Caution to the Wind

Chapter 27

With Rossi's wedding on the horizon, Tara re-evaluates some of her own feelings about marriage. Follows S14E15, "Truth or Dare." Does JJ confess her love for Spencer in this chapter? Up to you, dear reader. Personally, I think she doesn't, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Rossi still hadn't given up on finding Lynch, and as long as he was taking care of himself and his head was in the game on active BAU cases, Emily was willing to give him a little wiggle room to keep investigating the Lynch case on his own. Right now, though, there was something else on David Rossi's mind, occupying his time and his thoughts. His wedding day was approaching—his fourth wedding day, where he'd be marrying his third ex-wife for the second time. Rossi was busy with his wedding plans, but the rest of the team was still on the clock, and without a case to work, they were using their downtime for poker night in the conference room.

"Guys, I feel like this is gonna be the hot seat," Matt said, gesturing at Spencer sitting next to him.

"Yeah, you do know he's been banned from every casino in Vegas, right?" JJ replied.

Matt looked to Spencer. "Really?"

"With a deck of cards, the number of combinations is a factorial of 52," Spencer said, "You simply need to calculate your outs and then your implied odds. Math is the basis of all card games."

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen," Tara said, "Today's game's five-card. Roll them out. The big blind is 50; the baby is 25."

Reid had cleaned out most of the team by the time Emily's phone rang, alerting them that they had a new case and putting an end to their poker night. They had two murders in two days in Los Angeles. Both times, the victims were shot in the chest following a hit and run. It was the same driver both times, and he didn't slow down before either crash. Afterwards, he got out of his car and shot both victims before leaving the scene.

"We've seen cases of symphorophilia before, where a suspect gets off on staging a crash," Luke said, "But none that involved a gun."

"And given the fact that he's also the driver, I think it's more likely a case of autassassinophilia," Spencer replied, "It's an overlapping paraphilia in which an individual derives arousal or sexual pleasure from the thought of and/or risk of being killed."

"Makes me think the vehicles are important to him in some way," Matt said, "Like they're part of what he's trying to do or say."

"Were any of the cars the suspects used reported stolen?" Luke asked.

"Oh, yeah, both vehicles were reported missing prior to the accidents," Garcia replied.

"We've got the makings of a thrill killer here," JJ said.

"A thrill killer at the start of a spree," Emily added, "With two dead and our primary suspect at large, the jet's standing by."

"What about Rossi?" Luke asked.

Rossi was supposed to be getting married in two days, and Emily urged him to stay home and sit this one out, but he couldn't resist a BAU case. He joined the team on the jet, and they flew to Los Angeles, where they met up with Detective Murad of the LAPD. It didn't take the team long to realize they'd misjudged their hit and run driver—he wasn't a thrill killer; he wasn't even the real unsub. He was being manipulated into committing murder by proxy, and the victims were all selected ahead of time by the puppet master who was pulling the strings.

"This is a man with a fragile, yet outsized ego," Emily said, "Once he's challenged, he won't back down."

"So he's, what, trying to settle some kind of score?" Detective Murad asked.