Never Together Nor Apart

[Chapter 50]

[JJ is 5 weeks pregnant; Lily is 8 1/2 weeks old; Emily is 18 weeks pregnant]

Hotch's POV:

I sit at my desk checking JJ's paperwork from her being on leave. Had been been gone for 2 months, and was finally coming back today. Sadly, we already have a case to welcome her back. I hear a knock at the door.

"It's open," I call out.

The door opens and in walks JJ.

"Hotch," she gives me a hug.

"You look great, leave treated you well," I exclaim.

"Gave me time to get rid of that bump, only to start a new one," she laughs.

"I'm guessing by the quietness nobody knows you're here yet?" I ask.

"Nope, I snuck in to make sure the paperwork was correct," she explains.

"It's great, I can file it when we get back," I tell.

"We have a case already?" She gives me a grim face.

I offer a nod.

"That's one way to welcome me back," she says making her way to the door.

"So where is Lily?" I notice she's not here.

"Spence and I hired a nanny for her. Hopefully she'll stick around until we can find a good daycare," she smiles.

"Peaches you're here!" Garcia jumps at her.

"I am, and I hear your 'welcome back present' to me is a case?" She jokes.

"Sorry about that, but you better get going. Everyone is already at the round table," she begins to lead us.

*time skip*

I wait as everyone welcome's JJ. Shortly after everyone is seated again awaiting the brief.

"This is Dorris Archer, she's the third woman to go missing in Boise, Idaho, this year. Along with Paula Renmar and Samantha Rush. They went missing roughly two months apart," Garcia starts.

"Ok, so what are we looking at here? Late 20s, early 30s," Emily reads off the file.

"One single, though two are in committed relationships. All living on their own," Dave reads as well.

"Looks like normal suburban houses. Gives the unsub privacy," Morgan studies the pictures.

"The differences are more striking than the similarities. Different hair colors, different body shapes," Reid adds.

"What do we know about his M.O.?" I ask.

"That's why we were invited in. The abduction sites are pristine. Much like Reid's bookshelves," Garcia informs.

"There's no DNA besides the victims', and there's no sign of forced entry or a struggle," Morgan looks through the notes.

"And the victims aren't reported missing until two or three days after their abducted," JJ points out.

"Two or three days— women like this don't just vanish without somebody noticing," Dave counters.

"Yes. Which is why I dug into their lives further, and when I took a look at their online activity, I could easily see how the unsub is doing it," Garcia shows a new screen.

"Social networking sites," Emily calls out.

"Yeah. Facebook, Twitter. You name an online life-sharing time suck, the victims were on it and if you look at each of their last posts, they say kind of the same thing— going out of town, going on a business trip, going on vacation. But when you look at the time and date stamp of each of these, cue the Twilight Zone music, because they were all posted the morning after each of them went missing," she goes into detail.

"The unsub posted them," I infer.

"You know, social networks are an easy way for an unsub to target his victims. These women were especially open. They posted everything from what they were having for dinner to where they were going on dates," Reid makes a face.

"So this unsub friends his victims and then used that as a cover once he takes them," Morgan concludes.

"And that means he can hack into their accounts, so he's excellent with computers," JJ adds.

"Definitely profiles as patient and organized. He's obsessive enough to remove all forensic details, but also patient enough to wait two months before abductions," Reid explains.

"He can afford to be. He gets three days to do whatever he wants to these women," Dave says in disgust.

"That means we need to assume these women are already dead. The question is what he does while he has them," I dismiss.

*time skip*

"So if this unsub is using social networks to find his victims, can't we use that to find him?" Morgan wonders.

"Yeah? If these women each had 100 friends following them, then the unsub would pop up on each of their lists right?" Emily agrees.

"The detective in charge, John Fordham, he looked into their groups. Everyone checked out," Garcia says over the computer.

"Social networking sites are surprisingly insecure. Facebook recently tried an update all their privacy settings, and in doing so, they made everybody's profiles viewable," Reid rants.

"Can somebody explain to me the appeal of these sites? "Eating sushi tonight. Yum." "Boss is keeping me late at work. Grr." Whose life is so important that we'd be interested in this kind of detail?" Dave mocks.

His statements receive a laugh from everyone.

"I don't know. I guess that's the running joke, right? I mean, nobody is. But we'd all like to believe there's actually an audience out there that wants to follow our every move. You know, some sites actually have a GPS feature built in. You can tell exactly where someone is every time they comment or post," Morgan explains.

"Morgan, you're beginning to sound like Spence. I don't need two of you," JJ jokes.

"I'm sitting right next to you!" Reid defends himself.

"Shhh, I know," she leans in to kiss him.

"Heyyyyy, enough of that. If I can't kiss baby girl then you two can't do it either!"

"You tell them muscles," Garcia shouts over the computer.

"Alright, alright. So this is telling us how he finds them, but it's not telling us how he's getting into their houses," I get us back in topic.

"At the very least, I believe that he has copies of their keys. Dorris Archer had a home security system installed, but the disable code was entered at 1:56 A.M. so he knew that too. He also found a way to deal with her dog. A German Shepard she adopted from the pound last year went missing the night that she did," Reid starts the conversation again.

"All right, so this guy's gotta be in and out of the house well before the night of the disappearance. He comes up with some ruse, talks his way inside, then I once he's familiar enough with the house, he knows he can come back and kidnap them without disturbing anything," Morgan expresses.

"What about the people who come into your house that you don't consider a threat? Home repair guys, dog walkers?" Dave wonders.

"Yeah, Detective Fordham looked into that too. No one even came close to being a killer," Garcia shoots down the idea.

"Ok, Morgan and Emily, start with the last abduction sites. See if anything point to his M.O. Dave, you, Reid, and JJ go back over the women's lives. Start with their friends on the social networking sites. If this is how the unsub is finding them, maybe they're connected to him without even realizing it," I direct.

JJ is back! They're all together again and ready for the next horrible things I have planned to come 🥰🥰🥰....

1236 words