Premeditated Chapter 9
"Felicia," Reid approached the woman with the titian hair.
"Did Ryan send you?" Felicia asked, flicking her ponytail behind her shoulders.
"A fork in the road," the thought flashed itself through Reid's mind, prompting him to tell the truth, "No, I'm not a client. I'm an FBI agent. My name is..."
"Shit!" Felicia glanced both ways for an escape route, swiveled on her high heels, and began fleeing the scene.
"No, no, no!" Reid gave chase. "It's not like that! I didn't come here to arrest you. We...The FBI leaves street prostitution to the local authorities. I came here to warn you about a serial killer. I think you may be his next target."
"A serial killer?" Felicia turned to face him, but continued backing away towards a shed, the equipment shed that had formerly held the gardening tools for the empty lot that had formerly been a neighborhood park. "Are you kidding me? Is this some kind of joke?"
"Didn't you know? Didn't Ryan tell you?" Reid followed her towards the shed. "Your friend, the one with the auburn hair...She was murdered last night, near the railroad tracks, by a serial killer targeting redheaded prostitutes. I think you may be his next target. That's why I came here to warn you."
"Nancy?" Felicia stared in shock. "Nancy was murdered? Nancy's dead? That can't be! There's no way! I just talked to her yesterday."
"She was murdered late last night, around 10 PM," Reid said. "You haven't heard from her today, have you?"
"No," Felicia whimpered, shaking her head as her ponytail danced back and forth behind her back. "She didn't meet me for breakfast today. I thought she must have been busy with a client. Oh God, I can't believe this. Nancy! Oh God," she covered her mouth with one hand to stifle a sob.
At the sob, Reid reached out a hand of comfort. The sob touched him, the same way the tuft of grass had touched him in his dream of the frail old man. He marveled at the fragility of life. Here on the streets, the prey roamed amongst the predators. Theirs was an uncertain unstable life in which none of them understood, or sought to understand, the desires they fulfilled every night. The desires were not always carnal. The desirer was not always an animal. They could not always fulfill the desires.
"Here," Reid gestured towards a collection of cinderblocks that formed a low makeshift bench on the far side of the shed, the side that faced away from the lot and the street beyond. "Why don't we have a seat? I'll explain everything to you."
"Are you really an FBI agent?" Felicia narrowed her eyes warily.
"Yes, I am," Reid reached for his credentials. "Dr. Spencer Reid, Behavioral Analysis Unit, FBI," he handed her his badge. "Let's sit down," he sat down on a damp cinderblock, waiting for her to sit down before he began the story.
Felicia read over the credentials, mouthing his name several times before she made up her mind to trust him. She smoothed her short blue velvet skirt over her stockingless thighs. She sat down, stretched her legs in front of her, and wrapped her arms around each other, shivering in the unseasonably warm, but still cool, November night.
"You look cold," Reid took off his coat and draped it across her shoulders.
"Thanks," Felicia smiled shyly, pulling the coat towards her chest as she burrowed into the soft inviting flannel, still warm with the residual warmth of its former wearer, kept warm by the warmth radiating from its former wearer.
Reid smiled back, flickering a tiny reserved smile that was incongruous with such a bold act. He wondered what he would have done if JJ had been the one who looked cold. Would he have taken off his coat and draped it across her shoulders? He would have considered it, analyzing the pre-action motives and the post-action consequences, but during the time interval that he spent considering it, the interval that lasted longer for him than for anyone else neurotic enough to consider it, someone else would have gone ahead and done it. He would have missed his chance, and she would never have known that he had considered such a bold act at all.
"I didn't come here just to warn you about the serial killer," Reid began the story with a confession of his ulterior motives. "I also came here to ask you for your help on the case."
"What are you talking about?" Felicia blinked, puzzled. "My help on what case?"
"Let me explain," Reid started over. "We...The BAU has been working on a case involving a serial killer targeting prostitutes in the city. Since early October, the unknown subject, or UnSub, has murdered eleven victims in various red light districts around DC. He chooses his victims based on their hair colors. We have good reason to believe that he is currently targeting a prostitute with red hair. That's why we asked your pimp, Ryan Jonas, to take you and your friends off the streets for the time being."
"So that's why we're not working this weekend," Felicia rolled her eyes as the realization dawned upon her. "Ryan only told us that we were getting a break, but he didn't tell us why. He made it sound like he was doing us a big favor. He said that we had to work tonight, but that he'd give us Thanksgiving off to be with our families, as if we have families to be with."
