Bedelia Davis walks through the bullpen, making her way to Aaron Hotchner's office, having remembered the route from her interview a week back.
"Agent Hotchner?" She knocks on the open door.
"Agent Davis. Great to see you again." Hotch shakes her hand.
"Yes, you, too. Thank you so much again." Bedelia tells him.
"Well, I look forward to having you on the team." Hotch says. "Your desk is that one right out there." She looks through the window, spotting the empty desk across from a lanky guy and by a desk where a fitter man is working.
"Okay. Thank you." Bedelia politely smiles, walking out. She grabs the box of her stuff she left outside of the office and goes down the stairs, making her way over to the desks.
"Hi." She greets the three people. "I, uh, I'm Bedelia Davis. The new agent."
"Oh, hey. I'm Emily Prentiss." The raven haired woman politely smiles at her.
"Derek Morgan." He shakes her hand.
"Hi. I, uh, I'm Dr. Spencer Reid." He waves, giving an awkward smile.
"Hi." Bedelia smiles.
"Oh, her. Is this her?" Penelope walks up as quickly as she can.
"Yes, baby girl." Derek nods with a small laugh.
"Hi. Hi, I'm Penelope Garcia. I'm the technical analyst." Penelope rapidly shakes the brunette's hand.
"Hi." Bedelia softly laughs at the woman's upbeat nature. "I like your dress."
"Oh, thank you. Thank you. I-- I love your earrings." Penelope says.
"Thanks." Bedelia says.
"Well, just a-- an offering, if this job is ever too much, I do have a plethora of cute baby animal videos -- especially cats." Penelope tells her.
"Ooh, I love kitten videos." Bedelia's eyes light up.
"Yeah." Penelope excitedly grins, nodding. "I'll let you unpack and then we can talk more at a more... you know, appropriate time."
"Okay." Bedelia softly laughs.
"Nice to meet you."
"You, too."
Penelope goes back to her lair.
"Hey." JJ walks over with some files. "We got a case. Oh, hi. I'm Jennifer Jareau, everyone calls me JJ."
"Bedelia Davis." They shake hands.
"Nice to meet you. If you need anything, my door's always open. But I'm rarely in there so just call me." She says, walking towards Hotch's office.
+++
Bedelia's been with the team for about two weeks, getting to know each of them better.
It's the day before Halloween and Bedelia, Derek, and Emily are all working, Spencer not there yet.
Bedelia looks up and fights back the smile when she sees Spencer in a Frankenstein mask and monster gloves sneaking up behind Derek.
Spencer makes weird noises as he leans close to the back of Derek.
"I'm going to eat you!" He says in a weird voice and Derek flinches, reeling away from him. Bedelia and Emily both laugh.
"Reid." Derek rolls his eyes.
"Happy All Hallows Eve, folks." Spencer says, walking to his desk. He pulls the mask up so they can see his face. "To paraphrase from Celtic mythology tomorrow night all order is suspended, and the barriers between the natural and the supernatural are temporarily remoooved!" He says the last word in a weird voice as he dangles a fake head in front of Emily who laughs. He tosses it and she catches it.
"See, that right there is why Halloween creeps me out." Derek says.
"You're scared of Halloween?" Spencer asks. He tosses Bedelia a piece of candy, the woman catching it.
"I didn't say I was scared, I said I was creeped out. There's a difference there, youngester. You should look it up." Derek says.
"What creeps you out about it?" Emily asks.
"I don't know. People wearing masks. I don't like folks in disguises." Derek says.
"That's the best thing about Halloween. You can be anyone you want to be." Spencer says, tossing Derek some candy.
"Nah, I'm pretty good just being me." Derek says.
"Yeah. Why is it that neither of those points of view surprise me?" Emily wonders.
"You know what, though? On the flip side, it does provide a pretty good reason to cozy up with a scary flick and a little Halloween honey." Derek grins, winking and pointing at Emily.
"Ew." Both women grimace, sharing a look.
"Halloween honey. Now I'm creeped out." Emily says.
"Me, too." Bedelia mutters.
"Guys, he's here." Spencer mutters. They look up as Strauss leads David Rossi to Hotch's office. Spencer quickly takes the mask off his head, awkwardly smiling.
