That night, Hotch, Rossi and Spencer stood in the precinct, looking at the crime scene photos from the night before.
"He never used code before. Why now?" Hotch asked, confused.
"They're not part of a pattern or equation. Mathematically, they're insignificant." Spencer shrugged his shoulders.
"Maybe so, but I know I've seen them before. Foyet said he likes to attack people in their cars. Tonight he hit a bus." Hotch spoke as he walked toward the map.
"Which is why Foyet only takes a bus." Rossi nodded.
"It was the number 7. And it stops right in front of Foyet's apartment." Hotch pointed to a specific place on the map.
"He knows where Foyet lives." Rossi exhaled.
"And he wants us to know it." Hotch continued.
"1439. The apartment you interviewed him in today was 1439 Yarbrough." Spencer looked up at Hotch and Rossi.
"The other addresses he gave us. 201 South Brookline. 1488 Edenhurst." Rossi pulled out the note pad that Foyet had given him.
"The numbers on the bus are Foyet's addresses." Rossi revealed, pointing to the numbers in the photos.
"We'll split up and cover each address." Hotch instructed as he, Spencer and Rossi got ready to go and look for Foyet.
———
Rossi and Emily arrived at 1439 Yarbrough. Spencer and Hotch arrived at 201 South Brookline. Derek and Sergeant O'Mara arriving at 1488 Edenhurst.
"I'll take the back." Sergeant O'Mara spoke as Derek nodded, heading toward the front.
"There's no one here." Emily spoke to Rossi.
"We got nothing." Spencer shook his head, speaking to Emily, Rossi and Sergeant O'Mara.
"Same thing here. Have you heard from Morgan?" Rossi spoke into his comms, confused.
Derek rested on the ground outside the house. The Reaper had tackled him through the window, grabbing Derek's credentials from his unconscious body. He opened up the badge, saw the name and glared at Derek's body, holding a gun to his head.
"Wake up, Derek. It's time to die." The Reaper cocked his gun, still aiming it at Derek's head.
Soon enough, Spencer, Rossi, Emily and Hotch had arrived at the location where Derek and Sergeant O'Mara had investigated. They both looked in shock as Hotch lifted the white cloth, revealing Sergeant O'Mara's dead body.
"If it's any consolation, I don't think he knew what hit him." The M.E. shrugged his shoulders.
"I'll call JJ. The Bureau's gonna have to make a statement." Rossi exhaled. Hotch headed back inside where Emily was watching Morgan having pieces of glass removed from his injured shoulder.
"You all right?" Hotch asked, worried.
"He took my credentials." Morgan exhaled, trying - but failing - to ignore the pain.
"The important thing is you're okay." Hotch nodded.
"He left me this." Morgan held up a bullet.
"Power and manipulation. Don't let him get to you." Hotch shook his head.
"Yeah, right. Ow, come on, man." He winced in pain when another shard of glass was removed.
"Prentiss, he's telling me, "I had you." Morgan shook his head, putting the bullet away.
"Morgan, you're alive. You know why?" Emily smiled.
"It doesn't really matter. I'm sitting here because I was knocked out cold. He couldn't torture me. He likes to interact with his victims, to tell them he's going to kill them before he does or by letting them know he could have." Morgan rolled his eyes.
"Hotch is right. He's just trying to get into your head." Emily nodded, holding Morgan's free hand.
"Right or wrong, he had me." Morgan scoffed.
"O'Mara was clearly killed outside. This was someone else. There's signs of a struggle and a lot of blood." Spencer looked down at the copious amount of blood on the floor.
"But no body." Hotch shook his head.
"Just the drag marks. The human body holds 5 quarts of blood. I'd say there's a little more than half that here. Whoever the bleeder was, they lost too much to survive." Spencer exhaled.
"Foyet? It was his worst fear, that the Reaper would come back and finish the job." Rossi shook his head, shrugging his shoulders.
"We offered him protection. He refused. It was his choice." Hotch exhaled as he exited the house.
———
Hotch and the team sat back at the precinct, Spencer walking around, looking up at the board.
"Why is he so focused on Foyet? What's so special about him?" Hotch asked, looking at the team.
"He was his only surviving victim, the only one he couldn't defeat." JJ suggested, shrugging her shoulders.
