The next morning the team is back at work by 7 a.m. Extended financials of the two victims have been delivered by Garcia so Emily and Reid get at them. These include the victims, their immediate family members and even their places of employment. Hotch decides not to ask how that last set was attained.

JJ and Rossi are planning to go interview the employers later that morning before following up with friends in the afternoon. They are combing through the data provided by immediate family members during the original police questions. In the case of Warren Dales they are including information Rossi and Emily had found out from his wife and daughters. First up they are hoping to speak with the parents and in-laws of Bud Stevens but know it will be a hard talk to have considering his wife's suicide. JJ shakes her head.

"Those poor kids. They lost their father to a killer and their mother to her grief and mental illness."

Emily's head shoots up. "Her mental illness…" she repeats, her mind reaching for a thread but it's just too far away to grab.

Rossi studies her. "Whatcha thinking, kid?"

"Something…something is…" she shakes her head. "It will come to me."

Emily goes back to the paperwork in front of her. This is the financial history for Cynthia Dales. She gets to the section on her medical bills and her eyes widen.

"That's it!" She looks up. "Reid, Philemon!"

Rossi raises an eyebrow. "Bible passages, Prentiss?"

Emily ignores Rossi as she sees Reid running through the information in his eidetic memory. Finally the genius sees it, too. He leaps up and races to a blank spot on the chalkboard they are using.

"RIGHT! Philemon!" he agrees, writing it down.

JJ rolls her eyes and sits back in her chair, recognizing an EmiReid conversation blossoming. "Oh for fucks sake," she mutters.

Emily and Reid ignore her. Rossi and Hotch grin.

"Marie Stevens," Emily says.

"Both the Dales," Reid agrees.

"Shrink, too?"

Reid nods. "Yes."

"Bet they have a cleaning service."

"Easy cover for The Puppet Master."

"Definitely." Reid grabs the phone and hits the redial, which takes him to…

"Oracle of Quantico and her faithful man-slave, how may we dazzle you today?" Garcia answers.

"Garcia, we need the name of the cleaning service for Philemon Medical Associates and there's a chance The Puppet Master worked there," he tells her.

"It will be a fake i.d., Pen, so make sure to just look at employees hired since he went after JJ in Detroit," Emily adds.

No one mentions the slip of calling her wife JJ but all notice it.

"Got it. Give me 5," Garcia says excitedly as she hangs up.

JJ sits forward. "Okay, fill the rest of us in, nerdlings."

Emily lifts the financial report she's holding. "Marie Stevens was seeing a doctor at Philemon Medical Associates for her depression."

"Both Cynthia and Warren Dales were seeing a doctor there for their HIV status. Warren Dales even saw a psychiatrist associated with the practice."

"What better way to find his targets than by using his cover as a janitor at a medical center?" Emily concludes.

Hotch slowly nods. "Good idea. But how did he work here, too."

Emily shrugs. "Either different shifts, different days or he worked at Philemon first. How long did he work here? Do we know?"

Hotch shrugs. "Never thought to ask."

Rossi sits forward. "Let's think about this a second. Forget The Puppet Master, let's think about the puppet. These kills are clean, the abuse is done with a board versus hands, and the final kill is done with, we're assuming, a bag over the head."

JJ nods, seeing where Rossi is going. "The killer, the puppet, is a woman."

Everyone mulls that a moment but they finally agree with that assessment. Hotch leans on the table.

"Okay, his puppet this time is a woman. Who is she and how did he find her?"

Emily taps the table. "The medical practice. He'd have been able to find the right woman to turn into his weapon. She's malleable for some reason and he exploited that."

"And any information he needed to find his weapon and his victims was in the practice computers. He hacked what he needed," JJ states.

Hotch nods. "When Garcia calls back I'll get her to…um…investigate their system. If it pans out the way we think we'll start the official route to getting the information. For now I don't want to tip our hands." He takes a deep breath. "If anyone ever makes waves about anything Garcia does during this investigation I will say it was by my order. She won't be at risk over this. Understood?"

