Disclaimer: See chapter 1
------------------
On her seventh day of what she'd come to consider her captivity, Linda sat on her bed surveying her room. She'd remained adamant about not allowing Spencer into her room but he'd come in anyway, if not in body, in soul. He was everywhere she looked. He'd stood in the ante room and performed magic tricks with cards and coins that had mesmerized her. On her night table sat a top hat with a stuffed rabbit sticking out of it. The next night he'd drawn caricatures of his team and her nurses that made her laugh and now hung on the wall. The next evening he'd arrived with a beautiful copper colored candle, followed by a copper bowl filled with glorious smelling incense. The last time she'd seen him he brought an ikebana of five gorgeous white orchids arranged in a shiny brown bowl according to size and accented with tall white birch twigs. His note said he'd found a woman in DC who helped him make the gift. Her grandmother would have spotted the flaws in it of course, but to her it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It was like he'd given her her own tokonoma.
He wouldn't be here tonight. Sandy had told her he'd called. The team had a case involving a series of rapes and a murder in Indianapolis. She supposed she shouldn't be selfish. The women of Indianapolis needed his brilliant mind to find the killer before another woman became his victim. She reached out and fingered the fluffy pink rabbit that was perched lopsidedly in the top hat. She'd known he was special when they first met and worked together on the anthrax case. She couldn't help but notice how attractive he was but she'd tried to remain professional. It had become harder to maintain her professional distance after he'd become infected with the virus. She mustn't have done a very good job of it if both her team and his had seen the attraction. She'd dated quite regularly in her life, known other men, had other lovers but the sparks never flew like they did with him. No man had touched her inner core like this man. No other man ever would. She loved him. She knew that now. With every fiber of her being she loved him. Even though he couldn't be here with her, she leaned in to smell the fragrance of the lilies mixed with that of the incense, he hadn't left her alone. He'd left pieces of himself with her. She'd get by.
----------------------
"We're dealing with what's known as a power reassurance rapist," Hotch told members of the Indianapolis PD.
"These men rarely kill their victims. They rarely let their victims see their faces," Prentiss continued. "The fact that this man did kill one of his victims tells us she either saw his face or threatened him in some way."
"We're looking for an Asian man in his late twenties to thirties who works in a menial job, possibly for an Asian woman who makes him, by her actions or simply by virtue of her being superior to him and rivaling traditional Asian culture, feel emasculated. The rapes give him the power he lacks in his everyday life," Reid said.
"How do we know he's Asian?" A stout and balding African American officer asked.
"Because rapists rarely stray outside of their own race and all the women who have been attacked are Asian American women in high level positions," Reid replied.
"This man is not going to be your handsome three piece suit, working out at the gym kind of guy," Morgan stressed. "He lacks the confidence, he won't stick out. People who know him will be surprised to hear this man is capable of such a crime."
"How do we catch the guy if he's so ordinary and nonspecific?" another of the officers asked.
"Victimology," Rossi replied. "He's somewhere in the periphery of each of these women's lives. He could be the guy who delivers Chinese food to the offices where they work. We have to figure out where he fits in."
The pictures of four beautiful Asian American women graced the white board. All had been raped but only the last, Deborah Lee, had been killed. Reid looked at the pictures and the women reminded him of Linda. They were all professional women in the city. HaeJung Kim, a Korean American was a financial advisor at Gruber Management one of the largest firms in Indianapolis. Jiao Chang was a professor of Chinese studies at Indiana State. Sharon Saito, a second generation Japanese immigrant owned her own interior design firm and, the murder victim, Deborah Lee, the other woman of Chinese descent had been a surgeon at St. Vincent Carmel Hospital.
"JJ, you and Morgan talk to Miss Kim, find out all the places she frequents and people she's dealt with," Hotch ordered. "Reid and Prentiss, head over to the university and interview Miss Chang. Rossi and I will talk to Sharon Saito and then we'll have to question family, friends and coworkers of Miss Lee to get her story." Each pair of agents headed out to conduct their interviews.
-------------------------
Linda Kimura slept. She never napped in the afternoon but there wasn't enough to do in her glass cage. She was roused by the overhead paging system, "Code blue to room 427." It was funny she thought, when she was working she rarely noticed the various pages that went on throughout the day unless they were for her. One always seemed to recognize one's own name. She sat up and looked at the clock, 2:40. She'd go to the bathroom and then do some reading. She felt it with her hand before she saw it. Her sheets were wet. She didn't want to turn her head and look. She didn't want to see what she knew would be there. She looked anyway and although she had expected it, the bright redness of the sheets shocked her and Linda gasped. Seven days into the incubation period she had felt confident she was okay, that her possible brief contact with the Ebola virus due to a faulty latex glove would amount to nothing. But now she was bleeding. She could see dried blood streaks down her legs. Her fingers went to her forehead. It didn't feel hot. It should feel hot if she'd developed the hemorrhagic fever that signified Ebola shouldn't it? She could feel perspiration on her brow and her anxiety spiked while her hope plummeted.
--------------------
The team was back in the conference room comparing notes. The victims didn't seem to frequent many of the same places with the exception of the large department stores where the majority of Indianapolis residents shopped. "Sharon Saito said she shopped a lot at an Asian market down on Field Street." Rossi flipped through the pages of his notebook, looking for the name. "She said it stocked the best Poneu in the city, whatever that is."
"It's a dipping and dressing sauce used in Japanese cuisine," Reid interjected. "It's good with vegetables, fried foods, noodles and dumplings."
"Well thank you Mr. Expert on Japanese cooking," Morgan teased. "I don't suppose she's taught you how to use chopsticks."
"Are you talking about The Oriental Pantry?" JJ asked. "HaeJung Kim shops there as well. She says most regular supermarkets don't carry good doenjang, that's some kind of fermented soy bean paste and she can easily find other staples needed in authentic Korean cooking."
"Jiao Chang said something about that too," Prentiss added. "Remember Reid, she said you can get Szechuan and hoisin almost anywhere but not with the same quality as at The Oriental Pantry."
"Perhaps we need to pay a visit to The Oriental Pantry," Hotch said.