Warnings: heavy angst, talk of rape, child rape (ten years old) by multiple men, not being believed about it, trauma related to rape, canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill, fluff and angst
Author's Note: I really hope you guys accept what I have done to the reader in this story. It will all be relevant in later seasons. Though, please let me know what you think!
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Your entire team heads over to the factory where the four women worked. If you're right about this, and you usually are, then you're going to find that he works there. His name is somewhere in the archives of this place, and you're not going to rest until you find that name. The owner of the establishment, Consuela Ramirez, is shocked to find out that one of her guys may be killing the women in her town. She refuses to accept the idea, but you know he is here somewhere.
"I have owned this factory for nine years, and I do not allow the men I hire to abuse the women. I'm sorry, but I do not believe this man works here," she sighs.
"Miss, the man we're looking for wouldn't be openly abusive. He might just like following women around and peeking into women's bathrooms–that sort of thing."
"He would be shy with women, especially you. You intimidate him so he probably couldn't look you in the eye," Hotch adds.
"The only way I could be a woman and run this factory is to make sure every man feels that way. I'm sorry."
"How many men work here?" you ask.
"Over fifty."
"We need to look through all your employee records."
She hopes you won't find anything in there, but she has no choice but to give over all the files. There is a lot considering the number of men that work here. There are too many of them to narrow down the list. He may be killing right now, and you're in this factory looking through files. Since there are fifty men, you take a chunk of the files to go through as does Spencer and Elle. Spencer may have a fast mind, Elle may know sex crimes like the back of her hand, but you have something they will never have. You can just look at a name and a picture and just peek into their life enough to know if they are the killer or not. So far, you have a dozen.
"So far, I found more than two dozen men that fit the target profile between the ages of thirty-five and fifty," Spencer sighs.
"This owner wasn't kidding," Elle scoffs. "Almost all of these guys had a citation for lewd behavior against the women here. They'd be warned once, and then they'd be fired if it happened again."
"Only one of these men showed up on police records with a sex crime. He beat up a prostitute when she refused to get rough," Navarro reveals.
"Not our guy," you shake your head. "He'd be scared, and he wouldn't have the confidence to stand up to a refusal."
"There are way too many men here to interview and not enough time," Derek sighs.
"Okay, we need to narrow down the profile. What would make our guy stand out?"
"From what you told me, he completely lacks machismo. He has none of the confidence of a typical man in Mexico... even with a knife in his hand."
"What was it that he said to the women after raping them?" you ask, coming to mind. "How did I do? A man with confidence doesn't need to ask that–he assumes it. He'd want approval in everything."
"Come on," Hotch says.
You get up and follow him out to Consuela who just sighs when she sees you two coming.
"Mrs. Ramirez? This guy desperately wants to impress you no matter how small the job. He always wants your approval he may constantly ask, 'how did I do?'"
She mutters the phrase a couple of times before the man's name pops into her head. She looks fearful knowing that one of her men is killing these women and raped younger ones.
"Pablo Vargas. He's been on vacation since four days ago."
"That's the day of Lupe's killing," you mutter.
"What does he do here?"
"He's the floor manager of sector sixteen which is women's plus sizes."
"We're gonna need his address and any other information you can give us. Thank you."
Consuela doesn't waste precious time in getting you that information, and with it, you're able to go to his house and bust him. You have a feeling he won't be at home, but there is only one way to find out. Just in case he is, your bosses ordered an entire team of officers to back you up. There is no need for extra protection since this guy would hate confrontation, but they're there.
"Hola! Anyone home?" Elle asks gently just in case someone is home, but no one responds. "Hola?"
You peek into the window and see that the TV is on, so there must be someone home. Unless it's on as a diversion. Whatever it is, you're prepared for the worst.
"There's someone inside," you say into your earpiece.
The officers break into the house and clear it before your team busts in. Your gun is drawn and ready to shoot at whoever pops up in front of you. You and Elle head over to the room where the TV is. You give her a nod and open the door so she can enter first. Someone is sitting on the chair watching TV.
"Hello?" Elle asks carefully, but she doesn't turn around. "Hello? Are you all right? Can you hear me?"
Elle turns the couch over only to realize that the woman is dead. She's so dead that you couldn't connect with her spirit or energy. She is so dead that she doesn't have anything left on her body, so she's been decomposing for a while now. Why she doesn't smell is beyond you, but Pablo must be taking care of her.
