The Last Word

'If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.' ~ Elbert Hubbard

It wasn't an everyday occurrence that a pretty, dark-haired woman walked into the bullpen with a box of stuff in her hands. But as I sat at my desk, mindlessly drowning out Reid's rambling about whatever topic had hold of his attention this morning, I sipped my coffee and watched as a stranger walked up to Hotch's office and knocked on the door. Elle was gone, so I had figured they would start looking for her replacement sooner than later. Strauss was a stickler about that sort of stuff.

"What's that all about?" Derek asked as he set himself down at his desk. His eyes were fixed on the window peeking into Hotch's office. He was shaking hands with the woman, exchanging some a few words before his expression turned stern.

"Whatever it is, he's not happy about it." I deadpanned, before finishing off my mug. The slap of a case file on my desk, pulled our eyes away from Hotch and the mystery woman. JJ handed Reid and Morgan their files and motioned toward the conference room. I rose from my desk, but Hotch's voice calling my name forced me to pause before joining the rest of the team. He gave me a 'come here' gesture and I obeyed, climbing the stairs and brushing past the mystery girl who was staring expectantly at Aaron and Jason.

"Did you approve a new transfer?" Hotch asked me quietly once I was close enough. My brow furrowed. I was technically third in line for command behind the two and being not only an SSA but a licensed clinical psychologist too, I had been given clearance to approve such things.

"Nothing's come across my desk, Hotch. And if it had, I would've consulted you first. Jason?" I looked to Gideon, who shook his head, "Strauss?"

"Maybe." Hotch muttered as we started to walk to the conference room. "She has the proper paperwork to join the team. I just don't know how she got it."

"You want me to make a call?" Gideon offered. Hotch waved it off, he would look into it quietly.

JJ started her brief as soon as we sat down at the roundtable, "St. Louis is in trouble."

I flipped open my case file and glanced over it. My eyes went wide. "Two serial killers in the same city?"

Crime scene photos appeared on the TV monitor as JJ continued to explain, "This killer abducts his victims from public places, dumps them in the woods."

"They consulted us months ago after the third murder." Jason reminded us. I hadn't been a part of that consult; I was doing death row interviews at the time.

"Well, now it may be up to six." The image of a happy-looking woman appeared on the screen. "Ellen Carroll's been missing since yesterday. The first two victims were found near Mill Creek in the Mark Twain National Forest."

"No wonder it takes days to find the bodies," Reid said, looking at the map JJ had pulled up. "The forest is 1.5 million acres and 78,000 of that is wilderness."

"These other women?" I asked, turning to the back half of my file.

JJ switched gears, bringing up photos of dead prostitutes, dumped in alleyways like garbage. These women were high risk, easy to target, a total opposite to the women the Mill Creek Killer had taken.

"Eight victims, all prostitutes. Latest is Marci Mitchell. She was killed last night with a .44 Magnum. All are tied to a serial shooter claiming responsibility. He's contacted Jim Meyers, a reporter with the Missouri Herald."

"Well, he certainly doesn't think he's getting the attention he deserves." I observed, pulling a photocopy of the handwritten note out of my file.

"He signs it the Hollow Man, gives himself a name for the press." Hotch said, noting the scribbled signature at the bottom.

"Why Hollow Man?" Morgan asked, "What, does he feel hollow inside or something? Hunt?"

"It could certainly be part of it." I replied, still reading the note. "His language certainly alludes to feeling unseen and unappreciated for his work. But according to the M.E. reports on these girls, he's using hollow point bullets. A bit on the nose, but it's memorable."

JJ flipped back to the crime scene photos, "No one even knew this guy existed until he sent that letter."

"Well, he's killed more victims but look who he's chosen." Hotch remarked, "Hundreds of victims go unnoticed because they're social outcasts who never make the front page."

"When Mill Creek kills, the Hollow Man shoots another prostitute." Reid said. He always had a knack for patterns.

"So, one doesn't want to be outdone by the other." Derek observed, looking over at me. "Sounds like a sibling rivalry."

