That afternoon, as the team sat in their conference room trying to come up with a new strategy for locating the unsub, an obviously upset Erin Strauss joined them.
"You knew the victim?" JJ asked her quietly.
"I met her on several occasions," Strauss replied as she took a seat at the table. "She was a good person, very devoted to her husband and her family. Her death really brings this whole situation home."
Hotch was standing at the front of the room. "What does this latest development add to our understanding of this unsub?" he asked the team.
"This guy is definitely a local," Rossi pointed at the map on the evidence board that Reid had been working on. "The places he visits are spread all over this area."
"I could blindly throw a dart at the map and probably hit someplace involved in this case," JJ added.
"He appears to have become even more sadistic," Morgan observed. "It's like he was out to get revenge on this particular victim for dying on him." He glanced uneasily at Reid.
"What if he didn't intend to kill her?" Blake suggested. "If he didn't, it is possible this development could push him over the edge. It's hard to say what he will do to the other women now."
"Assuming the other victims are still alive," Rossi pointed out. He, too, glanced at Reid before quickly adding, "Although, we don't have any indications otherwise."
"This isn't getting us anywhere!" Reid burst out. "We still don't know where he has Christine!"
"Reid, we understand," Hotch told him. "You know we are all doing the best we can to find this guy."
"Well, it's not doing any good, is it?" Reid shouted back. He stood up, knocking his chair over, and bolted out the door.
"Let him go," Rossi counseled. "I'll go after him in a little while, after he has had a chance to calm down."
"In the meantime, I will continue digging like an archeologist," Garcia declared as she stood up to leave the room. "There has got to be a trail somewhere and I intend to find it!"