"How long have you been working for Ryan?" Reid asked.
"A few months," Felicia replied. "September, October, November...Almost three months now. I started right after Labor Day weekend."
"Did you switch to Ryan from another pimp?" Reid asked.
"Yeah, I ditched my other guy in August," Felicia replied. "End of August was when I ditched him. He was the first guy I worked for. Ryan's only the second."
"Can you tell me more about the first guy?" Reid reached into his messenger bag to retrieve a pencil and a little black notebook. "Starting with his name, his full name, and his nickname as a pimp."
"Wait, what are you doing?" Felicia frowned at the notebook. "What's going on? Are you investigating this guy?"
"Yes," Reid lowered the pencil and notebook to his lap, so he could explain everything to her without the threat of recording devices looming over them. "We're investigating him as a suspect in the series of murders that I told you about. We don't know who he is, but we're hoping that you can help us trace our way back to him. We believe that he, the UnSub, is looking for a woman, a prostitute, with your particular hair color. The woman may be a substitute for another woman who departed from his life sometime before October, when the murders began. Or she may be the actual woman who departed from his life. Whichever scenario is accurate, the UnSub is looking for a prostitute with your hair color. Your hair color is very rare. Red hair occurs in only 1% to 2% of the human population, and naturally red hair of your particular shade is rarer still. Amongst all the prostitutes who work this area, I'm guessing that you're the only one with ginger hair."
"Yeah, I'm the only ginger," Felicia nodded. "Some of the other girls have naturally red hair, but I wouldn't count them as gingers. When I was little, all the kids at school used to make fun of me for my bright orange hair. It's naturally frizzy too. I have to straighten it every night before I come out here. Ryan tells me that my clients prefer sleek shiny red hair. At least it's finally good for something," she snickered bitterly.
"The guy you left," Reid prompted. "Was he fixated upon your hair?"
"Yeah, a little bit," Felicia wrinkled her nose in disgust. "A lot of men seem to have some kind of weird hair color fetish. That's why Ryan does such good business with only eight...now seven of us," she lowered her eyes to her knees.
"Can I just..." Reid hesitated as he pulled out his Maglite. "Before we go on, I just want to make sure that I'm talking to the right person. It's really dark here, and human color vision doesn't work very well in the dark, so if I could just..." he waved the flashlight at her ponytail, hesitating to turn it on until she gave him permission to examine her hair.
"Yeah, sure, look all you want," Felicia giggled at his nervous gesturing.
"Thanks! This will only take a minute," Reid leaned backwards as Felicia leaned forwards to offer him her hair.
Gently, so as not to pull it, he lifted her ponytail out from within the folds of his coat. He flicked on the flashlight and shone the beam over the strands. The color was a perfect match for the color from the projector screen, for the color that he had selected for and conferred upon her. The strands were silky smooth and fragrant. They tickled the back of his hand as he ran them through his fingers, examining them, at a respectable distance, with his eyes, while desiring to bury his face in their tantalizing follicles - medium thickness, vivid orange, blonde highlights.
"All done," Reid announced, flicking off the flashlight.
"What's the diagnosis, Doctor?" Felicia giggled again as she shifted her ponytail to hang over her right shoulder.
"It's the right color, a perfect match," Reid put away the flashlight. "Your story about the guy you left...It convinces me that the UnSub is looking for the object of his affection. He's not looking for a substitute. He's looking for you," he mumbled to himself, looking down at the ground, not at her or her hair. "I think the UnSub is looking for you," he turned his eyes towards her. "I think the UnSub is the pimp you left in August."
"Nate?" Felicia gaped, struggling to grasp the idea. "You think Nate is a serial killer? You've gotta be kidding me! Nate as a serial killer is the most ridiculous..." she shook her head in disbelief.
"Tell me more about Nate," Reid said. "What is his full name?"
"Nathan Christopher Davis," Felicia answered. "He's not even a real pimp. He's a musician. He plays bass in a band with his buddies."
"How old is he?" Reid scribbled in his notebook, following a habit that he had assumed, when he had first joined the BAU, to appear professional and normal.
"He's 25," Felicia said. "Same age as me. We grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools, hung out in high school, but weren't really all that close. After graduation, we lost track of each other for awhile, then met up a year ago at a nightclub. I introduced him to some of my girlfriends. We were all looking to make some money, so...you know..."
