CHAPTER FOUR:
MIRROR IMAGE
( aka 03x07: identity )

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

AS SOON AS THEY were given the go-ahead, the agents gained access to Goehring's house. It struck Dallis as familiar the second she stepped through the door, gloves on, to follow Emily and Reid into the kitchen. Everything was organised, each item had a specific place. Even the slight bit of mess was calculated, laid out rather like a movie set.

"I wonder who this is for," she commented, staring at the list of 'rules' pinned to the wall opposite the sink. "The women or the partner?"

Emily read it over Dallis' shoulder and scoffed, quoting, "One; all actions must serve to please The Master. Two; insubordination will result in punishment."

"Any attempts to escape the Kingdom will result in death," Dallis concluded, shaking her head. "You said he left a manifesto in his trailer, right? Well, here's the latest update."

"Notice how 'master' is singular and capitalised, emphasising there's only one dominant partner," Reid remarked, removing a photo of Goehring from the front of the fridge.

"So his partner's more of a servant," Emily said.

"Or a serf. Watching the house, minding the lawn."

"Helping him abduct and murder women," Dallis pursed her lips.

Goehring stood with pride, hands posed on his belt buckle in the photo Reid handed over to them. Dallis wondered who took the photo, who framed it so that Goehring was the centre of attention.

"Okay, so if his partner is a serf," she said. "What are the female slaves for? Is it just the thrill of the abduction itself that he chases?"

"Oh, I think I can answer that," came Rossi's voice from behind her.

He'd entered through the side door that lead to the living room where Dallis had seen him and Hotch searching through drawers. His footsteps were silent as he listened to the three of them converse, taking in their ideas and comparing them to whatever he and Hotch had learnt. Dallis didn't like the grim expression on his face. He didn't say anything as he lead them to the spare room, but what was inside spoke volumes.

"Oh, my god," she muttered, coming to a stop in front of the wooden chair nailed into the floor. It sat in the centre of the room with a weather-beaten hood attached to the headrest and leather restraints hanging off the arms.

"Now we know why the victims were taken so far apart," Reid circled the chair cautiously. "They tortured them. It took time for them to die."

"This is where he kept them," Hotch decided. He was kneeling beside the open wardrobe. Men's shirts and jackets of various sizes hung from coat-hangers. Underneath was a box -- no, a coffin -- built into the cupboard. The top was covered by a heavy slab of wood that Hotch had pushed aside. It was barely big enough to fit a grown woman and it was dripping with blood. "The blood's still fresh."

Emily gasped in surprise as she wound open some kind of metal contraption. "What the hell is this?"

"The pear of anguish," Reid said.

Dallis frowned. "Something tells me I don't want to know how you know this. Did I miss something in the Fifty Shades books?"

Reid grimaced at the reminder that, yes, he had actually read what she was talking about. This information proved to be too much for Emily, who was quick to put down the metal device and even retreat back a step. Rossi returned their attention to the horrifying room they'd found themselves in. He lifted the end of the bed so it stood against the wall, declaring he had something for them to see.

Attached to the bed springs were dozens of tools. Chains rusted with suspicious red stains. Metal spikes hammered into a board. Dallis even recognised a handsaw. The rest of it was unfamiliar and clearly thought up by Goehring's sick brain.

"Homemade torture tools," Rossi said. "They had to have covered the floor in something. The bodies are probably wrapped in whatever it was. They must have kept these women in that box for months. Judging by these tools, there will be a considerable amount of mutilation. We need to do what we can to help their families get a proper burial."

"I agree," Dallis said, staring at the wardrobe.

These women must've been terrified. With each passing day, waking up to this ongoing nightmare, their hope of escaping would've been reduced to nothing. Their last moments were ones of suffering, agony. No human should've been treated this way. It made her sick, but it also made her angry. It reminded her, like most cases, that her job would always be of utmost importance. Without it, without her and her team, there was no justice for these women. People just like them.

