Chapter Text
Emily sighed as she dropped heavily into her seat beside JJ on the team’s jet. It was late on a Friday afternoon, and she’d been looking forward to a calm, quiet, relaxing weekend with her girlfriend. Instead, they were waiting to take off and leave the East Coast entirely to work a case in Portland, Oregon. For what, none of them were sure because the call had gone directly to Hotch, and he had just told them to get on the plane and they’d brief once they were in the air. But if the call went over JJ, they all knew that it meant that whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be good.
“I just wanted to stay home this weekend,” Emily muttered under her breath as she scrubbed her hands over her eyes. JJ had moved in with her a couple weeks ago, and she had really been hoping that this would be the weekend that they finally spent the entire weekend in their home together. With no work. And, ideally, little to no clothing.
JJ smiled and reached out to squeeze Emily’s leg. “I know. Me too,” she said, never once looking away from the file she was reading that contained details of another case in another state that she’d already decided she would have to hand over to Reid for a consult. “I was looking forward to painting the office.”
Emily smirked. “Okay, I’m kind of glad I’m missing out on that,” she drawled, turning her head to look at JJ.
“Please,” JJ scoffed. “We both know I would have been doing all the work anyways.”
“I would have helped,” Emily argued.
JJ looked up at Emily and rolled her eyes. “Yeah. After I threatened to withhold sex, maybe.”
Emily’s jaw dropped in horror. “Now that’s just mean. Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s the easiest way to guarantee that you’d help,” JJ said matter-of-factly as she returned her attention to the file she was trying to finish reading.
“Help with what?” Morgan asked as he slid into the window seat across the table from the Communications Liaison.
“Painting the office,” JJ said distractedly, sticking a yellow post-it onto a page and scribbling a note on it.
“And what would you do to guarantee she’d help?” he asked.
“It’s more like what she wouldn’t do,” Emily muttered.
Morgan gave his partner a look of pure disbelief. “She would really threaten you with that to make you paint?”
Emily arched a brow and nodded. “Apparently so.”
“Guys, I am sitting right here,” JJ drawled, smirking as she looked up from her work.
“Yeah. But that’s just mean,” Morgan told JJ.
“See!” Emily said, waving a hand at Morgan indicatively, obviously pleased that somebody was on her side. “Mean.”
“What’s mean?” Reid asked as he took the fourth and final seat at their table.
“Withholding sex,” Emily answered.
Reid looked at Morgan and Emily. “Who’s withholding sex?”
“Nobody is withholding sex, Spence,” JJ sighed as she gave up on working for the time being and tossed the file she’d been reading onto the table. “These two are just appalled by the idea that I may threaten to withhold sex to get Emily to help me paint the office.”
“Oh.” Reid nodded thoughtfully as he worked the strap of his worn leather satchel off over his head. “Well, I imagine that would be a perfectly logical motivator.”
JJ smiled. “Thank you. See, it’s a perfectly logical motivator.”
Emily popped up out of her chair and smacked Reid over the head with a file. “You suck.”
JJ picked up the file she had been reading moments before and smacked Emily in the arm with it. “Be nice to Spence.”
Morgan reached for a file to defend Emily’s honor but both the brunette and JJ looked at him and said, “Don’t you dare.”
“Damn,” he muttered, slumping back in his seat.
“Do I need to start handing out time-outs again?” Hotch asked in a tired voice as he climbed on board the jet. It had been a long week, and while he didn’t know exactly what ‘the kids’ had been up to, he could tell from the way that Morgan was pouting and Reid was rubbing the top of his head, that something had happened.
“No, sir,” the group mumbled.
“Good. Because Portland PD’s going to need all of us on this one.”
“Yes, sir,” the group answered.
“What’s going on?” Rossi asked as he entered the cabin to find Hotch glaring impressively at Prentiss, Morgan, Reid, and JJ.
“I don’t know,” Hotch muttered.
Rossi nodded thoughtfully as he scanned the group for the weak link. Not that he needed to look hard; he always ended up in the same place. “Reid?”
“JJ is threatening…” Reid started to answer automatically before Emily kicked him under the table. “Ow,” he whined as he gave Emily a pitiful look.
