Unknown- A Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 13- A Brand

"Brutal is an understatement," Prentiss scoffed upon one glance at the picture.

"Wait, what's that on her forehead?" Reid asked.

"That is," Garcia hit a button on the clicker again and an enlarged picture of the words on her stomach and the mark on her head showed up, "A brand."

"It's an eye, burned into her forehead," Morgan said.  The red welt on her forehead was a simple football shape with a circle in the middle.

"I think this unsub has an obsession with being noticed by others," Rossi sarcastically stated the obvious.

"What kind of skill would you need to make your own customized branding iron like that?" JJ asked.

"We should look for someone in the metal or agriculture industry.  He'd need a fairly adept knowledge of welding or how to cut metal with an acetylene torch judging from the crude simplicity of the design, and though it's less common to brand cattle than it used to be, it's still possible it could be someone who used to live or work on a ranch before moving into the city," Reid started rambling. 

At least it was about something useful--away from the cities, New York actually had a thriving agriculture industry--opposed to the five-minute argument he'd had with Morgan about the scientific probability of the Death Star working as a weapon to annihilate a planet that one time. I--thankfully--hadn't even been a part of the BAU when that happened, but the rest of the team was excellent at regaling embarrassing stories about each other, but about Reid especially.

"The branding is unusual, but what about the words cut into her stomach?" Prentiss asked.

"If the unsub was stalking her, he must have been watching her for a while in order to achieve this level of violence.  It's personal," Rossi said with a grudging tone of finality.

Hotch stood and announced, "We'll fly in tonight, her family will be at the station tomorrow morning.  Wheels up in twenty," before grabbing his case file and exiting the room, and the rest of us followed suit.

The next morning, Hotch, JJ, and I stayed at the station to interview the victim's family, or rather, her mother. 

The victim, Jean Neal, had just moved back home after graduating college and was abducted right outside her apartment on her way home late one night.  She had grown up in a single-parent home but her mom had a good job to provide for them.  She'd never had any previous relationships, and though she had reported a man following her and given a description, after her visit to the police station the stalking ceased.  Her mother hadn't heard from her since the afternoon of the night she disappeared, and then her daughter's body showed up in a dumpster two days later.

"Was it unusual to go for a few days without hearing from your daughter?"  JJ asked Mrs. Neal.

"No," she answered with a shake of her head, sniffling and pressing a crumpled tissue to her face.  She had been silently crying the whole while but was still clear-headed enough to give us detailed answers, and she continued, "When she went off to college she wanted to be more independent.  On her own, you know?  She'd still call me every once in a while, but I didn't think I had any reason to worry when I didn't hear from her for a few days.  And then this," she hiccupped mournfully.

"We're sorry for your loss, and I assure you we'll do everything we can to find the man that did this to your daughter.  Thank you for your time, and if there's anything more you think of that could help us, please let us know," Hotch said, and she rose to her feet to shake his hand before she left the police station.

"So this unsub fits the profile of a sadistic stalker, but he was wary enough to back off when he saw Jean go to the police and controlled enough to wait a few days before abducting her," I said.

"Cause of death was exsanguination from the deep cuts on her abdomen.  There were no signs of hesitation.  I have a feeling this isn't our unsub's first victim," Prentiss reported as her and Morgan entered the room, returning from the M.E.

"She was only dead for a few hours when the body was discovered," Morgan added.

"That fits with what her mother said.  The unsub held her at a secondary location before killing her," JJ said.

"Question is, where?" Prentiss asked.

"Warehouses, construction sites, condemned buildings, storage facilities, old factories, any large business after hours," I listed off the locations I could think of.

"You do sound like Reid," Prentiss remarked.

"Are you sure there's nothing going on between you and Pretty Boy, Rookie?" Morgan asked slyly.

Along with Rossi's 'kid' references, Morgan had taken to calling me Rookie instead of McDowell, but I just gritted my teeth and ignored him, instead answering, somewhat sarcastically, "If I was going to kidnap a girl and hold her somewhere to kill her, those would be logical locations, even if I was a sociopath."

Hotch gave me a look--oops, pretty sure Jason Gideon was the only profiler who used to put himself verbally in the unsub's shoes--but I ignored it and buried my face in a case file again.

When Reid and Rossi returned from the crime scene, Morgan called Garcia and she started compiling a list of all the possible locations our unsub could have been holding the girl, and then cross-checked it with buildings that used to be or have access/accommodations for metalworking to narrow it down.  It was still a pretty long list, but at least it was something, and she had already sent us a list of other missing persons and similar cases which were being pulled from the station's records right then.

We spent the rest of the morning and into early afternoon combing through the cases--there were a lot for a city as large as New York, especially with the high number of runaways, working girls, and dreamers hoping--and consequently failing--to make it big.  We found three definite victims, two prostitutes and a runaway, each with an eye branded somewhere on their bodies, and spent the rest of the day interviewing their families and who had seen them last.

JJ went on the six o'clock evening news to present our profile of a sociopathic stalker with obsessional tendencies and a "mean mean streak'', as Garcia had said earlier, to the public.

Around nine that night, we finally got a break, in the form of a call on the tip line.  A girl was worried about her sister because her sister had told her about a man who was stalking her, but hadn't had the courage to go to the police about it yet.  Upon seeing the news, however, the girl had called to let us know since she knew her sister wouldn't.

Rossi immediately called Garcia because if we wanted to save this girl, we needed a location yesterday.