Teaching jj

Chapter 28

Michael shot him a look. "Well, we have to deal with vandalism and graffiti and church flyers with our pictures on them, warning parents to 'keep their kids safe' from us, you have to worry about a serial killer that the local police won't admit is probably a woman and probably exacting a different, much more deadly kind of vengeance. So you two be careful, OK?"

"How do you know all of this?" Emily asked, surprised at how detailed - and how close to the BAU's profile - his information was. Hotch had made it clear that the papers and the police department had squelched all speculation about the presumed gender of the killer.

"It's a small town, and every new lesbian couple finds their way into this bookstore at some point. There's no way a straight guy would do this, unless it was a threesome gone wrong. And there's no way any of our friends would ever be involved in something so heinous. It has to be a woman. We've even been pretending that the cash machine is broken when a woman comes in here alone so we can take down her credit card information. All of those names have been turned over to the police but no arrests have been made, so I guess ..." His voice trailed off.

"She's smart enough to stay away from this place," Emily mused, her mind spinning. Had this local knowledge impeded the FBI's investigation? she wondered. Or had it just made their unsub a more careful - more deadly - murderer? She shuddered involuntarily, already knowing the answer. When an entire town is closely watching, there could be only two outcomes: either the killer is caught and apprehended based on a mistake they'd made or the killer becomes even more skilled at evading detection and accelerates with confidence. Paradoxically, it turns out to be that very confidence that often results in the first outcome, but only immediately after the unsub has committed another crime or is unexpectedly caught in the act. Emily shuddered again, wondering if she was mistaken when she trusted her team to place her and JJ in such a dangerous situation. To essentially use them as bait. Wondering if, when the killer targeted them - and the killer would target them - they could trust the rest of their team to save them before it was too late.

"See, now you've scared her!" Tim admonished, circling around the counter to embrace Emily in a hug. "Listen, sweetheart. We've all got your back. Ever since the housing market recovered and this place became a little-known gay Mecca, the ratio of murders to 'happily-ever-afters' is so small that you shouldn't even think about turning around to pay some ridiculous rent for some crappy apartment back in Manhattan. We've seen couples do that before. You'll love it here, I swear. And we're going to keep watching and taking notes and sending information to the cops and even the FBI until this bitch is caught."

"The FBI?" JJ asked uneasily, freezing in place.

"Well, it's a hate crime, isn't it?" Michael interjected. "The FBI should have been here months ago, looking into this. And I don't care what kind of watch list they've put me on, but I'm not going to stop searching for a way to get this place back to the haven it used to be. I have nothing to hide. If anyone should be hiding, it's the FBI. Their lack of interest is a disgrace to the whole community."

"Promise you'll stay at least one week," Tim implored. "I see that look in your eyes ... That same look I saw when other lesbian couples packed their shit and disappeared into the night once we told them what was going on. Just one week. I grew up here and the second I was old enough, I moved away to San Francisco and never thought I'd walk these streets again. I came back ... We came back because this isn't the town I grew up in. I replaced all those hateful memories with so many good ones. Just stay a week and I know you'll love it here as much as we do."

"OK," Emily agreed, forcing a smile. "We'll give it a chance."

"Now I want to see you both at Kitty Corner tomorrow night!" Michael called after them. "Happy Hour starts at five!"

After leaving the bookstore, Emily and JJ exchanged looks. This local knowledge was certainly not part of the profile they'd been given by the team, and the fact that these murders were happening while an entire town was keeping watch rendered the unsub even deadlier than they'd thought.

When they climbed back into the car, JJ was shaking, tears brimming in her deep blue eyes. "I need ... I need to go back to the house and process all of this," she choked out. "Just for a couple of hours. I need to relax ... to take a nap or something and forget about this case for a little while."

"Me, too," Emily declared, reaching over to squeeze JJ's hand.

Of course, with the newfound lesbian sex guide sitting in the plastic bag beside them, Emily had an entirely different plan as to how to get JJ to relax and forget about the case ... and it certainly didn't involve taking a nap.