𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧

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𝟰:𝟭𝟵𝗽𝗺
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗬𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗛𝗼𝗺𝗲
𝗠𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗴𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘆, 𝗔𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗮𝗺𝗮

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐒𝐔𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃 FBI agents exited the lifeless house, having completed their final sweep and assessment. David Rossi and Emily Prentiss met Detective Baulder on the front lawn, who had a lit cigarette perched between her lips. "Get everything you need?" She raised a plucked eyebrow, drawing the cigarette from her mouth between her fore- and middle finger.

"Yes ma'am," Prentiss smiled.

Baulder simply nodded, returning to her cigarette, and the agents stepped to the curb.

Rossi's voice lowered. "I take it we're not exactly welcomed with open arms."

"Are we ever?" Emily scoffed, surveying the street. Noticing a face in one of the ground floor windows of the house across the street, her head tilted. "Rossi." She cocked her chin, drawing his attention, and they both had the same thought.

Nosy neighbours made incredible eyewitnesses.

Within a minute, they had approached the front porch and knocked on the door, badges already presented. An elderly woman, with thinning white hair pinned up in curlers, dressed in a floral muumuu with a pair of thick glasses hung around her neck, opened the door. "Hello?" she greeted.

"Hi ma'am," Emily warmed. "We're Agents Prentiss and Rossi with the FBI, we're investigating an incident across the street." She turned her body slightly so the woman could look past her, as if she didn't already know what happened, before she continued. "Could we come in and ask you a few questions?"

"Of course," the woman stepped back to let the two enter. "You're just in time," the woman went on, leading them through the foyer towards a sitting room, "I made snickerdoodles."

The sitting room was cluttered, but not messy, filled with decades of knick-knacks collected by a sentimental family. Photos of children and grandchildren covered the wall above the fireplace, each frame ornate and unique.

"Please sit," their host gestured to the vintage loveseat that faced a carved coffee-table. "I'll just be a moment."

Emily sat on the loveseat, while Rossi opted for the worn leather-armchair across from it. "I have the perfect vantage point here right into the Yates' front yard," he murmured, looking towards the window behind Emily as he retrieved a small notebook from the pocket inside his sports jacket.

She craned her neck to look behind her, humming a simple "Hm," before the woman returned with a plate of warm cookies, the sweet scent of cinnamon following behind her.

"Now," she smiled, joining them. "My name is Mrs Gertrude Chester, born 8th of May 1937." She looked to Rossi, then to the notepad that lay open in his palm.

It took only a moment for Rossi to get the hint, quickly scribbling down the details. "And have you lived here long?" he asked.

Mrs Chester nodded. "Robert, my late husband, and I bought it when we were married in 1956."

"Did you know the Yates family well?" Emily sat forward.

Mrs Chester nodded again. "They moved in about ten years ago, just before Robert passed." She straightened her posture slightly, extending the plate of cookies to the agents, who both took one. "They're ever so lovely; they invite me over for Sunday lunches every so often. Jess is always checking in on me. I don't have much family now, except my daughter, but she's in New York. She's a fashion historian," she was beginning down a tangent, "historical fashion mainly, Victorian and Edwardian. She's worked on a few movies, consults on plays and reproductions."

"The Yates', Mrs Chester," Rossi reminded, gently bringing the woman back on track.

"Oh yes, right. Well, young Nathan likes to help me in my garden. He mows my lawn for a little extra pocket money. Sweet little thing, and his brother too. The whole family, really." A thought struck her as her breath caught in their throat. "Are they in some sort of trouble?"

Emily took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, ma'am. They were killed just over a week ago."

"Oh..." The news shocked the woman to her core, her hand clutched to her chest. "Oh no. All of them?"

Emily nodded regretfully.

"Oh, God rest them."

Giving her a moment to compose herself again, Rossi continued where Emily had left off.

"Do you remember seeing anybody at their house in the past week, Mrs Chester?"

Mrs Chester nodded, drying a linger tear that threatened to escape. "Yes, Jessica's brother came by. John, his name is. Such a nice young man. In the military, I think."

Emily almost frowned. "When was this?"

"Oh, goodness," she pondered, recalling her time. "It must've been... Wednesday, I had bridge that day. I was walking Goldie, which I do every morning at 10:30. My husband, god rest him, used to take Goldie to the post office every day. I can never make it that far, but Goldie needs her exercise, and my doctor says it's good for me too. Of course, there was hardly ever any mail, so they'd go to the pet store which is only a block behind the post office." Emily stared across the coffee table at Rossi as Mrs Chester continued rambling on about how to pet store had closed down and was now a Pilates studio. She had to pull her back on course once again.

"Mrs Chester, how did you know it was John?"

"Well, he waved," she stated plainly. "He was unlocking the door, I said 'hi John!', he looked at me, and he waved."

Emily noticed the thick, blue-rimmed glasses that hung from Mrs Chester's neck with a purple chain. "Are they for reading?"

"Oh yes," Mrs Chester smiled, showing her the glasses. "And long-distance too. My doctor said graduated lenses are best for me. I'd always lose them otherwise, having two pairs. He gave me a nice chain too."

