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"OKAY, MAYBE HE was bullied as a child or something. some childhood trauma," vivian suggested. "that could cause a stutter, right?"
the footpath killer, the current obsession of the bau. gideon had caught him a few weeks before and had claimed he knew why he stuttered. well, to be more accurate, gideon had almost been shot by him but managed to manipulate his way out. the problem was, he wouldn't tell anybody why the guy stuttered. so, of course, everybody wanted to know.
morgan shook his head. "too obvious, that can't be it."
vivian raised an eyebrow. "you already brought that one up?"
"yep." morgan sighed. "he wants us to figure it out by ourselves."
elle shrugged slightly, "okay. i'm up for a challenge."
jj, one of vivian's sort-of-friends and the media handler, walked in briskly at that moment, handing elle a stack of files. "good, because these go to you. special agent jennifer jareau, jj if you like."
"elle," elle answered, shaking her hand.
"hey, jj," vivian said, smiling and waving from her perch on the edge of spencer's desk. spencer. the two had become close since he'd joined their official little unit of the fbi. vivian's boyfriend wasn't too fond of him, but vivian didn't care. he'd never even met him anyway. he was never around enough to meet him. vivian liked him and bianca really liked him. bianca seemed to think that vivian and spencer would be the couple, a statement to which vivian always just rolled her eyes.
she snapped out of her little daze to see jj walking up the stairs, calling out, "you'll probably be talking to me a lot. my door's always open, mostly because i'm never in my office, so just call me on my cell, okay? we'll talk."
elle raised her eyebrows at vivian and vivian shrugged in response, mouthing, "she's nice." jj could be a lot to handle, but she was always friendly enough to vivian.
her gaze snapped up to the upper hallway as hotch called out, "bau team, can you meet me in the conference room, please? i need to show you something." from his tone of voice, whatever he had to show them was nothing good."
the whole team quickly got up, exchanging wary looks, and followed hotch to the conference room. as soon as they were all seated, he began. "this is from the phoenix office, bradshaw college in tempe, six fires in seven months."
"who recorded it?" gideon asked as they opened their case folders. vivian always thought the case folders were sort of like morbid christmas presents.
"a student with a digital camcorder," jj answered. "he was watching a fire in the building across from their dorm. the other person you'll see is his roommate, 20-year-old matthew rowland." she held up the remote and clicked for the video to turn on.
the video opened on a shot of a tall, burning building. "this is crazy!" a male said in the background. "hey, mac, get over here, you gotta see this! the building's on fire!" the camera moved around, capturing different areas of the building. the camera abruptly zoomed out and a male's face popped into the frame.
