AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Hi guys :)!
Since I'm uploading weekly through the Summer, I kind of went all out and made sure this weekly chapter is about ten times longer than a normal chapter, lol, so it's as if I've updated daily after all. I hope you enjoy this chapter - it has some case-related stuff and I enjoyed writing everyone's assumptions with the profile and the final conclusion. I wanted to make it have the feel of a CM episode, with all the case-related things and also the fun stuff, too.
CHAPTER 101
CAN'T HELP GOING BACK TO WHAT I LOVE
"Where the Hell were you? We have a new lead." Tara asked as soon as Emily and Angela walked back in after conducting the interrogation with this man who had given a false confession.
Angie popped half a cookie in her mouth, to have a valid excuse for not replying.
"Had to run an errand." Emily shrugged casually.
She was everyone's friend, but she was also everyone's boss and nobody would dare question her any further. Also, the team didn't need to know about the false confession that had just made her waste an hour and a half of their valuable time.
"A new victim has just been found." JJ informed both Emily and Angela.
"The local police just got word of it." She added.
"Got word of it?" Emily raised an eyebrow.
Wouldn't they have found the crime scene? Why would they need to be told about it?
"Uh. Yes. Here's where it gets twisted..." Garcia said on the loudspeaker. She knew where Emily had just been at the time of the news and she also knew that none of this made sense.
"New Jersey police just found a new body - a female that fits the victimology and an MO that is identical. And here's the thing - she had just been killed. Like, less than an hour ago." Garcia added.
Emily shot a glance at Angela, both of them thinking that it was absolutely impossible that the man they had just spoken to, would turn out to be the killer, as he had stated. They already knew it, but this new information only reinforced their suspicion.
Garcia shared the bunch of crime scene photos with the team, supporting the theory that this murder could surely be attributed to the same killer.
"He didn't cross state lines..." Rossi pointed out.
"It's still serial." Emily murmured.
Angie opened her mouth to say something back to Rossi, but she decided against it. She did not have enough proof to support her new theory.
"Eww, who would do something like that?" JJ cringed, zooming on the stab wounds.
"I would. You would. Anyone would, if someone we love was somehow involved..." Angie pointed out quietly.
Some of the team agreed with her, while others found her suggestion to be absolutely preposterous. This was cruel on so many levels and they just could not picture a possible scenario in which they would find themselves in the shoes of the killer.
"I'd do way worse, if someone I love was involved." Emily was the first one to agree and the only one to be vocal about it.
Everyone knew about her violent streaks when her fight of flight instinct would kick in. They had seen her bomb a car with three people inside, when Ian Doyle was after her, just a few years ago.
"Way...waaay worse..." Emily murmured, reinforcing her statement.
Subconsciously she looked at Angela as she spoke and that made her smile a little.
Emily then also looked at Reid briefly, thinking back of the moment, many years ago, when she had completely lost her mind and had deleted his confession audio from the interrogation room.
"Say it." Rossi challenged Angie who looked like she was now walking on eggshells.
"But…they teach us at the Academy not to just blurt out whatever random thought comes to our mind, in order not to confuse our teammates with unfounded speculations and-…" Angela started off, but got interrupted right away.
"Just say it!" Four voices said in unison.
"Fine. I think the UnSub might be a woman." Angie said with a shrug.
Reid gasped, wondering why on Earth hadn't he already thought of that.
"The stabbing is typically a male MO." JJ pointed out and Angela could not help but roll her eyes.
Had those words come out of anyone else's mouth, she might have been able to contain the urge to react so visibly.
Emily caught that and she smirked. She had been spot on when she had told JJ that Angela won't be bribed into liking her with just some small talk.
JJ just sighed. Everyone had it out for her during that trip.
"Can I talk to you in private?" Angie asked Emily, but she was not ready for the reply she received.
"Anything you need to say right now is something all of my team needs to hear." Emily stated.
"I'm not sure this is a good idea…" Angie whispered to her, but it did not help change her mind.
"Fine then. Imagine a case where a woman scorned was taking revenge…" Angie started off, making Emily feel uncomfortable. "Let's call it The Serpente Case-…"
"Let's not put names to things, okay?" Emily scoffed, remembering an identical case she had once worked on, with the Interpol.
"Point is – we already think there is fowl play with the police that reported the cases to us. What if…" Angie trailed off and she did not like what she was doing. "No, the worst thing to do is to create a theory and then try to prove it. That's a sure set up for failure. This way I can unintentionally ignore good and pretty much obvious clues and I might overlook evidence, because it won't fit my theory…"
"Stop thinking like a Trainee. You're not in class." Tara said, but then immediately regretted her words. Most importantly – her tone of voice.
"Please don't start hating on me, too!" Tara added, aware of the fact that she had quite the authoritarian voice and she had been told multiple times she comes off as rude when speaking, only based on her voice. She hadn't meant to scold Angie now. It had been more of a friendly suggestion.
"I don't hate anyone." Angie's words made JJ raise an eyebrow.
"I've had my suspicion that at least one of the police officers is involved, since we received the case." Emily stated. "Some of the statements had been corrected before they were handed over to the FBI and that sure screams fowl play, to me."
"If that's the case, then working from the Bureau Headquarters was a mistake. We need to be at the police station, looking for clues, analyzing the behavior of the ones involved with this case." Rossi pointed out.
Emily was already dialing a number on her phone. She then made arrangements to move the team to the police station.
"I'm sorry, but this is the best I could give you." A policeman showed them in and pointed at a small room that was now going to be the base of their operations.
"It will do. We don't need much." Emily said politely, checking out the Police Station as she walked further down the halls.
Everything seemed normal. It was quiet and did not look busy at all. One would never have guessed that there was a multiple homicide investigation going on at the premises. The officers were all calm and nobody was in a rush to do anything. That would surely make it stand out if one of them was acting weird, as if they were guilty or withholding information.
"Put up some bogus investigation board and fill it with random, useless stuff." Emily commanded the team.
There was no chance in Hell she would risk either one of the local officers to walk in on them, with actual evidence hanging on the board.
Half an hour later Emily was giving a speech to whoever was on shift at that moment. She informed the officers that the FBI team was going to need two more people to follow the investigation. It was common knowledge for the profilers that if someone was somehow involved with the case, they might step up and offer their help, inserting themselves in the investigation, to keep up with how it is going and to maybe try to point the FBI in the wrong direction.
Three male officers offered their help and it was a bit frustrating for the team who were now on the lookout for a female, instead.
Emily insisted on checking each one's personal file before she would choose only two, to join them.
It took them half an hour to read those files and none of the men seemed suspicious. Two of them were on their way to making Detective and the third one was somewhat of a Rookie, having joined just a few months back.
"He's suspicious to me." JJ pointed out the third guy. "What Rookie would go after such a high profile case, with no experience whatsoever?"
"Uh, I would." Angela stated. "However, it really is suspicious that he volunteered. Check this out – he was supposed to have the next two days off. Why pass on an opportunity to stay home, with his family? His file says he is married…"
As she spoke, something else stood out.
"Hmm, why not spend two days with his wife?" Angie repeated her question. "They only got married less than a year ago, so don't they need to be still in the honeymoon phase?"
"Not necessarily." Rossi laughed, being the expert in marriage and specifically – failed marriage.
Everyone kind of kept quiet and Angie felt multiple sets of eyes on her.
"What?" She asked defensively.
"I didn't invite you here to be mute and to go on coffee runs." Emily informed the girl.
If Angela thought this was going to be anything like the movies where the new girl had to do all the insignificant small things, she was sadly mistaken. The BAU wanted to hear everything she had to say, about this case.
"But I'm a nobody…" Angie shrugged.
"Put yourself down one more freaking time, I dare you!" Emily scolded her instantly.
She had a thing for girls who thought less of themselves. She hated it.
"Fine then. I don't think a police officer has to do anything with the actual murders. I think someone else is doing them, because of him." Angie said confidently.
"Like, a killer for hire?" Luke asked.
"No, that would be doing the murders for him. I am a very eloquent person and I said that someone else is doing the murders because of him." Angie stated, making Matt grin at how confident she was to talk back at Luke like that.
"Damn, she's feisty…" Luke muttered to himself, blushing a little bit.
He was used to being the macho man, the one women drooled over. And yet, this girl was not intimidated by him and was not afraid to speak her mind and put him in his place, if needed. That was refreshing to him.
"She's also super stressed, now that all of you are staring at her." Angie laughed as she spoke, letting them know she was a bit uncomfortable.
It took quite some balls to admit such a thing, in a room full of profilers, where Angela was doing her absolute best to fit in. She was not scared to let them know how she felt and that made them feel like they could trust her, like she was being honest. A small statement like this one did not go unnoticed, mostly by Rossi and Emily.