"Mrs Chester," Emily began, "were you wearing your glasses when you saw John?"

The woman thought hard before shaking her head. "But I know it was him. He waved."

Emily gave a curt smile. "Thank you, Mrs Chester." She then nodded towards the empty plate. "Those snickerdoodles were absolutely delicious."

Mrs Chester beamed. "Oh!" Her wrinkled hands gripped the sides of her chair as she lifted herself up, the two agents standing too. "Let me get you the recipe, dear." She meandered to her kitchen, and Rossi pulled Emily aside.

"John's a marine," he advised, his voice lowered. "Baulder only managed to get hold of him this morning, he's flying in from Afghanistan. He hasn't been in the country for eight months."

"If it wasn't John," Emily frowned, "then who did she see?"

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𝟰:𝟯𝟴𝗽𝗺
𝗠𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗴𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
𝗠𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗴𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘆, 𝗔𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗮𝗺𝗮

𝐂𝐀𝐃𝐘 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐑 sleeves rolled up to her elbows by the time she had entered the station with Morgan and Reid. The precinct luckily had their A/C blasting, but sweat still beaded at her hairline, already threatening to stick down her bangs. She wiped a hand across her forehead, catching the attention of Hotch and JJ as the three entered the room set up for their investigation.

"Did you guys find anything?" Hotch somewhat greeted.

"Yeah, bread," Cady noted, too hot and flustered to elaborate, gratefully taking the ice-cold bottle of water JJ held out to her.

Morgan thankfully took over. "Baked two days after the Harrington's were killed."

"And," Cady found the strength after chugging half the bottle, "a water spill that Einstein here determined was formed pretty close to when the police showed up. We think the UnSub was living in the house after he killed the Harringtons and fled fairly close to when Officer Ridgeway attended the scene."

"Rossi said the same thing," JJ said, her phone still held in her right hand. "They're on their way back from the Yates'."

Morgan dropped into a vacate seat. "You guys come up with anything?"

JJ shook her head. "Nothing new."

Hotch pulled out the seat next to him and Cady slumped into it, downing the rest of her water with a forced exhale.

"The medical examiner should have the autopsies completed tomorrow," Reid relayed what they'd been told as their left the Harrington home. "That should give us some more insight."

Cady looked to her team. "What do we do in the meantime?"

Reid shrugged, but luckily the question didn't remain unanswered long.

"The Yates family were found after six days," Emily announced as she and Rossi entered.

"Six?!" Cady exclaimed, surprising herself. "How is that possible?"

"The children were homeschooled by Jessica," she explained, "Vincent was an architect, often working on different sites at any time. Nobody noticed their absence until Sunday; they didn't show up for church, but no-one reported it until yesterday."

Their conversation was interrupted by the laptop beeping twice on the table and Garcia's face filling the screen. "Hi, my pretties," she greeted.

"Hey mama, what'd you find?" Morgan was first to respond.

"Not a lot, sugarplum," Garcia sighed. "There's some crossovers between their spending habits, but nothing we can't chalk up to coincidence; grocery stores, fashion outlets, some farmers markets. Other than that, nothing. The kids didn't go to the same school, only one family was religious, nada."

Cady had rolled her chair towards the whiteboard Reid was standing in front of, the cap of her dry-erase marker in her mouth as she began jotting down the beginnings of a timeline.

Rossi pursed his lips. "So we're back to square one."

Hotch's eyes were on Cady as she continued to scrawl across the whiteboard.

𝑴𝒂𝒚 24 – 𝑭𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒌𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅
𝑴𝒂𝒚 28 – 𝑭𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅
𝑱𝒖𝒏𝒆 14 – 𝒀𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒌𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅
𝑱𝒖𝒏𝒆 19/20 – 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒕𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒌𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅

Her bottom lip was now fixed between her teeth as she frowned. She knew the question she was trying to answer. If their UnSub was in their victims' houses, when did they find a way in, and how?

"Hey," she turned to Rossi, "what did your witness say?"

"She thought she saw Jessica's brother," he answered, "last Wednesday."

Cady quickly added 𝑱𝒖𝒏𝒆 16 to her timeline, muttering the detail under her breath.

"Do we have his whereabouts?" Morgan asked.

Emily nodded. "Afghanistan."

Reid leaned towards Cady. "June 21st, Yates family found."

"Thanks," she smiled, adding it to their timeline before writing their last known date; today.

𝑱𝒖𝒏𝒆 22 – 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒕𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅

The seven stared at the board. They all knew there was some overlap, dates where their UnSub had left one house and moved to another, but still no way to know when.

"If he's living there," JJ asked, "why does he keep moving around?"

"The bodies are found," Rossi answered, "his site becomes compromised."

"He's like a squatter," Morgan noted, turning to Hotch. "What if he was in the foster care system? Maybe that's why he's bouncing around."

Cady had dropped back into her chair, rubbing her fingers over her brows. "Scope's too wide. We have no way to narrow it down."

Emily stared at the array of files spread across their table. "How the hell are we going to find this guy?"