AN: Okay so as I had to take the time to figure out a time line for the chapters for myself, I would thought I'd share my timing with you. Chapter 1 is on a Friday night. Chapter 2 takes place the following Monday afternoon. This chapter and chapter 4 will both take place on Wednesday. Hope that helps any questions about timing.

Hotch leaned forward, and with elbows resting on his desk, massaged his temples. Though this job did often lead to stressful situations, the information in the two files currently spread across his desk had the potential to be one of the most stressful situations he had faced. The Boston Reaper was the only possible situation that had been more stressful if these cases were related to the one he suspected it to be. Reid being abducted by Tobias Hankle would also be a close one. The one thing that all three of these cases had the potential to have in common was the fact that they all held a level of personal involvement.

After several minutes, and no relief to his pounding headache, Hotch leaned back in the chair. The files and the facts they contained were not just going to go away. The connections his trained mind had made to those facts and recent events would continue to nag at him until he acted upon them. At least Hotch was pretty sure it was his training that was making those conditions and not the stress of the past four days.

The early morning call about Agent's Todd's death was the start of the nightmare. He had stayed on the scene most of the morning while local law enforcement and bureau agents had processed the scene. Though SSA Gibson had been put in charge of the investigation, he had kept Hotch in the loop with the information that was gathered, which unfortunately wasn't much. The only solid evidence they had from the scene was the single Glock 26 bullet that was taken Jordan Todd's brain. The fact that she hadn't suffered long was the only bright spot that Hotch could see in this whole mess.

The day hadn't gotten any better. After notifying Agent Todd's family about their daughter's death, something that never got easier, he had received a frantic phone call from Will that JJ had never come home from going out to meet with Morgan, Reid, Todd and Prentiss. A few phone calls later and Hotch had determined that JJ had never met up with the other agents. In one day he had essentially lost two agents. It was a nightmare that would give anyone a headache.

Over the last couple of days the investigation into Todd's death had hit a stand still, and the team's unofficial search for JJ hadn't turned up anything. As Garcia had pointed out, JJ knew everything they would do to try to track her and if she didn't want to be found she would avoid them. The fact that she had turned off her cell phone and withdrew three quarters of the money out of her and Will's savings account the morning of Todd's death was a testament to that.

Picking up the files for the two separate consults that had been faxed to him with urgent pleas for help the night before, Hotch stood up. If he couldn't trust his own judgement, there was only one man he could trust.

Moments later he was walking into David Rossi's office after being waved in.

"What's up Aaron?" Rossi asked, looking up from the consult he had been working on.

"I need a second opinion," Hotch admitted, holding up the two files.

"Well, bring me up to speed and I can do just that," Rossi said, closing the file he was looking at.

Hotch shook his head, as he stepped forward and placed the two files on Rossi's desk. "I'd prefer if you take a look at the cases and give me your opinion before I say anything," Hotch told him.

"Okay," Rossi said, looking from the files and up to his friend. The veteran profiler didn't need his profiling skills to see the stress and exhaustion on his friend's face. He waved a hand toward one of the two chairs on the other side of his desk. "Have a seat while I look these over. You look like you need to take a break."

For once, Hotch didn't even bother putting up the pretense of arguing that point. All he wanted to do was wake up and have everything back to how it was last week. As Rossi turned his attention to the files, Hotch sank down into the chair furthest from the office door. Leaning against the back, he closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind of everything. It didn't work. Though he was able to banish the case information, the eulogy, he had prepared for Agent Todd's funeral that was taking place in a few hours kept playing through his mind.

He had spent hours the night before agonizing over the words and wishing that Jordan's mother hadn't asked him to deliver the eulogy. He and Jordan Todd hadn't seen eye to eye on a lot of things, and quite frankly, though a capable agent, he didn't think she had any right being in the BAU. Her tendency to bend the truth to gain results didn't sit well with him, as he had been taught to value honesty above all else.

Those were things that you put into a work evaluation though and not a eulogy. So he had sat in his living room long after putting Jack to bed, trying to figure out what to say in Jordan Todd's memories. These were words that her parents would cling to, in order to find peace in the death of their daughter and yet he needed them to be true for his own peace of mind. It had taken awhile, but he was finally satisfied that he had come up with an adequate memorial for the agent who had served with him for only two brief stints.

"These came to you as two separate consults?" Rossi asked, causing Hotch to open his eyes again.

"Yeah. The Baltimore police are reaching out for help after two days of turning up no evidence to work with. The Glenshaw sheriff sound absolutely panicked when I talked to him last night, having no idea how to proceed with a case like this."

"I would imagine they don't get many execution style murders out that way," Rossi mused out loud.

"They don't get many murders period," Hotch amended.

