"5 cases over 12 years. 34 victims. Consistently, targets were families with two or three children, usually where one of the children was just approaching pre-teen years. All were from suburban homes, all were found dead around the supper table, sometimes with several days of decomposition." Penelope Garcia's voice rang out from the smartphone balanced on the mantelpiece.

"Seems a bit antclimactic." Dr. Spencer Reid was checking the pictures on the shelves of the suburban home the BAU agents were searching through. "All those years of hunting, and the unsub dies within thirty seconds of the assault team bursting in the door. A small end for such a well-known killer."

"The Family Man." Derek walked around the living room, poking his head into doors. "Always thought that was a sick nickname. The press needs to show a bit more restraint."

"The press needs to show restraint, period," Emily Prentiss muttered, leafing through papers on the nightstand. "The original investigating officer on the case in 2010 told them not to release any info. They did, and next thing you know the psycho's got a name and an urban legend attached to him."

"The news wouldn't print it if people didn't read it." Aaron Hotchner walked into the living room, pocketing his phone. "That was the local office. They've agreed to keep the truth about Thomas Reynolds quiet for the moment. We're giving out the story that he's had a heart attack and is in the hospital."

"Why?" Derek Morgan looked around at Hotch.

Prentiss answered for Hotch. "Previous profiles of The Family Man suggested that he was an extroverted sort who preferred… collaboration. Knowing what we do now, it's also notable that Reynolds was rejected several times as a suspect because of solid alibis backed up by others." Prentiss took a breath. "Given that, it's possible he was working with associates."

"Drivers, scouts, that sort of thing?" Morgan looked skeptical. "Seems a bit tame."

"No." Hotch shook his head. He hesitated a moment. "This doesn't leave the team, but for the last year, headquarters has been uneasy about the potential for serial killers collaborating. There are forums, message boards, gamer groups."

"Gamer groups?"

"The police tap phones all the time, fewer of them ever think to monitor game chat logs. And there are a lot of those." Hotch shook his head. "It's all theories, currently. A lot of the groups are fans or role-players, or writers researching for roles."

"Fans." Derek shook his head as he turned away. "Yeesh."

"There's various anthropological studies that suggest a human fascination with the extreme as a method of testing boundaries, similar to experimentation." Reid had finished with the photographs and had come upon some books on the mantelpiece. He was flipping through them with remarkable speed. "Of course there is also the reflexive response to a taboo, an inherent interest in something specifically because it is forb…"

"I know, Reid." Derek looked mildly annoyed. "We all know. You don't need to repeat it. I'm just saying it creeps me out."

"Oh." Reid looked up, squinted, winced. "Right. Sorry."

Hotch shook his head. "Let's wrap up here," he said, scanning the apartment. "The forensics team wants more time with the house. We can come back here for more impressions later."

"Sure." Prentiss placed the papers back on the table, as nearly exactly as she could. "Reynolds is dead anyway. There's no rush to catch anyone here, unless we can pick up those confederates of his. Which, frankly, I don't like the chances of."

Hotch gave a small nod. "We need to try, though" he said.

As the agents filed out, Reid stopped to look at some magazines on the coffee table. The tiny stub of a slip of paper was sticking out from one. Reid picked up the magazine and a small, unmarked envelope fell out. He stooped to pick it up, and glanced in the envelope.

His eyes went wide. He opened his mouth, about to speak, and then his eyes went back to the magazine. He looked from one to the other, and then back again.

Then he slipped the paper back into the magazine and rolled it up, and walked out the door.

Rossi looked up as Reid slipped into his office. "You're closing the door very carefully," he observed. "And you've got an oddly deliberate nature about your movements. Normally you'd be talking at ninety miles a minute already." He put away the file he'd been looking through. "What do you not want Hotch to find out about?"

Reid didn't bother denying it. A hazard of working with profilers was that there were few secrets one could keep. Instead, he placed the magazine on Rossi's desk.

Rossi looked at the magazine, then back up at Reid. "A monthly Fun Land newsletter," he said. "I presume there's some deeper reason for you presenting this than a suggestion for my vacation."

