A Course of Passion

3: Sickness

We sit at a table, going over everything we know, trying to nail down our unsub. The phone rings and Derek puts it on speaker, "what can you tell us, Garcia?" Rossi asks.

"That the stress and pressure of planning the perfect wedding is enough to drive anyone bonkers." She responds quickly.

"Garcia, you find any connection between the wedding vendors and the 3 victims?" I ask her, wanting to catch the perp before another person gets killed.

"Oh, yeah. Brandy, Ashley, and Madison all went to the same vendors. One of which does a horse-drawn pumpkin carriage." She goes off on a quick little tangent, "I mean, come on. I need that in my life." She brings herself back to work, "anyway, I talked to all the vendors and none of them remember a large, strong non-threatening woman who was recently dumped by her fiance so she had to cancel all of her plans. They said they'd definitely remember a customer like that."

"But what if the unsub didn't visit one of the vendors? What if she is one of the vendors?" I ask, thinking of it in a different way then we have yet.

"That's a more statistically probable way that the unsub could come in contact with all the victims." Spencer agrees, nodding his head twice.

Rossi speaks up, as Tara's phone rings, "if she had a relationship that ended badly, dealing with happy brides every day could fuel her anger."

"Garcia, see if any of the vendors fit the profile and if any have been recently divorced." Hotch tells our analysis genius.

She responds, "asketh and you shall receiveth."

Derek offers, "if she's attacking brides-to-be because she was in a bad relationship or one didn't go as she hoped, then she's most likely depressed."

Tara returns, "yeah, but in my experience, depressed women don't display this level of violence towards others."

"Even if the depression's so severe, it leads to psychosis?" Hotch poses the question and we all think about it, figuring he's most likely right.

Hotch sends us to our hotel, telling the captain to call us if anything comes up tonight. We all go our separate ways and when I get to my room I check my phone. I have a text from Amanda, "Benson told us you've been reassigned with the BAU for a bit, how are things with you and Sonny?"

I decide not to answer, and put my phone on it's charger. I quickly clean myself up and crawl into bed, knowing I can get a call at any moment to go back in to the station. The next morning, I sit in a conference room with Spencer and Tara. "We may have a wedding vendor who is in love with someone who doesn't love her back or who might be engaged." Tara reviews with us.

"And she's probably severely depressed because of her physical and emotional state." I throw on to her comment.

"Assuming she's under a doctor's care, she might be off her meds." Spencer says, all of us running through ideas. His cell phone rings and he pulls it out, "Nail-biting can be a symptom of that." He adds on before answering his phone "what's up, Garcia?"

She answers on speaker phone, "I found several female vendors who went through a divorce, but none in the past 6 months."

"Do any of them have a history of depression?" I question.

"Nuh. Zilch. Sorry." She tells us.

"What about women whose family members or loved ones recently got engaged?" Tara asks her.

Of course she finds something instantly, "hey, here's something. There's a local woman, Nicole Seavers, who, according to social media, just got engaged last night." I hear her click a few things on the other line "here's her Instagram post." She send over the photo and continues "she owns a flower shop, Blossoms, and her new fiance happens to be a wedding photographer named Ryan Becker, working out of said shop."