It didn't take long to prepare for the profile. Once they were back at the police station, Sheriff Williams was quick to gather his men, who gave Dallis and the team their undivided attention. The sense of urgency was palpable, encouraging them to write down every word the profilers had to say.

"Goehring's partner is early-to-mid-twenties, 5'8", slight build, shy and retiring, but groomed by a separatist armed with assault weaponry," Hotch began. "Like Goehring, he's unlikely to surrender if cornered."

"His obsession with cleanliness and order is deeply ingrained," continued Emily. "This will be reflected in his home and his vehicle."

"We've located hair samples in the cabin that we believe are his. Medium-short length and blonde," shared Reid, who was sitting behind the desk that Dallis had perched herself on.

She listened to each of her teammates surmise what they had gathered, turning her head next to Rossi, who was beside her. "He's the submissive partner, but having just lost Goehring, a man he was dedicated to and heavily dependent upon, he's in crisis."

"Goehring gave him a purpose," Dallis concluded, picturing the person they were describing with so much clarity that he could've been standing in the room. So brainwashed that he had no idea what his own heart wanted. Everything he was told to think and feel came from Goehring; the monster who he idolised, who made the world turn, who gave him something to feel alive. "Bending to his wishes, abducting and torturing these women. It satisfied Goehring so this pleased our unsub. What Goehring wants, he wants."

While the officers dispersed to continue their patrol of the town, some of the team took up residence in the station. They located a computer to go through tapes that Rossi and Hotch had uncovered in Goehring's living room. They might have been unspooled by the frantic fingers of Goehring's partner, but he was no match for Penelope Garcia.

In the latest scene, a shirtless Goehring kneeled over the motionless body of one of their victims. He had blood on his face and hands that he made no effort to wipe off. The blood seemed to revitalise him, to encourage his desire for torture. The partner sat behind the camera, patient and attentive. Following Goehring's lead.

"One more thing," Goehring turned to him with a grin and the partner immediately sat to attention. Dallis' brows furrowed. "Never let the bastards take you alive, and never be forgotten."

The screen went black.

"That's it, the whole tamale," Garcia's face appeared then, severely uncomfortable. "Every horrific frame. I'm done."

"No luck seeing the partner?" Emily's smile was sympathetic.

Garcia shook her head. "I scanned every frame. He's holding the camera."

"Are you okay?" Dallis asked, wishing she could've been there to hug her friend as she shook her head with a sad 'no.' "I'm sorry, Pen. I know it's not easy."

Garcia didn't have the energy to respond, not that Dallis held it against her. She exited the call without a goodbye, leaving the others to go over the videos again.

"This one's of Jennifer Hillbridge, the second woman abducted," Emily pressed play.

Jennifer was still alive in the beginning. She was laid on her side and, like the other victim, covered in blood but she was coherent enough to beg for her life. Every plea went in one ear and out the other. Goehring was too busy pacing, wired with anger. Slowly, the partner moved the camera across Goehring's torso. Dallis leaned over, ignoring Emily's confused murmur of her name as she restarted the video.

"Look at this." In the next frame, Goehring was leaning over Jennifer. The camera traced his shoulders and settled on his backside. "If we're looking through the perspective of our unsub..."

Reid's eyes widened. "The cameraman frames Goehring but never her. He never stays on her as long--"

"Because he's only interested in Goehring," Dallis confirmed. "He's in love with him."

"The unspooled tapes..." Emily recalled the memory with an absentminded click of her fingers. "That wasn't to destroy evidence. It was from jealousy."

"What?" Williams exclaimed.

The video continued. The cameraman's attention had settled once again on Goehring's leering face. How did he not know that his partner was in love with him? Every command of his was met with agreement. Was Goehring so self-centred that he failed to notice? Or did he see everything for what it truly was and use it to his own advantage?

"Get close-ups of this," Goehring was saying. "You make a loop, tie it around, bring it through."

"He's teaching him how to tie the perfect knot," Reid remarked, watching as Goehring pinned Jennifer's hands behind her back with precision.

"It's called the trucker's hitch. She's not going anywhere."

