A/N: WE'RE BACK! I apologize on behalf of myself and on samanthamarquez's behalf. I'm gonna offer a lame excuse on my own part. Well my muse has been severally beaten up within the past few weeks due to personal reasons and due to The Episode The Never Happened (even though it WAS a pretty brilliant episode). I'm actually working on a short angst-fic for it (whenever my Muse decides to cooperate without the use of cheesy love songs).

In any case, here is the next chapter. We're getting serious now. It's THE CASE! So, I think this is the first time either one of us has written an actual CASE, so we're pretty mew on how to write out the team dynamics and how they interact during the briefing of a case. We hope we did a good job and if there are any holes in the plot, please let us know so that we can correct them for the following chapters. Thanks to all who have been patient with us and for those reading/reviewing/favouriting/alerting this story! :)

Disclaimer: I wonder what would happen if I wrote the disclaimer totally in Italian? I think I'll do it for one of the following chapter. I won't say which chapter though! Muhahaha! Oh yeah, we own nothing recognizable in the chapter so yeah, no suing!

"We are investigating a series of murders that have occurred as far back as a month ago. Three women, all brunette, disappeared for a few days and were each found at several dumping grounds." Aaron Hotchner stood in front of the round table and pointed to the images on the screen, which Garcia controlled. The local DC police had requested their assistance in these kidnappings, mainly because they had been similar to another case the BAU had handled. As Garcia changed images to reveal the first woman, Hotch continued to describe each and every murder.

"The first victim, Amanda Harris, disappeared almost two months ago. Her husband was expecting her home from work when she never arrived. She was found in a land fill almost a week later." The picture of Amanda's body flashed momentarily on the screen. Though she was dumped in a land fill, her arms were crossed over each other in the traditional resting position. Garcia flashed the next couple of pictures.

"Trisha MacDonald, disappeared a few days later and was found in a different land fill in the same position." Trisha's body graced the screen again, causing Garcia to look away and take in a deep breath. Hotch continued with the final victim.

"Mary Dinora, disappeared almost a week ago, was found a couple of days ago, once again in a land fill, in the exact same position as the other members. All of the victims displayed similar cuts and bruises due to extended torture along with injury to the back of the head. The DC police has requested our assistance in this case."

Reid frowned, "Blitz attack. This is very similar to Kevin Bison..." He said talking about their previous case, just before JJ left the team.

Rossi took a look at some of the photos of the crime scenes in order to get a better look at them. "He dumps the bodies in dump sites... Like they don't mean anything to him. But yet, he places them in a remorseful way. Arms over the chest."

"It differs from Bison in that respect. He was very much a male who hated the women he took and when he dumped them in every sense of the word." Spencer told them all and frowned.

Morgan nodded, "Bison hated women, this doesn't come across as hatred look at the wounds, it's more like he's forced himself to do it."

Emily, who had been quiet during the discussion spoke as she looked at some of the crime reports. "Maybe, but he's keeping them alive for several days, torturing them. And apparently he's been sending emails to the loved ones with pictures of the women. I mean, it's almost like he's taunting them."

"That's new for him." Rossi said and frowned, "Garcia anything on the emails?" He asked their tech wizz.

Garcia flipped through some of the notes she had already taken about the case. "The local PD said they had tried to figure out where the emails came from, but to no avail. However, my fine Italian profiler, they have not seen what I can do. I shall get right on tracking this guy down."

"What about connections? Apart from their appearance there's nothing connecting them?" Morgan asked Hotch and flicked through the file.

Hotch looked back up at the screen before down at his copies of some of the crime reports. "No, apart from the appearances and ages, there's nothing else. Amanda Harris was a corporate lawyer, Trisha MacDonald was a day care worker, and Mary Dinora was college professor."

Rossi frowned, "So he goes on brunettes, that look the same age, could be a wife or girlfriend?" He said and wrote a few notes, "Why send the photos at all? I mean he clearly wants to punish the husbands and boyfriends, but why run that risk, postal mail is safer."

"I don't think so. It seems to me that sending it through postal mail makes it more personal. He'd have to know where the victims live which could mean stalking them for God knows how long. Email suggests he's impersonal about the families. They're just random people to him. My only question is how he was able to find the email addresses to the partners." Mused Emily.

