at him and he knew she was trying to hide everything inside and he hated that she was bottling up everything that was bothering her. “Sorry,” she said.
He waited until they were in the car and buckled in before turning to her. “Talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to say,” she said, not facing him. Her eyes were out the window.
He left her looking out the window as he pulled out of the school parking lot and started along the route back to the field office. He wanted to push her, wanted to all but force her to tell him what was going on in hear head. He wanted to make sure she was okay, to keep her away from the pain she was so obviously experiencing even as she tried to hide it.
He caught her elbow before she made it into the field office, his concern jumping another notch when she started. “I want you to take a few hours,” he said, tone telling her it should be useless to argue. “Go to lunch with JJ, talk baby, just take a step away from the case.”
“I can do this,” she said, almost rolling her eyes.
“Emily.” His tone was warning now. “I’ll send you back to Quantico.” He’d known it was the wrong thing to say, empty threat or not, when her eyes blazed fire.
“I wasn’t aware I was jeopardizing the case, sir.”
“You’re jeopardizing yourself,” he told her frankly.
“You wouldn’t be so worried if it was Derek or Dave,” she accused. “I don’t need to be coddled.”
Hotch took a deep breath, trying to reign in his emotions. This wasn’t what he’d hoped would be her reaction, nor did he appreciate his own seemingly over-protective reaction. He’d fully intended to treat her as he would any other agent and he’d sworn he would. Then he’d experienced the last three days with her. Then he’d seen Emily with Leah, watched how she reacted to the news that there were potentially two other people in Seattle that knew Leah’s true identity. She’d managed to spawn protective instincts that had lain dormant and buried since his divorce from Haley. He actually probably worried more about her than he did his ex-wife and that was something scary to think about.
“I don’t mean to coddle,” he said, making sure his eyes met, and held hers.
“You are,” she said sharply, the tone bordering on insubordinate.
He knew it was probably the irritation of stress that had her snapping at him. That didn’t mean he was fully willing to just let it slide. “Prentiss.”
The sharp tone made her straighten. “Sir.”
“You wouldn’t be here if I thought you couldn’t handle this,” he reminded her, “And the moment you can’t you will be spending your days sitting beside JJ in the field office until the end of the case.”
Emily blinked.
“Go with JJ and get some lunch,” he repeated, eyes softening, hand tightening.
She turned on her heel and stalked into the precinct.
“Did you have a lover’s quarrel?” Dave asked, eyeing Hotch over the papers. Derek and Reid had gone to pick up the janitor before heading back to talk to the teachers.
Hotch raised an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”
“Emily seemed a little less than impressed when she left with JJ,” Dave replied, focusing his gaze on the papers in front of her.
“Professional miscommunication,” Hotch answered vaguely.
“Oh?” Dave said, his tone implying he knew there was more to it than that. He’d been watching his colleague watch Agent Prentiss and watched the way he younger man’s friendship seemed to progress into watching the pretty dark-haired agent with a different sort of look in his eyes.
“Dave, what do you want me to say?” He had an idea of where Dave was going with his particular line of questioning and he wasn’t sure he’d come to enough of a conclusion about what was going on in his own mind.
“I’m just asking how long you’ve been looking at Emily like she’s the center of your world.”
Hotch’s hand froze for a split second and he almost kicked himself. “There’s nothing between me and Emily.”
“But she is ‘Emily’,” Dave pointed out.
“Just like there’s JJ and Derek,” Hotch replied nonchalantly.
“You don’t send either of them away from a case that gets too tough,” Dave pointed out. “You don’t hover over them either.”
“What are you getting at?” Hotch was getting impatient with Dave’s probing.
“Whatever is going on between you and Emily…” he paused, tilting his head slightly. “It’s a good thing.”
Hotch didn’t know what to say to that.
Emily wasn’t eating, she was picking and it was driving JJ, a woman well into eating for two and eating whatever Baby wanted, absolutely insane.
“Stop shoving food around to make it look like you’re eating. It’s useless. I’d rather you tell me what’s going on and why you’re moping about. It’s scaring Reid to see the unflappable Emily Prentiss rattled.”
That got a smile out of the brunette, albeit a small one.
JJ reached across the table to grasp and squeeze her friend’s hand. “Come on, Em. We’ve got the janitor coming in already and we’ve got enough to connect him to all of the murders.”
“I know,” Emily replied. “I just… it’s not him, Jayje.”
The blond raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
“What this guy’s doing… it’s rage. I mean, I know it’s too big of a coincidence for him not to be a suspect but… my gut says it’s not him.”
