10.

JJ woke with a start, her heart beating fast in her chest from the nightmare which had invaded her peaceful sleep. She checked her surroundings, a prickling feeling causing the hairs on her arms to stand on end despite the warmth of the room. Icy fingers tiptoed down her spine and she experienced the feeling of being watched. Her rational brain knew that nothing was unusual about the house, nothing out of the ordinary, but something at the back of her mind was telling her not to go back to sleep. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table, watching as the numbers flashed 3.14. Will slept silently beside her on his side, his body rising and falling slightly with each breath. JJ shook her head and blew out a sigh, waiting for her heart rate to return to normal before slowly lying back down. She stared up at the ceiling, listening to Will's quiet breathing as she tried to shake off the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She put it down to her nightmare and then she blamed it on this case the BAU were working on. There was something about it which made her uncomfortable, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. Just then there was a thud which sounded like it came from downstairs. JJ's eyes flew wide open and her body went stiff. She turned over and put a hand on Will, shaking him gently into awareness.

"Will, I think I heard someone downstairs…" she whispered.

With a groan, Will rolled onto his back without opening his eyes and listened in the darkness for any other sound. They lay there for a few moments which stretched on for what seemed like a lifetime; long enough for JJ to doubt whether she'd heard anything at all or if it had been her imagination playing cruel tricks on her.

"There's no one there JJ, go back to sleep," Will breathed, reaching for her. But she couldn't settle. She was sure she had heard something, and even if it was nothing, she wanted to check.

"No Will, I think we should check," she whispered, but she could already hear his steady breathing which told her he had settled back into sleep. Unable to follow in his footsteps, she pushed the duvet aside and silently reached for her gun in the top drawer of her bedside table. Holding it low she nudged the bedroom door open and slipped into the hallway. Her footsteps made no noise as she moved towards Henry's room. He was sleeping in the same position he had been when JJ had put him to bed, his gentle snores assuring her that he was dreaming peacefully. Content, she shut the door over and headed for the stairs. The bottom floor of the house was empty; no sign of anything out of the ordinary, but the uneasiness wouldn't lift off her mind. Then another thud caught her attention and she spun towards the front door. The latch was on, restricting the doors movement, but it was unlocked and open ajar, causing it to bang slightly against the chain as the wind tugged past it. Will had been the last to bed that night and JJ let out an exasperated but relieved sigh as she tucked the gun into the waistband of her pajama bottoms and pushed the door closed, sliding the bolt firmly across. She climbed the stairs back to her room with less care for silence than before. She slid back into bed and shook Will awake again.

"You left the front door unlocked," she said as he blinked his eyes open and turned to face her.

"No, I definitely locked it," he mumbled with a frown.

"It was unlocked, Will," she said again, propping herself up on her elbow.

"JJ I'm a trained cop with knowledge of safety and a love for my family, meaning I want to keep us safe which therefore also means I always lock all the doors. Last night is no exception to that rule, I locked the door," Will assured her. JJ rolled her eyes and dropped her head back against the pillow.

"Well Mr Nobody must have unlocked it in the night," she sighed, closing her eyes. The uneasy feeling was still settled on her stomach, but after she heard Will's familiar breathing fall back into a quiet rhythm, she heard no other strange sounds in the house. Soon she was too tired to keep her eyes open and she felt herself drift into a deep dreamless sleep.

The team were called to the mortuary the next day to inspect yet another body. But this time, two victims lay on morgue slabs with white sheets pulled up to their necks.

"This is Mr and Mrs Jessops, killed last night in their home after arriving back from their honeymoon. Married less than a month and here they lie," the pathologist sighed sadly as she washed her hands.

"Michael Jessops died from loss of blood from a single stab wound to his back which perforated his lung. I put his cause of death before Julie's. Julie Jessops' cause of death was from a stab wound in the neck which cut through the carotid artery," she explained.

"So the husband was collateral damage," Blake asked as she looked over Mr Jessops body.

"I think so," Hotch sighed, looking down at the photos of the crime scene. The killer's signature was scrawled across both of the girl's wrists. He then glanced back at the body and frowned.

"Whatever was used to write on the body was pressed deep and broke the skin," the pathologist explained, following his gaze.

"It's an angrier killing," JJ sighed, "he's escalating and we still know nothing about him."

"Oh and I found this in Julie's clothing, tucked into her jeans," the pathologist turned away and rummaged in a box which contained the Jessops clothes. She pulled out a white envelope and handed it to Hotch. On the front was a label which read 'for the attention of the FBI', scribbled in the same red pen as the one which marked the victims bodies. Hotch asked for a pair of latex gloves which he snapped over his hands before carefully opening the envelope. Inside was a piece of plain white paper with four typed words on it.

"'What's in a name'," Hotch read aloud before facing the rest of the team, "we need to get this sent off for prints right away."

When the team got back to the office, Garcia rushed out of her office and tottered towards them in her florescent pink heels waving a sheet of paper in her outstretched hand.

"Sir, I think this is something you might want to see!" she called, waving the paper in front of Hotch's face. He took the paper from her with a frown and assessed the list of names typed there.

"I don't understand," he said after reading them several times.

"Well, when you phoned and told me about the letter that the killer left behind for you, I had an idea so I dug extremely deep, and let me tell you it's possibly the furthest I've been into the underbelly of government files and data…" Penelope cried, falling over her words as she fought to let them escape. Her mind did always work faster than her mouth. "And I managed to pull up some data on Hollie's previous life. So her birth name is Jade Jacobs and this leads me to my next point! Upon finding out Hollie's real name I decided to look into the other victims' and here's where it gets interesting, or extremely creepy. Your first victim, Rhodes, was going through a divorce to a man called Harold Jamieson; Halsall's maiden name was Jackson; and your latest victim recently married into the Jessops family. All these women have the same initials, Hotch, I mean that can't be a coincidence," she finished.

"JJ," she whispered her own initials as a shiver ran up her spine.

"The only anomaly to my theory is Roxie Hendriks, who was found to have had sexual relations with our guy before her death. His DNA was found on your envelope and on her body which therefore links her to your guy." Garcia grinned. There was little to be argued with.

"Looks like this case is a lot more personal than this unsub wants us to know."