[4.15; 4.16]

"i don't think you can prove that"

Despite Prentiss' best efforts, she never did get Florence to spill about her time with Reggie. Every time she thought she had her cornered, Florence would always annoy her way out of questioning. Once, she started singing every song from the Twilight soundtrack in order, and another time she just stared off into space. Absolutely no one in the office could get her to break her concentration. Later, Anderson got her to admit that she was watching Shrek in her head. Florence was going to remain tight-lipped about Reggie until she decided to share.

However, she had finally gotten her friendship bracelet, which was made of purple colored thread. Prentiss sauntered around the bullpen, flaunting it on her wrist that day. Everyone did their best to rub it in Hotch's face now that he was the only one without one, but he remained unbothered.

In even better news, JJ had returned to the BAU, ending her maternity leave early. Agent Todd left, deciding that the work they did was a bit too intense for her. Now that she was back, JJ was showing off pictures of Henry left and right. That was what she was doing now — standing in Garcia and Florence's office with Morgan and showing off the baby.

"This is Henry wearing the booties my mom knitted him."

"I can't get over his cuteness," Garcia said, grinning.

"Oh, and this is him wearing the customized leather jacket Auntie Penelope got him."

"When he grows up, he's gonna be a rebel," Garcia said, making the others laugh.

JJ flipped to the next picture and Florence grinned. "And here is Henry holding the Nerf gun that's two times bigger than him that his Auntie Florence gave him."

"I knew he'd love it," Florence said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "I give perfect gifts."

"I think Will would agree," JJ said, smiling. "He uses it any time he wants my attention."

Garcia's phone rang and Garcia quickly answered it. "Is this David Rossi? The famous bestselling author David Rossi?"

"What are you doing?" Morgan asked him. "You're not supposed to be calling when you're on annual leave."

"I think my AL just ended," Rossi told them.

"What do you mean?" Morgan asked.

"Garcia, Cleveland police is sending you some files. Get JJ to distribute them to the team right away."

"Yeah. What are we looking at?"

"I don't know yet. Just see if the team can find a connection with these crimes. I'll call you back in a few hours."

"Yes, sir." Garcia quickly worked on getting the files and printing them off for distribution.

"What's that thing he said? What's annual leave?" Florence asked, grabbing a Capri Sun.

Morgan and JJ shared a surprised look. "Annual leave is paid time off work granted by employers. You get so many each year and can use it for whatever you want," JJ explained.

"Given that you haven't been here a full year, I'd say you have about ten days of annual leave and they're also required to give you thirteen paid sick days," Morgan added.

"Wait," Florence said, standing up. "Wait, wait, wait. So you're telling me that I can get paid to go on vacation and have been able to do that this whole time?"

"That's exactly what we're saying," Morgan said, chuckling.

"Then why am I here with you all in this room when I could be on the island where they filmed Mamma Mia?"

Garcia sighed and shook her head. "Baby, I ask myself that question every day."

|||

Once everything was ready and everyone was in the briefing room, they called Rossi and began going over the case. Rossi had immediately gotten Florence to gain remote access to Zoe's laptop so they could go through it.

"The crimes are within a seven-mile radius," JJ stated.

"Well, that's something," Morgan said.

"Yeah, but the neighborhoods are all completely different," Prentiss said. "They range from poor to rich, industrial to residential."

"The physical locations are dissimilar, but the operating zone's well-defined," Hotch added.

"I'm in," Florence announced as she looked at Zoe's computer. Garcia moved her chair closer to look.

"I see you," Rossi said. He watched as Florence moved the mouse on both screens.

"Opening your web browser for search history," Florence explained. It automatically opened on a newspaper's website with the daily crime column bookmarked. "Check out her home page."

"All right, so the first thing she looks at when she opens her computer is a crime column," Prentiss said.

"Probably to stay current on her studies," Morgan guessed.

"Can you see what she worked on last?" Rossi asked.

