[CM] THE CASE

Cunning is an insidious and evil cleverness. - bacon

It was getting dark, and the temperature plummeted. Griffith tightened his collar and grumbled to Reid half-truthfully, "I'm hungry, your biscuits don't work."

"Don't talk." Reid said gloomily, "You guys have finished sharing the biscuits, and I didn't eat a single bite."

Gideon scrambles to find the inmate's trailer, but Georgia has called in manpower, making the task even more difficult.

Hotch divided the team members into two teams. One team went to eat first, and the other team searched and changed shifts later.Distraught Gideon took Griffith and Reid first.

"I'm so hungry, my stomach is digesting itself," Reid said.

"Be patient, they'll be changing shifts soon." Griffith comforted him in a low voice.However, before the words fell, their mobile phones rang frantically.

"Katharine Hale's mobile phone signal returned, and the location is in front of the sheriff's house. We will pick you up." Hotch said in a deep voice.

Griffith and Reid looked at each other, knowing that dinner was gone again.

Thankfully Emily kindly brought them sandwiches and water.

"It's pretty good," Morgan said. "The pasta at that place was a disaster."

"Who told you to order pasta?" Emily sat in the passenger seat, completely devoid of sympathy for Morgan's tragic experience.

Griffith and Reid in the back seat gobbled up too much to listen to their bickering.

The adjutant led people to wait at the door, and immediately drew his gun when he saw them arriving. Hotch asked him how Georgia was doing, and the adjutant shook his head solemnly: "She doesn't answer the phone."

So they broke into Georgia Davis' home.

This is a cozy small villa, turn left is the kitchen and dining room.The light purple liquid spilled on the white tile floor of the kitchen, leaving footprints leading to the back door, which was left open on the refrigerator.The sheriff's gun hung behind the door, and the answering machine's red light was on.

"We need to do a test on the scene." Hotch raised his hand to stop the adjutant who wanted to pick up the plastic bottle, and the adjutant shouted excitedly: "Fuck your test! You said he was outside the door, and now George is gone !"

"Don't spoil the scene," Griffith said.

The adjutant rushed out of the scene angrily.

Emily put away the gun: "Okay, she went home, threw down the keys, turned on the answering machine, and removed the gun, just like she usually does."

"She opened the refrigerator door to pour grape juice," Morgan said, pointing to the puddle of liquid.

"She's a sheriff, and it's impossible to go after a prisoner without a gun," Gideon said.

Reid was closest to the table.He suddenly noticed something and leaned over to pick up a syringe.

"She didn't," Reid said.

Gideon gasped. "No, no, he never catches the obvious. Georgia obviously doesn't fit, why?"

"He wants to negotiate with us?" Hotch speculated.

Griffith saw two glasses on the table: "Who did she bring home?"

The adjutant who went back and forth brought back the answer: "They said Georgia brought Mad Jane back from get off work today."

"The one who ran out the back door was Jane?" Morgan asked.

"What does he want Jane to do?" Griffith asked.

"She's the only survivor, and it means something special to him," Gideon said. "He didn't get Jane, so he's going to trade Georgia for Jane."

"Then he should contact us," Hotch said. "Tell Garcia to keep an eye out for Katharine Hale's cell signal."

"What do we do now?" the adjutant asked.

"Wait," Gideon said. "We'll just have to wait for news from him."

When she woke up in a daze, she only felt cold all over.

"Why is it so cold? Are the windows open?" she thought, trying to curl herself up for warmth.But she couldn't move an inch, which made her wake up quickly.

Then she saw herself naked.

"Where is this?" She wondered in confusion.

Then she heard footsteps.It was the sound of hard-soled leather shoes hitting metal, and it sounded calm and unfashionable.

She wanted to yell for help, but her vocal cords seemed to be frozen, and she couldn't say anything.

At this time, a man's face appeared in her vision.

The man is about 50 years old, even if his hair is thinning and even has a tendency to go bald, it can't hide his charming temperament.He stroked the woman's skin gently.Because of the cold, his fingers were extraordinarily hot, like magma flowing from hell.

