#Pabalo Vargas

[gryfflepuffinthetardis]

Machismo

Season One Masterlist

L.D.S.K.

The Fox

Warning: References past rapes; Murders; the Valdezes; Dialogues of Spanish (will be translated at the end of post via Google Translate so possibly incorrectly); Maze Valdez (She is a true warning in of itself but mild in here); References to six months of torture; Zoe is alienated, isolated, and straight-up ignored by the citizens of Oaxaca; Zoe is implied to be alienated by her family; Zoe being colder than usual; Oaxaca is probably not accurate; Hints of rape of main character; Hints/References to homophobia; "Housemates" is used to refer to a relationship between two lesbians but this is only what they claim to the public

Note:  It's implied that this episode takes place during Dias De Los Muertos/Day of the Dead which take place on November first and November second, therefore that's when Hotch's birthday is and it just seems out of place in the canon order so I moved it, but also the dates used on the criminalminds.fandom.com (under the UnSubs' (known victims") are still off; City change to Oaxaca (but the dialogue implies it's a part of it where it's like a small town and there are few non-Valdez police officers at the station); Character change—Navarro is now Ciara Valdez; Like in the show, we're pretending that maiden names is a thing in Mexico, which it is not.

Summary: The BAU is requested to assist on a case in Zoe's maternal family's hometown in Mexico, Oaxaca and the team meets some of her family members, Ciara Valdez, the human equivalent of being hugged by the cartoon smiling sunshine and Maze Valdez who makes Zoe seem well-mannered.

"There is nothing stronger than a woman who has rebuilt herself" — Hannah Gadsby

November 2, 2005

On his birthday, Hotch walked his crying baby son, Jack down the stairs, trying to soothe him.

"Hey, what's that about? What's that all about? It's okay. It's okay. I'm a little grumpy when I wake up sometimes, too."

In the living room waited Hotch's wife, Haley Hotchner and her sister, Jessica Brookes, they pointed to a sign put up that said: Happy birthday, daddy, as if Jack had done it.

And they laughed.

"That's great, you guys." He looked down at his fussy son, "See what you did?" But he kept crying.

"Here." Hayley held out her hands

"I got him. Yeah, it's okay." Hotch said, bouncing a still fussy Jack. The phone in the kitchen started to ring. "Can you grab that?" Hotch asked Hayley who went to do so. "Thanks."

Jessica had her arms crossed and she criticized Hotch, "You're holding him like a cantaloupe."

"What? You think you can do better?" Hotch scoffed and Jessica held out her hands to take Jack. "Okay, smarty pants, knock yourself out." Hotch started to hand Jack to Jessica. "There we go. It's okay. It's for the..." Jack immediately stopped crying. Hotch wasn't amused. He glared at his sister-in-law and said, "All right, let's see you profile a disorganized psychopath."

"It's your life." Hayley said, handing the phone to Hotch.

Hotch brought the phone to his ear, "Yeah?"

"Hey, I know you're taking the weekend, but I wanted to let you know we got a call..."

When Hotch got off the phone, he went back to his family, Hayley sighed and said, "Go."

"It's just a briefing." He reassured her. "A couple of hours and I'll be back, okay?"

"It's okay. Go. They need you. It's all right. I'm not mad." Hayley told him, clearly disappointed as she cleared up the table and kissed his cheek. "Go."

Baby Jack fussed some more as Jessica looked at him with disapproval

"You heard her. She said it was all right." Hotch said.

"You're one hell of a profiler." Jessica scoffed.

"Oaxaca, Mexico," JJ siad and Zoe looked up, that was primairly the city where her maternal family was, that was where she and Zarah were kidnapped. "The victim is Lupe Trejo, sixty-two. She was found in her home stabbed in the face, chest and genitals. The papers down there connected her murder to eleven others in the past two years, all elderly women. They're saying it's the work of a serial killer."

"Mexican government disagrees." Gideon said.

"So if the government denies that this is a serial killer, why'd they call us?"

"And we were asked specifically." Alexander said, making a face.

"Why?" Zoe asked and looked up at her dad and then dropped her file on the table. "No. No. No. Don't make that face. That's your awkward interacting with family face. What are you doing?"

"It's affecting your mother's family's part of the city and they're insisting that it's the work of a serial killer."

"Dad!"

"It's your cousins."

"Which ones?"

"Eh, there's too many for me to name or count." 

Zoe didn't look amused.

"They have a suspect in custody, the victim's son. We're the serial killer experts, they want us to go down there and confirm that this was just a onetime killing. Put the serial killer angle to bed."

