Criminal Minds

Even though it's after dark at the BAU, Gideon, Elle, and Reid are in the break room when JJ comes in with a new request for help from the Dayton police department. A serial rapist is on the loose. Three months ago he raped 5 women at a local Bible College, one attack per week. Nine days ago he suddenly began again, raping two women in their thirties. The attacks took place at opposite ends of the city, and the rapist was waiting for the women when they got home. Both JJ and Reid look to Elle for her response to this MO, and she leans back in her chair, trying to look unconcerned. The police know it is the same man because he left voice mail messages for the women – "Freezing them with fear before they even see him," suggests Reid. The police have the rapist's DNA, and his voice on tape, but he is not in the system. Gideon wonders why a rapist with a pattern – attacking college students – would suddenly change – most serial rapists' fantasies are very specific. Gideon tells JJ to call in Hotchner and Morgan: the team is going to Dayton.

It's raining in Dayton, Ohio, and Alicia Jordan gets out of a friend's car and hurries into her home. Unbuttoning her rain coat, she turns on a light and hits the play button on her answering machine. A man's voice says, "I think we're ready to meet. Trust me. I know what you want." She suddenly hears the same voice behind her, in the room – he tells her that she came home early. She backs away from the man in the stocking mask, but he pins her to the wall and covers her mouth, brandishing a gun.

Helen Keller once said, "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it."

On the BAU jet, Hotchner is observing the different moods of the team members on the plane, and how their mindsets are different when the victims are still alive. Elle and Morgan are listening to headphones, Reid is reading a book, and Hotchner and Gideon are looking through the files on the victims. JJ brings them information on the latest victim – Alicia Jordan – all of the details of the crime are the same as the previous two. Reid and Morgan join the discussion, but Elle remains at a distance, removed from the team dynamic. Gideon surmises that the messages left on the answering machines aren't taunts, they are overtures, introductions. He is probably a power-reassurance rapist, and the messages are courtships. He must have stalked them to know that much about their lives. His first victims were college students, religious girls; the team must focus on why this criminal has "gone off script."

Maggie Callahan, lead detective on the case at the Dayton Police Department, has precisely the same thought when she introduces herself to the team at the station. She tells Gideon that she'd like to work the case with him, and help interview all of the victims. Gideon assures her that she will not have to step aside.

Alicia Jordan is undergoing police evidence collection at the emergency room when Hotchner, Elle and Reid walk in, dismissing all of the other police personnel. Hotchner apologizes, but wants to hear her story again. "Every time I think it's over someone else wants to photograph me, or touch me or ask me to relive it," Alicia protests emotionally. Elle, sympathetic to her distress, promises they will keep their questions short.

On the campus of Holy Trinity College, Morgan, JJ and Det. Callahan speak with one of the victims, Cheryl Cosgrove, who is also reluctant to dredge up memories of her attack. The rapist managed to get into the victim's dorm room, even after security was heightened. Her attacker even told her that she should get a dog for protection before he raped her. "Or maybe you could have your parents have Dexter stay with you."

Hotchner asks Alicia what she meant when she said her attacker "knew the things she thought." She says that he told her about taking her away to Positano, Italy, and drinking white wine and listening to Al Green. These details of her life were very personal, and a stranger should not have known them.

When Morgan asks Cheryl if she'd told any boys in her life about the family dog, her eyes shift nervously to JJ as she tells her she doesn't have any experience with men. "There's no one I would have told." Morgan sees Cheryl's reaction to him, and walks off, allowing Det. Callahan and JJ to help her get control of herself. "The police all act like because he didn't kill you he didn't somehow end your life," she says. So many young girls' lives have been ruined. She flashes back to the medical examination – the pictures, the scrutiny – and she remembers how the doctor called her injuries "minor". JJ encourages Cheryl, telling her that she did what she had to do to stay alive: "Don't let anyone tell you different." She hugs the girl as she cries.

Apologizing, Hotchner plays a tape for Alicia, asking her if the man's attitude was the same as her attacker's. She says he sounded different when he attacked her – more nervous- even though he had a gun. Reid tells her that on the phone the man could rehearse what he wanted to say, but "in the flesh he can't hide his true self." He goes on to tell her that the attacker thought of this as a "date". Alicia breaks down in tears, and Elle gives her a blanket and tells Hotchner and Reid that that's enough – the interview is over.

