I'm all in

10

WARNING: Violence
I AM SO SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO UPDATE. I love each and every one of you that has read my story so far so thank you so much for your support.
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The team had finally landed in Vermont where they were greeted by the bitter wind, causing JJ to shiver. Hotch led them inside the police station to meet with the sheriff of Montpelier. He was a short stocky gentleman with a balding head. Hotch introduced the team and asked for them to be set up before they started to go over the case. Everyone had kept quite for nearly the entire trip, they all knew that it wasn't a good case.

Emily sighed and sat down next to JJ who looked a bit more stressed than usual, Emily put her hand on the blonde's thigh causing her to give a smile small. "Em, I am okay I promise. I just want this to be over." Emily nodded and sighed "I know love but we just got here. We gotta keep focused okay?" JJ nodded and took one of the files that were being passed around the room. Hotch sighed and shut the door to the room. "Okay guys, as I said on the plane we have six male heads that showed up in groups of three. The first batch was found in a suitcase that had been washed ashore at the Wrightsville Reservoir in Montpelier. The second batch was found at DuBois construction company off of highway 89. Each head was..." he took a deep breath as he loaded the pictures on the screen "Each head was sawed off. The local coroner said that the sawing has a very good chance to be what killed each victim." Spencer frowned and looked at the pictures intently "So does that mean that it took place antemortem?" Hotch nodded and turned off the screen. "They were able to identify the victims as well. The first three victims are James Conway, Matt Johnson, and David Collins. The last three are Trevor Heins, Oscar Perez, and Sam Murrs who were found this afternoon." Hotch looked at his team and sighed. "I know this is a gruesome one but we must all be able to function correctly. We need to find what links these men together and if they crossed paths with each other or not because that may be the area we need to look for our unsub in. Rossi you and JJ go to the Conway and Johnson residencies, Spencer and Derek you two go to Collins and Heins, and Emily you will come with me to the Perez and Murrs households. We can regroup back here in a few hours." The team all murmured in agreement before splitting off to their assignments.

Rossi and JJ arrived at the Conway home, it wasn't a very large house but it wasn't small either. The pair approached the door with great caution, a large and deep bark startled them both however it seemed to bother JJ more. She cleared her throat and hid behind Rossi, she had overcome most of her fear of dogs but sometimes the bigger ones still made her uneasy. Rossi knocked on the door and looked back at the uneasy blonde with a small smile "Everything is going to be fine Bellissima." JJ nodded and sighed in relief as the door opened to reveal a short and thin woman who looked as if she had not slept in days. "Hello ma'am, I am SSA David Rossi and this is Agent Jareau, could we come in? We would like to ask you some questions about your husband." The lady nodded and moved aside to let the two agents in. JJ was the one who spoke to the wife while Rossi walked around the house taking in every detail he possibly could. "So could you tell me about where your husband worked, what his hobbies were and how he has been acting lately?" The woman sighed and looked down at her hands "James worked in construction and didn't do much else besides work and come home. But as of lately he had made a friend who would take him to his church with him. I never met this friend but since they had been going together James had started to become withdrawn and when he was around, he would be very quick to anger." JJ nodded and jotted down all the notes she could before thanking the woman and heading to the next victims house.

Emily and Hotch had already gone to both of the houses they needed to and were now back at the station trying to work on the victimology. The victims shared no similar activities besides the fact that both men had recently joined a new church. Emily was looking at the map that had two red spots marked for the sites where the heads had been found and then blue spots for where each victim lived. She sighed and sat back down to look back at the notes she had taken when Hotch sat beside her. "How are things with JJ?" The woman arched her perfectly sculpted eyebrow at the sudden interest he had taken in her personal life and smiled "They are good right now. I asked her to move in with me not that long ago so we did that. How are you and Jack?" Hotch smiled and pulled out his phone to show Emily a picture of Jack in a pool. "We went swimming on this last break we had, that kid is like a fish. He refused to get out of the water." The two conversed back and forth for a bit before Hotch got serious again and looked at Emily. "I just need you guys to be careful okay? I need to know that I can trust you both to still do your jobs and not let feelings hinder you from that. Plus fraternization is heavily frowned upon by the higher ups so please just be careful." Emily nodded and thanked her superior just as Derek and Spencer arrived back to the station. Spencer made a beeline straight to the map where he began drawing lines and adding more dots here and there. Derek sat down with Hotch and Emily. "So far the only thing our guys have in common is that they-" Derek was cut off by Rossi who had just entered the room with JJ following close behind. "Let me guess. The only thing in common is that they had recently joined a church?" Derek nodded and looked at Rossi and then to Emily who also nodded "yeah our guys had that too. So I guess we know where they all met the unsub." Spencer speed walked over to the table where everyone else was sitting and crossed his arms "guys I think I may have narrowed it down to where the unsub may be functioning out of" Hotch and Rossi followed the youngest agent over to the board so he could explain while Derek called Garcia to find a list of churches in the immediate area and JJ sat down my Emily.
Emily reached over and grabbed her hand and held it under the table, she noticed that JJ's eyes were darker than usual which meant she was more than likely upset. Emily rubbed small gentle circles on the skip between Jennifer's pointer finger and thumb "what's wrong? You seem upset." Jennifer sighed and shrugged "I'm not sure. Something just feels off about this case Em. I feel like something is just not right." Emily nodded and tried to soothe her lover. She understood where JJ was coming from because she also felt like something was off. She had a feeling as well, that this case was a force to be reckoned with.