Essential Listening: Make a Memory, Bon Jovi

0o0

"Reid?"

Spencer woke to the sound of JJ's voice, which given how much time they all spent sleeping on the jet, wasn't all that confusing. Then he realised that he was a: sleeping in a chair; b: in Gideon's office; and c: it was morning. The world clicked back into focus.

JJ was standing just inside the door, looking bewildered.

"What are you doing in here?" she asked.

He made an effort to struggle slightly more upright and take his bearings. He checked his watch: 8 a.m. He hadn't shown up.

"Gideon didn't answer his phone," he said, by way of an explanation. "I called him twice."

"Have you been here all night?" JJ asked. She looked mildly concerned about his mental health.

Spencer pointed at the chess board and made an effort to look less like he'd slept in his boss's office before heading into the bullpen.

"We were supposed to play chess."

"Here?"

JJ didn't appear to believe him.

"Yeah, uh – yeah, he hasn't been back to his apartment since – um…" He met his friend's eyes and she nodded, understanding; she looked down and he pulled the strap of his messenger bag over his head. "Right."

"Well, I need to brief the team," she said, hefting the stack of files she was carrying. "So…"

So, I need a coffee, he thought, getting to his feet. And an excuse to make a run for breakfast.

"Is Hotch here?" he asked aloud.

"Uh – he's not due for another half hour," said JJ, as they walked out.

Spencer closed the office door behind them, his eyes resting for a moment on the undisturbed chess pieces. Frowning, he wondered why the sight of them should bother him so much.

0o0

He'd managed to freshen up in the gents before JJ was ready to present, grateful that Quantico was the kind of place where accidentally sleeping in the office happened to most people, most of the time. That and the coffee had made him feel approximately 75% human and he'd traipsed into the conference room without bothering to go to his desk. JJ was on the phone when he got there, so he'd gone straight for the case file and tried not to yawn too much.

Morgan strode in at 8.30 sharp, took one look at how empty the room was and left again in search of more coffee. By 8.40, Spencer was beginning to worry. They were still four people down – half the team, if you included Garcia. This wasn't like them.

"What, no Hotch, now no Gideon?" Morgan asked the room at large as he came back in.

"No, not yet," said JJ. Spencer could tell that she was getting frustrated.

"Man, those guys have been out for two weeks," said Morgan, dropping into a chair. "You'd think the least they could do is be on time."

"Yeah, 'cause you're never late," Spencer quipped, earning a sardonic smile from his two friends.

"So where's Prentiss?" Morgan asked.

"Her phone keeps going to voicemail," JJ shrugged, helplessly.

"Pearce?"

"Same."

"Well, this room keeps getting' smaller and smaller, doesn't it," Morgan remarked, exasperated.

"Should we wait fifteen minutes?" Spencer asked and then spotted Grace Pearce hurrying down the corridor towards the conference room. She looked pretty annoyed, which he was sure shouldn't make him want to smile, but it did anyway. "Oh, hey," he said, aloud.

JJ and Morgan looked up.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Grace apologised, cornering around the desk as some speed and almost falling into the seat next to him. "My stupid rental car broke and I had to wait for someone to come get it." She paused and put a box on the desk. "Which was not a great time to discover that my phone had no charge. I bought apologetic bagels."

Spencer grinned. Breakfast, it seemed, had worked itself out.

"Ooh, cream cheese," said JJ, distracted, and took one; Spencer followed suit. "You should be late more often."

"Thanks," he said, with real relish. He was hungrier than he would care to admit.

Grace smiled back at them and took one of the case files as Morgan helped himself to a couple of bagels.

"I guess you're forgiven."

Morgan gave her an easy smile and she laughed, looking marginally less flustered.

"Well, that's one," he continued, glancing at the door.

With the air of someone only just noticing something important, Grace looked around and poked Spencer in the ribs with her pencil.

"Where is everyone?"

"Uh –" he said, but JJ beat him to it, checking her watch.

"We can just brief them on the plane," she decided, and started the presentation. "Right now a police task force in Milwaukee needs our help."

Everyone turned towards the screen as the faces of four women appeared upon it.

"They've had four murders over the past three weeks," JJ went on, "and in addition, another woman has been missing the last two days. They've all been women in their thirties, all married with children."

Beside him, he heard Grace make a tutting sound.

"Any connection between these victims?" Morgan asked.

"Just that they've all been abducted from the area of Wauwatosa," JJ told him. "All from very public places, but there's no witnesses."

