THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2013 | SHERIFF'S COUNTY STATION
Aaron, Derek, and Sheriff Reiner looked through the one-way window at the suspect being held in custody. The evidence board that they had purposefully arranged and rolled into the room was waiting for him when he was settled into the chair and handcuffed to the table below.

That was twenty minutes ago now.

There were only closeups of various pictures displaying all the victims of a perpetrator whom the media was dubbing The Linen Assassin, a name people latched on to not long after Marion's body had been found. They were zoomed in, gruesome pictures, taken both from CSU photographs and morgue photographs, showing details of reds, purples, greens, yellows, browns peppering various planes of white: some were of bruises, others of the ligature marks, of the sliding abrasions that were littered across the bodies of the victims.

It fit. It started to fit in damning ways. But in other ways, they weren't sure if they were forcing a circle into a square peg. Perhaps some things were attributed to the other unsub.

There was a wealth of evidence that pointed to him being one of the perpetrators that they sought. Until 2009, the man had no history of any kind of violence, no one had anything negative to say about him, he had a successful and stable job and a family; he had everything going for him. In a fit of rage a few months after learning of the infidelity of his wife and their subsequent separation, that had all fallen from under him.

So, they watched him.

He had taken one sweeping look at the photos and paled before flicking his eyes away.

Step One: Show the Subject his work. He will be too fascinated with the manifestations of his own violence to completely look away.

He couldn't even look at them. They hadn't expected that. But. They could work with that. The reaction might be a strong indicator for his all-consuming guilt. They wouldn't discount the other steps.

"So this is one of the guys," Sheriff Reiner mumbled, looking over at them. They were tense under his gaze, but their eyes were trained on their detainee. The older one had a phlegmatic, even disposition, and he couldn't see what was broiling underneath his unchanging expression. He thought—upon first seeing Agent Hotchner for the first time over a week ago—that the man seemed painfully serious.

But since that agent of his had gone missing, whatever expression he had displayed before, whatever inflection he'd had in his voice—these had fallen under a sheet of ice.

His subordinate, Agent Morgan, though, was tense like a tightly wound, compressed coil. Who knew where or with what force he would spring if the hand keeping him in check suddenly let go. The jaw tensed, the muscles in his arm tightened, and the thick brows furrowed over a smothering stare.

"He's guilty of something," Aaron finally replied, his expression severe and incisive. He was careful not to assume. The last two days had taught him that presumption was a trap. Where every exposition was concerned, there was no room for error. "We'll pick him apart." He then looked over to the other agent. "Let's do this, Morgan. As discussed."

Agent Morgan's body tilted to the door, he took a step, and he opened it. Agent Hotchner followed him in, holding a brown box, and Sheriff Reiner watched from the viewing room.

Aaron walked to the other side of the table and sat down, settling the box on the chair next to him.

Their detainee looked at him and then glanced at Derek. He kept his eyes on Aaron, but pointed a finger to the board, not looking at it. "Is someone going to tell me why I'm here?"

Derek's body shifted and he gave a slow tilt of his head as he crossed his arms and stood at ease, shimmying into the stance.

Neither of them answered.

"Why . . . why are those pictures there?" His voice was gritty with frustration. There was a web-thin film shrouding an undercurrent of anxiety—of concealment—beneath his indignance.

"Frederick Byron Collins. Known as Freddie B to his current work colleagues. Forty-two years old." Derek stalked toward the table and unfolded his arms. "Resident of Hopatcong. Employed at Wal-Mart for three years. Impressive." The last word was with an acerbic bite.

Frederick tightened his hands.

"You have the right to remain silent," Derek continued, taking measured steps to the table where Frederick was handcuffed. "Anything you say can be used against you. You have the right to have an attorney present. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand your rights?"

"I do," Freddie responded. "And I want to know what those pictures are doing there."

Derek didn't answer him. "What do you do for work at . . . Wal-Mart, Freddie?" The name of the super-store was said with purposeful derision.

They both saw it. There was a change in Frederick's demeanor: his back straightened, his jaws clenched, and his hand tightened into a fist. They'd barely begun and were already getting under his skin.

Step Two: Mention the Subject's menial employment, which falls below his intellectual abilities. Demean him.

"I—work the floor."

"What does that mean?" Of course, they knew what it meant. Getting him to say it would grate at him. "Educate me." The demand was two-fold.

"I maintain the standards of cleanliness in the store in order to bolster customer satisfaction and give them a pleasant shopping experience."

The clinical, practiced words did little to hide his disdain.

"That's a lot of pretty words to say that you pick up after people's messes. Whaddya do—pull items from where they don't belong, refold unfolded clothes that are thrown everywhere, collect carts full of items to reshelve properly, clean up on aisle seven if there's a spill, back and forth, back and forth, day in, day out?" Derek's tone was of ridicule. One of Freddie's eyes twitched and he averted his gaze toward the ceiling in irritation. "Seems like really lowly work for a guy with a Master's degree in American History. Missed out on the doctorate though, hmm?"

"What's the point in this? What does that have to do with anything?"

"I dunno; going from a salary of $72,000 a year to $29,000, barely seeing a scrap of what you make on top of that."

"What does any of this matter?" Freddie's voice came out thready.

"It's gotta suck, man," Derek said pointedly, ignoring the question. "It's gotta—I dunno—piss you off." He sat at the edge of the table.

Derek didn't adopt these thoughts himself. These were societal views of those who worked retail, minimum wage jobs. These were the societal views that he had to adopt in order to unsettle this man.

No.

Not a man. A piece of garbage.

Aaron handed Derek a folder. Without breaking his gaze from Frederick, Derek reached for and opened the folder, the looseness of his usual swagger buried in a tautened frame. "You got no family." A picture of Frederick Collins along with his ex-wife and his young son was slapped onto the table, pushed toward the man.

Frederick continued staring up defiantly at Derek, his nostrils flaring. Blinking as he worked his jaw, he finally looked down at the photograph that was tossed on the table in front of him. It increased as he sucked in a nasal breath to reign his control.

"You can't see your son." A picture of the boy playing with the young man who later became his stepfather was slapped atop the first. "Still gotta pay his child support, though, right?" The line was delivered in a light tone. "You lost your home. Holed up in that tiny apartment now, huh?" Another picture slapped down, that of the house that he'd owned and paid off with his sweat and blood. "You lost your job. Your name was slandered, and it ended your career. Lost your possessions." Another picture of his collection of antiques; another picture of him among his university students; another of the charcoal grey Mustang Shelby GT500 he used to own.

