"And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea 

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee–"

Spencer stopped reading as Parker shifted in his arms. His better half had their head resting on his chest and slept peacefully.

The young genius smiled lovingly and placed the book on the living room table.

He glanced at the clock, only now realizing what time it was. He thought about carrying Parker to bed, but decided against it. It was far too comfortable, so he wrapped his arms around them and closed his eyes too.

As soon as Spencer fell asleep, his and Parker's cell phones rang.

~~

Norman Maclean wrote,

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

Parker stepped out of the elevator along with Spencer, Derek, Hotch and Elle.

The young agent didn't really understand why they were called to the office in the middle of the night - but it had to be something very important.

"So they've been here all night?" Derek asked. 

"Apparently."

"Where else would any of us be on a Saturday night? It's not like we have lives or anything," Elle says sarcastically.

"Speak for yourself."

"Guys, we are about to meet Max Ryan, the guy responsible for catching the Boise child killer," Spencer changed the subject.

The team entered the empty open-plan office. It was strange for Parker that there was no one here except them. It's like standing in an almost empty airport.

"Have you ever talked to him before?" Parker asked Hotch, unsuccessfully trying to hide a yawn.

"He's pretty intense, brusque. Not much of a bedside manner."

"Sound like anyone else we know?"

"I heard he was forced into early retirement," said Derek.

The profilers reached their desks. They hung their jackets over the chairs and put down their bags.

"No, he chose to retire."

"He's written a new book on the Keystone Killer case."

"He moved to Philadelphia to be closer to the crime scenes."

"That's retirement?"

"Well, BAU style."

~~

Gideon and Max Ryan were already waiting in the meeting room.

On the screen was the message that the Keystone Killer had left for Max.

Who in his mind has not tried the black water?

Aren't visits from old minds 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's far too long. I am alive again.

KK

Underneath the message was a word puzzle in which clues appeared to be hidden.

"'Who in his mind has not tried the black water?'" Spencer read. "John Steinbeck, East of Eden."

"Story of good and evil, love and hate."

Gideon handed Spencer the note, which has since been placed in an evidence bag. Parker stood next to her boyfriend and took a look at the puzzle.

"There's been some new activity on the Keystone Killer case," explained Max.

"New?"

"He was at Max's lecture last night."

Parker's head snapped up.

"What? He got away?" Derek wanted to know, surprised.

"Would we have woken you up if we caught him?", replied Max.

There was a moment of silence, before Gideon changed the topic.

"He handed this letter to the security guard."

"And he included two driver's licenses with it."

Said driver's licenses appeared on the screen next to the message.

"One is from his last victim–" Gideon started, but Max interrupted him.

"Last known victim."

"Amy Jennings, strangled in 1987," Gideon finished his sentence.

"'Wool socks' 'Grey'," Spencer muttered to himself.

"Spence, you see something?"

"Yeah. What is the meaning of "black bra" and "grey wool socks"?" asked Spencer.

"That's what Amy Jennings was wearing when we found her."

"That's a lot of detail to remember for 20 years. The Green River Killer couldn't remember where the bodies were buried, much less what they were wearing," Derek pointed out.

"Well, some UnSubs take pictures. Print them themselves so they can manipulate the scene, bring it to life. That would explain the level of detail."

"Does 'no fight' and 'rear window' have anything to do with the Jennings case?" Spencer asked.

"No. He entered through the front door. There's ample evidence that Amy fought him very hard. No, he's referring to a new victim there."

"The second driver's license?"

"Carla Bromwell."

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

"Philly P.D. went to the address on the license a little while ago. Found her suffocated with a plastic bag."

"Suffocated? His previous victims were strangled. His MO's different."

"He hasn't been killing all along, has he?"

"It would've been difficult to tie these new murders to the Keystone Killer, what with the change of methodology and the time that's elapsed between kills."

"If he had been active, I would have known."

"It's not entirely impossible for an UnSub to switch his MO," said Parker, "The Zodiac Killer went from stabbing people to shooting them."

"Yes, but he wanted to take the credit. This bastard didn't do anything in secret."

The door opened and JJ entered the room.

"I'd say good morning, but it's still dark outside."

The blonde woman placed a picture on the table. Clara Bromwell was pictured after her death.

"Gideon, can you put on the news?"

"The Philadelphia Police were notified late last night of a letter that was hand-delivered to this news station," the reporter reported. "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."

"He's working fast."

"That's an understatement, huh?"

"Meet you on the plane in 30 minutes," said Gideon.

"I'm coming with you," said Max. "I'm not asking, Jason."

~~

"Philly P.D. confirmed that Carla Bromwell's been dead less than 12 hours. She was 47," Garcia explained.

