Chapter Eighteen

Shortly after nine o'clock, Rossi, Hotch, and Reid retreated to their hotel rooms to catch some well-earned sleep. After they requested the official investigation into the six-month-long disappearance of Casey Langston- which the Dallas Police Department needed to be convinced was even a factor- Garcia sent them at least two dozen names that fit the profile preceded by Langston and Pryor: male, mid- to late-twenties, from the Dallas metro area, and missing for approximately six months. Penelope also cross-checked Matt and Casey's lives, seeing wherever it was possible that the two men could've crossed paths, as a possible location for where they met the unsub.

There weren't any immediate hits, which meant the tech analyst would have to dig even deeper into their victims lives to find some link, even if it was the most inane connection. Sometimes, the littlest details proved to be the most important.

For now, however, the exhausted agents would wait for the rest of their team to arrive. Derek and Emily were catching a flight to Dallas any minute, and JJ and Kristina would get to Dallas sometime the next morning.

Reid pulled his laptop from his messenger bag and checked his email, pleased to find one unread email from Agent Barker, his contact at the San Francisco field office. Attached was a file containing all members of Kristina's graduating class with a criminal record, which for a small private college was a surprisingly high percentile. Embezzlement, tax evasion, insurance fraud, grand theft auto, possession, driving under the influence... and that was just the first page.

Unfortunately, none of these offenses matched the profile Reid was looking for. He clicked through the remainder of the pages, committing each name and offense to memory. Kristina's roommate was noticeably absent from the list- Mr. Kent had mentioned her as one of the few friends his daughter made that semester. Spencer had a hard time believing that a young girl could've committed Bridget's murder, anyway. Experience, and basic criminal psychology, told him that the unsub was most likely male.

His family would see nothing wrong, making excuses for his odd behavior. They would use words like "quiet" and "different" to describe him, where professionals would call him "socially impotent" and "displaying classic precursors to violent behavior". He would have few friends, staying by himself out of habit. He belonged to no clubs, no teams, no extracurriculars of any kind. His home life would most likely include a serious trauma at a young age, causing a hindrance in his development. There was also a significant chance of physical, mental, or verbal abuse. He flew under the radar for a considerably long time, if you thought of him as an eighteen-year-old ticking time bomb.

Somewhere between his fourth and fifth skim through the file, his eyes grew heavy and he decided to call it quits, knowing that the team would notice immediately if he showed any signs of exhaustion during their investigation the next day. His family was inherently more protective of the youngest member among their ranks, and he didn't need to give them another reason to worry.

Reid popped a couple of aspirin and collapsed on the bed, falling asleep within seconds.


When Frank dropped Emily and her go-bag off at the airplane hangar, Derek was already in the jet waiting for her. She planted a chaste kiss on the former agent's lips and boarded the plane. Her best friend wore a wide grin as she plopped down on the seat across from him.

"Hey there, miss thing. Are we interrupting something?"

"We?" Emily quipped, noting that the plane was otherwise empty.

Morgan motioned to a laptop on the table between them, where a younger man with short hair and thick-rimmed glasses waved on camera.

"Good evening, Agent Prentiss."

"Kevin, hi," Emily smiled back.

"Our dear Penelope is out of commission," Derek explained, "so Kevin is taking care of us tonight."

"That's right," Kevin nodded, swiveling absentmindedly in a computer chair surrounded by half a dozen busy computer screens. "I'm running her software to find any connections between Pryor and Langston. Nothing yet, but i'll call you the second I find something. I've also sent both files to your tablets, and you'll have wheels waiting for you when you arrive, courtesy of the Dallas field office. And might I add, Emily, you look stunning tonight," he added with a smug grin.

"Oh, Kevin," Emily chuckled, "does Garcia know you're sitting in her chair?"

Kevin paused, slight fear in his eyes.

"Gotta go."

Derek laughed as the video feed cut out.

"Good ol' Kevin."

"Yeah, it was nice knowing him," Emily remarked. Everybody knew how particular Penny was with the condition of her office- if even a single knick-knack was out of place, the offender could expect some sort of blackmail and/or death threats arriving in their email inbox within the hour.

"No JJ or Kristina?" Derek arched an eyebrow, noting the absence in the seats across the aisle where the duo usually sat.

"No," Emily laughed heartily from her chest, "Girl's night. You know how it goes."

With Derek's interest piqued, Emily elaborated.

"They prank called me as Beavis and Butthead earlier."

"Nice," he chuckled, the mental image of a drunken Kristina Kent doing Beavis impressions not soon going to leave his mind.

"You like her, don't you."

Derek was unable to look Emily in the eye. They both knew who she was talking about.

"She's got a mean right hook," he offered lamely. Emily gasped and playfully nudged his shoulder.

"You really like her!"

Morgan sighed, knowing that it was no use trying to lie to the experienced profiler.

"Emily, come on. We work together."

"That doesn't mean you can't have a little crush on her," she shot back, grinning. "I don't blame you. I mean, look at her..."

"I do not have a crush on her." he insisted.

Emily laughed.

"You are such a liar!"

Morgan groaned, throwing his head back in frustration.

"I am so done with this conversation."