I nodded slowly. The dynamic between the two of them was certainly interesting. If we managed to take them both alive, their behavior would certainly be worthy of a thorough interview.

Gideon closed his file and threaded his fingers together in front of him, "They've been killing independently of each other for a year now. With each kill, they're learning something from the other."

I always enjoyed flying. There's just something about soaring 30,000 feet up that brings about a euphoria, even when discussing the gristly, inhumane work of serial killers. Sitting beside Hotch in the four-seat, I stared aimlessly out the window as Reid sat across from us lost in thought. That was usually how we spent our flights: in our own minds until it was time to converge and begin a preliminary profile.

It wasn't until JJ, came up and rested an arm over Reid's seat that our attentions were pulled from the intricate prisons of our minds and brought back into the real world.

"What's wrong?" she asked the boy genius. His brow was knitted together still, like he had something brewing underneath the surface but couldn't quite figure out how to say it.

"Did you know there are roughly 30 serial killers active in the U.S. at any given time? It's an incredibly rare occurrence for two of them to be operating in the same city."

"How many times has it happened?"

"To my knowledge, three. There was a guy killing at the same time as Son of Sam, then again in New Orleans, and most recently with the Phoenix murders."

"Five." I corrected him, an even rarer occurrence than two killers in the same city. "There was another man killing at the same time as the Hillside Stranglers in L.A. and Walter E. Ellis started killing women in Milwaukee in '86, around the peak of Dahmer's reign of terror."

"Serial shooters are typically loners." Hotch interrupted, using our conversation to segway into building the profile, "This guy likes to kill at night. His victims are prostitutes so he may lack confidence with women or have poor social skills."

"There's no rape. He could be impotent." Morgan added.

Gideon continued to read from his file, not looking up as he said, "He's a wannabe tough guy."

"Not hard when you're holding something as strong as a .44." I remarked, "He's practically ripping them in half with a high caliber handgun. Gives him power and allows him to distance himself from the kill."

"He doesn't want to touch the bodies with his hands." Reid agreed.

"Mill Creek Killer." Gideon said, moving on. "Hunts during the day, targets educated, middle-class women. He'd have to look and act like they do."

Reid flipped to the M.E. reports, "They died of blunt force head trauma. This guy wants to be close, he wants to feel the life leave their bodies. These guys are polar opposites."

"Just like their victims." Hotch said lowly. "They live in the same city, but they're worlds apart. I'm gonna see if the shooter's victims have any families I can talk to."

"That's a good idea. I'm already familiar with the Mill Creek case." Gideon offered. I glanced over at Reid and held up the Hollow Man's note.

"Reid, go with Hotch. When you're done, join me to work on handwriting analysis and psycholinguistics."

Morgan looked over at Gideon, "Looks like I'm with you. We'll go talk with Ellen Carroll's husband."

"And I'm meeting Jim Meyers, the reporter from the Herald." JJ informed us. Good. Having the media on our side would help.

Jason finally looked up from his file to meet JJ's eye, "Tell him not to write about the Hollow Man. If we want to draw the shooter out, best way to do that is to act like he doesn't exist."

The jet became quiet after that, allowing us to return to our private pre-case rituals. Morgan put his headphones on, Reid pulled out a book, JJ and Gideon went over their files. Next to me, Hotch leaned over and muttered, "Would you be opposed to having a new addition to the team?"

"Not at all." I replied honestly. "But we can't just let anyone waltz into the unit with paperwork to transfer, Aaron. It would put the integrity of the unit at risk."

"I agree. So, when we get back, we post the position and start vetting applicants. I'd like to have you lead the search, if that's alright."

I smiled, "Of course. I know you and Jason are drowning in consults. My next ViCAP interview isn't until the end of the month."

"That's with Barry Lorenz, isn't it?"

"Yeah, so I'll gladly put off having to think about sitting in a room with him for as long as I can."

When we touched down, I accompanied JJ to the St. Louis field office to start working on analyzing the letter. I hadn't been in the St. Louis office in years, but it felt like nothing changed no matter which field office you went to, down to the plain taupe paint job on the walls. The SAIC met us at the door and JJ put on her liaison face.

