It was just one of those days at the BAU where nothing happened. The team did paperwork to finish off the last case. It was quite in the bullpen, except for the scratching of pen on paper and the typing on the computer. When the door opened, they all hoped that somebody would come and save them from their boring work, but it was just the mailman. He walked from desk to desk handing people their letters and the team went back to work. The mailman stopped in front of Reid's desk and handed him a letter. ``This one's for you. No postmark or name on it, I found it next to the other letters.´´

Reid took the letter and opened it. There was a piece of paper in it and when he opened it, he found a letter, except the words didn't make sense.

Uvri SRL,

Z jvv pfl drerxvu kf tirtb dp tfuv. Z yfgv kyv tyrccvexv nrje'k kff szx wfi pfl, Ui. Ivzu. Vmve kyflxy Z czbv kf jvv pfli czkkcv sirze nfibzek. Jzetv kyzj zj fecp kyv svxzeezex, Z nzcc tfdv jkirzxyk kf kyv gfzek. Fe Alev 3iu, 12gd, Z nzcc bzcc dp wzijk mztkzd. Z'cc cvrmv r dvjjrxv jf pfl befn zk'j dv…

Jvv pfl kyve, OFOF

It was coded, and Reid started immediately to crack it. ``Hey kid, what's in the letter? Anything more interesting than paperwork?´´ Morgan asked from his table, clearly bored by the stack of files on his desk. ``I think anything would be more interesting than this´´ came from Emily. ``It's some kind of code, I'm not sure.´´ Reid answered.

Morgan, who decided that this was way more interesting than filling out papers, went to Reid's desk and looked at the paper in his hands. ``Well, let your genius brain work on it.´´ Reid didn't even answer, he already was busy trying to make sense out of the letters he was staring at. Emily, now curious what was going on over there came over too and looked at the letter. ``How can you make any sense out of this? It's just random letters combined into words.´´ Reid suddenly jumped up from his chair and ran to Hotch's office. ``Hey kid, what does it say?´´ Morgan yelled after him but Reid didn't stop.

``Hotch you have to see this!´´ The team leader stood up fast, because he could see the worried look on his member's face. Back in the bullpen Reid showed the letter to Hotch, who looked at him just as confused as Emily and Morgan did. ``What does it say?´´ Reid suddenly realized that the others couldn't read what his brain translated in his head. He grabbed a pen and paper and started to write down the translation of the code. When he was done he handed the paper to Hotch who read it with a growing concern on his face. ``Get the team to the conference room; we need to look into this!´´

Morgan and Emily, still confused, took the paper from Hotch and read it together.

Dear BAU,

I see you managed to crack my code. I hope the challenge wasn't too big for you, Dr. Reid. Even though I like to see your little brain working. Since this is only the beginning, I will come straight to the point. On June 3rd, 12pm, I will kill my first victim. I'll leave a message so you know it's me…

See you then, XOXO

They both had the same reaction as Hotch, and quickly made their way to the conference room. When JJ, Rossi and Garcia entered the room, Reid handed them copies of both, the original letter and the translation. They sat in silence for a moment until the others finished reading and looked up. ``What is this?´´ asked JJ, saying exactly what everybody else was thinking. ``I just got this code in the mail. I quickly cracked the code and…´´ ``How did you crack it? That's just a bunch of letters. It could mean anything!´´ JJ interrupted Reid's explanation.

``Actually it can't. When I looked at it, I saw that it was written like a normal letter. It was addressed to somebody, so I guessed it started with 'Dear' and the next three letters are capitalized, and the letter in 'Dear' that stands for the 'a' is the same as the second letter in the next word. It makes sense that the next word is BAU. That gave me some of the letters. I also realized that some of the sentences started with just a 'Z', and I thought it would be an 'I' which made sense regarding some of the other words. Also I realized that the combination 'kf' was in there a couple of times and considering statistics it seemed to be the word 'to'. This made me realize that the code was just the alphabet shifted. 'A' is 'R', 'B' is 'S', 'C' is 'T' and so on. This made it fairly easy to translate the code.´´

Reid talked so fast that the team could barely follow his words. After he was finished they all just looked at him, admiring and wondering about how his brain could do all of that so fast. ``What about the numbers?´´ Hotch asked.

``I'm not a hundred per cent sure about those. There are too many possibilities but I think the unsub didn't change them. The rest of the code wasn't too difficult, it was meant to be cracked fast and changing the numbers would make it too difficult to understand the message. Also the 3rd June is already over, so I think our unsub isn't interested in hiding what he did, he wants us to see his work.´´ ``Garcia, check police records of the 3rd for any murders around 12pm. Start in this area, I think this is personal. Also check the records for a code that was found with the victim.´´ Hotch ordered. Garcia left the room, but not without saying a short ``on it´´ and winking to the team.

``So, let's see what this letter tells us.´´ Hotch said after Garcia left. ``This is clearly personal. The letter was send to Reid, and it is addressed to us, so I think our unsub wants to play with us.´´ Morgan answered. ``It also seems as if the unsub knows us or at least Reid, the way he talks about his brain.´´ ``Emily's right, also the XOXO indicates a more personal relationship. Hugs and kisses… That's something you use with friends or a lover.´´ JJ added, ``if the code was meant to be cracked, what does that say about him?´´ Morgan looked at the letter again and said: ``He's not trying to outsmart us with codes. He rather wants to show off his crimes. He's looking for attention.´´ ``I don't think it's a He. It isn't written straight forward, our unsub is pointing out personal and rather unimportant things before she comes to the point. Also XOXO is statistically more often used by women than men, and more often younger than older. I think our unsub is a woman in her late 20s to early 30s.´´ Reid said. ``Well, let's wait for Garcia to find our victim and then we'll work from there.´´ Hotch closed the discussion and went to his office. Reid followed, he wanted to ask him a question. ``If this is personal shouldn't we start to look at old records of the team? Maybe we'll find something that helps us solve this…´´ ``The idea isn't bad, but it's too early, we don't have anything to go from. We'll need to see if Garcia finds anything otherwise we don't know what to search for.´´