"Except the Valdezes say that's... some curse word in Spanish and that it is a serial killer." Alexander added. "And they're stuborn."

"So, we're going all the way down there just to prove they don't have a serial killer?" Morgan asked.

"Maybe. Or we're going down there to tell them if what I've read in the Mexican papers is true, they've got one of the worst serial killers the country's ever seen."

"Let's go." Alexander said and hurried out of the room.

"Dad!" Zoe shouted, speed-walking after him

——————————————————————————————————————

Anthony Brandt wrote, "Other things may change us, but we start and end with family."

Hotch was clearly upset about something but didn’t speak and they knew if they asked, he wouldn’t answer them, honestly.

“Hey. At least you get to spend your birthday weekend in Mexico.” JJ said.

“Yeah, what’s ‘dog house’ in Spanish?” Hotch scoffed, sarcastically.

“La ca-sa del pair-o.” Spencer mispronounced.

“La casita del perro.” Elle and Zoe corrected in unison.

“That’s what I said.” Spencer said.

“Face it, chico. You’re only a genius in English. So, I don’t know how much help you’ll be on his mission, insoportable sabelotodo.”

“Did you just call me an ‘insufferable know-it-all’ in Spanish?”

“Yeah, I’m fluent in many languages. I’ve been fluent in Spanish as long as I have in English. Half my family’s hispanic.”

“The one’s we’re going to meet?”

"Uh, yeah. My aunt Ciara is the lead detective on the case. She was mom's little sister." Zoe said, on her phone.

"All right, so why are there so few serial killers in Mexico?" JJ asked.

"They probably have as many as we do, but they document almost none of them." Hotch said.

"Why is that?" JJ asked.

"It's the Chikatilo Syndrome." Gideon said.

"The what?"

"Andrei Chikatilo, he was one of the most prolific serial killers of the twentieth century. By the time they found him, he'd killed more than fifty people." Spencer explained.

"He was no more experienced than any average serial killer, but lived in the Soviet Ukraine. Soviets were convinced serial killers, uniquely American phenomenon." Gideon said and then immitated a Russian accent, "Inevitable result of decadent capitalism.

"So what's the cultural bias in Mexico?" JJ asked.

"Many Mexicans believe that serial killers are the result of the breakdown of the family, which gives rise to the kind of alienated loner who becomes a serial killer." Hotch said and Zoe huffed.

"It's a fact there are twelve times as many broken families in the US than in México." Spencer said, pronucing Mexico with the accent.

"Yeah, spend five minutes in town and you'll see how much they belive it." Zoe muttered.

"All right, so is it possible there are fewer serial killers in Mexican culture?" JJ asked.

"It is possible, but in my experience, evil is not a cultural phenomenon, it's a human one."

"Fuck!" Zoe groaned.

"What?"

"Maze just arrived in Oaxaca."

"Your mentor?"

"Slash-psycho cousin."

"What's she like exactly?"

"Uh, you know how I'm violent and dangeorus?"

"You're aware of that?"

"She's worse. She's like a semi-high-funtctioning psychopath. She makes me look sane." She said.

——————————————————————————————————————

Maze made herself known at once at the airport by stepping inside. Not only was she one of the most beaitful women in the airport but she was dressed in rather low cut clothing and carrying an odd knife and then shouted at the top of her lungs: "WHICH OF YOU MIDLIFE CRISES IS JASON GIDEON!?"

"Maze!" Zoe shouted.

"Hey, Zoe!" Maze greeted, warmly, giving her younger cousin a side hug before looking at the rest of the team, skeptically like she was trying to decide who to cut down.

"Where's Ciara!?" Zoe asked, loudly.

"ZOZO!" A voice squealed before she was attacked with a hug with a very, very bubbly woman with her dark hair held in a ponytail, she was dressed she bought her entire wardrobe at Comic-Con.

Morgan looked at the others, "What the fuck?"

"Uh, Detective Valdez..."

"Oh, there are so many Valdezes here, you might as well call my by my first name, Cirara, nice to meet you." Ciara hugged JJ like they were old friends.

"She's a hugger." Zoe deadpanned.

"We noticed."

"Uh, Ciara, I'd like to get a handle on the type of press this has been getting and meet some of your local police here." JJ said.

"Of course, but I imagine you would all like to settle into your rooms and rest before we go?" Ciara suggested.

"Nope. We're ready.

——————————————————————————————————————

Zoe and Maze arrived on their motorcycles before the others.

