Never Together Nor Apart

[Chapter 6]

Emily's POV:

I hear commotion as I was beginning to leave the room. I turn back around in order to understand the predicament.

"Woah. Hold on, hold on, hold on," A masculine voice yells.

"I'm not telling you not to do your job. Just want to make sure that we don't get ahead of ourselves. So please just sit tight one more minute," I look to see it was the Mayor.

"What's the problem," Hotch walks up, Gideon close behind.

"The problem is I would have to be crazy to release this profile to the public," His answer is snarky.

"What are you talking about?" Morgan joins in.

"Reverend Williams has already stirred up enough trouble by choosing to make this town a soapbox for his anti-racism campaign. What do you think is gonna happen if I go to the press and tell them the killer is black?" He remarks.

"Hey, the best way to stop all this is to find that killer. We just gave you the best way to do that," Morgan answers defensively.

"Right, by telling everybody to look out for an anonymous black man? They're gonna say that's racial profiling," he raises his tone.

"It's not racial profiling. Racial profiling is targeting suspects because of their race. We gave you a complete profile which includes race," Gideon says level toned.

"All right, look. The point is I've never even heard of a black serial killer, and neither will the African-Americans in this community, who are already upset by what's been happening here," he continues his madness.

"You can believe in black serial killers or not, but the fact is they do exist. And it's only a matter of time before he kills another girl," Hotch states reasonably.

"All right look, I am not interested in debating this. Detective Ware is more than capable of heading this investigation," he turns toward the detective.

"You gonna let this happen?" Morgan faces him.

"Let what happen? Make every black man in this county a target?" He gets closer to Morgan's face.

"Rick," an officer states.

"What," he replies.

"We found Naomi Dade's body," he replies.

"Damn it," Ware murmurs.

"We got a mass of reporters out there," JJ comes from outside.

"What's it gonna be detective?" Morgan says in an almost offensive tone.

"Please," Gideon tries a nicer tactic, "let us help you".

*time skip*

"Finally, I wanna assure you we have considered all options and we're certain this is the best course of action. Thank you," the detective walks away from all the cameras.

"Detective, I think you made the right choice," Hotch says as he walks toward us.

"I hope this doesn't come back to bite us in the ass," he replies.

"Why would it?" I announce.

"Why? Last thing I need is to spread fear there's a dangerous black man running around his county," he says as if it should be a common thought.

"Best way to solve your problem is to stay focused on what we need to do to catch this guy," Hotch directs.

"Tell me," he opens his arms out to gesture, "tell me what to do".