REPLACEMENT; criminal minds (1)

𝙁𝙊𝙐𝙍𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙉

"E-What What?" Garcia asks.

"It's like a... quick and dirty cocktail that induces vomiting" Maya explains. "Vanessa Campbell and her husband move to a new address. They've put locks on the doors. They took precautions. She even knew what to do if she was dosed again, and it still wasn't enough" Emily rants and Maya starts to understand that that's what the unsub wants. That's what he gets out of it.

"Their fear. He wants them to know that no matter what, he can still get to them" Hotch concludes.

Hotch and Rossi meet with the Houston police and discover that the drugs weren't in the wine - there was no trace of it in the vomit left on the floor.

This means that he somehow got the drugs into the cigarette she smoked right before her vision fuzzed out. Is that how he's drugging all of them?

______

Interviewing all the re-raped women, Emily and JJ notice that they're all smokers. All the victims being smokers is common enough that it wouldn't have seemed like a worthwhile commonality, but now that they're searching for alternate ways that people can be drugged.

Reid, Maya and Derek have already taken the revelation on board and interview the latest victim's husband about her smoking. "Yes, Vanessa smokes. What does that matter?" The husband questions. "It could be how the unsub is drugging the women he's assaulting" Maya answers as she looks around the home, analyzing it.

"The media has done a very good job of warning people to watch their drinks so that bars are no long a fertile hunting ground, but cigarette smokers aren't as careful since they could ask a strange for a cigarette, or have their pack swapped out if their purse when they out it down" Reid rants, explaining to the husband how this could've happened to his wife.

"She hid them in her purse. She didn't think I knew" The husband informs as Derek walks over and stands next to Maya. "She cracked the windows so I wouldn't smell it when I got home" The husband adds before Maya and Derek look back at the window the husband is pointing too.

"If the unsub stalked her from the backyard, he'd have a good view when she lit up" Reid explains. "Yeah, he also took out the window with something like a center punch" Derek state.

"What's that?" The husband wonders. "It's a spring-loaded device used to punch divots into metal, but it also breaks glass" Maya answers and looks over to Derek who smiles slightly, surprised she knew that.

"What? I know things" Maya jokes as she nudges Derek's arm and walks over to Reid who checks Vanessa's purse.

"No cigarettes. He must have taken them with him to hide the evidence" Reid says and Maya shakes her head. "You know, it might not be all he's trying to hide" Derek says as he walks up to an entertainment system by the television.

Maya knits her eyebrows in confusion as she walks over to Derek and sees the system is still on. Maya then asks the husband if it was like that when he got home, and it was.

The recent playing history has been deleted, but Garcia is able to recover the song in question. Which raises an interesting point. This guy doesn't leave any evidence of his presence, stealing drugged cigarettes from purses and the like, but he left the entertainment system on?

"He specifically took the time to stand at the console deleting his song and the playlist history" Maya declares with slight concern.