A Course of Passion

1: The BAU

"Thanks for getting me here, I really appreciate it." I say after hugging hello to an old friend.

"Anything for you." Rossi smiles back at me, giving my shoulders a little squeeze.

I give him a side smirk, "you mean anything for my father" I correct him slyly.

"No, no. You earned your place here at the bureau" he returns

"So, JJ's doing alright?" I ask him, figuring it was easy to get me here to fill her position temporarily while she was out on maternity leave.

He nods, "her and the baby are fine, she'll be excited to see you." He replies. "Now let's go, the team will be excited to see you too and we already have a case." He moves past me to walk into the conference room.

I wait for him to tell everyone he has some news and then I walk in, "Maddison!" Penelope squeals when she sees me.

She stands up to greet me with a hug as the others look at me with a smile and a wave. "It's good to see you Maddison, have a seat." Hotch directs with a short smile and head nod.

I quickly put myself next to Morgan and Rossi and listen to Penelope go over the case, "Savannah, Georgia, known for its charm and southern hospitality, though not so much for Brandy Green of Dover, Delaware, because 3 months ago," Penelope begins to go through the crime scene photos on the screen, barely taking a breather as she does, "she came to town for a bachelor party, and after a night of bar hopping with her bridesmaids, ended up in a dumpster in a back alley."

"Cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head." Morgan says looking at the file, "what's that wrapped around her face?" Rossi asks as we all look at the photo on the screen.

Penelope explains, "that would be the sash she was wearing all night that says bride-to-be embroidered on it."

"The wrapping could be ritualistic, like a shroud of some sort." Spencer offers out.

"Or a sign of the killer's remorse." The women I haven't met yet comments back.

"But this happened three months ago, why are we getting this now?" Derek asks.

Hotch clarifies, "because two days ago, the body of Ashley Wilcox of Dayton, Ohio, was also found in an alley dumpster in Savannah."

Penelope changes the photos to our new victim, "and she also had blunt force trauma, but she was strangled to death with her bride-to-be sash."

"It's unlikely the work of the same jilted lover, since the two women lived in different states hundreds of miles apart." Rossi offers.

I offer my thought now, "they could be surrogates. Any sign of sexual assault?"

"None on Brandy" Penelope clarifies, "we don't know about Ashley yet." I purse my lips in thought.

Spencer offers more to the working profile "what's interesting is the unsub doesn't care about hiding the bodies very well."

"Well, he'd have to be physically fit to lift the bodies into the dumpsters." Derek returns.

"He could be sending a message that to him women are trash, disposable." Rossi offers.

I shoot down his opinion with one of my own, "no, this is about marriage. He's taking these brides on the eve of what should be the happiest day of their lives. He wants to crush that. Their weddings have become their wakes."

"Wheels up in 20." Hotch says and walks out of the room, leaving the rest of us to get things ready.

We all stand up and the women next to Spencer comes over to me, "Hi, I'm Tara Mitchell. It's a pleasure to meet you." She shakes my hand.

"Maddison Grey, it's nice to meet you too." I smile back.

Spencer comes over after that, standing a bit awkwardly while looking at me, "Hi Maddison, it's nice to see you."

"Hi Spencer." I smile back, leaning in to give him a hug. He reciprocates the hug after a moment and we release. Morgan comes over right after, "Derek, hi." I smile at him, moving to give him a hug as well.

"You playing your own game surprising us like this?" He asks through a chuckle.

I shake my head, "I'm not that much fun." I laugh back, "let's get going." I pull away from the group and make my way to Rossi's office where I stored my go bag.

After take off we all gather again to go over more details. Spencer starts us off with a statisic only he would know, "established in 1733, Savannah is the oldest city in Georgia and one of the south's most popular wedding destinations."

"Brandy and Ashley are both low-risk lifestyle victims, but their behavior the nights they were murdered was anything but" Morgan comments out loud.

"Bar hopping, being intoxicated in public, getting separated from their friends, all of that would have raised their risk levels, making them easy prey." I return. I quickly clarify to the team, "but I am not victim blaming here. It's entirely understandable that both women would have wanted to enjoy themselves during their last nights as single women."

"And from the unsub's point of view, the bars are target rich environments." Hotch adds on.

"But why pick only brides-to-be?" Rossi questions "why not choose women a little less high-profile?"

"Wearing a bride-to-be sash must be like waving a red cape at a bull." Morgan offers.

Spencer pipes in, "actually, bulls are colorblind. So it doesn't really matter what color cape a matador waves, it's the cape's movement that elicits an aggressive charge response." We all stare at him silently, and I try to stifle my chuckle from the others hearing it. He finally adds on, "but Morgan's metaphor still applies here"

Tara speaks up, "this is probably a man who had his own engagement broken off, so living in Savannah, surrounded by weddings and happy brides, it must be driving him crazy."

Just then Penelope beeps into the screen, "Sir, we just got a report that a third bride-to-be went missing." She clicks and a photo appears next to her "Madison Mills, 25, from Tampa, Florida, was celebrating at a bar with her bridesmaids last night, when she disappeared. She's supposed to get married next Sunday."

"The first victim was 3 months ago, the second two days ago, and now Madison." I say first, the escalation important.

"He's accelerating." Hotch says.

"He may be a townie trolling bars to meet women." Rossi offers.

"What if he interacted with them and they turned down his advances?" I comment to them all.

"He could have felt emasculated, thus triggering his rage." Spencer builds off my statement.

"I'll see if there's any connection between the brides-to-be." Penelope tells us.

Derek directs to her, "And, Garcia, look for men living in the area with violent criminal records."

"Also any men who were recently engaged and any who've had the engagements broken off." Hotch adds on. She nods, "check for cold feet. Got it." She clicks herself off the screen.

"So how do we know Madison didn't hook up with a guy at a bar? I mean, she could still be sleeping it off and just doesn't want to face her friends." Derek offers the scenario.

"We should check into that." Hotch confirms, then giving us our assignments, "in the meantime, Morgan, you and Lewis retrace the victim's last steps. Reid and Grey, go to the M.E., and Dave and I will go to the P.D. and talk to the families."