"So he became an informal pimp of sorts, arranging clients for you and your girlfriends, while pursuing his musical ambitions?" Reid completed the statement.
"Yeah, pretty much," Felicia nodded.
"You said that you hung out in high school, but weren't really all that close," Reid read out of his notebook. "What was the exact nature of your relationship?"
"We were friends," Felicia said.
"Was there ever a romantic relationship?" Reid asked. "Was there ever an intimate relationship?"
"This one time," Felicia replied. "It was nothing. We fooled around under the bleachers after school. Believe me, it was really nothing!"
"Afterwards, after this...nothing," Reid blushed. "Did Nate wish to pursue a romantic relationship with you?"
"Nate always wanted to pursue something or other with me," Felicia twirled a ring around her index finger. "But we were only teenagers at that point. We were 16. We were experimenting. I wasn't interested in him then, and I'm still not interested in him now."
"So you never intended to pursue a romantic relationship with him?" Reid asked.
"Hell no," Felicia waved her hand, as if the waving of her hand repelled the unwanted attentions of her former pimp. "He's a little...To put it kindly, he's a little too nerdy for my taste. He's really into his music. I mean, really really into it, way out there when he talks about it. He doesn't just play in a band. He also studies theory of music, or whatever it's called."
"Music theory," Reid filled in. "The study of music in all its aspects, from the fundamental elements of music, such as melody, rhythm, and harmony, to the ways in which the elements are combined and arranged to create the expressive qualities of music, both the feelings the music induces and the stories the music tells."
"Stories, huh?" Felicia remarked. "I thought it was all just noise. I'm pretty tone-deaf."
"So am I," Reid smiled. "I can't carry a tune to save my life."
"Nate's got a really good voice," Felicia said. "But he's much too shy to sing. If he were the lead singer in his band, I bet his band would be getting a lot more gigs."
"When was the last time you communicated with Nate?" Reid reverted to the line of questioning. "Do you know what he's doing now? Is he still with his band?"
"I haven't talked to him since August, when I left," Felicia replied. "I have no idea what's going on with him or his band. I always tried to avoid talking to him about his band and his music. Once he starts up, he just goes on and on and on, forever and ever and ever."
"What about the other girls who worked for Nate?" Reid diverted the line of questioning. "Did they stick around after you left? Are you in contact with any of them?"
"Yeah, as far as I know, they did," Felicia said. "I'm assuming everything's the same as it was before I left. The only thing that's changed is I'm not there anymore."
"Why did you leave?" Reid asked.
"I wanted out," Felicia said breezily, averting her eyes to avoid his gaze.
"Out of prostitution?" Reid frowned. "But you left Nate only to switch to another pimp, this time a formal pimp whose primary business is pandering."
"I wanted out of Philly," Felicia answered without explanation.
"You're from Philadelphia?" Reid asked. "You're not from DC?"
"No," Felicia shook her head. "I was born and raised in Philly. I left to get away from...um..."
"From drug dealers?" Reid guessed. "You had a drug habit, and you owed money to drug dealers. You fled here to avoid paying. You made a clean break."
"It's not like I didn't wanna pay!" Felicia held out her hands defensively. "I didn't have the money. I was in over my head. Plus, I wasn't making much money working for Nate. He didn't arrange that many clients for me."
"Why was that?" Reid asked. "Did the other girls get more clients than you did?"
"Yeah, they always got more clients than I did, even though I was the one who introduced them to him," Felicia said angrily.
"You said that Nate always wanted to pursue something or other with you. It seems to me that he was interested in you as a romantic partner, that he has been interested in you since high school, and that the incident under the bleachers encouraged his interest, but that he held back his interest because you never displayed any interest in him, despite the incident under the bleachers, the nothing that to you was not worth mentioning, but that to him must have been an initally joyful but subsequently traumatic experience, the switch occurring when he realized your lack of interest in him despite whatever sexual acts you must have perfomed with him," Reid concluded. "That would explain his reluctance to arrange clients for you. He must still be holding onto you in some romantic fantasy of his. Did he wish to pursue a romantic relationship with you at any point during your business relationship?"
"Not that I know of," Felicia considered the seemingly convoluted, but actually straightforward, analysis. "He didn't ask me out or anything, if that's what you mean. I wouldn't have gone out with him. As I said, he's not my type."