"Why don't you take a field trip to check out the latest crime scene?" Emily pointed at Rossi and Reid.
"Actually, Reid will be more valuable here. Why don't you come along with me?" Rossi suggested that little variation and Emily smiled happily. She knew exactly why he had done that.
"Sounds great. Unfortunately, that would also mean that Angela is no longer going to enjoy the AC here." Emily spoke.
"Huh? There is no AC here…" Angie said smartly.
"Shut up and get going." Emily nudged her and Angie was already out the door, not even waiting for a second invite.
They seemed to have an unspoken understanding. Whenever Emily looked at Angela, she reacted, and vice versa. When Angela opened her mouth, Emily often anticipated her thoughts or when Angela reached her hand out to grab something, Emily was already handing it to her. It seemed automatic, spontaneous, almost rehearsed to perfection.
"Oh, Hell no!" Angela shivered when Rossi handed her the car keys as soon as they were downstairs, at the covered parking lot.
"You're not trying to tell me you're the only person on this entire planet who does not want to drive a Federal car, are you?" Rossi raised an eyebrow, surprised at her reaction.
He had attempted to get her excited about the car, maybe as excited as she was about everything else that had the Bureau stamp on it. And that attempt of his had failed.
"That is exactly what I'm saying. I hate cars and I have a good feeling the Federal SUVs are going to hate me, too. So, I'd rather not embark on a relationship I don't think would be mutually satisfying."
Angie's words made Emily blush, just at the connection she made, when relationships and satisfaction were concerned.
"Do you always think with your…?" Angie shot a glance at the zipper of Emily's pants, making her blush even more, now that Rossi also understood just how badly she had misinterpreted Angie's innocent previous statement.
"Well, it was about time someone said it to your face." Rossi shrugged, completely unmoved by Angie's statement, as he looked at Emily for a second before he hopped in the driver's seat himself.
"Yeah, don't you two dare gang up on me. I'm still the Boss around here." Emily faked offense, sticking her tongue at Angela when Rossi was not looking.
She felt free, she felt like the whole conversation was easy, the moment was calm. God knows when was the last time Emily had felt so calm and peaceful around people. Lately, she had been nothing but tense, preoccupied by a million things, eating too much or eating too little, biting her nails and drinking a few more glasses of wine than what she should be, on a daily basis. She had not laughed at a pun in a long time and she hadn't seen Rossi jump at a chance to tease her like that. It all felt natural, not forced. It felt good.
"If you were my Boss, I'd bust your balls and call you Ma'am all the time." Angela laughed, but the ease with which she spoke to Emily alarmed Rossi.
He had already seen how close they were, but something about Angela was throwing him off. She was pretty much constant with her connection to the BAU members – she was okay with everyone and she would not even look at JJ unless she was forced to do so. And yet, with Emily she was hot and cold and that changed about fifty times, during one short conversation. At a moment Rossi could swear those two had known each other their entire lives, with how they were joking around and how easy it was for them to communicate with no words, but a moment later he would be convinced that Angela had no freaking idea who Emily Prentiss was and she was threading lightly, trying to figure this woman out. Sometimes Angie would be borderline obsessed with Emily, other times she would be funny and friendly, and then she would randomly curl into a ball of nerves when she would have to speak about the case, in front of Emily and the entire team. She would always look at Emily for approval, for the tiniest little thing, and she would always lick her bottom lip when she felt nervous, just like Emily usually did.
But the most confusing thing of all was how scarily alike the two of them were, and yet – how completely different they could be, in certain moments.
"Don't you dare, young girl!" Emily replied just as easily. The words rolled out of her mouth and she gave Angie a pretend scolding look.
"Yes, Ma'am!" Angie laughed again. It was great to push Emily's buttons.
Rossi shook his head, upset over not being able to put a word to define that relationship. He had his theory and he knew he was right, and yet sometimes he second-guessed it, as it looked impossible. Angela was extremely hard to read and that reminded him of Emily, back in the days, when they had met. He remembered not knowing a single thing about her, other than her name and her connection to Ambassador Prentiss, which he had learned through whispers down the hallways, not from Emily herself.
She had been a mystery – reserved, carrying the burden of whatever it was, accompanying it by the pain she had tried to hide from everyone when she had joined the BAU. Little by little, her shell had started to melt and she had let people in, but never fully. Rossi remembered certain conversations that he has had with Emily through the years and she had never been fully honest with him. She had shared a little, but she had always hidden the main problem. She was someone who didn't want anyone to figure her out and that was the main similarity she had with Angela.
Rossi started wondering – would Angela open up to him more, if enough time had passed? Would this girl even get the chance to spend enough time with the Unit that she so clearly felt attracted to? Selfishly, would he still have time with her, after Big-Little Week was over? He had so many questions about her that he felt like his head was spinning, just thinking about them.
"Dave?" Emily searched for his attention, noticing how focused he was on the street and how deep in thought he was, while driving.
"Yes?" He replied.
"Did you not hear anything I just said?" Emily asked rhetorically.
Of course he did not. She knew he must have been thinking about Angela. It was obvious, with those little glances he was shooting her as he drove.
Emily then repeated the plan of action that she had just told both him and Angela about. They were going to arrive at the latest crime scene in about half an hour and she wanted them to be prepared.
"And there are no surveillance cameras around?" Emily asked once again, upset at the lack of things and clues that the team could make use of.
She had been walking left and right, checking out the entrance of the house of the latest victim, trying to figure something out.
"This makes no sense. How would the killer be a woman who has access to all these random houses? How is it possible that nobody ever saw her car arrive or leave?" Emily muttered unhappily.
"Who said she came by car? She could have passed for a street vendor? A new neighbor, trying to salute everyone on the street?" Angela suggested.
"No. That would point to random victimology and we have specific type of women as victims. One wouldn't stumble upon such nearly identical women, just by knocking at doors." Rossi ruined a huge part of Angie's suggestion, but she didn't mind. If she was wrong, she wanted to know it and to know why.
"She might be right about the 'no car' thing…" Emily said after a moment of silence.
"Actually, yes. It's a nice area, lots of houses, there's a small park down the street, so it wouldn't really be that surprising to see someone walk around." Rossi pointed out.
"A dog…what if the UnSub was walking a dog? She could still be knocking on people's doors, trying to find the perfect next victim who would fit with her fantasy." Angie suggested a slight improvement to her previous statement.
"Let me put this nicely – he wants you to get the idea of the UnSub walking around aimlessly, out of your head." Emily told her before she smiled at Rossi apologetically.
He felt a bit weird, but what Emily had translated was pretty much exactly how he felt about Angela's suggestion. It was highly improbable and he didn't want her to waste any more time, trying to support that theory, if it didn't make sense in the first place.
"Okay." Angie muttered and walked inside the house.
When they reached the bedroom, they found out that the victim's body had not yet been moved, as Emily had requested over the phone. Good, at least one thing went right.
Rossi was beyond curious to see Angie's reaction. He had already heard JJ's theory that Angie would scream like a baby and run to the yard, probably to throw up and cry, as soon as she saw her first cadaver on the job.
However, her reaction surprised him. Or rather – her lack of a reaction surprised him. She scanned the body with her eyes and tried to figure out the angles of the knife, judging by the stab wounds. It was nearly impossible to do that with precision, without a medical examiner present, but at least she was trying and she was beyond curious. She followed protocol, not touching the body or moving any object inside the house. She had put a pair of gloves on since they were still in the car earlier and she had put her hair in a ponytail, trying not to pollute the crime scene, in case a hair decided to go rogue and to fall on a surface that would be examined later on by the evidence response team.
Rossi did not see Angie cringe, not even once. She looked pretty at ease and very focused. It was all jokes and laughter with her, when they were gathered in a non-formal setting, but she was professional and collected, precise and careful when in a working environment. Was she trying to score 'nice' points by 'The David Rossi', as she liked to call him? Or was it just that she was always like this? She wasn't even perfect at what she did, but what made her great was the fact that even when she failed, even when she pitched a silly thing, she listened to her feedback and learned from that mistake. That was the one quality that The David Rossi had always looked for, in a young and aspiring Agent.
"This is personal…" Angie whispered after four minutes of careful inspection of the body, while not breaking protocol for even the smallest thing.
"It's impossible that the UnSub knew the victims. The MO proves it." Rossi stated, not even trying to argue with each and every word that Angela was saying now, but it just came out that way.
"Exactly." Angie's confirmation confused him. Did she not just say the opposite?
"It's personal…but not between the UnSub and the victims. Those have no direct connection…there is something else…" Angie kept on muttering.