Florence easily exited the browser and pulled up the last few documents and files she edited. "You got it, Ro-Ro. These are the most recently opened documents she created."

Reid leaned over and studied the screen. "Looks like she was compiling empirical data about homicide trends in Cleveland."

"Do you think she knew the killer?" Prentiss asked.

"I don't see any notes indicating suspects," Rossi said, going through her room.

"Well, Dave, she's a criminology student," Hotch reminded him. "She's been taught to analyze statistics and apply theory, not investigate killers. Let's talk about what we know."

"All right. Victim one, Travis Bartlett was last seen at a gay bar. He was shot at night in a park. Victim two, Lily Nicks, a thirty-four-year-old prostitute. Her throat was slashed. Victims three and four, June Appleby and Troy Wertsler, were shot in their car at a parking lot outside of a movie theater. And victim five was a twenty-eight-year-old single woman, Kayla James, killed in her home. She was bound, suffocated with a bag over her head, evidence of rape."

"And then the sixth victim was Zoe," Prentiss added.

"Victimology, weapons used, and COD are all different," Reid noted. "It's hard to imagine it's even the same unsub."

"It can't be a coincidence that Zoe goes to Kayla James' house and gets murdered," Rossi said.

"All right, let's say it is the same killer. Does anybody see a pattern?" Hotch asked.

"Well, maybe. Ok, the first crime, he shoots the victim," Prentiss said. "The second crime, he rapes a woman and slashes her throat. That's more personal. And the third crime, he escalates to killing two people, And the fourth, he escalates even more by raping a woman, binding her, and suffocating her."

"So if it is the same unsub, you could argue that there's a progression of violence with every kill," Hotch said.

"It could be an anger excitation offender getting more daring with each crime," Reid added.

"I think I got something here," Morgan told them, holding up the pictures. "Look at this. The slashes in the prostitute's throat. They're all shallow, unsure cuts. The Kayla James crime scene — telephone cord, rope, and duct tape were used. It's like he couldn't decide how to bind her."

"So without a gun, he's sloppy, inexperienced."

"The young couple shot in the car... That crime scene remind you of anything?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah," Reid said. "They were shot with a .44 bulldog, just like the Son of Sam used on his victims, which were also young couples in parked cars. It might be nothing, but you're right, there is a parallel there."

"With the second victim, it's hard not to think of Jack the Ripper," Prentiss added. "The obvious similarity being it's a prostitute whose throat was slashed."

"Kayla James was bound, tortured, raped, with a plastic bag over her head like BTK," Hotch added.

"What about victim number one?"

"Garcia, what neighborhood was he found in?" Rossi asked.

Garcia looked at Zoe's charts. "At a park in the Kingsbury Run area."

"Zoe reminded me last night that Cleveland's most famous serial killer was the Butcher of Kingsbury Run," Rossi told them. "He found his victims in gay bars, shot them, and dumped their body there. Travis Bartlett was last seen at a gay bar, and his body was found in Kingsbury park."

"So these are copycats of famous serial killers," JJ stated.

"He's a serial killer studying serial killers," Rossi said, surprised by how this was turning out. This was definitely a case worth the BAU's time.

"See you in Cleveland, Dave," Hotch said before hanging up. "Wheels up in twenty."

|||

The team worked as quickly as they could once they got to Ohio. As usual, another body soon turned up. The unsub had strangled a homeless woman with a garrote. Despite that, there was some good news. They had managed to get DNA off of Zoe's body. The unsub, whose name was Eric Olson, had kissed her forehead after murdering her. Garcia dialed Rossi up to deliver the information.

"Garcia, you got something?"

"Yeah, the boys in the lab found trace amounts of saliva on Zoe's forehead, enough for a DNA sample. So we got a CODIS match on Eric Ryan Olson, twenty-three, Cleveland native. Did two and a half years for attempted sexual assault and was paroled six months ago."

"We thought for sure he'd be a student," Rossi muttered.

