(A/N: So…only one reviews. What do I have to do to get some feedback here people? Offer bribes? Beg? Ok…I'm begging. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! I want to know what you think. I want to know that people are actually reading this. Come on guys…tell me what you think. Anyway…here we go. This chapter continues in Reid's POV. Adreon…you rock. Woo-hoo for editing while babies sleep…that's what I call multi-tasking. Thanks also to Sandy for my insider knowledge of vegas, I can't wait to come.)

Chapter 6: We're Getting Somewhere

"Reid. Reid."

I woke with a start.

"I'm up. I'm up."

"Easy Reid," Morgan said as the world around me cleared, "It's just me."

"What time is it?" I said stretching.

"A little after noon," he checked his watch. "What are you doing here?"

I looked around finding myself in the break room of the crime lab.

"Oh," I remembered, "I was on my way to the hotel to get some sleep and I thought I'd stop by and see if there had been any progress. No one was here," I yawned, "so I came in here to wait. I must have fallen asleep."

"We went to review the scenes. The abduction sites and where the bodies were found. We're all regrouping now if you want to hear how it went."

Sleepily I followed Morgan to the room we'd quickly made our own. The team was gathered there, even JJ, and we were joined by Annabelle's co-workers, CSIs Stokes, Brown, Willows, and Grissom.

"Reid," JJ said as I entered. "Anna said you'd gone back to the hotel to rest."

"I was on my way, but I stopped by to catch up on things here. I fell asleep in the break room."

"Well," Hotch said, "we can use all the help we can get."

"Visiting the scenes didn't turn up anything?" I asked.

"Nothing," Prentiss added. "The places were all busy, crowed areas that are constantly populated by children. It's possible the children were chosen at random or that the kidnapper had been watching."

"By now all any evidence is gone," CSI Stokes said, "but even when the scene was fresh there was nothing to find."

"Re-interviewing the witnesses was a bust too," said CSI Willows. "They barely remembered seeing anything when it happened."

"Our best bet at this point," Hotch said, "is to learn what we can from Alex. He is our only lead."

"Too bad he's not talking," CSI Stokes said.

"Not out loud," JJ said, "but Spencer thinks he's found a way to communicate with him."

"Communicate?" Grissom questioned.

I nodded. "It seems that Alex and Caroline have a way of communicating through hand signals."

"The twin language thing?" Stokes asked.

"It's called idioglossia. It is exactly what CSI Stokes said, a 'twin language'. It is a complete language that Alex and Caroline have developed as a way to communicate without being overheard. I believe they used it to talk to each other so the unsub wouldn't understand. When the unsub separated them Alex held on to that language as a way to hold on to Caroline."

"Even still," Grissom said, "how can you communicate with him if it's his and Caroline's secret language? How can you understand him?"

"I made it a game," I said trying not to sound smug. "I showed him pictures, flash cards. I asked him if he and Caroline had a word for whatever it was I showed him. I was able to catalogue a few dozen signs so far."

"A few dozen?" Morgan questioned.

"Seventy-nine," I said, "to be exact."

"Do you think you'd be able to get any information from him? Do you think he's ready to answer questions?"

"We never know until we try."

"Well, you head back to the hospital and keep working with Alex." Hotch instructed. "Let us know as soon as you find out anything."

Back at the hospital I found Alex awake and waiting for me.

"Hey buddy. Did you sleep well?" I signed as spoke.

He signed back 'kind of'.

"Why just kind of?"

He only signed back, 'Caroline'.

"You miss her, huh?"

He nodded.

"We're working really hard to find her, but we need your help. Do you think you're up to answering some questions for me?"

He looked away.

"I know it's hard. It had to be scary where you were, but she's still there. You might be the only one who can help us find her."

He signed 'okay'.

"Okay," I sighed relieved he was willing to try. "We'll take this slow. If you get to tired and want to stop just tell me."

For the next hour we worked slowly as Alex struggled to answer questions about his ordeal. A few times he had to stop, unable to hold back his emotions, try as he might.

"You did well," I reassured him when we'd finished. "We're going to find her and its going to be because of what you just told me."

As I stood up to leave Alex's hands moved in a flash of signs.

"She's sleeping in the next room," I answered. "Do you want me to wake her for you?"

He shook his head.

"Alright," I said, "I'll be back soon."

Stepping outside I pulled out my cell to tell Hotch to get the team together for a briefing. As I dialed I heard Alex's door slowly open and watched as the boy tiptoed to the next door over and peeked in the window. Obviously satisfied with what he saw, he sneaked inside, closing the door behind him.

"Hotch," I said making my way over to the door, "I've got some tips from Alex." Looking inside I found that Alex had crawled up in the bed with his mother and was now cuddled against her. "Round up the team, I'm on my way now." I smiled as a still sleeping Annabelle instinctively wrapped her arms around her son.

"So," Morgan prompted when the team had gathered. "What did you get from Alex?"