"Agent Sheridan?" she asked, a friendly smile growing on his face as he held out a hand. JJ shook it before he replied, "Agent Jareau, nice to meet you."

"You too. This is Dr. Cameron Hunt, our resident psychologist."

I smiled at the man and shook his hand, "A pleasure."

"Oh, believe me, the pleasure is all mine, Doctor. We really appreciate you guys coming here so quickly."

"Of course."

We followed Sheridan further inside and he directed us to a conference room where we could set up. Boxes upon boxes labelled for the Mill Creek Killer were stacked on the table. I set my own case file down and pulled off one of the lids. It was packed to the brim with crime scene photos, testimonies from families, M.E. reports.

"Wow, you guys are on top of Mill Creek." I commented, glancing back at Sheridan. "What about Hollow Man?"

"Right here," he gestured to a single case file sitting between the boxes. It wasn't even full.

JJ gaped at him, "There's at least eight women shot. This is all you have?"

"You both know that these cases don't generate a lot of evidence. All we have at the scene is a few bullet casings and nobody is talking."

"Well, hopefully, we can change that."

Sheridan helped me set up the dusty projector that was sitting in the corner and showed me to the copier so I could make markup versions for myself and Reid. After that, Jim Meyers arrived to speak with JJ, so I sent her on her way to speak with him and remained in the quiet conference room, scribbling my notes in the margins of the letter with a red pen.

I completely lost track of time sitting there, lost in the words on the paper until an agent knocked on the doorframe and poked his head in, "Agent Hunt?"

"Doctor." I corrected him gently, not looking up from my work. I was used to it at this point, being seen as an agent of the FBI more than the clinical psychologist I had joined the Bureau as. "It's Dr. Hunt, not Agent."

"Oh, um... sorry. It's just... Ellen Carroll's body has been found. Agent Sheridan has gone to the scene."

I nodded, eyes still glued to the paper in my hands. "Thank you for letting me know."

After a minute or two, the agent cleared his throat. I finally tore my gaze from the paper to look at him. He was giving me an expectant look, like he was waiting for me to say or do something amazing.

"Can I help you?"

"I- I'm supposed to take you to the scene."

"I'm not going to the scene."

"Why not?"

I rolled my eyes and set down the letter. "Because I'll be in the way if I go. And by the time we get there, they'll be done anyway so, what's the point of going all the way out there just to turn back around? Now, is there anything else I can do for you?"

He was gone before I even finished talking. I smirked triumphantly and went back to my work.

There was a change overnight. I stood with Hotch and Reid in the alleyway behind some posh St. Louis hotel. We looked down on two women shot with a .44 magnum, the blood from the wounds soaking through the sheet that covered them.

"Two victims in one night. Someone's trying to be an overachiever." I deadpanned.

Hotch's frown remained in place as he looked down at the girls, "It's a first for him."

"You think he went out looking to kill more than one woman or is it just happenstance?" Reid asked us.

I shrugged, "He did choose a different hunting ground this time. I mean, yeah, it's still an alley, but it's behind one of the higher end hotels in a nicer neighborhood. You get a different class of prostitute here; the type that don't walk the streets alone."

All the other sites had been behind low-income, less than reputable buildings. Alleyways filled with trash, used needles and condoms, the works. In those parts of the city, people weren't as willing to keep themselves safe in order to score or make a quick buck. They did what they needed to do.

"He was looking for a challenge." Hotch said, projecting everyone's thoughts out loud. "The question is what gave him the confidence to stray out of his comfort zone?"

A local came up and bagged a bloodied copy of yesterday's Missouri Herald that had been laid between the women. The headline read 'Sixth Victim Falls to Mill Creek Killer'.

"Make sure you run that for prints." Hotch told him as he walked away. The cop gave him a nod and Reid turned back toward the women on the ground, his brow furrowed.

"He displayed the paper between them. He took the time when he could've just tossed it aside."

"He's angry." I concluded, though that was obvious to anyone with a braincell, "He wants us to know it."

