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CHAPTER ELEVEN { Too Close To Home } ***
AFTER AN HOUR, you finally talked Emily into letting you drive home last night.
It's hard to make eye contact with her as you sit in the briefing room, your fingers drumming against your coffee cup.
Hotch watches you carefully.
"Charles Luvet was found floating in a Miami marina last night." JJ presents. "Local ME thinks he was only in the water about an hour."
Tearing his gaze from you, Hotch focuses on JJ. "Any attempt to weight the body down?"
She shakes her head. "Doesn't appear to be."
You thumb through the crime scene photos, your jaw set.
"The dumping could be convenient, as opposed to a method to hide the crime." Emily suggests.
Warmth creeps up your neck at the sound of her voice. You use your nails in an attempt to scratch the heat away—it doesn't work.
"Well, he's the third victim found in Miami over the last two months." JJ continues.
With the click of a button, photos of two more victims appear beside Luvet's, each of the men having red-stained cuts and scratches littered across their faces.
You read through the mens' backstories. They're all similar in age and strangely enough, each of them were on vacation.
You flick your eyes up to JJ. "The locations of the bodies are different, but many of the elements are the same. All males, twenty-five to thirty-five, all traveling, all asphyxiated with no signs of sexual assault."
She nods. "There were also some personal items missing from each of the men."
"He's targeting travelers for a reason." Emily adds.
The room goes quiet for a moment and when you glance up, your gaze catches Emily's. You quickly duck your head.
"You guys notice the red flag on the autopsy report?" Rossi's voice shatters the silence.
You flip to the autopsy report, skim over it, then draw your brows together in confusion.
"None of the hyoid bones were fractured." Reid replies.