Emily just pursed her lips and shook her head.
“I don’t know, sir,” Reid finished lamely.
Hotch shook his head, and Rossi had to turn around to hide his smile.
“Well, how about if, for now, we focus on Portland’s problem,” Hotch said, directing his team’s attention back to the actual matter at hand. “Jason Gray was out for a run with his dog this morning when she disappeared off the path in front of him. When he eventually caught up to her, she was nosing around at this,” he said, dropping an 8x10 glossy of a partially buried dismembered leg sticking out of a black trash bag.
Any and all thoughts of childish bickering disappeared as the group sat up straighter in their seats to have a look.
“So the dog didn’t dig it up?” Morgan asked.
“It doesn’t look like it. Looks like scavengers found it and opened it up,” Rossi answered as he turned back to the discussion.
“This leg belongs to a female,” Emily said as she studied the picture carefully. “Did they find any more of her, or was this it?”
Hotch handed the astute brunette a file first before handing them out to the rest of the team. “The entire body was recovered. As were four others. All female. Ages at this point are undetermined”
“All dismembered?” Reid asked as he took his copy of the file from the Unit Chief.
“Yes.” Hotch nodded gravely. “The Medical Examiner has called in a local forensic anthropologist to consult on estimating a post mortem interval for each of the victims.”
Emily sighed. “PMI is tough when they’re buried in plastic like this. We’re going to have a huge window.”
“Exactly,” Hotch agreed.
“From the condition of this leg,” Reid murmured, tilting his head as he studied the gruesome photograph, “it looks like there should be enough left to try and determine a cause of death. Toxicology might be helpful.”
“Unless he dismembered them while they were still alive,” Morgan muttered.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Hotch interjected. “They’re working triple-time to try and have something useful for us by the time we touch down, so I want all of you to be ready to hit the ground running. We’ll all be heading out to the crime scene.”
“All of us, sir?” Emily spoke up, casting a quick look in JJ’s direction.
“Yes. The media have picked up on this story and have swarmed the site. JJ, I’m going to need you to try and get control of what they know and are reporting. I don’t want too much information out there until we have a better idea of what is going on.”
JJ nodded. “You got it.”
“Good. When I spoke to him, the pilot said he should be able to pick up a decent tail wind, so we’ll be there in a little less than four hours. Study, sleep, and get ready to scramble. This one is going to be a circus,” Hotch said as he moved to the small table at the other end of the plane from the group.
“I think I would have rather painted the office,” Emily muttered as she opened the file she’d been given and began reading.
+++/+++\+++
Morgan groaned as he climbed out of the SUV that he’d driven out to the site. “Great. So we get to go hiking in the rain.”
“Statistically speaking, it could have been worse,” Reid piped up as he, too, climbed out of the vehicle. “July averages the least amount of rain for the region than any other month at point nine-one inches.”
“So we’re just lucky, then,” Emily drawled from her position in the backseat. Her door was open, but she was not going to get out until Hotch and Rossi got there.
Reid frowned. “I’m not sure if lucky… you were being sarcastic.”
“Very good, Reid,” Emily chuckled.
“Be nice,” JJ muttered from her position beside Emily. She was busy pouring through the latest details Garcia had sent over so that she was prepared to address the press, and was only half-paying attention to the bickering going on around her.
“How’s it look?” Emily asked Morgan.
“Shouldn’t be too bad,” Morgan answered as he squinted up the dirt path that disappeared into the woods. “Hope Rossi isn’t wearing new boots, though. It’ll be muddy.”
“We the only ones down here?” Emily asked as she turned around in her seat and pulled a pair of well-worn combat boots from her tactical bag.
“Pretty much,” Morgan said, turning to his partner and giving her a wink. “We’ll keep a look out for you.”
“And that is why I love you,” Emily drawled as she dropped her boots onto the floor and reached out to pull her door closed.
“What are you doing?” JJ asked, looking up in surprise when Emily’s hand wrapped around her own.
“This,” Emily said, leaning in and kissing JJ softly.
JJ smiled into the kiss and moaned softly when their tongues met in a slow, familiar dance between them. “Hmm. What was that for?”