"What's all this?" Morgan asked when he, Spencer, and an officer, Lieutenant Borquez got out of their car.

"Dia de los meurtos." Zoe said.

"Day of the Dead. Three-day Latin holiday where souls of dead relatives are said to return to earth to enjoy the pleasures that they once knew of." Spencer said.

"He sounds like he was reading that out of a book."  Borquez said.

"Trust me, he always sounds like that." Morgan said.

"Actually, I was reading. I picked this pamphlet up at the airport." Spencer said, holding said pamplet.

"You're a virgin, right?" Maze said, bluntly.

"Maze! You can't just ask my teammates that!" Zoe shouted.

"La Llorona!" A kid said loudly to his friends, pointing at Zoe and they ran off.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Ignore them." Zoe said, truging on as a mother pulled her child away from Zoe as if she were a predator.

They joined the other group as they approached the crime scene, ""As profilers, I thought you'd want to see the crime scene first before meeting the suspects. Yes?"

"You read any Max Ryan or David Rossi's books?" Gideon asked.

"The men who helped raise my precious sobrina over there? Of course, but I actually got it from my older sister's binders of behavioral science." Ciara said. "The victim's name is Lupe Trejo, sixty-two. She was found in the bedroom by the daughter. No sign of forced entry."

"Are there always this many people around?" Hotch asked.

"No. Church just got out. They are walking home from the town square."

Some of the people were pointing at Zoe and Maze, some moving faster, trying not to look at them.

"What time was she killed?"

"I am guessing sometime during the evening mass. There wouldn't have been a lot of people around, otherwise he would have been seen." Ciara said.

"Unless he blended right in." Zoe suggested.

"There's the byproduct of my sister's brains!" Ciara cooed.

Zoe rolled her eyes. "Can we go now before a mob forms?" Zoe asked and then walked off. "Maze, come along!"

"So you're Zelena Valdez's sister? You seem a bit young." Morgan said.

"Zelena was my half-sister, we have different mothers, but I loved her even if she was a decade older than me." Ciara said, "And I love that girl in there. A lot of my family resent Zoe but she didn't ask for the mierda she's been given in life."

They entered the house, joining Zoe and Maze. "No forced entry means one of two things." Gideon said.

"A push-in. Holds a gun or a knife to her and forces his way inside." Morgan said.

"The murder weapon, the knife, was taken from the kitchen and placed at the scene." Ciara said.

"In that case, it's most likely that she let the killer in voluntarily. She looked through the peephole, saw someone she recognized. Someone who makes her feel safe." Hotch said.

"She lets him in and then what?" Gideon asked.

Spencer picked up a cup with a little brown liquid still left in it, "They have a drink?" He turned to Ciara, "Hey, have you run a DNA analysis on these?

"The closest thing we have to a crime scene unit is well, me and what I have is a older than Zoe." Ciara sighed.

"Find anything?" Spencer asked.

"The victim's prints were on one. The prints on the other were too smudged to make any match, but I don't think the killer drank this anyway." Ciara said.

"Why not?" Hotch asked.

Zoe brought the cup to her face and sniffed it. "Is this tamarind water?"

"Si."

"It's a common Mexican drink, comes from a plant. It's sweet and tart. You'll usually find women drinking this than men." Zoe said.

"I could see the victim offer this to a woman, but these are a time of festivities, and at night most men would have a shot of tequila, beer, maybe cigarettes." Ciara explained, "This looks like two women to me."

"And you don't think a woman could have done this?" Hotch asked.

"Do you?" Ciara asked.

"It's highly unlikely."

"Not impossible." Maze said and Zoe grabbed the knife she was spinning between her fingers.

"Give them to the FBI. At the very least it'll be able to tell us the gender of the drinkers." Alexander said.

"Where was she killed?" Gideon asked.

"This way." Ciara said and she walked to a bedroom with Gideon, Zoe, and Spencer.

It was an ordinary bedroom, indicated this woman was Christan based off the cross on the wall. Ordinary, except for the bedsheets soaked in blood.

Gideon looked through the drawers of the vanity.

"What are you looking for?" Ciara asked.

"Why? Why'd the UnSub choose this victim? Why did she feel safe enough to let the killer inside?" He found a picture of a man and showedd it  to Ciara, "This her son?"

"That's Miguel." Ciara confirmed.

There were pictures of the rest of the family out in the open. "I'd say Lupe had a problem with him. She has family photographs everywhere, but not Miguel. He's tucked away in her drawer."

