Desiderium: longing for something that has been lost

Chapter 21

"ah fear! ah frantic fear!/ i see, i see thee near"---william collins 

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Las Vegas 

February 21, 2008 

1:08 am

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It was both the feeling of finality and tragedy that surrounded the murmuring police officers that nearly made JJ want to rip her hair out of her head. No one was dead, no bodies had been casually dumped anywhere. 

yet.  

The tiny little voice in her head, flickered to the front and she raised a hand to massage it away. Such a small word, but it could change her whole life. 

There was a commotion to her right, and Hotch came in, a sling supporting his arm, and a more than usual pissed off look on his face. Emily followed behind, shrugging helplessly. JJ shot a look her way, and she mouthed back, sorry. 

"What are we looking at." He was standing in front of cork board, head cocked, back tense with the residual pain of the procedures he had to remove the shattered bullet. 

JJ opened and closed her mouth. There was no way she'd convince the man to go back to the hospital, not while his agents were MIA. "I drew up a preliminary timeline, and I'm waiting on forensics to confirm blood samples taken from the scene." 

Rossi walked in, a manila folder in hand. He barely managed to roll his eyes at the sight of Hotch out of bed, and slapped the folder on the table. 

"I got pictures from the scene developed, rushed them through. I don't know about you, but somethings bothering me about the whole damn thing." He spread them out on the table, the light reflecting off the glossy surfaces.  

Hotch turned around to pick up a few, and raised an eyebrow at him. "Why do you think that? It looks like a targeted crash." 

"Yeah, but why?" He sat back. "Back in the 80's, I was in my late twenties, early thirties. I can only assume this guy would have been about the same age, right?" 

Hotch nodded, the light bulb slowly clicking on for him. 

"There's no way in hell, someone my age is intentionally crashing a car. Bones just don't recover as much as they use to, joints pop out of  place, you know the usual fun stuff that comes with aging." 

Emily let out a snort. "You too old man?" 

He scoffed. "I'm an exception, obviously." 

Hotch picked up another picture. "So we profiled him wrong, we never considered that this wasn't the original killer, but instead some sort of protégé." 

Emily drew in her seat. "Ok, but why kill the families now? What's the connection with the doctor and the whole damn institution? Who was shutting up who? I can see now how the change in MO can be contributed to it being a different person, but how does our doctor contribute in here, what about our whole gambling theory?" 

Hotch kneaded his forehead. "Right now, we know that the two people killed by our current presumed unsub were two people close two Spencer Reid.  They both had ties to the same casino. I can only assume the first family was killed to garner interest again in the case, before going off into his true motive." 

JJ adjusted a picture with her fingertip, rotating it so it aligned with the others. "So, do we look into the casino thing more? Maybe people knows our guy, maybe he grew up around the scene?" 

Hotch nodded. "Yes, Rossi, Emily look into that. It'll be our primary focus. JJ, you and me will remain here. We're down Garcia, so we're down one of our primary means of information. We'll have to garner in as much as we can between the two of us."