Come Downstairs and Say Hello; S.R.

Case 4: Part 4

It took a maximum of 2 minutes to the team to arrive to the conclusion that Ingrid was a part of a cult, what took longer was Hotch's interrogation of Ingrid's father, which revealed how Ingrid had begun to call her father a "trespasser" of the desert, and "grandfather", most likely the cult leader, had taught her the "true" ways of Ga'he. The BAU delivered their profile of the cult leader to the police department, soon after hearing about the murders of the Minton family and the police officer assigned to keep watch over their house. The BAU decided to bring Ingrid to the crime scene to see her reaction and also to have her speak to John BlackWolf.

"My god..." Jo stared down at the crime scene photos, the specific one of the families two daughters disturbing her immensely. Her eyes never left the picture, focusing on the dark, wide bloodstains on both of the small beds, and the blood splatters viciously covering all four of the walls. Jo thought through the crime in her head, and felt the urge to vomit, her face becoming cold and clammy. She stumbled to her feet, nearly knocking the chair she was sitting on over, and rushed out of the room.

"Uh...is she..?" Elle began to speak, but before she could finish her thought, Reid stood up and hustled after Jo.

"She's fine, Ive got her." Elle stared at the two chairs her coworkers were sitting in moments before with wide eyes.

"...okay."

Jo threw the door to the girls restroom open, immediately running to the nearest stall and falling to her knees, pulling her hair away from her face and opening up the toilet seat. She stared into the toilet bowl, breathing heavily and trying to prevent the tears in her eyes from falling. The more she tried to calm down the more she panicked, a cold sweat trickling down her forehead.

"Oh, god..Joey? Jo!" She heard a muffled voice in her ears, muted by the sound of her beating heart. She felt someone gently take her hair from her and hold it away from her face, a warm soft hand stroking her back. She tried to focus on the voice. "Breathe..come on...in...out..you're alright." Reid whispered softly, and her breathing slowly returned to normal. She sat back off her knees, and Reid let go of her hair. The two of them sat across from each other against the walls of the stall, avoiding eye contact like there was no tomorrow.

"Sorry I made you worry..." Jo said softly.

"Cut the shit, Jo." Reid spat. Joey's eyes met his, widened in surprise, "what's going on." She couldn't find it in herself to lie to him again.

"I can't stop having nightmares. All I see when I close my eyes is victims. People we couldn't save. People with families, loved ones...horribly killed and mutilated, I.." Jo choked back her tears, "I don't think I'm good at this job.."

"Joey...I-" Reid's phone rang, and he jumped to his feet, gasping lightly in surprise and hastily answering it, "Uh-yeah? Hey..alright.." Jo wiped her tears and stood up off the ground, walking out of the bathroom hurriedly, not waiting for any words from her friend. She entered the room that held the rest of the BAU members, who all turned to greet her, Elle looking concerned but not saying anything. Jo looked at where BlackWolf was pointing on the map.

"Ingrid pointed us to the Deadlands, on the south end of the western tract." He explained.

"Cults tend to isolate their followers and allow them to make their own society, so a place like the Deadlands would be textbook." Hotch said.

"How big are the Deadlands?" Jo asked, quieter than she intended.

"About 100 square miles"

"We'll need to narrow it down, then" Gideon suggested. Morgan placed his phone on the table, after (most likely) taking a call from Garcia.

"We might have our cult leader." The team turned his direction, "his name is Jackson Cally. He was expelled from TMU six months before the others."

"Why?" Elle piped up.

"Drug possession. Terra Mesa was the last in a string of colleges, he studied religion and Native American culture in every school and he attended a seminar on Native American culture with Ingrid Grieson." Jo raised her eyebrows.

"He fits the profile perfectly."

"And that's how they know so much about me," BlackWolf interjected, "I've been a guest lecturer in that seminar for the last 4 years."

"We need more information about Cally if he might be our cult leader." Hotch said.

"Garcia's pulling all the information she can on him. He was arrested for trespassing on a bunch of motel properties, breaking into unoccupied rooms, but his last known address turned up cold, so we don't know if he's still in the area." Morgan explained.

"Cults tend to seek out abandoned structures instead of actually paying rent." Gideon explained.

"There's an abandoned motel off route 29 in the middle of the Deadlands." BlackWolf said. Hotch nodded at him.

"Let's go."

"Reid, Jo and I will stay behind and do some more research on Cally." Gideon said. Jo felt her heart go cold, feeling anxious enough about spilling her feelings to Reid, she couldn't bare having to quietly sit with him and the best profiler one the world, who was sure to pick up on the tension. But instead of sighing deeply in distress, Jo just nodded and smiled, taking a seat next to Gideon.

She tried to ignore all the stares from Reid as they shuffled through records and talked with Garcia every three seconds. They got a call from Hotch after a few minutes, who reported that they had found Cally, but no other members of the cult. Reid explained to him all they had learned about Cally, that he was a manipulative genius who knew how to get people to do his work.

"BlackWolf got Cally to reveal his true nature, he's a racist. None of his actions were for the sake of the Apache." Morgan explained to Jo, Reid, and Gideon once the team returned.

"It was only about Cally. Power and manipulation." Gideon said, Jo nodding.

"Charles Manson claimed he told his followers to kill whites in order to start a race war, he referred to it as Helter Skelter." Reid stated.

"And he thought that in the aftermath, black people would need a white man to lead them." Jo added, Reid nodding. Elle hustled into the room urgently.

"There's a large cache of guns missing from Milton's house." She reported.

"Why would Cally need guns all of a sudden?" Morgan asked, "his whole M.O. is to fight a war using the Native American methods."

"Maybe he's not looking to fight a war." Gideon suggested.

"He might be trying to start one." Said Reid. Jo nodded along, all of the pieces of the investigation coming together in her mind.

"He tried to mess with the ADU...first by making the primary attack look like Indians..and then by attacking the ADU's leader and his family..but those both didn't work..." she mumbled.

"Now he wants to attack the other side, trying to provoke the Indians by staging an ADU attack against them." Morgan agreed.

"Call BlackWolf, we need to get to the reservation."