SELCOUTH

Chapter 11

My mind was unusually clear this morning and I was poised to take advantage of it. I poured myself a full cup of coffee, added creamer and sugar and then ran as flat-footed as I could, towards the conference room. The team was being updated on our current case. I made it through the doorway as soon as JJ stood to begin her presentation. I sighed and took my seat beside Penelope. I grabbed a notepad and pen from the middle and began to scribble down notes as JJ spoke. I took a sip of coffee and wrote more. JJ finished speaking and the team started to discuss what we had learned. I looked back at my notes. My eyes flitted over all the words, but got stuck on the word, 'above'. My brain began to reel. Above? Above what? Above where? Above who? The word felt important, but how? I sighed, frustrated.

"Okay, everyone get to work." Hotch said.

Everyone began to clear away their things and I followed them, still in a trance.

"Allison, where are those case files I asked you to sort through for me?" Hotch asked from behind me.

I jumped and closed my case file.

"Uh, they're uh," I frantically tried to siphon through the things on my desk. I wasn't seeing them, why weren't they there? Where would I have put them?

"Here they are Hotch." Reid called from his desk.

My head swiveled to see him. He held up a stack of case files, all with nicely colored tabs sticking out here and there to mark important information.

My mouth opened slightly in shock.

"Thank you Reid." Hotch said and shot a look at me.

I shrugged.

Hotch took the files and went back to his office.

I looked over at Reid but he was back to looking at something on his desk.

I took in air and tried to calm the butterflies in my lungs.

I brought my papers with me to lunch. I knew I could figure this, I had to figure this. After I finished my deli sandwich and chips, I wiped my hands and spread the papers out again. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I looked slowly over the information with the word 'above' hanging in my mind. The UNSUB killed the daughter of Dr. David Scott and Wilma Scott. The girl was a student and was on her way to school, just like me. The daughter was killed by blunt force trauma, but suffered torture beforehand. The victim was raped postmortem, which is an automatic tell for necrophilia. She was found with a tiara in her hair and-

Wait, 'above'. What about the tiara? The royal family are the only people who still wear crowns and tiaras. Only princesses wear tiaras though. If the UNSUB considered her royal, she most certainly would be above the common man. Did the UNSUB consider the victim a princess? We have no royals or princesses here in Virginia. Most certainly none that attend public school. If the UNSUB did think of her as a princess, why? What made him think that?

I flipped through the pages of information until I got to the analysis of the victim. I read as fast as I could. I had more questions than answers and I wasn't about to give up when I was this close.

I found absolutely nothing that could point to the victim possibly being thought of as a princess. She was the most generic "good girl" that I had ever seen. She had A's and B's, wasn't in any clubs, went to church with her family on Sundays, but she didn't really excel at anything. The whole thing was making no sense. I needed to get my mind off of the case.

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I knocked on Reid's apartment door. I waited a moment and then the door opened.