Embers~Criminal Minds 2

Corazon

Emily: "Hey, you ok?" she asks when Reid rushes into the room

Reid: "Yeah. Why?"

Morgan: "You're never late."

Reid: "Have we started the briefing yet?"

Watson: "Just about to."

Reid: "Then I'm not late." he shrugs them off

Garcia: "Oh. Yeah. Attention, intrepid BAU adventurers. The land of Bermuda shorts, white leisure suits, and sansabelt slacks requests your presence."

Rossi: "Vegas?"

Morgan: "Arizona."

Emily: "Palm Springs."

Hotch: "Please."

Garcia: "I was going to say Miami, but point well made about the dizzying number of locales with unfortunate fashion tendencies. Here we go."

Watson: "Shells in the eyes and mouth. You don't see that every day."

Rossi: "Not even in Miami."

Garcia: "3 victims, the last one found with a..."

Morgan: "A decapitated cat?"

Hotch: "All were found within a mile of each other in a mostly Latino neighborhood in Miami called Allapattah."

Garcia: "Eduardo Guzman, homeless. He was shot to death 7 days ago. Yanira Espinal, prostitute, bludgeoned to death 3 days ago. And then Victor Cabrera, he was an unemployed janitor. He was slashed with a machete yesterday, as was his cat."

Rossi: "You know, considering the homeless man lived in that alley, all of the victims essentially were killed in their homes."

Morgan: "This took some time."

Hotch: "In the open."

Reid: "You know, cowrie shells and ritual offerings are common to a number of Afro-Caribbean religions."

Emily: "But the upside-down cross looks like satanism."

Watson: "The first two victims had fingers missing, but on this one, he took both hands."

Ashley: "All of this could have been religious?"

Reid: "This could have specific religious meaning or it could just be part of the unsub's signature."

Hotch: "Either way, his timetable's accelerating. We have a day, maybe 2, before the Miami P.D. has another body on its hands."

Reid: "No man chooses evil because it is evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley."

On The Plane

Hotch: "The first victim was frail and an easy target, and yet the unsub shot him from behind and at a distance."

Morgan: "By the second victim, the unsub chose not to use a gun anymore."

Rossi: "He got up close and personal."

Watson: "4 days is a rapid increase in confidence."

Emily: "By the third victim, he was comfortable enough to use a machete."

Hotch: "But still from behind."

Ashley: "So he's not invested in watching his victims suffer."

Rossi: "Which fits what the M.E. said about the mutilations being postmortem."

Emily: "So we're back around a religious ritual."

Hotch: "Reid?"

Reid: "Hmm?"