Subtextual

The hum of the jet was a low, familiar comfort—white noise that lulled most of the team into their own heads. Gideon was already halfway into the case file, his reading glasses perched low on his nose. Morgan had stretched out across two seats with his arms crossed, eyes closed but clearly listening. Penelope sat with her laptop open, stylized tabs blinking in color-coded urgency. Reid bounced slightly in place, fidgeting with the end of his tie.

JJ sat at the worktable, flipping slowly through crime scene photos, her mind moving faster than she liked to admit.

Emily was across from her.

It had been less than two hours since her analysis in the briefing room—the gender reversal that had temporarily knocked the air out of the team’s assumptions. JJ hadn’t stopped thinking about it. Or about the way Emily said *you’re looking at the weapon, not the words* with such certainty, like she’d known it all along and was just waiting for everyone else to catch up.

JJ glanced up. Emily was studying the poem printouts again, head tilted, eyes narrowed in concentration. Her blazer was off now, revealing a fitted white button-up with the sleeves casually rolled to the elbows. The kind of relaxed, purposeful elegance that should’ve annoyed JJ but somehow didn’t.

“That was a bold call in the briefing,” JJ said, quieter than the engine noise.

Emily looked up, mildly surprised. “You think so?”

JJ shrugged. “We don’t usually get that kind of read so early. And you challenged everyone without blinking. Gideon, even.”

Emily leaned back, her posture loose but confident. “I didn’t do it to make a point. The language in those poems isn’t romantic obsession. It’s personal identity erosion. That kind of metaphor doesn’t come from fantasy. It comes from resentment."

JJ nodded slowly. "Still. You held your ground. It was impressive."

Emily offered a faint smile. “Thanks. That means something, coming from you.”

JJ didn’t respond immediately. She looked back down at the open file, heart tapping faster than it should.

"We're landing in under two hours," Hotch called from the front. "Seattle PD is setting up a temporary field office at the last crime scene. We're meeting them there."

"Third victim?" Reid asked.

Hotch nodded. "Yeah. Their house is still sealed. PD left it intact for us."

"Any sign the unsub returned to the scene?" Morgan added.

"Nothing yet. But we’re going to look for anything the locals missed. Subtle stuff. Maybe even writing drafts."

Emily tapped the printed poem pages. "If she wrote them in the house, there might be discarded versions. And I wouldn’t be surprised if she left behind linguistic markers. Certain phrases people default to. You’d be surprised how consistent even unhinged writing can be."

Garcia chimed in from her corner, pulling up profiles on her screen. "And I’ve already started cross-referencing every woman in the greater Seattle metro area who matches the victim profiles. Late twenties to mid-thirties, single or living alone, working professionals with a public-facing lifestyle."

Morgan let out a low whistle. "That’s a big net."

"It is," Garcia said, fingers dancing over her keyboard. "But I’m focusing on those with recent changes. Sudden job resignations. Legal name changes. Hospitalizations. Therapy intake forms. Anything that screams instability or reinvention."

Emily nodded. "Look for overlaps with victims' routines. Coffee shops. Salons. Gyms. Places where mimicry could start."

Hotch glanced at her, approving. "Good. Let’s stay open-minded until we land."

JJ watched Emily as she turned back to the table, her fingers tracing the edge of a photo. She was calm, but there was a current running underneath. Something practiced. Controlled. The kind of stillness that came from having been somewhere dangerous before.

For the first time in a while, JJ felt a twinge of curiosity that had nothing to do with a case file.

She wanted to know more.

And that was dangerous.

Outside, the clouds blurred into an endless sweep of gray.

---

By mid-afternoon, the team had split up to cover ground. Gideon and Reid were combing the first victim’s neighborhood for witnesses, while Morgan met with the medical examiner to cross-check autopsy timelines. Hotch was coordinating from a mobile command van near the second scene.

JJ and Emily, along with Garcia, had set up shop in a makeshift tech room within the Seattle PD precinct—a cramped, windowless office with buzzing fluorescent lights and a suspiciously sticky floor. It smelled like old coffee and stale donuts. Garcia, perched in front of a borrowed workstation, had already converted the space into a neon jungle of devices and cables.

"Okay," JJ said, pulling another file out of a stack. "Victim three, Lindsay Sayer. Thirty-four. Divorced. Marketing exec. No signs of forced entry at her house."

Emily leaned over a pinboard of victim photos and notes. "All three lived alone. All were professionally successful, socially visible, attractive. I think we need to start digging into their dating histories."

JJ glanced over. "Dating histories?"