"It would be part of his servitude to clean his house, help abduct girls, bury the bodies, get supplies, and plant the roses."

"The roses..." Dallis murmured, thinking of those innocent plants marking something so sinister. In a graveyard, flowers were left to profess grief. While Goehring and the unsub had made a graveyard of their own, the flowers they planted were a taunt.

"He would've had to buy them," Emily gasped in realisation. "And a lot of them."

"Someone must have seen him."

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

IT TOOK A FEW attempts, but their search provided them with a name.

Henry Frost.

He worked at one of the local nurseries, the perfect cover. Nobody would suspect him of anything nefarious if he was purchasing from his place of work. He didn't stand out there among people who thought they knew him.

When they arrived at his trailer, which wasn't far from Goehring's, it was newly abandoned.

"This is unusual," Dallis shifted through the mess Frost had scattered across the living room floor. More unspooled tapes, torn up photographs. This was desperate, done without thought. He had to have known they were closing in on him.

"He's destroyed everything he owns," Hotch confirmed as he exited the small bedroom.

At the same time, Reid came in from where he'd been searching the yard. He had gloves on, like the rest of them, and was holding a picture with a large burn mark across a stocky man's face. "He has no identity. He's burned his face off his pictures."

"Why?" Hotch frowned, sitting on the armrest next to Dallis.

"A submissive depends on a dominant partner, not only for instruction but for purpose and meaning," Reid said.

"So he's starting over? Wiping the slate clean?"

"Yes, but as what?" Emily asked.

"I think the question should be who," Dallis corrected.

Hotch turned to her. "Do you have a theory?"

"I think so," she sighed.

As it happened, she was right.

Not long after they left the trailer, Williams called them. Another girl had been taken, this time at a gas station a few blocks over. Frost had left behind a witness and, from the sounds of it, evidence. The team didn't waste time getting there. If Frost was spiralling bad, the months he and Goehring previously spent harming these women might reduce to days, hours even.

"I could've taken the shot," the shop lady stood with her arms crossed, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. She was a middle-aged woman, blonde-haired, with wild eyes that screamed with frustration. Her accent was Southern and strong as she detailed to JJ how she'd almost shot the car Frost had driven off in. "I was just afraid of hitting her."

"Did you get a good look at him?" Hotch asked.

"Yeah, he came in," she nodded. "Big-ass bandage on the left side of his face."

JJ and Hotch looked at each other, then at Dallis, who was standing in the back with Rossi. Hotch hadn't had much to say when Dallis shared her theory; there was no evidence beyond suspicion that indicated Frost wanted to be Goehring.

But love made you crazy. For some, it took you to the point of no return. Frost had leapt over the edge, embracing Goehring into his heart, body and soul as much as he could when his love was snatched from him by a self-inflicted death.

"He bought a beer and pumpkin seeds and went back to his truck and sat there."

Waiting, Dallis thought.

"Is that his truck?" Williams pointed at the only other vehicle -- a pick-up truck in the corner of the parking lot.

"Yes, sir."

"That was their MO," Rossi said as Williams left to look over the contents of the car. "Frost chauffeured Goehring around. Goehring picks a victim, abducts her on foot, and they drive off in separate vehicles."

"But this time Frost had to play both roles, and he got sloppy, and he left a witness and his car," Hotch pieced together.

JJ reached into the pocket of her jeans, catching the shop-lady's attention once she held out the only photo they had of Henry Frost where his face wasn't removed. "Can you confirm that this is the guy you saw?"

The woman shook her head. "No."

"Does that camera work?" Dallis gestured above the main door.

"You bet it does, sweetheart," she snorted as if this should've been obvious.

"Then do you mind showing us the footage?"

The old security system was on its last leg, but the picture on the old box television was as clear as day. The back of the shop-lady's head was visible from behind the counter. Standing opposite her, in black-and-white, was a man who could've been Goehring's twin. Same dark slicked-back hair, same dress-sense. As the lady had said, he had a bandage over his left cheek, no doubt concealing the crudely done cut that would mirror Goehring's scar. Even Frost's mannerisms were a desperate attempt to embody someone he wasn't.