Everyone nods, realizing he's ready to sacrifice his career to save Morgan, stop The Puppet Master and protect their analyst. They would do their damnedest to make sure that sacrifice is not needed.

Emily goes out to find Flick to see just how long The Puppet Master had worked at the police station. While she is gone, Garcia calls back.

"The medical practice uses a company called Office Doctors for their cleaning service. They go in 5 days a week. Four of those days it's just one person to do basic clean up work. But on Wednesdays they have a crew of 4 go in to do a major cleaning. All the visits are at night, usually from 9-midnight. Additionally, their hazardous materials are picked up every Thursday by Medical Waste Management but that is done during the day and the pick up has to be signed for," she reports.

"Well done as always, Garcia," Hotch notes. "The employees?"

"Two at Office Doctors since you all were in Detroit. Three at Medical Waste. Their information is in your PDA."

"Good." Hotch thinks a minute, wording his next statement carefully. "You know, Garcia, if we are right that The Puppet Master accessed the computers at Philemon Medical he may have left a trace of what he did; what he looked at. But if we go to them and ask we could accidentally tip our hands."

"That would be terrible, sir," Garcia says.

"If someone were to, say, accidentally peek into their system I would have their back," he tells her.

"Good to know, sir. Should…someone…find something there I am sure they could let you know so you can find it officially."

He grins. "Then that someone would surely deserve a Hotchlate chip cookie."

Garcia giggles. "I'll have my…I mean, I will tell them to have a glass of milk ready, sir. Oracle out."

The gathered agents laugh as Garcia hangs up. Hotch takes a deep breath. "Rossi, JJ, go finish up your interviews. If we can do anything with Philemon today I'll call you so we can all meet there."

Rossi and JJ nod. As they stand to leave, Hotch places a hand on JJ's shoulder.

"About her slip up…"

JJ shrugs it off. "She has to compartmentalize during the day. I get it. She's good, Hotch. I promise."

Hotch nods. A few minutes after JJ and Rossi leave, Emily walks back in. "He only started working here 2 months ago. He hasn't shown up since Morgan made the appointment to come meet Flick."

Hotch nods. "Getting established before the killings started. Smart move. And now disappearing."

"Yeah. Look, on the off chance this is wrong, I'm going to get back to the financials."

"Good idea. How much longer do you need?"

"Maybe an hour. Why?"

"Hopefully by then Garcia will be back to us with the information on the medical practice. Until then, I'll be looking into the two new employees of the cleaning service. We'll visit them to see if they recognize The Puppet Master's picture. If they do we can go by the medical practice and see if they recognize the unsub or have an idea of who he may have manipulated to be his new weapon."

Emily nods. "Good plan."

She turns her attention back to the information in front of her as Hotch starts to look into the new employees of the cleaning service. Unfortunately their background checks are not digitized so there is no way to confirm which of the two is their unsub, if either.

Then Hotch reads the name of one and rolls his eyes. "That son of a bitch," he mutters.


JJ shows her credentials to a mid-60's woman who answers the door. "Mrs. Woodward? My name is Agent Jennifer Jareau, this is Agent David Rossi. We're with the FBI and we hope to speak with you about your daughter Marie Stevens."

The woman crosses her arms across her chest. "She's dead. And the man that did it to her is dead, too. That's the only surprise about this whole damn thing," she says harshly.

JJ nods. It is obvious that at this point they are not going to be invited into the house. "I see. So Marie and Bud were having problems?"

The woman grunts. "Hmph. Nothing but problems from Day 1. That bastard wanted to control her, change her, fix her. He cut us off from her; convinced her we were the reason for her depression."

"And were you?" Rossi asks bluntly.

The woman's hands drop, her fists clenching. "NO! We gave her discipline and direction! Sure she had her…sad days but I told her just to suck it up and deal. Everyone has a bad day and she's no better than anyone else. That controlling bastard she was married to convinced her to get on drugs. How the hell could he love her if he did that?"

