Morgan was standing by the coffee maker when Amalya walked in. "He-hey, look who the cat dragged in," he teased, and she gave him a genuine smile. "We missed you on our last case," he added.
"Yeah, bureaucracy! Gotta love it!" she quipped, and he chuckled.
"You would think after exposing an incompetent US Marshall they would make it easy," he retorted, and she groaned. "If only!"
"You have dual citizenship, and you entered the country using the wrong one. That's not a situation they deal with every day," Rossi intervened.
"Hey, I did decline the offer. Twice if I may I add!" she defended, and Rossi shook his head. "I don't think that's the solution they were looking for," he said, and she shrugged. "Can't blame a girl for tryin'!"
Just then JJ walked in with a few files held to her chest. "Gather around everyone, we've got a new one!" she announced, and they all followed her to the room.
Amalya looked over the pictures of the victims, and despite the different racial backgrounds, she couldn't help but notice they did have one feature in common.
"And he turns their bodies into prisons to do it," Hotch stated.
"Well, he sure picked the right victims for that." She added casually; her eyes still focused on the reports in front of her when she felt their eyes on her.
"What do you mean?" Hotch wondered. "They're not the same." He added, but she shook her head.
"They may not be the same race, nor do they have the same background, or even lives. But they do have one thing in common," she objected. "Their body-type."
Morgan frowned, while the others looked back at the pictures of the victims. "They're small in stature; petite, weights are on the lighter side. Easier to grab, takes less drugs to keep them paralyzed, and by definition, easier to control and dominate. The UNSUB doesn't care about race or background. All that matters is that the victim looks easy enough to grab." She elaborated.
"That means even you're a target," Reid pointed out, and Morgan chuckled. "He who dares to think about taking her will probably regret the day he was born, let alone actually try it," he quipped, and she smiled.
"Well, even if Amalya isn't a target, I'm guessing anyone whose small enough to be grabbed is, which leaves our victim pool incredibly large," Emily deduced.
"Wheels up in twenty!" Hotch stated, as he closed his file, and got up from his chair. They all followed his lead and went to get ready to head over to the plane.
"Are we sure this is a he?" Emily posed the question, and she looked up from the file where she was sitting on the couch facing Emily and Hotch, her brows knitted together in thought. "The care this UNSUB shows these victims – although they are dehumanized – the profile says female," she explained.
"But the post-mortem weight, that's a lot of weight for a woman to carry," Hotch objected.
"But like Amalya said, these women are petite. They're under a hundred pounds," JJ pointed out.
"Alright, if we reconsider the gender of the profile, what changes?" Hotch conceded.
"Nothing," Morgan responded. "If anything, it fits better," he added.
"Men kill to fulfill a sexual compulsion, women don't." Rossi provided.
The discussion continued about the profile and the victimology, and when Garcia called to inform them that the victim's clothes were made to fit, Hotch started handing out their assignments.
"Dave and I will go to the disposal site; Amalya you're coming with us." He told her, and she nodded. "You were right about the body type being the drive, I want your perspective on the disposal site," he elaborated, before he turned to talk to Garcia.
Amalya walked with Hotch, listening to him talk to Rossi as they both finished each other's sentences. They sounded like an old, married couple to her. But she kept that observation to herself.
She agreed with Hotch's idea that the disposal site was about innocence, but she wasn't entirely sure about Rossi's explanation as to why she did it.
Once they were back in the car, Hotch looked at her in the rear-view mirror. "Any observations?" he asked.
"Just one. There are two justifications for why she disposed of the bodies here, and each one will probably lead to a different profile," she stated.
"How so?" Hotch asked.
"Well, either Rossi is right, and she simply wants the victims to have the fun she never had," she started. "Or, she's ruining other kids' childhoods just like hers was."
"How do those lead to different profiles?" Rossi asked.
"Because in your theory, the death could be entirely accidental. She could've lost her temper, hit them, or overdosed them, which led to their death, so she chose the spots that mean something to her," she elaborated. "But with the other theory, we have to find the trigger that made her decide to kill the current victims, and if that means she'll look for new ones. And this will also mean that those locations were pre-planned and might be part of a pattern." She finished.
"She doesn't let a body go, until she has a replacement," Hotch realized, and Amalya's head snapped up. "What is it?"
"So, you have an UNSUB who takes them for two months; feeds them through an IV, makes them custom-fit cloths, takes very good care of them, even grooms them. Not just any grooming; the dated hair, the dresses, the Betty Boop lips, the eyelashes. The care is almost maternal. On top of that, she leaves them in a place that screams childhood innocence," she listed. "And she doesn't even kill them. In a way, this could be seen as them abandoning her."