She couldn't care less who heard her words. She was simply coming up with her own conclusions after what she had seen so far.
"Or someone else?" Emily suggested.
"Yes, someone!" Angie snapped her head, turning around to face Emily.
And then it all started – a weird conversation in which they both added to each other's statements and spoke to one another with words that made no sense to anyone else but the two of them.
"Jealousy…" Angie whispered after she decided that Emily's suggestion that someone else was involved, was valid.
"Rage…" Emily added, looking at the stab wounds.
"Revenge…"
"Hmm, anger…"
"Like a jungle…"
"A tribe…"
"No. Animals…"
"A lion…"
"Lioness!" Angela corrected.
"…protecting her cub?"
"No. Sexual component is present."
"Protecting her man?"
"What a dumb animal. Plenty of lions out there for her to catch if he strayed…" Angela trailed off after Emily eyed her up and down, as if to try and get her head back in the case, not so much life itself.
"Strayed?" Emily thought for a second.
"Hmm…"
"Mhm…"
They kept on staring at each other for the longest moment, in silence.
Rossi wondered whether he should interrupt, but this scene was way too entertaining for him, so he let it unfold naturally.
"Betrayal?"
"Lust?"
"No. Incapacity…" Angie's eyes darted to the stab wounds – in the lower abdomen, the heart, the inner thighs.
"Punishment."
"Like she didn't want him to have what he could not have with her…"
"With nobody else…"
"Mhm, yup." Angie nodded.
"Denial…"
"How could he do this to me? Why would he go to someone else?" Angie now spoke, putting herself in the shoes of the killer.
"Perfect on the outside. Power couple. Rotten on the inside. Unhappy home life?"
"Broken marriage?" Angie suggested.
"Mhh, nope. Perfect marriage, more likely. The kind of perfect that only exists on stage…"
"…But behind the scenes there is mess?" Angie finished Emily's sentence and she nodded in reply.
"Bull's eye on the husband…" Angie added, speaking in mysterious tone, as if she was telling a story.
"Screw him. Bull's eye on the wife!" Emily corrected her.
"Screw him?" Angie raised an eyebrow.
What Emily had meant figuratively, helped Angela come up with a new theory.
"What if she did?" Angie pointed at the victim.
"Did what?"
"Screw the husband!" Angie pointed out and it hit Emily.
"The jealousy, the rage in the killings…they were revenge for the husband's infidelity!"
Rossi kept on looking from Emily to Angela and back, with his lips slightly parted and his eyes not believing the symbiosis between the two of them. He had never seen Emily work in such perfect unison with anyone else. Ever!
"The heart…" Angie started to theorize. "Stab it, because he broke yours."
"The abdomen…" Emily mirrored Angela's way of speaking. "Stab it because she couldn't give you what you wanted."
"A child?"
Emily nodded. This was exactly what she had in mind.
"Impotent husband?" Angie asked.
"Not if he tried to have a child with any other woman who reminded him of his own wife."
"So, the wife must have a problem conceiving naturally?" Angie asked again and Emily nodded.
"And she must be obsessed with the idea of having her own child. Biological child." Emily added.
"A lot of people are." Angie sighed.
"I don't get them. I would never care if she was biological. I'd love her anyway. She would always be mine. Forever mine!" Emily had spun a bit out of control, mumbling those words without realizing she was doing so.
It felt like she was talking to herself, like she had done a million times before - talking about someone hypothetical, someone that didn't seem to exist. However, this time her thoughts had turned into a mumbled confession and two people were there to hear it.
"Erhmm…" Angie cleared her throat, trying to mask up for the awkwardness that Emily had created for herself, before Rossi would catch up on it all.
Rossi seemed distracted, measuring the distance between two objects during that split second when Emily had lost her mind.
Emily acted calm and collected, since Rossi was visibly clueless. She was already way too honest and straightforward with Angela anyways, so she didn't care what and how much of her thoughts Angela would hear her confess out loud.
"We need to call the team and deliver the profile." Emily stated.
"To whom? To the same police officers whom we are now watching under a microscope?" Rossi challenged her.
"Damn." Emily cursed underneath her breath.
The three of them walked out and started walking down the street, trying to avoid being overheard before Rossi dialed JJ's number and asked her to put Garcia on, as well.
"Excuse me?" An elderly woman called out for them.
She had been out on her porch all day, entertaining herself with some gossip about the neighbor's house that was now surrounded by police cars.
"Are you police?" The woman asked.
"Ma'am, we are with the FBI." Emily presented them by name and Angie smirked, hearing her name as if she was an Agent, too.
"Oh, for a robbery?" The elder woman asked.
"No, Ma'am. I'm afraid there has been a homicide." Emily said calmly before the woman started making cross signs and prayer gestures, looking up and mumbling something in Spanish.
Angie sat in the chair near hers and she held her hand, looking at her as she freaked out over the news that Emily had just broken to her.
She then asked her something in Spanish and the woman started rambling quickly.
"Basically, she saw a woman walking towards the victim's house today at noon and she thought it was the victim herself. She said the height, the hair and the body built was similar. The woman she saw was carrying a small dog in her hands and she was quite happy to see that her neighbor had finally bought the dog she had always wanted. Clearly, she did not see her neighbor, but the UnSub, who walked in the house and walked out of there about twenty minutes later, but she was wearing a different shirt and the dog was no longer with her. She also asked if we would like some of her homemade lemon curd cake and some tea, which we do…don't we?" Angie added her last words, shooting a hopeful glance over to Emily, as if she was asking for her permission.
"Yes, we do." Emily replied, against all better judgment.
She was starving, cranky and had a sweet tooth that could almost beat Angie's.
Almost.
"She said all that in under twenty seconds?" Rossi was impressed. "Plus, I thought you only spoke a little Spanish…" He added, raising his eyebrow.
"I like you. You and I are friends!" Angie stated jokingly, looking at Emily before she replied to Rossi. "Yes. Latino grandparents have the ability to tell a story in detail in under a minute, as that is just about as much time they would have the attention of their Latino grandkids' attention for before they run off to wherever, doing whatever." Angie stated, as if she was speaking from experience.
"I want to be friends, too! I love pie and tea!" Garcia yelled, reminding them that Rossi had actually dialed JJ, who had, in turn, added Garcia in the conversation, so pretty much the entire BAU was now hearing what was going on.
"We need to go do our job. Please, have some tea and an extra piece of pie for us and try to calm down, okay? Everything will be alright and things will get back to normal, around the neighborhood. You don't need to worry, nobody is going to harm you or your family." Angie said softly, speaking in Spanish to the woman whose hand she was still holding in a very caring manner.
Rossi checked out that non-verbal communication and it made him smile. So, Angela was not terrified by human contact? Or rather – she was not terrified only when she was the one initiating it, herself.
The elder woman stood up and commanded them not to move, showing them who the real authority figure was. A minute later she walked out with an entire lemon curd pie, wrapped in a huge paper towel, after which she handed them three paper cups, filled with green tea with a squeeze of fresh lemon in it.
"Muchas gracias!" Emily thanked the woman politely before they finally kept on walking.
"Will anyone tell us what is going on? We have found nothing so far." JJ's voice came from Rossi's phone and he looked around, figuring they were far enough to not be overheard, before they updated the team with what they had seen at the crime scene.
"The UnSub is a tall, young and athletic woman, in her early 30's…" Emily started off with the base profile, right after they described the crime scene details to everyone else on the phone.
"She is married to someone who works in law enforcement and unable to provide a child for their family, hence why he felt the need to find himself a female of her built and stature, to try and have a child with." Angie added, once again falling into that routine of completing Emily's sentences and then letting her do the same, with her own.
"He may or may not be aware that his wife is the UnSub, but we have reason to believe she is tracking down all the women he had been with and punishing them for her husband's infidelity." Emily added.
"He may have his suspicions as of recently, when he made the connection between the victims and figured out they were all women he had been intimate with since his marriage, which points to him having sporadic randez vous moments with random women that he probably doesn't even remember the names of..." Angie cringed. "Men. Ugh!" She added, sounding irritated.
"The UnSub is driven by her own guilt - not being able to reproduce, so by stabbing all the victims in the abdomen she figuratively makes sure none of them could, either. This is her final revenge for her husband." Emily continued.
"But...she seems to know how we operate..." Angie then remembered more details she had seen at the crime scene. "The room was staged, as if there had been a fight. But the neighbor never heard any commotion and she had pretty good hearing, for her age. So, why stage it..."
"To throw us off." Emily replied Angela's question.