"So whoever's doing this is unobtrusive," Pearce mused. "And must have a compelling means of controlling these women in such a public arena, or one of them would have raised the alarm." She frowned. "Apart from their age and their family lives, the women look quite different," she observed.

"How are we certain it's the same killer?" Spencer asked.

"Well, for starters," JJ said, advancing the presentation. "All the bodies have been dumped in the city's third ward."

They took a moment to study the images of the four, forlorn dump sites.

Refuse, Spencer though. Dumped at the side of the road like they were trash.

"Then there's this," JJ clicked again and everybody grimaced.

Morgan sat forward to get a closer look.

"Is that what I think it is?" Spencer asked, after a moment.

"All the hearts have been cut from their bodies," JJ confirmed.

Morgan shut his eyes for a moment; across the table, Grace shook her head, appalled.

"Oh now, that's just uncalled for."

0o0

George Washington said, "Let your heart feel for the affliction and distress of everyone."

0o0

This is going to be a long damn day, Morgan reflected as he skirted other agents in the corridor. There were just too few of them right now, and if the rest of the team didn't materialise soon they would have to leave without them. It wouldn't do the case any favours.

To his enormous relief, he spotted Hotch stepping off the elevator.

"Man, am I glad to see you," he said, intercepting him just in front of the door to the bullpen.

Hotch's expression was as inscrutable as ever when he asked, "Where are you headed?"

"Milwaukee, looks like an ugly one," said Morgan. "Catch you up on the flight."

"I'm meeting with the section chief," said Hotch.

"Okay, so I'll wait," said Morgan. There was something evasive about Hotch this morning, he decided, and it was making him uneasy. "I'm just glad you're back. Trust me when I tell you things have been a little shaky around here."

Hotch's frown did nothing to encourage him and his next words hit Morgan right in the gut.

"Morgan, I'm requesting a transfer."

"Is that a joke?" Morgan asked, after a moment. You couldn't always tell with Aaron Hotchner.

"No, it's not a joke," said Hotch, looking away. "Strauss has suspended me once already, the writing's on the wall."

Morgan stared at his boss in disbelief.

"Hotch, we both know that suspension was bogus."

He ignored him, as Hotch always did when he didn't want to discuss something.

"You'll get a new unit chief."

"What if we don't want a new unit chief?" Morgan asked. He was more than a little alarmed. Although he knew they had a strong team at the BAU, the nature of what they dealt with on a daily basis had a tendency to send them all up the wall every once in a while. A solid, stable unit chief who knew their pasts and personalities was vital to the effective running to the team – and Hotch was damn good at it.

"Maybe the next one won't be such a drill sergeant," Hotch joked, a quirk of amusement about his lips.

Morgan shook his head, aghast.

"Look man," he said, urgently. "Are you a pain in my ass? Yes sir. But wantin' to hang out with you and needin' you to lead this team are two very different things."

He'd made an impression: he could tell from the way the expression in his friend's eyes had changed, but it wasn't enough.

Hotch shook his hand.

"It's been a privilege," he said, and pushed past him into the bustling bullpen.

Morgan watched him go, letting his go-bag drop numbly to the floor. He felt like his whole world had just been shaken. Foundations that he'd thought were solid suddenly seemed distinctly more wobbly.

0o0o0o0

The mood in the jet was grim.

News travelled fast in the BAU and already they'd been dealt two heavy blows this morning. Three, if you counted the fact that Section Chief Erin Strauss was on the jet with them. Four, with Gideon's absence. Nobody seemed to want to talk about that at all.

There had been a conscious effort to exclude the intruder when the team took their seats prior to take-off, one which she was either ignoring or simply hadn't noticed. There was an atmosphere about the agents, an air that suggested that the unexpected departure of at least two of their colleagues was all her fault. Given this, Grace wasn't wholly surprised that the woman had chosen to seat herself apart from the team. Perhaps it was her way of telling them that she was something different – as if they needed reminding.

Or perhaps she's just taking time to collect her thoughts, Grace told herself, watching the Chief out of the corner of her eye. If I was going out in the field for the first time with a group of experienced agents who were already all quite pissed off with me, I'd need a moment, too.

She returned her attention to the case notes and made herself more comfortable on the side table overlooking her friends. Grace had chosen this seat for three reasons. It afforded a good view of the whole place, and while she was prepared to be generous to Strauss, she wanted her where she could see her. It also meant that the woman wouldn't have to perch on the table herself if she deigned to join them, which Grace knew from experience wasn't the easiest thing to do in a prim skirt.

