Never Together Nor Apart

[Chapter 76]

Hotch's POV:

"You know how many cars I see drive through my work site here?" One of the construction worker's states.

"Your boss said you were the safety officer that night?" Dave ignores his question.

"So?" He scoffs.

"So that means you would have been holding the sign to slow cars down. We're looking for a man in a white sedan, and he would have come through over and over again," I give come minor details.

"The driver would have been going extra slow, like he was daring anyone to cut him off," Dave adds.

"Son of a bitch," he shakes his head.

"You remember someone?" The detective asks.

"Yeah, I thought the guy was lost. I mean, I even talked to Tony about this guy dressing like a hard-ass, but he drove like a chick. No offense," he backtracks.

"None taken".

"What do you mean, dressed like a hard-ass?" Dave interrogates.

"Jackass was wearing a leather jacket, he's got sunglasses on, they're mirrored, you know, like the cops use. But it was dark out," he explains.

"He's starting to role-play. He's breaking from reality," I state to Dave.

"Do you remember anything else about this man?"

"A car cut him off, and he stuck his arm out across the front seat. But after that I didn't see him come through again," he replies.

"Show me what he did with his arm," I say perplexed.

"Like this," he demonstrates.

"Like he was keeping a passenger from hitting the dashboard?" I offer.

"Yeah, but the dude was alone," he agrees.

"Thanks for your time," Dave gives me a look.

"Sure," he goes back to his work.

"What's wrong," Detective Salinas
asks.

"A small SUV is a family vehicle. Between that and the hand gesture, I'm afraid our unsub's married with children," I confess.

"Why does that matter?" She wonders.

"Well, if he's breaking from reality and he's lashing out at surrogates for his life, then it's only a matter of time before he tries to wipe out the real thing," I explain.

"Are you saying this guy's gonna kill his wife and kids?" She says worried.

"Call your people. We need to get a profile out as soon as possible," Dave warns.

*time skip*

The hyper-masculine disguise, victim preference, and the emasculating trigger of the first attack all tell us this is an unsub suffering a masculine identity crisis," I state.

"A masculine identity crisis? That's why he's driving around blowing women away?" Salinas echos.

"No. Judy Hannity was just the trigger. We need to identify the precipictating trauma," JJ explains.

"Something happened in the unsub's life, something so traumatic, it turned a normal man into a serial killer," Morgan adds.

"So he's suffering from some kind of psychotic break," Salinas understands.

"Which means the world he sees around him has changed, and so has his role in it," Dave agrees a

"And that is his family. His perception of his home life is the key to his pathology. At home this unsub feels less than a man, a failure as a father and as a husband. He feels his children don't need or respect him and that he's unwanted and obsolete in their lives," I remind.