“Just don’t know when I’m going to get a chance to do that again,” Emily replied as she kissed JJ again tenderly. “I love you.”
JJ smiled. This had become their routine whenever they started a new case. Not always the kiss, but the reaffirmation of their love. With the horrors the faced almost daily, it was a nice reminder that not everything in their lives was so full of darkness. “I love you too, Em. So, so much.”
Emily smiled and rested her forehead against JJ’s as she took a deep breath, holding the blonde’s gaze captive as they sat in a comfortable silence until it was shattered by a quick rap against the window. “Showtime,” Emily murmured. She pulled away from JJ, and glanced out the window to see Hotch and Rossi’s SUV pull up beside them.
JJ reached out and pulled Emily to her for one last quick kiss. “Be safe. I’ll see you later.”
Emily smiled. “You too. I love you.”
“Love you too,” JJ said softly, biting her lip thoughtfully as she watched Emily toss her dress boots over her shoulder into the back of the SUV.
“Good luck out there,” Emily said as she laced up her shoes. “You sure you don’t want one of us to go with you?”
“Thank you, sweetie, but I’ll be fine,” JJ assured her. She smiled and leaned in to steal one last kiss, before she hopped out of the car and started toward the other end of the parking lot where the local police had quarantined the media.
“You good?” Morgan asked Emily when she eventually climbed out of the car.
Emily nodded. “Yup.”
“Then let’s go,” Hotch announced as he started up the trail.
+++/+++\+++
Emily looked around as they trudged down a slippery hillside that the continuous drizzle made more treacherous with every passing second. Hotch and Rossi were in the lead, followed by Morgan and Reid, with Emily bringing up the rear. The woods around them was a collection of blacks and grays, and at the bottom of the gorge there was a collection of florescent work lights, making the bodies of the techs and other personnel scouring the scene look like specters haunting the site. It was altogether eerie and beautiful, and something that, unfortunately, was entirely too familiar.
“Any word on if they’ve found more bodies?” Morgan asked, deftly reaching out and catching Reid before the awkward genius fell onto his backside and slid the rest of the way down the hill.
“Not that I’ve heard,” Hotch answered, his eyes trained on the shifting earth beneath his feet as he sidestepped down the slope.
Morgan shot Emily a look over his shoulder and she nodded. She had a feeling they’d find more too.
“You okay, Reid?” Emily asked, shooting him a concerned look.
“Fine. Fine,” Reid muttered.
“Looks like they haven’t removed the remains yet,” Morgan observed as they neared the bottom of the slope.
“Better for us,” Rossi said, pushing ahead to get the first look at what their unsub had left for them. He lived for the puzzle, the hunt, and he had a feeling that this case was going to be a good one.
The team assembled themselves in a loose semi-circle around the collection of black trash bags. Some were ripped open, most likely by scavengers, while others showed the clean, crisp lines of being cut by a knife or scissors. No matter how they were opened, each of the twenty bags revealed a similar sight. A bruised and lacerated leg, foot attached, some toenails painted, some not, severed at the head of the femur and again at the knee and stuffed into a bag in two pieces. An arm, also bruised and battered, complete and intact, severed neatly at the bulbous head of the humerus. An obviously female torso covered in cuts and burns. Not one of these women had died a peaceful death. Each and every one of them had been tortured extensively before they’d been killed.
“Agent Hotchner,” a gruff voice interrupted their thoughts. The team looked up to see a beast of a man, who looked more like a lumberjack than a detective, approach them. “Bill Hanson. Thanks for coming out here.”
“Of course,” Hotch said as he shook the burly man’s hand.
“Where are the heads?” Reid asked.
“Haven’t found them yet,” Hanson answered. “Our guys scouring the woods around here with cadaver dogs looking for them, but we haven’t found anything yet.”
The team shared a look and Emily said what they were all thinking. “Do you think he keeps the heads as trophies?”
Hotch looked down at the collected body-parts and sighed. “Too early to say at this point,” he said before he turned his attention to Hanson. “What can you tell us about this area?”
“Well,” Hanson drawled with a shrug, “there are a handful of trails around here that all feed into each other that are popular with runners and hikers.”