The team was already in the air and Garcia was connected via video chat.

"Victims are getting older."

"That's unusual."

"Victimology rarely changes."

"Her hands and feet were bound with Flex-cufs," Garica added.

"Flex-cufs? No ropes?"

"That's what they said. They're waiting at the crime scene for you."

"Thank you, sweetheart."

"Here if you need me."

Derek ended the video chat and closed the laptop.

"So, older victims and a different mode of binding and killing," Hotch summarized.

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

"A copycat who just happens to have Amy Jennings' driver's license?" Max pointed out. "No. No, it's the Keystone Killer."

Max walked away from the group and sat down in one of the seats.

"How are we supposed to work with him?" Derek then addressed Gideon. "Gideon, he's not even an active agent."

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

"Anyone tell him that?"

~~~~

"What do you think of Ryan?" Spencer asked.

He, Parker and Hotch looked around the victim's study. It was a small room and there was only a small bookshelf, a desk and a small TV in the room.

"It seems all right," Parker replied.

"He hasn't changed much," said Hotch.

"I think we can learn a lot from him."

"What could you possibly learn that you don't already know?"

"Hotch, repetitive thinking is a death knell for the brain. For complete brain usage, diverse stimulation is the key and–" Spencer began.

At the same moment, Paker found a second note on the desk.

"Sorry to interrupt you, Sweetie, but look at this."

Spencer handed them an evidence bag and Parker put the piece of paper inside.

"Let's go show this to everyone."

The three agents went two rooms further into the bedroom and where the victim was found, where the others looked around.

"Found another note."

"Let me see that," asked Max. "'In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.'"

"He's quoting Sir Francis Bacon now."

"Yeah. I use this specific quote in my..."

"In your book, on page 184," Unterbach Spencer Max. "I read it on the plane."

"And you remember the page number of the quote?" Max asked, irritated.

"Yeah. Yes, he does," Parker answered the question.

"He says to expect another gift in two days," Hotch said.

"A gift?"

"Calls his victims gifts."

"Gifts for whom?"

"For me."

~~

After looking around further, the team drove to the police station and wanted to present the working profile to the officers there.

"A lot of things have changed in 20 years, including the age of the Keystone Killer's victims," Parker began.

"He's older. His victims are older. Makes sense to me," said Detective Santangelo.

"Most UnSubs have specific fantasies. It's as if they're killing the same person over and over again. This man clearly had a preference for young brunettes, and now he's switched to older women."

"Well, what does that mean?"

"Ted Bundy only killed women that looked like his fiancée," Spencer spoke up. "But then he devolved and he brutally attacked a house full of sorority sisters that looked nothing like his previous victims. He went off script. His final victim was a 12-year-old girl. When police found the van that he used to kill her, the amount of blood revealed that he had lost complete control. It was that de-evolution that eventually led to his capture."

"He could be de-evolving into a frenzy."

"So you mean he's about to mess up?"

"The Keystone Killer's de-evolution is just a theory," explained Derek. "We need to be prepared for anything."

"And if he is in a frenzy, there's no telling how quickly he'll fall apart."

"Or how many more victims he'll take with him."

"So, we're going to go over everything we know, old and new, and Hopefully find him before we find another body."

"We'll start with Agent Ryan's original profile. Max, you want to present it?"

"No," Max said simply and simply left the room.

Parker watched him go, confused. Then shook their head and focused on the profile as Hotch began to speak.

"We're looking for a white male in his late forties. The controlled crime scenes, the meticulousness and his collection of trophies suggests a possible military background. We believe he's been living in the same geographic area his entire adult life..."

~~

Parker sat down with the others in the small meeting room where the team could spread out.

"All right, let's focus on the differences in the crimes. What's he doing that's new?"

"Well, his latest victim was hit in the head. That's new."

"In the word puzzle he said she didn't fight, so why hit her? Scare her? Show her he's in charge?"

"But, he never did that before," Parker pointed out. "And a blow that hard wouldn't scare her. It would probably just..."

"It'd probably just knock her unconscious."

"In order to control her?"

"Well, he switched from using rope to Flex-cufs. The intricate knot was part of his signature."

"Flex-cufs are easier. Probably saved him time."

"No, 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, which makes his kills less personnel and less controlling."

"Okay. Seriously, guys, let's just abandon all this. Let's just treat him like he's a new offender."

"He isn't."

"Guys, I have a name," Spencer said and turned away from the board.

He had been working on the new puzzle until now.

"'Nibrahs.' "That's a name? From what country?"

"It's backwards. S. Harbin. There's a Scott Harbin on Ryan's original suspect list."