"Business cards, via the victim's belongings, online, even calling up companies and asking, calling victims families and asking for an email address to send out newsletters... There are hundreds of ways." Reid listed off.

"The women taken were all similar to Bison's victims, maybe it's a fan or someone who feels they could do better than Bison." Morgan said and looked to the timeline he'd scribbled out. "He's reducing his cooling off period, maybe getting a taste for it?"

"We'll meet with the local PD and look through some more crime reports in order to get a better idea of what we're dealing with. Afterwards, Reid, I want you to begin to set up a geographical profile based on the kidnapping sites and the dump sites. Prentiss, you and Dave meet with the victim's families, see if there are any other connections between them. Morgan, you can I will head over to the morgue to look over the last victim recovered." Hotch nodded to the other team members as the meeting adjourned.

Reid stood and gathered his things, glancing briefly to Emily who was approached by Rossi. The older agent smiled kindly, "The Bison case was tough." He mused simply with his female co-worker.

Emily nodded to Rossi. "Tell me about it. Looks like we're gonna have a real good time with this one as well." She sighed and got up from her seat.

Before following Morgan out the door, her eye caught Reid looking at her. Morgan turned to Spencer, "Reid, you joining us?" He asked as the boy went a little red.

"Yeah, I was just grabbing my pens for the map." He said only slightly lying.

Hotch led the team to the Police Department which would head the investigation. He went up the head of the department, Chief Tremblay and shook his hand. "Chief Tremblay, I'm Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner, we spoke on the phone." The detective nodded and shook Hotch's hand "Ah yes, SSA Hotchner. Thank you for helping us out." Hotch nodded, "It's no problem. Here are the rest of my team, SSA Emily Prentiss." Emily smiled politely and shook the Chief's hand.

"This is SSA David Rossi, Derek Morgan and Dr Spencer Reid. Do you have a place where we can set up?" Hotch asked the slightly smaller detective.

The detective shook the hands of the remaining members of the team, except for Reid, who simply smiled and waved awkwardly. The chief turned back to Hotch. "Pleased to meet you all. We've got some of the police reports from the other murders and you're all welcomed to look through them."

Hotch nodded to the police chief. "Thank you Chief, we appreciate you asking us for our help. We will inform your team on what to look for as soon as we come up with a profile."

Rossi watched as the chief walked away. "Not too many files at least." He commented seeing the boxes of records. There wasn't many since there had been few murders.

Emily nodded and began to look through some of the files. "I think we should talk to Mary Dinora's partner first since she was the most recent." Emily looked through Mary's file and shook her head as she saw the two different pictures.

"You should ask her partner about any extra activities or classes she was taking, it says here that Trisha McDonald liked to do Saturday classes." He said and skimmed a few pages.

Reid closed one file and started to write a few things down for the geological profile, he looked at the places and tried to focus on the pages in front of him. Emily nodded "We should also ask if Mary tended to over work. It says in Amanda's file that she was taken after working late. It could be a connection." Emily gathered some of her things in order to get ready to interview the families. "Oh we should also ask about the emails. If they had received anything else indicative of where this UnSub is working from."

Morgan nodded, "And we should check the stab wounds, if they've differed from one to this victim and compare the other bruises and markings." He said.

"Ok that sounds like a plan. Let's head out to the morgue. Rossi, Prentiss, meet back here as soon as the interviews are done in order to compare notes." With that Hotch and Morgan left the police station.

Emily turned to Rossi, "Alright then, let's get going."

Morgan walked into the BAU's briefing room, their command point for the case. After having looked through the local PD's files. "So we found out the latest victim's wounds were more confident, slightly more sever than the first. He's getting bolder." He said as he and Hotch saw the others.

Emily and Rossi had arrived at the main office a couple of minutes earlier and were already discussing what they had found. "Well, Amanda was definitely a hard worker, very ambitious. But Trisha was more of a social girl. Liked to hang out with her friends and take extra classes to get to know more people. As for Mary, she was shy. Never really going out unless her girlfriend made her. There was nothing we could connect these women to."

"So he goes off looks alone. That makes this a whole lot tougher." Morgan sighed.