"Why is that?" Reid asked.
"I already told you," Felicia stared in annoyance. "He's the quiet nerdy type. I'm not into guys like that. He's broody too. To tell you the truth, he creeps me out a little. Always has, always will."
"How so?" Reid asked.
"He gives me these weird looks, like he's...checking me out, but not really in the way that most guys would check out a girl. It's like he's hoping that I'll...respond to him if he just stares at me long enough. Like I'll suddenly see the light and fall head over heels in love with him! It's really creepy!" Felicia shuddered and burrowed deeper into the coat.
"So he loved you," Reid stated, not in the form of a question. "He was and is in love with you?" this time, in the form of a question.
"I guess, if you can call it that," Felicia said.
"He did love you," Reid nodded to himself, "He does love you," he continued nodding to himself.
"What kind of doctor are you?" Felicia asked. "Are you some kind of shrink or something?"
"I'm not a trained psychiatrist or psychologist," Reid explained. "But I do study human psychology and behavior. I study the criminal mind," he tapped his temple. "I examine the psychological motives behind criminal behaviors. For each case, I formulate a theory of the criminal mind that applies to the specific UnSub in the case. In science, theories make predictions. Predictions are testable hypotheses that I can use to catch the UnSub before he strikes again."
"Sounds complicated," Felicia said.
"Not really," Reid sighed deeply. "Once you learn all about it, once you've read the books and attended the lectures and solved the cases, you discover that profiling isn't really as complicated or fascinating or engaging as you had initially imagined. It's just a bunch of theories to apply. I've been working in the field for the past six years, and I've applied most of the theories at least once. I've even come up with some new theories of my own. It keeps me occupied when I'm bored at work. I'm constantly getting bored at work. Especially now that JJ is gone. When JJ was there, I used to sit at my desk in the bullpen and think about her. I used to wonder what she looked like naked. This one time, when she brought me a cake for my 24th birthday, I even snuck a peek at her chest. See, she was leaning over me, and I couldn't help it. I think she noticed, so I covered it up by sneaking a peek in the other direction, at our colleague, Elle Greenaway. I don't think Elle noticed. I don't think I'd be here today if Elle had noticed," he chuckled boyishly.
"What a naughty boy!" Felicia laughed and ruffled his hair.
"Most of the time, I think about why it didn't work out between me and JJ," Reid continued. "As I told the other prostitute, the blonde one who looked like JJ, I asked her out on a date once, and she agreed to go out with me. Afterwards, she told me that she wasn't interested in another date with me. Right afterwards...The very same day. Now, the thing I don't understand is, at what point did she decide that she wasn't interested in me? Was it during the football game? She looked like she was having fun the whole time. She told me that she was having fun. Did I do something to offend her during the game? Maybe on the drive over or on the drive back? Was I being my usual insufferable self? What was it about me that day that caused her to decide, immediately after our date, that she wasn't interested in another date with me? What caused her to reject me in the span of a few hours? Looking back, it seems like she rejected me not because of what happened on our date, but because she had planned to reject me all along. But if that's the case, then why did she agree to go out on a date with me in the first place? It's a complete mystery to me. I can't figure it out. I hate it when I can't figure things out. Things like that always eat away at me. This has been eating away at me, on and off, for years now. Do you have any idea why it didn't work out?"
"Well, she did agree to go out with you, so..." Felicia trailed off without offering insight.
"Yeah, my point exactly!" Reid exclaimed in excitement. "I ask her out on a date. That means I'm interested in her. I'm romantically interested in her. She knows that. Isn't that clear?"
"Crystal," Felicia nodded.
"She agrees to go out with me," Reid said. "Doesn't that mean she's interested in me? At least interested enough to explore the possibilities? Why agree to go out with someone you're not the least bit interested in? Why agree to go out at all if you see no possibility of a romantic relationship down the road?"
"I dunno," Felicia blew on her hands. "I don't go out with people I'm not interested in. I just say no. I just reject them then and there. I don't go out with them, knowing full well that I'm going to reject them right after the date."
"I've considered two possibilities," Reid opened the analysis. "One, she only agreed to go out with me because I had Redskins tickets, and she was a huge Redskins fan. I call this scenario, 'Whoring For Tickets'. Two, she felt sorry for me, thinking that I had never gone out on a date before, so she thought she'd help me come out of my shell by going out with me just that one time. I call this, 'Whoring From Pity'. In either scenario, she had no romantic interest in me whatsoever."