"I definitely see a connection between the two murders. Both were conducted at night with no witnesses, quite a feat to pull off in a city like Baltimore. The victims were both highly successful women in their own fields, brunettes and both killed by a single shot to the forehead with a Glock 26. Quite a few similarities to be just mere coincidences," Rossi said, echoing the thoughts that had gone through Hotch's mind when reading the files.

"Two kills in two days doesn't leave much of a cooling off period either," Rossi mused.

"Possibly three kills in four days," Hotch replied, waiting to see if Rossi would make the same connection that he had.

Rossi looked up from the files and gazed across the desk at his boss' blank expression. Moments later it clicked for him to.

"Jordan's murder," Rossi said sadly. "She fits in with these victims as well as the cause of death."

Hotch nodded, feeling more confident with the conclusions he had drawn now that he knew Rossi was in agreement with him.

"So, I guess technically we should turn these two files over to Gibson and let him look into it."

Hotch nodded. That was what the bureau would expect him to do. It wasn't however what he wanted to do. "Or officially we stay quiet about the connection of these two murders with Todd's and take on these two murders ourselves. Quite frankly, I want to be doing more to find Todd's killer than just watching what other agents are doing, and this looks to be the only break we might get."

"If Strauss finds out, she's going to be livid."

"I know," Hotch said. "Still, if it lets us find Todd's killer and whoever killed those other two women, then I'm willing to face whatever Strauss wants to throw my way."

"Should I get the team together now?" Rossi asked, telling Hotch that he was one hundred percent behind him on the decision.

Hotch shook his head. "We'll brief them following the funeral. I don't want to take that from them at this point. I think we're all going to need it for some sense of closure in the days to come."

Rossi nodded. Despite the fact that if this was the same killer they probably wouldn't have long before the next murder, he agreed with Aaron's assessment of taking care of themselves first. Keeping the team from the funeral at this point would do nothing to help concentration. First they would mourn the loss of a colleague and then set about to find her killer.

Four hours later, Agent Hotchner and his team were gathered back in the conference room in the BAU despite having officially been given the afternoon off. The team didn't question Hotch's judgement when he told them that there was a case that couldn't wait for them to start on it tomorrow.

Hotch stood in front of the screen waiting while the members of his team helped themselves to the Chinese takeout that he'd had Rossi and Prentiss pick up on their way back from the cemetery. Though he planned on starting the briefing while they ate, he did want everyone settled at the table first.

"Let's begin," Hotch finally said, after Morgan had settled down in a chair between Reid and Prentiss and Garcia had retreated to her lair. Hotch would give her the case information later, as he knew she wouldn't be able to eat while hearing about the murders like the rest of them could.

"Last night I received to faxes for urgent requests for help from the BAU," Hotch told the team. "The first was from the Baltimore police. Monday morning, Alexis Scott was found shot to death by her car, which was still in the parking lot of the church she attended. From talking with her friends from church, police have ascertained that Alexis had gone out to dinner with two other friends following the evening service. The group had car pooled, Alexis and one other person leaving their cars at the church. The friend driving dropped Alexis off at the church at about ten of ten on Sunday night. The second friend said that she had left before Alexis who was getting into her car when the friend pulled out of the parking lot."

"Police didn't find any signs of a struggle?" Morgan questioned.

"No. Alexis' purse was in the van and the van was unlocked, her body right outside the driver's side door," Hotch informed him. "Cause of death was a single shot to the forehead," he said, hitting a button on the remote he held to bring up the crime scene photos. "Police haven't been able to find any other leads or trace the gun that fired the bullet, which was from a Glock 26, prompting the request for help."

"The second victim is Elizabeth Harper from Glenshaw, PA. She was found at the bottom of her porch steps yesterday morning," Hotch continued bringing up the next photo. "Again, cause of death was a single shot to the forehead from a Glock 16. Glenshaw doesn't see many murders and Sheriff Rand and his small force is unsure of how to handle the investigation, hence while they asked for help so soon."

"Both women are brunette, in their mid-thirties, and successful in their careers," Rossi supplied.

"But this isn't serial yet. We only have two victims," Morgan pointed out.

"But they took place only twenty-four hours apart," Prentiss countered. "If it's the same killer, a third body won't be far behind."

"Point taken," Morgan conceded.

"It may already be serial," Reid commented, staring at the pictures on the screen in front of him. "Jordan fits the victimology of these windows and died the same way as them."

Hotch wasn't surprised that it was Reid that was the first to make the same connection that he and Rossi had.

"Exactly what Rossi and I were thinking. Of course, if Strauss gets wind that we think there is a connection to Todd's death with these two murders she'll take us off the case. Officially, we're investigating the link between these two murders. Unofficially, I believe we're looking for a serial killer whose spree started with Agent Todd for some reason," Hotch told his team glancing around at the table at all of them. The unit chief found a look of grim determination looking back at him from each of his agents.