Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.
A/N: Shout out to Hippichic81, Natasha, Aleona, Charis, Cara, Kyla, and Tegan for reviewing chapter 24.
I'm sorry about the delay for this chapter, I was dealing with some writer's block when it came to the scenes that didn't involve 52 Pick Up while wanting to focus on my sequel to Friends, Lovers, Husband and Wife, to Parents.
Spencer will not be cheating on Maeve in this chapter, and this chapter takes place the same week as the last chapter.
If any of you readers are dealing with a major snowstorm like I am right now (I live in Northeast Wisconsin so the snowstorm has been named Winter Storm Abigail. And its been predicted that there will be over 7 inches of snow) I hope everyone is staying safe and warm while avoiding getting parking tickets due to snow emergencies (one was issued in the small city I live in earlier). Luckily I'm exempt from helping out with shoveling since I'm still suppose to wear my air cast outdoors, but at physical therapy yesterday I was told that I'm getting really close to not having to wear my air cast anymore since the swelling is all gone.
Spencer smiled at Jocelyn who was scooting on her tummy on the floor.
"Pretty soon you'll be crawling." said Spencer.
Jocelyn lifted up her head and grinned at her daddy who ended up taking a picture.
The next morning Spencer and Maeve woke up to Jocelyn whimpering through the baby monitor before seeing that it was six AM.
"Six hours of interrupted sleep is a good start." said Maeve.
Spencer nodded.
"I take care of breakfast while you take care of Josie?" asked Spencer as he got out of bed and started to pull on the clothing he laid out.
"Yes." said Maeve.
A few minutes later Spencer was in the kitchen making scrambled eggs, bacon, and shredded hash browns.
Spencer pulled a framed photo out of his messenger bag.
"A new picture?" asked Emily.
"Two weeks ago Maeve and I had our first family portraits done, and Maeve picked them up yesterday." said Spencer.
"Let me see." said Emily as she motioned Morgan to come over.
Morgan smiled when he saw the grin on Jocelyn's face.
"Now how did the photographer get my goddaughter to smile like that?" asked Morgan.
"The photographer used some toys." said Spencer before taking a deep breath, "Since next week I'll be giving my mom a copy, my mom wrote in a letter that I should let dad have a copy." said Spencer.
"Really?" asked Emily.
"Since tracking down your father do you know if your father is visiting your mom more?" asked Morgan.
"My dad has visited my mom four times since I tracked him down last week." said Spencer.
"How do you know that?" asked Emily.
"After Randall Gardner, I asked that I'm alerted every time my mom has a visitor that doesn't involve my aunt, uncle, or cousin." said Spencer.
"Maybe your mom is giving your father a second chance since being grandparents is giving them a reason to talk." said Emily.
"But I'm still not letting my father see Josie and me every time I take Josie to Vegas." said Spencer just as Jordan came into the bullpen.
"We have a case." said Jordan.
Five minutes later Spencer was sitting in the conference room with his teammates Jordan pulled a picture of a young woman up on the monitor.
"Vanessa Holden, age 25. Last Friday night, she was clubbing with her sister. A stranger, white male, roughly her age, picked her up. They left the club at 1 AM, went back to her place. He forced her on her hands and knees." said Jordan before showing a crime scene photo, "And then he cut her open just below the stomach." said Jordan.
"Woah." said Morgan.
"Yeah. Pretty rough." said Rossi.
"The gutting causes the intestines to spill out. You can survive for a few hours, actually even days." said Spencer.
"Postmortem indicates that he slit her throat at 5 AM." said Jordan.
"So he disemboweled her but didn't kill her for 4 hours." said Rossi.
"He could be a sexual sadist." said Emily.
"Yeah, I thought so, too, but I found two priors from a year ago-," said Jordan as files were passed around, "Prostitutes, actually, in motel rooms." said Jordan.
"OK. So keep running with it. Why do you think this is the same unsub?" asked Morgan.
Jordan pulled up more crime scene photos.
"In Vanessa Holden's apartment, the following were discover- bleach, ammonia, trash bags- all in a triangular pattern." said Jordan before pulling out another picture, "One year ago, motel rooms- bleach, ammonia, trash bags- Also in a triangular pattern." said Jordan.
"He's cleaning up." said Emily.
"Might be trying to hide his tracks." said Morgan.
"Could be a sign of remorse." said Spencer.
"Apologizing for the murder by minimizing the mess." said Rossi.
"But there's one other commonality between both sets of murders. Bleach and ammonia were found under the victim's fingernails." said Jordan.
"He's making them clean up their own murder." said Morgan.
