Side by side || Emily Prentiss

7.

Obviously the fate couldn't turn in her favor and neither she could rest. She had to hurry, she had to save her daughter before it was too late. She couldn't allow herself to cry for Emily or soon she would have to cry for Rose.

She quickly got ready, put a new dress in her go bag and rushed to the jet, hoping that Emily didn't regret what had happened, otherwise she would have to start all over again.

Daisy had always had that great ability to shut down her feelings especially in relation to the people around her. She hated doing it, but if she was forced she could become the worst of human beings.

She painted a smile on her face and boarded the jet, elegant as always. For her immense luck and surprise she found everyone waiting for her already there. Emily didn't seem angry to her, but Daisy was very angry. She needed to understand how it was possible that even though she did everything possible not to be the last to arrive, everyone else still managed to arrive before her.

"Good morning Daisy ." - JJ told her, beautiful and shiny as always

"Ready for your first case outside of D.C?" - added Tara

After wishing everyone a good morning, Daisy went to sit next to Luke, waiting for Emily to be ready to talk to them about the case. Daisy had to distract herself from her, she couldn't allow herself to avoid Emily, but she could allow herself to keep her out of her head by occupying it with something else.

"For a week bodies of men have been appearing in Baltimore, all killed by strangulation. Totally different ethnicity, age, economic and social background. Six have been found." - said Emily, inviting everyone with a gesture to look at the case files

"That's an incredible number of deaths in such a short time, why didn't they call us sooner?" - JJ asked their leader

"They were convinced they could solve it on their own, but as always they failed miserably and now it's up to us to prevent this unsub from continuing his work undisturbed."

Daisy looked at the photos of the dead. None of them appeared to show any particular injuries or signs of self-defense. Apparently their toxicological test was completely negative, excluding the possibility that the killer could have drugged them.

"The latest victim is Owen Dickies, aged forty-seven, married with two young children. He was a soldier, he spent several years in the Middle East." - Daisy read on the files

"He was a physically robust and trained man and does not exhibit any self-defense traits. Our unsub must be particularly strong and intelligent to catch these men so much off guard." - said Rossi

"Or they all had to know the unsub personally and trust him blindly." - Daisy continued, getting an approving look from Emily

It was the first time their eyes met that morning. For the first time since she had joined the team, Emily's eyes had not been cold and hard, but calm and reassuring: she didn't regret what happened the previous night.

The leader proceeded to assign everyone their tasks for when they landed. JJ and Tara would have had to go to the medical examiner, Luke had to go around the various dump sites, Rossi and Daisy had been entrusted with the task of speaking with the families of the victims, while Emily would have gone to the local police to talk to the detectives.

Unfortunately, however, the conversation with the families had led to nothing. Penelope couldn't find any connection between the killed men and the geographic profile gave no sign of clarification on the case.

Three days had passed since their landing in Baltimore and the team had no path to follow, other than the new corpse that had turned up that morning. They were all exhausted and tried, without great success, to contain the anger of the local police and local inhabitants.

That Friday morning, Daisy was rereading for the umpteenth time the files of the families of the deceased's declarations, trying to understand if they had failed to grasp some important detail, when Rossi interrupted her by bringing her a coffee.

"How many times have you read those statements?" - the old profiler asked her

"I think I can repeat them from memory" - said Daisy, sipping her coffee

Rossi had that paternal and kind way in every action he did, he reminded her so much of her father. She hadn't hear from him since Claudia died. He kept calling her incessantly, but she never answered.

She didn't know how to explain to him everything that had happened and was happening, she didn't know how to explain to him what had happened to his granddaughter, but she was also immensely afraid that sooner or later her father would stop trying to track her down.

"Then there is nothing you haven't been able to identify, don't focus too much on something or you risk losing total vision." - Rossi said, interrupting her thoughts

"How come there isn't a lead to follow?" - Daisy asked, snorting and running her hands through her brown hair

"Your eyes are the least tired of all of us. You are the youngest, you have the fastest brain of all. Come on, think. What have we forgotten Daisy?" - Rossi said, pressing his tone of voice, almost in a challenging way

He was right. Daisy could get there. She had to think carefully about everything they had gathered about these crimes. They had looked into all the varied aspects of the victims' lives: home, family, sexuality, love, children, work, interests, occupations, obsessions.

Daisy held up a photo of a victim, the latest that popped up that morning. Nothing differed from the others. No drugs, no violence, just the same cause of death: strangulation. The medical examiner had established that they had not been strangled by hands, but not even by a rope, otherwise it would have left more obvious marks on the body.

"There is an inconsistency here." - she said showing the photo to Rossi

"Which?" - asked the older profiler sincerely curious

"In our profile we established that our unsub must be a strong man, or otherwise he would not have been able to kill and dispose of the corpses of these eight men with ease, but a strong man would be able to strangle them with his own hands, he would not need something else to do it." - Daisy explained

At that moment Emily had joined them in the room, in all her beauty and elegance. Daisy was managing to keep her out of her thoughts at least while they were at work, but every time she found herself in front of Emily she couldn't help but think of her boss naked and panting.

However, a shiver ran down her back as she also remembered that she had only used Emily sexually.

Daisy couldn't explain what happened to her brain at that moment. Keeping Emily out of her mind for so long had been bad for solving the case. The team of profilers had analyzed everything about the victims' lives except one thing: sex.

"What's happening?" - asked Emily, who had noticed the disgusted look Daisy was giving her

"Sex." - the young profiler simply exclaimed

Emily's face went white immediately, as if she was struck by that simple word.

"Tell us more Daisy, come on." - added Rossi

Daisy spent about half an hour piecing together the puzzle, explaining to the two older profilers why she thought the unsub was a woman and that she was only able to kill those men because they trusted her sexually.

Everything fit, everything was exactly in the right place, now they just needed to find the woman in question and arrest her.

Daisy's heart skipped a beat when Emily gave her the most beautiful, proud smile she had ever seen.