Criminal Minds Series Rewirte: Season Five

Outfoxed: Part Two

Author's Note: I know I'm going to piss some people off with the way I wrote the trial and the gathering of evidence but remember, this is fiction and it's my story. I'm making it easy and convenient. I know this isn't how trials work.

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When Emily gets the message from JJ, she repeats it back to Hotch. They've already arrived at the prison and kept their heads down as they walked past the cells housing some of the most dangerous criminals.

"So, why wait a year to send Karl a note? Unless they were communicating the whole time?"

"That's the first thing we need to find out. Karl has a big ego. He's gonna want to answer a question with a question. The first thing he's gonna want to know is why I'm not wearing my wedding ring. Then, he's gonna want to describe to you in graphic detail every sexual act he committed with the families."

"To freak me out?"

"To pull you into his fantasy. More than anything, he's going to want to see the images of the children."

"We can't give him that."

"We have to give him something or we'll get nothing from him." Hotch and Emily walk into the interrogation room they've placed Karl in, and the criminal smirks when he sees them. "Hello, Karl."

"Agent Hotchner." His eyes flit over Emily. "I didn't know you were sending... they just told me two agents"

"Karl, this is Agent--"

"Emily Prentiss. I know all about you."

Hotch takes out files and only sets out certain evidence for him to look at while keeping most of it hidden.

"It appears you have a fan."

"Admirer. Not a fan. Big difference, right?"

"Is this the first time you've been contacted by your admirer?"

"I have many fans. Even on my own website. Don't you? You'd be astounded by some of the questions they ask. I make a log of all of them. Would you like to read some?"

"I would love to," Emily says.

"You'd love to? Here." He puts a file on the desk right by him. "Look."

Emily reaches over the table to grab it and Karl immediately leans in to smell her hair. Hotch snatches the file away and Emily backs off, but the damage has been done.

"Your admirer is taking wedding rings, just like you. Maybe not for the same reason."

"Like how you took all of mine. You took mine," Karl says to Hotch. "I see... you lost yours."

"Eight rings, four families. Or was it one ring for each family?"

"How'd you come to lose your ring?" Karl laughs before Hotch can answer. "Wait, don't tell me. A casualty of the job."

"My job is what put you here."

"True. Then, it's the children who suffer most. Wouldn't you agree?"

"You'd know more about that than me," Hotch glares.

"Which is why you came to me. I can help you with that, Agent Hotchner. I certainly can, but I'll need to see those photos. May I?"

"Can we talk for a second?" Emily asks Hotch before he has a chance to see those pictures.

"Is there a problem, Emily?"

"No," Hotch answers for her, the two of them leaving the room with the files in hand.