Jennifer's children wake her up in the morning, again talking about another killing but again she tells them they are safe and nothing will happen, though this morning she drives them to school and says good bye she has to go to headquarters and get more updates for the profile. She walks into the headquarters again signs in and walks and swipes her ID card again her boss is waiting for her.
"Hey boss man I have a rough profile and the original project."
"Perfect Erick is in the sleep room he was out last night, and has some info to add and Josh is running the site of the 3rd body."
"Tell him to comb it better than ever this is where in my thesis the prep makes her one and only mistake we need to catch this person."
"What is the mistake?" Mike asks by this time they are in Jennifer's office waiting for Erick.
"She washes her hands at the crime scene."
"Why?"
"No pond or stream, choose a building close to her main target who may or not fit the profile, in the project she does not, she was more hurt by the pros then the killer was but she was taking revenge for the main target and target did not agree with her method that is why the main target is killed."
"Okay." Erick walks in.
"Where was the last murder?" Jennifer asks, the boss walks out and lives Jennifer and Erick alone while he checks in with Josh.
“Downtown, in an old building with its own underground parking, it happened in the parking lot. It is near the police station, our CSI teams is working out of the local station so that why we keep less minds here knowing about it, with our other cases going on we can’t really let this one take the lead, though we have to work quickly the killer is highly active.”
“Erick, that is not far from my house.” Jennifer states looking at the address on the forms Erick hands her. “Only about three miles.” Jenni is sitting on the couch and Erick joins her and sits next to her very close, just like the friends they are.
Erick puts his hand on here knee and says “Jen you have to be careful this is close to your house and it is your profile, does someone have it out for you?”
“Not that I know of Erick, I lead a pretty normal life but for this but most of the people I have put away are in solitary or dead.”
“How about your ex he lost a lot three years ago.”
“He didn’t take care of himself the doctors say he has about two or three months it is full blown AIDS.”
“But Jen you have to be careful, I know you are only the brains and not the brawn on our cases but someone out there may think you are getting to close and is trying to scare you off. It could be one of our two active cases we are working on.”
“Most killers do not change their MO, I wish if it is one of them they would leave something of their calling.”
“Yeah, but right now it looks like a new one, Josh is checking to see if this MO matches any from across the country there is nothing in our case files but a local may not have made the connections, especially if the victims were prostitutes.”
“Anyways Erick, what is the word on the street the boss said he sent you out last night.”
“Yeah Mike sent me out, last night talked to a pro, she said that the victims are new to the game, says that she saw three different cars, on mini van white Minnesota plates, then a black car and a blue care no plates, pick up the victims. The description of the prep is small, the informant said that it could have been a female, but no hair was showing in the hood, she said it was male though.”
“3 different cars, we find any dumped vehicles recently, or did the local enforcement find any abandoned vehicles?”
“Not that we have been informed of, I will have Josh look into it, if it is one man he has money to spend so we may be looking for upper class citizen.”
“Maybe…”
“Do we know for sure this is the same guy?”
“Most likely the MO and the crime scenes are too similar.”
“Something is bothering you spill.”
“Remember my final profile for our ‘graduation’?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, this killer is acting it out, remember I had a woman killing pros, washing her hands, the crimes scenes are almost the same.”
“Why?”
“As you said I have to be careful the last kill was three miles from my house.”
“When are you and the kids leaving?”
“Today is the last day of school before Christmas break, they fly out in the morning to my dad and I fly out on the 23rd/24th.”
“Now where is he located, I wonder?’ Erick has a huge smile on his face joking with her to ease her nerves.
“In a secret location, I can’t tell you.” Jennifer jokes back.
“Whatever, Adair is no secret.” He smirks.
“Hmm…. Maybe I moved him.” Jennifer is thinking to herself about Erick and how they met. He was in class with her he was 26 at the time and she was 16, he joined the FBI the old fashioned way, he and she had always been a team since assigned a project together that first week. He is more in the field she does the paper work, and she wouldn’t have it any other way, only thing that bothered her was the danger he kept putting himself in but it was what made him happy. He is six foot three inches and played in college football, but due to a knee injury he lost the chance at going pro but he was a criminal justice major and an ex-marine, he had done his four years after high school before going to college at 22 and then graduating at 26. He has black hair and deep blue eyes and had always been a great friend; he stood by her side just as her father did though her divorce. Part of her still wonders if she had not have met her husband would they have become more then friends or if she was older when they met, would it be more then just a friendship? He was still single but what man wants a 27 year old divorce with four seven year old children. He is 37 but still looks as good as he did when she first met him when he joined the FBI eleven years ago.
