After JJ and Blake had concluded their interviews, the team gathered in the conference room to discuss their findings and formulate their conclusions and recommendations.
"I hate to say this, but if we are going to find Christine, we are going to have to profile her," Hotch announced.
"Reid, if you are uncomfortable with that, we will understand if you leave," Rossi told him gently.
"No! I want to help get her back - I need to help you get her back!" Reid declared. "The only way I can do that is if I am here with you!"
"All right," Blake was leading the session. "Everyone watched our interviews on the webcam and then reviewed them on the tapes. Let's start with what the women had to say."
"Christine was just as terrified as the rest of the captives," Rossi began the discussion. "However, she did her best to hide it and took responsibility for dealing with George Wyatt. She apparently felt she could manipulate him. Using that, we can probably rule out Stockholm Syndrome."
"I'll agree with that," Morgan said. "There is no indication that she felt any empathy with her captor, and she most definitely did not bond with him."
"Christine was used to standing on her own two feet and being in control of her life," JJ observed. "Being under someone else's control like that would have been extremely difficult for her to accept, let alone deal with."
"According to what I have been able to find out," Garcia had insisted on being included, "She has been taking care of herself for quite some time. She doesn't appear to have any close ties with her family, and had held various jobs to put herself through university."
"I can vouch for that," Rossi contributed. "I met her brother and sister-in-law, and there definitely was no love lost in that relationship."
"She was forced to steal," Blake pointed out. "And, that went against her moral compass. There is no doubt she was having difficulty dealing with that."
"Plus, she had been forced to steal and then wear Mrs. Gainsville's clothes," Hotch observed. "We know for a fact that that upset her tremendously."
"That may have been why she refused to speak to her rescuers and to the medical staff at the hospital," JJ hypothesized. "She was embarrassed by what she had done and worried that other people would judge her based on that."
"Christine was used to being admired for her looks, even if she didn't show it," Morgan began another train of thought. "Being mocked for the way she looked in the ill-fitting clothes she was forced to steal undoubtedly took its toll on her."
"Christine never – " Reid began to protest.
"Admit it, Reid," Morgan interrupted. "She was – is – an attractive woman. She didn't flaunt it, but she was used to being admired. Being mocked for the way she looked probably pushed her close to the edge."
"What else?" Blake asked the group.
"She was afraid of what Reid would say about her being pregnant," Garcia contributed sadly. "She was probably torn, she wanted to be back with Reid, but she was afraid of what he would say. Is that maybe why she ran?"
"I never would condemn her!" Reid spoke up, his voice trembling. "I don't care – I just want her back!"
"We know, Spence, we know," JJ assured him. "But, you have to remember, a woman is at her most vulnerable when she is pregnant. She can't move quickly or easily, and the changes her body is going through are completely beyond her control. Whether she likes it or not, she is forced to depend on others. Christine wasn't used to that, and she had no one to turn to."
"One of the things everyone agreed on," Rossi pointed out. "Was the fact that Christine never once mentioned any specific place she missed or wanted to visit once they got out of there. She appeared to have no plans for her future."
"Maybe she didn't think she had a future," Blake suggested sadly.
"She helped everyone else, but no one helped her," Hotch ended the session.
When the team submitted their final report, covering the interviews and containing their recommendations and conclusions, nowhere did they speculate on why Christine had disappeared or where she had gone.