Stand In The Rain

Nineteen

"JJ, are you alright?"

That was from Derek when they were all gathered in the conference room a few minutes later.

Wishing that they could just be in the jet already so she could call her mom, JJ said a 'don't push me' tone, "I would rather not talk about it, Derek."

Heeding his friend's warning, Derek looked over at Penelope, standing at the head of the table and ready to begin the presentation.

"Okay, Baby Girl, what you got?"

"All of  us are going down south, to The Heart of Dixie, a.k.a. Montgomery, Alabama because in the past three-and-a-half weeks, three men have kidnapped and then turned up dead in Montgomery County."

She pressed a button on the remote in her hand, and three pictures of different men appeared on the big display screen. All of them were alive and smiling in the pictures, which JJ was glad for because it was one less moment that she had to avert her eyes.

"From left to right, we have Arthur Bradshaw, Nathaniel Xavier, and Sergeant Tinsley Foxworth."

Of course, Rossi was the first one to say something about Tinsley's title. "Foxworth was a sergeant?"

"And JJ's cousin, too."

Penelope, Emily, and Hotch already knew by now who Tinsley had been to JJ, but Rossi, Derek, and Spencer all quickly offered the communications liaison their sympathy, sad for her. JJ thanked them, although Penelope redirected everyone's attention back to her by clearing her throat.

"Bradshaw, Xavier, and Tinsley were all in their mid to late thirties, and married with kids. There are no apparent connections at the moment, and also nothing out of the ordinary with how they lived."

Spencer spoke up, having hit a stumbling block in the folder of notes he was holding. "It says all three of them were strangled?"

"Uh-huh." Quickly warning JJ to look away, Penelope pressed another button, and all of the victims' pictures were replaced with pictures of them as they'd been discovered. "They were all strangled and left in public places."

Hotch looked over at Spencer. "What made you sound skeptical about the strangulation standpoint?"

Spencer looked back at him. "It's just that according to the reports here, all three of the victims were strangled, although it looks like with a different tool each time, and with a different amount of pressure and force; the unsub looks like he can't make up his mind, and while it's unusual for a strangler to deviate during escalation, this much deviation already is unsettling."

"Why's that?"

"Because it points to a disorganized and possibly chaotic mind, or a partner. It's too early too early to tell which it is right now."

Across the table, Derek arched an eyebrow at his best friend. "Three is a pattern, but you can't get into the unsub's frame of mind yet?"

"No." Spencer said sheepishly.

"Excuse me."

That was all JJ could manage before getting up and taking the back steps to get out of the room, heading for the restroom as quickly as she could; hearing the details of how Tinsley had died proved to be too much, and, feeding off her anxiousness, the babies decided that that was a perfectly good time to make JJ nauseas and send her dashing for the lavatory as quickly as possible.

When JJ entered the restroom, she vomited into the first empty toilet she found.

Emily came to check on her, although she wasn't empty-handed.