It was late it in the afternoon and the team at the BAU was sifting through files of the most recent cases. The doors to the agency were pushed open and in walked a young brunette with curly hair and grassy green eyes. Her black pencil skirt moved along with her body and her white blouse was loose on her upper torso. A red tie blew back past her along with her hair, her heels pushed against the ground quickly as she walked fast. People looked up, some had smiles on their faces, and others looked rather angry because of her terrible timing.
"Special Agent Mercer." Hotch stood up, his face cross with anger. "You're late." Mercer stopped in her step and turned to face him, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"My sister is dead."
Silence.
"Dead?" Morgan stood up from his seat as well as a few others. Mercer nodded.
"Somebody murdered her." She wiped tears away from her eyes.
"How could somebody kill her, let alone allow you to walk away still alive...doesn't she live with you?" Reid questioned approaching the female.
"I don't know, but somebody killed her. I woke up this morning and..." She put her hand over her mouth, stifling the tears she didn't shed already.
"What's the deal guys?" Garcia's voice was heard over the static of the phone.
"Mercer's sister was murdered." JJ replied picking up the phone off of the desk it sat on.
"Ah, the old family first murderer." She answered almost in a happy tone. "Sorry for your loss." She added to make it sound more sympathetic.
"Thanks Garcia."
"Anytime my lovey." She answered.
"So your sister was murdered and the unsub did absolutely nothing to you?" Reid asked after everybody got situated in the conference room.
"Yes. But he must have done it while I was out last night." Mecer stood up and walked over to the whiteboard where she took the marker from Reid and began writing.
"Why last night?" Reid blinked and stepped away from the board.
"I was busy working and she was home alone. When I came home, I was so tired I didn't bother checking up on her. I just went to my room and crashed." Reid sat down.
"What next?" Mercer was writing on the board.
"I woke up and went to make breakfast. My frying pan was missing as well as a knife. I was getting sick of waiting for Emily so I went to her room and..." The female stopped writing on the board and stared at it instead.
"And she was dead." Prentiss finished her thought, arms crossed.
"Yes. But..." Mercer began again, pacing, her tears dried and no more were being shed.
"But what?" Morgan sat up. The female looked them all straight in the eye, one after another.
"I have no lead."
Everybody was quiet.
"No lead? Nothing?"
"No fingerprints, no sign of forced entry, nothing. The only thing I found was a note addressed to me." Mercer held up an envelope.
"Well read it!" Garcia boomed from the speakerphone. Mercer opened the envelope and unfolded the paper.
"You can't catch me. You won't catch me. I'm like a shadow; I'm not a shadow. The more you look for me, the more I begin to disappear. I'm your best friend, your greatest fear. It just makes no sense..."
"We can run it through the system and check the handwriting against other criminals that match this one's profile." Reid suggested. Mercer shook her head.
"It's written in my sister's handwriting. The unsub must have made her write it before she was killed." She threw it down on the table and pulled at her hair, furiously.
"Calm down. I understand your mental conditions aren't well, plus the fact you're going through the grieving process which deals with high levels of sadness, anger, depression, regret, disbelief and can lead to psychotic behaviors. Right now, you need to stay stress free. No anxiety attacks, no naps, no late nights, no talking to the little voices inside your head..." The doctor reassured the female as she took a deep breath and nodded.
"I just...there's nothing. This case is going to fall through the cracks, but I can't give up on Emily..."
"Is the body still at your house?"
"Yes. My parents are having it taken away to be cremated in a couple of days, though. They wouldn't let them touch Em's poor body. I can't believe they didn't start a World War over it..."
"Then we need to search the crime scene again until they take it away..."
"There's nothing here. Really. " Mercer wiped her hands with a dish towel. "I'm PART of your team. I should know what to do..." She murmured and stood in the doorway of the bedroom. Sure enough, her sister's body was lying on the floor, covered with a thick sheet. She cringed once her eyes trailed over to the body, and she turned her head away.
"Well you may have missed something..." Prentiss opened a drawer and searched through it.
"Be careful. I want to keep some of her stuff for memories..." The young girl blurted out and Prentiss looked at her for a long moment. "Take what you need as evidence, but I want to remember my sister..."
A couple seconds later, Little Annie's phone blasted a familiar ringtone.
"Talk to me Garcia." She turned her back to her team, embarrassed.
"You should change your ringtone sweetheart~" Garcia hummed and clicked away at her keyboard.
"What do you have for me, Garcia?" Mercer answered a little impatiently.
"Cool your hot little head...I've searched for break ins, murders with knives-"
"She wasn't killed with a knife." Reid stood up and took the Droid X from Mercer's hand, putting it on speaker.
"What do you mean...? It's right there on the floor covered in her blood."
"As true as that is, she was killed by the blood trauma from her head wounds. The frying pan method was obviously to knock her down onto the floor where the unsub decided to bash her head into something...the knife was stabbed into her arms, legs, and upper body but it wasn't the cause of death...she also seems to have unexplainable marks on her cheeks and other places of her body. They almost look like bite marks. Can you get anything from that, Garcia?"
"Sugar I can do anything. I'm better than Superman, after all." She grinned and tapped away at the keys. "Let's see...I've narrowed down the list to break ins, murders, knives, head wounds..."
"Add serial killer to the list."
"Done and done~ Sending it your way." The line was disconnected and Reid handed Mercer back her phone. She snatched it and put it back into her pocket, flipping the light switch on.
"Yuck...everything looks nastier in the light." She made a face and stepped over her sister's body. "Reid, let me see those photos." She held her hand out, expecting him to hand them over. He did, but she wasn't paying attention and they all fell onto the floor, scattered everywhere in the room.
"Now you have to clean them up..." He stared at them, and then looked over at Mercer. Her grass stained eyes were focused on something under the bed. It was white, and looked like a piece of paper.
She took it and stood up, opening the envelope, and then pulling out a piece of paper, folded very neatly. Unfolding the paper, Mercer read it and blinked.
"What?" Prentiss got closer to Mercer.
"He's sending us on a scavenger hunt..." She handed over the paper and left the room, escaping into the kitchen.
"What's it say, Prentiss?"
She was silent.
"Coffee shop." She replied hoarsely, and handed it to Hotch.
"She's right. Nothing else on it."
"The killer may be retracing the steps he took, trying to put us in his exact shoes...but this could mean he's leading us into a trap if these are the places he visited yesterday." Reid picked up the last of the photos and put them away in the file.
"You're right...but we have our lead." The rest of the team left the room and joined Annie who was leaning over the sink.
"Something wrong?" Morgan put his hand on her shoulder.
"My sister was at the coffee shop yesterday morning. She goes there every day."