Rossi continued. "As far as the emails are concerned, there isn't anything hat we don't already know. They all received them a couple of days after the disappearances with photographs and nothing else. No messages, no threats, nothing. 24 hours later, their loved ones are found dead.:

Reid frowned, "I've started putting the map together, but the dump sites are all places that people from town will know they can go when the city dump is closed." Spencer filled them in. "I'm just starting on where they were taken."

Hotch took a look at the map Reid was working on and back to the rest of the team, when his phone rang. "Garcia? I'm putting you on speaker phone. Have you found anything?" He placed her on speaker phone so that the rest of the team could listen in.

Garcia replied in a remorseful tone. "Sadly, my Liege, I cannot get a read on this guy. I've tried to track the emails he's sent through the address, but it's one of those spam address impossible to trace."

Rossi frowned, "so don't have a whole lot to go on. I wonder why he dumps them where he does but poses them in showing remorse?" He asked and frowned. "It's like we are missing a piece."

Emily thought for a second. "He's copying Kevin Bison in every way except for the emails and the remorse. Maybe he was connected to Bison. Maybe he was a fan of Bison? Someone who looked up to him? It could be that he wants to be like Bison, but he's not quite as sadistic as he was. Not yet anyway. He's still learning..."

"Most fans want approval from their mentor. Maybe we should get Garcia to check Bison's in and out going mail." Reid said carrying on from Emily's thought.

"Still on the phone, Boy Genius!" chirped up Garcia who had already been typing up parameters to look through. "I'll also look into Bison's formers employers, maybe there's a young person he may have had consistent contact with. I'll be back with the 411 my lovelies." She said as she disconnected

Morgan opened a file he and Hotch had gotten, "If our times are right then he's going to take someone else in a few days. And it could be any brunette in her thirties."

Hotch rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We should start to build a profile."

Morgan nodded, "Well he's probably mid 30s to early 40s, angry, and projecting his feelings of a brunette female in her 30s onto the victims. Maybe he lost her somehow."

Emily piped in afterwards, "He's angry, yes, but he's also self conscious. Still unsure of what he's doing. He wouldn't have any prior offences. Probably has a clean track. Something must have set him off on this streak."

"So stressers? The three D's; divorce, death and disappearance." Rossi said and looked at his notes, "He dumps them in the say place as Bison but he choices dumping areas that will be used that day. Bison didn't care, so maybe he wants us to see them. But he's remorseful, their deaths being an unfortunate means to an end..."

"He's new at this. He still has lingering feelings of guilt. Maybe it wasn't something like divorce that was the stresser. Maybe his wife was taken from him. Maybe she died. I mean we should assume it was his wife considering he's taunting the life partners and no other family members." Added Emily.

Reid looked up as a cell phone rang out. "The two areas I've done cover a large part of the city, there'd a huge cross over because of the dumping area."

Hotch looked at his cell phone to see JJ calling. He wondered why she was calling. He exited the conference room to take the call privately. "JJ? Is everything alright?"

JJ frowned as Hotch answered his cell. She wished she was calling under different circumstances. She had text him back and forward, but not as much as before the big wheel. "Hey Hotch. Umm, I'm calling about the case you guys are on, we think we have a lead for you. One of the women I work with has been missing since Friday night, and her partner has been sent photos which he didn't get until he came back from a business trip this morning." She explained and sighed to herself.

Hotch listened carefully to JJ talking. He assumed that the Defence Minister's office knew of the case and assumed that his team would be on it. It made sense. Apparently someone on JJ's team had now been taken under the same circumstances. "Thank you for letting us know. Has the husband filed an official missing person's report?"

JJ frowned, "We've just finished with them, I was hoping to cut out a few middle men though. I can send you the report and the email he got." She told him and sighed softly, she was one of the people at JJ's new work that made it feel a little like the BAU... Just a little. "My boss is worried about her. I'm worried about her."

Hotch sighed and nodded slowly. As much as he did want JJ to be around more often, this was not the kind of circumstance he was hoping for. "Thank you, JJ. I'll let the team know what's happened and we'll be in contact with you in order to figure out how to proceed."

"Thanks Hotch. Her name's Sarah, Sarah Walters. She was at the charity ball." JJ told him and pinched the ridge of her nose. "I'm sure my boss will be calling Strauss, you know how they can be." She said with a small smile, she knew Hotch knew how they could be.

