"You can copy all you want, you will always be one step behind"
-Unknown-

"A row house in DuPont Circle" Maya repeats what Emily said. Emily is thinking of buying a house, but she acts as if she's afraid to get it. "Orthophoria- fear of owning personal property" Reid states making Maya burst out into laughter.

"There's no way that's a real thing but it sums up this situation perfectly" Maya says as she pats Emily on the shoulders.

"What? Maya, what about your house? You weren't scared to buy it?" Emily asks, trying to find someone who connects with her. "No, it's a 2 bedroom house downtown and it was right in my budget" Maya says. "You are talking about a property that weighs 300 tons" Maya states.

"Actually, depending on materials used, square footage, and horizontal versus vertical construction, the average house only weighs 60 tons" Reid states. "See?" Maya questions making Emily scoff jokingly.

"I feel like as a bird already" Emily jokes as her, Maya, JJ, Reid and Garcia enter the conference room to discuss the new case.

It turns out the icepick stabbing of a blonde woman, Cara Smith, was the executed man, Garret, M.O., so they likely have a copycat on their hands or someone creating doubt the right person was executed.

"In Garret's case there was no doubt. His guilt was the slam dunk of all slam dunks" Rossi states.

"He even led the police to where he buried two of his victims" Reid informs making Maya raise her eyebrows in shock. "Garret killed 25 women before he was even caught so, if we got a copy cat, the body counts just started" Maya concludes.

Will the team make it to Oklahoma in time to stop him from killing again?

_____

On the plane things get a little crazy. The team learns that the killer's last words were quoting the Arabian Nights, which isn't that odd, other than the killer's lack of sophistication. If this guy was so unsophisticated, how did he managed to murder 25 low-risk victims before being caught?

Low risk, because the new victim was a clean-living college student, which the team announces fits the original killer's profile.

Here's the crazier part, the next kill happened at noon, just six hours after the last murder. So the killer ran right from one victim to the next? "He's on rampage" Maya mumbles as she takes a look at the recent crime photos while Hotch assigns everyone a job, putting Maya and Morgan together to go to the prison.

"You two make a good team" Hotch adds before he takes a seat. Maya and Derek look over to each other, a smile forming on both of their faces before they look away from each other. Little did they know, the rest of the team noticed it too.

_____

Maya and Derek stop by the prison to get some background on the killer. He never contacted anyone but his wife, who was the only person that visited him. Which was darn nice of her, considering all the young girls that her husband murdered. For her part, the wife explains that because the dead guy stood by her when she had cancer, it was her duty to stand by him until his death.

Her next plan? Skip the state to live down the shame of her association with a monster.

There's a little more information from the prison and wife. People visiting prisoners are shuttled in on a bus, then searched before entering, so it would be nearly impossible to get a message in. And the dead guy's wife was so devoted she was out there on every single visiting day.

"How do you like your partner, Derek?" Emily asks as Maya grabs gloves to look over some letters with her.

"What are you talking about?" Maya asks as she looks through some of the letters, not seeing any that scream obsessive. "You two make a great team" Emily mocks Hotch from what he said on the plane.

"Okay, stop. We do make a great team" Maya says as she nudges Emily's shoulder playfully making her chuckle softly.

"Yeah, such a great 'team'" Emily says, putting air quotes over team making Maya knit her eyebrows in confusion. "Why must you use air quotes?" Maya wonders. "When you realize you loveeee, Morgan" Emily says, a little louder causing Maya to widen her eyes in shock.

"You're so annoying" Maya sighs as she snatches the surgical gloves off, walking over to the board that's set up for the case. After a while, the team learns that there isn't anything useful in the letters yet, but at least some expansion on the MO reveals that yes, the low-risk victims are a departure from the previous killer's methodology.

Earlier, when JJ was examining the body of another victim she noticed that the corpse's hair is strangely uneven - and a check of her phone reveals that the hair was much longer last night and figured the unsub was cutting the womens hair so they resembled the old victims all those years ago and turns out, she was right.

Garcia shows security footage of Cara Smith at an ATM and her hair was much longer before she was killed, confirming the unsub cuts their hair but the team doesn't understand why. "What if the unsub finds pleasure in cutting the hair?" Maya wonders. "Trichophila is a fetish where one becomes aroused by the removal of hair" Reid adds, stating that it's possible the unsub can find pleasure in this act.

"Well, now it's starting to look less like a copy cat. It seems this unsub wants to be better" Maya declares, crossing her arms over her chest. "He's also choosing low-risk victims. Garret stayed with high-risk targets like prostitutes, runaways" Reid informs.

"Yeah, according to what I read, Garret for sloppy at some times. He left behind clues that eventually nailed him, but this unsub is careful and meticulous" Maya states, looking around at the team. Even though he leaves doors open and teapots boiling, those things could be intentional because he wants the bodies found so the team knows when and where he's killing.

Emily finally finds something useful in the letters - the same Arabian Nights quote as the killer's last words. And it was sent by the same person who'd crafted a generic 'fan letter'. Emily and Rossi go to talk to the widow of Garret about it, but other than offering the information that it was one of his favorite letters, she doesn't have anything useful to offer.

Profile time. The team lays out some useless information. The killer might be competing with the dead guy, since he's killing lower-risk women, but making them look like the other victims. A curfew is in place to try and stop the killer from finding another victim...

