AN: Oh. My. Goodness. I think being sorry is an understatement. Thanks to everybody who is sticking with this story (if anyone). Here's a nice long chapter as an apology – school is kicking my ass lately.

Chapter 12

"Reid, stop that," Morgan said, watching Reid fiddling with anything he could find within reach. He couldn't sit still despite still being on a low dose of sedative. Morgan understood that Reid was extremely anxious and ready to leave the hospital. He'd been there almost two days in total and they were seriously running out of time to find Olivia – they needed Reid back as soon as possible.

He seemed to have improved significantly – he'd spent most of those two days sleeping and eating (well, being essentially force-fed by Garcia) – Reid still didn't have quite an appetite. He was going against doctor's orders and being discharged to help work the case. He and Morgan were waiting for the doctor to come into his room to talk about his "limitations" on what Reid could do, but Reid felt like he was going to waste a bunch of time lecturing him about leaving the hospital before he was healthy enough.

Hotch had agreed to allow Reid to leave the hospital and work the case as long as he followed the doctor's instructions to a T. Finally, to Reid's relief, the doctor strode into the room.

"Alright Dr. Reid, I know your mind is more than made up and you know my opinion on that. I understand that you're leaving to work your case, so I'm going to just lay it out for you. You're still very sick – you may be feeling better, but you're still sick. I'm keeping you on the medication – not enough to impair you in any way, but just to keep you from overstressing again.

"Your friends seem very concerned about you so I expect they'll be good about making sure that you rest and eat properly this time around. And honestly, in your condition, you should be on bed rest for a while until you improve more, but I know that won't happen," the doctor said with a half-joking eye roll, "so when you're working the case, you need to be relaxing and sitting – either on a couch, on a chair, it doesn't matter. You shouldn't be on your feet unless absolutely necessary, so that should go without saying that that means no going out into the field. I want to see you back here in a week."

Per protocol, Reid was escorted out of the hospital in a wheelchair, where he then got into the car with Morgan to drive back to the station. As much as he didn't want the doctor to be right, Reid had to admit that just the short walk from the car to inside the police station had tired him out. Morgan immediately had pushed him into a chair and the team began work at once.

Reid had felt a little funny that he was confined to the chair while everyone else at some time or other had gotten up and walked around or paced. He hated this whole thing and just wanted to act like everything was fine and that he wasn't sick anymore, but one of the very reasons Morgan had stayed in Reid's room while the doctor spoke with him was because the whole team knew that Reid would lie about what the doctor had told him.

The only good thing to come from the whole hospital disaster is that Reid had finally gotten some sleep. His head was clear for the first time in weeks and he felt deep down that this was the breaking point in the case – he was going to find the connection between these women and how they had met their Unsub.

They had 36 hours left before they would find Olivia dead, if the Unsub stuck to his MO. Reid was positive there had to be a correlation somewhere in the women's purchases and location history. There had to be. He was spending countless hours reading through every transaction, drowning in maps of their locations and lines connecting potential correlations.

Marisa had been the most high-risk victim. The only connection that was clear that she had was only with one other victim. Jennifer and Marisa had used the same driving service company multiple times. But that didn't mean anything – so many people used that company nowadays and that didn't explain how their Unsub would have met the other girls. Using the location services and the transaction history, Reid was able to link Olivia and Anna together by the fact that they both frequented the same grocery stores (which they had already ruled out) as well as the same bookstore (which they had also already ruled out). So far, they couldn't find anything at all to link Rachael, the first victim, with anybody.

After some time, Reid seemed startled by his own thoughts and looked up from his pile of files. "What if we're looking at this wrong?"

"What do you mean, Reid?" Morgan asked.

"What if… We've been looking at this backward?" Reid tried to gather his thoughts to explain.

"Backwards?" Hotch gave Reid a sideways look.

"We've been assuming that all of these women resemble someone who rejected or hurt the Unsub, and that in time, he would eventually have to go after her. But what if he already did?"

The conference room got deathly quiet.

"Think about it," Reid continued. "What do we know about killers? Sometimes it's not the last kill that's most personal, sometimes it's –"

"The first," Morgan finished. "Rachael Williams."

"All the women taken don't just look alike… They look like Rachael." Reid said.

"So whoever the Unsub is must be personally connected to her?" JJ asked.