Also, the little table could get quite cramped, particularly if you ended up opposite Morgan, who had a tendency to spread out, or anywhere near Reid, who seemed at times to be almost all leg. With her own annoyingly long legs added into the equation, a ride in the jet could become very uncomfortable after a while.

She wasn't the only one with half an eye on Erin Strauss.

"You know, from this angle, she almost looks human," said JJ.

The others smirked. It took a lot to irritate JJ, who was generally forgiving and level-headed, but when you did…

"Has anyone talked to Emily yet?" Reid asked, frowning.

JJ shrugged.

"She was gone before I heard the news."

"Now we're down two agents and Gideon's MIA," Morgan complained.

Grace nodded. Gideon's absence, for now, was the most troubling. At least they knew where the others were, if not the reasons they'd had to leave.

A look of intense frustration crossed Reid's face at about the same time as Strauss got to her feet.

"Has this Strauss ever been out of the off-" he stuttered to a halt as everyone made urgent shushing noises.

It was pretty obvious that Chief Strauss had heard him, given that she was about two feet away, but thankfully she didn't mention it. Reid went very pink and very quiet all at the same time.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," said Strauss. "But I believe it is protocol to brief everyone before we arrive at the crime scene?"

JJ gave her a welcoming smile, despite her intense dislike of the woman. Grace hid her own smile, pleased that their communications liaison was so good at her job.

"Yes ma'am," she nodded, and Strauss took the seat beside Reid and opposite Morgan, immediately putting her in the midst of the unintentional leg sandwich that Grace had managed to avoid earlier. "This UnSub is abducting women from very public places with no witnesses. He holds then forty-eight hours without a sexual assault – and then he dumps their bodies with their hearts carved out of their chests."

Grace watched as Morgan dropped the stack of gruesome autopsy photos in front of Strauss. Both of them recognised it as a challenge and Grace was impressed that the chief actually picked one up to study it more closely – though she did pale quite considerably.

"Since he seems to cut out the hearts as a means of execution, rather than post-offence behaviour," Grace observed, "he's going to need somewhere very private to do his thing. That much blood and that much noise – he's got to be somewhere secluded or soundproofed."

"There's an obvious dichotomy in the skill the UnSub exhibits in abducting these women and the fact that he cuts their hearts out so crudely," Reid remarked.

Morgan was still glaring at Strauss, who managed to tear her eyes away from the broken woman in the photograph she was holding long enough to meet his unflinching gaze.

"We're probably lookin' at someone in a psychotic break," he said. "Could be a butcher, might be a hunter. Somebody who's very comfortable bein' around blood, but – as you can see – he obviously doesn't have the skills of a surgeon."

"It's an act of pure rage," Grace observed, watching the two of them eyeballing one another.

Predictably, Strauss looked away first, wanting to move the profile forward.

"So," she said, crossing her arms. "Do we have a working theory?"

Groaning inwardly, Grace glanced at JJ. Surely she knew it didn't work like that?

Morgan gave a hollow chuckle and set down his file.

"Sure we do," he said, irritably. "Somebody really doesn't like women."

He got up and left the table, probably, Grace decided, so he wouldn't say what he really felt to his superior's face. She admired his restraint. It effectively shut down the conversation, leaving JJ and Reid to avoid one another's gaze and smile politely at Strauss.

Grace, whose current position gave her the advantage of being out of immediate eye-line, glanced after her friend and said: "So we need to be looking at recent triggers. Rejections, break-ups, loss of significant family members. Whatever it is," she went on, "he believes that it's all this woman's fault."

"Given that no obvious type is emerging beyond age and background," Reid nodded, gravely. "These women are probably not surrogates for a specific person – rather, his rage has extended to include all women."

"What does that make them?" Strauss asked, looking at the photographs again.

"Victims of opportunity, perhaps," said JJ. "Maybe taken from somewhere he associates with the object of his rage."

"But public places?" Strauss asked again. "A shopping mall – a picnic area?"

"Normal women," sighed Grace. "Law abiding, family oriented, average women."

Chief Strauss frowned down at the file in front of her and Grace took the opportunity to meet Morgan's gaze.

