" It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us. "

— Norman Maclean

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

11.1 ; THE BLACK WATER. 

CAROLINE'S FOOT TAPPED IMPATIENTLY as the stainless steel elevator smoothly ascended the floors of Quantico. Her fingers drummed against the side of her leg, her lips pursed together tightly. She couldn't believe she had actually been called into work on a Saturday night. When JJ had sent out the text that Gideon had an emergency case for them, she almost texted the press liaison to go on without her. She didn't care if Gideon had called it or if it was the damn president of the United States himself. She had plans, plans that had been carefully tailored to avoid this exact moment.

Of course, I would happen to get a call right in the middle of wedding planning, she thought dryly.

Before Caroline had been called into work, she had been with Rebecca and the rest of her bridesmaids (of which had been Caitlin and a couple of old high school friends) at a boutique, dress shopping. As maid of honor, she had planned everything as perfectly as she possibly could manage. She chose Saturday because usually, those were the unspoken off days for the BAU. She even booked the appointment at night because, surely, a case wouldn't come in at nine o'clock on a Saturday night.

She was wrong.

The only thing Caroline had to be happy about was being able to find Rebecca's wedding dress before she got called in. Seeing her brother's fiancée dressed in the long white gown and sheer veil made her realize just how real this wedding was.

It was happening. Her brother was getting married.

And she couldn't wait. He and Becca deserved to be happy.

Beside her, Morgan chuckled as he stared at Caroline. She grounded her teeth together, refusing to acknowledge his presence.

"Hey, uh, Care," her friend said as he carefully lifted a strand of her blonde hair and examined it teasingly, "what the hell is in your hair?"

She glowered at him. When JJ texted her, she had been right in the middle of Rebecca choosing a hair style for the wedding. Unfortunately, Caroline had been the guinea pig. Her hair had grown stiff with the copious amounts of hairspray the stylist sprayed into her head. Her blonde hair that had been teased and curled and straightened was now as stiff as a board. She could hear her hair crinkle as Derek pinched it between his fingers, clearly amused by her obvious discomfort.

She swatted away his hand. "It's hairspray, Morgan. Rebecca wanted to test out hairstyles for the wedding."

He smirked, pleased he was getting under her skin. "Alright, Care."

She sighed as she gathered her stiff hair at the nape of her neck, her fingers pulling the sticky, dry strands apart as she tied her hair up with the black hair-bow on her wrist. As much as she hated to admit it, her friend was right. She looked like an idiot.

"I think she looks nice," Reid murmured defensively in the corner of the elevator, his slender body peeking out from behind Hotch and Elle, who had been listening in on the conversation silently with amused expressions.

"Aww, Reid!" Morgan reached over and ruffled his hair, something she knew Spencer hated. "Defending your girlfriend, how cute."

"She's not my girlfriend," Spencer yelped as his face turned a shade of bright red at the same time as Caroline exclaimed, "I'm not his girlfriend!"

Morgan glanced between the two of them and shook his head. "Whatever you guys say."

The elevator dinged as it announced their arrival to the BAU. The sleek elevator doors slid open and Caroline quickly stepped out, thankful to get out of the awkwardness that had hung in the elevator moments before.

"So they've been here all night?" Elle questioned curiously as everyone disembarked from the elevator.

"Apparently," Hotch replied.

"Where else would any of us be on a Saturday night?" Caroline muttered, her tone scathingly sarcastic. "It's not like we have lives or anything."

She had to plan her brother's wedding, which was only three months away because Chris had insisted on a short engagement. Time was running out and they were nowhere near close to finishing the planning. So far, they had the location and date set. Everything else was floating around, still waiting to be decided.

"Speak for yourself," Morgan teased, raising his thick eyebrows confidently. She rolled her eyes.

"Guys, we are about to meet Max Ryan," Reid told them enthusiastically, his face lightening up like a kid's on Christmas, "the guy responsible for catching the Boise Child Killer." He looked to Hotch. "Have you ever talked to him before?"

Caroline found herself curiously interested in Hotch's answer. Max Ryan was a legend in the BAU. Not only had he solved some of the most gruesome cases in this nation's history, he had been one of the founding fathers of the unit along with Gideon and David Rossi, another legendary agent of the Bureau. It was no wonder Spencer was excited to meet him; he was supposedly the legendary myth told around the BAU campfire.

After he had retired from the FBI seven years ago, he started writing. She recently had bought his new book about the sociopath that got away—the Keystone Killer. It was one of Max Ryan's very few unsolved cases in which seven women were murdered in their homes. She hadn't gotten very far yet, but only a few pages in, she could tell that Max Ryan knew his profiling skills and knew them well.