"It's the same unsub." said Hotch before looking at his team, "This will be our last case before we're on stand down for Thanksgiving next week." said Hotch as he gave a departure time.
Spencer smiled a bit at the thought about seeing his mom again before Hotch looked at him.
"Reid, mind if I talk to you in my office right now?" asked Hotch.
A minute later Spencer was in Hotch's office when Hotch looked at his youngest agent.
"Since this is our first case in Georgia since Hankel, would you like to sit out and start Thanksgiving break a bit earlier?" asked Hotch.
Spencer looked at his unit chief.
"As much as I would never like to step foot in Georgia again, but I have to try and see if I can handle being in Georgia again since there will be more cases in Georgia." said Spencer.
"I'll make sure that I'll double up at the hotel room with you tonight just in case you have any nightmares." said Hotch.
Spencer nodded at his boss.
"Why don't you call Maeve and let her know that your leaving." said Hotch.
A few minutes later Spencer had Maeve on the phone.
"Where are you off to this time?" asked Maeve.
"Atlanta, Georgia." said Spencer nervously.
"Are you sure that you want to go back to Georgia?" asked Maeve.
"I was already asked by Hotch if I wanted to sit out, but I know that I have to see if I can handle being in Georgia again." said Spencer before thinking about his daughter, "Even though I gave Josie a kiss before leaving the house this morning, will you give her a kiss from me and tell her that I'll talk to her at bedtime?" asked Spencer.
"I certainly will, and I expect a kiss from you when you get home." teased Maeve.
"You'll get one, but I'll let you get back to work." said Spencer.
"Love you." said Maeve.
"Love you too." said Spencer before hanging up.
"So if the unsub changed the victimology, does that make him organized or disorganized?" asked Emily.
"Well, the prostitutes point one way, the club goes another." said Morgan.
Spencer looked at a crime scene photo while thinking about this case being his first case back in Georgia since Hankel.
"The triangular arrangement of the cleaning supplies is interesting." said Spencer.
"Obsessive compulsive?" asked Hotch.
"Might have been institutionalized." said Emily.
"We're missing the forest for the trees here. This guy started with prostitutes a high risk victimology. Took a year off, came back, killed a socialite." said Rossi.
"No forced entry, no coercion of any kind." said Morgan.
"Exactly. So how does our unsub go from loser of the year to Don Juan?" asked Rossi.
"Actually, as Byron interpreted him, Don Juan was an ironic reversal of sex roles. And when-." said Spencer before he noticed Hotch giving him a look, "Th-that's about it." said Spencer as he blamed his awkward moment on having to deal with returning to Georgia again.
"Something must have happened between the last prostitute and Vanessa Holden making him change his victimology." said Hotch.
"Could the unsub have known Vanessa?" asked Jordan.
"It's unlikely. Sexual sadists attack anonymously." said Morgan.
"They have to sever a personal connection and see their victims as objects to perpetrate this level of torture." said Spencer.
"We have to build two profiles, then. One for the unsub who killed prostitutes, one for the unsub who goes to clubs." said Emily.
"We've never done that before." said Rossi.
"Prentiss is right. The victimology is so different, we'll treat them as separate unsubs and see what overlaps. Reid, work up a geographic profile, focus on location of the murders. Prentiss and Rossi, concentrate on the prostitutes. Jordan, Morgan, and I will go deal with Vanessa Holden." said Hotch.
Morgan looked at Spencer.
"Are you OK with being back in Atlanta?" asked Morgan.
"Even though it hasn't been two years, I know that I can't always avoid cases in this state." said Spencer before Emily squeezed his shoulder.
"What's going on?" asked Jordan.
Spencer reached into his pants pocket and fiddled with his one year medallion.
"Last year in February I was abducted and held captive by an unsub in rural Georgia, and this is our first case in Georgia since my abduction." said Spencer before his phone vibrated causing Spencer to see a text from Maeve.
WHEN I WENT DOWN TO THE DAYCARE SO I COULD CHECK ON JOSIE, AND I ENDED UP GETTING A BIG SMILE FROM HER WHEN I TOLD HER THAT I AM GIVING HER A KISS FROM DADDY. ~ MR
Spencer smiled softly at the picture.
"A picture of my goddaughter?" asked Emily.
Spencer showed Emily the picture and Emily smiled at picture of the brown curly haired and brown eyes three month old baby girl.
"I just can't believe how beautiful she is." said Emily.
"Even though Josie's not even four months old yet, its still hard for me to leave her for cases." said Spencer before he focused on the file in front of him.
Spencer walked into an Atlanta police department with his teammates when Jordan approached Detective Harding.