JJ frowns. "By drugs do you mean her anti-depressants?"

"YES! Pharmaceutical bullshit! She just needed to be happy naturally," the woman insists.

In her mind, JJ worries about the children left behind. This woman had no compassion to be this angry about the medicines that were helping her daughter instead of the man that had killed her son-in-law. The children were sure to need professional help. Would this woman bother?

"Mrs. Woodward, your daughter was clinically depressed. Do you understand what that means?" JJ asks.

The woman reaches for the door. "It means she listened to everyone but me. That damn husband of hers was a control freak. She was fine before him. I need to be with my grandkids. Goodbye, Detectives."

She shuts the door in their faces. JJ looks at Rossi.

"Uh, did I screw that up?"

He shakes his head. "No, kid. She has her own ideas of what happened and nothing we said was going to change that."

JJ sighs in relief. "At least we know one thing for sure." She looks back at Rossi. "Bud Stevens was the one getting her help."

Rossi nods. "True. What does that mean?"

"It means we have two victims who were instrumental in their wives' medical issues. That could be the connect."

Rossi's eyes widen. "Damn. Good deduction, JJ. I'd missed it."

JJ sighs as they start back toward their SUV. "I guess my mind is on the way a spouse can affect your life."

Rossi nods. "Understandable. Emily's slip up this morning…"

"It hurt, I'm not going to lie. But she warned me she'd be compartmentalizing to protect herself." She fakes a smile and shrugs. "I'll kick her butt when we get Morgan back and stop the fucking unsubs."

Rossi chuckles. "I can believe that." He takes a deep breath. "With the way he's killing his next victim could be taken tonight."

JJ stops walking as it hits her what Rossi is hinting at. "Do you think he'll…oh, God, he will…he'll make Morgan watch the man die."

Rossi nods. "He wants us to be his audience, not only as investigators but as, in his mind, co-conspirators. Morgan will be part of the killing, part of the ritual. If he can't save the next victim it will tear him apart inside."

"And there's no way in hell the unsub will give Morgan a chance to save the victim," JJ whispers, her heart breaking for her friend. "God, Dave, it will…will more than tear him apart."

Rossi pats her on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's go see Bud Stevens' parents."

JJ just nods and gets into the SUV. She takes a couple of deep breaths trying to turn her mind from Morgan to the couple they were going to meet next.


Isabel Stevens gestures to her couch as she takes the armchair in her living room. Rossi and JJ sit down.

"Is there any chance I can get the children from that woman?" she asks.

JJ and Rossi exchange a look. "Uh, actually that's not really something we have control of," JJ explains. "We were actually hoping to find out more about the relationship between your son and daughter; something that could point us in a direction to investigate."

Isabel clenches the handkerchief in her hand. "Oh. I see. Um, well, he worshipped the ground Marie walked on almost from the time he met her. He was…quite a bit older than her but he had married once when he was young. Swore he'd never do that again. Then he met Marie. She had…issues. He wanted to help her. I thought he was crazy; that he was just setting himself up for heartaches and headaches." She smiles, glancing at a family portrait on an end table. "He ignored me. They married. Had two children. During that whole time he made sure she sought help for her manic depressive states. Never once did he make her feel rotten for having the chemical imbalances that could switch her moods faster than changing a TV channel."

JJ nods. "That's great. What did her parents think about it?"

Isabel sneers. "Her father doesn't speak much. Been beaten down by that harpy of a wife. That woman kept telling Marie to stop the pills, stop seeing the shrink and just deal with life. She didn't want to understand that there was more to Marie's issues than just changing her own lot. I think…no, I know, that Bud is the reason Marie was able to maintain control of her life. Losing him must have been…oh, it must have just been too much for her to handle." She points a finger at the agents. "That man murdered my son and my daughter-in-law. He may as well have shoved the pills down Marie's throat himself. You find that bastard that killed them, Agents. You find him and make him pay."

Rossi sits forward. "We will do our best, Mrs. Stevens. You have our word," he vows.