Hotch let out a small hum of agreement, "Angry enough to change his M.O."

There was nothing else we could gather from the scene, so we returned to the field office. Reid and I went back to work picking apart the letter. While I wasn't ashamed to tout my IQ score of 175, having Mr. 187 put his eyes on the letter with me helped more than I could have hoped. Graphology was a hobby of his, one of many hobbies, but the language... that was my forte. Working together, we were able to finish our analysis just as the results on the paper came back.

"Too bad we couldn't trace any prints from the paper." Reid said as JJ walked in.

I shrugged and took a seat on top of the conference table, "He's angry, but he's not stupid. Probably wore gloves."

"What do you guys have?" JJ asked us, leaning against the table beside me.

"He only sent this to an individual, which means he lacks the confidence to engage with the masses." Reid began, pointing to a section of the letter, "Emotional indicators are analyzed through slants. The shooter maintains vertical, narrow-lettered writing, which are both signs of repression. And the pressure, if you look closely, is excessively heavy, which shows that he's uptight and can easily overreact."

"All that from his handwriting?"

Reid's childish grin appeared, "Graphology is an effective and reliable indicator of personality and behavior."

"My handwriting's always different."

"That's because it symbolizes your emotions at that given time, just like your facial expressions parallel the way you're feeling while you're speaking."

JJ squinted at the note, leaning forward a bit, "It's weird that this guy writes in cursive. His message is so clear, I would've thought that he'd print everything."

"Actually, his connected writing shows that he deals with problems in a practical and direct manner."

"Like shooting someone." I quipped with a dry tone. Before I had the chance to explain the psycholinguistics, Hotch called us to put together the final profile. With the letter analysis finished, we put the last few pieces into place and gathered the entire task force to deliver it.

"The Hollow Man uses first person statements." I started, "They're simple and direct. Saying things like 'I won't be ignored' means that he's clearly tired of feeling this way. It's possible, maybe even probable, that he has a job in solitude or one that he feels strips him of his identity."

"He may be required to wear a uniform, which strips him of his individuality." Reid added, "Or he may be overqualified for his menial job and feels like he doesn't get the respect that he necessarily deserves."

"But today, he killed two women." Hotch interjected, "That tells us that he's growing confident. This is going to make him unpredictable and dangerous. And because he has no physical contact with his victims, it's going to make him that much harder to catch."

"We have more information on the Mill Creek Killer because he spends a lot of time with his victims before and after he's killed them." Derek continued seamlessly.

"Because his victims willingly follow him in broad daylight, he appears harmless." Gideon explained, stepping to the front of the group. "He's most likely handsome."

"Handsome?" Sheridan asked him.

Jason nodded, "Yes. These women wouldn't follow an unattractive man. They just... wouldn't."

Morgan leaned forward, pressing his palms into the edge of the desk he was sitting on, "He's handsome and he's got the social skills to trick his victims. Those who know him well would be shocked to learn that he's the man we're after."

"He's been able to get victims away from family and friends. Obviously, this makes him feel powerful."

Sheridan looked skeptical, and made his skepticism clear to Jason, "If he's so smart, then why does he risk driving his victims from the abduction site to the woods?"

"Because of the ritual. It's become the most important thing to him. Dominates his thoughts. Woods provide the privacy he needs."

"The Hollow Man is motivated by external pressures." I said, "He just wants attention. The Mill Creek Killer, on the other hand, is driven by internal forces. He's a sexually motivated offender. This makes him way more predictable but don't think for a second that it's gonna make him any easier to catch. He's smart. They both are. It's not going to be easy to draw them out, much less so to bring them in."

As if things weren't messy enough, Mill Creek had stuck to his pattern and taken another woman. JJ brought her photo to us after she didn't meet her friend for a bike ride. The report came in fast, she'd only gone missing an hour prior, while we were giving the profile. She fit Mill Creek's type perfectly, so if he was sticking to his timeline, she was already gone. We just needed to find her. Which was why Morgan and I were sitting in front of a map of the forest, trying find a pattern to how he dumped his victims. We always worked well together. Like long-lost siblings, we just seemed to click.

