If you could see me now

Books and Donuts and things

"Hey, you've been in here for a while. Everything okay?" Hotch said.

"I'm fine. Just catching up with some old acquaintances."

"Reid found something."

"I'm almost done."

"Here you go, Cass. I took the liberty of arranging them the way they like it."

"You're all set, now please get out of my store."

"Okay, okay. I'm on my way out." Hotch grabbed the two boxes from me. "Thanks, Hotch." As soon as we got into the car, I sighed. "You see why I got the donuts?" He cracked a smile.

"The team is waiting for us."

"It's right down this road on the left."

"Hi, can I help you?"

"My name is SSA Hotchner, this is SSA Monteiro. We're with the BAU."

"Go on through."

"You!" I heard. "What are you doing here?" I sighed.

"Shut it, Kirsch. I don't want to hear it. I want you all to be as helpful as possible to every agent in the BAU team, and if you have any problems with that, keep it to yourself."

"Reid, you said you had something over the phone."

"In here." He led us to the conference room. Each of the victims had pieces of paper rolled up and put in their mouths before their mouths were glued shut."

"What do the pieces of paper have on them?"

"Just seemingly random numbers."

"Could it be a book cipher?"

"I mean it could, but we have no idea what book, or what publishing year."

"I might." I gently placed the book on the table.

"Kidnapped by Stevenson? I've read it. Is this a First Edition?"

"My father used to read it to us as a bedtime story. And yes, it is a first edition copy. Someone bought it and put my name on the order. Someone who knows I changed my name."

"Can I see the code?" I examined it carefully. "If this is a book cipher, it doesn't give a page number, it seems it does give a chapter number though. Here, you read it. I saw you reading on the plane and you can read faster than I can." I handed him the book.

"Read off the first group of numbers."

"1 22 23"

"Son"

"Sun, as in star in the sky, or son as in child?"

"Child."

"1 8 8"

"Where."

"7 85 7"

"Children"

"8 5 16"

"Are"

"4 63 6

"Kept.

"Is that what it says? Son where children are kept?"

"Yeah."

"Knowing what you do about this community, where do you think that is?"

"This might be far-fetched but Nana's house. She wasn't anyone's grandmother, but that's what everyone called her. Everyone loved her. I never learned her full name until her funeral."