Hotch was the only one still awake during the long flight back from Hawaii. Once the BAU jet had made its refueling stop in Los Angeles, the other members of the team had dropped off rather quickly. JJ and Alex were sitting next to one another, their heads resting against each other in their slumber. Morgan had dozed off with his ear buds in, as usual, and despite his efforts to read, Rossi had also succumbed after the first hour. Reid had claimed the long bench seat so he could stretch out before they even reached California, and no one had felt any urge to move him given that he had spent all of the last three days inside the cramped office of the Honolulu PD working the geographic profile until he had finally narrowed down the UNSUB's comfort zone enough for them to capture the sexual psychopath before he finished his sixth murder. Everyone else had at least gotten to spend some time outside in the brilliant Hawaiian sunshine, impossible not to enjoy despite the circumstances. Reid deserved an uninterrupted nap.
Hotch wished he could sleep too. He was just as tired as everyone else, and he knew he would regret not being better rested when they landed in Quantico, but somehow he couldn't get his brain to slow down enough to allow him to sleep. They were working too hard again; he knew it, but he didn't know what to do about it. Every time they tried to take some time off, they got called back in on a case. The downside to being the best at what you do is that everyone wants – no, needs – the best. He suspected that Cruz would be more understanding of a request for vacation time than Strauss typically had been, but it felt wrong to expect some community to contend with a serial killer longer so that the team could sleep in, lay on the beach . . . visit their girlfriends who lived out of town. Hotch sighed, thinking of yet another weekend with Beth which had gone the way of the job. He imagined how blissful it would be to return to Hawaii with Beth and Jack in tow, to spend a week enjoying the sights, doing all the typical touristy things.
It wasn't until his phone buzzed, interrupting a dream which was somehow blending surfing and swimming with dolphins, that Hotch realized he had finally fallen asleep. He grabbed the offending device from his pocket, glancing around to see that no one else had so much as shifted position at the noise. They truly were exhausted. "Hotchner," he snapped, keeping his voice low to allow his dead to the world team the chance to remain asleep.
"It's Cruz." The accented voice wasted no time. "I know you're not even back yet, but we need you."
"Me? Or the team?"
"Unfortunately, the whole team. On the plus side, you won't have to travel. We have a spree killer here in DC. Nine dead already, and he's speeding up and becoming more violent."
"Sounds bad," Hotch agreed, "but why my team? Can't one of the others . . . ?"
Cruz didn't even let him finish. "We have a witness. At least we have someone who should be a witness, but she can't remember anything useful. Eleven-year-old girl who watched her parents get hacked up when she woke up on the living room couch. She's in protective custody, but she seems to have totally blanked out the attacker's face, body type . . . anything that could help us find him. Or maybe she knows, but she isn't telling. We need a cognitive interview, plus a profile as quickly as we can get one."
Hotch sighed, already planning inside his head. "Get all the information to Penelope Garcia," he instructed Cruz. "We have," he glanced at his watch and did some quick calculations, "about an hour and a half left before we land. We'll start working the profile from here."
"Can't ask for better than that," Cruz said. "When you land, at least let everybody make a quick run home. On top of everything else, we have three or four inches of snow on the ground now, and more expected later tonight. The roads are passable at the moment, but they may not be by this evening. I'm sure you didn't take your cold-weather gear with you to Hawaii, and you may get stuck in the office for a few days. Even though it's a local case, everyone is going to need a new go-bag."
By this time Hotch had nudged Rossi, sleeping across from him, with his foot. When the older man's eyes opened, Hotch gestured for him to turn on the computer so they could link up with their technical analyst. "Yes, sir, I'll do that. See you then," Hotch concluded the phone call.
"You have to be kidding me," Rossi protested as he booted up the laptop sitting on the table between the two men. "We haven't even gotten home yet."
"Sorry, Dave. No rest for the wicked, which means no rest for us." Their voices roused Reid and JJ, who in turn wakened Morgan and Alex.
"Actually, the original quote from Isiah more likely read, 'No PEACE for the wicked,'" Reid informed them as they started to gather around the center seats.
"Looks like we don't get that either," Rossi commented wryly.