"Dallis, you were right," JJ exclaimed, her face twisted in a grimace of disgust. "He looks just like Goehring."

"Or Frost's version of him," Rossi muttered.

The question now was what to do next?

Outside, Dallis leaned against one of the petrol pumps. It was out of order -- for how long, who knew, considering the run-down state of the place -- and under the cover of a weathered lean-to. Hotch stood beside her, hands hidden in the pockets of his suit jacket. Meanwhile, Rossi paced in front of them, bringing to life these two men they had committed to learning inside-out.

"Okay, you're Goehring, sadistic bastard," Rossi pointed to Hotch, drawing a smirk onto Dallis' face. Rossi spared her a glance, grinning slyly, then focused once again. "I'm Frost, a submissive, troubled gay man. I need you to dominate me because it gives me direction and a purpose in life."

"And life is good," Hotch continued. "Then, one day, I pull the pin on a grenade."

"You die. And when I lose you, I begin to lose my identity because my sense of self was tied to you."

"You're showing classic signs of depersonalisation disorder, precipitated by the stressor of losing a loved one."

"And now all that's left is me," Rossi pointed his thumb at his chest.

"And you hate yourself."

"I do. Why?"

"Because I've brainwashed you with all my rules," Hotch proposed. "I've told you over and over how weak you are, how you're nothing without me."

"So you believe he knew about Frost's feelings for him?" Dallis voiced the question she'd been wondering.

"It would make sense," Hotch considered.

"Right," Rossi murmured, continuing to pace. "So I go back to my home and annihilate everything I own, every reminder of who I am. I erase myself and become you."

"Because it's the only way you can survive," Hotch nodded. "The only way you can hold onto me."

"Frost transforms himself into Goehring and goes back to abducting women, because that's what Goehring would do."

"So we stop trying to profile Frost?" Dallis asked. "We profile the version of Goehring he's created?"

"Exactly," Rossi met her eyes and nodded.

The others arrived ahead of them to the station. Dallis left Rossi and Hotch by the SUVs, assisting them in pouring over all the evidence they'd collected from each crime scene. A few minutes later, Rossi and Hotch came upstairs, still deep in the same conversation they'd been having since the gas station.

What would Goehring do? Where would he take this new victim? Just how much had his voice taken root in Frost's mind?

"Sheriff, he's taken on Goehring's persona, we have to assume he's going to behave the same way," Hotch went straight to Williams. "He's heavily armed and he's committed to his cause."

"If he's caught, he's not only willing to die, but to take as many of us with him as possible," Rossi came to a stop in the centre of the room with his hands on his hips. It was a confident stance, one that came across as no-nonsense. He needed the sheriff to listen, to heed their advice.

"And he's got a hostage, which means I'm going to need the best sharpshooter you've got," said Hotch.

"That's fine," Williams nodded. "But we don't even know where this guy is headed."

"Actually, we think we might have something," Dallis spoke up as Reid finished pointing out to her the various places on his topographical map that might be a match for the setting of Goehring's revered photograph.

"In the tapes, Goehring makes several mentions of ideal land," began Emily.

"He also said that lords lived on higher ground, to better surveil the land and spot invaders."

"He studied mediaeval defence strategies," Morgan held up a book they had confiscated from Goehring's home. "So he'll probably go to a place where he can protect himself."

"High ground, easily defendable," emphasised Emily.

"This picture was on Goehring's fridge," Dallis held up the photo in question. "Do you know where that is?"

"That's Black Eagle Peak. Militia groups used to use it for training drills until the state stopped them."

He pointed out where on the map. It was one of the places Reid had suggested to Dallis, almost in the centre of his topographical map.

Hotch nodded at Emily. "Ideal land."

"We should get moving," Dallis said. "With a car, he'd already be there by now."