"Most serial killers have abandonment issues," Hotch interjected.
"Yes. And remember what I said in the car? The two theories; I think Rossi was right; she leaves them in places where they can have the fun she never had; she takes very good care of them, but like he said; death is an unfortunate side-effect. It's not even her goal. And with their size," she explained.
"Makes it easier for her to carry them," Morgan offered. "Exactly! She carries them around with her, to the carousel, and the swing. And like Hotch said, she doesn't let them go until she gets a new one…" she trailed off.
"What are you getting at?" Emily asked.
"I think she's turning them into dolls!" she stated, and they looked at her funny.
"It makes sense," Rossi pointed out. "Girls take their dolls with them everywhere they go, they groom them, brush their hair, sow for them," he listed.
"And the victims' body-types is as close as humanely possible to a doll's," Emily added.
"You were right," Reid said as he came into the room, "she's a collector!" he announced.
"We're ready to give the profile," Emily stated.
They all stood around the room as they delivered the profile, and she was standing between Hotch and Morgan. She'd studied the way the BAU operated when she was hunting Foyet, so she knew how they delivered the profile, and that they usually get a bit of resistance – mostly from lack of understanding of the profile – from the local police. But this was her first time, and she was mostly letting them deliver, as she observed quietly. It was only when the lead detective didn't seem at all convinced that three women were dead over some doll fetish, did she finally intervene.
"She doesn't kill her victims. She doesn't mean for them to die at all. If you take away the abduction and drugs factor, then all the causes of death become natural causes." She explained to the lead detective, when he didn't seem all to convinced with the profile. "To her, she's simply getting her dolls back, and they keep abandoning her," she finished, and Emily picked up the thought.
Garcia was on the phone rattling off Samantha Malcolm's history, when she mentioned that her father subjected her to ECT.
"ECT for grief! That doesn't make sense," she mumbled, and Reid agreed. "No, it doesn't. And I don't like the implication of what does."
Her eyes widened as she connected the dots but kept quiet until Garcia was done. It seemed that none of the other team members had heard them, so they both kept the theory to themselves.
Once Garcia was done with her information, Reid decided he was confronting the father about the ECT. Before she could interject, and offer to go with him, Hotch told him to take Rossi, so she kept quiet.
"Okay, what did you think of your first case back?" Morgan asked, as they sat on the jet.
"I will never look at another doll the same way again…." She started, and they all laughed. "That reminds me, I need to call my aunt and have her throw them away!" she quipped.
"You had dolls growing up?" JJ wondered, and she nodded.
"I was an only child, and totally a Daddy's girl," she said in justification.
"I thought dolls weren't allowed in the Arab culture," Morgan inquired.
"No, they are. And I had quite the variety." She said.
"Why do you need to call your Aunt and not your parents though?" Reid wondered.
"My parents died a year apart after I graduated college," she stated.
"Sorry to hear that," Rossi said. "Shame I can't thank them for a job brilliantly done on you," he complimented, and she blushed slightly.
"Thank you. My father was the one who got me into psychology at a young age. He was an avid reader, and I absolutely loved to argue with him about various books and topics." She told them. "When he saw the eye I had for analyzing human behavior, he bought me books, would read them with me, pick out stories from the papers and ask me what I think. I owe my knowledge and perspective largely to him."
"Smart man. And sounds like someone I would get along with," Rossi joked, and she chuckled.
"Well, you are his age after all," she teased, and he immediately glared at her, while the others snickered.
It wasn't long before the teasing and bickering filled the hollow of the cabin, as the voices of laughter mixed in with Reid's enthusiastic voice as he rattled off facts to them. And Hotch simply sat back in his chair and observed. Not only was he sure now more than ever about his decision to stay with the BAU, but he was also sure of his decision to hire Amalya. She fit right in with the team, and it didn't take her long before she fell into their pace. It only took her one case in fact. He couldn't help but wonder if she would have been as comfortable with the team had she accepted the Director's offer two years as she was now? Or would she have stayed on the sidelines and kept the relationship strictly professional? Would the team be where they are now?
He knew one thing for sure…. this was where he belonged, and he was not planning on going anywhere anytime soon.
So here's another chapter. Amalya's role in the episode is based on my thoughts as I watched the episode. I hope you al enjoy it.
Let me know what you all think of it.