(Criminal Minds/Hawaii 5-0) All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men for infinimato
Title: All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men
Author: snoozing_kitten
Fandoms: Criminal Minds, Hawaii 5-0
Characters: Steve McGarrette, Danny Williams, Chin Ho Kelly, Kono Kalakaua, Max Bergman; Aaron Hotchner, Jennifer Jareau, Emily Prentiss, Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan, Penelope Garcia
Pairings: Gen flavoured with Emily/Steve and Kono/Rossi
Rating: PG-13 for case related violence
Word Count: 5,948
Spoilers: None, set in any later season of Criminal Minds and first season Hawaii 5-0
Warnings: Mention of murder and child abuse
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds and Hawaii 5-0 both belong to their respective creators
A/N: Thank you to my beta perdiccas for working under such time constraints!
Summary: A series of floaters in Hawaii wouldn’t be anything too odd, with 1210 kilometres of coast line it’s actually pretty normal, only all these girls look eerily similar. Lack of evidence brings in the BAU to consult with Hawaii’s special crime task-force the ‘Five-oh’.
“You know you’re always welcome on my island, but I think I’d prefer it if you were here on vacation next time.” Steve had his arms crossed across his chest. Danny was leaning heavily against his car sticking to the minimal amount of shade it offered. The metal was hot, uncomfortably so, but the alternative was standing under his own energy and that was no alternative at all.
It hadn’t been a good week. Even for Hawaii it was hot as balls and Danny wasn’t happy about it. Nor did it seem was the criminal element on the island. It seemed as though they were getting a break from terrorists and triads for a nice run of the mill bug-fuck crazy serial killer. Fan-tastic.
“Hey man, if you’re offering.” Agent Morgan’s teeth flashed white against his dark skin. Their private jet touched down on one of the smaller airstrips on the island and instead of letting them liaise with Honolulu PD it seemed like a good time to pull out the good old Five-Oh.
Dr. Reid was hovering in the shadow cast by the plane, he looked completely miserable, blond hair lank against his forehead already. Danny could appreciate that.
“You know Hawaii’s beaches are always open.”
“I prefer mine without dead bodies,” Agent Prentiss said, stepping off the plane and onto the tarmac followed by Agent Jareau and finally Special Agent Hotchner.
Danny had seen the infamous team in passing only once before the last case they came in on, when he had been younger and it had only been Agents Rossi and Hotchner doing a consult on a kidnapping case. He had to admit that what they did was different and a little bit like voodoo, but when you hit that wall in a case, no one was about to turn down any kind of lead. Danny would legitimately beg for any sort of information that could stop these girls from getting hurt. Nothing bad should ever happen to little girls. Ever.
He hadn’t the chance to properly appreciate what kind of fine (and brilliant, gun-wielding, competent) females they had on their team. Kono was giving him a knowing look from where she was half sitting on the hood of the SUV. Danny tried to tell her to ‘stuff it’, politely, she was a lady, with his eyebrows.
“This is Detective Danny Williams.” Steve pointed at him and Danny waved, refusing to budge even a toe out of the pitiful protection of the puddle of shade. It didn’t help much; the air itself was trying to steam him from the inside out. Stick a meat thermometer in him, he was officially done. “Officers Chin Ho Kelly, and Kalakaua.”
“I remember.” Agent Hotchner nodded at them. “Let’s get a move on this thing. We debriefed in the flight over.”
“Is it always this hot here?” Prentiss asked, staring at the achingly blue sky.
“Average heat is about 95 degrees. Statistically opportunistic violent rapes only happen when it is hot outside, although this trend shows preference for non-extreme weather patterns. Crimes like burglary are less linked to the weather and more strongly correlated with the time of day.”
“You don’t change at all do you?” Chin Ho smiled at him, and Reid shrugged loosely.
“Reid, Morgan you’re with me, we’ll go to the morgue. Prentiss and JJ, set up HQ.” Agent Hotchner was brisk. Danny was more than a little amused at his tie, he would bet that Steve wouldn’t hassle him about it. Comparatively Kono was wearing obscenely tight jeans and Chin Ho had some sort of inborn island vendetta against the top two buttons of his painfully loud shirt. This was what Danny had been trying to explain to them, compared to the feds they looked like the homeless of crime fighting.
“Chin, you and Kono escort them to the morgue. Danny, back to HQ.” Steve said, as if to prove his tone could be every bit as commanding.
“Thank god, air conditioning,” Danny muttered reverently, opening the door so he could get in.
“Back seat.” Steve pointed.
“This is my car.” Danny frowned, the nerve of the guy. “You can’t put me in the backseat.”
“Be a gentleman and get in the back seat, I need to go over some case details with Emily.” Steve did that eyebrow thing and if the F.B.I. were not staring at them Danny would have won this argument.
“Fine.” Danny crawled in the back of his car, he had never sat in the back before; it was kind of claustrophobic. “Never sat back here before.” He groused loudly.
“It’s not exactly regulation is it?” Agent Jareau said, not unkindly, Danny was well versed in all the ways women could say things unkindly.
“It’s my car. He’s always driving my car. Does that make sense to you?”
He wasn’t sulking, no matter what Steve insinuated from behind the wheel, eyebrows jumping conspicuously in the rear-view in between bits of his conversation with Prentiss. It was something that Danny noticed last time, Agent Prentiss and Steve seemed thick as thieves, muttering in some sort of spy code between the two of them and Danny forgot his decoder ring. Running with Steve he should just wear it all the time, but that would be too much of a commitment symbol and he was having enough trouble picking up as it was with people thinking him and Steve were an item.
“The first victim was found in Hanauma Bay Nature Reserve Park correct? That looks pretty out of the way.” Prentiss asked the car at large.
“Nothing in Hawaii is that out of the way,” Danny muttered. Incestuous islands.
“Ocean currents in the area mean the body could have drifted in from any of the surrounding areas. It’s impossible to tell.” Steve responded.
“Trace from abrasions on all the victims points to the same kind of rope.” Danny pointed out, Fong was a forensics god, but even he couldn’t pull evidence out of a void and that was about all they had.
“Something changed.” Prentiss mumbled, the rustling of crime scene photos on her lap. “The most recent victim--they must have not been tied up as well--floated up too soon. Were they interrupted at the dump site? There are some signs of sexual assault. All forensic evidence has been mostly washed away, no fingerprints or DNA.”
“As a method of hiding the crime, little beats complete submersion in the water.” Agent Jareau said from beside him.
“Makes our job really difficult.” Danny didn’t whine, he used his mature adult voice.
--
Rossi had a few theories about the nature of a few relationships within the task-force here, none he was going to say out loud, but he did find that Detective Williams reminded him a lot of his second wife. She had been the classical spit-fire red-head and that had been what he’d loved most about her.
If they had to be here any longer than a day he was going in invest in one of those bright shirts. They looked comfortable, much more breathable than his own shirt was and he’d left the jacket in the plane as soon as they landed. It was obvious he wouldn’t be needing it.
The morgue was cold; he was used to the chill and the faintly sweet smell of decay that hung around these places no matter what kind of air fresheners were used. The smell of lipofaction, degradation of body fats was an oily smell, it clung to hair and clothing. Impossible to get out.
The medical examiner was a squirrely kind of guy. He had impossibly expressive eyebrows. Now when he spoke he was brilliant, reminded him a little of Reid in that respect, so smart that it was impossible for him to be normal, like he couldn’t even be bothered to try.