~ ~ ~
Spencer starts taking all the Halloween stuff off while the other three stand up when Hotch and Rossi walk over.
"SSA David Rossi, this is SSA Emily Prentiss." Hotch informs.
"Sir." Emily smiles and shakes his hand.
"SSA Derek Morgan."
"It's an honor, Agent Rossi." Derek shakes his hand.
"Please, just Dave." He tells him.
"SSA Bedelia Davis. She joined a few weeks ago." Hotch informs.
"Hi." Bedelia politely smiles, shaking the older man's hand.
"And Dr. Spencer Reid." Hotch motions to him.
"Sir, if I could talk to you later about your work with the Scarsdale Skinner. Psycho-linguistics is an incredibly dynamic field, and the fact that your profile of his reading habits ultimately led to his capture is something I find so incredibly intrig--"
"Reid. Reid, slow down." Hotch tells him. "He'll be here a while. You can catch up with him later."
"Sorry." Spencer awkwardly smiles.
"No problem, doctor." Rossi says.
"Maybe you guys can talk on the jet." Hotch suggests.
"The jet?" Rossi asks.
"Oh, yeah, that'd be great." Spencer says.
"We have a jet now." Hotch informs.
"Are you serious?" Rossi asks.
"Yeah. It comes in pretty handy. Come on, JJ's waiting." Hotch makes his way to the conference room, Rossi and Emily following.
Derek lights shoves Spencer's head.
"Carrollton, Texas is a suburb just outside of Dallas." JJ says as everybody sits around the table. "Four days ago, Michelle Colucci found this flier on her front door."
"She found it?" Derek asks.
"Meaning she wasn't actually missing?" Emily asks.
"Yet." JJ says. "She took the flier to a friend's husband, Detective Yarbrough, at the Carrollton PD, who told her it was probably just a Halloween prank, and he sent her home."
"Well, I don't blame him. Halloween brings out the fool in everyone." Derek says.
"Still, he stopped by Michelle's house later to check on her." JJ says. "The door was open, and when he went inside, he found this." JJ shows pictures of inside Michelle's house, copies of the flier all over the walls. "He still thought maybe it could be some kind of prank, until yesterday. Michelle was found floating in a small creek just outside of Carrollton."
She shows a photo of Michelle's body.
"She had been sexually assaulted..." JJ switches the photo to Michelle's face -- or what's left of it. "And her face had been removed."
"Removed? It wasn't animals or fish?" Rossi asks.
"The Dallas County M.E. say that the edges of the wounds were smooth, not torn. A very sharp instrument had been used. He also found water in her lungs." JJ says.
"Oh, my God!" Bedelia looks over at Penelope, the blonde using a file to hide her vision from the screen. "What is that?"
"Technical analyst Penelope Garcia, this is SSA David Rossi." Hotch introduces.
"Is it gone, JJ?" Penelope asks.
JJ switches the screen to a photo of some dishes by a kitchen sink.
"Yeah. yeah, yeah. You're safe." JJ assures, sitting down.
"Okay." Penelope lowers the file. "Just to, um... Carrollton, Texas, has nearly 117,000 residents, a diverse population with a..." She hands Hotch the file. "It's all in there. I'm sorry. Very happy to meet you, sir." She shakes Rossi's hand.
"I'll be in my office." Penelope starts to leave. "Door." She returns. "Sorry." She shuts the door behind her.
"She's different." Rossi says.
"You have no idea." Hotch says.
"Uh, so, the unsub tells her she's going to go missing to psychologically torture her, then tortures her physically. Textbook sadist." Emily says.
"A sophisticated one." Hotch says.
"Number one." Derek says, looking at the photo of the white mask with "one" written on the top of it.
"That particular mask is known as a false face." Spencer says. "It's most commonly worn during Halloween and Mardi Gras."
"Creepy. I rest my case." Derek says, dropping the photo.
"False face." Hotch says.
"Her face -- he mocks it, then destroys it." Emily says.
"Oh, and, Hotch -- local media has the story. It broke big." JJ informs.
"Tell Carrollton we'll be there first thing in the morning. Let's stop this one at one." Hotch says. "If you want to take some time, get situated, maybe start on the next case?" He says to Rossi.
