So many possibilities. He'd been staring at the board for a good hour now but so far he couldn't see a pattern, a school teacher one week followed by an alcoholic then a famed doctor. It was actually quite brilliant how the individual had planned it, if in fact it was a single person.

"What do we have so far?" Turning to the sound of Hotch's voice he motioned to the board saying

"Surprisingly quite little. The lack of a pattern should by all accounts have a pattern."

"The funeral for DI Morrison is next week." They'd barely known her but her death now had Hotch working like a man possessed to catch this man. She'd been found two days after swallowing a bottle of painkillers washed down with a glass of whiskey. She'd looked peaceful lying on the motel bed and yet the scene was ruined by the scrawled verse on the cheap wallpaper of the motel

I held her hand as she died, you never had the chance to say goodbye. Now the game begins, it won't end until one of us wins. I'm willing to watch the world burn but alas it's now your turn.

Nothing had been taken, no trophy, no reminder for the unsub to muse over.

"Do we have anything at all?" Hotch asked looking at the sprawl of thoughts that he'd pinned to the white board.

"Well there is about a ninety percent chance he's male from the hand writing." Hotch nodded "It's just strange how controlled his writing is."

"What do you mean?"

"Look here at the a, it's compact and controlled while on his earlier note its sprawled."

"Different authors?" Hotch suggested, he shook his head and brought his hand to his chin

"It's as if he was stressed writing the first note. He needs us to play along, to become apart of his 'game' as he refers to it as."

"Why don't we just leave him to it?" Morgan walked in sitting down "He's killing people for fun?" Morgan had been the first on the scene "We can't give in."

"I doubt that would be useful. From what I've seen, ignoring him would just cause him to escalate. He's intelligent but is almost childish in his approach. The use of crayon, the silly rhyme, the goading." He didn't know a case to compare it to outside those found in comics. It was if the unsub wanted to be caught but at the same time wanted to win. Win what exactly he wasn't sure. It was infuriating to be as smart as he was but to be unable to see his end goal. He didn't do it for sexual pleasure or revenge there had to be a link though. True randomness was near impossible for the human mind, the brain liked order to much but so far there were too few links for even a correlation to be formed.

"So we're dealing with… a child genius?" Morgan said leaning back in his chair

"Garcia said the CCTV was stolen." JJ threw a file onto the desk as she down staring at the board "Without it we only have an estimated time of death. A hooker thought she saw a male figure leaving after midnight but can't be sure if it was from that room."

"Keep looking, somebody must know something, if not on DI Morrison then on another one of the possibilities." DI Morrison had left stacks upon stacks of potential victims of their killer, all needed to be investigated and searched thoroughly while they also had two other serial killers they had been asked to investigate, one a shooter and the other a disorganised sexual killer who enjoyed taking the tongues of the women he killed. They could have done without such a large caseload especially ones that were proving to be such a challenge. They just needed a single link, something that defined the killer. They knew a few things so far;

He never killed his victims himself

He had started in England and came over to America

His victims had nothing to link them

He never left any trace of his being there

He contacted DI Morrison before contacting them

Each one alone were nothing. Together they spoke volumes about the person they were dealing with. Firstly, there was a strong possibility he was English, which meant if they could pin down how long they'd been in America they could find flight details or what ship they'd been on. Secondly they had a taste for theatrics suggesting they wanted recognition for their work, which meant they'd be getting more letters in the near future which would most likely escalate to videos of the killings or more personalised messages. Third they would most likely have a nightmare getting him convicted of murder, according to everything he hadn't been there, it was all circumstantial evidence how many people would believe a single man had forced so many to commit suicide it was ridiculous in its own right.

It was glorious. As he stared upwards to the spinning fan feeling the trickling of blood down the side of his chin, he felt a calm wonder and joy spread through his very being. He struggled upwards and let his eyes follow the figure sat down drinking coffee. They were completely unaffected by his presence or that of the whimpering woman on the bed bound by his wrists and ankles. His mouth was dry as the figure turned to him saying

"Mister Lockmoor, I believe we have much to discuss."

"You know…"

"I have a crystal ball; I know everything about you, Richard Lockmoor born of a Mary and John Lockmoor. Come take a seat we have much to discuss." This was wrong, he was meant to kill this man or rather the man was suppose to kill himself to save his lover. The poor woman still lay gagged though as he pulled a seat down and sat facing him, he was older than himself, brown hair neatly combed with an absurd red bowtie staring at him. Yet here they were, he'd been knocked unconscious by this man and his lip was split but it was fascinating. The man offered him a napkin for his lip which he took dabbing the blood away.

"This is wrong." The man smiled saying

"Quaint." He had never known anybody to meet him like they were better than him, it was infuriating but addictive too, he wanted to kill this man more and more by the minute. "I've been watching you Richard."

"Forgive me if I'm not flattered and mildly disturbed by that fact."

"You have a way with people. You show potential."

"I am a greater man than any you've faced."

"No, you're going to be a waste, you'll end up dead or refusing to kill the BAU due to the poor ending in the story. I plan on helping you, mentoring you."

"Why?"

"We could be good together. I'm a fair man though, I understand cutting a good deal so here is mine. I will teach you what I know and you'll obey me completely… in return I won't kill you."

"You couldn't."

"I could but either way you're too curious not to investigate my claims."