"I'm just saying, if you like her it's worth a shot," Emily shrugged. "We could double date."

"That is the last thing I want to do, Princess," he cracked.

Emily winced.

"Oh, ouch!"


The team was gathered in their conference room in the Dallas metro police office on Saturday morning when the results from Langston's polygraph and cognitive memory recall tests came. Rossi did the honors of opening the thick envelope, and quickly scanned the enclosed pages.

"Well, it's just like we thought...he passed the polygraph."

"So he wasn't lying, he really doesn't remember anything from that day," Morgan recapped, an air of disappointment in his voice.

"What about the cognitive exercises?" Reid interjected, a furrow in his brow.

Rossi sighed.

"He had a panic attack halfway through, they almost had to sedate him."

"I guess that answers your question," Emily quipped.

Aaron was rifling through the files when Brooks, the detective assigned to the case, popped through the door of the conference room.

"Langston's family is here," he announced somberly. "Who wants it?"

"Emily, Dave," Hotch addressed them, still reading the files, "talk to the parents. Reid, see if the sister knows any of Casey's friends. Morgan and I are going to the crime scene to see if we can find any significance in the location for the profile."


Casey's parents were in their late fifties. Betty was a short, plump woman whose halfhearted smile nearly broke Emily's heart when the profiler led her into one of the interview rooms at the precinct. Casey's father, John, had bloodshot eyes and looked like he hadn't slept in days. Prentiss and Rossi had spoken to many victims' families in their years in the bureau, but it never got any easier to face the innocent lives ruined by horrific tragedy. Their son was plastered all over the news, painted as a random psycho with a gun in a string of recent nationwide shootings. Though the team had some evidence to clear the Langston name in the press, for now it was advantageous to keep their theory under wraps. If the unsub knew that they were onto him, he could very well disappear, never to be seen again.

As such, this was bittersweet news for Casey's distraught parents.

"So Casey is innocent?" Betty's voice was small and fragile.

Rossi didn't even blink.

"We have evidence that he may have been kidnapped about six months ago. You filed the missing persons report, is that correct?"

Betty nodded, tears brimming her eyes.

"After a while, I thought... I thought the worst."

"When do we get to see our son?" John asked, remaining strong for his wife.

"We can't answer that," Emily explained gently, "Your son has been through a significant trauma, and it's too early in the stages of his recovery to tell when he will be capable of handling visitors."

"Best guess?" John shot back, arm sliding around his wife's shoulder.

"Give it another week," Rossi pacified the agitated father.

"We were hoping you could answer a few questions for us," Emily added, trying to keep the interview on track. She pulled out a glossy 8x10 of Matt Pryor.

"Does this man look familiar to you at all?"

John's brow furrowed as he studied the picture.

"Does he have something to do with how Casey went missing?"

"No." Rossi assured him."We think the same thing happened to him. Have you ever seen him before?"

Betty slid the photo closer to her side of the table and squinted.

"No, I don't recognize him. This has happened more than once?"

"We're still looking into it," Rossi replied. Both agents wished that they could offer more reassurance, more hope, for the Langstons. With no solid leads, there was no telling how long it would be before they could give them any answers.

Reid was having even less luck with Casey's fifteen-year-old sister. The ten years of age difference meant that Charity hardly knew any of her brother's friends. The only insight she provided was a facebook update from her brother three days before they reported him missing. In the update Casey said he was going to a popular gay bar downtown with some friends. This revelation gave the team their first real lead.


"...Ok, thanks, Reid," Morgan hung up with the young doctor and turned to Hotch, who was staring straight up at the street signs at the corner of Main and Willow. Several small shops lined Willow Street; a vintage clothing store, a bicycle shop, a small cafe, and a foreclosed comic book store. It was a relatively quiet corner of a district that one pedestrian called "Hipster Square". The demographics of the area seemed strictly limited to twenty-somethings, but even late on a Saturday morning there wasn't much foot traffic.

"I doubt any of these businesses have security cameras that look out into the street," Hotch supplied before Morgan filled him in on his conversation with Reid.

"Langston went to a gay club before he went missing."

Aaron processed this for a beat.

"Our unsub could've met him at the club."

"This doesn't feel like a stalker case. He never mentioned anything about anyone behaving inappropriately towards him."

"We still can't rule it out," Hotch rertorted, then looked back up at the street signs and dialed Garcia.

"Penelope Garcia at your service," The technical analyst greeted him.

He paused.

"What, no witty greetings for me this morning?"

"Blame it on the alcohol, sir," she shot back. Aaron chuckled and quickly returned to the business at hand.

"I need you to run a search and track down the club Langston went to before he went missing. It's a gay bar called-"

"Zippers? Already done. I ran his financials- he's been there a half a dozen times in the past year. I checked the place out online. Seems like quite the party," she observed. "Sending you the address now."

"Thank you Garcia," Aaron replied, "and sorry for ruining your Friday night."

"Work to live, live to work," she shot back playfully before hanging up.

"JJ and Kristina's flight just got in," Derek remarked, having received a text from the latter agent while Aaron was on the phone.

"Good," the older agent sighed, "they can interview Pryor's parents back at the station. Let's go. We're not getting anything more from this."