“Multiple possible points of entry,” Morgan muttered.
“Is the lot we parked in, down the hill-” Reid pointed, “-the closest to this scene?”
“It is,” Hanson confirmed.
“We walked at least a quarter-mile,” Emily said. “He would have had to make multiple trips to get each of these bodies down here.”
“I was told your medical examiner called in a forensic anthropologist,” Hotch said. “Has he arrived?”
“She has. That’s her down there,” he said, pointing at a woman with a shock of gray hair who was bent over one of the gravesites. “Doctor Helena Wells.”
Hotch nodded. “Right. Reid, Prentiss, I want you two to go talk to Doctor Wells and get her opinion of possible PMI so we have some kind of a window to get working with. Detective Hanson, when do you think these remains will be moved to a lab?”
“Hold on and let me find out for ya,” Hanson said as he lifted his fingers to his lips and let loose a shrill whistle, causing every head to turn toward him. “Randy! C’mere!”
A bald-headed man who was standing beside the woman Hanson pointed out as Doctor Wells looked up and waved. The team watched him nod a greeting to Prentiss and Reid as they passed, and before long he was standing in front of them and pulling off the latex gloves he was wearing to shake their hands.
“Randy McMullen,” he said as he shook first Hotch’s hand, and then Rossi’s and Morgan’s.
“Doctor McMullen,” Rossi said. “How much longer do you think you’re going to leave these remains out here?”
“We thought you would want to see them as close to in situ as possible, so we left them here. Doctor Wells and I are ready to get working whenever you’re finished,” the medical examiner said.
“We appreciate the thought. You can call your team and have them start moving these out,” Hotch said. “Do you think you’ll be able to pull prints on any of them?”
“One for sure, possibly another, but the other two are showing signs of slipping so I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get anything from them.”
“All right. Let us know what you find,” Hotch said. “Morgan, I want you, Reid, and Prentiss to check other possible entrances and exits to this area. Rossi and I will go back and meet up with JJ. We’ll meet you three at the precinct when you’re finished.”
Morgan groaned inwardly at the thought of hiking around the park in the rain, even as he nodded his understanding. “You got it.”
“Call us if you find anything,” Hotch said as he waived Rossi along after him.
On the other side of the site, Emily looked up from her conversation with the forensic anthropologist to see Hotch and Rossi start back up the muddy slope to the main trail and she frowned thoughtfully even as Doctor Wells continued to rattle on about decomposition rates of buried limbs in the Pacific Northwest. She’d gotten the gist of the anthropologist’s meaning after the first few minutes – there was no set table for decomposition and that she’d have to estimate based on past experience.
“I’m sorry, Doctor Wells,” Emily said, interrupting the energetic woman’s lecture about local scavengers. “When you have a window for PMI on each of these victims, could you just give me a call?” she asked, not really asking at all, as she handed the older woman her card.
“Of course, Agent Prentiss,” Doctor Wells nodded as she pocketed the card.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Emily said with the politically-distant smile she’d perfected years ago as she waved Reid to follow her.
“Does the anthro have anything for us?” Morgan asked as Emily and Reid ducked under the tarp that was protecting the remains.
“Not yet,” Emily said, shaking her head for emphasis. “It’s going to be a wide window for all of them, just like we expected.”
Morgan ran his hand over his head and groaned. “Great.”
“Exactly,” Emily agreed.
“Where are Hotch and Rossi?” Reid asked as he curiously looked around the site.
“They went back to meet up with JJ and head over to the precinct. We’re supposed to check the other trails that go in and out of here to see if our unsub might have used a different path than the one we took.”
“Does Hotch really think he would have hiked farther than necessary with these remains?” Emily asked.
“I think he wants to cover all his bases because this thing is going to start out rough and only get rougher,” Morgan replied sagely.
“Should we split up?” Reid asked.
Emily looked at Morgan and they both shook their heads, each of them knowing how awkward the genius was when he was outside and both of them more than appropriately afraid of JJ’s reaction should he get hurt under their watch.
“Nah, Reid, we’ll stick together,” Morgan said, shaking his head as he started down the path to their left. They had a lot of ground to cover, they needed to get moving.