Although, the car hadn't been lost in any custody.

That car was a huge question mark in all of this. Nearly everything hinged on it.

Step Three: Pour salt on the wounds borne from the failures in his life. Watch the Subject unravel.

Frederick finally looked up from the photos.

Of all the things that Derek had shown him, it was the last picture that had truly set him off. With the others, the swelling rage pinkened his skin. With the picture of the car, he'd blanched.

They noticed.

"Are you finished?" Frederick whispered in a tight voice.

Derek slid off the table smoothly, braced one hand atop it and the other to the back of the chair Frederick was sitting in. He bent down with a forward lean, encroaching in the space, inciting him to act. He wanted Frederick to lash out, become violent, retaliate.

In a low and steady voice, he said, "I'm just getting started, you son of a bitch."

"When was the last time you saw your own son, Freddie?" Aaron's voice sliced through the tension.

Derek's stare lingered on Frederick for another second, two, three, before he drew in a steadying breath, straightened, and stood aright, approaching Aaron again. He stood at his side.

Frederick, breaking from a near hypnotic stupor, swiveled his head toward Aaron when the question registered. He made another sweeping movement as he looked down at the tabletop again. "Almost four years ago," he answered.

"Must make you angry," Aaron suggested, tone affable. "I would know. Being unable to see your own child isn't easy. You have a given right to see your own child. Must've been worse after the restraining order following the attack."

Step Four: Establish a familiarity with the Subject. Humanize him and validate his anger.

Frederick swallowed, paled. "That record's expunged."

"Yeah," Derek drawled. "But people talk, Freddie. Bitter ex-wives? Talk. Victims of a savage attack? They talk. Neighbors talk. Isn't that what ruined it all for you?"

"I barely did anything to him! It was blown out of proportion. I'm not—I don't normally do things like that. They were my wife and son."

"Barely did anything? Are you talking about this?" Derek outstretched his hand toward Aaron, and a folder was placed in it. "The record's expunged, yeah, but the hospital records and photos were eagerly provided to us by that victim who you barely did anything to." A new array of photos were placed on the tabletop—pictures of the attack that Frederick had instigated on Paul Jackson, a man nearly twelve years his junior, who he had found was sleeping with his wife for almost a year.

"You didn't go to prison for this"—there was a diagonal slash from the victim's right clavicle to his left chest; there were other pictures of the black eye he had gotten, the bruises left on the man's neck when Frederick tried to strangle him, the tooth he had knocked out, the bruised jaw he had given him, the bruises from kicks he'd rained across his torso—"which is shocking. Things a good lawyer can get you off for—when you can afford it at the time, right? But it bled you dry, didn't it? The cost for your lawyer? Being sued for damages? The time it took to get your record expunged? The continued child support and garnishing of your wages? It all got you going, didn't it? Got you thinkin'?" Derek's fingers twirled in a flourish at the side of his head.

Aaron spoke—again with an agreeable tone. "Paul Jackson deserved what you gave him. Maybe he deserved more. And for everything that you lost, you needed someone to suffer as you had, right? But not just suffer; they had to die. Maybe you were still angry enough to do something like this?" Atop the photos that Derek had just tossed down, Aaron placed the zoomed in photograph of the stab wound on Marion Knowles' chest. "Is this your handiwork?" It was put among the pictures of Paul Jackson's slashed chest.

Frederick recoiled at seeing the pictures. "What the hell is this?"

Still not the reaction they'd thought he would have had.

"Or something like this?" Aaron placed another photo down, showing him a picture of Noah Turner, displaying the watercolor bruises on his pale neck. It was placed next to a picture of Paul's bruised neck. "Or—" Another photo, this time a closeup displaying some of the teeth missing from Noah's clenched mouth next to a picture of Paul's bloodied mouth.

"What the hell is this?" Frederick asked, perturbed. "You think I did this? This is sick."

"What is this?" Aaron parroted. He dropped the congeniality, but his voice lilted with caustic fire. "It's your work." More photos. Some of them were closeups of the large, open wounds left behind by the axe that had cut the hands off, exposing the radius and ulna bones of Noah Turner and Victims B and C. "It's all here"—a few more photos slapped down—"it's all you." They were nasty closeups of the skeletonizing remains of Victim B and C. "It's brilliant, all of it. The name Freddie B Collins will go into the same league as Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacey, Dean Corll."

Frederick shook his head, barely able to look at the photographs, and knowing the association with two of those names.

"He was recently engaged." There was a picture of Noah with his cheek pressed against Sasha's cheek. "She's currently pregnant with his first child. How'd you know about that? She was barely over a month pregnant when you took him. Did you watch them both?"

Derek produced another picture. "He made a 180 with his life—just had a little kid and took time to be with 'em." There was a picture of the face of the newly identified Victim B. He was holding a little bundle of a human being while sitting back in an Adirondack, blue sky behind him and greenery surrounding him. "Also his first child."

This was a line of thinking they came up with—once they had flagged Frederick's name and all evidence started pointing to him—but were not sure had credibility. But they were willing to exhaust all possibilities. There were holes, but there was something to it.

"Not sure where he fits in, though," Aaron continued as a picture of Marion Knowles was placed down. "Not a father. Maybe it's because he's blond?"

They watched Frederick for any tells, but his eyes just darted over the photos, eyebrows furrowing. He played the confused suspect well.

"Or him." A full-bodied picture of the skeletal remains of Victim C was placed down. "He's also blond. Is that it? Blond men like Paul? Young fathers? Who was he?" Aaron posed.

Derek paced to the other side of the table and addled right next to Freddie again, a picture in his hand. "What about him, hmm?" A nondescript picture of Spencer Reid, victim number five, was slapped down. "Not blond. Not a father. Tell me where he fits in."

Frederick leaned in to look at the picture and something alighted in his eyes.

"What do you two do?" Derek tilted his head, thinning his eyes. "Switch up your targets? What, you go after the fathers or blonds, guys like Paul, and your partner goes after—what? Tell me. What does he like? He likes the thrill of drugging them, of subjugating them, of breaking them down? You get some, your partner gets some?"

