Deadly obsessions

Chapter One - Dead for you

Narrator's POV

Despite his perceptiveness, Spencer couldn't find a decent connection between the murder files that Garcia had placed at the center of the table while debriefing the team. Three dead. One man, two women. All different ages, ethnicities, and the only common factor was that they either attended or worked at a local state school that most high school students of that area ended up going to for economic reasons.

"There's a large level of organization because of the lack of evidence, but all of them were killed with something that was found near them, suggesting an unorganized killer," Emily points out, leafing through Professor Parker Davis' file. "Davis was killed with a scalpel found in his biology room, the other teacher was killed by someone repeatedly slamming a math book onto her head, and the student was killed with a baseball bat she kept in her dorm."

"The bodies were also found in a way that only kind of Indicates remorse," Jj moves the pictures of the body around to make her point. "Arms placed over their chest, but also dumped somewhere filthy and with no protection from the elements."

Spencer's mind is moving a mile a minute as he attempts to thread it all together. "Maybe all the unsubs kills aren't for them. Maybe they think they're helping someone." Spencer sits up a little more, excited about the thought of being onto something. "Maybe this guy has a crush on someone or is dating someone that wasn't doing too well in science and math and the other girl could have been an enemy of his crush. These kills probably aren't planned, but the killer still feels a rush, and because these victims aren't personal, after snapping out of his rage, he's organized enough to clean everything." 

"Then why attempt remorse?" Morgan questions.

Reid takes a moment to think about this puzzle piece. "It's possible that the killer knows the object of his admiration would disapprove, leaving him with something similar to guilt, but in his mind the kill was justified, so any attempt to show remorse is last minute."

"The only way to catch him is to find whoever he's obsessed with." Hotch points out.

"And there's probably only a matter of time before he snaps and kills the person he's obsessed with," Reid adds.

"Let's go to the campus, it's less than fifteen minutes away," Hotch is already standing. Spencer is the last to leave the room, taking his time to look at the photos. "What is it Reid?"

"Anyone obsessed enough to kill this aggressively in such a short time span has to be either highly delusional—which is unlikely because of the lack of evidence at the crime scene, so that means the unsub is probably close to his obsession, which makes him harder to find."

"Hard isn't impossible."

— Ten years earlier —

Alex's POV

"Carmen, where are you going?"

"Keep up," Carmen giggles, running up our apartment steps. "You'll love seeing the roof at night, it's perfect, you can see all the lights."