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

WILLIAMS' TRUCK LEAD THE charge down the dusty trail. On either side of them were towering hills covered in vegetation. Just ahead, the road suddenly dropped into a valley thick with trees. Dallis craned her head to look at the highest peak. She had to avert her eyes, squinting from the sheer intensity of the white light of the sun.

"My guy's got eyes on him. He's on the very top of the peak, on the far side of that ridge," Williams was telling Hotch. "He'll see us coming."

"He already knows if he's using that police scanner," Emily pointed out.

"We've gotta find a way to get up there," Morgan insisted. He already wore his blue FBI vest in anticipation, reminding Dallis to slide hers over her head and strap the restrictive material into place.

"We'll never be able to get close enough," Rossi argued against Morgan's suggestion. "How's it going with the sharpshooter?"

Behind them, another truck sped into view, blowing heavy dust into the air. Dallis covered her nose and mouth with one hand, the other still working her straps into place, staring at the unfamiliar man approaching them with his rifle at the ready. He didn't look like a police officer in his worn jeans and checked shirt. The cowboy hat and boots were especially telling.

Morgan groaned. "Oh, you can't be serious."

"You asked for the best," Williams sighed. "He's it."

"A civilian?" Dallis frowned.

That didn't sound right.

"Not just any civilian," Morgan muttered under his breath. "He's militia."

Harris Townsend.

"He's an ex-Special Forces sniper," argued Williams stubbornly. "I deputised him. He knows the terrain like nobody else."

"Not to doubt you, Sheriff, but he can't be the only person capable of shooting at a distance," Dallis arched an eyebrow.

Before Williams could answer, Townsend interrupted. "Wind in this valley will change the trajectory of a shot by inches. If you can't read the wind, the wrong person might get shot. I guess I don't need to remind you gentlemen of that."

"We can handle this," Morgan gritted his teeth.

"Excuse me? Gentlemen?" Dallis stood with her hands on her hips. She didn't give two shits what this man thought. Her and Emily were just as much a part of this group as her male coworkers. She didn't care if it made her outspoken, she wouldn't let his ignorance towards them slide. "Sheriff Williams might've deputised you, Townsend, but that doesn't make you invincible."

Townsend scoffed, looking her up and down. Then Rossi intervened, eyes narrowed.

"Hey, it might not come down to it if we don't get moving. I'll go with him."

Dallis bit her tongue, looking at Hotch. This wouldn't be the first time he corrected her for losing her temper, but it seemed Hotch had turned a blind eye. He stood firmly between herself and Morgan, staring down Townsend, who'd thankfully remembered what he was there for. He scanned the hillside cautiously.

"You want to flank around the West side of the mountain?" Williams asked.

"No, if he's on the North, I'll get a better view from the East ridge. Steeper, higher ground. Get a clear shot from there."

"If you see the shot, call it," Hotch ordered Rossi, who nodded in confirmation, then he addressed the rest of the team. "Channel 23, keep it open. I'll go with the sheriff. We'll stay at the base and try to distract him. Everyone else, go up through the Northeast and through the middle. Keep your head down."

With one last scathing glare at Townsend, Morgan stormed off with Dallis not far behind him. Emily followed, and soon they were in the heat of it with Emily listening to Morgan and Dallis bounce their frustrations off each other.

"I can see why you dislike him," Dallis huffed, pushing her sunglasses down her nose as they started to fog from the heat. "I refuse to let a man like that walk all over me."

"Williams better know what he's doing," Morgan muttered. He was several paces ahead of her, climbing the terrain like fire was at his heels.

"We're almost there, guys," Emily was careful to keep her voice low. "Let's continue this after we've got this son-of-a-bitch."

As they stopped just below the peak, hidden in the shadows out of Henry Frost's line of sight, Dallis paid attention to the voices trading back and forth through her ear-piece.

"Bureau policy was shoot-to-kill at Ruby Ridge, wasn't it?" Townsend's gravel voice was smug. At first, Dallis wasn't sure who he was talking to, but then Rossi replied.

"It wasn't, but it is now."

"Yeah," Townsend huffed out a laugh. "Well, I'm not in the Bureau, am I?"