"It's not Scott Harbin," Max pointed out. "Harbin went to jail in 1988 for stabbing a guy while he was trying to escape during a home invasion. The guy later died. Harbin didn't even know there was anyone at home at the time he broke in."

"How long did he get?"

"Thirty years."

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

"Unless he's been paroled."

"No. No, that's too easy. I interviewed Harbin, twice. He's a pervert. He's a small-time burglar with a fetish for lingerie. I mean, he's a creep, but he is not the Keystone Killer. Believe me, our guy hasn't been in jail all these years."

"All right, I'm going to call Garcia."

"See what she can dig up on this guy," said Derek and stood up.

"He's not the guy!" Max repeated himself a little louder.

Elle, Parker and Derek exchanged looks before Derek left the room to talk to Garcia.

Max then left the room again.

"Jason, what are we doing here?" Hotch wanted to know when Max was out of earshot.

"What do you mean?"

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

~~

Garcia found out that Scott Harbin was paroled three months ago and that he missed his last appointment with his parole officer.

The team paid him a visit with the police.

And well, Max is right about two things. First of all, Harbin was a fucking creep. They even found a tied up woman hiding under his bed. Second, he wasn't the Keystone Killer.

He left another note with a message for Max. The note suddenly hung on the windshield of a police car when they had finished searching Harbin's house.

The message read:

Isn't Scott Harbin an inelegant creature? A monster. There is no light with him. No balance. He is pure evil. Balance is what gives one mercy. You'll be reminded of my brand of mercy tomorrow, Max.

~~

"Well, that's got to be a first. A killer actually leading us to another killer," commented Derek.

The group passed through the police station and went straight to their meeting room.

"Come on, we all know they make the best profilers. They admire each other's work."

"Yeah, but usually from abroad."

"Well, at least we got Harbin off the street. All right. Let's review. What do we know about the Keystone Killer?"

"Well, we know that he's not dead or in jail."

"Enjoy the taunting, the game."

"And he's in complete control."

"He strangled seven women in the 1980s, stopped for 18 years and then began again, suffocating them. I mean, 10% of all violent crimes are caused by strangulation. It only takes 11 pounds of pressure to fully incapacitate your victim. And if "You hang on for at least 50 seconds, they'll never recover," said Spencer.

"But when you suffocate someone you actually have less control over their death. And it' actually more passive because the killer doesn't feel the life leaving the body."

"You know, he's changed almost everything that he does."

"Why, why, why, why?", asked Gideon. "I mean, what's he getting out of this new MO? What is his payoff? You got Carla Bromwell. She sustains a significant head injury. Blitz Attacks suggest disorganization, no self-confidence. This is a guy who walks into seven victim's homes prior to his. There was no forced entry at any of the scenes. Where's the loss confidence?"

"He would never change the way he kills by choice," explained Max.

"What?"

"Well, we've been operating under the assumption that he purposely changed his MO."

"You say he changed because he had to change?"

"He knocked her unconscious, and it wasn't to scare her."

"Because he couldn't control her physically while she's awake."

"He could be incapacitated."

"At least partially."

"Maybe an injury."

"Or a stroke."

"Either way, you're going to have to have medical records. Agreed?"

"Yeah. So what are we talking about?" Parker asked. "This had to have happened after the middle of 1988 in Philadelphia?"

"To someone who fits the rest of the profile."

"That's a lot of hospital records."

"Call our girl Friday."

~~

Parker took a sip of coffee and picked up another file. The team was still searching through the files, but so far they hadn't found anything that matched the profile.

"Something debilitating enough to lose strength permanently. I'm still thinking stroke."

"You know, Ryan's profile puts the UnSub in his late twenties. Isn't that too young for a massive stroke?" asked Derek.

"Technically, you're never too young for a stroke," Spencer explained. "80% of strokes are ischemic. The other 20% are hemorrhagic, which usually result in death. Ischemic strokes occur when plaque builds up in the arteries, causing restricted vessels to be blocked by a blood clot."

"Okay, but doesn't it take years for that type of plaque to build up?"

"Typically."

"Well, then, like I said, he was too young."

"Did you know that stroke victims who play virtual reality games show significant advances in recovery than those who don't?"

Derek looked at Parker, who gave him a 'well, what did you expect' look.

"Now, here's somebody," said Hotch. "In 1987 he was 30, single, dishonorable discharge."

"That's a good start. What was the injury?"

"Broken neck. Intense physical therapy for nine years."

"What's he been doing since?"

"Oh, never mind. The guy moved to the Florida Keys. He's a scuba instructor. He's got the right idea."

"Come on. There's got to be something in here."

~~

As the team searched through the files, Parker looked up for a moment. Their gaze fell through the window into the meeting room. Max was standing there with Gideon, talking about something.

