"The condition of man...is a condition of war of every one against every one." - Thomas Hobbes
Reid was having a hard time focusing. Things had gotten somewhat easier since his return from New Orleans, but sometimes the flashbacks were still too much. He had been especially plagued by them this morning as the winter beckoned the leaves to fall from the trees to the earth. The crunch of leaves under his weight was something he had once loved so much; now it haunted the pits of his stomach. He was grateful to be inside, tucked safely into the metal machinery of the elevator. He reached into his satchel to fetch his ID, but his fingers lazily groped two small glass bottles—Dilaudid.
He didn't realize he still had them on him.
Suddenly, the elevator communicated to him that it had reached his floor, urging him out with a loud bing! that startled him. He jerked his hands out of his satchel and rubbed them together awkwardly. He'd need to get rid of those. Eventually.
"Hey there, pretty boy," Morgan smirked, winking at him as he walked to his desk. "How'd you enjoy your 36 hours of freedom?"
"Actually I spent most of it comparing an early English translation of Faust to the original German text..." Reid muttered his answer to himself, removing a folder of paperwork from his satchel and straightening his desk.
"Of course you did," Morgan nodded before shaking his head. "Why do I even bother..."
"You know, Faust is actually a really appropriate text for our jobs. Faust himself is—"
"Morgan. Reid," Hotch's stone-cold voice called out to them, stern and serious. Reid's back instinctively straightened. The unit chief's unblinking brown eyes made contact with each of the men before he tilted his head toward the conference room, silently ordering them to their places.
"Back to the grind," Morgan patted Reid on the shoulder, giving him a gentle shove.
They filed into the conference room, taking their usual seats around the table. Reid noticed Prentiss looked more tired than usual. Perhaps she had finally gotten her first real taste of the exhaustion that working for the BAU happily provided, he thought. For a moment, Reid felt a twinge of guilt. If he had made it on that plane to Galveston, he probably could have taken some of the work load and spared her some energy.
He forced himself to shake his head and clear away those thoughts. Illogical to dwell on events that have already taken place. His eyes drifted to his mentor, desperate for a distraction. Gideon sat back in his seat, eyes focused intently on the table as he tapped his tepee-shaped fingers against his chin. There was something so deliberate, so concise about Gideon's demeanor that Reid often pictured him solving cases before they even arrived at JJ's desk. He was an encyclopedia for human emotion, a deceptively empathetic man whose ambition saved countless lives while destroying his own soul. Reid had never respected someone so much.
JJ passed out the confidential case files as she spoke. "We've got two kidnappings that North Carolina and Tennessee officials suspect are linked together."
"Suspect?" Morgan asked, skimming the files.
"Tilda Westchester was reported missing Sunday afternoon when she didn't show up to a family dinner in Raleigh, North Carolina. The detective that was assigned to her case contacted us," JJ motioned to the screen behind her, where the driver's license photo of a young, golden skinned woman flashed on the screen. She had a bright smile and warm, chocolate eyes that radiated peace, even on a television screen.
"At first, Raleigh PD thought it was an isolated kidnapping case..."
Hotch narrowed his eyes at the screen. "Until?"
"Until the lead detective, Detective Atwell, received a phone call from his brother-in-law in Tennessee informing him that his sister, Diyah Greene, had been missing since 8:30 Sunday morning," JJ brought up another picture of a young woman, this one with cocoa skin, plump lips and long, natural hair.
Morgan raised his eyebrows and let out a soft whistle. "Damn."
"Two victims in two different states? This seems more like a coincidence and less like a case for the BAU..." Prentiss trailed off, looking around the table to gauge her colleagues' reactions.
"No such thing as a coincidence," Gideon muttered, his eyes still fixed on the table. Prentiss noticeably shrank back in her seat.
"Well, that's what I thought, too," JJ said, motioning towards Emily. Reid appreciated her attempt to indirectly comfort Prentiss' bruised ego, "until Detective Atwell called me back to report a third missing woman, another from North Carolina. This one from Charlotte," She pulled up yet another picture, this time of a young, tan female with a shaved head and adventurous blue eyes. "Niema Keppler. Last seen Friday night."
"Three women in three days? It may be possible each state has its own kidnapper, but it seems unlikely that this is all the work of one unsub, doesn't it?" Reid asked, looking at the women. He searched for some sort of linking factor, but wasn't able to find anything by looking at them. His eyes shifted back to Gideon, whose demeanor had changed. He was no longer considering what had been said. He was solving. Reid immediately turned his attention to the case files. There must be something.
Prentiss, ever determined, chimed back in, "Maybe a system of kidnappers? Some sickos that coordinated a kidnapping spree?"
"Is there anything actually linking these women together, JJ?" Gideon finally looked up from the table, focusing his eyes directly on the blonde.
"I've got Garcia checking it now, sir."
"Speak of me and I shall appear!" Garcia announced, entering the room almost immediately. She toted her laptop in one hand and a large cup of coffee in the other. "Much like Christina Aguilera, I am a genie in a bottle. Rub me the right way and-"
"What have you got for us, Garcia?"
Penelope swallowed hard and sat down. Gideon always made her so nervous. "I found a link between two of our victims. First, Diyah Green. Twenty-eight, married for a year and a half, husband says she went out on her normal run Sunday morning and never came back. She was a ballerina until a bad ankle injury put a cap on her career, she now teaches a ballet-infused fitness class at a local gym in Knoxville. Our second victim, Tilda Westchester, is twenty-two, fresh out of college. Not married, although she does have a very cute English setter named Beatrice that she blogs about regularly. Like the first victim, Tilda had a major injury set her back in her gymnastics career. She now coaches a team at the Kids Gymnastics Academy in Raleigh. Last seen leaving the gym where she coaches around 4 PM."
"And what about the third victim?" Hotch prodded.
"Well, she's the only one I can't seem to fit in. Niema Keppler, nineteen, was reported missing when she didn't show up to one of her classes at UNC Charlotte. A friend went to her dorm to drop off notes and found her room unlocked, car in the parking lot, cell phone sitting on her desk with her wallet and keys. Last time anyone saw her was around 5 o'clock Friday evening."
"So, what? No career-ending injury for her?" Morgan asked, shaking his head gently as he raised his hands up in an inquisitive gesture.
"No," Garcia sighed, "it doesn't appear so. Other than a gym membership, she has no record of making a career out of—"
Reid's head popped up. Maybe the injury wasn't what connected them. "What did she study?"
"Huh?" Garcia looked at him blankly.
"At school, what was she studying?"
"Oh, uh, give me one second..." Garcia banged her fingers ferociously against the keyboard, licking her lips as she looked from left to right. "Oh, here it is, ah—oh," her mouth fell open a bit before she swallowed hard again. "She just declared her major in kinesiology."
"Three young, fit women who were grabbed in broad daylight and should have been able to defend themselves?" Prentiss asked, dismayed. "That doesn't make sense."
"Looks like we've got a case." The words drifted from Gideon's mouth forebodingly, and Reid found himself once again staring at the pictures of strangers, trying to memorize what they looked like alive before the images of their deceased bodies burned into his memory.