"What?"

"It's smart. Switching 'em up. Makes you harder to catch if there are breaks in the pattern. And you get to be the muscle. Although"—Derek gave the man a deprecating up-and-down glance—"you don't really look like much of a muscle man to me."

The antagonization was working.

"Gotta have guns." The muscles in Derek's straightened arm, the hand of which was placed back atop the table, flexed. "Gotta be a real man. Gotta be powerful enough to keep your woman and your child. Were there problems in the bedroom with you and your wife? Is that why she had to go after a younger, more virile man?"

Frederick's jaws tensed and he shook his head.

Derek continued. "Instead of focusin' on your wife and kid, instead of trying to win them back, you go after the guys, huh? Younger guys like Paul. Let 'em know that there was nothin' inadequate about you, right? Had to let them know that you were stronger? More in control? More powerful? Had to put them in their place? Guess you don't need to be that strong if you can do this?" A close-up of Noah and Marion's ankles with ligature marks. "Or this." A close-up of Marion's wrists, bearing the same ligature marks. "Did you hurt them because you couldn't rape them? Did you leave that part to your partner? Or maybe you had to work up real hard to get it up?"

"Whoa, whoa." Frederick's hands fanned out and shook. His eyebrows were raised, his face pale, the breaths he let out short, and the jugular throbbing. "Rape? I have no idea what the hell you guys are talking about. I've never raped anyone. Ever. And I don't know what you're accusing me of, but I've not done any of this stuff. This is disgusting." His left hand swiped at the layers of pictures, and they flew away from him.

"Settle down, you son of a bitch!" Derek yelled, spittle arching from his lip. His control was swimming under raging, frothing waters. But in the blink of an eye and with a sharp inhalation, the trembling muscles, the booming voice, the seething anger, the reddened face—all were sucked away like a devil's air was purified. He bent down again toward Frederick. "I'm just gettin' started with you; understand that. You? You repulse me. You're disgusting." He spread the pictures back before Frederick.

"You missed something, though, Freddie," Aaron stated. There it was again, that amiable tone. "You're smart. But your car hadn't been registered since early 2009. Why would you use a car that would eventually lead back to you?"

"What?"

Derek had to pull away for a moment, raising his eyes in long-suffering as he sucked in another breath.

One more picture was placed in front of Frederick, that of the red Mustang GT 500 with its folded-in hood and dark, shattered windshield.

"That's not my car."

"It's your car, Freddie," Derek argued.

"No. Mine was grey."

"You missed a couple of numbers on one of your VIN's under the hood, Freddie," Derek argued. "And we matched the tread from two of the tires to your car. The rest was easy."

"I what? The what?"

Derek rolled his eyes. He leaned forward again, though, and flashed Frederick a smile, giving an aborted hum and a single, congratulatory nod. It fell the next moment.

"What makes them special?" Aaron didn't give Frederick a second to recover.

Step Five: It was a rapid fire, constant questioning with no seeming segue that would cause the Subject to become discombobulated. They wouldn't settle on a single topic, and this would make the Subject frustrated, unable to control the course of questioning.

The pictures that had been on the tabletop were handled, and Derek pulled out three of them, placing them on top. They were the pictures of Noah Turner, the newly identified Victim B, and Victim C. "What did they have that he didn't?" Marion's picture was shimmied out amongst all the pictures that were on the scuffed tabletop and placed apart from the three.

Frederick was aspirating, shaking his head. "I didn't—I didn't—this isn't me. This isn't me."

"And what," Derek started coolly, once again bending his head toward Frederick, "does he have"—the sound of paper, another photograph, fluttering, much-like Frederick's eyes were now—"that you or your partner want so badly?" The picture of Spencer was slammed down, and Frederick flinched. "Is it his position of authority? His power? You want to rob him of something he doesn't deserve, mm?"

"I swear—I swear it. I don't know what you guys are talking about. I haven't done this. I haven't done any of this."

Aaron let out a frustrated sigh. This was enough. "Let me spell it out for you, then, Freddie Collins, before you continue wasting my time with your lies and these games. Two nights ago, you and your partner staged the elaborate abduction of your latest victim. You stalked him for days. You studied his behavior, the intricacies of his subtle patterns, and you struck when the time was right. You used"—Aaron plucked out the picture of the red Mustang—"your rigged car to facilitate the accident and you stabbed his older partner in a fit of rage because she reminds you not only of your ex-wife, but of what your ex-wife took from you. So you take it back, punish her."

Another of the medical photographs taken of Alex's chest was placed down, showing bruising and multiple stab wounds.

This was another line of speculation that came into play, for Frederick's wife was three years his senior, and fifteen years the senior of the lover with whom she'd had the extramarital affair, so she had a proclivity towards younger men. Upon pinning Frederick as their prime suspect, this was where some hypothesizing they had generated began to fit.

"Earlier that day, you or your partner dumped the body of Marion Knowles on the highway eighty scenic overlook because you knew that we would take the bite and investigate, and because that was familiar grounds to you—you left something behind there before, hadn't you? Maybe you dumped the body before you headed to Worthington State Forest to drop off your second load of water and snacks because for two days—both days—you signed into the search party for Marion Knowles as a contributor. You liked the thrill of knowing how close to our investigation you were, am I wrong? You get off on knowing you're smarter than other people. That's why you use the cones; that's why you sabotage the cars. Your methods are simple, and they're effective; rinse and repeat—why change up something that works? But your compulsions damn you. Didn't you think that we would cross-check the sign in sheets?"

"Wait, wait, I—"

"Should I go on?"

Step Six: Postulate, postulate, postulate. Make the Subject unravel. If they gave a postulation of the series of events and got something wrong, the Subject would inevitably want to correct them. At their core, the Subject was a perfectionist, and it would be impossible not to share just how smart he was.

"Marion Knowles meant nothing to you or your partner, and was the means to an end to keep our attention once your crimes were made public, wasn't he? Maybe you began plotting for your next victim, one who wouldn't be as easy to abduct as your previous victims, and you saw Marion over and over at your gym, the same gym that he goes to, and plucked him out for bait.