"How do you throw a group of Federal Agents off?" Angie smirked and this time she replied to herself. "By being one of them. Not necessarily a Fed, but in law enforcement. Garcia? Look for anyone who is actively a police officer in this area of New York, married to a woman who fits the physical description Emily gave you and who is in the Police Academy."
"Academy?" Emily raised an eyebrow. This came out of nowhere.
"Yes. Trying to fool the Feds is a rookie mistake. Never to be made again!" The words rolled off Angie's tongue before she could help it, once again sounding like she was speaking from experience. "I mean...so I've been told...by...uh...people." She added lamely, making Rossi wonder what the heck had Angela possibly gotten herself into before the Academy.
"My point is - we learn stuff like crime staging, at the Academy. It's one of the first things they teach us to look out for. So the UnSub could not be too further into the Academy. And she clearly knows nothing about profiling if she made it so easy for us to figure her out so quickly. So she must be pining for a patrol officer, rather than a detective." Angie added.
"I'm working...my fingers are typing and my nails are screeching against the keyboard..." Garcia informed them that she was still there, listening to everything and already launching her search.
"Look for someone who doesn't show much potential to be a police officer, but who has shown huge interest in the profession, like she would have something to prove." Emily told Garcia.
"So, basically, you're saying I can be a psychopath who would start killing off people?" Angie joked with Emily quickly.
"Say it ain't so." Emily joked back and found it funny until she saw Angie frown.
Even when she knew it was a fake frown, a playful reaction to her teasing, it still broke her heart to have put anything but a smile on the girl's face.
"Awh, I'm joking! The UnSub, like I said, would be showing little-to-no potential at all. You are the mere opposite of that. You, my dear, scream 'BAU'." Emily smiled brightly.
Angela perked up instantly. Those words were like music to her ears.
The team kept quiet, letting just Emily and Angela talk to them, while Garcia gasped and muttered things in between, while trying to come up with a search that fit everything she had just been told.
"Prentiss, where's Rossi?" Matt asked.
"I'm here, sipping on my tea." Rossi replied with a tiny smile.
He had gladly given the spotlight to the two females, letting them take over and brief the team. It made him weirdly proud to see how enthusiastic Angela was and how well she took direction – whenever Emily would say something, Angela would interpret it the very same way that Emily meant it, even if Emily hadn't been too eloquent about it. Rossi also found pride in the fact that it had been his books that Angela worshipped and his books that she quoted during different parts of the investigation.
Once they returned to the Precinct, they continued working on the profile and trying to make sense of everything until late in the evening.
"Good morning." JJ said sleepily, the very next morning.
They had spent the rest of the previous day, searching for anyone who could fit the profile they had come up with. However, not even Penelope was able to help out much. Everyone had their own doubts about the profile and some – namely Reid and Tara, were getting a bit frustrated with the lack of results. Others – like Emily, Angela and JJ, stood firmly behind the profile. Something else was not adding up. They had all the facts, but the way they played with the puzzle pieces was all wrong.
"Let's hope it's a better day than yesterday," Emily said grumpily. She really was not a morning person.
"Dr. Reid?" Angie called out for him, on their way downstairs for breakfast.
They walked slower than the rest of the team, staying behind for a moment.
"Do you really believe we have the entire profile wrong?" Angie asked curiously.
"Not the entire thing, but some of it – yes." He replied.
"Do you have another theory? I would hate it if everyone was wasting their time, only looking at what I only half suspected from the start." She offered humbly.
"Not really. At some point I thought we were dealing with a team of killers, with one of them being the Alpha, but it wouldn't make sense if it was the female. Not to be anti-feminism and all that, but it just makes no sense in this case."
Angie chuckled at his words.
"I have to admit, the thought crossed my mind as well. What if the female was the submissive one?" Angie thought out loud.
"Can't be, either." He shrugged casually.
She loved the way he was always so sure of his words. It was inspiring.
"What if there are two females?" She asked again.
"Two UnSubs makes no sense, with this MO. One is doing the planning and the killings. The other person involved might not even know they are involved. Or they may have a good reason to not come forward. But only one is the UnSub."
"Like, being in law enforcement and thinking they could get away with concealing crimes and fooling us about the killer's identity?" Angie asked and Reid nodded. "But…why?"
"If your theory from yesterday is valid, those were crimes of passion, the crimes of a woman scorned. Maybe she is the one in law enforcement?"
Angie shook her head at his words.
"Nope. Can't be. She's too amateur for that. She can't even be a Rookie, as that would leave her no time to go commit the crimes and go back to work in her work clothes. Plus, it makes no sense…the crimes were committed in broad daylight, when she would have been on shift. She couldn't possibly change clothes to go kill someone and then go hide behind the badge again. And we have a witness who has seen the killer in plain clothes…but damn it, that was from a far and we couldn't get a good description. Ugh. This is frustrating." Angie stomped her foot lightly.
"Relax those nerves. You can't let them control you." Rossi came up from behind them.
He had been walking five steps behind and he had overheard a good portion of their last few verbal exchanges. It was tickling his curiosity – to see how this girl thought, how she acted, how she came to her own conclusions, especially if he was not around. He already knew she wanted to impress him and he could feel she was under pressure to perform well in his presence, but eavesdropping on her and any other member of the team, was precious. He drew his own conclusions about her.
"Take a breath." Rossi said with a smile. "Now, start from the beginning. What do we know?"
"Not much. We only have a profile that has not given us a single suspect so far." She shrugged.
"And a bogus confession." Rossi added with a smirk.
"Oh, she told you about that?" Angie sighed with relief.
She was the Queen of secrets, but when it came to hiding valuable information from her team, she was a bit wary, but Emily had asked her to keep quiet about the false confession, so she literally had no other choice.
"She kind of had to." Rossi laughed. "It surprises me that you were able to keep quiet about the interrogation."
"Oh, I'm full of surprises…" She trailed off.
If only Rossi knew…
"Hey guys!" Matt and Luke greeted the three of them as they neared the breakfast table as well.
Everyone sat down and grabbed a cup of coffee before Rossi announced that Angela was going to break down what they knew, so they could maybe come up with new ideas.
"Alright, so far we suspect foul play with the local police station that invited us on the case. It couldn't be anyone in the higher positions, as they would have evited bringing the FBI along, if their sole aim was to fool us around and make us look the other way. So it must be just a police officer, one of the many. Now, he must be covering for a female who…" She started off, but soon realized how hard it was to put her own thoughts into words – quickly, eloquently and efficiently, so that everyone could follow her own train of thought.
"A female who is our UnSub. The woman scorned. She plots revenge on anyone her husband had cheated on her with. The reason must be personal. We already had Garcia go through everyone's records, but she came up with no female spouse of any police officer, unable to conceive. So, maybe this is where we went wrong with our profile…" Emily continued Angie's words, helping her out a little bit.
Angie smiled, seeing that even the Unit Chief trailed off and needed a moment to think before they continued speaking. So, maybe it was normal to not be able to speak perfectly and be absolutely precise with everything, all the time. That was a relief!
"But it must be true, because why else would a female UnSub attack the female victims' reproductive organs?" Angie pointed out a fact that reinforced their profile.
"Jealousy?" Emily suggested.
"So, could it be that the male in the family is impotent? And the wife is simply attacking his mistresses? But then again, if he wanted kids, why not try with his own wife? Why cheat on her with multiple others? Why have a specific type of woman he'd always cheat with, if they look nothing like his wife? I mean, Garcia was unable to find a spouse with the height, ethnicity and built of the victims…" Angie murmured.
"What if they are not even married?" Emily had already figured something out, but she was giving Angela time to come to that conclusion as well.
"Engaged? That would make sense – if one of them…no wait. I mean – if the male found out it was hard to start a family, he must have been in denial, he must have blamed his wife. He may have gone to the doctor and he may already know it is his fault – and I use the term 'fault' in a very metaphoric way, given the touchy subject." Angie excused herself before someone would think she was being insensitive.
"He must have taken his denial to a whole new level then, trying to get other women pregnant – women that look like his wife. What's there to lose? He loves his wife, wait, no…his fiancé, so yeah…he loves his fiancé and he is obviously attracted to her, so by finding a woman who resembles her, he thinks he can start a family with her instead and still like her as much. It's easier to switch to a new partner, I mean, they aren't even really married yet, so there is nothing stopping him." Angie remained short out of breath after that downpour.
She also felt a little less guilty for trailing off and taking a second to correct herself while speaking. If Emily could do so and not be judged for it, then Angela could, too.
"I'm not finished yet!" She said breathlessly when she saw Emily open her mouth, wanting to speak.
