𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞

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𝗧𝘂𝗲𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝟭𝟲, 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟬
𝟭𝟬:𝟭𝟱 𝗮𝗺
𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝘆, 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗮𝗻

"𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐒 been established?" Agent Hotchner asked, and Cadence watched as he picked through her notes like a vulture. Her jaw tightened, but Captain Browne nodded.

"They've cordoned off the area, set up roadblocks," he answered. "It's all the same length of road in the Hills, so it wasn't hard to divert traffic. The overpass was built a decade ago, bypassing most of that area anyway."

"Morgan, Rossi," Agent Hotchner turned back to his team, "go check it out. See what you can find."

What we missed, Cady thought, rolling her eyes.

"JJ, Reid," he continued, "meet with the victims. Maybe someone remembers something else."

That they neglected to tell us. Cady looked to her boss, but he wasn't paying attention to her. He was noticeably glued to Agent Hotchner, watching his actions, noting his orders, following his movements, and mimicking his stance to show that he too, Captain Peter Browne, could hold authority.

The four agents, Morgan, Rossi, JJ, and Reid, all left, and as Candace glanced over, she saw her partner visibly ogling JJ. She fought to not kick his chair out from under him.

"Luth," Pete spoke, and Luther looked up. Pete cocked his chin towards the agents. "Go with them to the Hills."

Luther quickly scrambled to his feet, grabbing his phone and gun from his desk, and hurrying after Morgan and Rossi.

"So, what do you have so far?" the remaining woman asked, her arms crossed over her chest as she studied the notes scrawled across the whiteboard.

Agent Prentiss, Cady recalled.

"Cadence?" Pete almost urged. She looked to him again and he raised his brows in warning. She sighed as she refrained herself, and explained the case.

"Not much," she began. "Three women have reported being raped and strangled over the past two weeks. Their recounts of the act are all the same, location the same, vehicle the same, but their assailant always varies."

"And you ruled out multiple UnSubs?" Agent Prentiss turned to Cady.

Cady nodded. "As Luth said, statistically it's... rare. Petty crime, car thefts, sure, but multiple rapists? Completely unheard of around here." She tapped her finger to the composite sketches that lined the top left corner of the board. "These are all fairly similar enough, so we can assume it's the same guy. Minor things change," she tapped each sketch in turn, "he had a moustache, he had a cleft chin, he had a scar, but these are all chronological. Logically, he could've shaved his moustache, then his chin became noticeable, and one of the women could've scratched him, causing his scar." Cady shrugged. "But it's not enough."

"Who are the victims?" Agent Hotchner asked.

Cady's hand hovered over the three photographs below the sketches. "Eleanor Trevas," she continued, gesturing to the first. "32, brown hair, blue eyes, works as an office secretary for a financial advisor in the city, but lives in the Hills." She turned to the second victim. "Dani Miller, 29, blonde hair, green eyes. She's a housewife, married to Dr Keith Miller, a surgeon at Long General Hospital. She was on her way home from dropping their eight-year-old son to a friend's place." Finally, Cady pointed to the third photo. "Eliza Woodstaff, 30, black hair, blue eyes. Again, lives in the Hills, works in the city."

"So they're not meeting a physical type," Agent Hotchner commented, tilting his head.

"What are the Hills?" Prentiss asked, sitting against the edge of the table, her hands resting either side of her, fingers wrapped over the edge.

"Affluent neighbourhood," Cady answered, straightening. "Fortitude Hills, but everyone shortens it to 'the Hills'. Mostly doctors, bankers, that kind of thing."

"He's targeting the upper class," Agent Hotchner noted, but Cady had already considered it.

"Specifically, wives of the upper class," Cady corrected. "Dani Miller grew up middle-class, but when she married her husband at 19, she migrated to a higher stature."

"So," Prentiss mused, "common factors are late twenties to early thirties... Do they all live in the Hills?"

Cady nodded.

"Do they all have children?" Agent Prentiss continued.

Cady shook her head. "No, Eleanor doesn't."

Prentiss pursed her lips as she thought before glancing to her boss. "Is this at all preferential?"

Agent Hotchner shook his head. "Not necessarily. These women may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time."

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𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐔𝐃𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐀𝐃 𝐇𝐀𝐃 indeed been cordoned off, the road lined with white police cars and bright orange bollards. Detective Luther stepped out of his own patrol car, now parked at the dirt clearing along one of the few horizontal stretches of road, followed by Agents Morgan and Rossi from their shiny, black SUV. The three faced towards the Hills, their backs turned to the outstretched cityscape below them.

"How much traffic comes through here?" Agent Morgan asked, surveying the length of road under his dark sunglasses.

"No idea," Luther shrugged. "Not a lot. You'd have to check with..."

"Already on it," Agent Rossi was dialling the number-pad on his phone, holding it out in front of him, between himself and Agent Morgan. "Garcia, can you tell me how many cars drive Fortitude Road, preferably at night?"

Penelope Garcia grinned, alone in her office, eager to be given a task. "Sir, with how elite that suburb is, I can tell you the make and model of every car that drove it in the past two years if you wanted."

"We're thinking more the past two weeks," Morgan added.

"That, I can also do." Garcia tapped away on her keyboard. "Last two weeks? You're looking at an average between 50 and 150 cars each night, between the hours of 6pm and 6am."

"How many residents live in the Hills?" Morgan asked, glancing up at the perfect white houses that dotted the mountains in front of them.

"Mmm," Garcia hummed, still typing. "A reported six thousand, two hundred, and thirty-six residents in 2008."

"Less than two and a half percent," Rossi said to Morgan.

"And a cookie to David Rossi!" Garcia teased. "Since the overpass was built in 2000 and most residents now use that to get to and from, traffic on Fortitude Road has seen a huge decrease."

Rossi turned, surveying the curving road that was winding through the hills below them. "Smart. Less likely to be seen."

"But also less likely to come across a driver meeting his preference," Morgan countered.

"We're assuming there's a preference," Rossi said. "What if they're just coincidences?"

The question remained unanswered as their attention was taken by an officer on his approach to them, panting. "Detective," he directed to Luther, "we think you oughta see this."

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𝐂𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 a lidded paper cup to Agent Prentiss with a smile. Cady looked from the cup to her boss, frowning. In the seventeen years she had known him, Peter Browne had never once brought her a coffee.

"Thank you," Emily smiled, taking a sip. She was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the coffee, not bitter or burnt like what she'd become accustomed to from police stations before. She turned to Cady, who was sitting next to her. "Do you have any theories?"

Cady scoffed a half-laugh. "I have a lot of theories." She stared up at her board, unable to admit that they would likely stay only as theories. She tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth before gesturing to the sprawled notes and evidence photos pinned over a map of the city. "The use of the seatbelt for strangulation in the first rape, the escalation to his hands in the second and third, the lack of mask or any efforts to hide his identity, it..." Cady sighed. "It's like he wants to kill them, like that's the climax he's leading to, but he can't quite get there."

A door slammed open in the distance and all heads turned to the commotion. Detective Luther came running in, a look of concern on his sweated brow. "They just found a body," he panted.

Agent Hotchner looked up. "Where?"

"The Hills," Luth said, looking to Cady. "Fortitude Road."