"And over three months ago, you and your partner devised a plan to kidnap Noah Turner and kept him captive until recently, because he did mean something to you. Did you or your partner get tired of beating and raping him? Could the two of you finally see that the rapes were doing the same thing to him as your previous victim, so you killed him mercifully? Or did the guilt finally set in? How long did you hunt him? Days? Weeks? When the hunt went wrong, you two weren't deterred; you just changed course because once you have your eyes on someone, it's only a matter of time, right? So even though you saw Noah Turner with three other friends that night in The Cellar back in January, even though things didn't go as planned, you couldn't resist. You're a focused and diligent team, and you get what you want precisely when you want it."

Derek kept his piercing eyes on Frederick, listening to Aaron with admiration and a rush of exhilaration. Aaron's roots as a criminal justice prosecutor ran deep, and it was with his mastery of that former craft that he whittled Frederick, who looked like he was reaching his collapse. Derek imagined that he would never have wanted to be in the seat of the accused when Aaron was still in the court system.

Frederick's pale skin had taken on a greenish tint as something Aaron had said got to him.

"You had to have Noah. You both did. You stuck around the bar while your partner hunted, right? There was no way you weren't going to get Noah that night, right? So you stayed behind because you trusted that he would succeed, and you left in good timing to help finish the job when it was time, even with the change of course."

"No, no. This is—"

Aaron leaned forward. "You're so focused and diligent a team that it doesn't matter if your next target is law enforcement; you'll go after him, too. The bigger the thrill, the better the chase; the bigger the hunt, the better the subjugation. But here's how this is going to go, Freddie." He paused, letting the statement hang.

The alpha male in this room was never you, the silence said. Don't mess with these forces. You will not win.

The unvoiced message was conveyed: Frederick wriggled in his seat in disquieting anticipation, and Derek, watching, relished in the reaction with unjust, decadent fervor.

"You're going to tell me who your partner is, and you're going to tell me where you've kept your captives these past years. You're going to tell me if there are additional victims. And you're going to tell me, because there is no larger hole you could have dug for yourself in abducting a federal agent and attempting the murder of another. We're going to find additional evidence at your excuse for an apartment because you, Freddie Collins, are a collector, and you can't help but take things from your victims as trophies.

"I am going to find my agent at that location, and he will be alive. Do you hear me? You don't talk, or my agent winds up dead, and we implicate you for all of this: five counts of abduction, at least two counts of aggravated sexual assault, drug facilitated sexual assault, four counts of murder, illegal possession of controlled substances, the attempted murder of a federal agent, and the abduction of another federal agent. Test me, I implore you. We will pin it all on you. You'll go down for all of it while your partner gets off scot-free. Is that what you want? Or we could cut a deal. You talk, and we'll work something out."

Aaron Hotchner didn't make deals with people like Frederick Byron Collins; he hunted them.

But he needed his subordinate back, and he needed him back in one piece—alive.

Frederick's shaking hands were pressed together, palms touching and tips of his index fingers pressing to his lips, head sweeping side to side in large arches. He sat back in his seat.

His voice shook. "Okay. Okay. I—"

Yes. Good.

"I want to make a call. I'm invoking my right to my attorney. And I'm invoking my right to remain silent."

Their jaws clenched.

Both agents stood up, the pictures were gathered up, and they left the room, closing the door behind them.

David and Jennifer were both standing in the observation room alongside Sheriff Reiner. They'd caught the tail-end of the interrogation. By now, the collected front that Jennifer had donned for nearly an hour was molting away, revealing the raw emotions below.

"Penelope is dealing with social media right now," Jennifer said around the hand pressed to her mouth as soon as Derek and Aaron were in front of them.

"Why?" Derek asked.

"Because that kid with Jeffrey Paek—his friend Adrian—was too scared to tell us that the night of Reid's abduction he had live streamed everything from when they'd arrived to his YouTube account," David answered.

A look of irritation flashed across Aaron's otherwise stony face. "It was in his right to record; it was a public space," he said. "It's just troublesome for us. And Reid."

"It's gone viral," Jennifer said. "Penelope is working at tracing it all and shutting it down but—well, the internet is forever. People may have copies in their own personal devices by now."

They sighed. They were really trying to keep a tight lid on things.

"Collins has invoked," Derek seethed. "You guys caught that, right?"

"Yeah." David's expression was caught between disgust and apprehension.

"So, all we can do is wait," Sheriff Reiner said.

"We can't have another Donnie Bidwell[1] incident." David shook his head, the memory still fresh in his mind.

"Donnie Bidwell?" the sheriff asked.

"It's a long story, but just a few weeks ago, one of our suspects used his call to contact his partner." It wasn't quite the right term, for Bidwell had been working for The Replicator, had been under his thumb, a pawn in a larger scheme, but Sheriff Reiner didn't need those details. "And then downed his anticonvulsants in a successful suicide." Derek answered, and the Sheriff tipped his head back in understanding.

"David's right," Aaron agreed. "If Freddie Collins calls his partner instead, it may, in one scenario, cause the other unsub to accelerate his timeline and kill Reid as soon as possible and try to make a getaway before we can reach him."

Jennifer tipped her forehead into her hand, holding in a moan.

"What do we do? We can't tap the phone, we can't listen in on the conversation; that's a privileged call," the sheriff said.

"What if he does call his partner, though, Hotch?" Jennifer's blinking tripled. "We can't—this is Spence, Hotch."

They had to follow protocol. If they broke protocol on this, the team was done for. If Spencer were to be in captivity for months and this core team—the best people to find him—wasn't there to help him, they would have no chance of ever seeing him again. They would be monitored closely; there would be no repeats of what happened with the Doyle and Prentiss fiasco.

"We need to trust the process," Aaron said. He turned to Sheriff Reiner, the next words bitter on his tongue. "Let him take his call."

Everything from these past 60 hours hinged on this. It all had led to this. Everything. They wouldn't let this slip through their fingers. They'd worked tirelessly to get here. And they knew about the probabilities of survival after the first 24, 48, and 72 hours. Marion hadn't made it even to twenty-four. And they knew—they knew that Spencer, as the intended target, was going to be held for a very long time.


MONDAY, APRIL 29—TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2013
The Behavioral Analysis Unit had been in a flurry of activity for hours.