"Sounds like a bitch," Felicia commented. "Sounds like a total tease. I don't know which is worse, going out with you for the tickets or going out with you out of pity."
"Actually, I've just thought of a third possibility," Reid chuckled sarcastically. "You wanna hear it?" he glanced conspiratorially at the prostitute.
"Sure," the prostitute smiled encouragingly.
"Third, Gideon paid JJ to go out with me," Reid smiled back. "Gideon is a pimp. JJ is a prostitute. I am a client. In this case, the pimp pays the prostitute to go out with the client, who, luckily, doesn't have to pay!"
"Who's Gideon?" the prostitute asked, wrinkling her brow in confusion.
"Don't do that," Reid reached out a finger to smooth away the wrinkle. "It'll leave permanent lines. It'll make you look older almost as fast as the drugs will."
"Who's Gideon?" the prostitute asked again.
"Gideon is my former mentor at the BAU," Reid explained. "He was the one who recruited me to the BAU. He gave me Redskins tickets for my 24th birthday. When I asked him if we were going to the game together, he told me that JJ was a huge Redskins fan, implying that I should ask her out to the game, implying that she would only go out with me if I dangled Redskins tickets in front of her, implying that she would never be interested in me on my own merits. He must have paid JJ to whore herself out to me, just so I could have one normal human experience in my pitiful deprived life. I was his little puppy that was intellectually brilliant, emotionally immature, and socially awkward. I needed help. It was all up to Gideon to help me. That was why he paid JJ to go out on that one date with me. In retrospect, it's clear that he didn't pay her enough. Why didn't he pay her more to go out on a second date with me? He could've paid her to start dating me exclusively. Why stop there? He could've taken up a collection in the FBI to get her to sleep with me. Maybe a bake sale or..."
"I don't think that's what happened," the prostitute interrupted. "JJ's your colleague in the FBI, right? And so is Gideon? I don't think she'd whore herself out just because this Gideon person wanted her to date you. That sounds crazy."
"What do you know about crazy?" Reid snapped at the prostitute. "You only know about whoring. You're a whore. Just like her. You're all whores. Blondes, brunettes, redheads...You're all whores. You walk around the streets, flipping your hair this way and that, trying to attract attention with the color and the shine and the smell, trying to wrap men...victims...around your little fingers. For what purpose? Who knows? Not for the money. You'd probably still do it, even if you didn't get paid. That's what you do. It is in your nature to be a whore, so you whore for a living. All of you. You want to do it, even when you don't have to. You said it yourself. Why wasn't Nate arranging more clients for you? How come all the other girls got more opportunities to whore themselves out than you did? Did you ever stop to think that you could have stopped whoring if you had loved him back? He would've supported you. He would've done anything for you. He would've given up his stupid band and his stupid music. He would've gotten a real job. He would've stopped pimping. But no! You enjoyed whoring so much that you had to continue! You had to beg for more clients! Oh, look at me! My hair is so pretty! Look how red and shiny and sleek! It's all natural too! Except for the fact that I have to straighten it before I come out here for a night of whoring! Why aren't there more men lining themselves up to run their fingers through my pretty pretty hair? Why aren't they..."
"Stop it! Shut up!" the prostitute lashed out, slapping Reid across the face as she threw off his coat and jumped up to leave.
"Don't tell me to shut up!" Reid jumped up just as quickly, grabbing her ponytail and pulling it, and her, backwards towards him. "I'm tired of people telling me to shut up! I'm going to say whatever I want, whenever I want! If I say you're a whore, then you're a whore. If I say JJ's a whore, then JJ's a whore. I'm the client. Haven't you ever heard the expression, 'The customer is always right'?"
"Stop it!" the prostitute screeched, reaching back to wrench her ponytail out of his grasp. "Let go of me! I'm calling the police!"
"Sorry, Whore," Reid pushed her into the shed, pinning her arms between her body and the wall, turning himself to take his revolver out of her reach.
He didn't want the revolver to interfere with the proceedings. He needed to kill this one as slowly and painfully as possible.
"Didn't I tell you?" he shoved her face into the wall, decided that he needed to see her face, and maneuvered her by her ponytail until he could see her features in profile. "I'm an FBI agent. You read over my credentials. You don't have to call anyone. I'm already here."
"Get off!" the prostitute twisted her shoulders, trying to throw his hands off her body.