As they left the crime scene, Gideon told Ciara, "You are almost certainly looking for a heterosexual male."

"Yes, and you know that because..." Despite her enthusiasm, Ciara trailed off.

"Well, the victim was found on the bed. Multiple stabs wounds to the face, chest, and genital area. All indicators of sexual homicide. In cases of sexual homicide, the attacker targets objects of his or her sexual attraction." Gideon explained.

"Heterosexual men attack women." Hotch said.

"So, homosexual men attack men?" Ciara gathered.

"Did the daughter have any ideas about who might've done this?" Hotch asked.

"She didn't have any ideas about anything. When she found out that her brother was a suspect, she wanted to talk to him alone. I refused because I didn't want them to get their stories straight. Then she stopped talking completely." Ciara explained.

"So, what's she protecting?"

"We're ready to talk to the suspect."  Hotch said.

"Of course, but first there's someone I would like you to meet." Ciara said.

Hotch and Gideon met the district attorney general while the rest of the team went to the police department.

"Nieta!" A voice called. A woman around her sixties came to Zoe, hugging her.

"Abuelita!" Zoe smiled, "Uh, team, this is my abuela, Elena Valdez."

"So, this is the team now. Your mother would be so proud of you."

"She'd be prouder if both her daughters were safe." Zoe said, cynically and walked off.

"Oh, Xiomara." Elena called after her granddaughter.

"Elena." Alexander greeted and hugged the mother of his deceased love.

"Oh, you get skinnier every day I see you."

——————————————————————————————————————

It turned out that Elena's... "housemate", Eva had been the one to bring this to the department's attention, the fact that it may be a serial killer. Eva was the same age but a bit feistier and spoke more Spanish than her.

Oddly enough, it seemed most of the officers were either family friends with the Valdezes or Valdezes themselves. Elena and Eva once worked there themselves.

Ciara returned with Hotch and Gideon and they got back to the case.

"Neighbors heard a loud fight the day of the murder between the victim, her son, daughter and brother-in-law."

"One big, happy family." Elle said, sarcastically.

"Well, the uncle had a solid alibi, but we could not find the son. Then we got a tip he had hired a coyote to take him over the border. We caught him before he crossed." Ciara said and she looked across the room to where a woman was being questioned by an officer. "That's Miguel's sister, Rosa. She's been here ever since she found out that her brother was arrested."

"Seems like she thinks he's innocent." Hotch said.

"The dutiful sister. This way." Ciara said.

She brought Hotch, Gideon, and Alexander to the prison cell with Miguel.

Zoe stared at the wall of pictures, it was of the deceased loved ones of the department. Since most of the department were Valdezes, it was mostly Valdezes on the wall. Arranged by the most recently deceased.

She stared at two pictures. One of her mother and the other of her sister. She slammed the picture of Zarah down.

"Are-are you okay?" Spencer's voice asked and she turned to see him looking at her.

"She's not dead." She said, sharply.

"Are you okay?" He asked again.

"No." She sighed. "I haven't been okay in a long, long time." She looked at him, "Percisely, seventeen miles from here, Zarah and I were kidnapped, four years ago and seconds before that happened... that was the last time I was ever remotely okay."

Then Zoe heard Ciara and Hotch yelling.

"You also knew that a gay man couldn't have committed this murder. That's why you asked us about the sexuality of the killer at the crime scene. You knew Miguel was innocent."

"You do not understand how things work here. If I had told the attorney general that this man is a homosexual and that is why he must be innocent, she would have laughed in my face.

"Why did you lie to us?"

"What the hell is going on here? Hotch, why are you yelling at my aunt?" Zoe demanded, coming in.

"I had to play along with the official line until I could trust that you would come to the same conclusion that I did." Ciara shouted at Hotch.

"So we're here to serve as pawns in your political game?" Hotch asked.

“There is a very bad man in my district, killing women, like my family, and I have known this for a very long time and so far no one will believe me or help me stop him. So, if I have to play politics to protect the women of the city then that is a very small price to pay, don't you agree?"

"Hotch, things are different here. Anyone who has a mental illness is thought of as loco. People suspected of not being heterosexual are shunned. I don't know if you've noticed but the locals don't like me. I'm not exactly mentally stable, I don't conform to their traditional gender norms or gender role of Marianismo, they gossip that I'm not strictly heterosexual because of that, and they blame me for killing my mom and my sister. Why do think this station is half Valdezes? That stuff doesn't matter where we're from but it's different here." Zoe shouted.