Emily nodded. "Patterns of attachment, relationship types. There might be overlap. If the unsub was mimicking them, there could be a fixation point. An ex. A type. You can learn a lot about a person based on who they choose to love."

She said it like a dare.

Garcia, half-distracted with her laptop, raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Yet.

JJ folded her arms. "That feels like a stretch."

Emily tilted her head, her tone deceptively casual. "You don’t think people reveal themselves through their tastes? I do."

""So what, you're saying you can read someone just by knowing who they date?"

Emily smiled slowly, not coy—controlled. Intentional. "I’m saying attraction isn’t random. People reveal their needs when they reveal their preferences. You just have to know how to listen."

JJ’s breath hitched slightly, but she masked it by pretending to read. "That sounds... convenient."

"Convenient?" Emily echoed. "Maybe. But accurate. Most people don’t even realize they’re communicating exactly who they are when they tell you who they want."

She let that linger just long enough.

JJ looked away too fast. Her ears were turning pink—she could feel it happening, and the worst part was knowing Emily had definitely noticed.

Garcia’s head slowly swiveled toward her, the way a cat watches something fall.

"Penelope," Emily said, pretending not to notice, "can you cross-reference the victims’ phone records and any formal or informal dating services? Personal ads, matchmakers, singles clubs—anything that might’ve flown under the radar. We need to see if there's any behavioral pattern. Anyone reaching out who suddenly went quiet.""

"Already on it," Garcia chirped, typing furiously. "If there’s a creep in common, I will find him, her, or it."

Emily’s phone buzzed on the table. She glanced at the screen. "Hotch. Be right back."

She stepped out, leaving Garcia and JJ alone in a silence that was immediately, stupidly loud.

Garcia waited three seconds before turning in her chair.

"Soooooo."

JJ didn’t look up. "Don’t."

"You’re blushing."

"No, I’m not."

"You totally are. You did the JJ thing where your voice drops half a tone and you start blinking like a Disney princess under stress."

JJ groaned. "Penelope. She flirts with everyone. That’s just her."

Garcia looked between the door Emily had exited through and JJ, then turned in her chair with slow, deliberate suspicion. 

"Okay," she said. "That wasn’t nothing."

JJ shook her head. "Garcia—"

"Nope. Don’t even try it. You were practically glowing."

JJ scoffed. "You’re imagining things."

"Mmm, no. I’ve got a finely tuned radar for this stuff and yours is going haywire."

JJ rubbed her temples. "She’s just... she’s like that."

"Like what? European? Flawless? Scary good at being subtle and hot at the same time?"

JJ dropped her hands and stared flatly at her friend. "I’m not— It’s not like that. She’s a flirt. That’s all. I don’t have time for someone like her."

And that’s when the door creaked open behind them.

JJ, exasperated and trying to end the conversation, muttered, "Emily is... come on, Penelope, like anyone’s going to take her seriously when she acts like that."

The words hung in the air just long enough.

Emily stepped in, phone still in hand. Her steps faltered just slightly. The flicker of something crossed her face—surprise, hurt, maybe recognition—but it was gone before either of them could name it.

There was something quiet and clipped in the way she said, "Hotch found something."

Emily glanced down at the phone still in her hand. "Hotch, I'm putting you on speaker now."

She tapped the screen and set the phone on the table.

Hotch's voice came through, crisp and direct. "We figured out how the unsub was getting in without signs of forced entry. Officers found extra keys hidden in the crawl space under the victims’ porches. All three sets. Each one had the same keychain—small, round, black leather with a stamped logo on the back."

"What kind of logo?" JJ asked, leaning forward slightly.

"A local key copying service," Hotch said. "Looks like a private kiosk brand—Keynote Precision, out of Tacoma. I want the two of you to go check it out, see if anyone’s been making custom duplicates lately."

Garcia was already typing. "Keynote Precision has two branches in Seattle. One downtown, one in Rainier Valley. Both keep digital records of their customer transactions. If the unsub paid with a card, we might get lucky."

"You two head to the downtown location first," Hotch said. "I’ll update the others. Keep me posted."

"Will do," Emily replied, ending the call.

The silence returned, but this time it sat differently. JJ looked up to meet Emily’s eyes—except Emily wasn’t looking at her. Not anymore. She was already reaching for her blazer, her expression unreadable.

JJ opened her mouth to say something, anything—

But Emily was already halfway to the door.

And the quiet she left behind felt heavier than it should have. Garcia didn’t say a word—she just turned back to her screen, suddenly very, very focused.