"Detective Harding?" asked Jordan.
"Hi." said Detective Harding as she shook hands with Jordan.
"Agent Jordan Todd." said Jordan.
"Thank you for coming." said Detective Harding as she shook hands with Hotch.
"SSAs Hotchner, Morgan, Dr. Reid." said Jordan.
"How you doing?" asked Morgan.
"How are you?" asked Detective Harding.
"Hey, is there a DNA match between the unsub and the prostitutes? We could run through ViCAP just in case." said Spencer.
"Um, there's no DNA at all. No prints, no fibers. Just like Vanessa, everything gets cleaned up." said Detective Harding.
"Pretty effective forensic countermeasure." said Morgan.
"What about witnesses? Somebody must have seen something." said Hotch.
"Oh, yeah. Lots of people." said Detective Harding.
"So you have a sketch." stated Morgan.
Detective Harding pulled out a drawing and passed it to Morgan.
"It's a little vague." said Spencer.
"That's because of this guy's other countermeasure. Take a look." said Detective Harding as she played security camera footage, "So this guy right here, that's our killer." said Detective Harding as she pointed at a man.
"It looks like a fedora." said Jordan.
"So he's drawing attention to his face while simultaneously obscuring it." said Hotch.
"It's called peacocking. The adornment of some sort of flashy affect to sort of try to distract witnesses." said Spencer.
"So none of your witness statements agree?" asked Morgan.
Detective Harding looked at the statements and started to read out loud.
"He had a mole, "he didn't have a mole." He had a gap between his teeth, no, his teeth were perfect." read Detective Harding.
"Detective, we're gonna have to have a sit-down with Ashley Holden. She got the best look at the unsub." said Jordan.
"Well, I wish I could make that happen, but unfortunately, the family has decided to stop cooperating." said Detective Harding.
"Why is that?" asked Hotch.
"They won't say. Yesterday the mother would move heaven and earth to help find her daughter's killer. Today, no, thanks." said Detective Harding.
Jordan started dialing on her work phone.
"I'll take care of this." said Jordan before walking away.
Spencer walked towards his teammates with two to go cups of coffee in his hands.
"The unsub killed the prostitutes in separate pay-by-the-hour motels in Fulton county." said Spencer as he handed Morgan one of the cups as he pointed at his geographical profile, "Right there in one of the poorer neighborhoods he area. Now, Vanessa Holden's apartment was in the Peachtree district, where there's a lot of big money. Based on the geography, he isn't just changing his victimology, he's changed his whole tax bracket." said Spencer.
"The high profile of Vanessa Holden bears that out. By killing her, he was climbing the social ladder." said Morgan while Spencer sat down.
Rossi looked at a newspaper that he had in his lap.
"If that's the case, this unsub had a long way to climb. Both prostitutes advertised here. Look at their pictures." said Rossi.
Hotch looked at the picture.
"Subservient positioning, asking to be dominated." said Hotch.
"Promising to come to you? That cuts out the social interaction of meeting on a street corner." said Emily.
"That's a long way from a self assured unsub who hits the clubs." said Morgan.
"Except he took a year off between the murders. Maybe he took that time to change himself." said Hotch.
"That's impossible." said Morgan.
"Why?" asked Hotch.
"Well, I mean, you're talking about a total transformation here. I mean how you talk, I mean how you dress, how you think about yourself." said Morgan.
"Difficult maybe. Not impossible." said Hotch.
"He already started killing. There must have been a secondary trigger that motivated him to change who he was. So if you're gonna transform yourself, how would you do it?" asked Rossi.
"A steady diet of self-help books. Start hitting the gym?" asked Emily.
"You have to learn how to read people. I mean, what is a pick-up? It's basically just a profile." said Spencer.
"Decoding cues of interest and recoding similar ones." said Morgan.
"If you're too obvious, you turn off your target. If you're oblivious, your target moves on to a better profiler." said Emily.
"That doesn't sound like something he could do on his own." said Hotch.
"No. He'd have to go somewhere to learn it." said Emily.
"Yeah. A self-help class maybe?" asked Spencer.
"Uh, wait a minute. Come on. An unsub who kills prostitutes. Is he really thinking about signing up for a Tony Robbins seminar?" asked Morgan.
Rossi noticed an ad in the newspaper he had on his lap.
"He would if he found a class in the same place he found the prostitutes." said Rossi as he showed his teammates the ad he found about picking up chicks.
"At least I met Maeve in a crowded coffee shop and we started talking when she saw the book that I was reading." muttered Spencer.
The next morning Spencer was standing outside a building by a puddle of blood when Emily stood on the balcony.