It was because of those profiling skills and the Keystone Killer that she was at the BAU this late at night.

"He's pretty intense," the unit chief admitted. "Brusque. Not much of bedside manner."

Elle scoffed as she plopped her bag down on her desk. "Sound like anyone else we know?"

It was clear from the look on the Hispanic woman's face that she was referring to Gideon. Caroline hung her jacket on the back of her desk chair, deciding it was best not to respond.

In her opinion, Gideon was unfairly judged by some of her team. Yes, he could be considered rude at times, even intense. But he had seen the worst of the worst and he was still in the job all these years later. He had a rough exterior because that's what he needed to get the job done.

Maybe she was easier on him because she knew Gideon could be hard at times but knew he had a heart of gold, just like Hotch was considered a drill sergeant but was one of the most caring people she knew. Maybe it was because Spencer trusted him with everything he had and if someone as wonderful and kind as him could trust Gideon, then she could to. Maybe it was because he had been one of the agents to find her in her house, covered in her parents' blood, and didn't push because he understood.

He had been there for her when she lost everything, and it was something Caroline wasn't sure she'd ever be able to truly repay him for.

"I heard he was forced into early retirement," Morgan speculated, his tone laced with assumptions.

Hotch shook his head. "No, he chose to retire."

"He's written a new book on the Keystone Killer case," Reid informed the team, practically bouncing from excitement.

"He moved to Philadelphia be closer to the crime scenes," Hotch said as he headed to the conference room, the rest of them following.

"That's retirement?" Elle questioned in disbelief.

Caroline chuckled with dry humor. "BAU style."

When Hotch opened the door into the conference room, she was welcomed to the familiar sight of the BAU's signature polished mahogany round table. Gideon and another man, who she assumed was Max Ryan, stood at the head of the table, staring at the flat screen TV on the wall. The two profilers were so engrossed in the screen that not even the sound of their entrance pulled their attention away.

Pulled up on the screen was a picture of a note, the note the Keystone Killer had left for Max Ryan at his book signing. It had been written on the same off-white paper and typed in the same old-ink typewriter font the Keystone Killer's older notes consisted of. Underneath the note was a random assortment of letters that looked like alphabet soup. The note read:

Who in his mind has not probed the black water?

Aren't visits from old friends refreshing? Especially when we've occupied so much of each others' mind. We're like two volumes of the same book, Max. Why don't we add a few more chapters. I will lead you to me. If you break the code.

It is far too long. I am alive again.

KK

A shiver ran down her spine. KK—the Keystone Killer. Was it really him?

"'Who is his mind has not probed the dark the black water?'" The words were familiar on Caroline's lips because they were words from one of her all-time favorite novels. "John Steinbeck, East of Eden."

Gideon glanced back when he heard Caroline speak. "Story of good and evil," he remarked, "love and hate."

Max turned slowly, his dark eyes glancing around the team lazily, almost disinterested. Max Ryan was tall and lean with peppered grey hair receding from a craggily handsome face. He wore a suit jacket and a button-down shirt, no tie, and he stood in front of them with a confident ease, no doubt from his years of experience.

"There's been some new action the Keystone Killer case," the BAU founder reported. His voice was gravelly and monotonous.

One of Elle's slim eyebrows rose. "New?"

"He was at Max's lecture tonight," Gideon said.

"What? He got away?" Morgan asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Would we have woken you up if we caught him?" Max snapped at him, giving Derek a once-over with a disapproving expression.

Caroline could definitely see what at Hotch meant by his lack of a beside manner. The man didn't have much patience.

"He handed this letter," Gideon gestured to the note on the TV screen, "to the security guard. And he included 2 driver's licenses with it."

Gideon pressed a button on the sleek silver remote in his hands and two driver's licenses popped up on the screen beside of the letter. Both IDs belonged to two dark haired women—one a young college student named Amy Jennings and the other a middle aged woman named Carla Bromwell.

"One is from his last victim, Amy Jennings," Gideon concluded, "was strangled in 1987."

Caroline's heart sunk to her stomach. The poor girl couldn't have been any older than her twenties when she died. Her whole life, everything she had going for her, vanished the moment the killer decided she was his next victim.

"Last known victim," Max corrected. Caroline and Elle shared a look of disbelief. Never had she ever heard someone correct the Jason Gideon. It was almost unsettling, even more so when the older profiler didn't say anything in response. Since when was Gideon the one to bite his tongue?

Beside her, Spencer was murmuring to himself as he focused intensely on the jumbled letters at the bottom of the note on the TV screen.

"Spence, you see something?" Caroline asked.

The resident genius nodded slowly. "Yeah...what is the significant of 'black bra' and 'grey wool socks'?"

