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Rossi sniffled and reached for his seventh tissue of the morning. His nose was running like a tap and he couldn’t seem to stop it. His eyes felt dry and his throat was scratchy. It was nothing he hadn’t felt a hundred times before; that feeling of being right on the cusp of being ill, being ensnared by whatever bug was going around at the time. Cold, flu, even the occasional pneumonia, they all seemed to start the same way.
Even so, Dave was not about to let that stop him from working their latest case – a serial strangler who was posting photos of his victims online. Dave struggled to understand the ins and outs of social media, but he had to admit that it certainly encouraged their Unsubs to get creative.
Reid eyed the steadily growing pile of screwed up tissues in the trash can under Rossi’s desk and primly used his foot to nudge one back towards the pile.
“D’you wanna maybe take a day off, Dave?” he asked.
“For what?” Rossi scowled. “It’s not even a cold yet!”
“So it could be in its most contagious stage!” Spencer reached for a mask.
“Or it could be allergies, Spencer. Or nothing at all. Did you consider that?”
“I did, but given that Prentiss is home sick with the flu and you shared a car with her last week, my guess if that you’re coming down with it too.” Rossi looked over at Morgan and shook his head in disbelief. Morgan just grinned back.
“Just imagine if you applied this much energy to working the case, Reid. We might have our suspect by now.”
Reid gave a little scowl but returned his attention to the journal he was scanning through. They had found it under the floorboards at the Unsub’s childhood home, and Spencer was dutifully combing through it for any insight he could gain into the Unsub’s psychology and motives. Rossi turned back to the crime scene photos they had pulled from the Unsub’s Facebook account, comparing them to the ones they had taken on scene. Something seemed off about the differences, but it was escaping him…
“Most of this is masturbatory rambling and fairly nonsensical, but there is an overarching theme of feelings of invisibility. I think this is all just one big pathetic cry for attention, from an only child with loving parents. It looks like his mother died when he was fairly young and his father wasn’t able to keep up with the insatiable need for attention that he has.”
“So the photos are his way of gaining attention then? Notoriety?” Morgan added.
“I think it’s more than that,” Rossi concluded, turning away to sneeze. “Look at the way he poses them, between the kill and when we get there. He rolls them onto their backs, lays them out dead straight, their hands clasped. Perfectly posed. But online, they’re degraded, face down, limbs all over the place. It’s almost like he’s atoning and possibly even trying to... impress us? Like he wants an A-grade from law enforcement.”
“That might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard about an Unsub yet,” Morgan nodded, taking notes. “It absolutely tracks, but I guess I’ll just never understand the motive for taking a life, especially not to fulfil some twisted need for attention from the police.”
All three of their phones chimed and they shared a look between them. Morgan stood and slung his jacket over his shoulder.
“That’s Hotch – they have another body. Reid and I will go and scope out the scene. Rossi, stay here and start the geographic profile. And then maybe take the rest of the day? We can let Hotch know you’re unwell.”
Rossi grumbled and shooed them with his hand as he rummaged through his desk drawer for a map.