"There's no way these dump sites are random." I said, staring at the series of dots and lines. "Everything about this guy is organized and methodical."

"There's no pattern, Cam." He reminded me as he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. We'd been at this for hours now and it was exhausting.

"No, I see that." I snapped, a tad too harsh, but he didn't mind. "But this is a massive area we're talking about. He had to have a plan going into these woods."

He sighed and stood, walking up to the map and pressing a finger to the point where the first body was found, "Okay, the first body was found deep in the woods. That's a three-hour car drive from the city."

"It's his first time." I replied. "He wants to take every possible precaution."

I flipped open the first case report. Scanning the notes, I saw that her body hadn't been found until five days after she was abducted. The second womans wasn't found until four days after. The dots started to connect, the pattern started to form right before our eyes.

"You think he works out there?" I asked Morgan curiously. He shrugged.

"He might. All I do know for sure is that he has to be familiar enough with these woods to know when a ranger is going to be on duty. He knew precisely where and when to drop the bodies."

"Then we need to get familiar with it too." I pulled out my cell and one of the two numbers I had on speed dial. Only one ring before Penelope Garcia was on the other end of the line.

"Oh, my favorite Southern Belle, how are you?"

A half smile twitched at the corner of my mouth. Leave it to Garcia to give me an energy boost when I needed it most.

"Tired, but hopefully we can be on the jet by tonight with your help."

"Hit me."

"I need you to look up the ranger station rotation for the Mark Twain National Forest. We wanna know who goes where and how long they're there for."

"You'll know it as soon as I do."

"Thanks, Garcia."

The line went dead. I pocketed my phone and waited for the call which came a few minutes later. I put it on speaker so we could bounce ideas off of each other. True to her bubbly, but sometimes terrifying nature, as soon as Penelope's voice came through the speaker, she was saying something only slightly disturbing.

"Now that is a place to dump a body."

I let out a restrained chuckle, trying not to let out a loud snort. Derek pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Come on, Garcia," he drawled.

"What? I'm just saying, angel fish, a million acres converts into over 2,300 square miles to cover. Evil knew what he was doing."

"Yeah, well, now so do we."

My laughter disappeared, but my smile lingered, "Talk to us, Pen. What did you find?"

"Okay. The national forest is broken down into six ranger districts, which are patrolled every three to five days. Now, the Potosi-Fredericktown area must be where he's headed to next because the rangers were just there yesterday, which means they won't be back there for at least another three days. And look at that. It's the district closest to the city."

"Convenient." I scoffed, "He's able to get in and out without much fuss."

Morgan's eyes lingered on the map, before he glanced back at the phone on the table, "Which area has the easiest access to the main road?"

"That would be... Saltgrass Cove."

"Saltgrass Cove..." I watched as Derek's finger traced over the map until it landed on a small green patch in the northeastern corner of the forest, "Yep. He'd have plenty of time to revisit her."

"What?" The faint clacking on Garcia's end of the line came to a brief stop. I could picture her having to take a pause, for her own sake, before returning to her chipper disposition, "Forget it. No, no, I don't want to know that. Buh bye."

She hung up.

A bait and wait was all it took for us to get our hands on Mill Creek. When the media found Meredith's Dale body just as quickly as we had, courtesy of the Hollow Man, Reid made the ingenious discovery that both killers were communicating with each other in the classifieds. Through our joint genius powers, we were able to craft a message for Mill Creek to draw him into a trap. It worked. And now I was sitting across from the son of a bitch who had the nerve, the nerve, to smile at me.

JJ was giving a press conference as we sat there, an attempt to bring the Hollow Man to us, while riding the high of Mill Creek's capture. I, on the other hand, got to do something that I was particularly talented at; I got to play mind games with a killer. My honey-brown eyes were glued to his crystal blue ones. All I could see past the facade was coldness, cruelty. It was a look I had seen before. I wasn't afraid of it.

"Are you comfortable?" I asked him, gesturing to his cuffs that were chained to the floor.