"Best way to bring the attorney general on board is by providing a complete profile." Gideon said, calmly.

"What do you need?" Ciara asked, fixing her hair.

"We'll need the files on all the murders."

"Of course, but I must warn you. These reports were taken by local police in the area who are not used to this type of killer. Most basic details are missing.

"Awesome." Zoe muttered and left.

——————————————————————————————————————

Later, they regrouped and Hotch announced, "We also need to get the whole story out of Miguel Trejo and right now he's not talking."

"But why does that matter?" Ciara asked. "Obviously, he's not a serial killer."

"Listen, obviously there's a great deal of anger in the family, and before we give a profile, we need to rule out the fact that this might be a crime of passion and not one of the serial killings." Hotch said.

"And why wouldn't Miguel talk if he's innocent?" Morgan asked.

"It must have something to do with the fact that he is a homosexual." Maze suggested.

"He'd rather be straight in jail than gay as a free man?" Morgan asked.

"What part things are different here, aren't you grasping?" Maze scoffed. She didn't like Morgan too much.

"Now I can see the resemblance." Morgan muttered.

"I can protect him in here, but if he's taken to a prison in Mexico City and the other inmates find out that he is gay, he will be killed." Ciara explained.

"So how do we get him to talk?" Spencer asked.

"Let me talk to the sister." Maze said.

"No!" Zoe and Ciara shouted.

——————————————————————————————————————

"Rosa, do you know the saying... El amor es ciego pero no las vecinas?" Ciara asked. Rosa shook her head. "We know there was a fight. We need to know what it was about."

"Rosa, we know about your brother." Zoe said, gently. "If you don't help us, he could go to prison and he could be killed there. You know this could be his last chance." Rosa was still heistant. "Look, I know you know who I am. Everyone does. But despite what everyone thinks, I would do anything to protect my sister, I didn't kill her and I tried my best to protect her. This is how you can protect Miguel by letting us do our best to prove that he's innocent."

"Miguel has a friend, Roberto. He was outside the house waiting for my brother, watching. He saw the fight with my mother." Rosa said.

"Did Miguel see him?"

"I don't think so."

"Why didn't you tell us about this before?" Elle asked.

"Because it would mean telling you that Miguel is..." She trailed off, "Like you said, if he goes to prison and they know this about him, they will kill him and I cannot risk that."

"But you're talking about the man who might have murdered your mother." Elle said.

"You do not understand how bad it is. You do not understand the shame."  Her voice broke and something shifted in Zoe's eyes, the intensity. "You do not understand what people will do to us. I just lost my mother. I cannot lose Miguel. La familia es toda."

"I understand, Rosa. I understand a whole of a hell lot better than you think." Zoe said, softly.

"Family is everything."

——————————————————————————————————————

"She may have come clean about that day, but I still think she's hiding something." Elle said.

"The way she went on about shame, almost like she was talking about herself." Zoe said, spinning her spinner ring with her thumb. Maze stared at her with for the first time all day, sympathy.

"This is interesting. Before Miguel met Roberto, Roberto had a wife." Ciara said, placing a paper down, making Gideon put on his glasses to read it.

"Well, if he was bisexual..." Elle said and Maze gave her a look.

"It makes him capable of sexual homicide of a woman." Gideon finished.

"And if he blamed Miguel's mother for denying their relationship, that would give him motive." Ciara added.

——————————————————————————————————————

Zoe told them that she wouldn't have much luck talking to locals so she stayed in the station where still the non-Valdezes would look at her when they thought she didn't notice.

"What—what's going on with Zoe?" Spencer asked Elena.

"Xiomara doesn't rub well with the locals around here. Never did. She challenged them, scared them when she thought they were being rude. They blame her for my daughter's death but it wasn't her fault. But it got really bad four years ago, when while on a visit, the twins went out and we realized they were missing the next day. Eight months later, Xiomara was found, having broken into a police station, half-awake but Zarah... they accused her of killing her sister, even some family members did. They say Zarah should've been the one to come back. She agrees. And especially what happened in Europe."

"What happened in Europe?"

"She hasn't told you?"

"She doesn't tell us anything. We just found out she was Noble-Valdez two weeks ago."

"She's had a hard life and she finds it hard to trust, despite her willingness to help even someone most would say don't deserve it. Last year, she was kidnapped and tortured for six months, she was rescused just a few months before she transferred to the BAU."

"What?" Spencer gasped.

"Hey, Spence. Try this." Zoe said, appering beside him with a cup of what seemed to be coffee. "We call this Café de Olla. It's... what? What's that puppy dog look for?"

