An/ Being a lover of Undercover stories, I decided that I'd indulge myself. This is sort of going to be an opportunity to write things in that I liked for "Appearances are Deceiving" and "The Retreat" but never got to use and some ideas that are trully unique to this story. I also decided to give you a little slice of my home by setting this story in Utah. If any part of the representation seems harsh, just know that I am a proud Utahan and this is all in fun. But don't be fooled, while it may be troubling, some of what you will see is true to life.
I do not own Criminal Minds, but I love it nonetheless.
ENJOY!
Washington DC
"JJ, you're so lucky." Her Aunt Clara said. "Your ring is lovely."
"Thanks, I like it." She smiled, unconsciously looking down to see the round diamond and silver band. The ring felt heavy and almost out of place but she didn't say anything. She always assumed that her engagement ring would be a natural progression, but really, it just felt like JJ was playing pretend. Like she was pretending to be engaged while everyone played along.
"Sweetheart, we are all just so happy for you." Her grandmother fussed. "William is such a nice man."
"Thanks." She laughed, unsure of what to say. Will was indeed a nice man, that wasn't up for debate. The question lay more in whether she was nice enough to deserve him. She smiled and waved at her boyfriend—fiance—she had to remind herself who was talking to her brother.
Will was perfect in every way. Her family loved him, he was a good person who used good manners. He never left the toilet seat up, he rarely swore and while she initially had worried about his drinking habits, she soon found there was nothing to fear. Will was perfect.
"JJ, aren't you so excited?" Garcia squealed as she came and crushed her best friend into a hug.
"I couldn't be happier." JJ smiled, feeling as though she was lying. But she was happy, she had to be. This was what she everything she had ever wanted. Getting what you want was supposed to bring bliss. She mindlessly smoothed out the skirt of her cream dress, trying to appear as though she was perfect. That was how it was supposed to be, Will was perfect so she needed to be as well. "Where's everyone else?" She scanned the room for the familiar faces of her team, but saw none other than her close friend.
Garcia bit her lip worriedly. "There was a case."
"What kind of a case?" JJ inquired urgently.
"Strauss's niece and her husband were murdered last night and by the looks of it, its serial." Garcia explained calmly. "Hotch is briefing the team now, they sent me with their best wishes."
"But why didn't they call me?" JJ asked with a pang in her heart.
"Sweetie, its your engagement party." Garcia reminded, rolling her eyes slightly. This was typical JJ. "Hotch wasn't about to ask you to leave your engagement party for a case."
"When are they going?"
"The plane left about two hours ago." Garcia informed, instantly catching the glint in JJ's eye. "No you don't."
"What?" JJ asked innocently.
"You are not going." Garcia commanded. "It's your engagement party; you need to stay for the entire thing."
"What if they need me?" JJ defended.
"If you go, I'm not watching Henry." Garcia groaned. "I refuse to enable you my insane, blonde, little friend."
"He's already going to go spend the night with my sister." JJ reasoned.
"I'm sure Will would love this." Garcia muttered under her breath.
"Love what?" A voice said from behind, startling the two women.
"Erm…" JJ stammered.
"What would I love?" Will asked again, standing next to JJ. "Here it's our party and I swear I haven't been near you all night." He kissed her tenderly, an action that didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the room who sighed in delight.
"Nothing." Garcia lied though she made no attempt to be believable. "I was just telling her a joke and she gave this weird laugh and I was attempting to mock her." Her eyes remained level and stern. Penelope Garcia was rarely serious, but this was one of those times. JJ knew that any hopes of her going to help the team were now cancelled.
Bountiful, Utah
"The laceration patterns on all twelve victims are the same." The local coroner informed. "It was presumably done by the same knife; it has the same smooth lines."
"Any evidence of sexual assault?" Emily asked, uncharacteristically disgusted at the sight of what this monster had done.
"There were traces of semen found on his female victims." He took in a deep gulp of air, trying to diffuse the anger within himself. "Like the mutilation to the bodies, it was done post mortem."
Emily grimaced. While necrophilia was just part of the assortment of wretched things unsubs subjected their victims to, she found it to be the most demeaning. "How long after?"
"I'd say almost immeaditaly after he struck the final blow that snuffed these poor women's lives, he had his way with them. Then about four days later, he distorted the body."
"What about the autopsies of the husbands?" Emily inquired, doing her job though she didn't feel like it. She hated killers like this, killers who murdered happy couples and then left her to figure out to catch him. If Emily ever crossed into vigilante, this or a case involving a child would be the kind to do it.
"Your guy seemed fairly uninterested in the spouse." The corner stated. "Shot the husband to death and didn't even move the body post mortem, there are other things I could check but I would have to send it to Salt Lake because we don't have the equipment here."
"Not enough funding?" Emily asked.
"The last notable serial killer that spent any considerable amount of time here was Bundy." The coroner defended. "When you have three true, premeditated murders a year, it isn't in the county's budget to pay for items that wouldn't be used."
Emily nodded in understanding; she had been to enough communities like this to understand. This was a place where no one thought anything bad would happen and now—now the unthinkable was a reality. "Let me know if you find anything else."
As she walked out of the office, she saw a familiar figure coming towards her.
