A/N: Boy, it's been a long time, hasn't it? I'm sorry for the lapse! But the writing bug has hit me again, and I'm not ready to leave Double Take behind, so we're starting out on our next case. . . now! I'll try to be better about posting these chapters faster (though I am on vacation for a week starting Wednesday.)

As the team exited the plane, they slowed and reformed a small group around Penelope Garcia, who was standing on the tarmac, electronic tablet in hand, waiting for them. Hotchner assumed the dominant position in the little circle, his brows drawing together to darken his gaze from the more relaxed "case is over" expression he usually wore on the ride home. "Garcia," he began, patiently as always with the quirky analyst, "why are you out here?"

She lifted large, liquid eyes to meet his gaze; Reid caught the light reflecting off of what must have been tears. Garcia's lip shook slightly, but her voice remained steady as she began. "Sir," she said, "not that I don't appreciate the virtues of clean laundry and nights spent at home, but the local P.D. in Dallas have requested your help, and. . . well, I thought I'd better come out as quickly as possible." A brief shudder gripped Garcia's shoulders; in short, pink dotted sleeves, she had clearly underdressed for the weather. Reid looked back and forth between her face and Hotchner's. The latter's face only grew graver, if possible. "And you weren't able to reach us in the air?" he asked. "No, sir," Garcia said, shaking her head vehemently. "Sir, I trust my encryption like I trust the vorpal blade in Alice - uh, never mind – but, in this case, I agreed that we wouldn't transmit anything to you electronically, no matter how secure the transmission was."

A beat, a nod. Garcia continued. "Part of the issue, sir, is that each of the bodies were found at his computer, screen open to private banking systems. Local police believe that the case therefore is involved with encryption somehow – although, I'm not sure I agree." "Each," Hotchner interrupted, an eyebrow lifting, "how many are there?" The rest of the team gathered in more closely.

"Yes sir. A third body was found twenty minutes ago, and Chief Greene called Director Strauss to ask for our help." Noticing the expressions on everyone's faces, she added quickly, "I guess he is friendly with Patrick Johnson." Morgan nodded strongly, "The Kane case," he piped up. Shoulders that had been raised at Strauss' name dropped a bit. She'd stayed out of that one.

Garcia's plaintive expression intensified as she looked at them all. "The three victims were each found, as I said, in front of their own personal computer screens, in each case, with a login to the victim's personal banking information. But no funds appear to have been transferred, and the account security doesn't seem to have been compromised – and, in fact, none of the men had even logged into his account, according to the banks' IT departments, within four hours of his body being found."

JJ shook her hair in slight frustration. "What happened to them, Garcia?" she asked. Garcia swallowed, and Reid knew from her expression that the crime scene photos were likely to be grisly. "Cause of death in the first two cases is. . . undetermined," she said slowly. "Each of the three victims is missing all of the fingers from a hand – two right, one left – and in the first two cases, and likely the third, this appears to have been done before he died." She swallowed again, and looked briefly at Morgan for support. "Oh!" she said, and blinked. She rifled through an oversized yellow bag and pulled out six folders. "Your hard copies, since ix-nay on the email-ay."

The team took the folders and opened them as Reid jumped in. "Exsanguination from that kind of amputation would take a long time – it would be incredibly painful, certainly, but the victims would have had time to seek help or assistance in at least one of the cases, before bleeding out." He steepled his hands and looked at Garcia expectantly.

"Right you are, wunderkind," she said wearily. "The Dallas ME doesn't think that blood loss is the cause of death."

"Garcia," Hotchner said, warningly.

"Right, sorry sir," she said. "Each of the first two victims was also brutalized in several different ways, which is why the ME isn't always sure what killed him. The first victim, Earl Munroe, was shot in the stomach and appears to have been suffocated with a pillow (or something filled with down). The second, James Kinroy, was strangled with his own belt (which he was wearing when they found him) but also was found with large amounts of fluid in his lungs and pulmonary edema."

"Wait a minute," Morgan said, shaking his head. "This doesn't make any sense."

"I never said it did, sweet cheeks," Garcia said ruefully. "And finally, Marcel Greene was found with an arrow in the side of his neck, as well as foam around his mouth, apparently like you'd find in drug overdoses."

"Greene," Reid mused aloud. "Is that- ?" At the same time, Prentiss said, with wide eyes, "wait, an arrow?"

"Yes," Garcia said, blinking her eyes, briefly. "The Chief's nephew. And yes, an arrow."

The team shared a somber glance. Working with law enforcement was always an interesting set of negotiations, but it became exponentially more difficult if emotions ran high. And an arrow?

"OK," Hotchner said. "We're on our way. Wheels up." The team shifted their bags, and turned back to the jet, where the pilot straightened up at their approach, intuiting the change of plans. Morgan briefly squeezed Garcia's arm as he turned to go. Garcia hugged her tablet to her chest. "You know where to reach me when you can call," she said wanly, as she watched her family troop back up the tiny stairwell in the darkness. Reid spared a brief thought for Calla as he made his way to the seat he'd just left. He supposed he'd have to wait to hear how the class went in her own words.

The plane lifted into the night sky, bound for Dallas. And as it did, a young man in Mesquite, TX, less than 20 minutes from Dallas, cracked his knuckles for what he didn't know would be the last time as he flipped open his laptop screen.

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