"You were kidnapped and tortured last year?" Spencer asked.

Zoe gave her grandmother a look and Elena walked off, giving her granddaughter a smile.

"It's not a big deal."

"It sounds like a big deal. What happened?"

"When Maze was with the FBI, she worked for the FBI's Fugitive Task Force, that was what I was training with her for . She... also worked with interpol on some things and had connections with terrorists, and so we worked with the Joint Terrorism Task Force to locate them but they caught on and kidnapped me. They took me and my ex-boyfriend, J.D. to a... prison but it was corrupt, it was more of a front for terroists and I took the brunt of the torture from the terrorists and professional torturers rather than J.D."

"Why?"

Zoe did an airy laugh/scoff but there was no mirth, "Trust me, it was better that I took it than him. It took Maze six months to find us and when she did... she snapped. She killed a lot of people that day. I saw it. They were bad people, though... but Maze kicked out of the FBI for her actions, they were deemed self-defense but excessive and two months later, I interviewed with the BAU. It's not why I transfered. Not exactly. But the aftermath that experience had was."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Spence, I've learned how to survive by now. Now, any other questions will cause me to walk the fuck out of this room. So, Café de Olla?"

Spencer looked at her for a few moments and nodded. "So, uh, what's in this?"

"Well, it can also be called Mexican spiced coffee, it's brewed in an earthen clay pot like this called an 'Olla'. It is made with Mexican ground coffee, cinnomon, and this raw dark sugar that resembles molasses in taste but no one's ever drowned in it, that we call 'pilocillo'. Sometimes there's more spices but not in this one. I wasn't sure if you'd like it. Café de Olla literally means 'coffee from a pot. My family has recipes that we teach the younger ones until they can make it from memory even if they don't drink coffee. You see unlike American coffee, the cinnomon and pilocillo isn't added after brewing but incorporated into the brewing technique. You can add more cinnomon, cloves, star anise, an orange peel, or whatever. It's very sweet and very black." Zoe explained as Zoe looked at her with just utter awe at what kind of person she was.

Morgan, Gideon, and Ciara came back soon after.

"I don't think he did it." Morgan told them, referring to Roberto, Miguel's boyfriend.

"Why not?" Spencer asked.

"The way he talked about Miguel. He didn't point the finger at his boyfriend and I think a guilty man would have." Morgan said.

"See if he has an alibi. Run his prints against any found at the scene. Right now though, I feel confident we can rule out a family fight as a motive for the murder." Gideon said.

"There's a call from the FBI." Borquez said and Zoe answered the call with a pencil.

"Yeah, Morgan."

"Como esta, my lovelies? Es bueno, no? Tripero, esta-la?" Garcia said in bad, broken Spanish.

Zoe face-palmed as Maze and Borquez didn't look amused.

"Easy there, Garcia. I think you just offended somebody’s mother." Morgan said.

"Shut up you. I took French. What can I say?"

"Penelope, your last name is Garcia."

"Yeah, I know. It’s my stepfather’s name. Do you want my genius or not?

"Yeah, but you said 'How are you, my lovelies? It's good, isn't it? Tripero, is she?'." Zoe said. "Tripero's not a word."

"Who's this bitch?" Maze asked, bluntly.

"Maze!" Zoe shouted, "This is Penelope Garcia. She's the technical analysist for the BAU."

"Isn't that the criminal?" Maze seemed offended on behalf of Zoe, not being the technical analyist.

"Maze!" Zoe shouted again. "Sorry, Garcia, ignore her. That's my crazy cousin, Maze."

"Okay." Garcia sounded a bit off now, "So, I rushed your cups full of mucus through all the regular channels at lightning speed and survey says one female drinker and one male."

"Thanks, doll." Morgan said and hung up before Maze could offend Garcia again.

"It's strange, on this occasion a man taking that drink." Ciara said.

"Unless the victim thought he was a woman." Spencer speculated. "The woman Roberto described, a social worker. That's a common ruse for old-lady killers. What if she is really a he in women's clothing? He comes to the door, knocks on it..."

"And the victim feels comfortable because she thinks it's a woman." Zoe finished.

"It would explain why no witnesses have come forward." Ciara said.

"No one expects the killer to be a woman." Maze said.

"Not in this country."

"Or ours." Zoe said.

"We need to tell the locals." Morgan said.

"And give them the rest of the profile." Gideon added.