"Prentiss, do you know where the chief is?" JJ asked, catching her breath. "I need---"
"JJ." Emily scolded. "Engagement party?"
"What about it?" JJ asked innocently.
"We left you in DC so that you could celebrate and work from the unit." Emily muttered exasperated. "Not so that you could skip out on the rest of a party held in your honor so that you could catch the red eye."
"I didn't skip out." JJ countered to a disbelieving Emily. Cracking slightly, she smiled tentatively. "Will said I could."
"Of course he did." Emily said, shaking her head chuckling. Only Will La Montagne would encourage his fiancée to fulfill her work responsibilities on the eve of their engagement party.
"So where is the chief of police?" JJ asked hopefully.
"No you don't. You talk to Hotch first." Emily said, pointing to the conference room at the side of the hall. "He needs to know that he is rubbing off on you."
JJ smirked to herself, if anything, Hotch would be proud of her for coming. While everyone else tolerated the lie that personal lives came first, he knew the truth as she did, be in the BAU long enough and soon, there was no such thing as a personal life.
She opened the door as she heard a screech that she expected.
"JJ, seriously, you came?" Reid shouted. He was part of the Garcia, Emily school of logic, where JJ was expected to be the perfect wife to Will, though she rarely felt like it. In the end, the entire team had contrasting views as to JJ's purpose in life. Rossi, Morgan and Hotch were shocked that JJ would say yes to getting married, assuming that she was, like them, incapable of doing both, and the job should come first. JJ, for her part, didn't know what she wanted.
"About time you came." Morgan proclaimed. To him, there had never been any doubt whether JJ would make it to Utah. It was job and no one was immune for the longing for a decent case. "How was the party?"
"You mean, the party that JJ left?" Emily shouted from behind.
"JJ." Reid rolled his eyes. It had taken forever for the team to find someone willing to marry JJ, and now she was going to screw it up. She was the prettiest girl he knew, and he, like Emily and Garcia, wanted her to be happy. Why she would constantly mess things up with Will, he would never know.
"What took you so long?" Hotch asked as he walked into the room.
"I had to find a flight." JJ beamed in triumph at Emily.
"How was the party?" Rossi muttered half-heartedly, he was happy for his colleague, but he just didn't know if this was all such a good idea.
"Grahg." Emily grunted in annoyance. All of the men enabled JJ's stupidity; it was not her job to. "Are serious?"
"What do we have here?" JJ asked, ignoring Emily's wrath. It was her relationship, Emily and Garcia needed to butt out.
"There's an unsub murdering couples. The wife is a teacher and the husband is a cop." Reid began.
"We're up to 12 couples." Emily continued. "He kills the women almost instantly, then rapes and mutilates them post mortem."
"Shoots the husband in the head once. Time of death consistently points to him taking out the husband first."
"Any similarities in the couples?" Morgan asked, looking over to Reid.
"All were beginning their second marriages and all had one or two children from their divorce." Reid stated. "But none had full custody. Also, none were originally from Utah, most of them moved within the last ten years. "
"That's a very specific type." Emily noted.
"Not really, the unsub kills victims of all races." Rossi said, looking over the file. "So it would be more important to him to kill victims in the right age range and gender rather than race."
"A killer without a racial preference? They have those?" Reid scoffed. "Besides, while one victim was Polynesian, the majority of the victims were white."
"This is Utah." Emily laughed. "Is that really all that surprising?"
"All joking aside, this unsub doesn't really have a specific type of victim. Its more the idea of the victim than the actual characteristics of the person. Like he has an urge to kill that he is trying to focus, but he still murders indiscriminately." Hotch said before his phone began to ring wildly. "Excuse me."
As he stepped out, he checked the caller ID once, seeing that it was Erin Strauss. She was close to the case, and normally he wouldn't listen to a grieving person, but his gut told him to answer the call. "Hotchner."
"Your team is going undercover." She said shortly, not offering much of an explanation.
"Excuse me?" Hotch stated, wondering what the normally bitter section chief meant.
"You and your team are going undercover. No longer than three months, but I foresee it being a rather intense." She informed in her no nonsense tone.
"But this is a murder investigation." Hotch reminded deftly.
"I know that Agent Hotchner, but this order comes from Brass. So far, there have been connections made that this is serial and he'll be hard to catch with the lack of physical evidence tying him to any one of the crimes. If it weren't for his MO, we wouldn't know he existed."
"But we can catch him with a profile." Hotch muttered, not knowing how he was going to manage to get out of this one.
"By the time you establish a profile, it could be years as he has left very little to go on." Strauss demanded. "This is not a request. You will be going undercover, I expect you to alert your team immediately."
"Strauss." Hotch tried to reason but was cut off by the sharp click of the reciever.
Rubbing his eyes, he walked into the conference room, his entire team's eyes wide with wonder.
"What?" Emily asked, being the first to vocalize her curiosity.
"You may want to call your loved ones. We may be here longer than we originally thought." He informed, cursing the day he ever walked into the BAU.
An2/ I really hope you liked it, but the best is yet to come. Be sure to drop me a review or a PM so that I can gauge the reaction to this. I really do love knowing what you think of my stories.
