Criminal Minds

A man is racing away from a cabin and running through a heavily wooded area with the FBI and Det. Bunting with the Lockport, New York, police department in pursuit. He is captured and wrestled to the ground by Agents Morgan and Prentiss.

Prentiss: Dale Schrader, you're under arrest for the murder of Stacy Ryan and the kidnapping of your daughter, Jenny.

With Prentiss seated in the front seat with Bunting and Dale Schrader handcuffed in the backseat, Schrader is being driven to the police station. Schrader feigns illness to force Bunting to stop the car, which is broadsided by a large truck that sends the car hurling over an embankment and tumbling down into a ravine.

Prentiss is seriously injured and in shock as she watches helplessly as Schrader reaches to the front of the car and strangles Bunting to death. She is unable to move. The driver of the truck reaches the mangled car and opens the back door. He helps Schrader, who has been injured, escape. Prentiss crawls out of the wreckage and climbs up the cliff emptying her weapon as she climbs, but is unable to strike her fleeing target. Both men escape before Morgan arrives at the scene.

Prentiss: Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure." Tacitus

Morgan appears at the scene of the accident and calls for an ambulance to take Prentiss to the hospital. As they wait, she relays the bad news to Morgan: Schrader has a partner.

In Lockport, the team discusses Schrader's case file to determine his motivation. He'd spent 11 years in prison on a 15-year sentence and had been released early for good behavior. Once out, he commits murder and kidnaps his daughter. One act of violence and one based on emotion. Nothing seems to fit, so they review his entire record. They learn he'd been in prison with Stacy Ryan's brother, but he was now dead. They're unable to find a connection between Schrader and Stacy, other than she had been a junkie.

Schrader and his partner drive to the home of Dan Otey, the man who had robbed banks with Schrader but turned him in and was the reason Schrader had been in prison. Seeking revenge, Schrader walks to Otey's front door and fires three shots into the door. Otey is killed, but his family isn't harmed.

At the police station, Morgan regresses Prentiss to help her remember the accident and try to remember more about the mysterious partner. Afterward, all personnel files from the Police Academy are examined, then narrowed down to those officers who'd graduated but did not pursue a career in law enforcement. The name Joey Short is revealed. He had worked in construction and been to rehab. Prentiss identifies a photograph of an officer who had quit the force – Joe Muller. Muller had gone from the Academy straight to working as an undercover cop. He'd entered the bank robbery world to catch Dale Schrader. He did not testify at the trial. Schrader then realized Joey Short was really a cop. He began to plan retaliation against him.

At the police station, Joe Muller enters the property room, shares pleasantries with the clerk who recognizes him, and removes a key from the box containing the evidence from the Schrader case, then leaves. Prentiss and Morgan appear minutes after he leaves, and then they run out to catch him. They know the key is to a safety deposit box and believes Schrader had hidden his stolen money in it. He needed Joe to go into the bank to get it because Schrader would be recognized instantly.

Outside in the truck, Joe realizes that once he gets the money, Schrader will kill him. Joe is actually being forced to help because Schrader is holding Joe's family hostage. Prentiss and Morgan run up to the truck and demand that Schrader drop the gun being held on Joe. When he doesn't, Prentiss fires her weapon and kills him. Muller is horrified because Dale is the only person who knows where Joe's wife and children are being kept.

Back inside the police station, Joe Muller helps them fill in missing details. He recalls the day his family had been abducted. He tells the team that Otey had ratted out Dale, so he killed him. Stacy Ryan knew about the family and where they were. Joe tells them she had been murdered by Dale in a bad part of town – frequented by junkies. He moved her body to another location possibly in an attempt to conceal where the family was actually being held captive.

Prentiss: Can you take us there?

Joe Muller: Wait. You think she knew about my family?

Prentiss: Her murder was the only thing that didn't fit and now it makes sense. Schrader killed her to shut her up.

The team rushes to a crack house and enters to locate Joe's family. They encounter a junkie who pleads he doesn't know anything. However, he had been hired by Schrader and was involved by making sure the family didn't escape.

Joe's wife and children are found and they are safe and unharmed. As they are reunited, the team stands by and watches the emotional scene.

Prentiss: Washington Irving said, "There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love."

At BAU headquarters, Morgan is in his office as Hotch enters to tell him he had exceeded all expectations as Unit Chief. Morgan hands Hotch the finished paperwork file, and tells him to go home and spend time with his son. He then offers to do the paperwork for Hotch on a regular basis.

Hotch: You don't have to do that anymore.

Morgan: I know I don't. But I also know what it's like to be raised by a single parent. Every minute counts.