The team pulls into an underground parking structure at a hotel, and Hotchner tells them to get a good night's sleep. Elle is bringing up the rear, and looks at the darkness around her nervously. She stops and looks back at the cars. Reid peers from around the corner and asks her if there's a problem. Even though she thinks she left her glasses in the car, she doesn't want to walk back to get them – even with Reid – and she joins him at the elevator.

A man with a camera sits outside a woman's house and takes pictures of her as she arrives home. He watches her through the window.

At the hotel, the moods of the team members are diverse. Hotchner peruses the file in his neat room, pouring himself a cup of coffee that he puts down next to a picture of Haley and Jack that he always takes with him. Morgan is posting attacks on a map of the area that he tacks up against the hotel room mirror. Gideon is taping up pictures of the victims in his room when there is a knock at the door. He opens it and is surprised to find Det. Callahan, who has also taken a room on the hall even though she only lives four blocks away. She doesn't want to be even that far away from the work. She glances down to see that Gideon has a hotel bathrobe stashed in his suitcase. She tells Gideon that Cheryl mentioned all the lives that had been ruined. Since only 20% of rapes are ever reported, Det. Callahan is sure there are other victims out there. Gideon wonders if the unsub's stressor – what caused him to change his targets – was a rape that never got reported. Gideon thinks that Det. Callahan has good instincts.

In JJ's room, she's also looking at pictures of the victims of the rapes, while next door, Reid stands lost in thought, books and files open on his bed. He seems to make up his mind about something and quickly heads for the door. In contrast, no files, books or pictures are out in Elle's room. She's heading for the mini-bar when Reid knocks at the door. She claims to be fine when Reid asks if she's okay, but he brushes past her into the room anyway. She notices his surprised look at the two tiny bottles of booze in her hand, and the two empty ones already on the table. As she pours, Reid asks her if she wants to talk. Elle brusquely tells him to stop profiling her, but he persists. "Elle, you got shot in your own home, and then you came back to the BAU like nothing ever happened. Thinking you might need to talk isn't profiling – it's Psych 101." She stares at him. "Please?" he begs. Finally, she slides one of the bottles across the table for him, saying, "After he shot me, he reached into my wound so he could write on the wall in my blood." She could feel his hand, and sometimes thinks she can still feel it. Reid attempts to reason with her, telling her the man who shot her is dead and she survived: she should feel victorious. Clearly, Elle doesn't, even as she toasts "to winning."

The next morning, Hotchner thanks the local officers for arriving at the station so early for the BAU briefing. He and Reid pass out folders, and Hotchner begins telling the police about the man they are looking for. He is a power-reassurance rapist, rather than a power-assertive rapist or anger-retaliatory rapist that wants to hurt and traumatize his victims. He targets a specific woman, and he doesn't come across his victims by accident. He has access to homes like a cable guy or a locksmith. Morgan asks the officers to look for any overlap between the college and the community- did they share any workers, for instance. The man lives alone, and may have a job that he feels emasculates him – a typical job for a woman.

After they are finished, JJ tells them about her investigation of any possible rapes that went unreported on the college campus. Although she didn't find any, she did find a girl who committed suicide almost exactly when the campus attacks stopped. As she wonders if there are more victims out there, we see a collage of photographs of women – some college students, some older – many more women than have reported rapes. And the unsub is looking at these photographs as he gets dressed.

Hotchner and Det. Callahan interview the parents of Shelly Norvell, the college student who committed suicide. He asks if Shelly had been assaulted, but Mrs. Norvell firmly denies it. Mr. Norvell says that Shelly put a lot of pressure on herself. Shelly's mother flies into a rage when Hotchner asks about a note Shelly might have left. Det. Callahan tells Mrs. Norvell about her own daughter, and how she'd want to help the police if something like this ever happened to her. Mrs. Norvell abruptly leaves, but as Mr. Norvell is seeing the officers out, he takes a plain envelope from a desk drawer and hands it to Det. Callahan with the statement, "I love my wife." The note reveals that Shelly was raped, and was pregnant. She chose suicide over abortion because she couldn't bring the rapist's child into the world. The college rapes stopped right after she died because, in the rapist's mind, Shelly killed his baby. Hotchner calls Gideon to tell him about the situation.

