Greg Weber hummed the latest Luke Bryan song to himself as he stepped out onto the front porch of his D.C. Suburban home and opened the mailbox. Grabbing the stack of envelopes, he mindlessly began thumbing through them. Mostly bills. Running his hand along the bottom of the black box, Greg checked it once more to ensure that he didn't miss anything. His fingers brushed against another envelope. This one was bigger in size and folded. Pulling it out, Greg looked at the unmarked big, yellow envelope addressed to both him and his wife Tyneshia. Not thinking much of it, Greg shrugged his shoulders and went back inside and made his way to the kitchen. Dropping the mail onto the island, Greg glanced at the clock on the stove. In an hour, he'd have to go pick up his wife from work. It really sucked having only one vehicle while his wife's Chevy Malibu was in the shop. Leaning against the kitchen counter, Greg slid his fingernail under the seal of the envelope and loosened it. Opening the yellow envelope, Greg pulled out a stack of glossy black and white pictures. Thumbing through them, he realized that they were all of him and Tyneshia.
At the park with their two young sons Emmett and Marty.
In the backyard.
Picking Marty up from soccer practice.
Picking Emmett up from kindergarten.
Picking Tyneshia up from work.
The last picture had to be recent. Tyneshia had only been without her car for three days.
Remembering seeing a press conference given by the FBI all over the news a few days ago, Greg reached for the telephone resting on its cradle next to the coffee pot. He wasn't sure why he had felt so compelled to write down the number for the FBI's tip line, but he did. Grabbing the scrap piece of paper where he had hastily scribbled the phone number down, Greg quickly dialed the phone number.
xXx
Emily sighed, tossing the file in her hand aside. Glancing across the table at Derek, she shook her head no, silently telling him that she hadn't of found anything yet. Derek sighed as well. They've been holed up in Garcia's lair for about five hours now and they were no closer to identifying the unsub. Picking up another file, Emily quickly flipped through it. Again, she tossed it to the side. They were still miles away from identifying the unsub. No one had even mildly fit the profile yet.
"We've got to narrow it down some more," the brunette commented to her partner. "Otherwise we'll be here all night."
Derek glanced up from the file he was looking at and shot an amused glance in his wife's direction, deciding to tease her about the comment she'd just made. Smirking, he asked, "What? You got a hot date tonight or something?" He couldn't resist teasing her although he knew that he would be the only hot date she had even if they didn't have anything planned for the evening.
"MmHm," Emily purred, smiling.
"With who?"
He sounded so jealous, Emily mused. As if he had anything to worry about. "Actually I have two hot dates tonight," she replied with a smile.
"Huh?" What was this woman getting at?
Smiling, Emily replied to his questions with an all too familiar twinkle in her eye. "I'm going to have a deliciously, delectable threesome with my good friends Ben and Jerry in the hot tub tonight."
Laughing, Derek bowed his head. He should have known that's what she was getting at. Emily Prentiss was always teasing him about her hot dates with the hot tub. Her plan sounded absolutely amazing to him at the moment. Relaxing in the hot tub with ice cream was exactly what they needed to relieve the stress they felt.
Wiggling his eyebrows, Derek decided to play along and asked, "You wanna turn that into a foursome?"
"You're so not invited," Emily replied with an amused grin on her face as she shook her head. At her statement, Derek lightly tapped his left cheek with his hand and turned his head to the right, imitating being slapped in the face.
The couple grinned at each other before they decided to get back to work, grateful that Garcia had left her lair to grab some tea. Otherwise, they wouldn't be getting any work done with Garcia commenting on how cute they were.
Tossing the file he was looking at into the reject pile, Derek nodded his head as he thought about the case. "Alright," he said becoming serious, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked at her. "What do we have so far?"
"Well," Emily slowly drawled, recalling from memory the profile the team had come up with earlier. One by one, she began listing on her fingers, the main points of the profile. Lastly, she finished her lecture by stating the unsub was a staff member or a guest at the couple retreat they were a part of. When they had found that bit of information, both Derek and Emily thought that it would have been easy to find the unsub. However, they were sorely mistaken. The retreat served one hundred couples at a time and the employee list was almost as long.
"How are we going to narrow it down anymore, Em?" Derek asked, accompanied by a heavy, exasperated sigh. This was the part of the job both of them hated. Sitting a desk or a table following a paper trail was not what either of them had envisioned when they had started working in the BAU. "We've already narrowed it down to all the men with criminal records that were at that retreat."
There were approximately eighty- eight names on that list with fifty male guests and thirty-eight male employees.
Skimming through the long list of names, Emily looked up at Derek and commented, "You know Morgan, you're on this list." Wanting to know what she was talking about, Derek reached over the table and snatched the paper from her grasp to take a look for himself. Emily was right. His name was on the list. "So that still makes you a suspect." She grinned and stood up as well.
Smiling back at her, he leaned over the table so that his face was mere inches from hers. "That was expunged, Miss Smarty-pants."
"I know," Emily replied smugly.
Wanted to wipe the smug grin off of his wife's face, Derek closed the gap between them and kissed her smiling lips.
"Oh! You guys are absolutely adorable!"
Surprised, Derek and Emily quickly sprang apart from each other so they were back in their seats at opposite ends of the table. Grabbing the nearest files, they acted as if they had been working all along and not having an intimate moment between them.