"Uh, that's 'cause he was," Garcia said. "While he was in the slammer, he took independent correspondence classes in forensic science and criminology from an out-of-state school."

"Call the team. Let's get a search warrant."

Once the team was notified, they got to Olsen's apartment as quickly as they could. While he wasn't there, they found out that he was going to a nearby bar. Again, he wasn't there, but the bartender told them he had left recently. They found him, and his girlfriend, in a nearby park about to have sex. Once they got him in custody, he soon confessed and they were able to close the case.

|||

Florence ate her lunch in the briefing room with Rossi, JJ, Morgan, and Reid, who were the only ones in the bullpen at the time.

"So, Ren, did you ever decide how you're going to use that annual leave now that you know about it?" JJ asked, smiling. "You could go back to Seattle for a few days."

Florence shrugged. "I don't really have any close friends out there. If I took a vacation, I'd want to go somewhere new."

"What about your old roommate? The one with the boyfriend who dared you to hack into the Pentagon?" Reid asked. "Would you like to see her?"

"Eh. We weren't the closest. We still send each other memes when they make us think of each other, but that's about it."

"How did you become roommates if you weren't friends?" Rossi asked.

"Well, actually there were only two months in between me aging out of my group home and being relocated here. Jess offered to let me sleep on her couch in exchange for free wifi," she explained.

"Free wifi?" Rossi questioned.

"Yeah. Her neighbors paid for it. I just borrowed it."

Morgan sighed and rubbed his head. "So you stole the neighbor's wifi?"

"Borrowed. Stole. Same thing. Got me a couch to crash on when I needed it," Florence said, shoving a handful of chips in her face.

"That ethics class was three hours of yours and Hotch's lives that you're just not gonna get back, wasn't it?" Rossi asked, shaking his head.

Florence nodded her head while chewing her lunch. After she swallowed, she licked the salt off her fingers. "Sorry you had to cancel your book thing, Ro-Ro."

He waved her off. "I'm glad I decided to cancel it. The book's not that interesting anyway."

"I mean, yeah, but I guess some people like your writing."

"Ren, have you ever even read one of Rossi's books?" Reid asked.

Florence scoffed and sipped her Capri Sun. "Bold of you to assume I know how to read."

Rossi, Morgan, and JJ chuckled while Reid studied her. "Florence, I've seen you read."

"I don't think you can prove that."

"You were complaining about the inaccuracies of Elvish mating customs in the Legolas fanfiction you've been reading just this morning," Reid said, crossing his arms.

Morgan snorted. "I bet your browser history is just a really fun time."

"I mean, I've definitely been put on some government lists."

|||

Florence spent the majority of their next case sulking. There was some prostitute killing wealthy businessmen. There were so many lawyers involved in the investigation that it made asking questions and getting straight answers difficult.

Florence had told Hotch right away that if he gave her permission to use her less-than-legal methods, she could likely narrow down the suspects and find the unsub in a day. That was how confident in her skills she was — Hotch was confident too. The problem was all the lawyers. He made it very clear that Garcia was to keep Florence on a very tight leash during this case. The lawyers involved wouldn't hesitate to get her fired if they found out she had hacked into their databases to find out everything she could about their clients.

So Florence sat in her desk chair, mumbling about how much she hated lawyers and internet privacy laws while Garcia did most of the heavy lifting. They were currently on a call with Reid, Prentiss, JJ, and Hotch as they looked over countless records for the last victim.

"Eighteen cars, six houses, and three boats. Can you even boat in Dallas?" Reid asked.

"You know, when you're talking about that much money, ten grand for a call girl is like deciding where to go for dinner," Prentiss said.

"Are you there, Garcia? Florence?"

"Affirmative."

"Yeah," Florence grumbled.

"I have half a million over here for something called the Bat Cave," JJ said. "And here's a picture of him as fetish Batman. That is wrong."

"Is there anything this guy didn't like to spend money on?" Reid asked.

"Yeah, his ex-Wives. Fielding was married four times. He didn't have prenups the first two, but he did everything he could to cut off his ex-wives."