“Tell me about the victims.” Aaron said obviously direct, and Dr. Bergman fluttered a little, looking distinctly unsettled.
“I couldn’t find anything conclusive about the first victim.” He shuffled to the left, puffing out his chest a little bit. Scared, but refusing to be intimidated by an alpha male. Rossi gave him a polite smile. “There was too much damage, there did not seem to any sort of sharp-force or blunt-force trauma to the bone structure.”
“The second?”
“Still not a lot of evidence to be found. The bodies had been submerged too long.”
“Warm water causes more rapid deterioration,” Reid piped up. Dr. Bergman looked at him, blinked a few times behind his glasses and smiled.
“Correct. The waters around Hawaii are very temperate and full of marine fauna.”
“I like your desktop dalek,” Reid said. “It’s cool.”
“Thank you.” He seemed to relax a little, making more frequent eye contact with Reid. A sort of geek bonding ritual, given that a ‘dalek’ could be any of the assorted baubles on Dr. Bergman’s desk and Rossi wouldn’t know. He traded a glance with Aaron that was entirely fond amusement. “The third victim was different, it seems whatever was weighing her down came undone and she washed up on the beach earlier than the others. From her I’ve found evidence of sexual trauma as well as evidence of bruising around the throat. Her body washed up very quickly.”
“Was he interrupted?” Morgan peered at the file. Rossi thought the girl was young, too young and pretty to end up on the metal gurney of the autopsy room; it was always the pretty young girls.
“Possibly.” Aaron nodded.
“Anything else?” Rossi asked the ME.
“Submersion washed away a lot of detail.”
“Hey, sorry for interrupting Max.” Officer Kalakaua nodded at him. “We’ve got a call from HPD, a young girl was just reported missing, Vanessa Ng. She matches the same physical description as the others so far. I’ve called HDP, they will send an extra SUV over for you guys. I’m going to go talk to the family.”
“Rossi, Morgan.” Aaron nodded at her.
“Dr. Bergman, I’d like to ask you a little more about what you remember about the victims.” Reid asked, looking to Aaron for confirmation.
“That would be fine, Dr. Reid.” The ME lead them towards his desk were all the files were open, even as Kono was leading them out of the office.
They took the SUV, Kono sliding behind the wheel, confident despite her age. Rossi watched as Morgan tried to pretend he didn’t notice her. It was difficult, she was quite beautiful.
“You’re a bit young for this position.” Kono smiled at him in the rear-view, she drove fast and aggressively pushing the laws in a way only police officers did. She was the island personified, laid back and intense in turn from what Rossi could gather. “I didn’t get to ask much last time we were here.”
“No.” She made this sort of purring sound bra it sounded like. “Chin, he’s family, and the whole family is PD. He and Steve go way back, so when Steve set up the five-oh, he asked me to help out on a few cases. Some things just need a feminine touch.”
“You know what, I bet they do.” Morgan smiled and Kalakaua laughed, deep and throaty despite her slight figure.
--
“Vanessa Ng,” Garcia’s voice came through, speakers crystal clear. The five-oh had a sweet set up here, Emily was actually kind of jealous. Steve had always been incredible at whatever he wanted to do, apparently this week it was being a police officer.
When Emily had been younger she had been introduced to a young Steve McGarrett; never had one seen such a sight in navy whites. Steve was dark-haired, dangerous and tanned like his island home. Emily wasn’t usually the leap first and look later type, especially with guys. Steve had smiled at her, and Emily had immediately melted at the flash of perfect teeth mixed with complete confidence in himself. At first she thought she’d hate him, she wasn’t one for the jock types but Steve was nice, he was sweet and it had been a blast while it lasted.
Even now it was good to see him, especially to see him happy, Emily kept precious few friends.
“Look, are you going to take Gracie for surfing lessons or not? I can go with you guys, make sure you don’t drown. I’d hate for Gracie to see that.” Steve was saying to his shorter companion, he didn’t look pleased about it at all, mouth turning down into a frown.
“Just because I don’t swim like the fish in the great blue sea doesn’t mean I’m about to drown. I’ll have you know I swim perfectly fine.” Their interactions spoke of a deep trust. The Five-oh were every a bit a family as her own team was.
“You really call that swimming?” Steve asked, looking down his nose.
“Besides, Kono does all the surfing, I just buy the sno-cones.”
“I see, that’s how it is.” Steve grinned at Detective Williams. Despite his relaxed posture he was looming, grinning down at him in a way that seem specifically to incite the other man’s irritation. They were kind of cute, in a grade school kind of way.
“If I could interrupt, we have a missing persons report fitting the string of victims so far coming into HDP.” Garcia said, the words coming slowly like she was reading them as she spoke.
It was like a switch flipping, both of them dropped their conversation immediately. Steve’s spine straightened out pulling him to his full height and Detective Williams fell in behind him, the two of them making their way to the main room. Emily shared a look with JJ, JJ just shook her head with a small smile. Boys, will always be boys. Unless they were Spencer, he was like super boy, and sometimes Emily thought Aaron was actually a robot.
“We’re on three-way with the others.” Garcia spoke, “Vanessa Ng, sixteen years old, lives in Pearl City. She went missing from her walk home, she vanished some point between splitting up with her friend Rebecca Stevens and arriving home. She walks the same way home every day, police canvassed the area but no one has seen anything so far.”
“If it is the same guy that is a huge jump,” Emily said. “The girls so far have been high risk, not one missing persons report, no records of them at all.”
“Records show Vanessa is a middle student, grades are average. She has four younger siblings, no trouble at school. I’m sending her files to your PDAs.” Garcia said, followed by tapping and the usual rumbling vibration of her blackberry.
“Here, just put it on the table, it’ll read the files and throw them up on the screen there.” Steve waved a hand at the table-top vaguely. Emily was intrigued, she hadn’t known it would do that.
“Wait. Wait. Hold on a sec, are you telling me you have one of the Surface 2 tables? Where did you get one of those?” Garcia sounded excited, Emily could just imagine her sort of wiggling with glee.
“Is that what this was called? I thought it was just a massive ipad on legs.” Detective Williams pulled a face at the table.
“You wound me. It is so much more than Apple could provide.”
“Garcia, not the time,” Morgan said over the phone. “Focus.”
“Right, I believe the parents are on the way to see you. That’s all I have right now, Garcia over and out.”
“... An ipad with legs, I go through all this trouble to give you these nice things.” Steve cast a look at his partner.
“Ignoring you to focus on the missing girl,” Detective Williams said back, purposely turning his back on Steve’s teasing smile. “I will start listening again when you have important comments to make, until then, shut up Steven.”
“Is there a list of people we could compile, people who work near the water, who could sink a body easily without being noticed?” JJ asked, looking at the map taped to the window; there were little stickies where the bodies washed up.
“Dead-end, this is Hawaii, everyone spends some part of their day on or around the water.” Steve tapped his feet, staring at the data about Vanessa as it scrolled up on the screen.
“Okay, so he went from high risk girls to abducting on a residential street. Why?” JJ asked, she too was watching the scrolling information. No matter how many missing kids you see, it doesn’t get any better.
“Maybe she was his intended all along? The others were practice.” Emily said, toying with the thought out loud.
