Essential listening: Cars, by Gary Numan
Penelope rubbed her temple, her eyes already feeling tired even though it was still pretty early in the day. Usually she managed to come to work with her effortless perkiness firmly in place, ready to face whatever fresh horror the bad guys (and girls) of America decided to throw their way, but not today.
Today, she had a migraine.
It felt like her eyeballs were being boiled.
She took a sip of her triple shot macchiato and squinted at the screen.
"Penelope is…" she mumbled, as if writing a Facebook status update, "hoping that the migraine that she woke up this morning goes away in time for the Small Wonder marathon tonight."
Someone knocked on the door, momentarily startling her, before speaking. "You decent?"
Penelope's frown melted immediately and she turned to her boyfriend with the beginnings of a smirk. "Never."
She raised an eyebrow as Kevin took a few steps inside her tech lair. Where, ordinarily, he would be wearing khakis and a nerdy shirt, today he was suited and booted to perfection. He looked almost too neat, though Penelope wasn't complaining.
Now, there's a sight for sore eyes, she thought, her smile increasing.
"Well, look at you! Did somebody die?" she quipped, aware that if someone had in fact shuffled off the mortal coil, she probably would have heard about it by now.
He laughed, looking down at himself. "Oh, no."
"BAU yearbook photo?" Garcia asked (by which she meant the annual renewal of their photo IDs), and then frowned, wondering if she had forgotten that was coming up.
"No, I have a job interview," Kevin explained.
"Ooh, hey rock star," she said, reaching out and fiddling with his collar. "Are you up for that systems promotion?"
"No, no," he said, looking mildly anxious (which, for Kevin, was quite a lot of anxious). "My friend is a head hunter for the NSA. They're looking for analysts versed in cyber warfare."
"Really? That sounds exciting."
"Yeah, the job is totally cutting edge," he said, and although she could tell he was excited, she could also tell he wasn't telling her something.
I've been working here too long, she thought. All this suspicion and paranoia is wearing off on me.
"Yeah, it sounds like it," she said aloud. "Are – are you sure you're gonna wanna make the commute to Fort Mead every day?"
Kevin immediately looked awkward and Penelope suddenly felt much less paranoid and much more justifiably concerned.
"Um," he coughed, "actually it's an overseas position."
Penelope froze, feeling like a boulder had just dropped into her stomach. "Where overseas?"
"I can't say, it's classified," he told her apologetically.
"Are – are we breaking up right now?" she asked, beginning to panic.
"No! No, not at all," he told her hurriedly. "They haven't hired me yet – it's my final interview."
"Final?" she echoed, her voice sounding small and crushed even to her own ears. "How long have you known about this?"
"A… a few weeks," he admitted. "I didn't want to say anything to you until it was real."
"Okay, okay," she said. She could accept that. No point planning – whatever he was thinking of planning – without knowing where they stood. Still, it was scary. "And… this is what you want?"
Kevin sighed. "I'm not sure. I mean, the long-distance thing would be rough."
"Yeah, it would be," she said, trying to avoid making this an argument. "Considering you can't even tell me where you're going."
"Well, I could if you applied with me," he said. "They need other people."
"Leave the BAU?" Penelope said softly, glancing briefly around at her banks of computers.
But this is home, she thought desperately.
"Just think about it?" Kevin asked.
He looked so earnest and sweet, and she did love him – she definitely did, but…
"Um, my head hurts," she said, turning away and reclaiming her chair. "And JJ just brought in a case, so I need to get back to work."
She heard his footsteps retreating and paused, swivelling in her seat. "Kevin?"
He turned back and gave her a sad, long look.
"Whatever happens, with – with… Um, good luck."
He smiled then, his hundred-watt grin that she only saw when it was just the two of them, and walked off with his chin a little higher.
She watched him go before returning to her monitors, thinking fiercely, I don't want to lose you.
0o0
JJ emerged from her office, ready to start rounding up her team.
She paused to stabilise her stack of files, using the crook of her arm to pull the door closed behind her and was about to set off when something made her stop in her tracks, then instinctively duck into the lee of another door.
The corridor was mostly empty, given that most agents were presently in briefings at this time of morning. In fact, there were only two other people currently occupying the hallway. They must have walked up the side stairs, rather than using the elevators, and given the BAU offices were on the sixth floor, there was no real reason for them to have done that. Unless they didn't want to be observed.
Which is entirely possible, JJ thought, with the way Spence was currently looking at Grace. They were angled towards one another almost intimately, deep in conversation. It reminded JJ of the day, years before, when she had seen them speaking privately when they were investigating murder by arson in San Francisco. This seemed different, somehow; then, they had clearly been discussing stress related to the case. Now, however…
She watched as Spencer made a presumably witty remark and Grace threw her head back, laughing.