Aaron and Derek had already interviewed Jeffrey Paek and his two friends, one of whom was wheelchair bound due to a recent injury and had been sitting in the car the whole time that Jeffrey and his girlfriend had gone to help Alex, unable to assist. They had been the ones to call 911 and dispatch an ambulance as well. It was nearly quarter to ten in the evening when Morris Plains PD informed the BAU team of the accident, and they immediately sped down the highway and through local roads.

Jeffrey said he decided to go through the street despite the cones because he thought that it was suspicious that he had driven through it less than twenty minutes before and had just dropped off one of his friends. He'd also seen that there was a car that had been parked on the side of the road with its hazards on earlier and two people standing outside. He'd just wanted to make sure that everything was okay. When he got there, what he stumbled upon was too confusing and he didn't know what to make of it. The car was smashed into, the woman was injured in a manner that had nothing to do with a car accident, and the other person he had seen before wasn't there.

His suspicions had saved Alex's life, as did his EMT training.

Unfortunately, Jeffrey Paek had nothing to offer in terms of seeing any suspicious vehicles. He saw no red mustang, he saw no other vehicles on that street, he only ever saw the parked SUV.

Within a twenty-minute span, their unsubs collided with the SUV, abducted Spencer, and made a getaway with what was likely a secondary vehicle, displacing the damaged vehicle not even ten minutes away. There was ample time to clean the car, and they weren't too far from a highway. They might have even remained in the car as it was being transported to begin cleaning it.

Between finding out that there were multiple tires on the car that had been used to crash into the SUV, the fact that the plate didn't match the car, and the fact that the car had been repainted at some point, it was chaotic. Where they were so far with their findings had led them nowhere:

Jennifer, thinking, was sightless as she spoke next. "Hotch."

Aaron spun to face her.

"Hotch, one of the unsubs . . . he threw the keys to the SUV in the woods. I found the keys on the ground while we'd searched for Spence."

"I doubt CSU will find anything on them."

"I understand that, but . . ." She tilted her head, her expression blanketed as she stared at the floor. "Marion's wasn't with his car either."

Understanding dawned on Aaron. "Contact Roxbury PD and request they search the surrounding woods for Marion's keys."

A large team of late-working officers split that task between the east and west trees on the street.

David, who was still in the hospital and had finally heard back from the team of doctors that were treating Alex, called the team. "Four of the stab wounds penetrated Alex's left lung and three in her uterus. None of the ones to her chest penetrated her heart or nicked any aortic or pulmonary arteries, but the three did a number to her reproductive organs."

"Oh my god . . ." Jennifer pressed her hand over her breast, all but feeling the stab wounds herself.

Derek clenched his jaw. "There's a rage with her that isn't there with Marion. It's personal somehow. Seven times."

"Yeah. Marion hadn't been so fortunate with just the one," David agreed. "Either set of the stab wounds could've done her in. She's having reparative surgery for it all, a thoracotomy, as well as corrective surgery for her clavicle. It's broken and she's going to need an implant and screws to hold it in place. She's out for the rest of this."

"Damn it," Derek hissed. He was years past letting his rage fly with a fist slamming on a wall or a door. The anger was a smoke within him that he didn't want to distract him. But it was brimming at the surface.

"We need to know what they see in Alex to stab her so many times, especially in her reproductive organs, and why they didn't go for a quicker, easier kill in that moment where every second counts to get away with your . . ." Jennifer swallowed. "With your intended target. That was an unnecessary risk."

"Mm. Personal and impersonal is all over the place right now," David suggested.

"But something about Alex enraged the unsub enough for him to want to stab her the way he did, and that's personal." Jennifer thought on it. "Her side of the car sustained heavier damage, so she'd already been taken out the picture."

Aaron sighed. "We need to add Reid and Alex into victimology."

Just before midnight, Aaron called Penelope and told her that she needed to fly up to Newark National Airport, and that he was going to pick her up personally. For god's sake, he didn't want her driving.

From there, they began backpedaling to when they were last in contact with Alex and Spencer, which is when she had told them that there was a flat tire; that was around twenty minutes after nine.

"It has to be something about the tires." Jennifer had calmed by now, able to think over the details. "Both Marion and Alex had a flat. The tire didn't burst. She said the sensor light turned on."

"Nah, yeah—it wasn't a coincidence," Derek agreed. "It's too specific to appear in both incidents. So whatever sabotage it was, it took time." He shook his head. "What the hell did they do?"

So they traced their steps back to the ME's. Surveillance covered the entrance and exit doors, but not the whole lot. But it was significant that they were away from their vehicle for a duration of time, and so had Marion when he'd gone to the gym. But the tracing back went nowhere.

The next finding came with getting information about the mechanic shop where the car had been left. Nothing in the employee histories—not a single one of them—had pointed to a wayward history, but they had outside surveillance, for which Jennifer immediately secured a warrant. Morris Plains PD was following up with questioning each and every one of them and establishing alibis. So far, they were all checking out. The team had suspected as much. Aaron knew that leaving the car at that shop had just been a misdirection, another way to eat up their time.

Within minutes after that call, an hour and a half after the search in Roxbury had started, it was confirmed: a ring of keys was found glinting—not on the ground, but in a low-hanging branch. This was something that they would have likely missed in the daytime if they might have gone on any search at all. It was just a small inconvenience to send investigators on more of a hunt.

By this time, Derek, Jennifer, and Aaron were back at the Sussex County Sheriff's Precinct. Penelope was in the airport and waiting for her flight:

"Sir?" Penelope started as soon as Aaron picked up the phone.

"What have you got, Garcia?"

"Okay, sir, I've been digging for more information on Zachary Bridges. He lives or lived in Stroudsburg, PA. He had a sealed record for battery and assault and was in juvie for two years, from sixteen to eighteen."

Jennifer spoke up. "What for? You've unsealed it, yes?"

"Apparently for emasculating his stepfather—sliced—off—his—ack—his stepfather allegedly abused him physically and sexually for eight years. He refused to ever go to the hospital at all during that time. Zachary lived with a Dana Miller—girlfriend or wife, there's no indication."

"So what do we know about him?" Derek stated.

"Well, since last summer, there's been no new activity in his name—just bills lapsing."

"Hm."

"Guys, I mean zilch."

Aaron sighed, looked at his watch, and then at the tired expression of both of his subordinates. At this point, they were working for nearly eighteen hours. Although every minute counted, they needed to be discreet moving forward so as not to arouse unnecessary pressure or suspicion on their unsub's part. Going after a potential perpetrator's close associate could do just that.