"Are there children involved?" Prentiss asked.

"Yes, with three of the wives. Hoyt Ashford was married a few times, too, wasn't he?" Hotch asked.

"You know, considering that when Kevin takes me to dinner and a movie, he defaults on his student loans, this amount of money is sick," Garcia said.

"What did you find?" Prentiss asked.

"Well, all three of our dearly departed rich guys were embroiled in bitter court battles over how much to pay in alimony and child support. And even when the court ruled in the wife's favor, which was almost always, these three charmers just, you know, decided not to pay," Garcia explained.

"Garcia, can you generate a list of high-profile Dallas CEOs who are holding out on their ex-wives?" Hotch asked.

"One loaded losers list, Dallas edition, comin' at ya."

Florence sighed and rolled over to help her. "Ya know if I could just—"

"No, Florence," Hotch cut her off. "You'd be fired immediately and there's no doubt in my mind that Strauss would still like for you to be in jail for the Pentagon incident. We need you on this team, so don't even think about it."

Once Hotch hung up, Florence pouted but helped Garcia compile the list. She understood, really. But it didn't make the situation less annoying. Sometimes, unethical means of attainment were useful.

Eventually, they got an address from a lawyer for a penthouse Fielding paid for. It was used by the unsub and the team rushed to check it. While she wasn't there, she still knew that the FBI had found it. The house received a call and they had asked Garcia to trace the call. All of them were completely confused when the unsub herself called.

"Aaron. I know you're up there. Pick up. Aaron Hotchner."

Florence shared a surprised look with Garcia as Hotch picked up. "Hello? I'm at a disadvantage. You seem to know my name, but I don't know yours. Can we start there?"

"I thought I could trust you, Aaron," the female replied.

"Who says you can't?"

"I want to. I even looked you up online. Is that strange?"

"No. It's flattering to be noticed by a woman like you."

"And I thought you were so... upstanding. I watched the presentation you gave on school shootings. I found it posted on YouTube. And for a moment, I actually thought there were still good people in the world."

"But I've disappointed you, haven't I? Just like all the other men in your life who've walked out on their families, who deserve to be punished."

"Did you walk out on your family?" Florence bit her lip as the unsub began to pick at Hotch's personal life.

"No. My wife left me."

"Do you have kids?"

"I have a son."

"How often do you see him?"

"I try to see him every week."

She scoffed. "Do you see him every week?"

"No, I don't get there as often as I want."

"I believe you, but don't compare yourself to the men I see. You are nothing like them. You're just another whore."

"How am I a whore?"

It was a serious situation, Florence knew. She had to try her absolute hardest to not laugh out loud at Hotch being called a whore. She internalized her amusement and told herself she could poke fun at him later.

Hotch's conversation with the unsub went on quite a while longer, but even then, it wasn't enough. Because the trap-and-trace wasn't already set up when she called, Garcia couldn't trace the call before they heard gunshots. She had shot someone, and it wasn't until the unsub hung up that Garcia finally managed to find where the call was coming from. She was gone before emergency responders hit the scene.

Eventually, they managed to get a name. Megan Kane was the unsub and it took some time to track her down. Her father found out what she was doing and tried to help cover everything up, which was what made Megan start killing in the first place. It was a whole family drama mess that ended horribly. Instead of going to jail, Megan decided to kill herself by taking the same poison she used on her other victims.

It was an unfortunate ending, as well as an annoying one. It had Florence itching to do something reckless with her skills, but she held back. This job meant more to her than the fun she used to have doing sketchy things on the internet.

Once the team returned to Quantico, Florence greeted them at the elevator with a big smile. She walked next to Hotch to the bullpen with her arms clutched behind her back. She opened her mouth to speak, but Hotch put up a hand to cut her off.

"If you even think about calling me a whore, you'll be suspended without pay for two weeks."

Florence's mood instantly deflated while the others laughed. That had been her exact plan.

"You're no fun, Hopscotch."