“Sound theory, give me more.” Morgan always wanted into a room like a force of nature. He was a natural leader, she had seen him walk into a police station and stare down the most territorial of detectives. Steve quirked a bit of an eyebrow but moved to the side. Rossi was trailing with the pretty detective.
God, had Emily ever been so young? Officer Kalakaua was laughing at something Rossi said, and Emily felt she should congratulate him or something. She was showing all the signs of romantic acceptance, touching the ends of her hair angling her head towards him. Emily couldn’t wait until they were alone to rib Morgan about that one. She smiled at him, knowingly, he gave her a good-natured sort of shrug in return.
“Did you like Max?” Danny grinned.
“I think him and Reid are about to trade phone numbers for Star Trek conventions.” Morgan smiled.
“He’s a character,” the blond detective agreed, bouncing on his toes.
“Maybe the unsub knew Vanessa? He might have stalked her before committing to the abduction,” Emily continued, mostly ignoring them. The evidence was bouncing around in her head, twisting to fit different patterns and shapes. Too many theories not enough evidence.
“This could be gang related, getting rid of unwanted merchandise? Vanessa could be unrelated.”
“Possible.” Rossi agreed. “Doesn’t explain the similarity between the four victims.”
“Reid would say it is statistically unlikely,” JJ said.
“The first victims were impossible to identify, we cannot base a victim profile on facial reconstruction.” Emily wasn’t about to commit them to the wrong path, there was a missing girl to think about.
“It is unprecedented,” Morgan agreed.
“Starting with Vanessa: it’s risky to abduct a girl on a city street like that. To not garner attention, he must have known her or had a credible story to get her to go with him quietly,” Rossi added.
“Kono, check for any other attacks across the island,” Steve said. “Attempted abductions, stalking complaints.”
“No other missing girls in that age group boss. A few run-aways, putting their images up on the screen now.” None of the other girls looked similar.
“We’ll know more when the parents arrive.” Morgan said, moving over to the screen to read the police reports from the other abductions while Emily bee-lined for the missing person’s report from earlier today.
--
Morgan had to admit that Kono, who refused to be called Officer Kalakaua (which is handy since it was difficult to say), was hot. A bit on the young side, but she had more than the confidence and grace of women twice her age.
Of course, she was hitting on Rossi. That just wasn’t fair.
“If you stick around, I can show you the beaches, teach you to surf.” Just because she had an inexplicable crush on Rossi didn’t mean she wasn’t completely chill.
Hotch and Emily were in with the family, Reid had returned much to Morgan’s playful jabs about making a new friend. Morgan turned the possibilities over in his mind, trying to puzzle it all together. Reid was sitting on a desk, cross legged and staring at the wall of information. His expression was completely blank, mind whirring behind his eyes like super computer, chugging away through the data trying to build connections. Steve and Danny were with Chin Ho, too far away to listen to the content of the conversation. JJ was clumsily using the touch-table to go over their old evidence in full while Reid just watched it all go by.
“That would be great, you get good waves here?” Morgan was watching everyone subconsciously, keeping tabs on their movements in his peripheral. It was habitual.
“No waves like those in Hawaii.” Kono’s smile was slow and sunny.
“I have to ask- are they always like that?” He nodded his head in the direction of Steve, Danny and Chin Ho.
“The boss and Danny? Yeah man, that’s just how they are. It’s cute.”
“Are you talking secrets about me babe?” Danny called out, catching her nod, he wiggled his eyebrows at her. “You’d better be saying nice things.”
“Only the best,” Kono agreed. Morgan smiled at them. Their group dynamics were a lot stronger than one would have guessed at first glance.
Emily came out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.
“Can you get Garcia up on the screen?” Emily asked.
“Yeah.” Chin Ho tapped away at the table and his baby-girl was up on the big screen looking splendid in peacock hues. If any of the Five-oh thought anything odd about this they didn’t say anything.
“Hello, who is tall, dark and gorgeous?” Garcia zeroed in on Steve instantly, Danny smiled wide and elbowed Steve none to politely.
“Commander McGarrett,” Steve replied with an implied ma’am.
“Garcia,” Emily stepped in, “I need you to look into the Ng financials, phone records, we need to know people who are in contact with them. Vanessa was responsible for her age, took care of her siblings and would have never gotten into a car with someone she didn’t know.”
“On it.” Garcia began typing away.
“I want one,” Kono declared. “Can we get one?”
“Sorry, there is only one great and mighty Garcia, all the others are pale imitations.” Garcia said without looking up from her other computer screen.
“I don’t think you’d like Hawaii much. Way too much sun and surf for the great and mighty Garcia.” Morgan smiled at her. Kono was giving him an amused look. He shrugged it off, Garcia was like his little sister; she was special and deserved special treatment.
“From your list, isolate males over the age of 30. If our unsub is killing girls and then using the ocean to hide the bodies he’s not a disorganized killer.” Emily said, and Morgan agreed with her analysis.
“It shows thought to forensic counter-measures.” Morgan said for the benefit of Kono whom was looking quite interested.
“Send that list over. We’ll work from it.” Emily told her.
“I will compile as fast as I can compile.” Garcia gave them a jaunty salute and the screen blinked out.
--
Steve was itching to do something. He hated the waiting game. Danno, oddly was much better at it than Steve would ever give him credit for. It was probably a cop thing, but Danny didn’t seem to mind sitting on his hands waiting for leads to pan out. Steve preferred the aggressive line.
Find the suspect, or at least someone who knows the suspect and beat it out of them. End result, mission accomplished.
It usually worked better on gangs; he wasn’t really sure what to do with serial killers.
The BAU were the experts, they knew what they were doing. A slightly odd-ball team, Reid was like something out of a sci-fi movie that Danny loved. Steve could respect them. What he couldn’t deal with was sitting around when a girl was out there missing from her family. Short of driving around the island there wasn’t much he could do.
“You’re making me feel antsy.” Kono muttered, she was sitting at her desk watching him pace. Half an hour ago the tv adverts had started running and the news. Everyone was flashing photos of Vanessa’s face, appealing for community support to find her.
“I’m good.” Steve said, and Kono gave him the most blank, disbelieving look she had to have ever learned from Chin.
“Go, forage for food. Better yet, get me a hot dog, and coffee.” Kono smiled at him, and she had to know he was going to do it.
“Coffee? I want some.” Chin came to stand with them. He had his hands shoved in his pockets looking about as laid back as he got. Steve could only envy his ability. Danny was with the F.B.I agents, probably complaining about pineapples or something. “Only if you’re buying.”
“Why does it seem I’m always buying?”
They turned twin smiles on him, impish and Steve would always do anything for them, down to the trivial. Well, as long as he was out, might as well see if anyone else wanted coffee.
Agent Jareau was pretty, long straight blond hair, married, her husband must be a lucky guy. “Coffee? I’m going on a run; the team will mutiny if I don’t supply their habit.” She had a pretty smile.
“Yeah, that’d be nice. Thank you. I can tell you what everyone else gets.” Coffee was the basis of good teamwork.
Juggling that many coffees wasn’t easy; it was a leaning tower of caffeine.
He got back to the bullpen to find it a flurry of motion. Danny was yelling at someone on the phone, Garcia was up on the screen babbling and gesturing with a pink furry pen in her hand.
“What happened?” Steve frowned at them all.