Her little outburst, combined with the way she so effortlessly shut the Unit Chief up, made some of the team members suppress a chuckle. If it had been anyone else, outside the BAU team, Emily would have bit their head off, chewed it up and spit it back in place, on top of their shoulders. But with Angela she just smiled, with a weird look on her face. She seemed…proud.
"He cheated, wanting desperately to not be the reason why he couldn't have the family he wanted. So, he kept on trying, with different women. And his fiancé must have learned about it. I have no idea what her problem is, I mean – her trigger, but at some point she flipped a switch and she started killing her doppelgangers off, wanting her fiancé all to herself. What if he broke off the engagement? What if he managed to get another woman pregnant, instead? Wait, no, that won't make sense, because then it would mean he can actually reproduce. Ugh!" Angela groaned unhappily and took a sip of her coffee.
"Is she always this energetic and bubbly?" Matt asked rhetorically. Having four kids of his own, he was not a morning person and he would never be able to have such a clear mind, as Angela, despite her confusion with a few parts of the profile.
"Pretty much." Emily replied to his question anyway, before she looked back at Angela.
"Don't look for the obvious." Emily said to her, as if she was reminding her something Angela must have heard of, in class.
"If this revolves around having children…" Angie licked her bottom lip inadvertently. She could not have had a more Prentiss-like reaction, even if she tried to.
"What if this is not about having one? What if it is about losing one?" Angie added, feeling like she had just cracked the entire case. For some reason, that theory sounded right, it was the first time that she had felt good about this case, even if the suggestion was farfetched.
"Seriously? A woman would go on a killing spree after losing a child?" Tara asked. She was more than confused. She was a woman, but she could never imagine being in the shoes of the UnSub.
"Yes!" Emily replied instantly.
Rossi shot her a glance, but said nothing. The confusion in everyone's eyes led him to believe Emily had never shared certain things from her past, with any of them.
JJ then said her two cents and everyone else jumped in, enriching the profile they had come up with, the day before. In the end, and after a very long breakfast, they had an improved profile – one that Garcia could finally work with.
Before lunch they were able to rule out all the married officers and to focus on the other ones, primarily. However, no connection to such a woman popped up.
"Bloody Hell!" Angela muttered to herself, on their way to lunch that day.
"Dude, you sounded so British!" Luke pointed out, having overheard that slight accent that inevitably popped up when she used a British slang expression.
"Wow, so intuitive! Apparently you don't keep him around just for the looks." Angie nudged Emily, teasing Luke with her words.
"Oh, says Little Miss Fairy, with the snappy attitude and the golden smile." He teased her right back.
"Kids…behave!" Emily scolded them jokingly, just because it felt good to do so.
Angela did not mind. Luke felt awkward, however. This was his Boss, scolding him like a child.
"Oh, look at that – the Master turns out to be the submissive one." Luke smirked, noticing how much Angela enjoyed Emily's words.
"Goddamn!" Emily gasped out loud, nearly tripping on the small flight of stairs that led to the restaurant of their choice.
"I do not freaking need to know these things! God help me, I need new ears. Eww!" She added, placing her hands over her ears in a very demonstrative way and darting forward before she could hear any more teasing going on between these two.
In fact, she was happy that Angela was creating different vibes with the different team members. The one thing she regretted was that she never had the chance to meet JJ – the real JJ, the fun JJ, her best friend JJ.
As they all set around the table, different little conversations started. Angie kept quiet at the beginning, eavesdropping on everything that was going on. She was curious to know everything about everyone and she knew she only had a few more days left to enjoy this sweet little dream of hers.
"How about you?" Tara asked her, noticing Angie's lack of words.
"Me…what?" Angie asked.
She had been busy listening to some theory that Reid was explaining to JJ at that moment, so she had no idea what Tara and Matt were currently discussing when Tara decided to bring her into that conversation.
"What's the most dumb and dangerous thing you've ever done in your life?" Tara repeated the question.
"I gave someone complete control over me." Angie replied quickly, as if she did not need time to even think about it.
"I meant – dangerous, as in risky, stupid, highly uncharacteristic of you." Tara tried to rephrase it, wondering if Angela even understood the question.
"Yes. That." Angie nodded, not changing her previous reply.
Emily pursed her lips. Being somewhat of a 'mom' within the group, she had the ability to overhear everything and whenever Angela was involved, she was surely listening even more intently.
"What about you?" This time it was Angela who brought Emily into the conversation. She was well aware that the big Boss was following her every move, listening to her every word.
"I screwed someone over, whatever my intentions really might have been." Emily replied quickly as well.
"Ah, this is wonderful." Tara exclaimed. "No work-related talk. Just some small talk about random things."
Angie looked away for a second. This was not small. Not to her. This was the worst thing she had ever done to herself or rather – the worst thing she had allowed someone to do to her.
"What?" Tara sensed that her words had offended both Angela and Emily. "You two profilers should know that the healing process only starts after admitting the problem out loud. And you both just did. Who knows? Maybe you're starting to heal from whatever happened in your past?" She added, shooting both of them consecutive glances.
"I doubt that." Angela said bitterly after checking out Emily's confused facial expression.
"Yeah. To some people even death sounds like a better option, than to admit their problem out loud." Emily didn't sound any more cheerful than Angela just now.
If they were talking about the same thing, it would look like they were going at each other with subtle digs. However, none of them had gone into details about their story, so Tara just shrugged it off and decided that this was yet one more of their weird little verbal communications that didn't make sense to anyone else, but the two of them.
"I just can't imagine you ever doing anything illegal anyways." Reid butted in, having overheard Tara's question previously.
"That's what everyone tells me." Angie fluttered her eyes in the most innocent of ways.
She might have been able to fool Reid, but Emily knew this girl was capable of stuff. And so did Rossi. JJ was still under the impression that Angie would pass out on her first real crime scene visit, which reminded Emily of something she needed to share with everyone.
"So, guys, I never told you, but Angela was a real trooper in New Jersey…" Emily started off, telling them how professionally Angela had handled herself the previous day.
It definitely improved Angela's mood, which had been a bit weird ever since Tara had asked that question. Angela despised having to talk about herself, especially about her past. It was nothing personal against whoever was asking. It just was what it was and she could not help it.
"She didn't pass out?" JJ said with her jaw dropped.
"No, she did not." Angela replied, instead of Emily, speaking about herself in third person.
Apparently, she had still not opened up to the possibility of being JJ's friend.
"I meant that as a compliment…" JJ shrugged, taking a sip of water before she spoke again. "It's actually really cool that you were able to be so focused and calm. I remember my first crime scene. Jesus, I don't think I'll ever forget that!"
Suddenly, Angie's mood shifted again.
"Oh?" She asked curiously. "Why?"
"Let's just say that if I had to answer Tara's previous question about the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my life, I'd say it was that night. And I'll leave it at that." JJ replied shortly, grimacing just at the thought of that first case she had been assigned on.
"The question was about the worst thing that you have done yourself, in life…" Angie corrected her, sounding like the smart ass in school.
She didn't mean to, but it was crucial she'd point that out, because if the question had been formulated the way JJ mentioned, Angela's answer would have been completely different than what she had told Tara.
"Sorry. I tend to come off as a know-it-all. I'm actually not. Sadly." Angela apologized immediately, realizing her mistake.
It didn't go unnoticed by the team. Everyone knew she wasn't a fan of JJ's, but to hear her apologize so sincerely, for such a small thing, showed them how good of a person she was, even with the ones she seemed to dislike.
Their orders started to arrive and that changed the topic of the current conversation. They were now discussing favorite foods.
"Indian food!" Matt replied the question that had originally been asked by Reid.
"Italian food. Obviously." Rossi laughed it off. Everyone expected him to say that.
"I kind of change my mind about it all the time." Emily shrugged when she saw Rossi look at her, awaiting her reply.
"Ah, the Queen of Take Out has spoken!" JJ teased her.
"I used to call this weird new Thai take away restaurant quite often and then I just got bored of it and I switched back to Mexican. So now, I don't know what I like, because I'm starting to get bored of that, too." Emily stated proudly.
"You always switch back to Mexican when everything else fails you." JJ pointed out and it was true. Emily had always loved Mexican, in different moments of her life.
"I can't help going back to what I love." Emily smiled. She wasn't even talking about food at that specific moment.
"It's hard not to go back to what you love…" Angie muttered to herself, smiling a little, but smiling through pain.
"My favorite is Puerto-Rican food." Luke said, proud of his heritage, before he looked at Angela, who was the only one who hadn't yet answered that question.
"Free food. God, I love it." Angie, once again, came up with a reply that was both honest and entertaining. "Although, I'd pay mad cash for some tembleque right now." She added, licking her lips.
