Valentía (Spencer Reid Slow Burn)

Unfinished Business

Summary: When "The Keystone Killer", a serial killer in Philadelphia, resurfaces after eighteen years of inactivity, the BAU works with now-retired FBI agent who worked on the original case to catch the killer.

Warning: Most likely incorrect symptoms of having too much morphine in system, Forced Drug use, Talk of Congenital Heart Disease, Mention of David Rossi

"Any obsession is dangerous." — Christina Ricci

February 25, 2006

There was always an Unsub that stayed with an agent more than others.

The man who killed Zelena for Alexander and then later the people who took Zoe and Zarah.

The UnSub who killed the parents of those three children, Connie, Georgie, and Alicia Galen for David Rossi.

The UnSub who started Gideon's obsession with birds for Jason Gideon.

The Boston Reaper for Hotch.

For Max Ryan, it was the Keystone Killer.

It was one of Zelena's last cases before she was forced back to Virginia to work at her desk where she found the man who would end up killing her.

Ryan was giving his lecture about his book, House of Horror: The Hunt for the Keystone Killer in Washington DC

"At the end of his two-year killing spree, seven women were dead. He made a name for himself. Literally. He sent out written communication identifying himself as the Keystone Killer. These letters, all of which were accompanied by a word search puzzle, were part of his game Like Son of Sam, he taunted the police. He fueled the media's fascination with him. he left specific crime scene details in the word puzzles. And then, twenty years ago, he just stopped killing. Now, one of the Philadelphia PDs theories was that he was in jail on an unrelated charge. But this is a man who craves attention. He could not remain a faceless prisoner for so long. Another theory was that he had simply moved away and he continued killing in another city or another country. But the FBI's ViCAP program tracks murders and murderers all around the world and they turned up nothing."

He pushed a button on the slideshow he was showing, showing a close-up of hands knotted together. "This intricate knot was part of his signature. It's a signature we have never seen repeated. Another theory was that he had died, which is the only explanation for why a compulsive psychopath would stop killing. As you'll see in the book, But I never believed he was a psychopath who had to do this. I believe he is a narcissistic sociopath who chooses to."

He showed a young woman with short brown hair. "This is his last victim. Amy Jennings. She was twenty-three. Her infant son was in the next room when she was killed. So uh..." His memory briefly wandered to one of his former proteges... this was her last case in the field... "even if he thinks he's finished, he still has a debt to pay."

Ryan signed some copies of his book to a fan before turning to Gideon who he had taught everything he knew.

"You look comfortable up there. Why don't you come back to the BAU for a guest lecture?

"I'm retired, remember?

"Hell of a way to relax." Gideon said, the same thing he told Rossi when he started writing books after his retirement. "Three hundred and twenty-three pages on the one that got away."

"He hasn't gotten away. And you didn't count that eight-page prologue." Ryan said.

"What happened to Florida? Thirty-six holes a day?