I hope everyone is liking this. Thanks again to Tigerlily888 because she is amazing.

Also, I don't own CM (unlike this fic), but if I did I might have to institute a beard and sunglasses rule. Yum.

Chapter 3

The house was stunning. The elegance didn't surprise any of the agents. Emily had grown up surrounded by it, Rossi had bought his way into it, and Hotch had worked around it his entire career. It was obvious that Mike didn't take her inheritance for granted either. She assiduously wiped her feet on the mat outside the front door before proceeding to a small powder room to wash her hands.

"Let's go back to the study. The information I've collected is there," Mike informed them as she headed to a beautiful room on the east end of the house. It would have been a lovely space, but it currently was marred by copies of the evidence and case files spread everywhere. In the center of the room stood a large corkboard covered in photos of the dead and missing women.

"Agent Carmichael, it's my understanding that you were operating undercover for about eight months," Hotch said.

"Yes, sir."

"How did you manage to put all of this together?"

"Actually, my cover story helped me with some of it. I was at UNC working on a PhD in psychology, doing research on violent behaviors, including mutilation, for my thesis. I was going through the local paper's archives looking for anecdotal information on local mutilation cases when I started finding stories of bodies and missing women. When I researched beyond the immediate area, I found more – and started noticing certain patterns. I was able to get the case files through Web and when I realized what was going on, I reported it to Peterson."

"You're telling me that in a couple of months of doing research as a grad student, you'd managed to identify a string of murders and possible disappearances linked to a single unsub?"

"Uh, no, sir. After two months, I'd tentatively linked three homicides and possibly 2 disappearances. That's when I went to Peterson. Everything else blossomed from there once I realized that Peterson wasn't going to contact you."

"How did you maintain your cover?" Emily wanted to know.

"It turned out to be easier than I had expected. Marcus thought it was pretty hilarious to have someone like me working with him. The fact that my education was obviously geared toward law enforcement was endlessly amusing to him. Not to mention that he considered my education to be beneficial to his enterprise. Who better to identify possible allies or enemies, find out if they're being truthful, to know what scares them, what incentives will work? It helped that he thought I was a sociopath." Mike sounded matter of fact, but she gave an involuntary shudder at her memories of Marcus Denham. She may have shot him and brought down his entire sordid organization, but her time with him, the things she'd done to survive, and the things she'd seen hadn't stopped haunting her.

Hotch realized the conversation was veering into territory that Agent Carmichael wasn't comfortable exploring, and sent his agents a silent signal to get them back to the current investigation. "Agent Carmichael, we're going to want you…"

"Lunch," announced the wrinkled old woman they'd met in front of the house. As she pushed a tea cart into the room, she gave Carmichael a beady-eyed glare, "You'd better eat everything on that plate."

Carmichael rolled her eyes, "You do realize I carry a weapon, right? That there are people here to talk about work?" She waved at the agents in the room.

"Don't you get sassy with me, missy. I'll take a switch to your backside. You're not too old, too big, or too official for a spanking." With that, the old woman stomped from the room.

Rossi couldn't contain his mirth and chuckled, attempting to hide it behind his hand. Prentiss grinned broadly and even Hotch smiled. Mike flushed in embarrassment. "Sorry. Joanie's been working here since the Great Depression. She basically raised me and likes to remind me that she's really in charge around here."

"She's worried about you," Hotch commented.

Mike sighed. "I know. She's been fussing ever since the op finished." She closed her eyes briefly then shook off whatever had come over her. "I'm sorry. Let's sit down and eat. You can tell me what you had in mind."

The four plates arranged on the rolling tea cart Joanie had left behind were too tempting to pass up. Soon, the four agents were arranged around a glass topped table in the bay window of the study. Prentiss had a momentary feeling of pity for her colleagues in Raleigh who wouldn't be getting such a fabulous meal. Chicken salad, fresh tomato slices, and a chopped salad with fresh lemonade were definitely not in store for the other half of the team.

Hotch interrupted the brief respite, "I don't usually like discussing a case while we're eating, but time is of the essence. How did you determine these bodies were connected?"

"One of the bodies was missing a square section of flesh from the right breast. When I looked into the other cases, a similar piece of flesh was missing – although for some of the bodies it was difficult to tell because of post-mortem mutilation or decomposition."

"What about the skeletal remains? How did you link those?" Rossi wanted to know.

"They showed similar knife wounds to the sternum. The unsub doesn't just cut out the skin, but cuts out the entire piece of flesh down to the bone. Additionally, there were similar signs of torture; burns, whips, broken fingers and toes. Similar ligature marks, again damaging the bone, signs of repeated rape. The evidence indicated that this all occurred over an extended period of time; there were signs of partial or total healing of broken bones and subsequent re-breaks, and the strangulation or suffocation of the victim. It wasn't so much one thing, as all of the elements together."

"What does this tell you about the unsub?" Prentiss asked. As she had been during her teaching experience, Emily was impressed with Mike, and felt a measure of pride at having brought her to Hotch's attention. Mike wasn't disappointing her previous assessment and demonstrated that she had continued to hone her fledgling skills as a profiler while working on other Bureau matters.

"That he's incredibly organized. The wound patterns follow a specific timeline. That he's an extreme sexual sadist. That he has somewhere secluded to keep these women and torture them; wherever it is, that place is relatively large since he keeps more than one victim at a time, and there's room for an extensive collection of torture paraphernalia. That he's smart or at least extremely cunning. He's been doing this for years and no one's caught on. He's comfortable in the outdoors, a lot of the dump sites have been pretty isolated, but he also blends well in the city, since that's where most of the women were abducted."

