Criminal Minds: Friends Become Family

2: Acting Out

We get to the police station to see that the bulletin board was set up and ready to go. I looked at all the victims and asked, "Do we have personal information about the victims?"

Spencer handed me some files of every victim, and I looked at them to see any patterns. "Hey, guys," I say, and everyone looks at me, "Look at this..." I pointed at the papers, "All victims are either single or divorced and had a child between the ages of 5 to 10 years old."

Everyone looks at the papers, and Hotch said, "We never found any remains of kids, and there haven't been any reports of missing children has there sheriff," he asks, looking at the sheriff.

The sheriff said, "Let me look in the database," but Hotch took his phone out and called someone, I knew right away it was Penelope when she said, "Speak to the all mighty queen of the tech world."

Morgan said, "Hey baby girl, can you look up missing children in Tennessee in the past 10 days with the age range of 5 to 10 years old?"

"Is that even a question, Chocolate Thunder, I can have that ready to go in 5 seconds. Derek Morgan are you judging my fast and furious tech skills, I am ashamed of you," Penelope said as she hung up and sent the information over. Hotch looked at Morgan and said, "Remind me to have her drug tested when we get back." We all laughed under our breath.

The computer screen lit up with 20 missing children that Garcia found in the database. I pointed out, "Look at this kid, Zaya West, she's 7 years old and went missing 4 days ago. 4 days ago Zainab Lee was murder in her house, and she had a new puppy that hasn't been found yet."

Spencer added, "Also, she is divorced, but she had a normal relationship with her ex-husband. Zander West has visitation rights with Zaya, and when his ex-wife didn't bring her, that's when they both were reported missing."

Hotch said, "Let's bring the ex-husband in to see if we can get any information from him."

I added, "Guys is about 1:30 if this Unsub sticks to his M.O. they're going to strike again tonight."

"Alex is right; we need to catch this guy before more people die and go missing. Derek, call Penelope and have her send us single parents with children 5 to 10 years old that have gone missing in the last two days. Alex and Prentiss, you go talk to the ex-husband, and Reid try to map out where he may be going next," Hotch said as he took David with him.

Emily and I were waiting in an office for the ex-husband to come, so she started a conversation with me, "How long have you been studying profiling?"

"My adopted father was Jason Gideon so pretty much my entire life," trying to laugh it off, but I could tell that she was surprised that Jason Gideon was my father. I said, " Yes, I know my adoptive father was one of the first guys who started the BAU, and I was trained by the best."

She laughed and said, "I guess you get that reaction from everyone then," I laughed and said, "No, only you, Hotch, and Rossi knows, and I want to keep it that way."

"Why," She asked? I sighed and said, "Because-" but then the office door opened, and Zander West came in."

I looked up and shook his hand, "Hi Mr.West I am Agent Montgomery, and this is Agent Prentiss, thank you for coming on short notice. We really appreciate it," I said as Emily started to shake his had.

Emily said, "Please take a seat," and so he did and said, "Have you found my little girl yet. She's all I have left." I looked at Emily and then back at him and said, "No, we haven't found her yet, but we won't stop looking until we find her. Can you tell us, did Zainab act differently before she went missing?"

He started to think but then shook his head. He then remembered something, "Zainab never acted differently, but Zara was. Zara was my sweet angel, but I realized that she has been acting out in class and being disruptive. It wasn't like her."

Emily asked, "How long ago was that?"

"I saw her every other week so last week, but I found out it has been happening for longer than last week. Apparently, it's been going on for about two months," Zander said.

I leaned over to Emily and said, "Let's check other kids' behavior at school. See if any of them match Zara's behavior." She nodded and went outside, and Zander looked at me with tears in his eyes, "Zara does what she is told, so if someone told her to do it, she will. Please find my little princess."

I took his hand and said, "We are doing everything we can."

He shook his head and said, "I was trying to make things right with Zainab, and at first she wanted to get back together, but then she started dating again, so I stepped back."

"Wait," I said, "When did she start to date again?" He looked confused but said, "When Zara was about 5 so two years ago, why?"

I then asked, "Was she dating someone before she went missing?"

He shook his head and said, "No, she was in a relationship with this guy Andrew Hud, but they broke up five months ago, and she didn't date after that."

'Five months ago,' I thought to myself, and then it hit me. "Excuse me," I said, walking out of the room and grabbing Emily's phone while she was talking to Garcia.

"Hey-" Emily said, but I started to talk to Garcia and said, "Hey Garcia, I need you to do a search on Andrew Hud and also do a search on unsolved murders or missing cases from five months ago in this area."

Garcia said, confused, " Umm... Andrew Hud. Single lost his wife and twins in a harsh custody battle, and when he was ten, his parents separated, and the only thing he had was his pet dog, Snowy, but she got taken away because he was put into foster homes. Also, he became a foster parent and... Oh, Wow..."

"What is it, Garcia? What did you find," I asked urgently, and she said, "He is currently fostering about five children and guess this they are the same five missing children from the previous murders."

I looked up at Emily and said we need to gather the team together.

The team got together and said, "Andrew Hud is our unsub Garcia is sending our location I believe he is holding the kids' hostage there."