He shook his head and flicked his eyes at the back of Strauss's head. Grace gave him the barest of shrugs and a slight quirk of the lips. They would have to put up with her for the time being, until one of them could figure out how to get Hotch and Emily to come back.

0o0o0o0

The stench of rubbish and dried blood was never a good combination straight off the jet and it was already obvious that Strauss was struggling. The trouble was, coming in to consult on a case like this meant that every eye at a crime scene would always be fixed on them. She was being careful only to look at the body when she thought no one was looking. A photograph was one thing, but a real, very dead mother of two was another.

"You the FBI?" a man who was obviously the lead detective strode over to them as they ducked under the tape.

Morgan took the lead, which was probably for the best.

"Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, Jennifer Jareau, Grace Pearce…" he paused, obviously wondering how to introduce the last member of their diminished team. They had to put their differences aside here, give the locals some faith in the profile. "And Section Chief Strauss."

"Vic Wolinski, Milwaukee PD," he nodded.

"Uh – you worked the Jeffrey Dahmer case," said Reid, abruptly.

"Sixteen years ago."

"I've – uh – studied it."

"And you remember my name?" Wolinski asked, giving Reid that sidelong look that he got when people who didn't know him well saw him work.

"He remembers everything," JJ told him, with a hint of affection.

"It's what he does," said Morgan.

"What can you tell us?" Strauss asked.

"A local merchant – uh – noticed her a few hours ago," Wolinski told them. "But considering he didn't see her when he came to work – uh – we figure she was dumped there between 7.50 and 8.05. Same window as the others."

"On his way to work, maybe?" Grace wondered aloud. "All the bodies were found in this area, right?"

"Uh, Wauwatosa's an upper middle class suburb," Wolinski explained. "Approximately fifteen minutes from here. All the women were abducted from there in the afternoon and turned up here in the morning, two days later."

"All this foot traffic and no one saw anything," JJ observed sadly.

"Well, he – uh – wraps the bodies – uh – loosely so they're not immediately recognisable," said Detective Wolinski. "Eventually, the – uh – wrapping comes open."

They stood around the body, looking sadly down at the bloodied corpse. Her last moments must have been agony.

"My guess is he – uh – has a van or truck," Wolinski continued. "Something he can back up so he's shielded when he makes the drop."

Grace nodded. That made sense.

"Also a good vehicle to abduct someone in," she muttered.

"No prints on whatever he wraps them in?" Morgan asked, but Wolinski shook his head.

"There've been traces of paint and wood stain – uh – most of it's just common stuff you'd get in any hardware store."

"He's trying to demean them," Reid remarked. "Putting them out like trash."

"This guy might work or live around here," Morgan suggested, thinking aloud. "Gets off on the reaction to his…" he paused, looking back at the remains, "handiwork."

"What can you tell us about the victim?" JJ asked.

"She was taken from a supermarket," Wolinski said. "Her husband says that most days she woulda been picking up her son at school, but he was spending the afternoon at a friend's."

"This is your fifth victim, right?" Strauss asked.

The accusatory nature of her tone set off alarm bells all around the team. Grace shared a speaking look with JJ. This did not bode well.

"Yes," Wolinski admitted. Clearly, he hadn't missed the tone either.

"You should have called us sooner."

With her arms crossed and judicial air of admonition, Strauss strongly reminded Grace of the head teacher from her secondary school. She had the exact same expression Grace remembered from trying to explain why the desk in front (occupied by a girl who had been spreading rumours about Grace's love life) had suddenly collapsed in on itself, covering the young woman in question in ink. Although the head could have had no way of knowing that Grace had used magic to exact her revenge on Debbie, they had always assumed it was her fault.

At the time, this had struck her as mightily unfair, which was possibly why she'd taken such an active interest in forensics and evidence gathering in later life. The Sheriff had a similar look about him that she imagined had been on her teenage face in the head teacher's office.

"I thought we had a handle on it," said Wolinski, defensively.

"Apparently not."

Grace winced; Reid shifted from foot to foot, embarrassed.

"Uh, ma'am?" JJ interrupted. "Excuse me, sir."

She led Strauss away; the section chief looked like she might have a few words for her after that interruption.

"I'm sorry, that was outta line," Morgan apologised quietly, once the woman Grace was beginning to reclassify as a danger to the case was out of earshot.

"Morgan and I were coppers before we joined the BAU," Grace told him. "We get it."

The implication that not everyone did get it was not lost on the detective. He shot a covert look at Strauss that was far from friendly.