"Thank you. I'll probably be sending over Rossi and Prentiss to meet with her husband and I'll have Garcia look over the email address used." Hotch nodded solemnly, he should expect Strauss to march into his office, or into the conference room in order to 'request' that they report to her with the case's progress. "I suppose we'll be talking more soon then."

JJ nodded, "I'll text the address and let him know." She told Hotch and held for a beat, "Is it bad?" She asked not having seen the case files, her boss had, but it wasn't information she'd seen.

She asked that question. Hotch was used to families asking if there was a chance that their loved ones would make it out alive and he always told them the same answer. He hoped every time that he would have good news to bring back, but that was not the way life worked. As for this woman, if the husband had already gotten an email from the unsub, it meant that she was either already dead, or being killed right now. He didn't want to lie to JJ, and besides she would know the truth if he did try. "JJ... You know I can't give you the details of the case. Not yet anyway. I wish I could..."

JJ sighed, "I know. I'm sorry to ask." She said and bit her lip. "I'll speak to you later." She said but didn't quite hang up.

He rubbed his eyes. He wished he could divulge that information to her and have her with them, brainstorming like they used to. That was not the case and they needed to be professional about this. "I'm sorry once again. I'll call you if there's anything else."

"Ok." She told him and felt the tone a little. She didn't mean to and knew it wasn't what she thought but still. "I'll send you the details. Bye Hotch."

"Take care JJ." Hotch hung up the phone and headed back into the conference room where the rest of the team were still brain storming. "We may have another victim. Sarah Walters did not show up to work today and her husband received an email similar to the one our unsub has been sending."

Morgan frowned, "Police have any leads?" He asked, you never know. "When was she last seen?"

Hotch shook his head, "Her husband filed a missing person's report, which has been forwarded to your emails, along with details from the case. She worked at the office of the Defence Minister. She was last seen most likely a couple of days ago at the charity ball we were all present at."

"Wait as in JJ's office?" Rossi asked as he check the new email on his phone. "That's brave."

Reid nodded, "Also out of timeline, his cool off period is off too." Spencer noted and waited as a photo of the potential victim was loaded.

Hotch nodded, "The very same. It was actually JJ who had called me to inform me of the missing person."

Emily looked over the new email she had received on her phone and scanned over some details of the police reports. "Wait, this doesn't make any sense. Not only has he gone off his routine, but he's chosen someone different. Where all the other victims were brunette, it says in the police report that Sarah Walters is a blonde."

"What?" Morgan asked and looked at Emily's screen. "Why would he? Maybe something triggered a change?" Rossi frowned.

Emily shook her head, "What else could it be? Unless it's an unrelated case, which wouldn't make sense considering the similarities in the MO."

"So maybe his rage? Maybe some blonde triggered a new anger?" Morgan suggested and looked at the email the husband had been sent, "She was last saw at the party." He stated as Reid went over to the photograph on the screen.

"I... the dress looks like it was formal. Maybe the hotel we were at has CCTV?"

"She was taken from the party, after seeing something that set him off, and he's diverted his attention to blondes. He's devolving, which means it won't be long before Sarah Walters' body will turn up." Hotch picked up the phone and called Garcia again.

The technical analyst responded. "My liege, you have reached your faithful oracle. Sadly I do not any information on anyone who could have had contact with Bison. He was a loner and had no people hanging around him. I'm still in the process of looking through his person email accounts, but so far, there's nothing."

Hotch sighed. He should have expected this to happen. "That's alright Garcia. We need you to see if the Preston Hotel has surveillance from Friday night. We believe another woman was taken from that spot." Hotch could hear the typing of Garcia's keyboards she searched.

"Got it, I shall give you details as soon as I've got some. Garcia out!" she said as she disconnected.

"Hotch, you know this is soon going to leak to the press. Bison case was tough, and this..." Rossi frowned. He sighed after and saw the younger man's jaw clench tightly, he knew what Dave was getting at.

Hotch took a deep breath. He remembered the Bison case and how the press had been pretty tough on them. He remembered the JJ had a really difficult time handling them. It was especially difficult when the case was over, when they lost the last victim. The press had not been kind to them, at all. Hotch wouldn't be surprised if another media circus started up from that. "We'll deal with the press when the time comes. For now, Prentiss and Dave, I want you to go see Mr. Walters. Reid, I want you to continue working on the geographical profile."

