The Intelligence Control and Analysis Program

Chapter 6

"I had a thought."

Hotch stopped halfway to his office, turning to look at JJ with a combination of concern and urgency in his eyes. "Can it wait? I want to check on Genius."

JJ opened her mouth, stopped, and then spoke. "I don't know. It's about Genius, but it's going to sound crazy ..." She shook her head. "Doesn't our case load seem heavier than usual?"

Hotch pressed his lips together and considered the question. She said it was about Genius, so considered the timeline since Genius had arrived, which was a mere nine days. It wasn't all that unbelievable to have two cases in little over a week, but when he counted the case Genius was initially called in for...

"Do we have another one?" He figured something had triggered her thoughts, so he went with the most likely scenario.

JJ nodded. "Yeah. I called around, trying to find someone to take it for us, but no luck so far. Still waiting for some callbacks..." She chewed on her lip, folding her arms over her stomach. "It just seems like too many coincidences. We hire Genius, and we get a case—a spree killing we can't put off—where Genius identifies with the unsub. We're barely home a day, and we get another case—one we're supposed to keep in-house, so again, it can't wait—that gets Genius' mind on suicide. I just... ICAP would know his triggers, they're not cooperating with us at all, and it almost seems like... like Genius could be doing really well, and it's just bad luck that he's spiraling."

Hotch considered the idea for a moment, but he ultimately found himself sidetracked by the mention of suicide. "Is Genius thinking about suicide?"

JJ shook her head. "I don't think so. He was... he talked about his suicide attempts. He was hurt that you and Morgan didn't say anything to him about it after the Savage case."

Hotch let out a frustrated sigh, but he blamed himself for the bad call. "We had just fought, and then we talked about ICAP, and he was so upset and emotionally drained. I thought it would overwhelm him if I kept pressing; Morgan did, too."

"Hey." JJ shook her head, as empathetic as ever, and spoke softly. "If he hadn't been upset about it, he wouldn't have opened up to me, and we had a really good talk yesterday." She paused. "We had a couple of really good talks."

"I can talk to him about it. I'll leave it open-ended so he doesn't feel like he has to talk if he doesn't want to." Hotch didn't address any of his inner turmoil over the mistake, choosing instead to move forward. "As for your theory, I'm sure you see the major flaw."

"That ICAP isn't going around unleashing serial killers?" JJ let out a sardonic sort of chuckle, shaking her head. "Yeah, I know. I told you it was out there. Still..." she shook her head slowly, "...they want to keep him away from us so badly without a reason. So, when another relatively urgent case cross my desk this morning, I thought maybe ICAP is burning Genius out on purpose. If he's deemed 'defective,' he'll be sent back." She shrugged her shoulders. "I told you, I had a thought. That's all it was."

Hotch barely heard the closing, his brain taking her theory down a different path and finding a separate motive. "They could benefit from this another way. If Genius is doing poorly in our care, they could launch an investigation into this team on allegations of abuse."

"Could you talk to Strauss? Find out if anyone from ICAP has been asking about us?"

Hotch shook his head, reminding himself to join Morgan in the section chief's office later. "Strauss is going to be... out of commission for a little while."

"So, someone new will be coming in." JJ pressed her lips together, nodding her head sarcastically. "Convenient."

Hotch lowered his voice slightly and leaned a little closer. "Your theory is flimsy at best, but if you're right, the evidence is out there. You can't let it affect your work, but if you keep... looking into this idea, I won't stop you. Just bring everything you find to me so we can exchange evidence."