"But he's not a threat. Defeating him would be no great accomplishment. There's something there that we're missing." Hotch exhaled.
"What about the girlfriend, Amanda Bertrand? What do we know about her?" JJ picked up a photo of the girl.
"19. A freshman. She came her from Michigan to go to school. Foyet was a teacher's assistant in one of Amanda's courses." Emily explained Amanda's life.
"Michigan. Where the Reaper had Shaunessy post the personal ad." Hotch furrowed his eyebrows.
"That can't be a coincidence." JJ rolled her eyes.
"He told us she was the love of his life, that he was gonna propose." Rossi remembered something that Foyet had mentioned.
"But she just got here from Michigan. They only met when the class started." Morgan shook his head, reading a file.
"How long had she been in the class?" Hotch looked around, Emily scoffing.
"4 weeks." Emily leaned back, shocked.
"So it was either love at first sight or what?" JJ asked, confused.
"Foyet was lying?" Morgan shrugged his shoulders.
"He's a 28-year-old teacher's assistant in freshman classes." Hotch started.
"That gives him plenty of access to young girls." Rossi nodded.
"Garcia, Cassidy." Hotch called them.
"We're here." Cassidy spoke.
"What are Foyet's aliases?" Hotch asked as Rossi handed him a piece of paper.
"I want you to look up in Boston city records Kevin Baskin, Miles Holden, and William Parker. Try the Department of Education." Hotch asked, Garcia starting to type.
"Well played, sir. They all work for the Department of Education, they're all substitute teachers, and they all teach computer Science." Garcia spoke.
"High school?" Hotch guessed.
"Yeah." Garcia nodded.
"Oops. Scratch that. They're not all working for the Department of Education." Cassidy shook her head, Garcia's eyes widening.
"They're not?" Hotch questioned, confused.
"No. William Parker was fired for alleged inappropriate behaviour with his female students." Cassidy continued.
"Do you know how long it takes to stab somebody 67 times?" Foyet nearly cried. Both Hotch and Rossi could see the pain written all over his face.
"Hotch?" JJ asked, confused.
"Then why can't you catch him?" Foyet scoffed.
"Colson went to see Foyet. Garcia, I need you to locate Roy Colson's cell phone. George Foyet is the Reaper." Hotch had a horrible realisation.
"Oh, god. Uh- Okay, triangulating now." Garcia panicked, furiously typing.
"I got it. 2633 South Budlong." Garcia spoke.
"That must be an address that Foyet didn't give us." Morgan shook his head as the team got ready to go and arrest Foyet.
———
"He stabbed Amanda Bertrand to death. He drove a mile, he called 9-1-1. He went back, and he inflicted those wounds on himself." Hotch informed as the team drove in separate cars. Hotch, Morgan and Rossi in one car. Emily and Spencer in the other.
"He knew E.M.S. would get there in time to save him." Rossi shook his head.
"Between the phone call and the severity of his wounds, we never considered him as a suspect." Hotch's grip on the steering wheel tightened as he drove.
"Why would he do it?" Morgan asked, confused.
"It put him at the core of the investigation. Everything we had came from him." Hotch scoffed, pissed off.
"He left his own glasses at the crime scene, he pointed us right back in his direction, and still we didn't see it." Morgan shook his head.
The team arrived at the location, splitting up. They could hear the commotion coming from inside.
"It's not you, George. There's no way." Roy freaked out when Foyet held a gun to his head.
"Please stop! Stop, George! George, please! This can't be you. This can't be you. It just...what do you want me to do?" Roy begged, watching Foyet.
"I want you to sit down and get it right." Foyet watched as Roy nodded, hurriedly sitting down.
"You wrote that I was either dead or arrested. Well, now you know that's not what happened. I won. I beat them. And I want everybody to know that." Foyet held the gun to Roy's head as he watched Roy open up his laptop to start writing.
"It's over." Rossi and Hotch held their guns up, watching as Foyet held his gun up to Roy's face. He sat across from Roy.
"Stop. I'll kill him." Foyet growled, standing up. He looked over at Hotch and Rossi, while still holding his gun to Roy's head.
"You need him to write your story." Hotch glared at Foyet.
"I'm taking him with me. I'll let him go as soon as I'm safe." Foyet hissed.
"No, you're not." Hotch's voice got more stern as he tried to remain calm.