"Hotch!" you yell. He comes into the room and puts his gun away. "We're too late."
"Look at this," Elle mumbles and touching the necklace she's wearing. "That's Anna's necklace."
Now that you know there is no one here, you scan the room for clues about where this guy is or who his next victim is. There are a bunch of pictures of young women on the wall, and after a few seconds of staring at them, you know who they are.
"Hotch, Elle, look at this. These are his rape victims."
This is a very small house, s after finding nothing else that would be of use, you have the police take care of Pablo's dead mother, while the rest of your team heads back to the station with the new piece of information. Why would he have his rape victims on the wall of his room? They are a crucial part of this case, you just have to figure out what they mean.
"We have a name, but how do you find him?" Navarro asks when you get back to the station and inform everyone what you found.
"Serial killers plan their killings, and if we can figure out how he targets his victims, we can get ahead of him."
Next to Borquez, there are two chalkboards with the names of his past victims and his newest ones. There is something about these names that scream at you to figure them out.
"Borquez, what is this?"
"I charted all the names of all the rape victims who came in as they instructed us to."
"Wait a second," you say and step up to the boards. "There was a murder victim with the last name Torres."
"There are hundreds of Torres' in this town."
"Yeah, but there is something about this list."
"What is it?"
The names of the older women who are being killed have middle names that are the same as the younger women who were raped. Wait, they aren't middle names... they're maiden names. This man is killing the mothers of the women he raped.
"He's killing the mothers of the women he raped," you reveal. "The mothers' maiden names and the daughters' last names."
"He's doing it in the same order," Spencer speaks up. "The daughters of the last two murder victims, Trejo and Santiago, never came forward. If we can assume they were raped, then- according to the board the next rape victim in the line was Milagros Villanueva."
"He's going to kill her mother," you gasp.
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By the time you get to Milagros' mother's house, it's already pitch black outside. There aren't a lot of streetlights, so all you have to rely on are your flashlights to light the way. Derek and Elle head inside while you, Gideon, and Hotch head to the backyard. There is a ton of red angry energy all throughout this place, so all you have to do is follow it.
There is a bunch of blood leading outside, so you follow it until you see a body on the ground. Elle and Derek get to the same spot at the same time as you. It's clear that this person isn't moving, so you use your foot to roll the person over so you can get a good look at who it is.
It's Pablo.
He's wearing makeup and wearing women's clothing. He's struggling to hold on, but it's clear he's been stabbed and beaten. Whoever did this is still here. You hear a shuffle in the bushes, and you point your gun at the spot as did everyone else. Milagros and her mother come into the light along with the other rape victims and their mothers. In their hands are weapons, so it's clear they did this to Pablo.
It's not like you blame them.
You lower your gun, not even thinking about shooting them for what they did to him. He got what he deserved. Granted, you wish he was in more pain, but that's your opinion.
"He pretended to be a woman. Now he doesn't have to pretend," Milagros says.
Each woman throws down their weapons since they don't need them anymore. The murderer is caught, but Maria Sanchez needs to be informed of this. When she hears what happened, she immediately comes down to talk to each of the women back at the police station. The coroner took care of the body, but you had to take the women back to the station. You don't know what Maria said to them, but she doesn't look mad at all.
"Will they be charged?" Navarro asks when she approaches him.
"Charged? Why? They were only defending their homes."
"La casa no se reclina sobre la tierra, sino sobre una mujer," Navarro mutters.
"Exactly," she smiles. She turns to Gideon with a grateful smile and a handshake. "Good job agent Gideon."
"Gracias."
She leaves with her informants, and Navarro escorts you out of the station so that some of his officers can give you a ride back to your hotel room so you can get some sleep before you head home tomorrow.
"What did you say in there?" Hotch asks.
"Just an old Mexican proverb. Please do not hesitate to call next time you're in town."
"Thank you."
You walk ahead of Hotch and Gideon, eager to get back to your hotel room. You're not sure if you're going to cry or sleep or both, but you know you want to do it in the comfort of a hotel room.
"I don't mean to be annoying, but are you okay?" Spencer asks when he catches up to you.
"You're never annoying, Spencer. Something horrible happened to me, and this case just reminded me of it. I thought it was locked away for good, but guess not. I don't want to talk about it, but I'll be fine in a couple of days when I learn how to force those memories back inside the room they were locked in."
If you can lock them away. If you can't, then life just got a lot harder to deal with.
"The house does not rest on the ground but upon a woman." - Mexican Proverb