He let out a small huff, but kept his smile, "As comfortable as anyone can be in handcuffs."

"Sorry about that." I said softly, feigning sincerity. "My name is Dr. Cameron Hunt."

He appeared impressed, though part of me felt that it was disingenuous. "A doctor?"

"A clinical psychologist with the FBI." I corrected gently. "I do research on the behaviors, mental disorders, and motivations of serial killers. And, y'know, I don't know your name or where you're from, but I do know one thing: you're an intelligent, good-looking man with an inflated ego who enjoys killing women."

"Well, you had me until that last part, Doc," he said with a bit of a laugh. "Imagine how shocked I am. Considering I haven't done anything. I see a woman who I think is in distress in the woods and I get... pounced on."

"Mmm," I hummed, not believing a single word. The game began. "The FBI wants to interview you, talk to you about your work. We never believed that we'd have you in custody. We thought the Hollow Man'd be easier to catch."

Something about him shifted. It could have even the subtlest brow twitch, the smallest drop of his smile, but his demeanor changed. Cracks started to form in the mask he had constructed.

"Does that upset you?" I asked, "I thought the two of you were friends, or at least associates. It certainly seems like you admired each other's work and-"

"I don't know the Hollow Man," he stated unconvincingly. "But if I did, I'd say he sounds like an obsessed fan."

My eyebrow arched up curiously, "Is that how you see yourself? As someone famous?"

He scoffed, that arrogant smirk of his returning, "Well, from what I've read about the Mill Creek Killer, I'd say he's an artist."

A small, single laugh escaped me, a smile grew on my face, "The fascination wasn't completely one-sided, was it? You responded to him in the classifieds."

"No one can respect what the Hollow Man has done. He's got no imagination."

"But he's smart. Found Meredith Dale's body, even told the media about it."

"Well, whoever taught him, taught him well."

"True, but it's starting to sound like the student is turning on the teacher."

He leaned forward, bracing against his cuffs, "No, no. He was protecting him."

I leaned forward, resting my arms on my knees as I looked him in the eye, "That's what you think he's doing?"

"What else could it be?"

"Manipulating you, gaining your trust." The pressure on his wrists from his cuffs became greater the longer I spoke. "Once he figured it out, he set. You. Up. You were front page news, and now... now you'll be nothing more than a footnote. Hollow Man's out there, walking free. And you're here, in a cage. And it's all because of him."

"Is that what you want?" He snapped, anger finally bleeding through the cracks in his mask. "You want me to get angry to help you catch him?"

I chuckled and shook my head, "That's not your problem to deal with."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want to know one thing. If killing those women made you an artist, then what did those things you did to them after make you? I mean, really. You go back and fix their makeup, comb their hair... that's not the work of an artist. You visited them over and over again-"

"I didn't do that." He pushed.

"Yes, you did." I pushed back. "You think you're famous now, just wait until the media gets a hold of the details of what you did after-"

"You shut your goddamn mouth!" he shouted, "Shut your mouth!"

I didn't. "You expect me to believe that you only killed them? That it wasn't you visiting the corpses afterward? My associates found lipstick in your hand when they caught you!"

"You can't tell anyone that." His tone shifted. It wasn't angry, it wasn't threatening. It was nervous, almost frightened. I had him.

"Excuse me?"

"I said you can't tell anyone about that."

"You didn't visit the corpses?"

"No."

"But you did kill them?"

"Yes." There was no hesitation. It wasn't forced. His confession would hold in court. "Yes. I killed them. But you can't tell anyone I went back. You can't do that."

I didn't say anything else. I just rose from my chair and walked out of the room.

JJ's performance was flawless. Well, it was good enough to bring Hollow Man right to our doorstep. He even confessed to the whole thing as field agents put him in cuffs and hauled him away. The job was done, so it was time to go home.

The flight home was a time to decompress, to reset. Everyone had their own way of going about it, Derek would listen to his music, Reid would have his nose buried in a book, or be playing chess with Gideon, Hotch, JJ and I would review cases or just talk.