Gideon, Reid and Elle go back to Alicia Jordan, to ask her if the unsub mentioned anything about children or suicide – some kind of personal tragedy. They tell her about Shelly Norvell taking her own life when she got pregnant, and Alicia is stunned – she is trying to have a baby. She had an appointment at a fertility clinic a few days before she was attacked. She's 38 and didn't want to wait around any longer for the right man to show up.

Back at the police station, Morgan tells the team that the other two recent victims had been to the same fertility clinic within five days of their attacks. Elle contacts Garcia to go through the employee records of the clinic. Reid realizes that the unsub waits only five days because of the drug regimen employed by clinics – insemination doesn't begin until the drug regimen is complete, and the rapist wants to be sure his sperm is the one that impregnates his victim. He hasn't changed his fantasy of getting a woman pregnant, he's just perfected it. Now he targets women whom he knows will not abort or end their own lives over a pregnancy. If he knew Shelly was pregnant, that means he was watching his past victims. As Gideon speaks about the unsub watching his victims, lying in wait for them, Elle flashes back to her attack by Randall Garner, the "Fisher King". She remembers going into her home and lying down, seeing him standing over her, and the gun pointed at her. Gideon has to repeat her name before she can focus on the present. He tells her to advise Det. Callahan to watch everyone on the victim list.

Reid tells Morgan about a similar case – Gary Heidnik in Philadelphia who kept women as prisoners hoping to impregnate one. Gideon corrects him – Heidnik was a sexual sadist who beat and tortured his victims, even eating one. This unsub is a power-reassurance rapist who believes he is starting families.

Hotchner, Morgan and Det. Callahan go to the Dayton Heights Fertility Clinic to speak with Dr. Wagner. He tells them he is the only male employee, and the publicity associated with this case would ruin him. He even had a vasectomy 25 years ago. Even his cleaning crew and tech support are women. Morgan and Hotchner notice a questionnaire that the doctor hands out to each woman – it includes all of the information that Alicia Jordan told them the rapist knew about. The doctor admits that he sells the forms to a direct marketing company called First Hand Media. Morgan contacts Garcia to see if First Hand Media has any connections with the Bible College. She finds that the media company processes all of the Freshman Orientation Questionnaires. His playful banter with Garcia draws the attention of all of the women in the fertility clinic waiting room. Caught off guard, Morgan says, "Ah, it's a work call."

Gideon, Reid and Elle interview the manager of First Hand Media, Craig Dyson. The man they're looking for is comfortable being on the phone and feels like he knows these women. Unfortunately, every employee has unlimited access to all of the files, so eliminating suspects won't be easy. Elle demands a copy of every questionnaire they've received from the fertility clinic. Reid, hoping to narrow the search, asks about an employee who fits the profile: male, white, from 20-40 years old, socially awkward and unable to make connections. Dyson tells him all of his male workers match that description.

JJ, Reid, Elle and Hotchner pore over the files. Elle goes back to ask the victims if anyone remembers a first name of a telemarketer who may have called. Reid separates all the Dayton clinic files, and mentions that all of the women who were attacked checked a box when asked if it would be okay to contact them on special deals on pediatric items. The rapist saw this as consent – he thinks he's doing them a service. JJ finds a woman who fits all the parameters – the only one from the Dayton clinic. The team has discovered the rapist's next victim.

The police arrive at the darkened and locked home of Lisa Blake. Lisa is tied to her bed and gagged, and the rapist is holding a gun to her head. Getting no answer at the door, the police leave. A few hours later, Lisa is being wheeled into an ambulance, and police cars are all over the street, lights flashing. Elle confronts Det. Callahan, asking her what her men were doing leaving the woman to get raped. Even when Morgan tries to calm her, telling her there was no more the police could have done, Elle is angry and defiant.

Back at the hotel, Gideon, Hotchner and Det. Callahan know there is not another potential victim in the questionnaires. If the unsub thinks they are closing in, he can take off for another city – the telemarketing company handles cities all over the Great Lakes Region. He's looking for more victims, so they're going to give him one. "Do you think Elle's ready for it?" asks Hotchner. "We'll be there for her," answers Gideon.