“We got a call.” It was Kono who stopped to talk with him. “The guy who took her called, said to stop looking for her, she was happier with him. A whole bunch of other really creepy stuff. Not long enough to trace, sent the feds into a tizzy.”
“Contact the parents, we need them back here right now,” Hotchner was saying over the mess of people. JJ nodded at him pulling out her phone.
“Reid, any progress on the message?” Morgan asked.
Dr. Reid was writing out word for word across the large white board, circling words and letters and mumbling to himself. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to them at all. The pen made a faint ‘scree’ sound as the wet tip dragged across the plastic.
Chin was tapping away madly at the computer, dragging things around into different order.
“Reid, progress,” Hotchner ordered. Reid looked up this time, mouth still moving around the words as his eyes scanned across something only he could see for a moment.
“He says she’s pleased with him. Notice how he says her name; he’s not trying to distance himself from her at all, so she’s probably still alive. He’s delusional, the way he spoke of her, his island angel, he’s probably been harbouring this delusion for a long time.”
“Island angel?” Steve frowned, looking at Kono who nodded back at him. “He doesn’t sound local, are the Ngs a local family?”
“Second generation.” Chin answered.
“Garcia, check the list of people who are associated with the Ngs, take out all the Native Hawaiians.” Morgan asked, watching as the names flicked around data spilling across the one screen that was linked to Garcia’s system.
“Can you narrow it down any more?” she asked. There were still too many people on the list. Steve wasn’t above kicking down the doors of everyone on that list. Fifteen doors, for a little girl he could do that. Easy.
Mrs. Ng stepped through the door into the chaos of everyone rushing around a mountain of coffee sitting on the table, take-away trays piled high.
“This way ma’am.” Steve wrapped a hand around her shoulder. She was petite woman, couldn’t be more than five feet tall and tiny. Her face was held in a rigid mask, not a single hair out of place. She held her head high as her heels clicked across the expansive floor. Steve had to admire her fortitude. SEALS had nothing on mothers.
Emily followed them to smaller conference room. It was a more private and personal setting. Steve stood at the door while Emily sat across from her. Hotch followed them in with one of the cups of tea that Steve brought back.
“Thank you for coming back, we need your help to find your daughter. Now I am going to give you a profile and I need you to think if it matches anyone you know.” Hotch told her, voice leaving no doubt.
“Just relax and think about it.” Emily was calm, reassuring; Steve was quite impressed with her manner. Mrs Ng nodded at them, wrapped her small hands around the steaming cup.
“We’re looking for a male, between the ages of 35 and 50. He’s not from Hawaii originally. He’ll be well educated. You probably won’t be very comfortable around him, something about him puts you off, but he’s perfectly charming and there isn’t anything in particular you can point out. Maybe he spends a fraction of a second too long hovering when girls are around.”
Nothing on her face changed for a long time, she just stared at the steam rising from her tea. The urge to move, to protect, to do rose again and Steve tramped it down through will-power alone. Emily met his eyes briefly.
Nothing moved.
“Nicholas,” she said at long last, her mouth trembled a little but she gave nothing else away. “Nicholas Anders. My husband’s boss.”
“Thank you, we’ll look into it. If you could stay here that would be a big help.” Steve heard over his shoulder as he was walking into the main room.
“Nicholas Anders, I need information now. Address, vehicle information. Chin call up the traffic cameras in the surrounding area, was his car there that afternoon?” Chin nodded at him and the fed’s analyst began reading out the information as she found it.
“Silver SUV,” Chin called up his driver’s licence and vehicle registration.
“Nicholas Anders, owner of Steak, lives on 4562... I can’t say this Kaaaaa-humanu street?” Garcia drew the sounds out. Steve knew where that was. He wasn’t getting away.
“On it.” Morgan was going for the front door. Their equipment would be at the ready. Steve could sympathize. Action was the easy part.
“Let’s roll out. Kono, contact HPD while we move,” Steve called, instinctively knowing she would comply.
“Sirens off, his delusion is so strong that he might hurt her if he thinks we’re closing in,” Rossi said.
“Got it, I’ll have HPD cordon off the block but out of site,” Kono agreed.
It was dark by the time the SUVs and Danny’s Camero rolled up around the corner and out of sight. They were all kit out in tactical assault gear, even in the coolness of the night Steve could feel the heat gathering at the small of his back under the knife holster there. Danny looked miserable but that wasn’t anything too new.
“I’ll go in.” Emily said, “I wasn’t in the press release and I wasn’t the one who picked up the call. I’ll say it was car trouble, get eyes on him, we don’t have enough evidence to take him down unless she is in there.”
“Keep us in radio contact.” Steve said, he knew she wouldn’t thank him if he tried to protect her. Emily was a capable agent and brilliant at what she did.
It was a moonless night, thick clouds building up over-head and threatening storms. The darkness would only help them. As long as Emily was talking to him at the door he wouldn’t be able to hurt Vanessa. Captive recovery was the number one priority. He could hear over the radio, Emily playing lost, she faked it incredibly well; just the right blend of apologetic and desperate.
Chin Ho sat half sticking out of the van, favourite shotgun resting against his side, typing furiously at his computer.
“We have a vocal match,” he said, shutting the laptop with relish. “Anders is the man who called.”
“Alright, move in. Prentiss get ready.” Hotch spoke into the radio and Emily continued trying to sweet talk him.
It happened quickly, which is the point of a well-executed take-down; move in quick and strike hard, there is less chance of anything going wrong.
In the end it was Danny who found her in the basement and Steve would have given anything for it to be anyone but Danny. He’d wrapped her up in a blanket, because she had been naked and showed clear signs of struggle. She was alive but sobbing and shaking; Danny held her close and made wordless crooning sounds.
Steve wished the entry hadn’t been so easy, if Anderson had fought back Steve could have shot him. Maybe somewhere non-fatal. Maybe not.
--
“I mean it this time, next time had better include sun, surf and tourist coconut drinks.” Kono smiled at them. The plane was fuelled up and ready to go. The impossible heat had finally broken with a vicious rainstorm over night; morning brought the usual sunshine and rainbows that attracted tourists from all over. Danny could only be pleased about it because he had been this close to breaking out the truly embarrassing outfits in an effort to beat the heat. Steve would have given him shit about it from now until the end of time.
“You’re welcome back any time, it’s a nice place to vacation,” Chin Ho added.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll drop by in all the ridiculous amount of free time I get,” Prentiss tossed over her shoulder before herding Jareau onto the waiting plane.
“It’s been a pleasure Commander McGarrett.” Hotch shook Steve’s hand. Morgan bumped fists with him and they were gone.
“Friendly neighbourhood experts on all that is crazy. Can we get back to the usual now? I mean with the shooting and the car chases that threaten my life on a daily basis. I do have to admit, I liked having them around, Agent Hotchner seriously curbed your insanity.”
“I wouldn’t mind if they were around,” Kono said and Chin shot her a blank look.
“Oh, I bet. You are not subtle at all, cuz.”
Kono pulled a face at Chin, and Chin grinned stupidly at her, Steve was probably going to strong arm him into the passenger seat of his own car. Danny still hated pineapples, but there was a young girl who was home with her family, and she was strong, she would get over this and she would grow up to be amazing. Another sick bastard off the streets. It was a pretty good day in Hawaii.