“Janitors aren’t generally connected to the student body,” JJ allowed, probably belittling the job a bit. “And its way too big of a coincidence to have Tim Sivill and Don Hackney migrating to the same school-“
“Where, coincidentally, Leah happens to be attending.” She paused. “But Em…”
“I know. Criminal record, time, evidence shows he’s been at every school…”
“You can’t argue with evidence,” JJ said sympathetically.
Emily sighed. “Maybe. Hotch is right.”
“About what?” JJ asked, picking at Emily’s fries.
“Maybe I should head back to Quantico. I can’t keep my head on straight.”
“You’re not jumping at the chance to arrest a guy. Heck, Em, you don’t even think the guy did it.”
“I’m not helping either,” Emily said. “I’m worrying about Leah reacting to the smallest thing… We came back to the field office because I froze when Cait Short said the Tim Sivill had called Leah by her given name the first time he saw her in Seattle.”
“You’re human,” JJ said almost desperately. “Even Hotch has bad cases.” She really wanted Emily to stay.
“Leah’s in Quantico by herself.”
“And what about the case?” JJ had never known Emily to give up and never changed her mind once she started something. This one-eighty over her presence and participation in the case was more than worrisome.
“Who better to entrust this case to than family?”
JJ sighed. “Can you just… think about it a little longer?”
Emily smiled, understanding JJ’s vulnerability. They’d been sharing a room since the news of JJ’s pregnancy and Emily had taken on a much more matronly role since them too. She knew she was basically JJ’s security blanket on away cases. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good,” JJ said, seemingly satisfied for the time being. “Let’s get back?”
“Yeah,” Emily agreed, folding her napkin into the garbage on her plate. She stood, turned and ran right into someone.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t see…”
“It’s okay,” Emily apologized with a slight smile, her mind focused on nothing but getting back to the case and finding out who was going after Leah. She didn’t even register the man’s face, nor the gentle smile JJ gave the man.
Both women missed the man clutching Emily’s cell phone.
Leah was bored. Miss Garcia had allowed her an FBI issue laptop but there was only so much, even on the internet, that could occupy her. She was twisting in Emil’s chair, her head back, eyes focused on a single spot in the ceiling. She actually sighed when the phone rang. Her face brightened marginally when her cell rang and it was Emily’s number on the phone.
“Hey Aunt Em.
“I don’t think I’m Agent Prentiss.”
“Who is this?” Even as she asked, her blood had run cold.
“Come on, Leah, I know you remember me. I’ve been looking eight years for you.”
Leah stopped moving, stopped blinking and stopped breathing. “Who are you?” she managed to squeak.
“You know, this could all end with you, Leah. This is all because of you. I hunt because of you. The girls I killed… The families I hunt…None of you understand that its all for you, all for the children.”
“What are you talking about?” Leah pulled the phone away from her ear, double checking the number. “And where’s my aunt?”
“Mmm, pretty lady. Your aunt’s fine. For now.”
“You let her go this instant-“
“Ah, ah, ah, Miss Scott. I’d be careful what you say.”
She was almost sure she outright whimpered. She knew this would happen. “Don’t hurt her.” She blinked back tears.
“I’ll give her back all safe and sound,” he cooed. “All you have to do is come to me.”
She took a shaky breath. “Where?”
“Your parents’ house.”
“In Chicago?”
“In Seattle. In an hour.”
“That’s impossible. I’m across the country.” She was almost sobbing out the words.
He let out a growl. “You have twelve hours. Let yourself into the house and wait. Oh, and Leah, don’t tell anyone.”
Emily was starting to get frantic. She couldn’t find her cell phone anywhere. “JJ have you seen my phone?”
“Did you have it at lunch?” the blond asked calmly.
“Yeah,” Emily sighed. “I’m sure I did.”
“Agent Prentiss?”
Emily looked up at the rookie standing in the doorway and let out a breath of relief when she noticed her phone in his hand. “Where was it?”
“Someone dropped it off at the front desk.”
The brunette smiled her thanks and started checking for a call from Leah. What she got shocked her even more.
Penelope had absolutely upended Timothy Sivill’s squeaky clean existence. The man hadn’t so much as a speeding or parking ticket. Everything she’d gathered praised the man for his work in school athletics and community soccer. Still, something had to be off or Hotch wouldn’t have asked her to look into the man to begin with. Penelope sighed. Maybe Leah would have a better idea of what they were looking for. After all, Penelope had noticed that the man had worked at schools in both Chicago and Seattle.
She pushed herself up and left her bunker, walking with purpose to the bullpen. Her heart started to beat frantically in her chest when she noticed that the young woman was nowhere to be found. Panic took hold and she raced back into her office just as her phone started ringing. “Emily?”
“Where’s Leah?”
“I was just about to call you about that.”
“Where is she Pen?”
Penelope sighed, guilt flooding her. “I don’t know.”