A soft, deeply affectionate expression that she had never seen before crept over her friend's face as Grace made her reply, pushing a short, dirty-blonde curl over her ear as she spoke. She had Spencer's full attention.
Gently, he touched her forearm, newly freed from the plaster cast she had worn for the last six weeks, and Grace glanced down, smiling in a way she never really did at work.
JJ ducked her head, trying to hide her grin, and let the door she was leaning against shut with a loud click.
By the time she drew level with them, their expressions were much more work-appropriate, which was a shame, really, but the number one pass-time of agents not currently scurrying around trying to stop people getting away with murder was gossip – and after the year those two had had, wherever their recovering relationship was right now, it would do better out of the departmental spotlight.
0o0
"An unsub who kills with a car," said Prentiss, when they were all gathered in the situation room. "Haven't seen that before."
"Neither have the police in Bend, Oregon," said JJ, manipulating the remote for the smart screen. "Which is why they need her help."
She glanced at Aaron, who took the signal to continue, "Two victims in the last twelve days."
"The first was hit while on a morning jog," said JJ, reading from her notes. "Maria Delgado, twenty-three. The second was a stranded motorist, Shannon Makeley, forty-three."
"What makes the locals think they were connected?" Morgan asked, flipping through the files in front of him.
"Well, mainly that they were both backed over after the initial impact," she told them, with a grimace.
"No accident there," Rossi observed.
Pearce gave a low whistle. "The vehicular equivalent of multiple stab wounds," she postulated. "Rage?"
"They matched treads at both crime scenes," Aaron informed them. "Large wheels, all-terrain."
"Wounds also indicate a raised bumper, so they're thinking large SUV or truck," JJ put in.
"Do we know the model or make?" Reid asked.
"Uh, the tyres are factory issue," JJ replied, bringing up the images of the treads taken at both scenes. "They could be on a number of different models."
Pearce, who had been reading the forensic report, added, "Tyre impressions suggest they're pretty new – no wearing or pitting. So this unsub takes care of their car – or has, up until the first murder."
Aaron nodded, one eye on the way she was flexing the fingers of her left hand, gently turning the wrist that had recently been in plaster. He made a mental note to pointedly inquire whether she needed her pain meds refilled before they set off for Bend.
"No witnesses to either incident?" Prentiss asked.
Aaron shook his head, making a noise that indicated the negative.
"A hit and run is loud," Rossi reflected. "Draws attention. Somebody usually sees or hears something."
"Both victims were attacked in secluded areas," said JJ.
Morgan raised an eyebrow at the preliminary autopsy report for the first victim, Maria. "Two tons of metal make a hell of a weapon."
"Serial killers have been known to become attached to their vehicles," Spencer reflected. "Um, Bittaker and Norris even gave theirs a nickname."
"Murder Mack," Rossi recalled, with a nod, but Aaron shook his head.
"Bittaker and Norris were sexual sadists. There's no sign of torture here."
"Feels like thrill kills," Prentiss added. "Opportunistic."
"Easy targets, randomly selected," Dave mused.
"With this type of impact the vehicle shouldn't be too hard to pick out of a line-up," Morgan remarked.
"Yeah, there should be significant front-end damage," Reid agreed.
"Unless the unsub's repairing it," Pearce suggested. "If he is keeping his tyres in this good a shape, it's no big leap to suppose he'd know his way around knocking out sizeable dents."
"We should check out anyone with a connection to motor repair shops," said Prentiss, nodding. "Or more intense hobbyists who have the bigger equipment at home."
"Somehow, I don't think it's gonna be that easy," Rossi reflected sadly.
0o0
"I'm not sure about automobiles. With all their speed forward, they may be a step backward in civilisation."
Booth Tarkington
0o0
"Well, I think it's safe to assume that our unsub is male," Prentiss said, without a hint of irony.
Derek glanced at her over the top of his file, quirking an eyebrow that she merely shrugged at. He turned back to his reading with a slight smile.
"I would agree with you, given what we know about aggressive driving and road rage," said Hotch.
"I don't know," Pearce remarked. "When I was on the beat in London the top three worst traffic offenders were London cabbies, middle class women on the school run and tiny, angry old ladies with blue rinses. And admittedly most London cabbies are male – or were, back then – but those old dears packed quite a whack if they got a good swing on their handbag."
"Terrifying OAPs from your nation's capital notwithstanding," said Prentiss, aiming a grin at her friend, "men do have an unnatural attachment to their cars."
There was a moment when all the male occupants of the jet shared a look with one another, wondering if any of the others cared as much about their cars as – say, as a totally random example – Pearce did for her bike.
"That is true," said JJ, without even looking up.
"Wait a minute, I don't know about unnatural," Derek protested.
He looked for help from the others, but Hotch had gone back to his paperwork, Rossi simply looked amused and Reid had that expression on his face that he got when he found the division of opinions about assigned gender stereotypes both fascinating and utterly alien.