Parker didn't have time to think about it any further, but the conversation seemed important, because shortly afterwards Max asked the team for help.

"Elle is running down injuries on college campuses. The guy's well-read. He may have been a professor."

"There are just too many hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities. We'd be sifting through records for weeks."

"Oh, come on. There's got to be some way to narrow down the search, right?"

"Well, we've ruled out a stroke and half the hospitals don't even say how the accident occurred."

"Accidents? In America, someone's involved in a car accident once every 10 seconds."

"Car accidents with injuries would all be reported by the police," Parker pointed out.

"We profiled him driving a late-model American-made sedan."

"All right, so how about I get Garcia to check Philly P.D. records for accidents involving American-made sedans and serious injury?"

"It's a long shot."

"It's a shot. Start with 1988. If it was an accident, it stopped him in his tracks."

It only took Derek and Garcia a few minutes to find someone who fit the profile.

"Walter Kern had a military background. ROTC in high school. Four years in the Air Force," Derek reported and handed everyone a copy of the resume.

"Hospital records show that he lost mobility in his right side due to severe nerve damage to his spinal cord."

"He never got the strength back."

"Kern's been a county worker, claims adjuster, and get this, he installed home alarms with Scott Harbin."

"Take one to know one."

"All those jobs allowed him access to people's homes."

"Explains why there's no sign of forced entry. He had a legitimate reason to knock on the door."

"Women felt comfortable letting him inside."

"He got a degree in criminology from Villanova in 1988," Elle read. "I wonder if he murdered anyone on campus."

"Well, that explains his knowledge of law enforcement," said Parker.

"This looks like our guy. Anyone got a current address?"

"575 Wight Street, Southeast Philadelphia."

"I got you, you son of a bitch," Max murmured. "We got him. Let's go bring him in."

~~

Max and Gideon went in first and talked to the woman since Walter wasn't home at the moment.

And as it turned out, Walter had a darkroom that his wife was not allowed to enter under any circumstances.

Parker entered the darkroom last and she immediately noticed the board where all the newspaper articles about the Keystone Killer were pinned.

"Looks like he collected every article written about him."

There were self-developed pictures of the victims hanging on the ropes - he had been watching them for quite a while.

"He's got your book," said Gideon and handed it to Max.

Parker saw Max open the book out of the corner of his eye.

"Damn it, I signed it."

"Hotch was entirely correct about the photography. This cellar's where he developed his photographs."

"What's that? A scrapbook?" Parker wanted to know, pointing to the object in Gideon's hand.

"There's a chapter on every woman he's killed."

He handed it to Parker and they quickly flipped through it.

"These entries are detailed enough to let him relive the kills for years."

"He has candid photographs of the victims at the park, grocery store, outside of church. Driver's license, clothing, jewelry."

"Those chapters in the back. They're not finished."

"These photographs are at least 20 years old. I mean, look at the hairstyles, the clothing," said Spencer.

Then he stopped and furrowed his eyebrows. He put the last pieces of the puzzle together and the corners of Parker's mouth twitched upwards.

"His recent themes of communication have been about 'old friends,' 'unfinished business.' His car accident was in the Fairmount district of Philadelphia. That's exactly where Carla Bromwell lived."

"He was on the way to kill her when he had his accident."

"It's not about finding a new type of victim. It's about a specific target."

"Because he was such a perfectionist, and is a perfectionist, he had to finish what he started years ago."

"Oh, these aren't new victims, Max. They were already targeted. Right from day one."

"Who's in that last chapter?"

Sylvia Gooden.

Luckily they were there in time before Kern could kill them.

During Kern's arrest, Parker remained outside with backup. Everything went as planned and Max was finally able to arrest the Keystone Killer.

~~~~

Abraham Lincoln once said,

"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

"Did Jason ever tell you about the time that he found the Director's itinerary in a bomber's car?" Max asked halfway through the flight.

"What? What?"

"Max, come on. Come on."

"No, no, he never said anything, man."

"Well, let me fill you in, then. We had this bomber case," Max began.

This is going to be great, thought Parker and discreetly took a bag of chips out of their bag.

"It was one of Jason's first. So we had him go over and search the bomber's car, which was in the Quantico garage. Except for me and the guys had planted this piece of paper that had all these times and locations of where the FBI Director was going to be over the next 48 hours. Anyway, Jason takes one look at this piece of paper, and before we could stop him, he takes off, runs up 25 flights of stairs to the Director's office–"

"Get out of here."

"No fucking way."

"–barges in, interrupting a meeting with the Attorney General himself."

"The Director didn't find it very funny," said Gideon as everyone else was amused by the story.

"And he was the only one who didn't."