"Right. Morgan and JJ, first thing tomorrow morning, I want you to head over to Pennsylvania to interview Ms Miller. As early as feasibly possible. In the meantime, Garcia, have the nearest PD in Stroudsburg surveille the vicinity for any suspicious activity, but I want it done discreetly."

"Oh, sir, she doesn't live in PA anymore. She's moved down to Hockessin, Delaware for months now. It seems that her parents live there, as she has their address. Shall I contact their local PD to get on that surveillance?"

Yes," Aaron sighed out. "In the meantime, what was Bridges' last activity?"

Penelope hummed. "It was—umm—oh!"

"What is it?"

"His last transaction was not too far from where you were, near Morristown, New Jersey, on August 10th, 2012. At a . . . baby boutique."

Aaron tilted his head. "Can you bring up his picture, Garcia?"

"Yes, sir. I just have the one right now; just his license picture." After a moment's pause, she asked, "Did you get it?"

Zachary Bridges was blond, a good 170 pounds, and stood at five foot ten.

"Well, his childhood physical abuse was definitely a precursor for his violent tendencies later in life," Aaron said. "The fact that he had to face the justice system as a result of going after his abuser could certainly cause the anger." This made Aaron think that earlier, crazy theorizing was true, that the unsub believed himself to be a victim, and that the eye covering, the tongue removal, and the mouth covering had been about justice.

"In that same vein, the hand removal could be indicative of removing the means by which abuse was doled out," Jennifer said.

"But why the white fabrics?" Derek asked. "And is there any credibility, then, to Reid's theory about these abductions and murders being motivated by love? Is there any credibility to the horticulture aspect?"

"No theory was too far-fetched," Aaron argued. "We can't dismiss them, especially now that there are two unsubs. Where there are deficits in the profile, they can probably be filled in with the other unsub. We'd already theorized that it could be a symbol of his own lost innocence." Addressing Penelope, he asked, "Did Zachary's step-father face charges for raping him?"

"Yes; he was sent to prison, and he was released about three years ago."

"That coulda been a trigger," Derek posed. "Maybe Bridges felt that his father's punishment was too lenient."

"Oh no!" Penelope gasped. "There was an incident at Zachary's juvenile facility. They found that one of the—the staff members had sexually abused him."

Derek blinked rapidly, breath puffing out, incensed. "So his belief in the justice system was destroyed when he was penalized for going after his abuser, and then . . ." His jaws clenched.

"And it was decimated when he was again victimized by that very same justice system," Aaron finished for him, shaking his head in disgust. "Abuse of power, loss of control—these set a foundation to his trauma and his anger. Who was the staff member? What was the penalty?"

"They never found out who it was. Zachary had been diagnosed early on in the juvenile detention center as having mild Oppositional Defiant Disorder and extreme trust issues, so he had a problem with authority already. He refused to out his abuser, so they transferred him to another facility for his safety."

"Where was his mother in all of this? What of his sister?"

"The mother was in and out of rehab, it looks like—for drugs and alcohol. She'd been arrested a couple of times for being drunk and disorderly. Gave birth to Zachary's half-sister just before he went to juvie, and she was put into an institution afterwards. Died of an overdose in 2010."

"This might be what set the precedent for the rage towards Alex, a motherly figure," Jennifer drawled. "In traditional societal roles, the mother is supposed to provide protection, emotional stability, and safety to the children, and Zachary didn't have that. In Alex, he destroyed that which gave birth to him."

"It was a secondary trigger," Derek murmured.

"And, yes, Bridges' sister, Chelsea, is now fifteen and is still in the foster system. Zachary's applied to become her legal guardian for the past four years. He'd been denied that due to his juvie record and his post-juvie rebel-rousing for a couple of years that consisted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon—a knife—that led to two and a half years in prison, and also because she has unspecified special needs that he was unable to meet."

"Well that's twice that he's used a knife. And he was ripe for wanting vengeance," spoke Aaron. "It's not a far stretch at all for him to conflate both himself and his abusers in the victims. That could account for both the rage and the guilt."

Derek then spoke, and his deep and steady timbre was thready. "As an authority figure, Reid stands to reawaken those feelings of a loss of control that Zach had when he was in juvie. He'll thrive off a rush of power, and he'll give Reid hell."

"Don't say this, Derek." Penelope's mousy, quivering voice drifted from the phone. "Please don't say these things."

Jennifer, on her part, moaned, hands curling over her belly and gripping the sides of her shirt as she bent forward. She'd allowed her worry to sit at the sidelines for the sake of keeping her composure. With Derek's declaration, though, the physical blow of the words highlighted the gravity of the situation.

"Oh god, god." Jennifer's knuckles turned white with the strength of her grip.

Derek put a hand on the back of her neck in a comforting, pacifying gesture, thumb gliding. "Hey, hey. You're good, JJ; you're good."

Aaron let out a steadying breath. Derek's supposition wasn't at all a stretch and was something that was on his own mind. He swallowed.

"We can't look this far ahead." The voice behind it wasn't the sure and steady one that he always had, but Aaron had to be the beacon and pillar for them. "It'll distract us. We can't." Still, he reached a hand forward and placed it on Jennifer's back. "Are you alright, JJ?"

Jennifer nodded, pulling herself up. Where they thought they might see a look of distress, her expression was steeled with that rarely shown hint of rage.

"Garcia."

"Sir?"

"Any history of working in a mechanics shop? Purchases of excessive amounts of cleaning products in his name? Any secondary properties in his or Dana's names? Any affiliation with Worthington or Stokes?"

"Zachary did some odd jobs here and there until about seven years ago. It looks like he worked as a mechanic between '03 and '07. Vocational school during that time between '05 and '07. No affiliation with the forest, it seems, and no excessive purchases of cleaning products."

"Mm. What was he doing in Morristown?" Derek asked.

"Unsure yet, but I will dig and dig."

A short while after that call, David called back to inform everyone that Alex was out of surgery, which went without any complications. The anesthesia would wear off in just a few short hours, but she would be out of it when she regained consciousness. It would likely take three to six months for her to completely heal, and she would need therapy during that time.

David had the misfortune of breaking the news to her husband, James, who was still overseas with his Doctors Without Borders project. He was able to assure James that Alex was in good hands, and he'd apprise him of any changes as soon as possible.