Rossi and JJ get out to the SUV. They sit for a moment, pondering what they had learned so far that morning. JJ suddenly sits up straight.

"It's an avenging angel!"

Rossi glances at her, intrigued. "What?"

"Both of these men somehow…controlled their wives heath. Stevens made his wife get help for her manic depression. I bet that's in all her medical files. And, well, we both know Warren Dales has sentenced his wife to a terrifying, incurable disease." JJ looks at Rossi. "The puppet is being made to believe she is avenging the women. Think about the candles: nullification of ego."

Rossi nods. "And what greater ego boost could there be than holding someone's life in your hand. Call Hotch. No, better yet, call Garcia. See if she's still…accidently accessing things at the medical practice. Maybe she can figure out a way to predict our next potential victim."

JJ nods and makes the call. She and Rossi together help Garcia put together the search that could help them find the next person on the unsubs hit list. As JJ turns off her phone she lets out a breath in prayer.

"Please let this take us somewhere. Soon."


On their way to the cleaning service, Emily lets out a breath.

"What?"

Hotch glances at her. "Excuse me?"

"Hotch, you've been on my ass since I started at the unit. I know when you're studying me, trying to figure out a way to say something to me. So just say it. What the hell did I do wrong?"

Hotch manages a grin. "You called your wife JJ."

Emily frowns, trying to remember that slip. "Uh, when?"

"This morning. You told Garcia to check on employees that started- -"

"- -after the bastard went after JJ in Detroit," Emily finishes, now remembering. "Shit. I…I didn't know. Fuck."

"Emily, you seemed okay at breakfast. But the longer this morning has gone on the more tense you're getting. I ask this as a friend who doesn't want to see you hurt, physically or in your career: should you be on this case?"

Emily bites her lip, staring out the passenger side window. "I can't be anywhere else," she answers honestly. "If I lose my badge so be it. I don't care as long as I help bring Derek home first. And as long as I help stop The Puppet Master so he can never come after any of us again." She turns her head to look at Hotch. "Don't send me away, Hotch. Please."

"As long as you don't give me reason to, Emily, I won't. You have my word."

Emily nods. "Thank you. I'll try not to compartmentalize so much." She sighs. "Shit. Jen's going to kick my ass."

Hotch grins. "Most likely."

"What? No offer to protect me?" she jokes.

"Did I mention the way your wife flipped me back on Phillipe's island? Sorry, Prentiss, she's all yours."

Emily chuckles. "Gee. Thanks, sir."

Ten minutes later Hotch is showing the picture of the man unknown to them as Mitchell Reese to the office manager at the cleaning service. "Do you recognize this man?"

The woman nods. "Sure. That's Aaron Hotchner. He worked her for about, oh, 2 or 3 months back in the summer. Late summer, early fall actually."

Emily is staring at the woman incredulously. Hotch had introduced himself. Was she not even listening? Emily slams her hands down on the desk.

"Look, I'm sorry if murder is just too mundane for you to care about but think about the fact that you just identified that man" she stabs at the picture with her finger, "by that man's name!" she points at Hotch.

The woman's eyes are wide with fright. Hotch places a hand on Emily's shoulder and eases her back from the desk. Hotch looks back at the office manager.

"We need to see his files. And before you go on about a warrant if we need that we'll shut you down and comb through all your files one by one to see what other people may be working with you under false identities. Your choice," he states with a tone of voice that insists there really is no choice at all.

The woman nods hurriedly and goes to her files. Hotch eases up to Emily's ear.

"Calm. Down."

Emily nods, her hands shoved in her pockets. "Right. Sorry. Just…the idiocy that would normally make me laugh just…hit me wrong."

"I get it. But don't let it happen again."

"Yes, sir," she agrees.

The woman comes back and hands a folder to Hotch. "You can make copies of anything in there. We do full background checks on our employees."

Hotch glances at the paperwork. This "Aaron Hotchner" had put down that he was a janitor in Minneapolis. Hotch frowns.