A technician fits Elle with a wire, taping it next to the gunshot scar on her chest. She'll be undercover as a 36-year-old secretary, and they've backdated the fertility center questionnaire two days. Morgan and Hotchner tell her she has to let the rapist see her – he wants to stalk her, and he wants to see her leave so he can break in and be waiting for her. As they talk, Elle cannot help remembering her attack, and her own blood being used to write on her wall. They tell her not to wear her gun, but to have it stashed nearby so she can get to it. Morgan tells her he will be out front, and Hotchner and Gideon will be around the corner in the surveillance van. Morgan holds out his fist. "Hey, you good?" Elle touches knuckles with him. "I'm good."

Elle pulls into a suburban driveway and goes into the house. She glances at herself in the mirror inside the front door, and sees her face among the pictures of the rapist's victims. She stashes her gun in a drawer. She sits and rests her head on the back of the couch, remembering her attack once again. Several hours later, Hotchner is wondering why Elle hasn't left the house. She seems to be sinking further and further into her memories, and is startled when the phone rings – Morgan is trying to call her to find out what the problem is. Elle just stares at the phone. Outside, a Jeep pulls up in front of the house. Morgan gives the plate number to Garcia, and she pulls up the records of William Lee who works at First Hand Media. Elle grabs the gun from the drawer and walks outside with her car keys, heading towards her car. This is what Hotchner and the team have been waiting for – so that they can catch the rapist breaking into the house while she's gone. But Elle doesn't get into the car. Hotchner realizes that Elle is panicking. She sees the Jeep parked on the street, and, as Morgan, Hotchner and Gideon watch, she pulls out her gun and approaches the driver. The other agents move in hurriedly to back her up. She pulls Lee out of the car and onto the ground, screaming at him as the police move in and cuff him. Lee claims he just stopped to look at a map, and Hotchner finds an open map on the front seat.

Gideon and Hotchner interrogate Lee as Morgan and Reid watch through the one-way glass. Gideon empathizes with Lee, telling him he understands that he really cared about these women. Reid fills Morgan in on Lee's background – that he's 28, can't keep a job, and lives with a mother with pancreatic cancer. Morgan tells Reid that Gideon and Hotchner are using "deep empathy" to try to get Lee to confess. They have no real evidence to hold him on. Just as Gideon and Hotchner begin to build Lee's confidence, telling him that he's the best thing that ever happened to these women, Lee's lawyer shows up and tells him not to say a word. He hauls Lee out of his chair and leads him out of the station, right past a horrified Elle.

Elle practically screams at Hotchner, "You're letting him walk?" Morgan interposes his body, and tells her to back off, but she's almost out of control. Hotchner tells her that Lee is free only because she panicked. Finally, Elle lets everything out: "I'm supposed to believe that you've got my back? The last time you sent me home, Hotch, you got me shot!" Gideon pulls her into an office alone. He tells her she needs to think about this job, and about what she's been through and is capable of. She stalks out the door, and throws off Reid's comforting hand as she leaves the station.

The BAU SUVs pull into the hotel parking garage again. Det. Callahan wants to know what happens next. Gideon and Hotchner advise her that she's identified the rapist – she just has to wait until he makes a wrong move to arrest him. Meanwhile, William Lee parks his Jeep behind his building. As he walks through the alley, Elle comes out of the shadows, confronting him, asking him if he waits for his victims like this. At first he seems scared that she is there, but then denies her claims that he hurt women. He tells her she is pretty, and that she should find a man to take care of her. "I'm just here to let you know that I'm not going to rest until you go away," snarls Elle. He thanks her – without her, he knows he would still be locked up. Lee gets very close to Elle and whispers, "Thank you. You've made a lot of women very happy." Elle seems paralyzed by his words until he walks away. Then she turns and gets his attention. She pulls out her gun and shoots him three times. She crouches down next to the body, and then calls the police.

When Hotchner and Gideon arrive, Det. Callahan is already at the scene. Elle claims she was having a conversation with Lee when he drew his weapon and she was forced to fire. Callahan explains the situation to Hotchner, telling him it sounds like cut-and-dried self defense, and that they will be able to talk to her after she is processed. As Elle is put into the police car, she meets Gideon's eyes and holds his gaze for a long moment before lifting her chin and lowering herself into the car. Hotchner and Gideon look on in silence as Lee's body is covered with a tarp.