_____

That night, a woman and her boyfriend stop by her home to grab some things, and the presence of a guy foils the killer's scheme. He winds up having to kidnap the woman instead of killing her, driving quickly away from the scene in a vehicle that goes undescribed in the 911 call that a neighbor makes.

"There's nothing like a serial killer on the loose to cut down on traffic" Derek says he drives the SUV with Maya in the passenger seat who decided to ride with Derek all night or patrol the streets to see if they have any luck in finding the killer.

"But as far as we know, the unsub strikes in peoples house not out in the open like this" Maya sighs as she looks out the window, knowing she'll she nothing.

"Don't give up yet, baby" Derek says, causing Maya to look over at him with heat immediately rushing to her cheeks as baby falls out his mouth so normally. Moments later Derek and Maya see a car speeding down the street and give chase, only to discover that it's the boyfriend, who was chasing the killer.

After failing to catch the killer, Derek and Emily head back to the latest victim's house. "I don't think the unsub expected company because the unsub definitely broke in but saw no one was home and waited for her to get back" Maya says as she walks up to Derek who just finished talking with another detective.

"Yeah, he had to improvise since we messed up his plans" Derek says as he gives Garcia a call to see if the recent victim, Emily, could be connected to any of the other victims but Garcia hasn't been able to find anything. Derek ends the call and looks ahead of him, seeing something- someone lying on the ground in the distance.

"Maya, come here!" Derek calls out as he starts rushing to a small alley, seeing the girl lying on the ground. Maya rushes up, seeing it for herself and she can't believe her eyes.

The unsub has removed the girls scalp but still stabbed her in the heart. How did the unsub managed to dodge the hundred police cars out looking for him in the area, circle back, and dump his latest victim in an alley literally one hundred feet from her front door?

_____

Now the sun has risen, and the team is sitting around the police station, wondering why they haven't heard about another body turning up yet. If the killer murdered someone at 6AM as they'd predicted he would, then he must have left the front door closed, and authorities haven't found it yet.

Rossi has more sentiments to share, suggesting that the killer's cycle has ended, since for the first time the sun rose on a world without the original killer in it.

Then the team gets a look at a map of the crime scenes, and it leads to another head-slapping moment.

According to Emily, victim 4 lives at the opposite end of the city from the other victims, so the killer can't possibly be targeting them based on everyone living in his vicinity. Except, victim 2 lives essentially the exact same distance from victim 4 as victim 1 does from 3. None of this invalidates the 'local killer' theory.

The team tries to figure out why the killer would bother bringing his latest victim back to her house, when he would have almost certainly have been caught attempting to do so they figure body placement must have been important, and Reid draw a line linking all of the crime scenes.

Then JJ has an epiphany - what if it's not an arrow at all - if you add rounded lines, it becomes a... heart.

"Garret and the unsub both killed their victims using stab wounds through the heart" Derek states. "And Garret was executed by a shot through the heart" Maya adds on, looking at the heart drawn out on the map.

Hotch walks over, retrieving the arrow markings from the other map and places them on the new map with the heart on it. There's only one arrow that lands in the middle of the heart which leads to Hellen Garrets home. It's all about her.

_____

The team rushes over to the widow's house since there were no cops closer, but she's already gone. Garcia quickly finds out where: The prison, to get her husband's things. Apparently she's already left, though, so while half the team goes to track her down, Hotch, Rossi, and JJ search the house.

They discover that the widow wears wigs.

So, the killer must be taking the hair to make a blonde wig for her? Beyond that, they extrapolate out that the killer must have a romantic obsession with the widow, and the only person she spent enough time within the past decade for that kind of obsession to build would be the bus driver who takes her to prison every week.

He also fits the criteria of having prison connections to arrange the attempted hits on the original killer's life. So, it's the bus driver, who's currently driving around with the widow.

However, will they catch him?

They search his house and find nothing, but since they figure he's making a wig, Garcia searches his credit cards against wig-making supplies and discovers that he had them delivered not to his home, but rather to his murder hovel.

____

The team arrives at the unsubs second location and find Helen Garret and the unsub. He's in love with her but as soon as the FBI enters, he uses her as a shield and puts an ice pick to her neck even though there's no possible way out of the situation.

Hotch tries talking the killer down and the killer admits he won't kill anyone ever again because he got what he wanted all along... Helen.

The team goes along with the killers fantasy and puts their weapons down to make him think he's gotten away with it. The killer realizes that it's the FBI and they can't fool him. He extends his arm out giving Hotch the moment of opportunity to shoot him right in the shoulder so he's not dead.

Case Closed...

_____

On the plane, in which the team talks about Emily's new house and finds out that she got the house. "Congrats" Maya says, patting Emily on the shoulder before she realizes her smile drop suddenly.

"Oh, you regret it" Maya states. "6 seconds. Fastest case of buyer's remorse ever" Rossi jokes, looking at his watch.

Later, the team wonders why two serial killers ended up with the same woman and why Helen was saying her father was right. "Her father told her that she was a divining rod for the evil in men, that she could sniff it out when nobody else could" Rossi answers.

_____

Turns out, the question is answered. The widow goes to visit the new killer in jail because she gets off by being around violent men, and now she's going to devote her life to hanging around a new creep. And since serial killer groupies rarely get the treat of having someone actually kill for them, it should be quite satisfying for her...

"You put up walls so high that only the crazy would climb them to be with you"
-KK. Meade-