"Get off?" Reid snickered. "Are you sure you want that to happen? Oh wait, I forgot. You're a whore. Of course you want that to happen! That's what you do! You help your clients get off! Well, listen to me, Whore, you're going to help me tonight, in a really big way, in a much bigger way than getting off," he kneed her in the back of her knees, enjoying the thudding sound of her knees hitting the shed, enjoying the visible trembling of her legs. "Now, before we get started, I've got to warn you about something. I've got a gun, but I don't intend to use it. I intend to use my hands instead. I may not look big, not like your type, but I can still snap your neck, because I know exactly which part of the neck to snap to turn you into a quadriplegic for life. Do you know what a quadriplegic is?" he breathed into her ear, pausing, waiting for the shaky nod that came after hardly a moment's hesitation. "You don't need me to explain it to you? You don't need me to demonstrate?" she tried, but failed, to shake her head, frozen in place by his unexpectedly strong hands with their long fingers grasping her neck and their fingernails digging into her flesh.
"Good," Reid let out a deep breath. "Let's start from the beginning. Let's tell the whole story from the beginning," he wrapped the fingers of one hand across the front of her throat, pinching the sides of her neck to occlude the arteries and veins, using his other hand to stroke the vertebrae below her skull as a reminder of his threat. "In the beginning, there were a boy named Nathan and a girl named Felicia. Nathan and Felicia grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools, hung out in high school, but weren't really all that close. Nathan liked Felicia. Felicia, being a whore, liked Nathan enough to whore herself out to him this one time under the bleachers after school. Nathan, being neither a whore or a profiler equipped to recognize whores whenever he saw them, misinterpreted the psychological motives behind the whoring behavior. Nathan, not being a whore, assumed, wrongly, that Felicia liked him enough to pursue a non-whoring romantic relationship with him. Felicia, being a whore, was not familiar with the nature of non-whoring romantic relationships. Felicia, being a whore, continued the whoring behavior for the next two years, whoring herself out to every susceptible male within a one-mile radius of the bleachers. For the next two years, Nathan, being easily bored and naturally broody, sat at his desk in class and thought about Felicia. He wondered why Felicia had ditched him after she, being a whore, had whored herself out to him. He wondered why Felicia had agreed to whore herself out to him, if she, being a whore, had never had any intention of pursuing a non-whoring romantic relationship with him. Nathan, not being a whore, couldn't figure it out! Nathan hated not being able to figure things out! Things like that always ate away at him! Nathan, having a neurotic personality in combination with high rejection sensitivity, overanalyzed all his social interactions with Felicia, playing them over and over in his mind until he had dredged up all the negative emotions and aggressive impulses that should have led him to kill her at that time. Fortunately for Felicia and unfortunately for all the other whores of the world, Nathan did not kill her at that time. At that time, Nathan had been an antelope. Nathan had not yet become a lion. It was only years later, after Felicia, being a whore, had repeated the whoring behavior, that Nathan, not being a whore, but now being a lion, had acted upon his negative emotions and aggressive impulses, first fishing for whores who did not resemble Felicia, then hunting for whores who did, all the while remaining loyal to Felicia, who, being a whore, did not understand the concept of loyalty, which, being an element of the set of non-whoring behaviors, was not an element of the null set, which, by definition, had no elements and zero cardinality, formed by the intersection of the set of non-whoring behaviors with the set of Felicia's behaviors."
Reid stopped, exhausted after his outburst. His stomach growled insistently. He had still not eaten anything since the Twix bars of the previous night. It had been nearly 24 hours since he had eaten anything or killed anyone. He wanted to kill her, so he could head off towards the Metro, grab some junk food along the way, and devour it on the train, in the frenzied hunger after the kill. He could barely control his fingers around her neck, reigning back the impulses that urged them to throttle her. This time, in this case, he had to hold back. He had to practice the delayed gratification that was inconsistent with his neurotic personality. He breathed. He held back. He held back for JJ. Killing the prostitute, slowly and painfully, would help him let go of JJ. He had to let go of JJ. He had to keep JJ safe. Holding back, holding on, letting go - they were all acts of love.