"I'm not back to get situated, Hotch, I'm here to work." Rossi says.
"Okay. Everybody get your things together. We're going to Texas." Hotch says.
+++
"Let's go over victimology." Hotch says. "Would you like to join us, Dave?" Rossi gets up from the chair he's in and walks over, sitting next to Bedelia on the couch. He takes a small notepad and pen out.
"Reid, what have you got?" Hotch asks.
"Uh, Michelle Colucci was single, lived alone, no boyfriend and no ex-husband." Spencer says.
"Dating?" Bedelia asks.
"There's nothing in the reports." Derek says.
"She was an architect." JJ says. "Friends and co-workers say she's a classic workaholic. Basically a loner who rarely went out of the house."
"So she's extremely low risk." Emily says.
"If it wasn't someone she knew personally, it's possible she was being stalked." Spencer says.
"Interesting." Rossi mutters.
"What's that?" Spencer asks.
"Oh, I'm just thinking out loud." Rossi says.
"Something to add?" Hotch asks.
"No. Sorry to interrupt." Rossi says.
"Well, she's pretty. It could be that the unsub met her casually and... made her part of some kind of fantasy." Derek says.
"And he tries to act on it and she rejects him?" Hotch asks.
"So he tortures her, out of anger?" Emily asks.
"Masks often represent a state of mind. This one's blank, expressionless. Doesn't really coincide with anger." Spencer says.
"Reid, it's hard to imagine he did this out of anything less than rage." Derek says, holding up the photo of Michelle's face.
"Hey, guys." Penelope greets over the video call.
"What's up? You got something for us?" Derek asks.
"A list of Michelle Colucci's clients. She designed office space. Mostly big corporate remodeling plans." Penelope says.
"No private clients, one on one contact?" Hotch asks.
"Doesn't look like it, no." Penelope says.
"Thanks, baby girl." Derek ends the call.
+++
Emily, Derek, and Bedelia get out of the car and look around the neighborhood.
"These houses sure are close together." Derek notes.
"Yeah. So how do I get a woman out of her house without anyone seeing me?" Emily questions.
"Well, he must have been watching her for a long time and knew that it was safe." Derek says.
"There isn't a lot of cover on this street." Emily says.
"I have a vehicle." Derek says.
"Big enough so I can watch without being seen." Emily says.
"But not so big as to draw attention to itself." Bedelia adds.
"No." Emily argues. "Neighbors will notice a strange vehicle parked in front of their house day after day, night after night."
"It's human nature. You would notice something out of place in your own neighborhood." Derek says.
"And you would definitely notice a man repeatedly standing on your street." Bedelia adds.
"Yeah. It just doesn't make any sense." Derek says. "He didn't watch from here."
~ ~ ~
"This is where I'd wait." Derek calls from where he's hiding in the bushes in Michelle's backyard.
"Yeah. I'd never be able to see you from the house." Emily says as she and Bedelia walk to where he is.
"Guys." Derek points and they follow his finger to deep footprints in the dirt. "He was here a lot."
"Watching everything she did." Emily says.
+++
"He's a white male. His shoe prints have been examined and put him at about 5'11", 165." Derek says.
"So we've narrowed it down to anyone of average weight and height." Yarbrough says.
"Exactly." Derek says.
"There's a sophistication and patience in what this unsub does that suggests a level of maturity. We believe this puts his age in the mid 30s to 40s range." Emily says.
"Michelle Colucci was taken from the primary crime scene and disposed of at the tertiary crime scene four days later. That means she was held somewhere for at least three days. You can't really just hold a victim anywhere for days on end, so he most likely has access to a house of some kind." Spencer says.
"And he's also fairly tech savvy. The fliers were made on a computer. And it's probable that he used a device to intercept Enid White's phone call." Derek says.
"Witnesses in Enid White's neighborhood say they may have seen a white man putting up fliers, but none of them could describe him, even with all the media attention this case has received." Bedelia says.
"Great." A detective sighs.
"Actually, what that tells us is that there is absolutely nothing remarkable about this man. He is exceedingly average." Emily says.
"As you said, Detective Yarbrough, average height, average build." Derek says.
