Author's NoTe: Okay, this case honestly came in a dream. How this unsub works is so bizarre, you may think it's gross, but at the same, you may think it's brilliant. Hey we're all human right? Anyway, I am going to TRY my best to keep up with this. I love Hotch/Prentiss with a passion
"Ah, hello love." Piped Penelope Garcia as her fellow FBI comrade walked through the sliding elevator doors.
"Good morning Garcia." Prentiss stated back. She had a cup of coffee with two shots of espresso, in her left hand, her purse and briefcase hung and hanging from her right. She felt pretty sluggish and it didn't feel like the espresso was kicking in fast enough.
"Oh. Long night?" Garcia asked.
"Try long week. No long month. You know what…" Prentiss turned around to look at her blonde friend. "Try long year, long career, long life…"
Garcia was frozen with "mouth agape" expression planted on her face.
"Sorry. You get the point. Um, you can go finish and enjoy your breakfast."
"AH, don't worry my dove. Everyone has been that way lately. Reid has been so addicted to those frozen mocha things, I'm waiting for him to turn into a 'Morgan" color topped with whipped creme and chocolate syrup."
"Those sounds very lovable right now."
"If I catch you licking Reid.." Garcia started.
"Please. Don't go there." Prentiss said bluntly as she started walking towards the bullpen.
"Oh come on, like you wouldn't…"
"Bye Garcia." She hollered back.
This was totally the way to start a morning of brutal, disgusting, and gut wrenching serial killer hunting. Release the bulls.
"Ah, you have your caffeine kicker too." greeted Derek Morgan. He too had a decorated styrofoam cup, about half full of regular coffee. The new BAU leader wasn't much to refer to coffee, but because of the weeks past events, caffeine was now a friend. "How are you feeling? How's the head?"
Emily sighed. "It's fine. It's been fine."
She sighed again. The car crash. The crash where she witnessed a psycho kill the cop sitting right next to her. The crash where she watched that same psycho escape. The car crash that lead them all to realize that an under cover cop was in waist deep of desperate nightmares and in unfortunate ca-hoots with said psycho. The crash that gave her a horrid concussion and the worst headache she had ever dealt with.
"Emily, how many shots did you fire?" Morgan asked as held on to the side of the gurney.
"Two." She answered holding a bag of ice to her head.
"honey, you emptied your glock." he said. Emily looked at him with questionable eyes.
"I did?" she asked, in tear jerking shock.
"Hey, we need you two in the round table room." Came the professional voice of JJ. "We definitely have a case."
With that JJ turned around and made her way back to the round table room. Prentiss made eye contact with Morgan and they both made that nod. That nod that meant "Here we go again." Prentiss dropped all of her stuff at her desk and followed Morgan to the meeting.
"We have six victims. These are all happening in the Augusta GA area. Three men, three women. Joseph Marks, Scott Rider, and Jeff Ridges. Susanna Hunn, Loretta Miles, and Catherine were all shot execution style and were all dumped at a entrance or exit for the I-20 high way."
"Yeah, I've been hearing about these on the news." states Morgan.
"Were there any connections between the victims?" asked David Rossi.
"That's the strange part. There is. Each man works the same occupation or in the same building as one of the woman. Susanna Hunn is the manager accountant and Jeff Bridges was a new accountant at the same building. They worked different shifts. Loretta Miles is the lunch lady and Joseph Marks is a utilities worker at the local county school. And Catherine Stone works as the pediatric nurse at St. Joseph's downtown where Scott Rider is the neurologists on the other end of the building. They all have connections, but…"
"It's not like they were paramount in each other's lives." JJ nodded.
"They most likely knew that the other existed, but their interaction was most likely minimal." added in Dr. Spencer Reid.
"Were they dumped and found as those paired couples?" came an additional voice.
The BAU team looked up to see their former leader, SSA Agent Aaron Hotchner. The man with the unofficial-official best poker face. The man with the award winning adjective of 'stoic.' The man who had just lost the former love of his life to the hands to the sickest serial killer the team had ever faced. Emily Prentiss watched the man who allowed her to join this team slowly make his way to his seat. Exhaustion was heavily sketched into the features of his face. His demeanor didn't offer anything new. Hair was combed, suit was up to par. The scar on the bridge of his once was healing nicely though. JJ brought her out her revere.
"Yes, they were." answered JJ. "Hunn and Bridges were found first at the I-20 west bound on the Riverwatch Parkway exit. Miles and Marks were found 2 weeks later at the I-20 west bound on the other side of town. And then Stone and Rider were found a month later opposite of the second I-20 west bound site. They were found across the road at the I-20 East bound entrance. Practically seen by every driver going to work."
"When did people notice they were missing?" Prentiss piped up trying to get her mind back into her work.
"Practically the day after they went missing. These people work full time jobs. No one that the police talked to knew of their colleagues taking a day off. They were all missing 48 hours before finally being found early in the morning."
"This is a very odd profile. All we know is that two very different people from maybe the same building go missing for forty-eight hours before being found in plain site killed execution style." explained Rossi. "A majority of them are high profile, because they have full time jobs. It doesn't offer the unsub much security. The people will be noticed very quickly to be missing."
"This all seems very random." Reid added. "I mean, the unsub chooses two people from the same building or along the same kind of occupation,… there is barely a pattern."
"Hey I think we're getting in too early. We haven't looked at the victim's houses. We don't know this area. For all we know, these people could be cousins of each other. I say we head down to Augusta and see what we find." offered Morgan.
"I agree." stated Hotch softly.
"Alright then. Grab your ready bags and meet in half an hour." Morgan said. With that, the meeting was adjourned. Everyone pushed back their chairs and made their way to their desks. Except for Hotch.
Emily was walking away when she noticed this. He was simply sitting still, staring at the file in front of him. But he wasn't reading it. His pupils weren't moving at all. Prentiss' suspicions were confirmed when he sighed and rubbed his temple.
"Hey Hotch." Emily said before she could stop herself. Hotch turned his head to look at her. "Um, do you wanna grab some coffee before we take off? Clear your head maybe? My treat."
Hotch contemplated her offer.
"Thank you Prentiss, but I'll be fine." he said as he momentarily closed his eyes.
"You sure?" she asked more softly. He gazed back up at her. Her eyes were tender with comfort, Hotch noticed. She always did this. She always took care of him. Not the whole 'open her house, cook, watch the kids' take of him. He wouldn't take that. Simply driving him to and from work was all he would ever allow. She even would walk up with him to his apartment, just to make sure nothing would attack or do harm to him on the way up. That was all he let her do, but he knew that if he ever gave her any leeway, she would do a lot more. He knew it was never out of pity, but out of comfort. She cared about him, but he figured she would do that for any of her colleagues.
"Yes, I'm sure." he answered. This didn't seem fair. "Maybe… some other time."
She seemed to be content with that answer and nodded. She then left to grab her ready bag.