"That's what Amy Jennings was wearing when we found her," Max replied as he began to pace around the room.

"That's a lot of detail to remember for 20 years," Morgan commented, his mouth turned down in a small frown, "The Green Killer couldn't remember where the bodies were buried, much less what they were wearing."

"Some unsubs take pictures," Hotch said, "print them themselves, so they can manipulate the scene, bring it to life. That would explain the level of detail."

Spencer's eye's scanned the world puzzle briefly before he asked, "Does 'no fight' and 'rear window' have anything to do with the Jennings case?"

Caroline narrowed her eyes at the jumbled letters at the bottom of the screen. She was completely mystified at how easily Spencer could locate the words hidden in the alphabet mess. When she was younger, she was absolutely hopeless at word searches. Something about the disarray of random letters sent her OCD into a tailspin. There was no order, just the chaotic mess of letters taunting her. She much rather preferred crossword puzzles because it was much more structured.

Max Ryan ran a hand over the back of his neck. "No. He entered in through the front door. There's ample evidence that Amy fought him very hard." He shook his head. "No, he's referring to a new victim there."

"The second driver's license—Carla Bromwell," Caroline whispered.

"Yeah, there's a 'C Bromwell' here in the puzzle," Spencer confirmed.

"Philly PD went to the address on the license a little while ago," Gideon told them, "Found her suffocated with a plastic bag."

"Suffocated?" Morgan's ginger drummed against the table . "His previous victims were strangled. His M.O.'s different."

"He hasn't been killing all along, has he?" Elle asked as she slowly sat down in one of the chairs at the round table. Caroline could see that the idea didn't set well with her.

"It would have been difficult to tie these new murders to the Keystone Killer what with the change in methodology," Hotch reasoned with Elle, "and the time that's been elapsed between kills."

"If he's been active, I would have known," Max said, his eyes narrowing as his jaw clenched. Caroline watched him with wary eyes. Something was off with him, besides his lack of common manners.

"It's not entirely impossible for an unsub to switch his M.O.," Reid said in a matter-of-factly tone, "The Zodiac Killer went from stabbing people to shooting them."

"Yes, but he wanted to take credit." Max tapped his finger against the letter aggressively. "This bastard didn't do anything in secret."

A soft knock came at the conference room door before JJ slipped inside, a crime scene photo in one hand and a plastic cup of cheap coffee in the other. By the way the press liaison's eyelids drooped tiredly over her groggy blue eyes, she could tell that the coffee wasn't doing much good to wake her up.

"I'd say good morning," JJ said as she laid the crime scene photo on the table, "but it's still dark outside."

Caroline's fingers carefully slid the black-and-white photo closer to her. It was an up-close shot of a woman's face—her eyes closed and her mouth slightly parted. There was a plastic bag around her face.

Her fingers trembled as she slowly slid the photo away from her. She didn't need to see anymore because she knew it was Carla Bromwell, their newest victim.

JJ lazily took a sip of coffee. "Gideon, can you turn on the news?"

The older profiler pressed another button and the evidence disappeared from the screen as a news anchor dressed in a fancy suit and tie took its place.

"The Philadelphia police were notified late last night of a letter that was hand-delivered to this news station," the shiny-faced news anchor reported, his voice calm and collected, "Apparently it was written by the infamous Keystone Killer who's wanted in connection with the murders of seven women back in the late 1980s. He also included a photograph of a woman. She appears to be dead in the photo, suffocated with a plastic bag. Now subsequently, police discovered a body in the Overbrook area, but they are not confirming that it's the woman in this picture."

Gideon shut TV off. Caroline stared blankly at the black screen.

Hotch glanced down at his watch. "He works fast."

Gideon glanced up at Max. "That's an understatement, huh?"

Ryan nodded, his nostrils flared.

"Wheels up in 30," Hotch announced as he left the room, already pulling out his cellphone to make the necessary calls.

Once Hotch left, Max turned to Gideon, his arms crossed out in front of him.

"I'm coming with you," he said, his eyebrows drawn together with fierce determination. No one said anything, not even Gideon. "I'm not asking, Jason."

Without another word, the retired profiler stalked out of the room, Caroline's eyes following him out. Just in the past minute alone, she had seen most of the behavioral tells of anger—the flared nostrils, the crossed arms, the defensive language. It seemed Max Ryan had really spent all this time searching for the Keystone Killer.

She knew what it felt like, to want revenge. It was like an itch that she couldn't scratch and it didn't go away. She wanted the man who killed her family, raped her, took her sense of security to feel everything she had felt. Caroline wanted to cut him and leave the long, ugly scars on his body like he had left on hers. She wanted to put out a cigarette in his back, like he had done to her.