"Hello," the man said politely, "You'll enjoy this."

The woman's scream finally rushed out of her throat.

What the woman didn't see was that there were two coffins next to the dissecting table, and a gap was opened in one of them.There was a pair of eyes in the gap, the corners of which were wet with tears and resentment.

But men know.

He slowly drew lines on the woman's body, as proficient as if he had done it hundreds of times.During this period, he looked up in the mirror from time to time, found the eyes in the corner, and smiled at it.

"Soon," he said softly, "I promise, you'll like it."

It was a doomed sleepless night.

Intellectually, everyone knows that tomorrow is the main event, and tonight they need to recharge their batteries.But the sheriff is dead and alive, and no one can sleep.

Griffith woke up several times, and finally at four o'clock in the morning, he had no sleep, so he had to get up and stare blankly.

He hadn't woken up for a long time.

The dream was full of heart-piercing screams and mutilated limbs.He seemed to be tied up by someone, unable to move, watching and listening helplessly.

The human body was dismembered before his eyes, but not a single drop of blood flowed out—the arteries were scorched ahead of time.He couldn't see the faces of those people clearly, and he couldn't see the bodies of those people clearly.They seem to be just a vague concept, the innocent souls lingering under the knife of the prisoner.

He bent his legs, leaned on the soft pillow relaxedly, and subconsciously rubbed the bracelet with his right hand.

"James," he called softly, like a child missing his father.

A long time ago, when he was just rescued by James, he was often awakened by nightmares.At that time, James' home was still a simple one-bedroom and one living room. He slept on the bed, and James made the floor.

He woke up a lot, and James was often woken up by him in the middle of his sleep, deliriously comforting the child who couldn't speak.

That was the warmest moment for him in so many years, so that every time he woke up in the middle of the night, he always missed that person's unfocused comfort.

"When will I see you again?" Griffith thought.

Near noon the next day, they finally received the signal. Morgan and Gideon went to negotiate, the adjutant led the brothers to surround the drive-in restaurant, and Hotch led the rest of the team to search Jane's home.

"If he's really here for Jane, he's definitely here," Hotch said.

Jane's house is like a standard haunted house.It was an old house of unknown age, and the outer walls were covered with dry vines.The hostess has not taken care of it for a long time, and the lush bushes almost cover the porch.There are many strings of wind chimes hanging on the porch, all of which seem to be handmade, full of wild charm like the whistle in Jane's hand.

Emily's eyes were attracted by the wind chimes.

"I know where those missing ribs went..." the female detective swallowed, "These wind chimes are all made of human bones!"

Hotch holstered the gun. Reid fumbled for a handkerchief and took off a string of wind chimes.

"If these are human bones..." Griffith said, "how many people did he kill?"

"Chilling love," Emily said sarcastically. "Can he really feel love?"

In fact, Emily's sentence is a rhetorical question, but Reid may feel that the atmosphere is too tense, so he answered it casually: "First of all, you must know what love is."

"Define love?"

"The production of love is related to dopamine." Reid actually defined it, "Dopamine is a brain secretion, which belongs to neurotransmitters, and is used to help cells transmit impulses, which can affect a person's emotions. This brain secretion is mainly responsible for The brain's lust, feeling, and the message of excitement and happiness are also related to addiction. We can extract it from some common foods, such as…”

"Chocolate, I love chocolate." Emily said as she put the wind chime into the evidence bag.

"So chocolate for Valentine's Day?" Griffith asked.

"Maybe it's related." Emily nodded.

"And peas!" Reid yelled, "you can find them in peas, too!"

"Peas?" Emily blinked. "Well, at least I don't want to receive a bag of peas on Valentine's Day."

Griffith laughed.

Seeing that the topic was getting farther and farther, Hotch had to stop it: "Enough, Reid."

Reid looked at him innocently.

So much for the gag. Griffith accidentally looked up and found a dilapidated wooden house.