Reid frowned and turned, "This new victim throws it off. It's way out of his comfort zone so in theory it expands his zone. I'll keep going." He assured his boss and glanced to Emily again, hoping no one saw him. He was so unused to the whole thing and it confused him, it also seemed to distract the boy genius from his main task.

Emily had been following the conversation and briefly caught Reid's eyes on her. She blinked and quickly turned to Rossi. "So, let's get going. Hopefully, we'll find some more information from the husband."

Rossi nodded and stood, "You'll work it out, Reid. Just use brighter colours." He said kidding the younger man on. Rossi grabbed his keys and looked to Emily, "Shall we?" He said and held the door for her.

Emily smiled at Rossi, "Such a gentleman. See you guys later." Emily waved to the rest of the crew and headed out.

Hotch turned to Morgan "I think we should start to work on a preliminary profile based on the new information we just received."

Morgan nodded as Reid just looked a bit annoyed and started to work on the map again. "You know this is gonna be out as soon as we find Walters." He said to his superior. "And it's not just gonna be us that's in the presses radar." He said remembering the Bison case, the press...

Hotch looked over some of the police report files a couple of more times, before sighing again. He was not looking forward to the next couple of days. Morgan started talking to him about press coverage and how the media would have a field day with this. "I know Morgan... Both JJ and I had a difficult time keeping the media at bay last time, now this..."

"I wouldn't like to wear those shoes. At least you know what's coming with them." Morgan stopped and looked at the photo of Sarah Walters poor woman had already been tortured, "Hotch man, look at these marks on her, they seem deeper, more force and anger... he really doesn't like blondes."

Hotch went over to Morgan and looked at the close up photo of Sarah Walters. A part of him couldn't help but think of how similar she looked to JJ. He ignored it though and thought of it was just his mind playing tricks on him. It was just so strange. The case that had caused the last media frenzy before JJ left was now putting their team and JJ's team together. Hotch couldn't think like this. He just looked at the picture and the knife marks. "With her, he wasn't fulfilling an obligation like the brunettes... This was done simply out of anger. It goes well with the change in type and the diversion from the cooling period."

"Not only that, but if he gets a taste for it... it's only a matter of time." Morgan said as Reid let out a frustrated huff of air. The man shared a look with Hotch and turned to the younger agent, "You ok over there kid?"

Reid turned, "I'm not a kid, and I'm fine. Just this last one throws it off."

Hotch frowned at Morgan's conclusion and looked over to Reid. He could tell that Reid was frustrated, though it seemed that something else was bothering the young man. "Reid, maybe you want to take a couple of minutes away from the board. Go check in on Garcia's progress." Hotch figured Reid needed a few minutes away from the board and besides, he wanted to know if Garcia had found anything new.

"What? Ohh ok Hotch." Spencer nodded, not fighting it, he was too distracted and he knew it, clearing his head with a walk was good. Spencer left the two men to it.

Morgan frowned, "That was easy..." He commented and went to the profile.

Hotch sighed and went back to looking at some more of the photos. "It's Bison all over again, except more difficult because we have nothing to go on. He's smart, thinks of everything. He goes to land fills he knows will be opened all night in order to dump the bodies. He uses a non-traceable email address from an unknown IP addresses. He must be tech savvy."

"He goes from almost forcing himself to hurt the brunettes to over kill with the blonds and his rage is increasing." Morgan said and sighed, "Maybe a job in IT? or some background at least?"

"He could have taken classes in computer technology. Then again, he could also be self-taught." Hotch rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost 8 in the evening. Had the time really passed that quickly? "If he had no contact with Bison whatsoever, he must have had some connection to the previous case."

"So we need to review the Bison case, all the players. There were so many involved... but I can get Garcia to run checks." Derek said and saw the time. He wanted to say to his boss go call your son, you know you want to, but he didn't, Morgan knew Hotch would... but not yet.

N/B: Yay for starting a new case! Hmmm so, we think this case will be rather interesting. What do you guys think? Leave us a comment and let us know! ;)