magnetic ◊ criminal minds

xlii.

xlii. remembrance of things past
( season six, episode three )

WITH JJ gone, the team would have to get adjusted to a new normal. With such a close-knit group of people, who viewed each other as family, that would be anything but easy. Lyra walked into the briefing room alongside Prentiss and Reid to find Morgan texting on his phone.

"Is that Ellie again?" Prentiss asked.

"She texts me every morning on her way to school," Morgan said happily. He really liked this kid.

"You don't even text me that much," Lyra signed, just messing with him.

"I see you every day," he countered.

"How's she doing?" Reid asked.

Morgan shut his phone off. "Well, she's already got herself a BFF named Jill, and she thinks she wants to play soccer," he said.

"She's adjusting. That's good," Prentiss said.

Hotch walked in, ending their catching up. "Bristol, Virginia. The body of twenty-five-year-old Jenny DeLilly was found yesterday," he said, passing out the files. "She had been tortured, sodomized and electrocuted before being forced to make a goodbye call to her parents. Her body was then dumped off Elden Street." He put some pictures up on the screen. "A week ago, the body of Kara Kirkland was found in the same area having suffered identical injuries."

"This reminds me of the Butcher case," Morgan said.

"Why does that name sound so familiar to me?" Prentiss asked.

"The Butcher was a sexual sadist that killed twenty women in the same area of Virginia from 1984 to 1993, and then vanished," Reid stated. "He tortured blonde women in their twenties that lived in or near Bristol."

"That was one of Rossi's old cases, isn't it?" Prentiss said.

"Yes," Hotch confirmed.

"Does he know?" Morgan asked.

There were footsteps outside. "I think that's a yes," Lyra signed. Rossi came into the briefing room, box full of files in hand.

"Some vacation. Did you get any sun?" Prentiss asked.

"I never got any anything," Rossi responded.

"Do you think the Butcher's back?"

"I doubt it. I profiled him as a white male in his late forties back then. He'd be in his seventies now."

"Didn't you almost catch him?" Morgan questioned.

"In the spring of ninety-three, we narrowed the geographical profile. We alerted every blonde in their mid-twenties in Bristol and the surrounding counties. The pressure got so intense, the killings just stopped," Rossi said.

"Well," Reid started, "the Copelands killed into their seventies. This could be him coming back."

"I mean, it's not impossible. Magneto's somewhere in his eighties," Lyra signed. Everyone looked at her. "...In estimation. With a slowed healing factor. I'll shut up now," she added, smiling awkwardly.

"This guy isn't a mutant, though," Rossi said.

"It's probably a copycat," Hotch said. "But if he's emulating the Butcher, he could just be getting started."

♢

On the plane, they took a closer look at their information. "All right, let's go over victimology," Hotch said, taking a seat beside Prentiss at the table.