——————————————————————————————————————

After they gave the profile, they were informed of another body and then Borquez and the other police officers had gotten frustrated and rounded a bunch of transvestites and then got scolded by Ciara and screamed at and threatened by Maze. And finally, the started to explain why they were looking for a rapist instead of a killer.

"Because we know this man commits sexual homicide, we can also assume that he was once a rapist."

"It's a lot easier to track a rapist than a killer because you have witnesses." Spencer said.

"Not here, most rapes here aren't even reported." Ciara said. Maze's eyes flittered to Zoe who showed no indictation that this had affected her.

"That's why we're doing a press confernece to inform these women that the man who raped them is now killing people to encourage to come forward." JJ said.

"But you also have the chance to discover something else—the reason he began killing." Elle said.

"Which is the stressor." Morgan added.

"As far as we can tell, the first killing was about one year ago." Elle said, pointing to the first murder victim: Elena Gutiérrez. "What happened to the suspect during that time?"

"A typical stressor—loss of a job, loss of love. He may have been released from prison." Morgan listed, "Whatever it was, it made him feel impotent. It made him feel frustrated and very angry."

"And that's when he started killing." Elle said.

"You should be talking to victims who reported rapes just before that first murder last year."

"Hopefully, the press conference will help bring some of these women forward, but we also need to head out and talk to some of these people directly." JJ said. "You should use all the female police you have. It will help put potential victims at ease."

——————————————————————————————————————

Elle and Borquez spoke to a woman named Milagros Villanueva who said she had nearly been raped by a man but she had fought back, scratching him and making him bleed and when she realized he had been wearing a dress, she had laughed at him and called him a pathetic woman and he had run away.

"She claimed it happened last year in August."

"The first murder happened in September." Spencer recalled.

"So she could have been the last one who was raped before whatever stressor made him kill.

"Or she could have been the stressor." Maze said, "never mess with a pissed off Latina."

"You say this woman laughed in his face, hit him, called him a woman. That could have been enough to make him impotent." Gideon suggested.

"He tries to rape again and all he can hear is this woman laughing." Hotch said.

"Maybe he thought he could rape older women. Thought they'd be easier. Wouldn't put up a fight, so he tries." Morgan said. Zoe noticed Borquez bringing in a lot of women.

"But he can't. He gets frustrated, he kills her," Elle said, "and then he finds the release that he was looking for."

"So he kills again."

"Uh, guys." Zoe spoke up, pointing behind them.

"The other victims are here."

"Send them in." Gideon said.

The woman who must be Milagros stepped up, "You wanted us to come forward? Here are six more women who were raped by this man. Now prove to us it will finally do some good."

"How did you find all these women, Milagros?" Borquez asked.

"We may not talk to the police, but we talk to each other." She said.

"Well, now you must tell us your stories. Every detail. Because the cycle does not end until this man is stopped."

——————————————————————————————————————

They all spoke to the women before they regroup to compare stories

"They all have the same story. He goes up to them in the street, puts a knife against their back, blindfolds them, and takes them out to the desert." Zoe said.

"He also kissed their neck while raping them." Spencer added.

"And then when he's finished he asks, 'How did I do?'" JJ said.

"Classic power-reassurance behavior." Gideon said.

"What does that mean?" Ciara asked.

"Power-reassurance rapists lack confidence. They can't develop normal relationships with women." Elle explained.

"Passive and non-athletic." Hotch said.

"He most likely fantasizes that the victims are his girlfriends and of the different types of rapists, he's the most likely to be dissuaded if the victim screams or struggles in any way."

"Is that it? All the characteristics of the power-assurance rapist?" Gideon asked.

"Uh, there's actually one more..."

"Excuse me." Borquez said, coming up to them, "I've been going over the forms filled out by the women. Four of them work in the same factory."

"He most likely lives or works near the victim." Spencer finished.

——————————————————————————————————————

Zoe had to stay behind given how she scared the locals but they called her with the name and address of Pabalo Vargas.

Zoe rode over on her motorcycle over and met them there. Zoe knocked on the door and spoke in Spanish, "¿Hola? ¿Alguien en casa?" No answer. So she knocked again, ""Hola?" She moved towards the window where she could hear chatter on a TV, so she spoke into the mic, "No body's answering but there's a TV on."

"Ready."

Zoe gave permission for the police to kick down the door and they entered. Zoe with her gun drawn, moved towards the sound of the TV and gently opened the door with her foot. She saw someone sitting in a chair, facing the TV.