"Well, the preliminary autopsy came back. The victim's name is Becky Williams." said Morgan.
"Was she disemboweled?" asked Rossi.
"No. And what's even weirder is the cleaning supplies were set out, but there was no traces of them on her body." said Morgan.
"Why would the unsub alter his signature and push her out of an 8-story window?" asked Spencer as he looked up at the balcony.
"Escalating to sadism maybe?" asked Morgan.
"Gutting and cleaning are what he has to do to find release. He wouldn't change that." said Rossi.
"Well, why not? He's changed everything else about himself." said Morgan.
"Did anyone see the unsub?" asked Spencer.
"No surveillance cameras at the club. Becky's friends say she was talking to a guy with sunglasses." said Morgan.
"Sunglasses." said Spencer to himself before hurrying towards the apartment building.
A few minutes later Spencer hurried into Becky's apartment and looked at Hotch.
"Can Detective Harding get a copy of the sketch to Garcia?" asked a slightly out of breath Spencer.
Hotch turned around and looked at his youngest agent.
"Did you find anything outside?" asked Hotch.
"No. But I think there might be a new pattern emerging." said Spencer.
Over 30 minutes later Spencer was sitting in front of a laptop with his teammates and Detective Harding standing behind him.
"Garcia, you ready?" asked Spencer.
"Sending it now. Please be aware that 30 minutes with photoshop does not allow for much artistic flourish." said Garcia.
The sketch that Garcia sent him showed up on the laptop.
"Both times the unsub has gone to a club, he's had some costume, but now there's a theme." said Spencer as he pushed a key to have a fedora pop up onto the sketch, "A fedora and colored contacts, sunglasses, each time obscuring- Are you ready, Garcia?" asked Spencer.
Garcia used remote access to zoom in.
"This area." said Spencer as he pointed at the eye brows, "Now, yes, maybe he's trying to draw attention to him, but maybe he's trying to draw attention away from here." said Spencer as he pulled up another image.
"Something he knows is identifiable a birthmark or a scar maybe." said Rossi.
"We need to get these out. Jordan, release these to the press." said Hotch.
"Our unsub is a confident alpha male. He is white. He's between the ages of 25 and 30. He's in excellent physical shape to overpower women and also to feed his self-image." said Emily.
"He has an obsession with cleaning. He probably works in some service industry, wiping up after others, convinced everyone looks down at him. His change in himself and his victimology reflects that." said Rossi.
"This is the kind of guy who wants to stand out in a crowd. He's taken a class in how to pick up women. So he'll repeat a series of well-rehearsed lines and mind games." said Morgan.
"He may be uneducated, but he's by no means stupid. Taking this class has given him the ability to read verbal cues and body language." said Hotch.
"One classic routine the Viper promotes is called the push-pull. He'll insert himself between two women and immediately after complimenting one, He'll deliver a subtle insult, then pay attention to the other." said Spencer before looking at Jordan, "Those are really nice earrings. I like those." said Spencer.
Jordan touched her earrings.
"Thanks." said Jordan.
"My grandmother wears a lot of fake jewelry also. It looks nice." said Spencer causing a couple of chuckles, "Ignoring the one man puts her in direct competition with her friend And causes the other to pursue you more aggressively. I was just demonstrating. So I'm sorry." said Spencer.
Jordan shook her head.
"Well, we've mapped the hot spots he hits. And he frequents the same clubs that the Viper does, so we need eyes and ears in every single one." said Detective Harding.
"Circulate the sketch as widely as possible. We'll need everyone aware that there's a killer out there. Thank you very much." finished Hotch.
After officers started to walk away, Spencer looked at Hotch.
"I think I might just stay home and man the tip line tonight. Clubs aren't really my thing." said Spencer.
"Not a chance, kid. Even though your married, I need a wing-man. Come on, now." said Morgan.
"Actually, there is another angle we need to pursue." said Rossi.
"We still don't know what made the unsub change his victimology, What made him stop killing prostitutes and move into the clubs." said Hotch.
"The answer might be something in Viper's class, but to figure that out, we need to profile the teacher." said Rossi.
"You need to bait him, then, with someone he sees as a challenge." said Morgan.
Spencer realized what Morgan, Hotch, and Rossi were doing.
"We need to study his style up close and personal. It's gonna take someone that he's already attracted to." said Spencer as he smirked at Emily.
Emily saw the looks that her male teammates were giving her.
"Oh, this is really gonna suck." groaned Emily.
Spencer looked at a group of women as he gave the profile.
