Disclaimer: Surprisingly I still do not own Criminal Minds or any of its characters.

Author's Note: Thank you for the reviews :-) They made my day. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Flawless
Chapter 2

It took Hotch a moment before he realised they had actually landed. Much to his own annoyance he had spent most of the flight thinking about Jack and Haley when he knew he should have been thinking about the case. It was hard not to though, he had barely seen his son in two weeks and he Haley was avoiding his phone calls. If he didn't know any better he might think she was cheating on him, there were certain signs that pointed towards it, for example random phone calls to his home that would be cut off as soon as he picked it up. But no, Haley wouldn't do that to him. It was too painful even to think about. Not that he didn't deserve it if she was. He knew he had been an awful husband to her over the last couple of years.

Hotch stood up and left the plane, walking behind Reid who seemed to be stumbling slightly. It was probably because he had only just been woken up by Morgan. Hotch made a mental note to check the boy was okay at a more appropriate time though.

As usual, the current head of the investigation was there to meet them with a couple of rental cars. JJ was just finishing the introductions when Hotch drew level with them.

"- And this is our unit chief Special Agent Hotchner."

Hotch shook hands with the man, "Detective Cooper," he said by way of greeting.

"Please, call me Jason," Cooper replied, addressing the team. Hotch felt a brief pang of loss at the name but it passed quickly and the team split up to go and do their respective jobs.

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When Hotch, Prentiss and Morgan arrived at the crime scene the media was already swarming around like a plague of locusts. Hotch inwardly cursed himself, he should have brought JJ to deal with the press. This was what came from allowing himself to be distracted from his work with thoughts of his personal life.

They were shown to where the body was lying behind a dumpster and as always Hotch looked at it with an almost clinical distance. Extensive facial bruising, by the looks of it done in anger.

"The markings around her neck," Morgan said, indicating the woman, "Hand marks. It looks like the unsub used his bare hands to strangle her."

"That means he was strong," Hotch said in agreement.

"Are there any signs of sexual assault?" Morgan asked, looking to Detective Cooper.

"None that we know of yet. You'll have to wait for the coroners report."

Hotch nodded and took a moment to take in his surroundings. They were in an ally just off a very busy road. It was quite likely that many people had seen something that couple help them, but in a place like this everyone was too busy to notice or care about the things going on around them that would not directly affect them. This made it difficult to narrow down what type of vehicle the unsub had driven because it wouldn't matter either way.

Prentiss seemed to have noticed the same problem because she said, "There's a shopping centre just around the corner so nobody would look twice at anything parked nearby that could be potentially out of the ordinary."

"She was wrapped up in a black bin bag so anybody who saw him could have easily thought he was just taking out the trash," Cooper said, disgust evident in his voice, "The only reason we found her as soon as we did was because the owner of this bakery," he indicated the building they were stood next too, "came out and almost tripped over her."

"This all suggests that this guy's opinion of women is that they are expendable, so why is he keeping them for so long before he kills them? In cases like this the women are normally kept for a much shorter period of time before the unsub moves onto his next victim," Morgan mused.

Hotch tried to ignore the small voice in his head telling him that it was possible that they just hadn't found the other bodies yet. If they were all well hidden then it could take a while for them to be discovered.

"Go and talk to the man who found the body," Hotch said to Morgan, who nodded in response, "Prentiss and I will go and talk to the victim's family and then we'll meet back at the station. Do you have an address?"

The detective nodded and took out a little notebook from his shirt pocket. He ripped out one of the pages and handed it to Hotch who took it without a word. He didn't really feel like making small talk or keeping up with his manners at the moment, he was still berating himself about his oversight of not bringing JJ with them. Out of the corner of his eye Hotch could see one of the reporters trying to slip under the police tape with a camera in his hand. However, instead of marching over there and giving the reporter a good telling off like he oh so wanted too, Hotch merely turned around and stalked towards the car they had been provided with, only mildly aware of Prentiss following behind him.

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Hotch pulled up outside Jordan Berry's parents' house and got out the car. He had spent the entire car journey trying not to think about his son and probably his soon to be ex-wife, which of course meant that he had spent the entire car journey thinking about them. Thankfully, Prentiss seemed to have noticed that he was in no mood to talk and hadn't tried to strike up a conversation.

They walked to the front door and Prentiss rang the door bell.

A short woman answered the door. Her eyes were red rimmed and her face tear stained, but when she spoke her voice was quite steady.

"You must be from the FBI," she said before Hotch could introduce himself, "Come in."

She ushered them both in and sat them down on a couch, "Would you like some tea?" she asked politely.

"No thank you, Mrs Berry," Hotch replied, "We are just here to ask a few questions about your daughter."

The woman nodded and sat down opposite the two agents, "What do you want to know?"

"When was the last time you saw your daughter?" Prentiss asked.

"The weekend before she went missing."

"Did she seem agitated at all? Was their anything out of the ordinary that you noticed? Maybe she told you she had just started seeing someone?"

"No, she seemed perfectly fine. Busy as she always is-was," the woman faltered slightly but kept speaking, "As far as I know she wasn't seeing anyone. Too busy with work to deal with relationships she said."

"What else can you tell us about her?" said Hotch.

Mrs Berry looked thoughtful, "She was very career driven and very good at what she did. But she still always made time to come and visit us often. She was very capable. I just don't understand how this could have happened."

The woman was beginning to look tearful. Hotch caught Prentiss' eye and she nodded slightly, they both know it wouldn't help to press this woman for anymore details.

"Thank you, Mrs Berry," Hotch said softly, "You've been a great help. If you think of anything else, you can reach me at this number."

Taking out a card from his pocket and handing it to the grieving woman, he stood up and made to leave. Before he and Prentiss left the house, Hotch turned around and said, "We're truly sorry for your loss."

The woman nodded tearfully and closed the door as they walked down the path together.

"It's not much to go on," Prentiss said as they got back in the car.

"No," Hotch replied, glancing over at her before switching the engine on.

He paused for a brief moment to study her face. There was a peculiar, almost glassy look in her eyes.

She noticed him looking and raised an eyebrow, "Is there something wrong?"

"No," he said shortly, putting his foot down on the car pedal.

Driving had always felt therapeutic to Hotch, whenever he was feeling particularly stressed he would take the car out for a drive to calm his nerves. It was why he took these minutes of silence to muse over his team. Prentiss was probably just tired, nothing she couldn't handle herself, so Hotch decided not to mention anything about it to her. Reid on the other hand was beginning to worry him, he was drinking more coffee than any one person should be able to, he had a perpetual look of distance on his face and he seemed to be a lot jumpier than he had been before.

Keeping an eye on his team's psychological wellbeing had always been a large part of Hotch's job. Something he felt he had never been particularly good at. He had let Elle down in a big way last year, and it didn't matter how many times Gideon said it wasn't his fault, Hotch knew it was.

He suppressed a sigh and kept on driving.

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Author's Note: Out of curiosity, do you prefer shorter chapters and faster updates or would you rather wait a bit longer and have a longer chapter?

Next chapter from Morgan's point of view.