"Hola?" No answer. "Hola? ¿Estás bien? ¿Puedes oírme?" She touched the chair and moved it around to reveal that the woman in the chair had been dead for a long time, she was completely a skeleton. Presumably Pablo's mother, the source of his rage. Zoe holstered her gun and called, "Hotch!"

Hotch entered the room, seeing what she was seeing,

"A little late." He remarked as Zoe got closer and examined the necklaces. "Souvenirs for his mother?"

"Isn't this Anna's necklace?" She asked.

"Zoe, look at this." Hotch said.

"No, I saw it. I don't need to see it again." Zoe sighed, shaking her head but determinedly not looking in that direction of the room. "Pictures of his rape victims."

——————————————————————————————————————

They sat back in the station, Zoe was writing on a chalkboard.

"We have a name, but how do you find him?" Ciara asked.

"We always ask, why this victim? Why the next victim? Serial killers plan their killings, and if we can figure out how he targets his victims we can get ahead of him."

Maze looked at Zoe, she recognized that glint in her eyes. "Zoe, what are you doing?"

Zoe turned the chalkboard around, "I put down all the names of the women who came in."

"That's what you call this chicken scratch?" Maze asked, sarcastically.

"Would you shut up and read? Does anyone else see what I see?" Zoe asked.

"That name, Torres. There was a murder victim with that name." Ciara recalled.

"Yeah." Zoe said.

"There are hundreds of Torreses in this town." Borquez said.

"Let me see the statements." Ciara said.

"What is it?" Morgan asked.

"It's maiden names." Maze realized.

"The murder victims and the rape victims." Hotch said as Ciara circled the maiden names of the rape victims. Torres. Gomez. Cortez. "The names are the same."Reyes.

"He's killing the mothers of the women he raped." Gideon said.

"He's doing it in the same order." Spencer noticed. "The daughters of the last two murder victims, Trejo and Santiago, never came forward. If we can assume they were raped, then according to the board the next rape victim in line was..."

"Milagros Villanueva." Zoe said. "His last."

"He's going to kill her mother." Morgan said.

——————————————————————————————————————

By the time, they got to Milagros' house, it was dark. They kicked in the door, some furniture was knocked over and there was blood, specifically in a trail, leading outside. She followed it and found a body on the ground. At first glance, they looked like a woman but that didn't explain one thing...

"I've got a body over here!" She shouted, calling all of them over to her, the body started to cough they were still alive. Zoe rolled them over and the wig fell off. It was Pablo, he was bleeding profusely from the mouth, gagging on his own blood. He had been beaten and stabbed... and castrated.

"Pueden salir, chicas. Come on out." She called without looking over and the leaves in the nearby trees became to rustle.

All the women he had raped and Milagros' mother, Nina came out, Milagros was holding a kitchen knife and one of them was holding a peice of wood, several others had other weapons that had used to beat and stab Pablo.

"He pretended to be a woman. Now he doesn't have to pretend." Milagros said.

Zoe looked down at Pablo, flashes of blood appeared behind her eyes and shook her head and looked up.

——————————————————————————————————————

The District Attorney General, María Sánchez was speaking to the women before coming back to them.

"Will they be charged?" Ciara asked, worriedly.

"Charged? Why?" She asked, "They were only defending their homes."

"La casa no se reclina sobre la tierra, sino sobre una mujer." Ciara said.

"Exactly." She agreed.

"Good job, Agent Gideon." She said and her eyes landed on Zoe before quickly darting away from her and she turned her head to speak to the men with her, "Vamos." And then they walked off.

When they walked outside, Hotch asked Ciara, "What did you say in there?"

"It's just an old Mexican proverb." Ciara said.

"La casa no se reclina sobre la tierra, sino sobre una mujer." Zoe repeated, "'The house does not rest upon the ground but upon a woman."

Elena Valdez face claim is Maria Canals-Barrera, I was stuck between her and Salma Hayek and then I thought maybe they could be a couple in secret.

Eva De La Rosa is played by Salma Hayek

Origianlly, Maze had a son but I think I'll introduce him later, like she's pregnant with him now so he can have face claim of Lesley-Ann Brandt's actual son who is only seven now.

El amor es ciego pero no las vecinas. — Spanish — “Love is blind but not the neighbors.”

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Translations:

La familia es toda — Spanish — The family is all

¿Hola? ¿Alguien en casa? — Spanish — Hello? Anybody home?

¿Estás bien? — Spanish — Are you all right?

¿Puedes oírme? — Spanish — Can you hear me?

Pueden salir, chicas. — Spanish — You can come on out, girls

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