"I have another story to tell you," Reid nuzzled the prostitute's ear as he tightened his hands around her throat. "It's not about Nathan and Felicia this time. It's about me. It's about me and the prostitutes I killed. Do you know why I killed them?" he loosened his grip around her neck, letting her breathe a little, remembering to kill her slowly and painfully, so he could let go of JJ, so he could keep JJ safe. "I killed them for several reasons. I'm going to let you in on my motives, one at a time, and you're going to tell me if they're good or bad, OK?" he lifted her face away from the shed and slammed it, sideways, into the rotting wall.
"OK, OK," the prostitute sobbed, blood trickling down the side of her face where she had scratched her skin against the wood.
"Good," Reid tapped the fingers of one hand over her throat, pretending to play it like an instrument. "Motive number one, I wanted to solve the case. The case was my baby. I wanted to push the UnSub, Nathan Christopher Davis, into escalating his crimes. Before I killed the blonde prostitute, the one who looked like JJ, the UnSub had been committing his crimes at a moderate pace, one every few days. After I killed the blonde, I figured that the UnSub, having run out of blondes and brunettes to kill, would kill his next victim, a redhead, very very soon. Unfortunately, he didn't act right away, and I lacked the patience to wait. I've got an impulse control problem. I've got issues with delayed gratification. I went looking for the auburn-haired prostitute, Nancy, last night. I went to warn her, then to kill her. I did the same thing tonight, except tonight, I was looking for the ginger-haired prostitute, Felicia, the one that the auburn-haired prostitute, Nancy, had told me was the reddest of them all. I came to warn her, then to kill her. Do you think that Nate is going to be mad at me for making all his kills, for taking all his victims, for getting to you before he got to you himself? Do you see how this helps me solve the case? You've given me a name, an occupation, an identity for the UnSub. My profile was right, and so was my story, the one I bullshitted about the pimp in love with his prostitute. He's not mistaking the prostitutes for anyone else. He's killing the other prostitutes out of loyalty to the original prostitute, the one who whored herself out to him under the bleachers after school. Do you see that each murder is a test of loyalty and an act of love? The unfortunate part is that he still has to pay for his crimes. For me, the only thing left to do is trace my way back to him through you. Once your body is found, your identity will be established, and once your identity is established, his identity will be established, and the whole story, the one I told you about Nathan and Felicia, will come out. Then, we're going to barge into his motel room and take him out in a spray of bullets. The only unknown is whether Hotch will let me go on the raid. I think he will, because he knows that this is the first case I've screened, and that I'll need to see things through to the end. Hotch is a good boss. He's perceptive when he wants to be. Just in case though, I'll have to remember to look extra pitiful to make him feel sorry for me, so he can make the right decision this time. This time won't be like last time, when he made the wrong decision. Afterwards, it'll be another case solved, another UnSub apprehended, another crime spree ended. What do you think? Good or bad?"
"Good," the prostitute squeaked through a constricted throat.
"Bad," Reid slammed her face against the wall again, hearing the cracks and pops of fracturing bones and rupturing cartilage, the sounds convincing him that her delicate features had been irreparably deformed. "That's not a good reason to kill two, soon-to-be three, human beings! Why don't you think before you speak? Let's move on," he shifted his hands around her throat, masking the numerous small ligature marks with one large mark that obscured the trees in the forest. "Motive number two, I wanted to do something. I was sick and tired of inactivity. I was bored with my work. I wanted to do something that didn't involve sitting in a dark office staring at crime scene photos after the crimes had already been committed. I wanted to commit the crimes myself. Afterwards, I could sit in a dark office staring at crime scene photos, savoring the fruits of my own labor. What do you think? Good or bad?"
"Bad," the prostitute gurgled in her throat, scrunching up her face on the side that had not yet suffered, and bracing for the coming blow.
"Bad," Reid agreed calmly. "What a stupid motive! The stupidest excuse I've ever heard! I started killing people because I was bored? What kind of explanation is that? Don't ever mention it again!" he pinched the sides of her neck until she was on the verge of losing consciousness, then relaxed his fingers to let her recover her senses. "Motive number three, I loved JJ. What do you think? Good or bad?"
"I dunno," the prostitute cried, the tears following the curve of her chin down her throat as he pulled her ponytail further downwards to tilt her face further upwards. "I don't understand," she agitated her head helplessly.