-END-
Prompts:
-Casefic
-Not you again
-Serial killer on the islands
Author: snoozing_kitten
Fandoms: Criminal Minds, Hawaii 5-0
Characters: Steve McGarrette, Danny Williams, Chin Ho Kelly, Kono Kalakaua, Max Bergman; Aaron Hotchner, Jennifer Jareau, Emily Prentiss, Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan, Penelope Garcia
Pairings: Gen flavoured with Emily/Steve and Kono/Rossi
Rating: PG-13 for case related violence
Word Count: 5,948
Spoilers: None, set in any later season of Criminal Minds and first season Hawaii 5-0
Warnings: Mention of murder and child abuse
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds and Hawaii 5-0 both belong to their respective creators
A/N: Thank you to my beta perdiccas for working under such time constraints!
Summary: A series of floaters in Hawaii wouldn’t be anything too odd, with 1210 kilometres of coast line it’s actually pretty normal, only all these girls look eerily similar. Lack of evidence brings in the BAU to consult with Hawaii’s special crime task-force the ‘Five-oh’.
“You know you’re always welcome on my island, but I think I’d prefer it if you were here on vacation next time.” Steve had his arms crossed across his chest. Danny was leaning heavily against his car sticking to the minimal amount of shade it offered. The metal was hot, uncomfortably so, but the alternative was standing under his own energy and that was no alternative at all.
It hadn’t been a good week. Even for Hawaii it was hot as balls and Danny wasn’t happy about it. Nor did it seem was the criminal element on the island. It seemed as though they were getting a break from terrorists and triads for a nice run of the mill bug-fuck crazy serial killer. Fan-tastic.
“Hey man, if you’re offering.” Agent Morgan’s teeth flashed white against his dark skin. Their private jet touched down on one of the smaller airstrips on the island and instead of letting them liaise with Honolulu PD it seemed like a good time to pull out the good old Five-Oh.
Dr. Reid was hovering in the shadow cast by the plane, he looked completely miserable, blond hair lank against his forehead already. Danny could appreciate that.
“You know Hawaii’s beaches are always open.”
“I prefer mine without dead bodies,” Agent Prentiss said, stepping off the plane and onto the tarmac followed by Agent Jareau and finally Special Agent Hotchner.
Danny had seen the infamous team in passing only once before the last case they came in on, when he had been younger and it had only been Agents Rossi and Hotchner doing a consult on a kidnapping case. He had to admit that what they did was different and a little bit like voodoo, but when you hit that wall in a case, no one was about to turn down any kind of lead. Danny would legitimately beg for any sort of information that could stop these girls from getting hurt. Nothing bad should ever happen to little girls. Ever.
He hadn’t the chance to properly appreciate what kind of fine (and brilliant, gun-wielding, competent) females they had on their team. Kono was giving him a knowing look from where she was half sitting on the hood of the SUV. Danny tried to tell her to ‘stuff it’, politely, she was a lady, with his eyebrows.
“This is Detective Danny Williams.” Steve pointed at him and Danny waved, refusing to budge even a toe out of the pitiful protection of the puddle of shade. It didn’t help much; the air itself was trying to steam him from the inside out. Stick a meat thermometer in him, he was officially done. “Officers Chin Ho Kelly, and Kalakaua.”
“I remember.” Agent Hotchner nodded at them. “Let’s get a move on this thing. We debriefed in the flight over.”
“Is it always this hot here?” Prentiss asked, staring at the achingly blue sky.
“Average heat is about 95 degrees. Statistically opportunistic violent rapes only happen when it is hot outside, although this trend shows preference for non-extreme weather patterns. Crimes like burglary are less linked to the weather and more strongly correlated with the time of day.”
“You don’t change at all do you?” Chin Ho smiled at him, and Reid shrugged loosely.
“Reid, Morgan you’re with me, we’ll go to the morgue. Prentiss and JJ, set up HQ.” Agent Hotchner was brisk. Danny was more than a little amused at his tie, he would bet that Steve wouldn’t hassle him about it. Comparatively Kono was wearing obscenely tight jeans and Chin Ho had some sort of inborn island vendetta against the top two buttons of his painfully loud shirt. This was what Danny had been trying to explain to them, compared to the feds they looked like the homeless of crime fighting.
“Chin, you and Kono escort them to the morgue. Danny, back to HQ.” Steve said, as if to prove his tone could be every bit as commanding.
“Thank god, air conditioning,” Danny muttered reverently, opening the door so he could get in.
“Back seat.” Steve pointed.
“This is my car.” Danny frowned, the nerve of the guy. “You can’t put me in the backseat.”
“Be a gentleman and get in the back seat, I need to go over some case details with Emily.” Steve did that eyebrow thing and if the F.B.I. were not staring at them Danny would have won this argument.
“Fine.” Danny crawled in the back of his car, he had never sat in the back before; it was kind of claustrophobic. “Never sat back here before.” He groused loudly.
“It’s not exactly regulation is it?” Agent Jareau said, not unkindly, Danny was well versed in all the ways women could say things unkindly.
“It’s my car. He’s always driving my car. Does that make sense to you?”
He wasn’t sulking, no matter what Steve insinuated from behind the wheel, eyebrows jumping conspicuously in the rear-view in between bits of his conversation with Prentiss. It was something that Danny noticed last time, Agent Prentiss and Steve seemed thick as thieves, muttering in some sort of spy code between the two of them and Danny forgot his decoder ring. Running with Steve he should just wear it all the time, but that would be too much of a commitment symbol and he was having enough trouble picking up as it was with people thinking him and Steve were an item.
“The first victim was found in Hanauma Bay Nature Reserve Park correct? That looks pretty out of the way.” Prentiss asked the car at large.
“Nothing in Hawaii is that out of the way,” Danny muttered. Incestuous islands.
“Ocean currents in the area mean the body could have drifted in from any of the surrounding areas. It’s impossible to tell.” Steve responded.
“Trace from abrasions on all the victims points to the same kind of rope.” Danny pointed out, Fong was a forensics god, but even he couldn’t pull evidence out of a void and that was about all they had.
“Something changed.” Prentiss mumbled, the rustling of crime scene photos on her lap. “The most recent victim--they must have not been tied up as well--floated up too soon. Were they interrupted at the dump site? There are some signs of sexual assault. All forensic evidence has been mostly washed away, no fingerprints or DNA.”
“As a method of hiding the crime, little beats complete submersion in the water.” Agent Jareau said from beside him.
“Makes our job really difficult.” Danny didn’t whine, he used his mature adult voice.
--
Rossi had a few theories about the nature of a few relationships within the task-force here, none he was going to say out loud, but he did find that Detective Williams reminded him a lot of his second wife. She had been the classical spit-fire red-head and that had been what he’d loved most about her.
If they had to be here any longer than a day he was going in invest in one of those bright shirts. They looked comfortable, much more breathable than his own shirt was and he’d left the jacket in the plane as soon as they landed. It was obvious he wouldn’t be needing it.
The morgue was cold; he was used to the chill and the faintly sweet smell of decay that hung around these places no matter what kind of air fresheners were used. The smell of lipofaction, degradation of body fats was an oily smell, it clung to hair and clothing. Impossible to get out.
The medical examiner was a squirrely kind of guy. He had impossibly expressive eyebrows. Now when he spoke he was brilliant, reminded him a little of Reid in that respect, so smart that it was impossible for him to be normal, like he couldn’t even be bothered to try.
