Psychopathy

Chapter 81- Looking Into The Past

Isabel kneeled next to the sobbing child, stroking her back comfortingly. She knew what had happened to this child, and she felt of pang of sadness deep in her heart. This child, who reminded Isabel so much of the little girl next door, had seen something she could never unsee. Her innocence would forever be lost. Isabel had been in that position too, once, so she kept trying to comfort the child.

That was, until cracks started to appear on the child's skin. All Isabel could do was watch as the cracks grew and deepened, covering her skin until the child fell completely apart, like a china doll dropped onto the floor. Completely destroyed.

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"We have a double homicide in Dupont Circle," Garcia said as she began presenting the case. Everyone looked down at their tablets, save Reid who had a physical file, watching as pictures began to appear on the screen. Ciara watched the pictures filter through- a man and a woman, both brunettes and in their mid-30s. She was guessing that they were the victims. "Michael and Stella Simpkin were murdered in their home at about 1:00 this morning."

"What was their cause of death?" Reid asked, and Garcia clicked her little remote, and new pictures started to filter onto Ciara's screen. Crime scene photos, including the clear pictures that showed the bullet wound in the back of their heads. Yep. That would certainly do it.

"They were shot in the back of the head with a .22 caliber revolver," Garcia responded, her face already scrunching up with the mental images running through her brain.

"No shell casings were found. Unsub must have taken them with him," Rossi said, and Ciara looked at all of the images, her brows beginning to furrow.

"Well, that's certainly smart of him. Either he planned this out pretty well, or he's done this before," she commented.

"He has," Hotch said, and Garcia clicked her button again. On the big screen, a map came up, dots pinpointing their way across the country. There were a few sounds of surprise around the room as they counted all of the dots. There were thirty-two of them. Thirty-two cities this unsub had struck, and when the victims' information came up, Ciara felt her heart drop in her chest. Altogether, over the past three years, this Unsub had reached a total of fifty-two murders. Fifty-two people he had killed, of all ages, genders, and races.

"Our Unsub has killed all of these people?" Akilah breathed, and Hotch and Garcia nodded solemnly.

"But how did they connect all of these cases? According to the files, there was no shell casing, no DNA, no anything," Morgan asked, and Garcia perked up a little.

"This is where my skill comes in. Before we presented the case, I wanted to see if this was the only time this sicko had killed. Because the murders were spread out over time and state lines, the connection wasn't made immediately. But he does leave something behind at each crime scene," Garcia said, clicking her remote, bringing up a new picture. It was two tarot cards pinned to the wall. The Chariot, Justice, and the Hierophant. But there was something off about Justice and the Hierophant.

"Well, okay, Justice is a bit on the nose, isn't it? But why would he leave the other two?" Blake asked, and Ciara suddenly realized what was strange about the two cards.

"They're reversed," she blurted out. When everyone looked over at her, she got up from her chair and walked to the big screen, pointing to the large picture of the two tarot cards. "The Justice and the Hierophant are reversed."

"What do you mean, reversed? They're upside-down, sure, but I don't know about reversed," Morgan asked, and Ciara nodded.

"That's the thing about tarot. When a card is upside-down from the point of view of the person getting the reading, the card is known as 'reversed'. And reversed cards have a different meaning than if they were upright," Ciara explains. "Our Unsub pinned Justice and the Hierophant upside down. He wanted them to be reversed."