"Most likely."

Hotch was already calling Garcia and putting her on speaker phone.

"Garcia is there any way to tell if Rachael Williams had a past boyfriend before her fiancé?"

"Umm, Facebook says no. Her and her fiancé have been high school sweethearts. Anything before that, I wouldn't know – it wouldn't be on social media because she got a Facebook in 2003, her sophomore year in high school."

"And the fiancé's alibi checked out. He also doesn't fit the profile," Morgan said.

"Yeah but we profiled that the victims didn't know him well – he wasn't personally involved with them. He may have stalked her from a young age. Garcia, check if she ever filed any reports against someone for stalking or harassment back in school," Reid said.

"Nadda."

"This Unsub is good," Morgan said. "He appears harmless. But he has an explosive temper."

"Wait a second…" Reid started to say.

"Reid, what is it?" Rossi turned to him.

"The killing started six weeks ago… Rachael's fiancé said they got engaged about two months ago."

"Alright, so this is definitely about Rachael," Morgan surmised. "She got engaged which triggered his killings, and he probably felt betrayed because in his mind, he was supposed to be with her. Nobody made the connection because within a week, another woman was taken and they started to assume a serial with no personal connection to Rachael."

"Yeah but if he never dated her, how come he didn't kill her when she first started dating this guy?" Garcia piped in over the phone.

Hotch explained, "He's delusional. He couldn't have been happy with her dating Andrew, but he believed that she would come to her senses and end up with the Unsub one day. When she got engaged, it was the ultimate betrayal to him. He was probably deeply obsessed with her and obsession easily turns into rage in killers. He snapped and killed her."

"So why is he still killing? And why is he progressing?"

"He might not be done yet – he killed her and is still angry, so he's finding surrogates to continue his rage and keep punishing her for hurting him. Rachael Williams was also most likely his first kill ever but he also found that he enjoyed it, so he continued. He's realizing his sadistic pleasures and expounding upon them with every kill. The problem is, the postmortem rage is evidence that he's devolving. We need to figure this out quickly because it's just a matter of time before he starts to escalate his kill time."

"Garcia, look into Rachael's past. Think of the homicidal triad - this Unsub most likely had early signs of cruelty to animals or pyromania. He could have also had persistent bedwetting, but that's more difficult to trace. Did Rachael go to school with anybody that was flagged for any of that?"

"Woah, oh jeez there's ten… Can you narrow it down?"

"This Unsub probably had an unstable home life. Do any of them have parents that fought a lot? Maybe went to jail for domestic violence?" Reid asked Garcia.

"Two… Wait wait wait. Hold the phone. One – the other one is in currently serving time in prison for beating his girlfriend."

"Garcia who is it?"

"Christopher Szales. 29 years old, has lived in this city his whole life… More specifically, in the house right next to Rachael Williams' childhood home. The creep probably watched her day and night through the bushes. Ugh. The police were called to look into an animal cruelty case when someone found a beheaded dog but they could never actually prove it was him – he was only seven. His father was a raging alcoholic who repeatedly hit the mother who had enough and ran out when Christopher was just ten."

"She didn't take her son with her?" Morgan asked.

"Maybe she knew what he was capable of," JJ said quietly.

"Garcia, where does he work?"

"Oh no. Um, he works for the bookstore that Olivia and Anna frequented. But here's the thing, he moonlights as a sober driver at night, and give me one second…. Mhm, records show that the other two women did indeed that driving service, and more specifically, him."

"So he had two hunting grounds. That's why we couldn't find him," Morgan said. "Extremely rare, but not unheard of."

"Reid, what's wrong?" JJ was looking at him and he had suddenly gone pale.

"That name… Garcia, send me a picture of him," was all he said.

"Um, okay." The picture came across all of their phones, and Reid did everything in his power not to throw it across the room. He had already known even before he looked at the picture.

"Son of a bitch," Reid said, hitting his hand against the table. "We talked to him when we checked out the bookstore. He had my sister the whole time… He broke into her house and took her and I talked to him and I never thought… I never even considered…"

"Reid, there's no way you could have known. I missed it too," Morgan said. "Garcia ran background checks on all the employees of every place we hit – he had no priors."

"That's why I should have seen it. Christopher looked like the definition of harmless," Reid continued.