"When you think about the nature of serial crimes, it's amazing there aren't more predators in the clubs. I mean, excessive amounts of alcohol, countless opportunities for date rape drugs, Not to mention surprisingly risky behavior being pursued. All right. So who wants a flier?" asked Spencer.
The women walked away.
"Nobody? OK. All right." said Spencer as he walked towards Morgan.
"So how's it going?" asked Morgan.
"Not good. I gave the profile to one woman, she asked if I was the unsub. How are you doing?" asked Spencer.
"Well, I gave out all my fliers." said Morgan.
"How many phone numbers did you get?" asked Spencer with a small smile on his face.
"None. I'm working a case here, kid." said Morgan.
Spencer gave Morgan a look.
"OK, 4 were offered, but I didn't take any of them." said Morgan before smirking at Spencer, "If you haven't met Maeve I would be schooling you about how to pick up women." said Morgan.
Spencer looked towards where the bartender was.
"With me getting too overstimulated here, we should go give the profile to the bartender before we head back to the station." said Spencer.
Morgan looked at Spencer.
"To get her to listen, why don't you do a magic trick." said Morgan.
Spencer nodded, and a few seconds later they approached a female bar tender.
"Excuse me, sweetheart. Whenever you get a chance." said Morgan.
Austin looked at the two men and noticed that the younger man had a wedding band on his left ring finger causing her to feel slightly disappointed.
"What can I get you?" asked Austin.
Spencer pulled out his badge.
"We're with the FBI. We're looking for this man. Does he look at all familiar to you?" asked Spencer as he slid a sketch over to the woman.
"It's not much of a picture." said Austin.
"I know." said Spencer as he pulled a pen out of his bag, "You know what might help, actually, is he has a scar on his eye right about there." said Spencer as he pushed the pen through the paper.
Austin looked at the sketch.
"We also know that he's taken classes where he's learned how to distract and charm his victim." said Spencer as he pulled the pen through the paper without ripping the paper.
Austin laughed as she picked up the paper as she examined it.
"OK. How did you do that?" asked Austin.
"That's privileged information." said Spencer.
"So what do I do if I see him?" asked Austin.
"You should call us. Even if you just think you see him, you should definitely call us." said Spencer.
"I'll call you if I see anything." said Austin.
Spencer handed Austin his business card.
"Thank you." said Spencer.
"If you weren't married, I would probably asked you if I could still call you if I didn't see the guy your looking for." said Austin.
A few seconds later Spencer made his way to Morgan.
"She told me that she would have asked me if she could still call me if I wasn't married." said Spencer.
Morgan chuckled as he wrapped a brotherly arm around Spencer's shoulder.
"Let's just say that there were some women who got disappointed when they heard that you settled down with Maeve." said Morgan.
Morgan followed Spencer out of a door.
"The bouncer saw Austin go out the back. She likes to smoke back here." said Spencer as he dialed the number that Austin called him with earlier.
"Well, based on the witness' description, it definitely sounds like the unsub was here. We got units at her apartment, but no one's home." said Morgan.
Spencer pressed his phone to his ear.
"Hey, it's Austin. Leave a message." said Austin.
"It keeps going straight to voice mail. Maybe we could have Garcia try to triangulate where she is based on the cell phone." said Spencer just as they heard a vibrating causing him to reach into a plant, "He has her." said Spencer.
Spencer crouched down by Austin and removed the tape from her mouth.
"Get this off. Get it off. Get it off." pleaded Austin.
Spencer quickly removed the tape from Austin's hands.
"OK. It's OK." soothed Spencer.
A minute later Spencer had Austin outside.
Later on that day Spencer entered his house and he smiled when he saw Maeve sitting on the floor with Jocelyn who was having tummy time.
"Hi." said Spencer as he locked up his revolver in his safe.
Jocelyn grinned when she saw her daddy causing her to slowly scoot across the floor on her belly towards her daddy.
"I guess someone missed me while I was away." said Spencer as he bent down and scooped up his daughter and gave her a kiss.
"We definitely missed you since Jocelyn was fussy last night." said Maeve as she kissed her husband.
"Usually I'm lucky that I don't have a case that takes place during the weekend, but luckily Hotch told us to all go home and paperwork can wait until tomorrow." said Spencer before yawning, "I mainly got a nap on the plane ride home since I had to stay up past 3 AM last night." said Spencer.
"Then you should go take a nap." said Maeve before noticing that Jocelyn's eyes started to droop, "I guess I'll take a nap with you since Josie kept me up most of the night." said Maeve.
Five minutes later Spencer and Maeve were asleep in their bed with Jocelyn sleeping on her daddy's chest.