"It extends to his professional life as well. He most likely works in a field where he doesn't stand out, doesn't really make a mark." Spencer says.
"His lack of distinction is part of his psychopathy. We have hundreds of interactions with people every day. Most of those involve someone overlooking someone else. Most of us don't pay any attention to being ignored, but to this kind of unsub, each oversight is intentional."
"Especially when it comes from his object of sexual desire. He begins to obsess over her until she's all he can think about. And the rage builds until he has to attack that person."
"So he's pissed off that nobody notices him?" Yarbrough asks.
""Have you seen me?"" Derek says.
"Wait, that's not about the woman?" A detective asks.
"No. The masks are about the women -- number one, number two. The fliers probably refer to him." Emily says.
"Removing his victims' faces transfers his feelings of being ignored into a mission and it gives him a sense of power." Spencer says.
"And the power can make him arrogant, but it doesn't make him notable." Hotch says.
"So how the hell do we catch an invisible man?" Yarbrough asks.
"I'm pretty sure we can get him to contact you." Hotch says.
"What?" Yarbrough asks.
"Well, the crime scenes show he wants to be deliver his message to the police. He isn't going public." Emily says.
"Hopefully, by playing on his anger..." Hotch trails off as he looks at the TV and watches as the news shows a picture of the white mask. "JJ, how'd they get that?"
"Not from me. I-- Hotch, I called all the local police departments and I stressed withholding the mask." JJ promises.
"I called them." Rossi informs.
"What?" Hotch asks.
"I said the FBI thinks the masks mean he's impotent." Rossi says.
"Can I speak to you for a second?" Hotch asks, walking out and Rossi follows.
+++
"Garcia, talk to me." Derek says, having her on speaker.
"So, Michelle Colucci recently drew up the plans for a remodel of three floors of a company called Techco Communications. It's a high tech communications company in downtown Dallas." Penelope informs.
"And Enid White?" Hotch asks.
"Worked there until two months ago." Penelope states.
"He's on 2." Yarbrough walks in.
"The unsub?" Hotch asks.
"Demanded to speak to the FBI." Yarbrough says.
Rossi puts the unsub on.
"This is FBI Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi."
"You called me impotent."
"Did I?"
"I'm not impotent."
"Why are you whispering?"
"You lied. You lied."
"Is someone around you? Are you at work?"
"You have to tell the news the truth."
"I'll get you on the news, then you can correct me yourself."
"No. You, you, you correct it."
"By the way, I was, um, looking at the police security tapes for the day Michelle Colucci went missing."
"What?"
"You watched her long enough to know she didn't have visitors. She was a loner. Yet you knew that Detective Yarbrough was coming over. You must have been right here in the station when he told her. Now, your face is gonna be on one of those tapes, and when I find it, I'm gonna paper this city with it. Just like you did with those women."
"Everyone will see it. They won't be able to ignore you now. But you won't inspire fear. You'll inspire hatred and ridicule. Because the only power someone like you has is a mask, and once that mask is removed, you'll be as insignificant as you've always been -- a loser!"
It's silent for a few moments.
"You just signed Enid White's death warrant." The unsub hangs up.
+++
"Is the building sealed?" Hotch asks.
"Top to bottom." Yarbrough assures.
"Make sure it stays that way." Hotch says. "Garcia, which floors did Michelle Colucci remodel?" He asks her. "Got it. 7, 8, 9. Morgan, take 7. We're looking for a rank and file employee wo made a scene in the last 20 minutes or was here and gone. Prentiss, 8, Reid and Banks, 9. Don't approach him. Just... try to get a name, maybe a picture."
A guy leads the two to a cubicle and the desk is a mess, papers ripped out of a notepad. Spencer hits the space bar on the computer and the flier for Enid White pops up. He takes his phone out and calls Hotch.
+++
It's nighttime and they found Enid at the unsub's address. The medics wheel her out while Hotch and Rossi deal with everything and JJ is talking to the press. Bedelia, Spencer, Emily, and Derek stand by the kids from the neighborhood that are crowding around and they're handing out candy.
============================
I'm a fall/Halloween girl and I'm over summer now lmao
and lowkey hate this but 🤷♀️