"Coconut pudding kind of girl?" Luke pointed out, impressed that she even knew the word for that desert that was typical for his native country.
"Dessert kind of girl." She corrected him, letting everyone know she could be corrupted with sweets – any time.
They all made it a point not to ruin their lunch with work talk. They had already ruined their breakfast with it, even if it ended up serving a purpose. But lunch was sacred and they needed to clear their heads, so they could face the rest of the day.
"Hey?" Angie called out after lunch.
A whole bunch of heads turned to check out if she was calling them, but she pointed at JJ instead.
"Are you okay?" She asked silently.
"I mean, about that case…" She added when JJ failed to understand the question.
Angie felt a bit responsible for having brought it up, even if she didn't do so directly. In whatever way, she felt like she had to check in on JJ, especially since she had already figured out that woman was having her own personal drama going on, on top of this crazy stressful job, her recent scolding by her Boss and her near fallout with her best friend – said Boss.
"It was fifteen years ago-…" JJ started to sugarcoat it, but Angela was smarter.
"The question was not how long ago it happened, but how do you feel about it right now, right here…are you okay?" Angie said confidently.
JJ checked her out for a second – the girl was much younger and still, she stood tall, with her chin up and her head held high, as she challenged her to answer the question. She knew it was coming from a place of good, it was obvious.
"I don't like talking about it." JJ shrugged.
She was more than not okay, but she wouldn't bother anyone with the specifics, let alone someone who was so headstrong on walking the path JJ had walked. Angela was bound to have her own nightmares, her own unsolved cases that would drive her insane, her own daemons that would haunt her forever, based on decisions she might have taken years ago.
JJ simply walked away, suddenly walking in the opposite direction to their room. She needed a moment. The memory of what had happened was too vivid and she needed to cool off a little before she'd be able to work. She also had an incoming audio message from Will, which she had been postponing on hearing since this morning, so she had enough on her plate already, without having to add years of pent up trauma to the mix.
"For the love of God, JJ…" Emily called out after her.
Of course she had witnessed the little scene. Did Angela ever do anything that did go unnoticed by Emily?
"That's not how you win her over." Emily added, trying to sit next to JJ who had found a flight of stairs now and had wasted no time in pretending like the top of the steps was a bench, or a chair, or whatever thing that it was okay to sit on. She just needed to feel steady ground underneath her.
"No…" JJ whispered, placing her hand on the spot where Emily intended to sit, thus preventing her to do so. "I need a moment. Please?"
"Of course." Emily gulped.
Clearly this was a serious matter, if just the mere mention of something had hit JJ so hard.
"We'll be in the room. Take all the time you need. Let me know if you want me to take you off the case and send you back home. And no, I don't mean that as a punishment. Maybe a few days off will help you relax." Emily suggested.
"Home is the last place on Earth I'd like to be at, right now." JJ rolled her eyes.
She loved her kids, but it was hard to see her family struggle to be together, in the same room. She had been forced to smile and act like nothing was wrong, during family dinner time and breakfast time, so that Henry and Michael won't notice something was going on, but the truth was – she was relieved to be out the door each morning and stressed out to have to walk back in, each night.
As the day progressed, the team kept analyzing every little piece of information they had. Garcia hadn't yet found the person they were looking for and the team hadn't been able to figure out which one of the police officers was the one involved.
Angela kept her quiet at times when the team was focused and she kept them entertained those other times when she felt like they were in dire need of a laugh or two.
Rossi kept noticing small things about this girl – how good she was at figuring out what someone needed at different moments through the day. He had seen her approach Tara when she was about to kick a chair across the meeting room, desperate from the lack of results. She also spoke to Garcia on the phone, walking her through something gruesome and making sure Garcia wouldn't find it way too disturbing. At some point, Angela went out for a coffee run and she brought back the coffee that Emily and Matt had wanted, but she also brought one for JJ, who hadn't even asked for a drink.
Before the evening came, Angie sat with Reid, picking his brain once again, as he was still not convinced their profile was as good as the rest of the team claimed it to be. They came up with a tiny little improvement that finally allowed Garcia to scratch a few more policemen off her long list of suspects, narrowing it down to a number that the BAU could work with more efficiently.
"Twelve." Garcia announced on the phone, after yet another search had completed. "None of whom are married, but they are engaged or in a serious relationship anyway."
"Thanks, Garcia." Emily muttered.
Twelve was still too big of a number. This was the second full day on the job, not counting Monday afternoon, and they still felt like they were nowhere.
At that same moment, Luke was playing some trick on Angela and trying to distract her.
"Stop! Jesus, you're such a stalker!" Angie said, faking being irritated.
It was fun to mess around with him. He reminded her of Bryan and they had this easygoing relationship where they would mess around with each other and pretend to be upset, but it was all good. Angela respected people who were not afraid to challenge her, to tease her, to get on her nerves a little bit. She hated it when people treated her like she was a feather, it annoyed her genuinely. Thankfully, nobody at the BAU was like that. They were tough, just enough, and then they were cool and chill, just like she enjoyed it.
"Oh my God!" Angie gasped right after she half-insulted Luke.
"That's what I make all of them scream…" Luke smirked, hoping he hadn't pushed his teasing a bit too far.
"Eww! Shut up. You are so full of yourself. Ugh." Angie faked annoyance once again, making him laugh.
"Stalking! What if that's the case?" Angie pointed out, unsure if the team was even listening to her anymore.
She had been speaking nonstop, ever since they had asked for her opinion. If she had to be honest with herself, she felt like she fit right in, with them. She wasn't being treated like anything less than the other profilers. If anything – they were constantly asking her thoughts about things, they let her analyze the evidence first, so they could correct her if she was wrong, instead of doing it all themselves and having this entire week be a huge waste of time for her, if she learned nothing from first-hand experience.
"Tell me more…" Emily sat on top of the meeting room table and motioned for everyone to gather around.
"What if we were unable to find the UnSub, because she isn't a policeman's wife, nor fiancé. What if she is a stalker and he maybe has no idea who she really is? Think about it – the rage and the MO fit with the profile of an organized, psychopathic serial killer, with a narcissistic syndrome and stalking is the first plausible suspicion we should have when it comes to such an individual. What if she somehow knows the policeman and she is convinced in her own mind that he belongs to her, but for whatever reason they cannot be together and that…" Angie trailed off for a second before she would start being chaotic with her words.
"…That was the trigger? Maybe something happened and the UnSub felt like she was being let down by the policeman and she started the spree?" Angie added, wording it to the best of her abilities. Sadly, it still had a lot of 'what if' and 'maybe' in it.
"I think she might be onto something here. It certainly fits the narrative – stalking, revenge after being pushed away. But there is also this rage, this undeniable sexual component, as if there was something between them…" Rossi commented. "I don't think they are complete strangers. This feels personal."
"That's true. But in your book 'Eyes Of A Predator' you wrote about the exclusions from the rules, when it comes to sexually driven major crimes. Chapter seven, to be exact." Angie closed her eyes for a moment, trying to remember the exact words.
"A fantasy would only make sense to the UnSub and if the evidence collected does not allow us to finish the puzzle, then we need to look at it differently." She quoted. "Maybe it's not a puzzle we need to be playing with, maybe it's a completely different game. Sexually driven major crimes have to do with lust, revenge and disappointment, but what is the one thing they always have in common?" Angie didn't mean to, but she was challenging Rossi – the mere author of the book she was quoting.
"The forbidden…" He recalled.
Back in the days he had done some extensive research and he had hated writing this chapter. He liked rules – perfectly square puzzle pieces that fit tightly next to one another, forming the perfect puzzle. Angela, however, seemed to be enjoying the unknown, she liked to think outside the box and the more challenging something was, the more into it she seemed.
"Exactly! What if the UnSub knows it is impossible to be with the police officer and she extracts revenge against the women he can actually be with?" Angie suggested.
"Why wouldn't a woman be able to be with a man?" Matt asked, missing the point.
"The forbidden!" Emily warmed up to what Angela was trying to say.
"Incest!" She added.
"Precisely! What if the connection is through family, not through the wish to start a family together? We were right about the family factor, we were just looking at it all wrong! The UnSub knows she can never have her family with this man, because they already have some sort of a family connection." Angie said, flipping some of the numerous papers she had printed after Garcia had sent them out.
"Scratch the single guys out completely!" She suggested, placing aside some officers' documents.
For someone who was not even a Rookie herself, not even halfway done with her Academy training, she sure felt in her element, analyzing everything and speaking out when she had something to say. She was confident, but not overly confident. She was forward, but not rude. She was sure of her words, but if they were disproved, she would like to know why and she would learn from that mistake.