"The easiest lies to tell are the ones steeped in truth," he mumbles. He pulls out his phone. "Garcia, I need you to track a phone number and then run the search program on this unsub in Minneapolis. Go back 10 years." He reads off the phone number.

"On it, sir."

He hangs up. He hands the folder to Emily. "Make the copies while I ask a few more questions."

Emily nods, understanding that he is doing this to keep her from having another outburst. As she walks away, Hotch turns back to the office manager.

"Do you know why he quit?"

"Gave us two weeks notice when he was offered a better position at the police station. Hated to see him go because he was such a good worker and everyone he worked with liked him. But can't blame a man for wanting to better himself."

Hotch nods. "Of course not." He hands her a card. "If he calls or contacts you in any way, please call me immediately. One last question…how did he get his last check? Was it mailed to him?"

"No, he came by and picked it up." She smiles. "Even brought me flowers. Look, Agent…uh…Hotchner, I just can't believe Aaron did anything bad. I'm sure there's been some sort of mistake. Some sort of…weird coincidence that he shares your name."

Hotch shakes his head. "No coincidence." He taps the card. "Call me if he contacts you."

Emily walks over and hands the folder back to the woman. "Thank you."

The woman nods as the two agents leave. As they get into the SUV, Garcia calls Hotch back.

"Sir, the phone number was to a disposable phone bought in Minneapolis 3 years ago. It doesn't look like it was used until last August when two calls were placed to it."

Hotch nods. "He used it as his reference phone. The cleaning company called him without knowing it."

"But if he bought it so long ago…" her voice trails off. "Damn, he's probably bought phones all over the country. Then he uses one to get a job and then dumps it."

Hotch grins. "Spoken like a profiler, Garcia."

Garcia smiles. "Nope. No way. That's all you, sir. I'm back to my computers. Garcia out."


Based on when the disposable phone was purchased, Garcia narrows down her search for unusual, unsolved murders in Minneapolis. She finally gets a hit on 5 murders tied together and another that was close but assigned to a copy cat due to a difference in the final way the victim died: manual strangulation.

Garcia pops over to another computer and loads up the autopsy report from the media spokeswoman in Lancaster. She scans it until she finds the measurements of the hands that had choked the woman.

"YES!" she screams, scaring the crap out of Kevin, who is nearby working on a different search.

"Uh, cupcake? A little warning before screaming next time," he pleads.

Garcia ignores him and grabs her phone, calling Hotch back. "HOTCH! I was able to connect a string of killings in Minneapolis that occurred when the phone was bought directly to the death of Sonia Rickey. Same size hands killed what Minneapolis police deemed a copy cat victim as killed Rickey."

"Damn good work, Garcia! Archive those killings in your files for The Puppet Master. We'll make sure the bastard stands for those, too."

"Yes, sir!"

Hotch hangs up and tells Prentiss what Garcia has found. Emily nods her head. "Good. Now if we can just catch him and not let him slither away this time."

Hotch glances at her. "Prentiss, I am- -"

"Hotch, right now, please don't offer up platitudes or words of comfort. I just…can't take it right now."

Hotch nods. He had talked to JJ that morning and she had said her wife was back on even keel. Either Emily had been able to hide her emotional upheaval from her own wife or she had just been getting worse as the day went on.

"We will find Morgan, Emily. There is no other option," Hotch states definitively.

Emily slowly turns and looks at him. "You hope we do. Don't make promises to me or yourself you have no way of keeping."

There is a hardness in her eyes Hotch has never seen before. Not even when JJ had been in danger. It's because this time The Puppet Master had struck directly at them. He had made them all victims. Truth is none of them should be on this case. They are too close to it. But there was no way they were going to relinquish it to another team. No fucking way.

Hotch gets a text a couple of minutes later. He pulls into a parking lot when he sees it's from Garcia. He smiles.

"She found where the medical practice computers were hacked." He stares out the windshield a moment, putting himself back in his lawyer shoes. "There is no way we can get a warrant on just 2 people linked to the practice."

"Technically 4 if you count spouses," Emily points out hopefully.