"I think he fit it a little too perfectly and that's why we missed it. We also didn't know about the two hunting grounds or his childhood history with Rachael. You couldn't have known," Morgan stated.

"Reid, now is not the time to beat yourself up. What's important now is that we have him and we're going to find your sister and we're going to bring her home," JJ said.

"Garcia, I need an address right now."

"Sending it to your phones right now. He still lives in his childhood home."

"Torturing these women in the very home where all you saw was violence your whole life… That could easily fuel his rage." Rossi said.

"Oh no." Garcia said.

"Baby Girl, what is it?" Morgan questioned.

"He uh, he didn't show up for his shift at the bookstore today."

"Shit," Morgan said under his breath. "He's escalating."

"Let's go everybody." Hotch ordered.

"I'm coming with you. There's no way you can stop me," Reid stood up and looked Hotch in the eye.

Hotch considered his options, and knew that Reid was right. He nodded and the team headed out the door.

He was coming downstairs once again.

Olivia had her head leaning against the cold concrete wall, not having the energy to keep herself upright. It had felt like she had been held in this basement for years… Nobody was coming to find her. As much faith as she had in her brother, she knew that if he hadn't found her yet, he probably never would.

Olivia knew she didn't have much time left – she was so weak and exhausted, in so much pain that she knew her body would give up soon. She wanted out of this misery. Out of this hell on earth.

She hoped her brother could forgive her for giving up on him. Forgive her for what she was about to do that most likely would get herself killed. But she didn't care anymore – she knew she wasn't going to make it out either way.

He reached the bottom of the staircase and approached her. Something was off in his demeanor today. He didn't necessarily look angry, but he definitely wasn't calm.

Agitated. That was it.

He bent down and grabbed Olivia by the hair so he could force her to look into his eyes.

"Why not me?" he said.

"What?" she asked.

"Why Andrew? That piece of scum – how could you choose him over me? You belonged to me, not him," he said, his voice rising.

"I don't know who you're talking about," Olivia said, matching his anger.

"Don't play games with me, Rachael!" He screamed. "I should have known you would be so stupid. I tried so hard to get your attention but you were too busy being swept off your feet by Mr. Big Shot. You're so damn shallow," he said, lines of reality beginning to blur as his anger mounted. "You betrayed me."

"Piece of shit," Olivia she muttered.

"Excuse me?" He leaned in closer.

"You're a coward," she said, looking him straight in the eye.

"You ungrateful bitch," he exclaimed, hitting her across the face, knocking her to the ground. "How dare you?"

"You think I don't recognize who you are?" Olivia sneered. She had finally figured it out during one of his softer moments last night. There was a hint of kindness in his eyes and she immediately flashed back to her times in the bookstore. She remembered how quiet he had been, how nice he was most of the time, but she also remembered that one time…

Olivia had been sitting in the reading area, completely absorbed in the book her brother had recommended for her.

"Recognize me? It's like you don't know me, Rachael," he questioned.

"I'm not Rachael," she challenged.

As she finished the last page, she closed the book and looked up.

She was getting him worked up. Provoking him. The one thing her brother had always said was a death warrant for victims.

He had been staring at her.

"You had to wait until you could catch me asleep. Alone in my own house. You couldn't even face me, you coward," she spat at him. "Rachael could never have cared for you. Could have never loved you. Nobody could ever love you."

He didn't even break eye contact when she realized he was looking at her.

Christopher had heard more than enough. "You. Belong. To. Me," he said, hitting her in between every word. Olivia was beginning to lose consciousness. She could feel the warmth and wetness of her own blood as it came out of her nose and mouth. He might not have been a big guy, but he was deceivingly strong.

He had just kept staring.

Before she knew it, he was on top of her.

She had forgotten all about it. Written it off because of all the times he had been kind to her.

On top of her like the night he had taken her. Her hands were tied behind her back and she had no chance of fighting back.

This was it. This was how it was going to end.

He took both of his hands and pushed forcefully down on her throat. Olivia's eyes went to the back of her head as her body jerked, desperate for oxygen.

Please don't blame yourself for this, Spence. I love you.

As she was losing consciousness, and her vision was blurring, all Olivia could think about was what she wished she could say to her brother. What she wished he would know when he and his team found her dead body.

She could feel the tears being forced out of her eyes as her body relaxed and she was swallowed into a cold darkness.