“Hello! Earth to Jenni.” Erick was waving his hand in her face.
“Sorry just spaced out.”
“What were you thinking about?’
“You.”
“Huh?”
“You didn’t blow your cover, did you?” Asks instead of telling him she was wondering what would have happened if she hadn’t met her husband.
“Oh…” Erick hides the disappointment in his eyes. “No, I didn’t.”
“Good.” She didn’t want to let him know that she thinks about him a lot.
“Hey Jenni so when is the last time you had any real time without the kids round?”
“I was without them last Christmas for about three days.”
“You say the little ones leave today or tomorrow?”
“You know when you volunteered to help me take them to the airport with me in the morning.”
“That is right I did, didn’t I?” Erick says with a smirk on his face.
“Hey, Erick, what are you going to do for Christmas?”
‘Nothing, maybe catch a football game, microwave a dinner. Why?’
“Come to Iowa with me and the kids have a decent meal, the kids would love it and you and dad get along you can watch football, then I can con you into doing the dishes.” Jenni says with a smirk on her face.
“I don’t’ know… plane tickets are expensive, especially getting this late.”
“I have an extra, habit ordered six, I was going to ask you, but someone stated you were going to spend the holidays with a girlfriend.”
“If I say yes when would we leave?”
“We would leave the 23rd, the red eye flight.”
“Wow, no last minute Christmas shopping for you?”
“That is why it is the red eye silly Erick.” Jenni said rolling her eyes.
“Hmm… I don’t remember if I requested them off or not, really hadn’t thought about it.”
“We both have it off we requested them together at the end of last year.”
“Why are you inviting me?’
“Can’t a girl want to spend some holiday time with her best friend?’
“You have never asked before.”
"You have always been dating someone before.”
“What makes you think I don’t this year?”
“Do you?” Jennifer asks her heart sinking.
“Maybe.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“Maybe I am going to starting courting someone, you know with all the wooing stuff.”
“Who?”
“It is a secret, you don’t get to know.”
“So you can’t go?”
“Of course I want to go with you, the 23rd right? I will even go shopping with you.”
“Why go shopping with me you hate shopping?’
“To keep an eye on you, for one you spend too much at times, and for two there is a killer that seems to know a lot about you.”
“Oh.” Her heart sank further. “Oh, I see the killer is low on the list compared to my spending habits, huh?”
“Of course you spoil those kids, and everybody else, I got to make sure you save some for yourself.” Erick was glad that Jenni was relaxed a bit.
“Hey you two stop talking and get back to work.” The boss comes in. “Jenni you have a meeting in 5 minutes.”
“Yeah I got a meeting for the big wigs you going to be in there?’
“Nah, I have to go back out tonight.”
“Be careful.”
“I will see you later.” Erick says squeezes her knee and gets up to leave.
“Get some good sleep; go home, not to the sleep room.”
“Fine, I will go home.” With that Erick leaves and Jennifer walks down to the conference room glancing at the clock, it is only nine in the morning. She has to pick the kids up at one today and then in the morning ship them off to Iowa. She walks into the conference room and starts. “Okay good morning ladies and gentlemen let’s get started.” Jenni passes around 2 folders each to the 10 people sitting at the long table and takes a sit at the front of the table. “You have two profiles in front of you one is made for this case based on the three deaths. The other is a fictional case file I created for my final project. You may be asking yourself why the fictional case is important, it is because the killer has had access to it and is copying it to perfection.”
“Do we have any suspects”, the director of the unit asks.
“Well at this point the suspects are anybody who would have had access to the fictional file.”
“It says here that in the fictional file it was woman who did the killings.”
“Yes, but we do believe a male is responsible for these crimes. The sheer force it would have taken to create most of the wounds on the victims’ show that the person had to be very strong. The forensic anthropologist who has studied the bones, have concluded that. Now there is a time line on December 19th the first body was found, the victim’s name is Martha Jones, she was stabbed 117 times. The next body was found on December 20th the second victim is Martha Smith stabbed again 117 times. The newspapers also dubbing the killer the ripper reincarnated. Then today December 21st the third victim is found stabbed again 117 times, the name of the victim is Martha Hanson. Josh is at the crime scene, processing the most recent one first then he will go to the other two. We are now also looking for abandoned vehicles word on the street is this killer has been using multiple cars, and he may be from Minnesota, as a witness places a Minnesota license plate at the pickup site.”