For every scar she had, he would have two. She wanted him to burn.

Caroline knew how revenge could consume a person's life because it consumed hers. Like it consumed Max Ryan's.

Because, in the end, revenge was all they had left.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"Philly PD just conformed that Carla Bromwell's been dead less than 12 hours. She was 47."

Garcia's typical bright and chipper attitude was unusually downcast today. Caroline leaned over Derek's shoulder, her eyes squinting at the tech analyst through the small screen on his laptop. Her friend's lips were pulled down in a slight grimace and she kept fiddling with one of her sparkly pink pens. She realized that the bubbly tech analyst wasn't used to this part of the job—the victims.

She sat behind a computer screen all day, surrounded by jovial stuffed animals and photos of baby kittens and ducks. She pried into the lives of the victims, delving into their private affairs such as bank accounts, emails and phone calls. But she didn't see the crime scene photos or saw the victims up close in personal. For her to talk about Carla being dead, it couldn't be easy.

"Victims are getting older," Hotch commented as he leaned back onto the couch, smoothing out his suit jacket.

Caroline nodded. "That is unusual. Victimology rarely changes."

"Her hands and feet were bound with flex-cuffs," Garcia reported as she twirled her pen between her twitchy fingers.

"Flex cuffs?" Max Ryan leaned over the table, as if he were trying to look at Garcia from across the table. "No ropes?"

The tech analyst shrugged, the barest movement of her shoulders. "That's what they said. They're waiting at the crime scene for you."

"Thank you, sweetheart," Caroline told her friend.

Garcia gave her a lazy half salute as a small grin formed. "I'm here if you need me."

With that, the technical analyst disconnected the video call and the screen cut to black. Derek carefully shut his laptop lid and slid the detachable web camera off, stuffing it in the bag at his feet.

"So, older victims and a different mode of bonding and killing," Hotch said, his eyebrows drawn together.

"Maybe the note just means we have a copycat on our hands," Morgan suggested.

Max shook his head firmly , immediately disregarding the idea. "A copycat who just happens to have Amy Jennings' driver's license? No. No, it's the Keystone Killer."

The retired agent didn't offer anymore elaboration. He silently grabbed one of the crime scene photos gathered on the table in front of her and made his way to the back of the plane where Spencer had been quietly sitting, reading Max Ryan's new book. He didn't make an attempt to speak to Reid, not even to say hello. His mind was too busy thinking about the Keystone Killer and his eyes remained trained on the crime scene photo.

Morgan shook his head in disbelief, giving Caroline a can-you-believe-him look. She simply shrugged in response, unsure what she could say. It wasn't her idea to have him join the case.

It was supposed to be Gideon's decision.

Derek leaned towards Gideon, who had been sitting across from them silently as he watched and listened. The older profiler's keen eyes turned their attention to him.

"How are we supposed to work with him?" Morgan demanded quietly, keeping his voice down so Max wouldn't hear him. "Gideon, he's not even an active agent."

"He's here because he knows this case better than any of us," the older profiler replied, "We're leading the investigation. He's only consulting."

Morgan scoffed. "Did anyone tell him that?"

Caroline's fingers drummer against the wood table. There was no doubt Max was invested—obsessed, even. The man had even moved a hundred plus miles to a new state just to be close to a serial killer. And Morgan was right, he was retired. Technically, he shouldn't even be here.

He should be enjoying retirement, taking a well-deserved break from chasing the monsters. He should be spending time with friends and family, although Max Ryan didn't strike her as the family man type.

She wondered if he talked to his family. It wasn't a question if he had a family because everyone has a family—whether dead or alive, close or distant. Family was family.

Surely, the retired profiler had someone in his life to give him stability. He couldn't have driven away his family just by chasing serial killers.

Could he?

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline's feet were rooted to the floor. She stared down at Carla Bromwell's discolored body. Most of her skin was a stark white from lack of blood flow but her wrists and ankles were covered in blue and purple splotches from where the plastic flex cuffs cut off her blood flow. She saw her hair, a swath of dark against pale purple bedsheets, curling out in a haphazard tangle. The plastic bag that was taped over her terrified face was splattered in a thin film of blood.

"CSI's done processing the body?" Caroline asked quietly as she slowly squatted, getting herself eye level with Carla's restrained hands clasped at her stomach.

Gideon nodded. "According to Philly PD, yeah."

She carefully lifted the victim's hands with gloved fingers, her eyes grazing over the soft dead skin under her palms. Then she checked her ankles and neck.

"This is his eighth victim," Max said as he watched her meticulously study the body.

"There's no bruising on the wrists, ankles or neck, besides some postmortem discoloration due to her blood flow being cut off," Caroline concluded as she gently rolled Carla's head to the side, "Just a good-sized blunt force head wound."