Meanwhile, Hotch was reaching out to Frost, cutting between channels. "We know a lot about you, Henry. We know your name is Henry Frost. We know you're twenty-five-years old. We know that your dad kicked you out of the house when you were fifteen. He was a drunk, and he abused and abandoned you. Ever since, your life has been a series of jails and institutions, and it's been hell."

"Shut up," Frost screamed, his voice echoing across the valley. "Never let the bastards take you alive. Never be forgotten."

"You're the man who sent those two agents into my bar," continued Townsend.

"I was."

"To piss me off."

Rossi ignored this. "If you have the shot, take it."

"Innocent woman died at Ruby Ridge," Townsend commented.

Dallis glanced at Morgan, who was adjusting his ear-piece. He didn't seem to understand the conversation either, but he was desperate for an insight into Rossi, to see how he navigated a man like Harris Townsend. He had to know that the rest of the team had two open lines of communication -- one with Frost, which Hotch had control of, and one with only the team -- but he seemed to relish in the attention.

"As tragic as that outcome was, my order on that day was the same as it is now," Rossi insisted. "That man is not going to be taken alive."

"You were there?"

"I was."

"The shot's the signal to go," Morgan whispered, anxious for something to happen. He had both his hands braced on the side of the hill, his bicep pressed to Dallis' arm. He nudged her carefully, gesturing to the foothold he had found. Dallis copied him, ready to follow him without hesitation.

"Take the damn shot," Rossi exclaimed, loud and impatient in Dallis' ear.

"Maybe your partner will talk him out of it," Townsend continued to hold off.

"I knew he'd do this," Dallis exhaled, shaking her head.

The ear-piece crackled as Hotch's voice took over. "Henry, just let the girl go, and I'll clear everybody out, and you and I can just talk. That's a promise. It doesn't have to end like this."

"Yes, it does," Frost screamed again. "It does and it will!"

"Henry, let her go!"

A gunshot ripped through the air. Morgan moved first, closely followed by Dallis, with Emily bringing up the rear. Dallis' jeans ripped at the knees as she tore through rock, but she made it to the top of the ridge where the victim was curled up, hands tied behind her back, tears dripping through blood from a metal contraption braced against her throat. Behind her, Frost was sprawled out with a gunshot wound on his back. Morgan kicked him over to check his pulse while Emily repeated reassurances to the woman, allowing Dallis to remove the collar around her neck.

"He's gone," Morgan confirmed.

One down, onto the next.

As everything wound down, Dallis found Morgan and Rossi on the cliffside where Townsend had taken his shot. She was out of earshot and therefore didn't hear what Morgan said, but she caught the impressed expression flicker across Rossi's face before he looked up and spotted her standing there.

She was haloed by the sun, covered in sweat and dirt. Her knees were exposed in her newly ripped jeans (according to an amused Emily, it was a fashion statement, but Dallis thought otherwise) and covered in irritated scratches. With her hands on her hips, she looked the picture of innocence, but her grin was nervous. Her eyes darted from him, to Morgan, to the skyline behind her Raybans.

"Mind if I catch a ride back to the tarmac with you?"

Rossi considered this. "Dallis, you're not a fan of my books, are you?"

"Oh, no," she shook her head, playing along. "That's all Reid. But I do want to pick your brain. If you'll let me."

"About?" He arched an eyebrow. Dallis took it as a positive sign when he fell into step beside her, slowing so he didn't leave her behind.

"Anything," she shrugged. "This is what friends do. They get to know each other."

"Friends," he repeated, over-exaggerating his grimace.

Dallis couldn't help it. She threw her head back and laughed. "Don't sound so disgusted. I might get a complex."

The corner of his mouth caved into a grin. "I suppose you and I could be acquaintances, Dallis."

She sighed, still smiling. "Progress. I'll take it."

Hotch ended up joining them in the SUV to the tarmac, and once they were on the jet, Dallis took the seat opposite Rossi and Rossi didn't object.

Progress, indeed. They talked the whole way home.