"I said, I'll kill him." Foyet became more angry.
"You kill him, I kill you." Hotch tilted his head slightly, staring at Foyet.
"You think I'm afraid to die?" Foyet chuckled.
"You're not afraid. You're greedy and narcissistic. You want the recognition that's going to come from the book that he's gonna write. You want the fame that's gonna come from the media. It's gonna be like Bundy." Hotch kept his voice low as he spoke.
"I'm gonna be bigger than Bundy." Foyet smirked as Morgan, Emily and Spencer held their guns up to Foyet, who didn't even flinch.
"Well, you can't enjoy it if you're dead." Hotch shook his head.
"If you know me so well, how come somebody had to die to bring you here?" Foyet raised his eyebrows.
"That's your choice, not mine. You're the serial killer." Hotch scoffed.
"That's right. Hello, Derek." Foyet looked behind him at Morgan, smiling. He put down his gun and let Morgan roughly grab his body, placing his hands behind his back.
"Where's my badge?" Morgan growled. When Foyet didn't answer, - only smirking - Morgan grabbed Foyet's hair and yanked his head back with force.
"Where is it, you son of a bitch?" Morgan demanded to know.
"I'm gonna be more famous than you even realize." Foyet smirked.
"You're dreamin'." Morgan shook his head, scoffing. Hotch didn't even realise that he had a look of fear on his face, watching as Foyet didn't even flinch during the whole encounter.
"You okay, Roy?" Hotch asked, holding Roy's shoulder. Both Hotch and Roy watched as Foyet was handcuffed and roughly pushed outside the house and out to a police car.
"Yeah, I'm okay." He nodded.
———
Hotch and the team sat on the jet, ready and happy to be going home. Hotch watched as Morgan played with the bullet that Foyet had given him.
"They didn't find your credentials at any of the residences. The blood at the house was Foyet's. Reid guessed low. The coroner said it was 4 quarts." Hotch informed Morgan, who exhaled.
"Hotch, how is that possible? He'd be dead." Morgan shook his head.
"He's been planning his death for a long time." Hotch raised his eyebrows, not shocked by this revelation.
"So, what, he took a little blood at a time until he had enough to convince us he was dead without finding his body?" Morgan scoffed.
"Morgan, you're gonna have to find a way to let it go." Hotch looked away.
"Could you?" Morgan snapped, not meaning to raise his voice.
"I'd have to." Hotch shrugged his shoulders.
———
The team returned to the BAU office, Garcia and Cassidy walking out of Garcia's office to meet the team. Cassidy ran up to Spencer, wrapping her arms around him as he dropped his bag, happily hugging her back. She missed him so much, and she hated not being out in the field with him and the team.
They spent the next 20 minutes just relaxing at their desks, until JJ put away her phone with a worried look on her face.
"Hotch! Rossi!" She called out to the men, everyone gathering around her. Spencer knew that something was wrong. He held Cassidy's hand, feeling her increased heart-rate.
"Foyet escaped. Guards found him in his cell vomiting blood and convulsing. They rushed him to the prison hospital." JJ explained as they all looked at her, worried. Spencer could see the panic and anxiety on Cassidy's face. He rubbed his thumb against the top of her hand, her head landing on his shoulder as she took deep breaths in and out.
"Get me the U.S. Marshals office." Hotch asked.
"I already called Don Reilly. I offered our assistance. He said they'd call us if they needed it." JJ informed Hotch.
"The Boston field office just identified documents from Foyet's house." Emily explained as everyone started getting information.
"They're schematics for the electrical, heating, and water ducts for the East Woburn Correctional Facility." Spencer handed Hotch the schematics, Hotch scoffing.
"He had the schematics." Hotch rolled his eyes.
"And not just for Woburn. For every jail, prison, and courthouse in Massachusetts." Morgan exhaled.
"And 10 years to plan." Rossi exhaled.
"They're gonna find him, right?" Cassidy's breathing was shaky. Spencer knew that if he and Cassidy didn't leave soon or find somewhere private, the entire team was going to see her break down.
"No, they're not." Hotch shook his head as he looked up at the TV in the corner of the bullpen, showing George Foyet's mugshot next to a headline saying SERIAL KILLER ESCAPES.
"He said he'd be more famous than we knew. And he was right." Morgan nodded as he looked from the TV, to the rest of the team.