Max grunted. "Yeah. Probably a surprise attack."

"The puzzle said 'no fight'."

"I know what the puzzle said."

Caroline glanced at Max, puffing out her cheeks as she carefully slipped off her gloves with a sharp snapping sound. She was wondering when she was going to get the brunt end of Max. She didn't expect it to be so soon though. She had predicted that it would've happened after they left the crime scene, at least.

"Head wound is extensive." Gideon's voice cut through the silence that fell over them. "The level of violence is escalating."

Max nodded as his eyes fell on Carla's body. Caroline dropped her used gloves into a plastic baggie, sealed it, then tossed it in the nearest trash can before she pulled out a new, clean pair from her jacket pocket. She wriggled her fingers into the elastic latex as she gestured to the curtained windows of Carla's bedroom.

"This bedroom is in the front of the house," she said, "and the puzzle mentioned a rear window. Maybe he left a print."

"No way."

Caroline's eyes narrowed at Max, crossing her arms across her chest. "I think I'm going to check it out anyway."

"Do what you wanna do," the retired agent muttered, "but believe me, you're wasting your time."

Her jaw clenched as she cast Gideon an annoyed look. His hands were held out in a placating gesture as he simply nodded his head toward the bedroom door, signaling for her to leave quietly. She did as she was told, biting her lip to keep the sarcastic remarks on the tip of her tongue from slipping out as she stalked out of the room.

She had been taught to exhaust every possibility. Serial killers weren't perfect, they made mistakes. They devolve. It was entirely plausible that the Keystone Killer could make a mistake and leave a fingerprint.

Caroline could understand a case hitting close to home or becoming personal, but Max was letting it cloud his objectivity. Even she knew, in order to find the killer, they needed objectivity and clear heads.

She didn't like being told she was wasting her time. She didn't like it when her abilities were questioned.

After she rounded up a couple of CSI techs, she had them dust every window in the back of the house and, as much as she loathed to admit it, they came up with nothing. Not even a partial finger print or stray hair was found.

Instead of heading back upstairs to Carla's bedroom where Gideon and Max Ryan were discussing the case with Elle and Morgan, she decided to stick with Hotch and Spencer across the hall, searching for any clues.

"What do you think of Ryan?" Reid asked Hotch and Caroline as he opened the door to Carla's small office, if one could call it that. There was a dingy oak desk pushed against the corner of the wall and her laptop laid on top of it. Besides of a chair in the corner and a small bookcase filled with romance novels, there wasn't much in the way of furniture.

"Well, he's certainly..." Caroline paused as she struggled to find the right word. "Impudent."

Hotch gave her a dry chuckle. "Yeah, he hasn't changed much."

"I think we can learn a lot from him," Spencer said as he began looking through the tiny bookcase.

"What could you possibly learn that you don't already know?" Caroline asked him incredulously.

"Care, repetitive thinking is a death knell for the brain. For complete brain usage, diverse stimulation is the key."

"Hey," she heard Hotch say. She glanced up at the unit leader holding another on of the Keystone Killer's infamous notes in his hand. Everything looked the same from the previous letter, down to the word search at the bottom.

Reid handed him a plastic evidence bag and he slipped the note inside, sealing it tightly. Hotch pinched the top of the baggie with his pointer finger and thumb, shaking it.

"Let's go show this to everyone."

The three of them made their way into Carla's bedroom where Elle, Morgan, Gideon and Max were surrounding the victim's lifeless body. They all glanced up at them curiously at their arrival.

Hotch held up the evidence bag in his hand. "Found another note."

Max immediately snatched the note from his hands, his eyes scanning over the note quickly.

"'In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present'," Max read from the note with a grimace.

Gideon chuckled quietly. "He's quoting Sir Francis Bacon now."

The retired agent's grimace deepened. "I used this specific quote—"

"In your book on page 184," Reid interjected. When he saw everyone was staring at him, he sheepishly explained, "I, uh, read it on the plane."

"And you remember the page number and the quote?" Max questioned.

Morgan shook his head. "Don't ask."

Hotch frowned as he read the note in Max Ryan's hand. "It says to expect another gift in 2 days."

Elle's brow furrowed. "A gift?"

A shiver ran down Caroline's spine. "He calls his victims gifts."

"Gifts for whom?" Elle asked.

Max sighed, his teeth clenched.

"For me."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The Philadelphia police station was cool and bright, lit by the usual harsh over-head fluorescents of most stations. The team sat around a small, well-used conference table in the room that the police lent them, surrounded by glass boards covered in gruesome crime scene photos of new and old.