"Oh come on!" Garcia whined in complaint as she shuffled past them and to her vast array of screens. Settling her mug of tea on a coaster, Garcia plopped into her rolling chair and spun around so that she was facing the profilers. "You guys are adorable!" she exclaimed happily. Her eyes lighting up and a grin on her face told Derek and Emily that whatever thought had just crossed her mind, she liked it. "I bet your kids would be adorable too!" Spinning back around so that she was facing her screens, Garcia eagerly began tapping away at the keyboard.
Silence then convened between the three friends as they continued with their work. However, the silence didn't last too long with Garcia in the room. She squealed in delight at something on one of her screens, but Morgan and Prentiss both ignored her as they were too focused on their own work.
"Derek!" Emily exclaimed, grabbing the man's attention a few minutes later.
"What is it, Em?"
Taking a deep breath, Emily rattled off known facts as if she were Reid. "When we were canvassing the neighborhood, we discovered that the unsub drove a black van with red trim."
"Yeah," Derek replied in agreement. "But Garcia cross-checked DMV records with each name on the suspect list and not one of them drives a black van." He shook his head and added, "In case you forgot, Prentiss, we discarded that lead."
"I know," Prentiss nodded in reply. "But I was thinking about the profile again."
"And?"
"We said the unsub is probably unemployed or is employed part-time because of the amount of time he spends stalking his victims." Derek nodded in agreement, waiting for her to continue. "What if we're wrong?"
"There's no way he could be employed and still have time to stalk his victims. You know that."
"Yeah," Prentiss agreed with a nod of her head. "But what if he's self-employed?" Pausing, she looked at Derek and could tell by his expression that he was indeed thinking about what she had just said. "It makes sense," she added. "Self-employed individuals can make their own hours and-"
Derek interrupted her Reid like rant. Nodding his head, he fully agreed with Emily. "So if he's self-employed-"
Emily interrupted him. "He could have a company car. Company cars would be registered under the company and not the individual." Derek and Emily looked at each other and smiled, a whole conversation being spoken between them without any words being spoken. Their expressions spoke volumes to each other.
"Garcia, see if anyone at the retreat owns their own business," Morgan instructed. Without looking at the profilers, the technical analyst nodded and began narrowing the search.
"37."
"How many of those have company cars?" Emily asked and Garcia tapped away at her keyboard some more.
"14."
Grinning, Emily glanced at Derek before looking at Garcia. "You're the best, PG!"
xXx
This was the worst part of the job, Rossi mused as he and Reid were still sitting around, managing the tip line. Thus far, they had received one call on the line-from a paranoid 78 year old woman who saw the press conference on the news and was now afraid to open a letter she received from her granddaughter. According to her, her granddaughter had been in in Washington D.C. for a school trip and sent pictures from her trip to her. The old woman lived in Upper Michigan.
Spending an entire day with Reid was draining and Rossi had started ignoring Reid's droning voice some time ago as the genius startled rattling off game statistics of the NFL for the past five years of every team in the league. He'd only wanted to know the final score of Sunday's game since he'd bet against Morgan.
The younger profiler had been adamant that the Chicago Bears would beat the Washington Redskins.
Since both were unable to catch the game due to their crazy work schedule; Rossi just wanted a quick recap of the game to see if he would be giving or receiving fifty dollars.
"Finally,-"
At least the genius was coming to the end of his rant.
Reid continued on with his rant about the statistics of the NFL teams when they received another call on the tip line. Grabbing the phone, Rossi waved his hand, gesturing to the phone to quiet the young doctor. Reid immediately took the hint and closed his mouth and Rossi spoke to the person on the other line. Rossi's tone reflected what was going on in the man's head as he talked calmly yet sounded anxious as he talked to the caller. Instinctively, Reid knew that this call was the real deal. Without be told do so by the older profiler, Reid hopped up from his chair and sped walked all the way to Hotch's office.
Without bothering to knock, Reid poked his head in the doorway and said, "I think we got something."
In two seconds, Hotch was on his feet and following the young doctor out of his office and back to Rossi.
Ending the call, Rossi looked to Hotch. "A Greg Weber just received a package of photographs. The package was addressed to both him and his wife but had not been postmarked."
"Do they fit the victim type?"
Nodding, Rossi answered Hotch's question. "He's a white male age 38. His wife Tyneshia is a black female age 34." Rossi continued to relay to Hotch everything he'd heard on the phone.
The unit chief listened intently to what Rossi was saying. If the unsub followed his current pattern, he wouldn't attack Greg and Tyneshia for 48 hours. By then the couple and their two kids would be safely in protective custody. Glancing at his subordinates, Hotch barked out his orders. "Rossi, you're with me. Reid, you and JJ pick up the kids from school. Morgan and Prentiss will pick the wife up from work."
xXx
Tyneshia Weber gasped into the phone before hanging up. An agent Prentiss of the FBI had just contacted her saying that her and her husband were in danger. However, she was told not to panic as the agent calmly explained to her that agents were currently on their way to pick her up from work to place her and her family in protective custody until the man they were searching for was caught. Taking a deep breath, Tyneshia counted backwards from ten to calm her racing mind as she packed her belongings. The work day was coming to an end which she'd been looking for all day. Tonight was her family's weekly movie night and her nine year old son, Emmett, was excited to watch Cars 2 for the first time.
xXx
What? No! This couldn't be happening. The FBI was smarter than they looked as they were going to run interception and put this couple in their protective custody. This wasn't a part of his plan. He wasn't supposed to call the FBI. He had to get to them before the stupid feds did.
He just wanted to see the reaction on his face when he received the pictures. He wasn't supposed to get the FBI involved. All well, it was one minor variation to his original plan- an obstacle he could easily overcome.
This couple just had to meet their maker and pay for their sins earlier than expected.
