Penelope frowned a little as JJ set down their next round of drinks. "What's wrong? Please do not tell me that you have to go work a case for the red cell team tonight of all night!"

She shook her head a little as she picked up her phone, looking at the notification that had pinged her attention in the first place. "No, it's nothing like that. I hate to talk shop on one of our few nights of freedom, but do you think that you'd be up to hearing a story of a theory that I have?"

Her best friend let out a soft sigh before nodding. "I suppose that I could be up for that. What's on your mind?" she asked before taking a sip of her beer. Penelope cracked her back and then her neck, trying to find the right words to explain what she had been tracking to JJ without seeming completely insane. "Come on, you can tell me. I promise that I'll listen with an open mind."

"Fine. I know that it will sound out there, but…for the last seven years, I've been tracking some weird deaths across Europe and North America. There have been a few in Japan and South Korea, as well, but for the most part, they've been concentrated in those two continents."

"A lot of deaths are weird, Penelope. That hardly constitutes something to be worried about."

She let out a deep sigh. "I know that, you just didn't let me finish my thought before interrupting me. These deaths have all been people who are extremely shady in their private lives, who have hid their sins well. However, when these cases first raised my interest, I went digging into their pasts and found that there were all reasons why someone might want them dead." Penelope paused as she picked up her drink and took a sip. "These people are super skeevy, Jayje, and I don't mind them not being in the world any longer, but I'm absolutely bothered by the fact that they were, for all intents and purposes, assassinated."

"Okay, that is a little weird. But just how did you know how to connect these deaths?"

Penelope could see from the look in JJ's eyes that she had finally gotten her attention, and she took a deep breath as she pulled her tablet from her purse and set it on the table. "I am so glad that you asked. Don't worry, none of these pictures are gory, in fact, that's one of the weirder aspects of this case. There is relatively little blood in any of the places these people are found. It is clear that they were taken care of in place, but they were also taken care of cleanly. Whoever is doing this, they're good, and they want to make things easy on the crime scene investigators and the people who are tasked with cleaning up afterwards." She tapped on the screen, quickly diving into her personal Dropbox and then into the correct subfolder, which she had buried deeply enough that no one would be able to find it unless they knew exactly what to look for, and the likelihood of that occurring was quite small.

"Geez, PG, are you that paranoid about things?"

"Yes. You remember the two cases where when I wasn't quite so careful were extremely disastrous for our team? Or the one case where I didn't listen to my gut and the consequences were catastrophic?"

JJ looked a bit mollified by that statement and gave her a small nod. "I suppose that you're right, yeah. Now, how about I take a look at these pictures and see if I can pick out what set off alarm bells in your head." Penelope gave her a small nod as she pushed the tablet over to JJ before picking up her drink and nursing it, her eyes never leaving JJ's face as she flicked through the pictures, sometimes zooming in on portions that Penelope knew contained the clues that she had picked up on. "Huh."

"Huh, what?" she asked, trying not to sound smug as she did so, knowing that it was a bit ugly to gloat over being right, especially when there were future lives at stake.

"I think that I may have picked up on the clue that binds all these cases together. There's an origami cat located near the body in each case. And each one is made out of the same paper, which lends further credence to your notion that this is the same unsub. Is there anything else that is similar between them?"

Penelope shook her head as she took the tablet back from JJ, stuffing it into her purse as she signaled to their server for another drink. "I wish that I could find another similarity in these cases, since they are all across the board. In some cases, they're not even reported as a murder, just a suspicious death, because there is literally nothing to indicate that they were murdered, beyond the origami cat. I've tried to find other cases using those search parameters, and that's how I went from four cases to eight. This is something real that's happening in the background, and I think that we have a right to be concerned about this spreading into something larger."

"Eight cases in seven years isn't that incredibly concerning, that it would need immediate attention from the entire BAU."

"No, but I just need to know that I'm not crazy. There really is a link between these cases, yes?"

"Yes, there is. But I suppose that we'll have to find some way to keep these cases open and relevant to us, because now that we've established the pattern, we can see if there are other cases out there."

"Thank you for believing me, Jayje." She gave her best friend a quick smile before taking her fresh drink from the server's hands. "Another question for you. Since the majority of these cases are located in the United States…" JJ went to protest her words, only for Penelope to shake her head. "I know, with eight cases, three being a majority is tenuous at best. But, since there were also three cases located in Europe, do you think that if we present this data to Emily, she'll allow me to have access to Interpol's data and search out to see if there are more cases that I've missed?"

"We can try, there's no harm in that. I just wouldn't hold out very much hope that she'll agree to pull strings for us with only that small link between suspicious deaths and a few outright murders." Penelope let out a small sigh as she nodded. "Now, to get back onto happier topics, Will and I are going to start trying for another baby. I've always wanted three kids, after all."

"Oh, my gosh, and hopefully this time you get to have the little girl you always wanted. What do we need to do to make certain that happens for you guys?"

"Honestly? The next weekend we're home, if you want to watch the boys so that Will and I can have that special adult time that we're both missing, that would be lovely."

"Spend time with my godsons? Do you even need to ask twice? I can definitely do that for you." Reaching across the table, she grabbed hold of JJ's hand, squeezing it tightly before starting to bop around to the sound of the song in the air, a thousand thoughts running through her head about just how she would present this case to Emily in order to get the results that she wanted.