"Let's focus on the differences in the crimes," Hotch said as he tapped one of the case files against his leg. "What's he doing that's new?"

Everyone nodded, the gears in their minds turning as they thought.

"Well, his latest victim was hit in the head," Elle noted, "that's new."

"In the word puzzle, he said she didn't fight." Morgan slumped his back against his chair, running a hand over his head. "So why hit her? To scare her? Show her he's in charge?"

"He never did that before though," Caroline said with a grimace, "and a blow that hard wouldn't scare her. It would probably just know her unconscious."

"In order to control her?" Hotch suggested. Morgan and Elle shrugged. Caroline didn't answer as she bit her lip.

It didn't make sense. The Keystone Killer didn't need to knock out his victims before. Even though he was older, he was still in a fairly mobile time of his life. He shouldn't need to resort to tactics for control.

"He switched from using rope to flex cuffs," Gideon muttered as he stood at the evidence board. He tapped the photo of the six layer knot tied on one of the Keystone Killer's early victim's wrists. "The intricate know was part of his signature."

"Flex cuffs are easier," Morgan admitted, "Probably saved him time."

Gideon shook his head as he turned the gold ring on his finger several times. "No, no, no, it's more than that. The rope was meticulously tied. It was intimate. Completely unnecessary."

"And he abandoned the rope and the use of his bare hands," Caroline added as she crossed her leg over the other, her ankle boot jogging up and down as she thought, "which makes his kills less personal, less controlling."

"Ok, seriously, guys, let's just abandon all this," Morgan suggested with an exasperated gesture to the evidence boards. "Let's just treat him like a new offender."

Gideon turned away from the whiteboard he was standing in front of and focused a narrowed eyed look. "He isn't."

Derek shook his head as he rubbed his mouth in frustration, his eyebrows drawn together. She could see that he was getting fed up with the Keystone Killer and his past with the BAU that kept popping up. In a way, everyone was.

"Guys, I have a name," Reid announced as he stepped away from the newest note from the Keystone Killer pinned to a board. He carefully capped the lid of the red pen that he had used and pointed to the newest red circle in the center of the puzzle.

"Nibrahs?" A confused look flashed over Elle's face as she read the name Spencer found. "That's a name? From what country?"

"It's backwards," Reid told her, "S Harbin—there was a Scott Harbin on Ryan's original suspect list—"

"It's not Scott Harbin."

Everyone glanced at Max Ryan standing stiffly in the doorway with his arms crossed and his mouth turned down in a scowl. Speak of the devil and he shall appear, Caroline thought to herself dryly.

"Harbin went to jail in 1988 for stabbing a guy while he was trying to escape during a home invasion," Ryan explained after a brief moment of silence passed. "The guy later died. Harbon didn't even know there was anyone at home at the time he broke in."

"How long did he get?" Morgan asked.

"30 years."

"So that makes him a little more than halfway done," Gideon concluded.

Hotch shrugged. "Unless he's been paroled.

"No—no, it's too easy," Ryan said as he put his hands on his hips, "I interviewed Harbin twice. He's a pervert. He's a small time burglar with a dating for lingerie. I mean, he's a creep, but he is not the Keystone Killer." He shook his head. "Believe me, put guy had not been in jail all these years."

Morgan slowly stood from his seat as he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket. "All right. I'm gonna call Garcia, see what she can dig up on this guy."

"He's not the guy!"

The team froze and slowly, all of them training their eyes on the retired profiler. His voice yelled the words at them, sharp and frustrated. His nostrils flared indignantly as he slowly gazed around the silent room, meeting the eyes of every profiler with his tight glare. When no one said anything, Ryan turned and stalked out of the room, disappearing into the station.

After a moment, Hotch's voice finally cut through the quiet that hung in the room.

"Jason, what are we doing here?" He asked, his voice genuinely somber.

Gideon frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Is Ryan interested in catching the Keystone Killer or just proving he's right?"

Gideon didn't reply. He paused, then walked out of the room, following Max Ryan. Caroline watched him go with concerned eyes.

As much as she wished that Hotch had to say anything, he had a point. The retired agent's obsession had surpassed close a long time ago. This was clearly personal to him. But by the way Ryan was acting, she couldn't tell if it was out of self-involved narcissism or the need to catch a monster.

Either way, if he didn't get his obsession under his control soon, the whole case could unravel before they could find the Keystone Killer.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The wind picked up as Caroline and the BAU arrived at Scott Harbin's house later that afternoon. Thin clouds drifted across the sky, and the neighborhood trees swayed gently as their branches caught each gust. She loaded her Glock from the passenger seat of the SUV and walked slowly to the front door, trailing behind SWAT.

