A Father's Daughter

Chapter Seventeen

Minor Spoilers for Seasons 7 & 8 of Criminal Minds

Emily officially left her position at the BAU a week ago and Morgan and Garcia are in London helping her get settled. I took her information off the wall and I had mixed feelings doing so. Technically, I didn't truly get revenge on her as my father would have wanted. But she's no longer in the country or working at the BAU which I could consider a win.

I honestly didn't have much time to dwell on it though, work has been insanely busy with everyone gone. We're currently in Arizona and before we left we were introduced to our new agent, Dr. Alex Blake. Apparently, Rossi and Hotch knew her before she left the bureau and Reid has been a guest lecturer in her linguistics course for years now. Hotch assigned Blake and I to go into the field together to look into the dump site.

"Okay let's go over victimology, shall we?" Blake says as we walk further into the desert.

I nod, "our four victims were found here, all in different stages of decomposition. The two newer victims were redheads in their mid to late twenties but the other two we have to wait to see if they fall into that same category since they were too decomposed to tell."

I walk up to the scene and point to the markings on the ground, "they were displayed here, laid out in a row, each under a different type of cactus, and were discovered by a group of hikers that decided to go off the trail. All four bodies were also found in the same wardrobe, a black, long-sleeve turtleneck top under long black wool dresses and black pleather knee high boots."

Blake lets out a hum as she looks around the disposal site, "our unsub certainly had privacy here, it's miles off any designated trails and far from the main road. The way the women were placed tells us that they came back to visit the bodies and I bet they dressed them too post mortem since even in the winter, Arizona is much too warm to warrant those types of clothes."

"You're right," I nod, "I doubt any stores would even sell wool clothing, not in the greater Phoenix area at least. Maybe our unsub gets the garments custom ordered or makes the clothing themselves."

"We'll have the technical analyst look into that when we get back," she says, eyes focused on something. "It's strange though, they left each victim in front of a cactus, but not the same species. They were under a saguaro, a prickly pear, a teddy bear cholla, and a barrel cactus. The types of cactus must have meaning to it because they didn't grow here."

I look at the ground to see what she's staring at, the base of all but the saguaro cactus the dirt had been disturbed. "The unsub not only brought the victims here, but a cactus that reminded them of her?"

We make eye contact and she nods. We walk back to the SUV and Blake offers to drive us back to the station to inform the rest of the team of our findings.

"So," Blake starts as she pulls back onto the main road, "how long have you been with the team?"

"A little over 7 months now," I tell her, "but before this I spent three years in Sex Crimes."

"That's an interesting change. Why did you want to leave?"

I shrug, "in school I double majored in Criminology and Psychology with a minor in Sociology, knowing I'd want to join the FBI one day. While I was still in college, Agent Gideon was a guest lecturer and taught us about profiling and after that class, I was determined to join the BAU. But it's a small, elite team that rarely has openings. So, I decided to take the profiler exam and start refining my skills on my team in Sex Crimes. After a few years there, a position became available and my unit chief personally recommended me to Agent Hotchner."

"That's very impressive," Blake says with a slight smile, "and you get along with the team?"

I don't bother hiding my confusion at her question and I know she sees it. "I do. It took a while to obtain everyone's trust but that's understandable given the line of work we're in. Why do you ask?"