"A lot, actually. Enough for what I feel to be a pretty definitive profile."

"Go on," Grissom urged.

"Well for one thing," I sighed, "the unsub is female."

"A woman," CSI Stokes said in shock. "Are you sure?"

"Alex was very clear about that fact."

"A female serial killer," CSI Brown mused, "how often does that happen?"

"Only eight percent of serial killers are female." I answered automatically. "Female serials usually fit into one of seven categories: Black Widow, Angel of Death, Sexual Predator, Revenge, Profit or Crime, Team Killer and Question of Sanity."

"So which kind are we dealing with here," CSI Willows questioned.

"Question of sanity?" Morgan suggested.

"No," I shook my head. "There is no question that this woman is disturbed, they all are to some degree, but from what Alex said she acted just as any other woman he'd met. He said she was friendly to Caroline, but hardly spoke to him."

"So what are we looking at?"

"Revenge most likely."

"Revenge?" Hotch questioned. "On what grounds?"

"Alex said the unsub told Caroline to call her 'mommy' and that she called her a different name, though he didn't know how to tell me that name."

Everyone looked pensive, so I went on.

"He also said that the unsub 'painted' Caroline's hair."

"Painted her hair?" Grissom asked. "She dyed it?"

I nodded. "That's the conclusion I came to."

"Calling her by a different name, dying her hair, it sounds like the unsub is looking to replace her own child."

"Exactly," I said. "All of the previous victims had a similar appearance. I think this unsub has suffered the loss of a child and now she's looking for another one to replace it."

"A daughter one would assume," Prentiss suggested. "If she was blonde there is a good chance the mother is too."

I nodded. "Alex said that she had yellow hair."

"The loss of her daughter," CSI Willows questioned. "How far back are we talking?"

"Probably recently. This would have also been a tragic unexpected death, possibly at the hands of another, even the mother."

"So," CSI Stokes sighed. "Where do we start?"

"I'm already on it," Morgan said, ear already to his cell phone. "Garcia, we need those magic hands, baby doll. I need you to do a search for three year old girls who died within in the last year, specifically those with blonde hair and blue eyes. Natural or accidental death is possible, but don't rule out homicide or neglect. You're a goddess;" he said in a shower of adulation, "hit me back when you find something."

"Garcia will most likely have some info to us in the next few minutes," Hotch remarked to Annabelle's slightly confused co-workers. "What else to do you have Reid?"

"Alex was also able to give me some information about where they were being held. He said he never got to look outside; that she kept him in a closet, but that he could see Caroline through the cracks in the door. She told him that out the window she could see grass and other houses. She said 'the ground was close,' so I assume they were in a room on ground level. Alex said he could hear airplanes a few times a day. They sounded close, but Caroline said she couldn't see them."

"So we're looking for a neighborhood near an airport." CSI Willows said.

"Probably not a private airport," JJ said. "It has to have flights leaving a few times a day."

"That doesn't rule out aerial tours though," CSI Stokes pointed out. "Small planes flying out a few times a day."

CSI Grissom made his way over to the map on the wall. "There are a number of airports or airstrips in the Clark County area." He started to circle areas on the map and tally them. "I count fifteen, and that's just the ones off the top of my head."

"We can narrow it down," CSI Brown said, "by some of the descriptions Alex gave us. These two for example," he said crossing off two circles, "are air force bases. The land outside the parameter of the base is undeveloped desert and even if she lived on base it's unlikely she'd be able to get toddlers in unnoticed, and more unlikely she'd get one of them back out. These three," he continued marking, "are in area's hit heavily by drought last year."

"Which means no grass," CSI Willows added. "The county paid home owners in those areas to pull up their lawns and replace it with gravel."

"That brings us down to ten."

Just then Morgan's phone rang. He put it on speaker phone.

"Talk to me beautiful."

"Other than our first three victims, we have four other girls fitting the same criteria that have died in the last twelve months."

"Just four," I asked.

"Yep, and in those four we have a childhood leukemia, accidental death due to neglect, car accident and a house fire."

"Garcia, get us those names and the whereabouts of the mothers."

"Easy on the last two," she said amidst a barrage of typing, "Holly Towns, age three, died when her parent's car blew a tire and the father lost control. Mother, father, and child all died on scene. Abigail Bronson also age three died when her family home caught fire due to electrical problems. The entire family was killed in the fire."

"We'll need the other two then."

"On its way."

"You're the best Garcia," I said as the fax machine started humming announcing the arrival of Garcia's findings.

"Don't you ever forget it," she sighed before hanging up.

Hotch divided up the two files.

"Morgan, you, Prentiss and I will take CSIs Willows and Stokes to check out," he read the name, "Janice Michelson. Agent Rossi, you and JJ go with Grissom and Brown to interview Teresa Olson."

"What about me?" I questioned.

"You head back to the hospital and fill Greg and Annabelle in on our progress. At this point just knowing we're getting somewhere is good news."

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