lullabies through the window

Four: 7th St NW

The team had narrowed it down to three men. They had snuck into the apartment building, and had visited the possible victims; explained the situation, and asked them to cooperate so they could catch the murderers. The could-be victims were to continue their day as usual, not tell anyone what was happening, and let a police officer and/ or BAU agent stay in their apartment, hidden, at all times. 

Now they had to wait. 

Hours had passed.

9 PM came... and went.

10 PM...

11...

"Is anything actually going to happen?" The brown haired man asked, laying in bed. Emily was hidden in his room. 

"I... don't know..." She whispered slowly.

They stayed there all night.

Nothing happened.

"They must have known we're here." Hotch said tiredly.

"Or we're looking at the wrong place." Morgan said.

"We covered all the victim matches who live in the apartments in this area, they're all here." Spencer countered.

JJ sighed. "Well, maybe our geographical profile was wrong. The circle idea was dumb-"

"No, the circle idea makes sense. We know our unsubs like to make people feel trapped: they surround their house, even if the victim lives on the second floor. What if ," Spencer gesticulated, "They're main target lives in the middle of the circle? All of the murders are to make them feel trapped, it gives them more time to worry and panic." 

There was a pause.

"That makes sense..." Rossi said. "But they're going off script. We don't know what they're doing now. They used to have a consistent schedule. Take the victim at night, torture him to death, drop the body the next day."

"We're missing something. They wouldn't go off script, they're too dedicated to the plan."

"Hey! We got something over here! It's... It's pretty bad!" A police officer yelled from next to the apartment's trash bins, located in a small alleyway like area near the street.

"Do you think..." JJ trailed off.

"It could be." Hotch led the team to the officer. She had a look of disgust on her face.

"I think it's the next victim..." She said quietly.

They followed her to the bins. They looked around. No body. The team look questioningly at the officer, who pointed behind the trash bins. Hotch crouched down to look behind the bin, and immediately saw the disfigured bloody mass of a body. Blood seemed to come from everywhere, stab wounds covered his chest, gore poured from the bullet wound in his head, his neck and throat seemed to have been caught on fire, his eyes were gone. Hotch coughed as he stood up, trying to get rid of the strong smell. 

"That's definitely our next victim."

"Why didn't we notice him go missing? We had our eyes on everyone." Morgan asked.

"I don't know, but we need to get some identification. Let's let the coroner do his job..." Hotch said gravely.

*********************************************************************

"He didn't live in that apartment, he worked at that apartment..." Morgan growled. "They saw we had all of their possible victims out of reach and they grabbed the next best thing."

"It definitely doesn't seem planned. More like a backup plan. They only had one picture of him, not days worth." Emily put in. 

"So we need to start searching the middle of the circle. They could make their final kill tonight and then disappear. We could never find these people..." JJ pressed her lips together.