“Is the source reliable?”
“Won’t talk to the cops outright she is a pro.”
“So she is not the best witness, because of biased opinions.”
“Right, but they seem to have good memories; also the targets happen to be new to the street. Now if the killer follows my profile the next body won’t be until the 11th of January, but it is going to be more mutilated, this will not be good for the victims nor us, because there is going to be less of useable evidence with so much blood. Now we hope a mistake was made at the third crime scene. But we have to be careful it could be a plant, and we should consider it a plant. There as a band aid dropped at the third crime scene in the fictional profile. The killer cut herself at the first crime scene, but this time washing their hands in a building we may find blood on it if this is not a plant. We are hoping for prints but it is unlikely we will find any. We need mistakes from the killer; the plant may throw off any chance of a conviction.”
“How are we going to go about this, if there is a plant?”
“Well the situation is that it is going to be someone who read the project. So we are going to limit this investigation to Mike, Erick Josh, and Joseph.”
“Okay any other agents needed?”
“No maybe Josh will need help at the crime scene, keep it limited to the night shift though, and no students. This could be a student as well, and that will not look good if it is and we allowed them to work with us, so as of now there will be no student assignments.”
“What will we have the students do, we can’t graduate them without having them do something.”
“Have them make their profiles.”
“Fine, so we need to interview them all?”
“Yes, ideally, but we are going to start with the ones who checked out my project first.”
“That is a good Idea. Who is going to be placed on it?”
“Well Josh is with the locals and working the crime scenes, Erick is the undercover, I am the brains, and Joseph is the tech man, de we have another fielder?”
Mike speaks up “You can do it, Jennifer.”
Shocked Jennifer responds “I am not a fielder, never have been.”
“Well there is no time like the present.”
“One issue is that the students are gone until the 15th, which can lead us to believe it is one of the students.”
“Okay so find out who checked out the info then interview them when they get back, Josh is going to be at the crime scenes for a while and you and Erick have vacation, I am not going to take that away from you, you only take it once a year, until I force you to take some. When do you get back?” Mike asks.
“On the 6th of January, school starts up again for the kids.”
“Well you leave the 23rd, and today is the 21st so ahead and get the names and your thesis if it is in, and go through the students profiles and psych evals, so we can figure out who to interview first.” Mike states.
Jennifer takes control of the meeting again “Okay so the next meeting will be on the 7th, hopefully we will have starting point then and enough research on the crime scenes and the evals at that time.” With that she left the room, glancing at the clock she saw it was eleven in the morning, she had just enough time to head to the library and see who has checked out her project in the last 9 years, it is unfortunate the newspaper, connected Jack the Ripper to this, they may not be for off, because the woman in her thesis wanted to triple Jack’s count. Just then her phone rings and she answers it, it is Erick. “Hey Erick why are you not asleep?”
“I wanted to know what is going on and what your real thoughts are.” At this time Jennifer walks in to the library.
“Just a moment Erick” she places the phone on her shoulder, and talks to the elderly woman behind the counter, “I need the names of the people who checked out a project called The Woman Scorned, by me, Jennifer Anderson, and the project as well, I am checking it out.”
“Okay” The elderly woman whose name tag stated Bridget prints out a list of the computer “here you are these are from the last four years it will be about 20 minutes to get the other names, they are not in the computer, and the project is in I will get it.”
“Thank you,” Bridget walks away into the back, and Jenni writes down her name at the top. “Now Erick, the killer wants to trip Jack’s count exactly, look three women named Martha, and 117 stab wounds that is 3 times Jack’s 35 on the first victim.”
“What about the dates they don’t match?” Erick is asking.
“Dates don’t matter to her, holidays are better as they tend to cause more pain to the families and that is what she gets off on, the extreme pain of the act, well at least in my profile she did."
“Well, I don’t know about this one, because it seems they are either going to be setting you up, or something weird to do with you, I don’t like it.”
“Yeah I know what you mean, even the first names of the victims are matching Jack’s though, I am waiting for the list of people who checked out my thesis now, and waiting for the librarian to come back, but I believe that the next targets are going to be Mary Ann, three women by this name and each of the names, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary Ann again.”
“You be careful. Are you picking up the children after this?”
“Yeah, I have to pick them up at 1pm.”
“Pick me up.”
“You don’t have to come with us.”
“I know I don’t but I want to, come pick me up.”