Caroline adjusted her bulletproof vest as SWAT gathered on Harbin's front porch, one of the officers pulling out a sleek black crowbar. She watched as the SWAT officer jammed the crowbar in between the doorframe and with a swift yank, the door swung open with a sharp metallic snapping sound as the locks broke. Everyone filed in through the door, their guns locked and loaded.

"FBI! SWAT!"

The house wasn't much. There were half-empty glasses cluttered on the coffee table, next to a small stack of newspaper crossword puzzles packed with eraser marks. Interesting, she thought, Harbin was a puzzle guy. A greasy smell hung on the air, the remnants of a week of hastily eaten fast food.

There was the sound of feet scuffing across linoleum as a thin, wiry man with dark hair streaked with grey and wire-framed glasses stepped into the kitchen. He froze as he sized up the small army in his living room before he turned and sprinted to the back foot.

"Stop!" Caroline shouted as she lunged after him, jumping over SWAT agents. She hated when they ran. She always caught up to them in the end. "I said stop!"

She grabbed Scott Harbin by the edge of his shirt collar, gripping a fistful of fabric as she yanked him backwards, pushing him to the kitchen floor.

"Ow!" Harbin hollered as Caroline pressed the side of his face on the kitchen tile. Her knees pinned his hips down as she grabbed his wrists, locking the handcuffs. "Ok! All right, I get it!"

She blew a stray hair out of her face. "Are you Scott Harbin?"

"What?"

"Scott Harbin!"

From behind her, she heard Max's voice say, "Yeah, that's Scott Harbin."

That was all the confirmation she needed. She stood up and pulled Harbin up with her. She didn't ease up on the grip she had on his shoulders when he flinched as she yanked him up.

"Hey! Ryan!" Scott's voice was nasally, high-pitched. A smug smile flashed on his weasel face. "You got old."

Ryan shrugged. "Haven't we all?"

From behind the retired agent, Gideon narrowed his eyes at Scott Harbin. "You missed an appointment, Scott."

"Oh," Harbin exclaimed, "they send the FBI now for parole violations?"

Caroline's grip tightened on his shoulders. He winced. "Yeah, we were in the neighborhood."

She shoved him forward and pushed him into the living room where she sat him on the couch as the police started to process his house.

Caroline ran a hand over the kitchen table then rubbed her fingers together. She pressed her lips together—the place was spotless. Even the half-filled glasses on the coffee tables were immaculate and the crossword puzzles were arranged in a perfectly straight stack. In fact, she hadn't really seen anything that had been truly out of place or disorganized in any way. The place was kept clean and organized like they did in the barracks in the army.

Ryan profiled that the Keystone Killer might've had a military background.

Gideon's foot tapped against the floor slowly. Tap, tap, tap. "What do you think?"

Max glanced around the small house with a grimace. "I don't know," he admitted. "He does seem to be a guy who needs to be in control."

"Definitely obsessive. Everything has its place," Caroline murmured as she ran a finger across the plastic kitchen countertop. Still no dirt. "Probably comes from years of solitude and a strict upbringing. This is a guy who likes to be alone. Sharing a jail cell must have been a nightmare."

"Are you finished?" Harbin asked from the living room, his voice tight. Caroline glanced over at him, her eyes narrowing.

"Did I make you angry? Did I upset you?" She towered over him, shoving her face near his. He leaned away but she was unrelenting. "You're gonna hurt me?"

"I'm not stupid," said Harbin slowly, his beady eyes staring up at her with a forced calm.

She shook her head. "No, you—you wouldn't hurt me here. You'd wait, sneak up behind me and hit me over the head just when I'm not looking." She watched as his eyes narrowed into slits. She smirked.

"What's the matter, Scotty? You can't deal with a woman who's not afraid of you?"

Harbin said nothing. He just stared at her, his eyes pools anger. His mouth twitched, his fists clenched. But he said nothing.

Without another world, Caroline turned and stalked away from him, heading into the kitchen. Her hands were trembling and she couldn't get them to stop.

Men like Harbin were the reason she went into the FBI in the first place. The men that preyed on women for their own pleasure—who terrorized and tortured them just because they could. Caroline and the victims weren't all that different, the only thing that set them apart was that she had the curse to survive, to live with the pain and trauma of what happened to her for the rest of her life.

At least the victims suffering ended when they died. Hers never would.

Gideon walked over to her as she stood in the kitchen, her hands shoved in her jean pockets. His expression was thoughtful, curious.

"You ok?" He asked her.

"What do you mean?" Her voice was disturbingly calm.

"You got a little hot."

"Did I say anything that wasn't true?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Well, then I guess I'm fine."

She wasn't fine. She was nowhere near the realm of fine.