This time, though, I was writing up the posting and job description for Elle's replacement. I wanted to hit the ground running once we were back in Quantico, and the best way to do that was to have everything written up by the time we were there. But the soft landing of a newspaper in my lap pulled me from my work, drawing my eyes to the front page of the Missouri Herald with Jim Meyers' name on the by line. Photos of the women the Hollow Man had killed were splayed across the front page. The entirety of the page, above and below the fold, was dedicated to them.

"This is the story for tomorrow." JJ explained. I passed it around and it wasn't until Morgan got his hands on it that the photo caption was finally read aloud.

"They were our daughters, sisters, mothers and friends."

"They have every right to be remembered and memorialized." Hotch said.

Reid took hold of the paper and read the entire article in less than a minute. "They didn't mention the shooter."

"Good," I said firmly as I started writing again. "He was a nobody who wanted to become famous by killing people. He doesn't deserve to be remembered."

The rest of the flight was quiet. I finished my write-up well before we landed, so I decided to go into the office with Hotch to post it and review a couple of reports before heading home. The lights were off in the bullpen, so I grabbed the reports from my desk, deciding to just review them at home, and followed Hotch to his office to say goodnight. Instead of being met with an empty office, we were met by the mystery woman sitting on his couch with a case file in hand.

Aaron was not amused.

"Please tell me you haven't been there for the last four days."

She rose to her feet, her chocolate brown eyes wide, as she gaped for a split second, "I- I heard you were flying back tonight."

Hotch's brow furrowed, "Heard? How could you have heard something like that?"

"This was dropped off today," she said, extending the case file toward me. I looked down at it for a moment, then back up to her. She really was pretty. I took the file and set it on top of the others in my bag.

"Look, we appreciate your interest, Agent uh-"

"Prentiss, Emily."

"Prentiss?" The name was familiar to me. It was a name that I had grown up hearing at social events and political fundraisers. "You can't be Elizabeth Prentiss's daughter."

"I am."

I was at a loss for words. Memories of my mother's cold, harsh voice echoed in my mind. Her constant reminders that my brothers and I would never measure up to the daughters of Ambassador Elizabeth Prentiss. Hotch caught my brain freeze quickly and intervened.

"We appreciate your interest, but profiling is a specialty. We can't just let anyone who wants to give it a whirl."

Prentiss stepped forward, the wide-eyed expression melting into one of confidence, "The I-80 Killer? Coeds in Indiana?"

Hotch glared up at her, "Yes, I read it on the plane."

"They aren't blitz attacks. This guy is organized. He's a white male, early thirties. And he's a smooth talker, because even after eleven victims, he can still convince educated women who know there's a predator out there to get into his car."

My brain started to function properly again.

"How would you advise local law enforcement?" I asked her.

She turned to me and without missing a beat replied, "I would stake out the Ranch House, a night club in Gary. They have a very popular ladies' night on Thursdays. If you look closely, eight out of the eleven women went missing on a Friday, so something must get this guy's motor running on Thursday."

I glanced over at Hotch and saw that he was already looking at me. He was gauging my reaction. I looked back at Prentiss, who was looking determinedly at Aaron.

"This isn't a whirl, Agent Hotchner. I don't know how the paperwork got screwed up or maybe you believe my parents pulled some strings, which they didn't, by the way. I belong in this unit. All I'm asking is for you to give me the chance to prove it."

"It isn't up to me," he answered, turning to me, "I delegated this to you, Hunt. What do you want to do?"

I paused. Logically speaking, we were being given a freebie. The perfect candidate had appeared on our doorstep, literally. As much as I hated to admit it, my mother was right. The Prentiss girls were extraordinary, always had been. I met her eye and took in a deep breath before letting out a long exhale.

"We'll still need to look into this. We can't promise anything."

"I understand."

Another breath. In and out. "We brief new cases every morning at ten. You can see facilities management about a desk."

A bright, excited smile formed on her face. A strange, twisting sensation developed in my chest at the sight of it, a feeling that I hadn't felt in years.

I didn't like it. Not one bit.

'Remember that all through history there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seemed invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.' ~ Mahatma Gandhi