“Tell me about the victims.” Aaron said obviously direct, and Dr. Bergman fluttered a little, looking distinctly unsettled.
“I couldn’t find anything conclusive about the first victim.” He shuffled to the left, puffing out his chest a little bit. Scared, but refusing to be intimidated by an alpha male. Rossi gave him a polite smile. “There was too much damage, there did not seem to any sort of sharp-force or blunt-force trauma to the bone structure.”
“The second?”
“Still not a lot of evidence to be found. The bodies had been submerged too long.”
“Warm water causes more rapid deterioration,” Reid piped up. Dr. Bergman looked at him, blinked a few times behind his glasses and smiled.
“Correct. The waters around Hawaii are very temperate and full of marine fauna.”
“I like your desktop dalek,” Reid said. “It’s cool.”
“Thank you.” He seemed to relax a little, making more frequent eye contact with Reid. A sort of geek bonding ritual, given that a ‘dalek’ could be any of the assorted baubles on Dr. Bergman’s desk and Rossi wouldn’t know. He traded a glance with Aaron that was entirely fond amusement. “The third victim was different, it seems whatever was weighing her down came undone and she washed up on the beach earlier than the others. From her I’ve found evidence of sexual trauma as well as evidence of bruising around the throat. Her body washed up very quickly.”
“Was he interrupted?” Morgan peered at the file. Rossi thought the girl was young, too young and pretty to end up on the metal gurney of the autopsy room; it was always the pretty young girls.
“Possibly.” Aaron nodded.
“Anything else?” Rossi asked the ME.
“Submersion washed away a lot of detail.”
“Hey, sorry for interrupting Max.” Officer Kalakaua nodded at him. “We’ve got a call from HPD, a young girl was just reported missing, Vanessa Ng. She matches the same physical description as the others so far. I’ve called HDP, they will send an extra SUV over for you guys. I’m going to go talk to the family.”
“Rossi, Morgan.” Aaron nodded at her.
“Dr. Bergman, I’d like to ask you a little more about what you remember about the victims.” Reid asked, looking to Aaron for confirmation.
“That would be fine, Dr. Reid.” The ME lead them towards his desk were all the files were open, even as Kono was leading them out of the office.
They took the SUV, Kono sliding behind the wheel, confident despite her age. Rossi watched as Morgan tried to pretend he didn’t notice her. It was difficult, she was quite beautiful.
“You’re a bit young for this position.” Kono smiled at him in the rear-view, she drove fast and aggressively pushing the laws in a way only police officers did. She was the island personified, laid back and intense in turn from what Rossi could gather. “I didn’t get to ask much last time we were here.”
“No.” She made this sort of purring sound bra it sounded like. “Chin, he’s family, and the whole family is PD. He and Steve go way back, so when Steve set up the five-oh, he asked me to help out on a few cases. Some things just need a feminine touch.”
“You know what, I bet they do.” Morgan smiled and Kalakaua laughed, deep and throaty despite her slight figure.
--
“Vanessa Ng,” Garcia’s voice came through, speakers crystal clear. The five-oh had a sweet set up here, Emily was actually kind of jealous. Steve had always been incredible at whatever he wanted to do, apparently this week it was being a police officer.
When Emily had been younger she had been introduced to a young Steve McGarrett; never had one seen such a sight in navy whites. Steve was dark-haired, dangerous and tanned like his island home. Emily wasn’t usually the leap first and look later type, especially with guys. Steve had smiled at her, and Emily had immediately melted at the flash of perfect teeth mixed with complete confidence in himself. At first she thought she’d hate him, she wasn’t one for the jock types but Steve was nice, he was sweet and it had been a blast while it lasted.
Even now it was good to see him, especially to see him happy, Emily kept precious few friends.
“Look, are you going to take Gracie for surfing lessons or not? I can go with you guys, make sure you don’t drown. I’d hate for Gracie to see that.” Steve was saying to his shorter companion, he didn’t look pleased about it at all, mouth turning down into a frown.
“Just because I don’t swim like the fish in the great blue sea doesn’t mean I’m about to drown. I’ll have you know I swim perfectly fine.” Their interactions spoke of a deep trust. The Five-oh were every a bit a family as her own team was.
“You really call that swimming?” Steve asked, looking down his nose.
“Besides, Kono does all the surfing, I just buy the sno-cones.”
“I see, that’s how it is.” Steve grinned at Detective Williams. Despite his relaxed posture he was looming, grinning down at him in a way that seem specifically to incite the other man’s irritation. They were kind of cute, in a grade school kind of way.
“If I could interrupt, we have a missing persons report fitting the string of victims so far coming into HDP.” Garcia said, the words coming slowly like she was reading them as she spoke.
It was like a switch flipping, both of them dropped their conversation immediately. Steve’s spine straightened out pulling him to his full height and Detective Williams fell in behind him, the two of them making their way to the main room. Emily shared a look with JJ, JJ just shook her head with a small smile. Boys, will always be boys. Unless they were Spencer, he was like super boy, and sometimes Emily thought Aaron was actually a robot.
“We’re on three-way with the others.” Garcia spoke, “Vanessa Ng, sixteen years old, lives in Pearl City. She went missing from her walk home, she vanished some point between splitting up with her friend Rebecca Stevens and arriving home. She walks the same way home every day, police canvassed the area but no one has seen anything so far.”
“If it is the same guy that is a huge jump,” Emily said. “The girls so far have been high risk, not one missing persons report, no records of them at all.”
“Records show Vanessa is a middle student, grades are average. She has four younger siblings, no trouble at school. I’m sending her files to your PDAs.” Garcia said, followed by tapping and the usual rumbling vibration of her blackberry.
“Here, just put it on the table, it’ll read the files and throw them up on the screen there.” Steve waved a hand at the table-top vaguely. Emily was intrigued, she hadn’t known it would do that.
“Wait. Wait. Hold on a sec, are you telling me you have one of the Surface 2 tables? Where did you get one of those?” Garcia sounded excited, Emily could just imagine her sort of wiggling with glee.
“Is that what this was called? I thought it was just a massive ipad on legs.” Detective Williams pulled a face at the table.
“You wound me. It is so much more than Apple could provide.”
“Garcia, not the time,” Morgan said over the phone. “Focus.”
“Right, I believe the parents are on the way to see you. That’s all I have right now, Garcia over and out.”
“... An ipad with legs, I go through all this trouble to give you these nice things.” Steve cast a look at his partner.
“Ignoring you to focus on the missing girl,” Detective Williams said back, purposely turning his back on Steve’s teasing smile. “I will start listening again when you have important comments to make, until then, shut up Steven.”
“Is there a list of people we could compile, people who work near the water, who could sink a body easily without being noticed?” JJ asked, looking at the map taped to the window; there were little stickies where the bodies washed up.
“Dead-end, this is Hawaii, everyone spends some part of their day on or around the water.” Steve tapped his feet, staring at the data about Vanessa as it scrolled up on the screen.
“Okay, so he went from high risk girls to abducting on a residential street. Why?” JJ asked, she too was watching the scrolling information. No matter how many missing kids you see, it doesn’t get any better.
“Maybe she was his intended all along? The others were practice.” Emily said, toying with the thought out loud.