The team noticed all that and they gladly let her take over, in a way. They had never had such an Intern who would feel so comfortable and so involved in their very first investigation. It was nice to have Angela around now, with all of her quirks, her bubbliness and her seemingly never ending energy, not to mention – that deep desire to learn, to improve, to be just like them, to fit in, to be one of them.
"We are looking for someone who recently did something to trigger the UnSub. This fantasy of hers might have been going on for years, but whatever the guy did, pushed her over the edge – it broke her fake little world and it set her off." Angie kept on ranting.
"Where is she!?" She asked, now hysterically flipping through the numerous victims' photos and files.
"The first victim! It's always about the first victim! The rest of them are just collateral. It's always about that first kill!" She spoke, as if she was reading those words.
"Deviance…" Rossi smirked, mentioning the name of yet another one of his best sellers.
"Chapter three, second part – Victimology and the importance of the first victim!" Angie stated without even glancing at him. She was still busy trying to figure out where the papers she needed were.
"Yes! Her!" She showed everyone the photo of the first victim and she grinned. "This is our connection to the police officer. It's not the UnSub, or the crime scene. It's this – her, the first victim!"
In her hand there was a photo of a woman who fit the initial profile down to the last detail. At first they thought it had been the way the UnSub would look, but it was really the first victim, instead.
"Guys, she's absolutely right…" Reid spoke up and then poured out some theory that everyone agreed with.
As soon as they called Garcia with this new and improved profile, she was able to narrow it down to two men – one who had just gotten engaged and one who had just married his high-school sweetheart – both women fit the description of all the victims.
"Oh-ooh…" Garcia said mysteriously as she discovered some more information on those women.
"Check this out – Officer Gary's bride went missing just days after the wedding. She was later found stabbed to death, in the hotel room where their honeymoon was." Garcia informed them. "Check your tablets…"
"Holy crap!" Emily murmured, opening a photo of their first known victim's crime scene – a photo they had examined previously, without knowing the connection and the importance of this woman.
"So, the UnSub was triggered by this guy – Officer Gary, who just got married to the girl he had always loved? And so she went on and killed her, but this was not enough, because she realized she still can't be with him, so she kept on killing women who look identical to his wife?" JJ narrated.
"Exactly! It wasn't the policeman who was cheating with all these similar women. It was the UnSub who kept on killing his wife, over and over again, punishing her for taking him away from her." Rossi pointed out.
"Yes, just like in your book! The exclusion from the rules – family incest! So, the UnSub must be somehow related to Gary." Angie couldn't help but say it once again – Rossi's book was why she had been able to even suspect this whole thing.
"Uh, guys?" Garcia sounded preoccupied. "There's a sealed something old and dusty, on Officer Gary…from when he was a teenager."
"Are you waiting for a formal invitation to unseal it?" Emily said grumpily.
Sometimes, during complicated cases, Emily tended to come off a bit feisty and possibly borderline rude. Everyone loved her for it, as long as they were not on the receiving end of her wrath.
No, in fact Garcia was unsealing those records as she spoke.
"Okay, so Officer Gary filed a sexual harassment complaint when he was sixteen. It got overlooked, as he was a bit of a troublemaker at the time and his parents thought it was just the product of his imagination. Apparently, his eighteen year old cousin Sammi had been making advances on him, ever since their families started living under the same roof. A few months after that complaint go overruled and sealed, as he was still a minor, Sammi had a little run in with Liah – Gary's high school girlfriend…" Garcia kept on reading her findings to the team.
"The woman he married – Sammi's trigger!" Angie couldn't help but point out the obvious.
In a way it made her feel good to say it out loud, although she quickly realized it had been a nerdy move on her side, as everyone else had already thought the same thing and needed no further confirmation of it.
"Liah was also a minor at the time of this…let's just call it 'fist fight', rather than 'cat fight', okay? There are juicy details here…Liah is quite a puncher…" Garcia chuckled. "…My point is, this got sealed, as well. Nobody was held responsible and it was all kept hush-hush. Also, Gary's childhood dream was to be a policeman and he acted on it right after high school, joining the Police Academy as soon as he possibly could."
"That must have prompted Sammi to join the Academy, too. In her mind maybe she thought that if she proved worthy of him – worthy of living his life, doing his job, too…then maybe he would change his mind. But once he got married, she knew there was no turning back and she took her revenge on him, through Liah." JJ spoke.
"But that could not have been enough…" Angie took the word from JJ and she continued. "She kept on finding women that resemble her, she wanted to re-live the high of the first kill, which by the way, as The David Rossi says in one of his books…"
Rossi interrupted Angela as he laughed lightly. She had no idea she had trailed off, calling him The David Rossi, as she usually called him when he was not around. She was not used to being in his presence, so those words of pure worship just rolled off her tongue before she would notice how geeky they would make her look.
He appreciated it.
"Anyway, go read his fifth book, chapter eight – re-living the high of the first kill." She added nerdily, just in case anyone had been interested to hear her finish off that sentence.
"Free publicity? I like you!" Rossi smirked, feeling somewhat proud, for an odd reason.
Angela was definitely tickling his ego with all these compliments and he could tell they were genuine by the way they naturally came out in conversations.
"Well, that was satisfying!" Angie said with her head held high, late that same night.
Hours had gone by since the meeting that had cracked the case. Having names and addresses, they had been able to make an arrest, but since they hadn't found Sammi red-handed, they had been forced to take her in for questioning first. Emily could not deny Angela the pleasure of conducting one more interrogation, even if an Academy Trainee was not exactly fluent enough in such techniques. Angela deserved the shot and Emily believed in her, enough to have her in the interrogation room.
Before walking in, they quickly said a few words to each other, strategizing. Emily had given Angela lots of leeway when it came to the questions she could ask and the details she could give Sammi. The rest of the team had waited in the adjacent room, checking on the interview progress through the glass wall and listening in. JJ was more than surprised to find out how eloquent and how sneaky Angela was with her words, twisting Sammi's denial in ways that inevitably led her to telling the entire truth and giving them a full confession.
The final profile had been the right one and what had been missing up until the interrogation was why this random man had come forward with a fake confession, just a day ago. Apparently, he was madly in love with Sammi and he had learned about one of the victims, after which Sammi had told him about the others. Blinded by his feelings for her, he had proposed to take the blame and do the time in jail, so that he could be with Sammi when he got out. He had always known that Sammi's heart was not set on him and he was just a toy for her to play with, so by covering up her crimes, he thought it was a nice enough gesture to make her fall in love with him. It had been the same tactic Sammi had used with her cousin Gary – she had tried out the Police Academy, thinking maybe then he would see her as more than just a cousin.
"Thank you for believing in me." Angela added, walking out of the interrogation room, leaving the local policemen take Sammi into custody.
"Always!" Emily winked at her and could not help but mess her hair a little bit.
Angela hated it when people touched her hair, but with Emily she just giggled and it was so effortless. She sounded like a happy child, with her high-pitch giggle – one that she simply could not suppress.
Instinctively, she leaned into Emily's frame as they walked down the hallway together, with Emily's hand sliding to hold her losely. The rest of the team was just exiting the adjacent room and Reid called out for Angela, wanting to tell her how impressed he was with her interrogation techniques and knowledge of persuasion ones, too. Ultimately, it had been Emily who had broken Sammi, but Angela's constant nagging during the interrogation had helped tremendously, too.
Rossi had noticed how, a few times through the whole hour of interrogation, Angela had used tips that she must have found in his books. It was too much to be all a coincidence, if it wasn't his words that she was going by. He had also seen her moment of silence where it was noticeable, probably only to him as a profiler, that she was ill-at-ease. It had been at the very beginning of the interrogation when Emily was going hard at Sammi and Angela had not yet found her own voice. What made the biggest impression on him, however, was the fact that Emily and Angela had a non-spoken understanding…an accordance, a certain type of harmony in the way they spoke to the UnSub. It almost felt rehearsed and it was not the first time he felt this way, watching them interact in different situations.
"Now that our job is done, how about we celebrate the BAU way?" Rossi suggested, hurrying up to offer the dinner before Emily would do so.
"Cocktails and dancing!?" Angie's eyes lit up, just at the thought of that.
"Pff, you think we're fancy or something?" Tara laughed, walking by her on the way to go grab her stuff.
"He meant pizza and beer." Matt brushed by Angela as well, eager to gather his belongings and to get the Hell out of the boiling hot Precinct.
"Oh, I love pizza!" She licked her lips, omitting the additional fact that she despised beer.