Gideon didn't say anything, he just stared at her, his eyes penetratingly thoughtful. She could tell he was looking for dilated pupils and involuntary shaking but she had long since learned when to control her emotions and body language. Her face was a smooth, clean slate of no emotion and she knew he wouldn't find a thing.

"I'm going to go help Hotch and Morgan in the Harbon's room," she told Gideon as she brushed past him and started her way down the hallway. "Let me know if you need me."

She didn't stick around for an answer. She just left.

Hotch and Morgan didn't question her when she entered Harbon's small, painstakingly clean room. They just worked silently to search the room, no need for conversation.

That was what she liked about the job. She didn't have to talk when she didn't want to. She could just work and distract herself and pretend like what happened to her and the victims didn't exist.

She was just doing what she did best and that was her job.

Caroline crawled on her hands and knees at the side of the bed. She frowned at the wood underneath the bed, it was discolored. The wood of the headboard on the bed was darker than it was at the bottom, so much so that she would even say it was a different kind of wood. This had been recently installed.

She tapped her knuckles against the wood and she heard the hollow thump knock back to her. She glanced behind her to Derek and Hotch.

"Hear that?" She asked. They both nodded. Hotch got down on the floor and helped her pry the wood out from under the bed. The unit chief handed the board of wood to Derek as Caroline peered under the bed. A lump formed in her throat.

"Oh, my God," she whispered.

Hotch's head snapped over to her. "What is it?"

She reached under the bed, her fingers fumbling over the wooden box hidden under it. "Just give me a hand."

Hotch listened and helped her pull the long wooden box out from under the bed. Tucked in the box on thin pink pillows was a woman, wrapped in saran wrap with duck tape over her mouth and a blindfold around her eyes. She was convulsing in fear.

She was alive.

Derek called out for help as Caroline slowly pulled the blindfold off the woman. She shook her head vigorously, screaming "No!" against the duck tape on her mouth. She realized that the woman though that she was Harbin. That she was going to hurt her.

"It's okay," Caroline told her gently as she eased the blindfold off. The woman squirmed even harder. "I'm with the FBI!"

Once Caroline removed the blindfold, the woman's petrified eyes locked onto her. She could see the immediate change once the woman realized she wasn't Harbin and that she was safe.

She stopped struggling. The woman began to weep.

Caroline gently took off the duck tape and she held the woman's face in her hands, whispering soothing reassurances as she cried.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

She watched on the sidewalk as the police dragged Scott Harbin out of his home in handcuffs. The woman he had been keeping hostage had been stuck in that cramped coffin for a week—a week. Those seven days had been nothing but her and the solitude. All that time alone in the dark gave her plenty of time to think about he things Harbin did to her and what he would do. For a week, that woman had been trapped with no hope of surviving.

Caroline felt a sense of extreme gratification as she watched Harbin get in the back of the police car. She took pleasure in the fact knowing that while he was going to rot behind bars, the woman he kidnapped would be free and heal in time. She'd have a life again.

Behind her, she heard Ryan grunt in disdain. "Scott Harbin."

"Single, obsessive, military background," Gideon replied, his voice even, "Fits your profile."

Caroline slowly turned to the team gathered around the black SUV. Elle's hand was resting on the passenger door handle with anticipation. She could tell that everyone wanted to go home at this point.

"But he keeps his victim in his house?" Ryan questioned, a tone of skepticism creeping into his voice. "He's that far off script?"

Standing near the front of the vehicle, Morgan frowned as he slowly leaned forward and pulled a piece of paper off the windshield that had been tucked under the windshield wipers. He held it out to the retired profiler.

"It's got your name on it," he told Ryan as he took it out of his hands and unfolded the note, staring at the paper with purses lips.

"Isn't Scott Harbon an inelegant creature? A monster. There is no light with him. No balance." Ryan read the note slowly, his eyes narrowing. "He is pure evil. Balance is what gives one mercy. You'll be reminded of my brand of mercy tomorrow, Max."

Morgan grimaced as he glanced at the note. "What does that mean?"

Caroline sucked in a breath, feeling as if she'd just been sucker punched in the stomach. She balled her hands into tight fists at her side as she let out a sigh.

"Scott Harbin's a predator," she said, "just not the one we're looking for."

  ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ 

ayyy, i'm back from the dead with an update! i apologize about the crappy update schedule. between studying for exams and school, i've been swamped with a lot and haven't had much time to write, but i hope to be able to sit down and get back on my regular schedule soon!

this chapter is dedicated to my girl ( @takemylies ) bc not only is she one of my fav people ever, but she's a total roast master and i love it. as her internet mother, i couldn't help but brag about how proud i am of her and her hard-earned sass. be sure to check out her work on her page!!

love, adaline