“You should sleep” she hears him sigh, “Fine I will pick you up after I am done here; it is close to one now, until then later.”
“Later.” With that they hung up the phone. Jennifer sees Bridget walking back.
“Honey” Bridget is back, “I found the rest of the names, you have a total of 345 students that check out your thesis, and then there are 50 profilers that are granted access, and the 30 fielders and 30 of our psychologists. And out of that 49 profilers, not including you, with you it 50, and 25 fielders and all 30 of the psychologists, have checked it out, a total of 449 names.”
“Thank you. Have a nice day.”
“You have a nice day as well.” Bridget walks back in the back and Jennifer takes the list of names and the copy of the project, that doesn’t mean the killer hasn’t made a copy but it is better to be safe. Jennifer places the info in her case and walks out to her car; and drives over to Erick’s knowing it will be like 2 minutes to one before she gets to the school. She pulls out and he is waiting, it is a bit chilly so he is wearing a leather jacket, jeans a black tee and black leather cowboy boots, it took Jennifer’s breath away.
“Hey Jenni” he states as he gets into the passenger seat. “What did you find out?”
Jennifer pulls away and hands him a list of names. “449 people to interview. That is most of the students who have been in class after us and then of course there was only 470 if us who had access to it.”
“Damn Jenni, your project is popular.”
“Yeah, and with you too I see, why did you check it out, you were the first person to check it out.”
“I didn’t check out your project.”
“But you know is right there in black and white. I am just curious.”
“I am telling you Jenni, I did not. I proof read it for you, wouldn’t need to check it out.”
“Then who used your ID?”
“I don’t know but remember on the last day of class we were assigned together we went out and remember how drunk I was, I lost the ID card and had to get a new one, and this was checked out that very next day.”
“Damn…” Jenni stated as she parked her SUV in front of the school, the time being 12:58 PM, just two minutes before the children were out and work talk stopped.
“Yeah, I know, we may never find the suspect now it could be anybody.”
“Yep, it is going to be a waste of our time to interview all the people to check out the thesis but we are going to have to still do that once classes are back in session.”
“Hey, who knows maybe the person has gotten their own id since they used mine.”
“Yeah maybe, you keep up the positive thinking Erick and let me know if that is going well.”
“Stop being so negative Jenni.” The school bell rings.
“Where to go for lunch Erick, we have 4 little monsters to feed.”
“Let’s ask them” Erick states pointing to my 4 children as they are getting to the SUV.
“Hey mom, Hey Erick, Hey Mom Hey Erick, Hi mom, Erick, Hi mom, Hello Erick,” is what they hear from the four children as they get into the car Jenni turns around.
“What do you guys want to eat?”
“Can we have Burger King Mom can we, we never get to have it often.” John asks.
“You all want Burger King?” Jenni sees all four heads nod. “Why”
Evelyn decides to answer for the group “the toys everybody has these I toys we want them they have cats!”
“Dogs” Chris states.
“Penguins” John states.
“What do you want Agnes?” Erick asks.
“I don’t know I want to see them first.” Agnes answers.
“Okay I guess Burger King is okay.” Jenni states as she pulls out of the school parking lot. “How was school today?”
Chris decides to answer first “it was so not worth it there was no dodge ball, just stupid health class.” Chris is the athlete of the group, he went out for every sport there was, and he is a star on his football team.
“I liked it, it was very interesting, we learned about the human organs.” Agnes said, she is the book worm of the group and very picky about how she phases what she says.
“I liked art class today we got to use charcoal and we learned about how to use negative space.” Eve stated she is the artist of the group, everything from crayons to paint and charcoal, ever since she was born almost.
John who is the history buff stated “I liked history we are learning about World War I now.” Though all this Jennifer listens and Erick smiles.
“I can see the charcoal Eve, WWI is very interesting John, you will enjoy that. Sorry about dodge ball Chris, but Ag I am glad you liked health class.”
Jennifer pulled up to the local Burger King and was shutting of the SUV as Erick said” Lets go get a table and then we can order.” He opened the doors for the kids to get out and watched them as they walked into the fast food joint. He got them settled while Jennifer walked up to the counter and ordered four happy meals, chicken nuggets with apple fries and juice, with two penguin, one dog and one cat toys. She ordered a tender grill meal and Erick got a double whopper meal with a coke.
“So kids, what is it you want for Christmas?” Erick was asking while Jennifer set the food out. Of course they all started to talk at once. Laughing Erick continued “Whoa guys one at a time, Agnes what do you want?”
