A/N: I'm so very sorry for the delay with this chapter. The team was not talking to me or each other, for that matter, and I finally had to call a team meeting to hash it all out. It took a lot of bullying and a whole lot of cajoling, but they finally opened up and I hope you like the results of our little chat. ENJOY!

"She'd have to be his great-granddaughter I'm guessing. Well that changes everything, now doesn't it?" Rossi murmured, tapping his finger against his mouth thoughtfully.

"How so?" J.J. asked, her head tipped slightly in question.

"We were thinking of her in terms of being a victim, but given her family connections, she could very well be the one running the show instead," He replied.

"You aren't saying you honestly think that a 38 year old woman could be heading up a human trafficking ring, are you?" Emily questioned, not because she discounted the feasibility, but more the likelihood.

"While it's true that chances of the Unsub being female are statistically unlikely, we can't disregard the possibility. In the 1950's Meyer Lansky formed a friendship with Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and the Mob was basically given a blank check to run all the rackets in Cuba - especially the gambling casinos, prostitution, and drug smuggling. Then from Cuba, Lansky spread his gambling and prostitution rackets to other South American countries. Who knows how many of those connections still exist or what they've evolved into. Not only was Candi related to Lansky, but she also worked right here in the FBI. If she had high enough access, she would've had an impressive database right at her fingertips, so finding potential victims would've been both fairly easy and convenient. And other than her gender, she fits the profile," Reid added quickly.

"Na,na,na, I don't buy it Kid." Derek shook his head, totally rejecting the theory. "This girl was way too much of a shy wallflower to be the mastermind behind something this complex, this ruthless. I don't care who she's related to."

"Morgan, we can't deny the possibility. You said yourself there was no reason for her to be taking self-defense, that she was good enough to teach it," Hotch commented.

"Yeah sure Hotch, she could fight. I'm not denying that. But we're talking defensively. She didn't display no where near enough aggression to be even remotely capable of being in charge and running something like this. The women she took would have to have a hell of a lot more than just a healthy fear of her, in order for her to keep control over them all this time. There's no way she has the kind of dominant personality it would take to pull this kinda thing off undetected. And what about the Marshall? If she was running this show, where does he fit in?" Derek declared, his slouched demeanor relaxed and at ease with his presented opinion.

Trusting Derek's judgment and recognizing the validity in his arguments, Hotch began looking at things from another angle. "So assuming she's not in charge, what's to stop her from having a dominant partner, or from being coerced into helping for that matter? That would go a long way in explaining her signing up for defense classes she didn't need. If she felt she had no say in her life, this would be the only part of it where she could feel in control. Still doesn't explain Marshall Kassmeyer's role in all this."

"Now that's an idea I can get behind," Emily agreed. "To me, that goes a lot farther towards tying up more of the loose ends and jibing with the woman Morgan remembers. If she's being forced, maybe Kassmeyer put her in Witness Protection and her past caught up with her?"

Rossi nodded in agreement. "If that's the case, we need to find out why she got put in the program in the first place. If she's testifying against someone or already did, and who?"

"What's still nagging at me is the significance of the birthdays and the three year age gap between the victims. It's another reason why I don't buy Candi as being behind all this – her birthday falls in the same week as the rest. If she was the Unsub, why would her birthday date be like the rest of the vics? It's obvious the date holds some sort of importance to the Unsub. It's got to be the stressor. At some point, something had to have happened to this guy in the first week of July for it to play such a major roll in all the abductions. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. No,no, we're missing something here." Derek linked his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair even farther, raising the front end off the floor, his eyes focused back on the murder board. Something was niggling at him, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Actually, not all of them have a three year gap," Reid commented. "There's a six year gap between Candi and Siobhan Kelly. Odd really, since the rest are exactly three years apart, give or take a day or two."

"I am so changing my birthday and shaving off a couple of years," Angel declared with a shiver.

J.J. turned to look at her. "Why would you want to do that?"

"My birthday is July 7, I'm 35, and a redhead. I fit right in with this pretty little pack. That's enough incentive for me."

"You're perfectly safe Angel, he's already past your age a year ago, and not likely to change patterns and go back," Reid observed.

The front of his chair came crashing back down hard with a loud bang and had everyone's head turning sharply in his direction. Reid's words had Derek looking at Angel, then at the board, and then back at Angel. His heart began beating a mile a minute and he suddenly couldn't seem to catch his breath. He shook his head in denial, as his mind raced to try and find another explanation, any other explanation. But it was laid out, right there in front of his face, tacked to a murder board. And sitting not a foot away was his missing piece.

"Son of a bitch!"