Reid said nothing.

Rossi sighed and checked the address. "From the Reynolds house," he observed. "Hence why you don't want Hotch to know; I doubt he'd be pleased with you taking evidence from the scene." He started to flip through the magazine. "Obviously incongruous with The Family Man's profile, he's an elderly man; might potentially be a trophy, but the magazine is addressed to him specifically…"

The envelope fell out from between the pages.

Rossi picked it up and studied it. He opened the envelope and took out a plane ticket. Slowly, he sat back in his chair, studying the ticket.

Reid nodded at the ticket. "Reynolds lived alone; most of his killings are within a fifty-mile radius. As our profile suggested, though extroverted, he stayed nearly entirely within a familiar context-a suburban one. He rarely ever took vacation days from his workplace, all his photos were of local landmarks, and he had an expressed hatred of just about any other location in the US.

"So why does he have a ticket to Florida?" Rossi muttered, looking at the ticket again.

"To Gainesville Regional Airport, Florida," Reid said.

"This could mean anything," Rossi said, throwing Reid a warning glance. "Everyone goes on vacation sometimes. He might have been having a mid-life crisis. An old friend who lived out there."

Reid nodded. "Possible, yes. But Gainesville?"

"I'm sure Gainesville is a very nice place."

"I'm sure it is too. But wouldn't someone going on vacation opt for Miami, Orlando, or Tampa?"

"Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't. We can't know what sort of vacation Reynolds liked."

"No, because Reynolds didn't like any sort of vacation."

There was a silence.

Rossi looked at the card again. He shook his head. "Instincts. Instincts can be dangerous."

"Instincts are deceptive. Most studies suggest that 'instincts' are actually preconceived biases that make a detective actually worse as they fail to question those biases and even consider their biases a reasonable basis for unsound action." Reid chewed his lip. "…but…"

"But we look for patterns, and sometimes there are patterns that you know, but you can't articulate what they are." Rossi heaved a breath. "Sometimes that's what instinct is… a subconscious realization based on a thousand faint clues that you can't put your fingers on." He looked at the ticket again. "Like why tickets like this would be hidden in an envelope inside a newsletter for an amusement park."

"Fun Land amusement park," Reid said.

Rossi's eyes flickered up to Spence. "Hotch told you to stop obsessing over Fun Land."

"He did, yes. And I have been trying, I have, but…" Reid licked his lips. "The discrepancies are there. Nearly a hundred missing persons reports with the local PD, and that's for a park with its own separate police force that's supposed to handle the majority of disappearances in the park. That one group of families…"

"Was a single group assembled by a manipulative lawyer and amplified by a media incentivized to report disaster stories," said Rossi. But his face was troubled. "A handful of sad stories doesn't make a case."

"I know. I know." Reid looked away, shook his head, and looked back. "But those missing person cases—the vast majority…"

"…were children. Of course they were. It's an amusement park for children, so children are going to make up the vast majority of any data pool there."

"They followed a profile." Reid leant closer. "You know they did."

Rossi shook his head, slowly. "Instincts are misleading, Spencer."

"If," said Reid "and I allow that it's a big if, but if The Family Man was somehow in contact with someone—someone who worked at Fun Land, with access to their newsletter—then it's possible that that someone sent him this ticket deliberately to go to Gainesville and meet him…

"Stop." Rossi held up a hand. He studied the ticket. He tapped it against his hand. Then he looked up at Reid. "We chase this down. This one lead."

Reid gave a rapid series of nods.

"There's a forensic psychology convention in Miami. Hotch has been on my case to attend it for a while." Rossi dropped the ticket to his desk. "I'll tell him I'm taking you with me to give you a break from cases for a bit." He grimaced. "It'll almost be true." Looking back up at Reid, he glared from under bushy eyebrows. "We nose around for a week, and at the end, if we haven't found anything definitive, than we go back. No, check that, I go back." Rossi pointed at Reid. "You stay there another week and do nothing but relax on the beach."

"Technically if I did nothing but relax…"

"Shut up." Rossi shook his head. "This is already a bad idea."