Despite the care the kid takes over his ancient VW bug, Derek thought, uncharitably. 'But it's a classic, man!'
He scoffed, inside his own head.
Pearce, he noted, was harbouring a slightly wicked smile, but wisely refraining from comment – for now, at least.
JJ looked up, gave Derek a look of mild disgust at whatever image was presently in her head and said, "I once dated a guy who washed his car more than he washed his hair."
"Ew," said Pearce, at once.
"A nice car needs love," Rossi put in and Morgan pointed at him in acknowledgement.
"And a woman doesn't?" JJ retorted, amused.
The man with three divorces under his belt pulled a face, humouring her. "Uh, I'm not qualified to answer that."
There was a round of chuckles.
"Anyway, Pearce named her motorcycle," he added, sending her a wicked smirk that she deflected with a roll of her eyes.
"Thank you," said Derek. "And she describes tinkering with it as a 'hot date'."
"You leave my darling Lily out of this," she answered gamely. "And my lack of love life."
Several people snorted at this, leaving Derek to wonder how many of the others harboured growing suspicions about her and Reid and how well they seemed to be getting on these days. The kid himself wore a slight smile that didn't look at all out of place, given the light banter, but it seemed to Derek that it slid more up one side of his face than the other when Pearce glanced up and met his gaze for a second.
Prentiss laughed. "I'm just saying, big car – it's phallic."
"Compensating?" Hotch proposed.
"Or over-compensating," Reid added.
"Impotent?" Derek wondered.
"Possibly," said the kid. "If the unsub sees himself as physically defective, the – uh – car not only gives him the power and control he otherwise lacks, but also serves as a shield."
"Allowing him to avoid physical contact?" Hotch inferred.
"So, maybe he is physically incapable in some way," Pearce suggested. "Something that means he can't use a more traditional method of killing."
"Power and control, female victims," Prentiss mused. "That almost reads like a rape profile."
"Vehicular rape," Rossi pondered.
"Rape and thrill kill are two very different profiles," Derek pointed out.
There was a pause as they considered this.
"What does victimology tell us?" Hotch asked.
"Nothing, yet," JJ responded. "Shannon Makeley was a white, married, forty-one-year-old commodities trader. Maria Delgado was a twenty-three-year-old Hispanic grad student and competitive triathlete."
"So far gender's our only link."
"Guys, if our unsub is using the road as his hunting ground, does it matter what they look like?" Pearce put in.
"How do you mean?" Hotch asked.
"Well, when I'm driving I tend to see other cars more than I see other passengers," she pointed out.
"That's true," said Rossi. "But would an unsub really transfer his need to kill to the occupant of a vehicle based on its model?"
"Maybe," Hotch reflected. "But Maria Delgado wasn't with her car at the time of her murder, so the point is moot. Hopefully the crime scenes will tell us more."
0o0
Shannon Makeley's blood still stained the cracked tarmac just outside Bend, Oregon.
It would have made a pleasant drive, Dave reflected. Woods on either side, wide enough lanes to relax a little, ten minutes outside of town. There was a bit of a blind bend where the victim's car had been found, then a nice straight run up to where the tyre treads and blood pool were.
The perfect place to build up speed.
"She lived a little out of town," Detective Quinn told them, as Morgan followed the double yellow lines at the centre of the road back towards where the other two men were standing. "She was on her way home from work when she broke down."
"So, she breaks down way back there and she gets out and starts walkin'," Morgan said, breaking it down. "Why not call for help?"
Dave, who had already checked, waved his cell in Morgan's general direction. "No service. From the treads we know he made a complete stop here," he went on, gesturing fifty yards further up the road. "And then he hit the gas."
Definitely not an accident, Dave thought.
Morgan raised an eyebrow. "Full stop in the middle of the road? I take it there's not much traffic out here."
"Not on this stretch," said Detective Quinn. "Not at that time of day, at least."
"Done workin' by three o'clock in the afternoon?" Morgan questioned.
"Broker, specialised in foreign markets," the detective explained. "Time difference made for some odd hours."
Rossi frowned at the pool of blood, contemplatively. For an opportunistic murder it all seemed too convenient. The location was perfect for this murder. The unsub couldn't have planned it better.
Unless, of course, he had planned it.
"What are you thinkin' about, Rossi?" Morgan asked, when he had been quiet for a little too long.
"What are the odds that she broke down right here?" he asked. "No phone signal, no witnesses, nowhere to run?"
They glanced behind them, to where the trees banked steeply down towards a stream. She could have flung herself in there, but it would have been dangerous – and people found reasoning difficult when they were pumped full of panic and adrenaline, which was why they tended to run in a straight line, rather than dodge out of the way of something.
Morgan nodded. "Perfect place for an ambush."
