Fill for CM Prompt Meme: Garcia is asked to go on an undercover mission.
Garcia glances at her large calendar on her desk. It's Monday, November 6th, 2007. The wee hours of the morning. Though she should be at home, sleeping, she finds she cannot shake the words of the six separate people who have now come up to her, on their own, and begged her to do something about the crimes that took their loved ones away. The crimes that remain unsolved. All murder victims. All horrible losses. She feels each one as if it's her own. She wishes she could do something about this. But it's the last woman who approaches her who changes everything for Garcia. She has lost a son. A four-year-old boy.
That is all she needs to seriously consider going to the next level with these cases. Obviously tagging them as priority isn't doing it. So, Garcia decided to look into things a little further. What she finds was staggering. The same police officer was a first responder in three of the cases. What were the odds of that? Something funky is definitely going on.
Penelope stops. She has to think. She knows she has no business looking into these cases anyway. Hotch would suspend her or something for sure. She had to make her next moves carefully.
"What do you call the same cop who shows up as a first-responder in three of the same types of crimes?" she asks, once she has a tired Emily on the line. After thorough consideration, Penelope has decided to trust Emily on this. She needs a profiler's insight.
"It's a little late for riddles, Garcia…" Emily manages, her voice low and hoarse with sleep.
"A deputy sheriff, Jason Battle, was first on the scene of three eerily similar drive-by shootings. All at close range. All with a revolver - which just so happens to be the type of gun law enforcement wears…"
"What are you up to?" Emily asks, sounding more awake now.
"Something totally illegal, but I need your help. If you were profiling this kind of guy, what would your gut say?"
"Angel of Death. He's shooting them so he can try to save them and look like a hero to the people around him."
"Huh." Garcia says, nodding, and clicking back to a previous screen. "He's been honored twice as a hero… Listen, Emily. I need you and JJ to swear the most excellent promise ever. In the world. That you'll keep this on the DL until I have more information."
"You have my word."
She is up for many more hours and what she finds makes her stomach tighten with dread. After hacking into his home computer, she can see that Deputy Battle is so totally onto her. He'll completely have the upper hand.
Unless she can get to him first.
Garcia comes in early several days later. Once she's had the chance to get everything together. She finds JJ in her office and closes the door.
"I need a huge favor."
Maybe it's the fact that Garcia looks like a walking zombie. Maybe it's something else, but JJ is all ears and invites her to sit, even though she's looking at a seriously disturbing Florida case file.
"Anything," JJ says.
Garcia produces the three files from the night before and lays them out in front of JJ. "I need a crash course…in lying and deception…" Garcia says seriously. Because JJ is the best secret-keeper in their unit, Garcia confides what she knows. She tells JJ that Jason is completely onto her and unless she wants something seriously wrong happening, she has to take this to him. She needs to get proof of his involvement, before he strikes again.
"No one else can know…" Garcia reiterates. "Well, except Emily. I called her last night."
JJ nods and then they calmly retrieve Emily. JJ has endless skills in the art of lying, and Emily knows how to read people quickly and efficiently. After a super-quick lesson in body language, tells and the art of believing your own lie whole-heartedly, Garcia knows she has no more time. JJ's going to present the case to the team in twenty minutes. That gives Garcia just enough time to duck out and go to her favorite coffee shop.
She should have been prepared to see him sitting at a table, feigning frustration with his frozen laptop, but she finds she isn't. He's much more handsome in person, which makes the lying easier. She walks by him, coffee in hand and casually offers that she has a polo mallet in her trunk if he wants to use that on his stubborn computer. Then he looks at her, and her entire world stops. He is, by far, the handsomest man she has seen in a month of Sundays, as Derek would say.
They talk briefly. She makes quick work of fixing what's wrong. Garcia knows without confirmation that Jason Battle broke the laptop himself to engineer a chance encounter between them. She holds her tongue though, and then excuses herself. She now has five minutes to get back to work. He introduces himself as James, and gives her his card. She pretends to be smitten, which isn't hard, because he's so smoking hot.
That's the beginning. He calls while she's working the Florida case and she momentarily panics, faking illness to get out of his dinner-date invitation. What the heck would she do on a date with a psycho like that?
She gets Emily on the line in the middle of the case. Things have been tense between Garcia and Derek since he found out about Mr. Creepy, and Garcia had to pretend to be all into him. Emily asks what's up, and it's the perfect opportunity for Garcia to let Emily know that she had seen their mystery man earlier that day.
"I met this guy at the coffee shop I go to every day…" she says, trailing off.
"Right. Got it," Emily nods and hangs up. But in seconds, a text comes to Garcia's personal cell.
Are you going to go out with him?
No, Garcia responds, letting Emily know that she had freaked out and left him hanging.
You should! It'd be a great opportunity. Wait for JJ and I to get off work, and we'll help you get ready.
Garcia gets what Emily isn't saying. It's the biggest chance she'll have to gather information on him. She knows she should wait. But she also knows how important it is to not bruise a crazy's ego. This is why she doesn't wait for Emily and JJ.
She digs his number out of the trash and calls him back, confirming their date, and sealing her outcome, whatever that might turn out to be.
The date is a blur. Mind-games are afoot. The trick is, not letting him know that she is completely onto him. He is pumping her for information just as she is. He is a sneaky little rat, but Garcia is determined to be sneakier, asking about his background, where he went to school, and other mundane things to ease him into the real stuff.
She wired herself with a mic and old school tape recorder. They are both hidden beneath her gold blazer. She is just waiting for something she can use. So far, though, he is keeping a low profile. Showing off this totally tacky, knockoff watch that he wants her to believe is real. She tries to pay attention to where she is. If it says anything about him. When he asks her about her work at Quantico, she returns similar questions, feigning the get-to-know you game that new couples play on dates. He gives up a little but not enough. She hates him with a visceral whole-body kind of hate. There is a point during their discussion that she is sure he is onto her. She excuses herself to go to the ladies room. She removes the tape recorder and the microphone. She smashes both under the heel of her shoe. Then, she throws them in the more personal restroom trash - where no one is likely to voluntarily search. She puts it at the very bottom after she deems it unusable and sufficiently repulsive.
They are walking back up to her place and the wheels in Garcia's head are turning like crazy. What she needs is a second date with him. What had JJ said? Something about the difference between inherent trust and building trust? She is on her way to initiating that when he leans in to kiss her, and at the last minute, he bails. Thank God. Kissing him would be totally disgusting.
He walks away. So does she.
"Hey, Garcia?" he says, a smile on that beautiful, twisted, sick face of his.
She turns. "Yeah?"
He says something but she can't make it out. Her eyes are focused on his hand, which has disappeared at his waist. Before she can react, he has drawn his weapon on her.
Before she can do anything, he pulls the trigger.
And all she can think is that this is not how this was supposed to go. She was supposed to figure him out. She was supposed to do this. For her friends at the victim's support group, and for herself. All she can think is how much this hurts, and that he has done this before. He has done this to a child. He has done this and more, for such a long time.
All this, and for what? Has it been worth it?
Footsteps.
She holds her breath as he comes back to lean over her. Finally, he leaves.
Finally, she lets go.