At that moment, the laptop screen came to life, showing a decidedly disheveled Penelope Garcia. "Greetings, my lovelies," she acknowledged them with a yawn. "Normally I see myself as more of a Snow White character, but I'm afraid today I am more of a Sleepy, or even a Grumpy."
"As long as you're not the evil Queen, baby girl," Morgan remarked with a grin, allowing her radiance to wake him up a little bit.
"Queen, Chocolate Wonder, but only evil in the nicest sense of the word."
Reid looked confused. "I don't think there is a nice sense to the word evil."
"Ah, Doc," Garcia turned her eyes to him. "Don't worry your little dwarf head about it, or you'll end up feeling Dopey."
"Enough," Rossi demanded. "It's bad enough I have to work with you band of miscreants. I refuse to work with Disney characters."
Reid couldn't help himself. "Snow White was actually a German fairy tale called Sneewittchen published in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812. The animated version didn't appear until 1937."
"We have a case?" Alex interrupted gently, turning their attention back to the reason they were awake in the first place.
"Indeed you do," Garcia proclaimed. "Right here in our nation's capital. Luckily for our fearless leader, and by that I mean Chief Cruz, I fell asleep on the couch in Rossi's office before I even made it home last night, so I was readily available for file sharing." Her face was replaced on the screen by photographs of nine bodies in various states of butchery. "Our UNSUB du jour started with Sarah Beth Thomas." The picture changed to a close up of an elderly woman who almost seemed to be sleeping. "As you can see, she was stabbed only one time. No muss, no fuss. Her body was discovered by a neighbor when she failed to show up for her weekly bridge game. The ME estimated she had been dead for around a week when she was found two days ago."
The next photograph showed two people, a young woman and an older man. While they were more obviously murdered, they still looked relatively unscathed. "Bob and Sharon Brooks," Garcia continued, "were also discovered two days ago, although the ME thinks they were killed only the day before. Two stab wounds each, one to the stomach, one to the chest. "
"Father and daughter?" JJ asked.
"No, husband and ever so much younger wife," Garcia replied. "And before you ask, this could be a case of the evil step-mother. They were found by Mr. Brook's twenty-two year old daughter, who is a mere three years younger than the new Mrs. Brooks."
"Garcia, is there any reason to think the step-daughter is involved?" Hotch asked.
"Only that it fits the fairy tale scenario so nicely," Garcia admitted.
Morgan noted, "Those are two very different victimologies, and slightly different MO's. It could easily be two different UNSUBs. Why call us in?"
"Because of what, or should I say who, was discovered today." The screen shifted again to show two photographs side-by-side. One contained just one body, the other held three. "Daniel Escobar, Benny Alvarez, Rodney Dickerson, and William Jenkins, college roommates at Georgetown killed in their off-campus apartment; between sixteen and twenty-nine stab wounds each."
Morgan whistled, "That's a hell of an escalation."
"Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet," Garcia confided. "I've made a point of not looking at his last victims, but the description is bad enough." The couple in the final photograph was nearly unrecognizable as human. "Jenny and Matt Tew, husband and wife, parents to Alaina. The daughter was asleep on the couch when she woke up to find someone doing this to her parents. As best as the police on scene could tell, she waited until he was gone, then made her way to a telephone in the kitchen and dialed 911. She didn't say anything to the operator, just left the line open and went back to her parents' side. When the cops arrived that's where they found her."
"There's a witness?" Alex asked, surprised.
"Unfortunately, she hasn't been able to give any details," Hotch said.
"She hasn't been able to give anything," Garcia corrected. "She hasn't said a word since they found her."
"And that's where we come in," Hotch continued. "Garcia, is there any connection among all these victims?"
"I'm working on that now, sir. I didn't receive the information until mere moments before I started sharing it with you. I'll know more soon."
"Right." Hotch looked at his watch again. "When we get to Quantico, everyone's going to need to run home and change into warmer clothes. Bring a go-bag to the office with you. "
JJ voiced their confusion. "I thought the case was in D.C."
"It is, " Hotch confirmed, "but they've had snow, and are expecting more. Plan to be in the office for at least a couple of days."
"This just gets better and better," Rossi groaned.
"I know, and I'm sorry," Hotch replied. "I'll ask for time off when this is over. For now, wheels down in 30."