“Sound theory, give me more.” Morgan always wanted into a room like a force of nature. He was a natural leader, she had seen him walk into a police station and stare down the most territorial of detectives. Steve quirked a bit of an eyebrow but moved to the side. Rossi was trailing with the pretty detective.
God, had Emily ever been so young? Officer Kalakaua was laughing at something Rossi said, and Emily felt she should congratulate him or something. She was showing all the signs of romantic acceptance, touching the ends of her hair angling her head towards him. Emily couldn’t wait until they were alone to rib Morgan about that one. She smiled at him, knowingly, he gave her a good-natured sort of shrug in return.
“Did you like Max?” Danny grinned.
“I think him and Reid are about to trade phone numbers for Star Trek conventions.” Morgan smiled.
“He’s a character,” the blond detective agreed, bouncing on his toes.
“Maybe the unsub knew Vanessa? He might have stalked her before committing to the abduction,” Emily continued, mostly ignoring them. The evidence was bouncing around in her head, twisting to fit different patterns and shapes. Too many theories not enough evidence.
“This could be gang related, getting rid of unwanted merchandise? Vanessa could be unrelated.”
“Possible.” Rossi agreed. “Doesn’t explain the similarity between the four victims.”
“Reid would say it is statistically unlikely,” JJ said.
“The first victims were impossible to identify, we cannot base a victim profile on facial reconstruction.” Emily wasn’t about to commit them to the wrong path, there was a missing girl to think about.
“It is unprecedented,” Morgan agreed.
“Starting with Vanessa: it’s risky to abduct a girl on a city street like that. To not garner attention, he must have known her or had a credible story to get her to go with him quietly,” Rossi added.
“Kono, check for any other attacks across the island,” Steve said. “Attempted abductions, stalking complaints.”
“No other missing girls in that age group boss. A few run-aways, putting their images up on the screen now.” None of the other girls looked similar.
“We’ll know more when the parents arrive.” Morgan said, moving over to the screen to read the police reports from the other abductions while Emily bee-lined for the missing person’s report from earlier today.
--
Morgan had to admit that Kono, who refused to be called Officer Kalakaua (which is handy since it was difficult to say), was hot. A bit on the young side, but she had more than the confidence and grace of women twice her age.
Of course, she was hitting on Rossi. That just wasn’t fair.
“If you stick around, I can show you the beaches, teach you to surf.” Just because she had an inexplicable crush on Rossi didn’t mean she wasn’t completely chill.
Hotch and Emily were in with the family, Reid had returned much to Morgan’s playful jabs about making a new friend. Morgan turned the possibilities over in his mind, trying to puzzle it all together. Reid was sitting on a desk, cross legged and staring at the wall of information. His expression was completely blank, mind whirring behind his eyes like super computer, chugging away through the data trying to build connections. Steve and Danny were with Chin Ho, too far away to listen to the content of the conversation. JJ was clumsily using the touch-table to go over their old evidence in full while Reid just watched it all go by.
“That would be great, you get good waves here?” Morgan was watching everyone subconsciously, keeping tabs on their movements in his peripheral. It was habitual.
“No waves like those in Hawaii.” Kono’s smile was slow and sunny.
“I have to ask- are they always like that?” He nodded his head in the direction of Steve, Danny and Chin Ho.
“The boss and Danny? Yeah man, that’s just how they are. It’s cute.”
“Are you talking secrets about me babe?” Danny called out, catching her nod, he wiggled his eyebrows at her. “You’d better be saying nice things.”
“Only the best,” Kono agreed. Morgan smiled at them. Their group dynamics were a lot stronger than one would have guessed at first glance.
Emily came out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.
“Can you get Garcia up on the screen?” Emily asked.
“Yeah.” Chin Ho tapped away at the table and his baby-girl was up on the big screen looking splendid in peacock hues. If any of the Five-oh thought anything odd about this they didn’t say anything.
“Hello, who is tall, dark and gorgeous?” Garcia zeroed in on Steve instantly, Danny smiled wide and elbowed Steve none to politely.
“Commander McGarrett,” Steve replied with an implied ma’am.
“Garcia,” Emily stepped in, “I need you to look into the Ng financials, phone records, we need to know people who are in contact with them. Vanessa was responsible for her age, took care of her siblings and would have never gotten into a car with someone she didn’t know.”
“On it.” Garcia began typing away.
“I want one,” Kono declared. “Can we get one?”
“Sorry, there is only one great and mighty Garcia, all the others are pale imitations.” Garcia said without looking up from her other computer screen.
“I don’t think you’d like Hawaii much. Way too much sun and surf for the great and mighty Garcia.” Morgan smiled at her. Kono was giving him an amused look. He shrugged it off, Garcia was like his little sister; she was special and deserved special treatment.
“From your list, isolate males over the age of 30. If our unsub is killing girls and then using the ocean to hide the bodies he’s not a disorganized killer.” Emily said, and Morgan agreed with her analysis.
“It shows thought to forensic counter-measures.” Morgan said for the benefit of Kono whom was looking quite interested.
“Send that list over. We’ll work from it.” Emily told her.
“I will compile as fast as I can compile.” Garcia gave them a jaunty salute and the screen blinked out.
--
Steve was itching to do something. He hated the waiting game. Danno, oddly was much better at it than Steve would ever give him credit for. It was probably a cop thing, but Danny didn’t seem to mind sitting on his hands waiting for leads to pan out. Steve preferred the aggressive line.
Find the suspect, or at least someone who knows the suspect and beat it out of them. End result, mission accomplished.
It usually worked better on gangs; he wasn’t really sure what to do with serial killers.
The BAU were the experts, they knew what they were doing. A slightly odd-ball team, Reid was like something out of a sci-fi movie that Danny loved. Steve could respect them. What he couldn’t deal with was sitting around when a girl was out there missing from her family. Short of driving around the island there wasn’t much he could do.
“You’re making me feel antsy.” Kono muttered, she was sitting at her desk watching him pace. Half an hour ago the tv adverts had started running and the news. Everyone was flashing photos of Vanessa’s face, appealing for community support to find her.
“I’m good.” Steve said, and Kono gave him the most blank, disbelieving look she had to have ever learned from Chin.
“Go, forage for food. Better yet, get me a hot dog, and coffee.” Kono smiled at him, and she had to know he was going to do it.
“Coffee? I want some.” Chin came to stand with them. He had his hands shoved in his pockets looking about as laid back as he got. Steve could only envy his ability. Danny was with the F.B.I agents, probably complaining about pineapples or something. “Only if you’re buying.”
“Why does it seem I’m always buying?”
They turned twin smiles on him, impish and Steve would always do anything for them, down to the trivial. Well, as long as he was out, might as well see if anyone else wanted coffee.
Agent Jareau was pretty, long straight blond hair, married, her husband must be a lucky guy. “Coffee? I’m going on a run; the team will mutiny if I don’t supply their habit.” She had a pretty smile.
“Yeah, that’d be nice. Thank you. I can tell you what everyone else gets.” Coffee was the basis of good teamwork.
Juggling that many coffees wasn’t easy; it was a leaning tower of caffeine.
He got back to the bullpen to find it a flurry of motion. Danny was yelling at someone on the phone, Garcia was up on the screen babbling and gesturing with a pink furry pen in her hand.
“What happened?” Steve frowned at them all.