Rossi smiled to himself before catching Prentiss' eye. They'd been right about Mike. She was going to be a hell of a profiler. Hotch wasn't giving anything away, just continued his question and answer with Mike, but Rossi had no doubt that Hotch was already mentally working out how to pull this young woman into the BAU.

"Agent Carmichael, we're going to need to get this all back to the field office. Also, you're coming back in to help us. You're knowledge and research to date will be invaluable and save us from having to duplicate what you've already done."

"Sir, I'm currently suspended."

"I'm aware of your suspension and the circumstances surrounding it. But you're coming in and helping us with the case. I'll take care of Peterson."

Mike gazed at him unblinkingly for ten humming seconds, almost as if she were gauging Hotch as he had previously gauged her. "Yes, sir," she ultimately replied, pushing back from the table. "Give me a few minutes to speak with Joanie and change," she said before leaving the room.

After she left, Hotch walked back to the corkboard. "You were right about her, Prentiss," he commented as he reviewed the information Carmichael had gleaned from the various files.

Ten minutes later, Carmichael returned in more appropriate attire, although not a suit. Dark slacks and a scoop-necked blouse covered by a blazer were less formal than Hotch expected, but since she was technically suspended, he couldn't blame her for the less formal presentation. She carried a ready bag. When she noticed everyone glance at it, she explained, "I don't keep a lot at my apartment. I'll need some clothes for however long I'm there."

Mike offered to have one of her men help carry the file boxes and corkboard to the SUV, but Hotch declined. The fewer people to see what they were investigating, the better. It took three trips to get everything loaded, then their small caravan of Hotch and Rossi in the SUV and Mike and Emily in Mike's non-descript sedan began the trek back to Raleigh.

As they pulled onto the road beyond the gated entrance to her farm, Mike looked at Prentiss and asked the question that had been bugging her since the agents had arrived.

"What's it going to take to get Agent Hotchner to call me Mike?"

Emily just laughed.


When the BAU team was reassembled at the Raleigh field office, they began to sift through the notes and files Mike had collected. Hotch had determined that it was best to keep Agent Carmichael cloistered with his team and out of Peterson's sight as much as possible. He might not give a damn about Peterson, but they had a job to do and didn't need him interfering.

Emily kept her eye on Mike, watching as she interacted with the team. She was cooperative and friendly, asking and answering questions as they arose. But there was a tenseness to the younger woman that Emily recognized and every now and then Mike would roll her right shoulder before pressing her hand or arm against her ribs. Just before it would happen, Carmichael would briefly freeze, her eyes would lose their focus and Emily knew she was lost somewhere in thought, before she was able to drag herself back to the issue at hand. Emily wondered briefly if Mike had been evaluated for PTSD following her undercover assignment, then realized she probably hadn't been, considering how quickly she'd been suspended.

After another three hours of reviewing the open homicide and missing persons files, the team believed they had identified another possible six homicides within the original time frame and three more another year back. It brought the total to 21 women in six years. They had been able to reject a number of disappearances because the victims didn't fit the general victimology: too young, too old, unhealthy or unfit, or because they were such high risk victims like drug addicts or prostitutes. Unfortunately, they had linked another five possible missing on top of the eight Mike had already identified. The team took a moment to absorb the information they'd gathered and sorted and were horrified by the numbers before them. At least 21 confirmed dead and 13 more potential victims in over a seven year period. And that was just the ones they knew about or suspected. In all, 34 young women had been beaten, tortured, and raped over a long period of confinement.

Hotch took a deep breath before pinching the bridge of his nose. This was worse than anything he'd anticipated. "I'm going to make a couple of calls then we'll find a hotel and get started fresh in the morning," he said before stepping from the room.

"Hey, Garcia," Reid called out to the woman who'd been video conferencing with them throughout the day, "where are we staying?"

"Sadly, my friends," Garcia started, "it looks like there's some kind of big event in the area this week. I could only find a hotel with enough rooms for you in Durham."

"That's kind of far… why don't you all just stay at my apartment?" Mike offered.

Morgan looked at her, "Are you sure? There are six of us, seven including yourself." He hated the impersonal hotels they often found themselves in, and hoped Mike's place could accommodate all of them.

"Sure. It's a stupidly large corporate apartment. I took the master, but there are three other bedrooms, each with two double beds. There's a bathroom attached to each bedroom. You would all have to share a room, but there's a pull out couch if someone isn't interested in sharing. It's not exactly homey, but it's big enough and a lot closer than anything in Durham." She looked around the room at each member of the BAU team, waiting for their answer.

Finally, after they'd all exchanged looks, Dave spoke up, "I don't have a problem with it. It'll save the Bureau some money too, which the budget office will love. As long as Hotch doesn't care, it sounds like a plan."

"As long as I don't care about what?" Hotch asked as he re-entered the room.

Garcia piped up from the computer, "I could only find a block of rooms in Durham, sir. Agent Carmichael offered up her apartment instead of making everyone drive so far."

Hotch glanced over at Agent Carmichael, surprised by her offer. She seemed the solitary type.

"As long as no one minds sharing a room, there are enough beds for everyone."

Hotch looked at his team. They were all clearly exhausted. Even though he had some concerns about everyone spending so much time together, when tempers frayed without a little personal space, he decided to spare them the additional drive. "I don't have a problem with that arrangement, but you're not under any obligation to put us up, Agent Carmichael."

"I know, but this will probably be easier for everyone."

"OK then. Let's head out."