Fast and Genius

52 Pickup

(Lexie POV)

We were sat in the briefing room and I looked down at my brown boots. "Vanessa Holden, age 25. Last Friday night, she was clubbing with her sister. A stranger, white male, roughly her age, picked her up. They left the club at 1 A. M, went back to her place. He forced her on her hands and knees. And then he cut her open just below the stomach." Jordan says while showing us a picture of the girl on her stomach. "Whoa." Morgan and I say. "Yeah. Pretty rough." Rossi says. "The gutting causes the intestines to spill out. You can survive for a few hours, actually even days." Spencer says. "Postmortem indicates that he slit her throat at 5 A. M." Jordan says. "So he disemboweled her but didn't kill her for 4 hours." I say with an eyebrow raised. "He could be a sexual sadist." Emily says. "Yeah, I thought so, too, but I found two priors from a year ago-- Prostitutes, actually, in motel rooms." Jordan says handing Rossi files and he passes them around. "Ok. So keep running with it. Why do you think this is the same unsub?" Morgan questions Jordan. "In Vanessa Holden's apartment, the following were discover-- bleach, ammonia, trash bags-- all in a triangular pattern. One year ago, motel rooms-- bleach, ammonia, trash bags-- Also in a triangular pattern." Jordan says showing us photos. "He's cleaning up." Emily says. "Might be trying to hide his tracks." Morgan says. "Could be a sign of remorse." Spencer says. "Apologizing for the murder by minimizing the mess." Rossi says. "But there's one other commonality between both sets of murders. Bleach and ammonia were found under the victim's fingernails." Jordan says. "He's making them clean up their own murder." I say. "It's the same unsub." Hotch says.

Once we were on the plane I was sat next to Hotch. "So if the unsub changed the victimology, does that make him organized or disorganized?" Emily questions. "Well, the prostitutes point one way, the club goes another." Morgan says. "The triangular arrangement of the cleaning supplies is interesting." Spencer says. "Obsessive-compulsive?" Hotch questions. "Might have been institutionalized." Emily says. "We're missing the forest for the trees here. This guy started with prostitutes-- a high-risk victimology. Took a year off, came back, killed a socialite." Rossi says. "No forced entry, no coercion of any kind." Morgan says. Exactly. So how does our unsub go from loser of the year to Don Juan?" Rossi questions. "Actually, as Byron interpreted him, Don Juan was an ironic reversal of sex roles. And when-- th--that's about it." Spencer says when he notices everyone's stares. "Something must have happened between the last prostitute and Vanessa Holden making him change his victimology." Hotch says. "Could the unsub have known Vanessa?" Jordan questions. "It's unlikely. Sexual sadists attack anonymously. They have to sever a personal connection and see their victims as objects to perpetrate this level of torture." I say and Jordan nods.  "We have to build two profiles, then-- One for the unsub who killed prostitutes, one for the unsub who goes to clubs." Emily says. "We've never done that before." Rossi says. "Prentiss is right. The victimology is so different, we'll treat them as separate unsubs and see what overlaps. Reid, work up a geographic profile, focus on location of the murders. Prentiss, Ortiz, and Rossi, concentrate on the prostitutes. Jordan, Morgan, and I will go deal with Vanessa Holden." Hotch says and we nod.

Once we land in Atlanta we started looking over the victimology. "What if, since Vanessa went home with the unsub, he considered her a prostitute like he did with the others?" I question and Rossi and Emily look up. "You know, you may be right." Rossi says and I smile. We eventually meet back with Hotch, Jordan, Morgan, and Spencer. "The unsub killed the prostitutes in separate pay-by-the-hour motels in Fulton county, Right there in one of the poorer neighborhoods he area. Now, Vanessa Holden's apartment was in the Peachtree district, where there's a lot of big money. Based on the geography, he isn't just changing his victimology, he's changed his whole tax bracket." Spencer says while handing out the coffees. "Thanks." I say. "The high profile of Vanessa Holden bears that out. By killing her, he was climbing the social ladder." Morgan says. "If that's the case, this unsub had a long way to climb. Both prostitutes advertised here. Look at their pictures." Rossi says showing the clippings we found earlier. "Subservient positioning, asking to be dominated." Hotch says. "Promising to come to you? That cuts out the social interaction of meeting on a street corner." Emily says.