All things considered, Alex would be walking out of the hospital in a week or so but would need to follow up with therapeutic care for a few months.

It was then that Aaron asserted that he needed to call Chief Strauss. Derek expressed his apprehension about it but knew, ultimately, that it was the best thing to do. David offered to make the call, as—in his own words—he knew how to tame the shrew.

"We're now victims of this unsub," Aaron argued.

"We can't sit out on this, Hotch," Derek rebutted, having a terrible feeling of where this was going. "When've we ever let someone else help us when we're the best hope we got? She's going to turn this over to another team."

Jennifer tightened her jaws. "We're not the victims, Hotch. Alex is." She swallowed, and heat built behind her eyes. "Reid is." But she knew. To have gotten to Spencer, all of them had been watched.

However this was to be handled, Aaron wanted to do whatever was necessary to make sure that the team stayed together, so Aaron refused David's offer. He would proceed with whatever Chief Strauss decided would be best, whether he liked it or not, and so he braced himself for the worst. The call had gone far better than expected, and she gave them the green light to do whatever was necessary to bring back Spencer within protocol, and to keep her updated on all progress. He noticed, quite astutely, that Erin hadn't told him to call her before he made his decisions, but merely to know the progress. She was trusting him, and in this he couldn't fail her.

It was nearly half after three, and Aaron knew that his agents were tired, and they were emotionally drained. For the moment, things were at a standstill and wouldn't pick up momentum again until the early morning. Penelope was doing as much digging as she could in the limited time before her flight, Alex was sleeping off the anesthesia, David was going to spend the next few hours there at the hospital, and Spencer was—

God.

He had failed Spencer too many times lately.

"Morgan, JJ, let's head back to the hotel and just try to get some rest." The two of them began to visibly object, and he held up his hand before they could even say anything. "I don't care if you sleep or not, I just want you to rest. We need to take a break. Enforcement is continuing to work on this in shifts. I want you two to leave for Delaware by seven, and I want you speeding down with the lights on the whole way. Taking the jet won't be feasible. I'll just have you go to Dana Millers' home. For Reid's sake, we need to be as at full a capacity as possible in the next few hours to follow up with everything and give him our full attention with our best."

"Hotch, we can't. We can't just give up," Jennifer said, breathless. There was no ground under her feet.

"I'm not asking you; I'm telling you to go back to your hotel rooms and get rest. We're not giving up. There is literally nothing we can do at this moment. We cannot function with diminished mental capacity or running on fumes. Like I said, we rest."

Sheriff Reiner gave Aaron the keys to an unmarked vehicle, and Derek and Jennifer drove in David's SUV.

The short drive to the hotel was punctuated with silence and disquiet in both cars.

Aaron hadn't been able to sleep. He showered and he sat in his bed, and he held back the strong urge to call his sister-in-law so that he could speak to his son. He needed that innocence to just skim upon the fringes of his anxiety, calm him.

He thought of how things would be handled from here on out. Marion's family was told last night that he was murdered. The public would want updates—it hadn't been confirmed yet publicly that Marion was, in fact, the dead person that was found at the scenic overlook hours earlier. They would want to know if Marion's murderer was apprehended. Above all things, he had to protect Spencer's privacy. The public couldn't know that the unsubs had a new victim.

At fifteen after five, he brushed, he changed into plain clothes, and stepped out after sipping on terrible coffee. He texted David, Jennifer, and Derek that he was on his way to pick up Penelope. As he reached the vehicle, though, he paused, checked the tires, and then climbed in. He left at half after five, texting Jennifer and Derek to tell them to check the tires of David's car before leaving. He didn't know what for.

The hour-long drive to the airport took him forty minutes as he kicked on the lights and sped down the highway, weaving between traffic. When he arrived, Penelope was already waiting for him with her hard-shell suitcase filled with her devices, her go-bag, and her personal bag, and he stepped out to help her put everything in the back seat.

She was tearful.

"Sir, I can start right now," Penelope said. "Please let me know what you want me to do."

Aaron was quiet for a moment, observing her hunched form under a penetrating gaze. "Are you alright, Garcia?"

"I'm not, sir. I'm not at all. I feel like I can't breathe."

Aaron's tender voice belied his hardened expression. "I'm sorry. I know."

"I don't want to be here. I don't want this to be happening. Again. Twice is too much."

"I know. But it is, and I need you to be on top of your game. We're going to get him back."

"Yes, sir."

"Have you eaten?"

"No."

"Let's head to the hospital. Dave said there's a Starbucks there. We can see Alex, and afterwards, he and I are going to see if she's alert enough to answer some questions."

"Yes, sir."

Aaron could tell that his subordinate was in a delicate state, as was her nature. Penelope Garcia protected herself in her cove, and she worried over the team constantly.

When the FBI recruited her in 2004, she had been defiant, and they didn't give her a choice beyond applying for the job of becoming a technical analyst or being prosecuted for her cyber crusades. She wasn't dumb—she preserved herself and capitulated and her application consisted of pink stationery from her bag that she hand-wrote then and there in her scrawl. But the weeks afterwards exhibited exactly what he had told her himself about her personality and the core reason of why he knew that she would be a good fit for the job: she was rigorously moral, and she had a fierce desire to protect those who she felt were being hurt.

The façade of The Black Queen began to fade, she tried—and failed—to have a more professional bearing, and she quickly came to regret turning in that resume when things became too emotionally devastating. That was when she began decorating her little corner of space with all sorts of colorful trinkets.

Penelope Garcia had faded in the background for a few weeks, as there was still another technical analyst who she was training under and who Aaron regularly consulted instead. Even Derek had forgotten her name.

It wasn't until Aaron began working the Brian Matloff case—when she was still trying to look professional and secretarial—that they utilized her skills. Aaron had, in fact, only just begun working with Spencer during that case as well, though he knew him for months before, so a new dynamic was forming in the team. The three subordinates gelled well, and after that he was constantly using her to consult.

She was effervescent, a warm relief from the difficult cases they had to deal with, soft and sensitive, loving and protective, embracing her inner child with a dogged conviction.

This was hurting her. Aaron, in turn, didn't like when his subordinates were hurting. It wasn't a sign of a good leader.

