“I have to try. I’ve seen what these creatures do to families. Think of our son.”
“No, Aaron. Youthink of our son. You need to put our family first, and everybody else’s family needs to go into second place.”
“Try to understand. Stopping these people ismy way of protecting my family.”
“Oh, fine, wonderful. On some spiritual, metaphysical level, I’m sure that makes perfect sense. But how do you protect our family, thisfamily, if you’re away all the time?”
“This is who I am, Haley. Please try to understand that.”
“I do understand that, Aaron. And I do love you. I do still love you. But I have to leave.”
And she had.
He awoke early Monday morning, after not nearly enough sleep, eased out of bed, showered, dressed in his best navy blue suit, and came into the office.
A tall, broad-shouldered yet slender man with dark hair and burning brown eyes, Hotchner bore the pale complexion of an indoor animal, although spending half a day outside with Jack and Haley had added a little pink to high, sharp cheekbones. His look, his demeanor, were fitting for the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, but he made considerably less, even if his responsibilities were similarly demanding.
Seated behind a desk neatly piled with files, Hotchner sipped his coffee and checked his watch. The rest of the team would be rolling in over the next half hour.
That Hotchner was in charge of the team went beyond his assigned role to his nature, and it was in his nature to lead by example. Part of that meant being first in (and last out) of the office, with the exception of media maven Jennifer Jareau. Consequently, he had unlocked his door a full hour before the start of shift.
The first agent to get off the elevator and stride into the bullpen area below Hotchner’s office was Emily Prentiss. A willowy, quietly stylish brunette whose hair touched her shoulders, the thirtyish Prentiss had been a member of the BAU for over a year now. The well-connected daughter of a diplomat, with the looks of a fashion model and the intellect of a physicist, she’d served FBI tours in both St. Louis and Chicago before the FBI foisted her on Hotchner; but he had come to respect and value her—Prentiss worked hard, maintained a cool professional attitude on site, and never complained about an assignment. Further, she’d been embraced by the rest of team over time—no small thing, as she’d replaced a popular agent who’d gone over the line. As she sat at her desk, Prentiss glanced up at him through the window separating Hotchner’s office from the bullpen. When she saw him through the open venetian blinds, she nodded and smiled, just a little.
Hotchner nodded back, did not return the smile, then looked down at the file in front of him. He worked a while.
Next in was the team’s youngest member, Dr. Spencer Reid. Twenty-six and a five-year veteran of the BAU, the gangly Reid wore gray slacks and a blue blazer with a white shirt and a red-and-gold-striped tie, though the collar button remained unbuttoned and the knot loosened. The strap to his briefcase rode his left shoulder, the case tucked under his right arm. The overall effect of the outfit was that Reid looked like a scholarship student who was late for a chemistry class at some private prep school.
Reid was doing better now. A sensitive young man who hid behind statistics on every subject, he had not so long ago suffered through a traumatic stretch; one of their UnSubs (unknown subjects) had taken Reid captive and subjected him to mental and physical abuse and, briefly drug dependence. The ordeal had made Reid question whether he belonged in the BAU, but Hotch and their former teammate Jason Gideon had counseled Reid and convinced him to stay—ironic, now that Gideon had suffered his own burnout and had gone off on his soul-searching way.
Every agent on his team was talented, even gifted, but Hotchner knew that Reid—with his triple PhDs in Chemistry, Mathematics, and Engineering from Cal Tech—was a special case, and very likely the most brilliant of them all. The young man had an eidetic memory, and a 187 IQ with a capacity to read twenty thousand words per minute. More important, the wealth of data at the agent’s mental fingertips had over time interwoven with his ever-growing profiling skills. No question, Reid was a key asset to Hotchner’s team.
Coming into the bullpen from her office was Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Jareau, a quietly stunning blue-eyed blonde who served as the BAU’s Media and Local Law Enforcement Liaison. JJ looked typically crisp and professional in black slacks and black pumps with a white blouse under a black waistcoat. A Georgetown journalism graduate, she wasn’t much older than Reid and, hence, the second youngest member of the team. Over the last several years, Hotchner had watched with considerable satisfaction as Jareau’s maturity leapt beyond her youth.
The newest member of their team was nothing less than a legend in the FBI, and a bestselling author to boot, as well as a top lecturer both within the profession and without. The fiftyish David Rossi had the look of a professor at a small college—black hair, well-trimmed goatee, and casual business attire (blue work shirt with a striped tie under a gray sports jacket and, of course, jeans). When he strolled out of the elevator, as if he owned the joint, his confidence managed to stop just this side of arrogance.
Maybe he didn’t own the joint, but Rossi had certainly helped build it. Back in the day, along with Max Ryan and Jason Gideon (a Ryan protégé), Rossi had pioneered criminal profiling, which led to the creation of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Of this three-man profiler Hall of Fame, Ryan had retired to a quiet life away from the violence and heartache that accompanied their job, Rossi to the bestseller list, the talk show stage and lecture circuit, and now Gideon was gone, too.
With Gideon’s sudden and unexpected resignation, Rossi had volunteered to come back, for reasons of his own, and Hotchner had hoped this venerable hero of their field might fill the void left by Gideon. But Gideon had been the heart of the team, its conscience, its spiritual center, whereas Rossi was a loner who—while his value could not be underestimated— as yet showed limited signs of wanting to play father confessor or lead them in a round of “Kum Ba Yah” around the campfire.
And there had been some friction when Rossi returned—he had his way, the old way, the team had theirs, the new way. The transition had been difficult for Hotchner who had, after all, been recruited to the BAU by Rossi. Now as his mentor’s boss, Hotchner occasionally had to redefine their roles in this new circumstance.
As he came up the few stairs to the elevated level and passed the window of Hotchner’s office, Rossi gave Hotchner a scampish little grin and a nod, then moved on. There was something both friendly and hostile about it—Rossi reminding the stoic Hotchner that a profiler could actually have a sense of humor.
The last to show was Derek Morgan, an African-American with short hair and a killer smile, who had the build of the ex-athlete he was. Originally from Chicago, Morgan graduated from Northwestern Law, was an ex-cop (his father had been a cop, too) and had spent some time with ATF before joining the BAU almost ten years ago.
Morgan had no shortage of brains, but if there was muscle on Hotchner’s team, Morgan was it—in addition to his BAU duties, he also taught hand-to-hand combat at Quantico. Morgan wore a light blue pullover sweater, dark dress slacks, black rubber-soled shoes, his service pistol riding his hip. He strode through the bullpen with a confidence considerably less surreptitious than Rossi’s, headed up the few stairs, and came straight to the door of Hotchner’s office.
Morgan knocked.
“Come in,” Hotchner told the closed door.