"Let me explain," Reid breathed onto the crown of her head, resting his chin upon her sleek shiny red hair. "It's easy to explain. I killed the prostitutes to let go of JJ. All the negative emotions and aggressive impulses that I had built up and bottled up since our failed date came flooding back to me after she left the Bureau. As long as she had been there, as long as I could see her, I had no desire to hurt her. As soon as she left, as soon as I could no longer see her, I started to think about hurting her. I wanted to wrap my fingers around her neck and strangle her, until she coughed up blood, fresh red blood that dripped down her chin, then down her throat, then onto my hands, so I could have an excuse to tighten my fingers around her neck, because my fingers would be slippery from all the blood, and I would have to squeeze her neck even harder to hold onto her. Then, I realized that I was being stupid. Stupid doesn't fit me. I'm almost never stupid, except when I'm around JJ. Did you know that was why I started running around Hankel's farm like a puppy chasing its tail? I wanted to impress JJ with my FBI sleuthing capabilities while I had her all to myself. My sleuthing consisted of peeking into the window of a house to find a psychotic serial killer staring back at me! That didn't end well, or maybe it did, but I won't bore you with the details. All you need to know is that you've helped me let go of JJ. If you had never been such a whore, then Nathan would never have started his murder spree, and if Nathan had never started his murder spree, then I would never have continued it for him, and if I had never continued it for him, then I would have hurt JJ, one day, sooner or later, probably sooner, because as I said, she left, not because she wanted to, but because Strauss made her, but that made no difference to me, because I have always wanted to hurt her, ever since she rejected me, and it hurt, because I loved her, but now, having acted out all my negative emotions and aggressive impulses upon a trio of prostitutes, I'm back to feeling nothing, just like I felt nothing after shooting that trio of muggers in the alley behind the library. Whenever I felt nothing, I wanted to feel something, but whenever I felt something, I wanted to hurt JJ. I took action to avoid hurting JJ. I hurt prostitutes instead. Now that I've taken out my urges on your friends, and now that I'm about to take out my urges on you, I expect that my urges will go away. I will no longer love JJ. I will no longer want to hurt JJ. The funny thing is it wasn't until I started fishing and hunting for prostitutes that I realized that JJ was a prostitute as well. She, being a whore, was not worthy of me. She, being a whore, has never been worthy of me. I have never been a whore, not even during my lowest moments, not during my drug addiction and not during my murder spree. I, not being a whore, could never have loved a whore. I could never have loved JJ. If I could never have loved JJ, then why had I been deluding myself into thinking that I loved her and wanted to hurt her? I've come around to making a clean break. As of this moment, I no longer love JJ, and I no longer want to hurt JJ. I've let go of her for good. What do you think? Good or bad?"
"Please don't kill me..." the prostitute wailed as she coughed up blood, fresh red blood that dripped down her chin, then down her throat, then onto his hands, so he could have an excuse to tighten his fingers around her neck, because his fingers were slippery from all the blood, and he had to squeeze her neck even harder to hold onto her, to kill her, to let go of JJ, to keep JJ safe.
"Funny," Reid snorted. "That's what they all say. That's what all the whores say. I, not being a whore, have never said that. I said to kill me...To please kill me! That's a much better way to go..."
Keeping one hand wrapped around her throat, he used the other hand to jerk her ponytail backwards and downwards, sharply, in a back-and-forth up-and-down motion, snapping her neck to make her a quadriplegic before turning her limp body towards the shed and smashing her forehead into the wall. The prostitute crumpled to the ground. Reid did not bother to pose her. He left the scene, making a clean break.
Back in the empty lot, he washed his hands in the rain, the pouring rain falling out of a cloudy night sky that had been clear the last time he had feasted his eyes upon it. He turned his face up to the rain, letting the water wash away the specks of blood from the killspray. He stuck his tongue out to taste the rainwater. He shook his head like a wet puppy, splashing water into water, as the rain poured upon him and into him and through him, the water washing away the urges along with the specks. He put on his coat, now all wet, and picked up his messenger bag, also wet, as he headed off towards the Metro. He gave up his plan of grabbing some junk food along the way and devouring it on the train, in the frenzied hunger after the kill. He was eager to get home to sleep away his hunger. The rain had washed away one urge only to replace it with another. If three tablets of Tylenol could send him into a drug-induced slumber, then imagine what 50 or 100 tablets could do. He desired the respite of an end, because, although he had let go of her, and although she was now but a pawn upon his chessboard, he still desired, knowing full well that it was all wrong, to move the pieces to play the game, but he also desired, through the goodness of his heart, to keep her, and everyone else, safe from him.
Master Post