The silent ride was punctuated by her deep, sniveling inhalations, and the mantra she repeated to herself under her breath for nearly the whole duration: "He's going to be fine."

Neither Jennifer nor Derek had been able to sleep, either, and they each exited their hotel rooms almost simultaneously at quarter to seven.

"Hey," Derek said. "Did you get any sleep?"

Jennifer made a face that expressed her obvious inability to have done so. She couldn't say anything but gave him a straight-lipped tip of her head.

"Hey, come on." Derek approached her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, planting his lips gently on the side of her forehead. She closed her eyes, leaned into it, and pressed her hand in a single rap against his chest.

"Let's do this," she finally said, her voice steady. "Hotch is right. Spence needs us at our best. He's going to do whatever he can on his end."

They stopped at the hotel breakfast buffet, grabbed food, and went to Dave's SUV. Per Aaron's text, they both looked at the tires before getting in, not quite sure what they were looking for, but vigilant nonetheless. The ride down to Delaware was quiet for the whole duration.

The first thing Alex registered was the absolute quiet that was punctuated with a soft hiss. It was a distinct quiet that she knew all too well. She blinked her eyes open as wide as they could and was met with a kaleidoscope of rainbow colors, her vision blurred and able to focus with a limited capacity on her eyelashes, which caused the prism of light before her. She blinked again and again at a web of lights that flashed before her eyes.

White light.

She remembered that bright light hurtling towards her.

She attempted to sit up.

Yes, there was the sound of the sliding grit, the flesh slapping, the choked gasps, the squeaking of fingertips, the beeping, the scent of sterile air, the coolness of small fingers in her hands and needles upon needles pressing into that pale, soft skin and the I'm-sorry-we've-tried-everything's and the We-just-don't-know-what-it-is

"Nn—Ethan?" she gasped out.

"Whoa, whoa, Blake," a warbly voice cajoled.

Alex tried to sit up again upon hearing her name and then gasped as pain blossomed from—oh, god, she couldn't tell where exactly. It was just pressing in on her from all sides.

"Alex, wait. Please, calm down. It's me; it's Dave."

Voice close, the tap tap tap of feet pattering away before she heard a gentle but insistent, nasal Nurse?

The darkness was quick to descend.

Alex awakened again, rolling gently out of her unconscious state. The white drop ceiling and the bright fluorescent lights above her—she already knew where she was, and she already hated this. Her tongue flickered out to lick her dry lips. With a swallow, she wrinkled her nose at her dry tongue, too. She lifted her hand, was assaulted with a terrible pang, and moaned. A sling prevented movement of her arm, and with that pain she had realized that her clavicle might be fractured.

She pushed herself up with her other hand and marveled at the twinge in her chest and below her navel. Everything ached. On any scale, she would put herself up to an eight or a nine. Were they regulating her pain relief, or were they allowing her to self-regulate? She looked around and found the controller, and soon relief was washing through her. She raised her bed to a more upright Fowler's position, looking around the room as her angle went from thirty degrees to sixty. She didn't have to look long to find that David was sleeping in a cushioned chair.

She whispered to him. "David. Dave!"

David stirred and blinked blearily at her. He hummed in question before coming to full alertness a moment later. "Blake. You alright?"

"What happened, David?" she coughed. Her left chest smarted. Her mind kept replaying the very moment the car had collided with her vehicle, kept re-seeing that bright white light. She was tiring again.

"You tell us, Blake. We have only a fraction of the puzzle." He was closer to her bed and grabbed a paper cup of water with a straw peeking out of it and brought it to her lips. "But first: how ya feelin'?"

She took a sip of the water, gave a grateful nod.

"I'm—" She began to drift.

"Want me to get a nurse?"

"No, no, please." She breathed with difficulty. There was a high-flow nasal oxygen cannula tucked into her nostrils to assist with her breathing, and speaking was not easy.

She was grateful for David's patience as she tried to get her bearings.

"I feel like . . ." She breathed. After pausing, she took an unfulfilling lungful of air to say the next words in one breath. "I've been hit by a truck." David hummed. "Or trampled by an elephant," she murmured sardonically.

"Mm-eh," David sang, tilting his head.

His expression was odd, a little comical for the situation, and Alex wished to put herself in his mind.

"You've been in and out for a couple of hours since they got you out of surgery."

"Surgery?" she parroted. "What for?"

"A fractured clavicle, broken ribs, and four stab wounds to the chest and three to . . . to your reproductive organs."

"Wh—" She couldn't even form the simple word.

"That doesn't count the penetrating glass injuries, or the whiplash and sprained wrist."

She groaned.

"Blake." David leaned forward, and she looked at him. "We need to know what you remember. Reid's missing. We think—" He seemingly chose his next words with care. "We think he's been abducted."

More words that just didn't make sense.

"What? What? Wait, no, wait." Surely she was crashing into a wall and her breath was caught in her chest. Or something was crashing into her, like the collision—the collision!—was happening all over again, and she could finally remember past the sight of the headlights and the jarring of her head whipping back and forth. Her other hand flew up to her forehead, though, where she felt a bandage.

"Oh god," she murmured. "There was a car—coming toward us and there was nothing—I could—" She was losing her breath.

"Blake, relax. It was a set-up. It was all a set-up. Your tire, the accident, the traffic rerouting—"

"The what?" Alex dropped her head back and gave a soft moan. She sucked in a deep breath and immediately wanted to vomit from the sterile scent that filled her nostrils. She hated hospitals. She hated what she lost in the hospital many years ago.

Tired. She was tired.

"—ake? Alex," she heard. She blinked.

"David?"

"I'll call a nurse."

She met no nurse but was consumed by shadows.


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In reference to the footnote [1] in this chapter, you can find additional information on my tumblr.

Many thanks for reading! I've gone ahead and will now start posting small previews of the next chapter about halfway through the week on my tumblr. These may have minor differences to the final updated chapter as I may edit some teensy parts just before the final upload, but you'll have the gist anyway if you're interested in getting your sneak peeks!

Lastly, as a note, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the interrogation scene in this chapter was inspired by a chapter in a CM fic called The Descent right here on FFN by oleanderclouds. This fic is one of my faves, is always a good reread, has inspired my writing, and was the first CM fic I read years ago just as I was starting to get into the show. I'd highly recommend you read it and its sequel Broken Things.