“We got a call.” It was Kono who stopped to talk with him. “The guy who took her called, said to stop looking for her, she was happier with him. A whole bunch of other really creepy stuff. Not long enough to trace, sent the feds into a tizzy.”
“Contact the parents, we need them back here right now,” Hotchner was saying over the mess of people. JJ nodded at him pulling out her phone.
“Reid, any progress on the message?” Morgan asked.
Dr. Reid was writing out word for word across the large white board, circling words and letters and mumbling to himself. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to them at all. The pen made a faint ‘scree’ sound as the wet tip dragged across the plastic.
Chin was tapping away madly at the computer, dragging things around into different order.
“Reid, progress,” Hotchner ordered. Reid looked up this time, mouth still moving around the words as his eyes scanned across something only he could see for a moment.
“He says she’s pleased with him. Notice how he says her name; he’s not trying to distance himself from her at all, so she’s probably still alive. He’s delusional, the way he spoke of her, his island angel, he’s probably been harbouring this delusion for a long time.”
“Island angel?” Steve frowned, looking at Kono who nodded back at him. “He doesn’t sound local, are the Ngs a local family?”
“Second generation.” Chin answered.
“Garcia, check the list of people who are associated with the Ngs, take out all the Native Hawaiians.” Morgan asked, watching as the names flicked around data spilling across the one screen that was linked to Garcia’s system.
“Can you narrow it down any more?” she asked. There were still too many people on the list. Steve wasn’t above kicking down the doors of everyone on that list. Fifteen doors, for a little girl he could do that. Easy.
Mrs. Ng stepped through the door into the chaos of everyone rushing around a mountain of coffee sitting on the table, take-away trays piled high.
“This way ma’am.” Steve wrapped a hand around her shoulder. She was petite woman, couldn’t be more than five feet tall and tiny. Her face was held in a rigid mask, not a single hair out of place. She held her head high as her heels clicked across the expansive floor. Steve had to admire her fortitude. SEALS had nothing on mothers.
Emily followed them to smaller conference room. It was a more private and personal setting. Steve stood at the door while Emily sat across from her. Hotch followed them in with one of the cups of tea that Steve brought back.
“Thank you for coming back, we need your help to find your daughter. Now I am going to give you a profile and I need you to think if it matches anyone you know.” Hotch told her, voice leaving no doubt.
“Just relax and think about it.” Emily was calm, reassuring; Steve was quite impressed with her manner. Mrs Ng nodded at them, wrapped her small hands around the steaming cup.
“We’re looking for a male, between the ages of 35 and 50. He’s not from Hawaii originally. He’ll be well educated. You probably won’t be very comfortable around him, something about him puts you off, but he’s perfectly charming and there isn’t anything in particular you can point out. Maybe he spends a fraction of a second too long hovering when girls are around.”
Nothing on her face changed for a long time, she just stared at the steam rising from her tea. The urge to move, to protect, to do rose again and Steve tramped it down through will-power alone. Emily met his eyes briefly.
Nothing moved.
“Nicholas,” she said at long last, her mouth trembled a little but she gave nothing else away. “Nicholas Anders. My husband’s boss.”
“Thank you, we’ll look into it. If you could stay here that would be a big help.” Steve heard over his shoulder as he was walking into the main room.
“Nicholas Anders, I need information now. Address, vehicle information. Chin call up the traffic cameras in the surrounding area, was his car there that afternoon?” Chin nodded at him and the fed’s analyst began reading out the information as she found it.
“Silver SUV,” Chin called up his driver’s licence and vehicle registration.
“Nicholas Anders, owner of Steak, lives on 4562... I can’t say this Kaaaaa-humanu street?” Garcia drew the sounds out. Steve knew where that was. He wasn’t getting away.
“On it.” Morgan was going for the front door. Their equipment would be at the ready. Steve could sympathize. Action was the easy part.
“Let’s roll out. Kono, contact HPD while we move,” Steve called, instinctively knowing she would comply.
“Sirens off, his delusion is so strong that he might hurt her if he thinks we’re closing in,” Rossi said.
“Got it, I’ll have HPD cordon off the block but out of site,” Kono agreed.
It was dark by the time the SUVs and Danny’s Camero rolled up around the corner and out of sight. They were all kit out in tactical assault gear, even in the coolness of the night Steve could feel the heat gathering at the small of his back under the knife holster there. Danny looked miserable but that wasn’t anything too new.
“I’ll go in.” Emily said, “I wasn’t in the press release and I wasn’t the one who picked up the call. I’ll say it was car trouble, get eyes on him, we don’t have enough evidence to take him down unless she is in there.”
“Keep us in radio contact.” Steve said, he knew she wouldn’t thank him if he tried to protect her. Emily was a capable agent and brilliant at what she did.
It was a moonless night, thick clouds building up over-head and threatening storms. The darkness would only help them. As long as Emily was talking to him at the door he wouldn’t be able to hurt Vanessa. Captive recovery was the number one priority. He could hear over the radio, Emily playing lost, she faked it incredibly well; just the right blend of apologetic and desperate.
Chin Ho sat half sticking out of the van, favourite shotgun resting against his side, typing furiously at his computer.
“We have a vocal match,” he said, shutting the laptop with relish. “Anders is the man who called.”
“Alright, move in. Prentiss get ready.” Hotch spoke into the radio and Emily continued trying to sweet talk him.
It happened quickly, which is the point of a well-executed take-down; move in quick and strike hard, there is less chance of anything going wrong.
In the end it was Danny who found her in the basement and Steve would have given anything for it to be anyone but Danny. He’d wrapped her up in a blanket, because she had been naked and showed clear signs of struggle. She was alive but sobbing and shaking; Danny held her close and made wordless crooning sounds.
Steve wished the entry hadn’t been so easy, if Anderson had fought back Steve could have shot him. Maybe somewhere non-fatal. Maybe not.
--
“I mean it this time, next time had better include sun, surf and tourist coconut drinks.” Kono smiled at them. The plane was fuelled up and ready to go. The impossible heat had finally broken with a vicious rainstorm over night; morning brought the usual sunshine and rainbows that attracted tourists from all over. Danny could only be pleased about it because he had been this close to breaking out the truly embarrassing outfits in an effort to beat the heat. Steve would have given him shit about it from now until the end of time.
“You’re welcome back any time, it’s a nice place to vacation,” Chin Ho added.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll drop by in all the ridiculous amount of free time I get,” Prentiss tossed over her shoulder before herding Jareau onto the waiting plane.
“It’s been a pleasure Commander McGarrett.” Hotch shook Steve’s hand. Morgan bumped fists with him and they were gone.
“Friendly neighbourhood experts on all that is crazy. Can we get back to the usual now? I mean with the shooting and the car chases that threaten my life on a daily basis. I do have to admit, I liked having them around, Agent Hotchner seriously curbed your insanity.”
“I wouldn’t mind if they were around,” Kono said and Chin shot her a blank look.
“Oh, I bet. You are not subtle at all, cuz.”
Kono pulled a face at Chin, and Chin grinned stupidly at her, Steve was probably going to strong arm him into the passenger seat of his own car. Danny still hated pineapples, but there was a young girl who was home with her family, and she was strong, she would get over this and she would grow up to be amazing. Another sick bastard off the streets. It was a pretty good day in Hawaii.
-END-
Prompts:
-Casefic
-Not you again
-Serial killer on the islands