Hotch shakes his head. "Won't work. And if his puppet works there instead of just being a patient we tip our hand. Damn it."

He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. Emily takes a deep breath.

"As much as I hate to say this, let's wait to go there. Let Garcia do her magic. You know she found the hack which means she's now looking for what he saw in there, what he manipulated. Let her do her thing to find Morgan."

Hotch nods. "Alright. We'll give her until we call it a day. Then we approach the doctor's office and see if anyone recognizes our unsub."


Hotch calls Rossi and finds out where those two are in their interviews. He and Emily take over the questioning of the Warren Dales' employer and his closest friends. Turns out he didn't have many left as most had abandoned him when his philandering ways and his infection of his wife had become known.

By 5:30 p.m. all 5 agents on the case are back at the police station. Based on the questions they had been asking all day they are now convinced the medical practice is the only place these two victims could have overlapped. Hotch crosses his hands in front of him.

"Tomorrow JJ and I will go to the medical practice. We'll discuss the situation with the office manager and the head doctor. Hopefully if they can't open their files to us they can at least be on alert for the unsub and another potential victim."

"What if they shut us down completely?" JJ asks.

Hotch takes a deep breath. "Garcia and Kevin developed a Trojan virus and sent it to the practice. I spoke with Kevin 20 minutes ago and it was activated. It's using an algorithm code to try to find women whose husbands are the ones that caused or encouraged their medical care. It will run through the night and should give us a- -"

He breaks off as Detective Flick walks into the room without knocking. "Hate to interrupt but we have another man missing."

"Son of a bitch," Emily blurts, her blood running cold.

Flick glances down at the paper in front of him. "42 year old businessman Raul Hernandez, was supposed to meet his family at his son's baseball game but didn't show. Wife at first thought he'd just forgotten but calls to his office show he left on time. Car has a lojack and was discovered at the local mall. His phone was inside, as was his briefcase containing his laptop."

JJ leans onto the table. "We need to find out if his wife was under any sort of medical care and we need to know soon."

Flick nods and hurries out of the room. Hotch grabs his phone, knowing there is a quicker way.

"Garcia, Raul Hernandez was kidnapped. Was his wife a patient at the clinic?"

Garcia starts to type furiously. "Come on…come on…come on…YES! She was seeking treatment for injuries sustained during a car accident. Husband was texting and ran a stop sign."

"And there's the reason he's taken!" Emily exclaims. "He caused her accident!"

JJ frowns. "I'm confused. Yes, Hernandez and Dales caused their wife issues. But by most accounts, Stevens was actually helping his wife. Why was he targeted?"

"If her mother ever made a statement that got into her records or if she was overheard by the unsub or the puppet they may have believed Stevens was actually hurting Marie, not helping her," Reid points out.

JJ nods. "True. And we won't know that until we see the full records at the medical facility."

Hotch stands. "Emily, you're with me. Let's go talk to the wife of the missing man. We need to know everything we can about that clinic."

Emily nods and follows him out. She looks to her wife. "JJ, get with the cops at the mall and see if the other cars are there, too. Maybe they've all been dumped there."

JJ is glaring at her wife. Emily frowns, trying to figure out what she's done. She reviews her order in her head and pales.

"Shit…Jen…I'm…I'm sorry…I just…"

"Go. We'll discuss it later, Emily," JJ says stiffly.

Emily just nods and follows Hotch out. Rossi looks at the blonde.

"She did warn you she'd be compartmentalizing everything."

"Yeah, she did. But we, uh, talked last night. Thought her head was better."

Rossi chuckles. "Well, sometimes 'talking' like you probably did just temporarily fogs the brain."

JJ blushes. "Right. Still, she's going to do something wrong if she's not careful. That's why Hotch is making her work with him."

"Exactly. He'll watch her and he'll protect her, JJ. Trust that," Reid points out.

JJ just nods and goes out to find out who she needs to call at the scene of the car retrieval to get the parking lot checked for the other as yet still missing vehicles.