With their job done, they all headed out and found themselves a cozy little restaurant to spend the next two hours at. They had put Garcia on the line for a few minutes, raising a virtual toast with her, for the job well done. Emily also asked Garcia to go on and make plans for the trip back home on the next day, after lunch, as she knew there was still some paper work to be finalized before the FBI team could leave and she wanted to have enough time to do that. Emily hated looking like she was rushing through her job. If a policeman would ask her something, she'd want to have enough time to sit down and talk to them, rather than having to rush it all because of an upcoming flight. Plus, they had nothing else to do back at Quantico, so half a day more in New York could actually turn out to be fun and everyone can do little leisure things that would make them feel good. They had deserved it.
"I can't believe this is your first time doing all of this…" Matt pointed out, looking at Angela when the conversation took turn and started to concentrate on her, again.
"Yeah, it's like you've done it for years. You were so calm and collected." Tara commented, too.
"I owe you an apology – I thought you'd crumble on the crime scene. Oh, was I wrong!" JJ chuckled, feeling a lot better now.
Emily had been right – JJ did need to detach her mind, but from her home life, not from her job. Being focused on the case helped JJ relax a little and not overthink every little thing she had argued with Will about recently.
"It's okay. It's a common misconception people have about me." Angie smiled politely, replying to JJ's words.
If only they knew how easily she could fool someone to believe she was an airhead, with those beautiful eyes and that wide smile of hers. And then, if only they knew just how smart and capable she really was, underneath the coat of pretense.
"You really do think like a profiler." Reid added. "I think I like you even more now. In fact, I'm almost certain I like you about two and a half times more now, compared to when I first met you. You are welcome."
Angie laughed lightly at the way he spoke. He always found a way to be funny, without even trying to do so. And he was so insanely smart that he often left her wondering – does she like and respect him for being so smart or is she beyond jealous of his brains?
"You are a profiler." Rossi commented briefly before struggling to use a knife that was not suitable for cutting a pizza. He then mumbled some insult in Italian, cursing the restaurant owners for their bad choice of cutlery.
"What I am is lucky! You guys are awesome and I never thought I'd learn from eight people, just by following one person, for a week. I don't think any other Trainee has ever been given such an opportunity!" Angie said proudly.
"You are welcome." Luke teased her, using the same words that Reid had just used when he had made her laugh.
This time, however, Angie folded her arms and looked at Luke scoldingly.
"You are way more full of yourself than I originally imagined." She teased him right back.
"This learning opportunity is all thanks to Ma'am Prentiss." Angie added, pointing at Emily, as if she was showcasing her to the team, thus making her blush profoundly.
"Stop it…" Emily murmured, feeling uncomfortable.
"Sir Prentiss?" Angie corrected herself, since Emily kept on hating being referred to as 'Madam'.
"Angela!" Emily hissed underneath her breath.
"Yes, Sir! Your Highness, Lord Prentiss!" Angie kept on dramatizing, now making everyone laugh uncontrollably.
It wasn't an everyday thing that someone would take the complete piss out of Emily Prentiss – the Unit Chief. And it almost never happened that someone would survive such a direct and vile attack to her ego. But somehow, with Angela, Emily didn't seem to be offended at all. In fact, she was visibly suppressing her own laughter.
"The Queen of…" Angie trailed off, searching for the right words, but everyone else had something to suggest to that teasing game.
"Lies!" Tara was the first one to shoot a possible ending to Angie's words.
"Fake deaths…" Reid said, a bit less cheerful as he spoke.
He was still holding a grudge against Emily, for the Doyle drama she had put the entire team through, namely the way she had just come back from the dead, seven months after they had started to mourn her death.
"Biting her nails!" JJ chuckled, dodging a scrunched napkin that Emily instantly threw her way.
"Is anyone going to say anything nice about me? Or should I just fire all of you?" Emily played the Boss card jokingly.
"Actually, I have a lot of good things to say about Emily Prentiss…" Angie shrugged.
Had she not been interrupted, she would have maybe said some of those things out loud. But right now, it was obvious she didn't want to elaborate on that. And it was okay, because as long as Emily knew there was good to be said about her by Angela, she was fine.
"I'll just say that she's a total bad ass!" Angie smirked, only giving her half a compliment.
Rossi caught on the way Angela switched between 'you' and 'her', when referring to Emily. It almost felt like she was talking about two completely different people. Then again, he could just be overanalyzing the words of a young girl. Who was he to judge the way youngsters talk these days? Maybe this was a new type of a joke? Emily surely didn't mind hearing those words and it didn't seem to him like she had even noticed the two different ways Angie referred to her, so why make a big deal out of it?
The evening ended calmly and the team was on their way back to the hotel when Angela mentioned shots. It took them three seconds and a half to find a nearby bar where they could all have a drink and listen to some music before going back to the hotel, ultimately, tired and sleepy, but most of all – proud of the job well done!
REVIEW REPLIES:
"rmpcmfan" I ADORE Rossi! Some of Angie's obsession and some of Emily's appreciation for him is driven by what I personally feel about Rossi's character - a mentor, an amazing man, an inspiration! Angie surely knows how to choose the important people to surround herself with and to worship! She has a very high/positive opinion of herself (NOT in a conceited way!)...however, around Emily she feels somewhat weak, small...not good enough. As for Emily and the budget...let's just say that a Prentiss woman won't stop at ANYTHING, in order to get what she wants! Remember those words *wink*!
"Ducksdragonfly" Yeah, Angie has many faces (NO hinting at bipolar, though!) She shows different colors to the different people, based on the vibes she feels with them. Certain things she won't tell anyone, not even Emily whom it is obvious she worships. Wait, you mean both Em and ANGELA have been undercover in their lives? Interesting theory! Btw you are super intuitive and you always catch the psychological details...funny you should mention sociopathy - there is some mention of that in an upcoming chapter. I appreciate the fact that you clearly (obviously!) know the difference between sociopath and psychopath hehe. Many people get it wrong. As for Angie, she has some major issues going on and she is desperately trying all techniques to resolve them, but is finding it hard. She can't confide in anyone, especially not in Emily, and that weights on her. Her previous life experiences have definitely contributed to Angie's fears. She's way different than what the first chapters paint her and she knows it. She likes it this way. You will slowly learn about her insecurities before you learn the reason for those, although I'm sure YOU will figure it out first, if you haven't already. The letters from Monkey, therapy with Martha, some hidden meanings in Angie's seemingly random verbal outbursts...they all give clues to her past and problems. In fact, at some point the story will feature some chapters entirely based on flashbacks from the past and those will explain everything!
"zhangxinna" Chapter 99: LOL, yeah Luke's the 'fun' one, out of everyone. I needed Angela to have a 'fun' friend to hang out with that night. They could both use some unwinding right now - with Angela and her Academy training and Luke and his break up. She will have specific relationships with the different team members :) Luke's the one to go party with and to grab a drink with and not feel pressured to be perfect or anyone other than herself. Angela really appreciates having such people around. Plus, she enjoys busting someone's balls and playing around in a joking manner. PS: It's so nice to hear from you again :)! How did your exam session go? Also, the stuff I write after this sentence are ALL in reply to YOU :)!
"zhangxinna" Chapter 100: OMG, why are you so cuuuuute? That was so incredibly nice of you to say! Thank you so much (can we be friends!? hehe). Yes, I started this story as short chapters, but then it kind of went BOOM and I'm now posting chapters that are 5-6-7 times longer than the initial ones (hence I don't post every day, otherwise I would go crazy LOL!). (Keep reading, everything else is in reply to YOU).
Angie & JJ...hmm, we'll see what's up with those two!
Angie makes Rossi super curious (as proven in Chapter 101), so he's definitely keeping an eye on her, and on Emily, too!
By now you already know that Angie has some sort of a fixation with the BAU and with Rossi. And you also know that it is absolutely impossible for the BAU to welcome an intern this year. You also know that Emily is the most headstrong person, who won't back down! *wink*
Angie/Bryan are like Garcia/Morgan or Emily/Morgan or JJ/Reid...but now that they won't be together all the time (after the Academy), Angie needs another partner in crime hehe!
About the case: you already think like a profiler! Good theory, that was exactly what Angela figured out as well!
As for Emily & Richard: At this time of age, is it still the MAN who would have to be the knight in shining armor, to go whisk his Princess away? Or could it maybe be the other way around? Hehe, just saying. :P Your patience about them will very soon be rewarded :P But it won't be anything like what you're probably imagining right now, hehehe! Just wait for it. I'm really excited to share that specific chapter with everyone! Imagine something out of the box...multiply it by a thousand...turn the roles around...and you'll still be surprised (I HOPE, LOL)! Okay, I should not raise anyone's hopes too high, though, let me humble myself - just wait a tiny bit longer :P
