Good morning fellow Criminal Minds fans. As usual, thank you for the reviews, they are a very nice thing to wake up to. Anyways, who is the UnSub, and is he working alone or does he/she have a partner? As usual I do not own Criminal Minds or else the stupid Survivor show (my apologies to those Survivor fans out there) would not have ousted Criminal Minds this week.
Enjoy!
Aaron stormed into Penelope's office. "Lynch, I need you to do whatever you can to track down Andrew Wallace Blake."
Kevin swung around. "Blake's husband?"
"Former husband." Blake entered and glared. "And after this is done, I am going to tear him up."
"Sorry Agent Blake..."
"No need for apologies. Just get to it Lynch. We need to find this bastard." Aaron leaned against the desk. "I want you to find him, or at least give us information we can use."
"He won't be able to."
All three pairs of eyes went to the door.
"Penelope..." Aaron got up and walked over. "You should be home with Grace."
She clenched her jaw and stared hard at Aaron. "I can't. One of my babies is in danger. Damnit, I can not stand by and do nothing when my baby boy needs me. If Jack was in trouble, would you just stand by, or would you do everything in your power to bring him home?"
Aaron sighed. "Alright. You can stay and help out. But I want both you and Lynch to work on this. With the two of you working together this might go faster."
"Ok, but Lynch needs to do exactly what I tell him too and firstly he needs to get out of my chair."
Kevin obeyed the blonde haired woman and transferred himself to the spare seat. "I will do anything that I can to bring your son home safely, I promise Penny."
"It's Garcia and thank you." She sat herself down. "Ok Hotch, Blake, give me the skinny on who we are looking for."
"My husband... my ex-husband." Alex stiffened. "I think he is the one who took Ricky. He had motive and he matches what little of a description that we have of the UnSub."
"Yes, he is indeed our primary suspect but we should not rule out the possibility of someone else." Aaron placed a large file folder down. "I've sent the information to your database but here are the paper files on the case."
"Thanks Hotch. Now leave us so we can work."
"Call me if you need or find anything." He looked back one final time before exiting with Alex. With both Penelope and Kevin working he hoped their chances increased.
"So Penny, I mean Garcia, where do we start?"
Penelope opened the file Aaron sent. "First I need you to find all incoming flights to Quantico and the nearby airports. International and private. See if Andrew is on any of those flights. I will search his financial records and property deeds. He would need a place to hold my son."
"Will do."
/
The bright lights of the room burned Ricky's eyes as he woke. He groaned when he felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder. He glanced over and saw a deep incision that was caked with blood. Ricky began to panic... He never liked the sight of blood, and the sight of his blood right now, in his given situation, was not a good sign.
He composed himself enough to look around and get his bearings on where he was. Looking around Ricky saw that he was being held in a sparsely furnished apartment. The only furniture was a couch and some table which were loaded with framed pictures of his mom. Candid shots both recent and old.
In the corner he saw someone sitting on the windowsill.
"Who are you?"
"Oh Richard, you know very well who I am." Andrew turned around. "I am the man whose life you ruined." He walked over to Ricky. "You know what has happened in the last two weeks? My wife filed for divorce so my chance at the great MacArthur fortune is gone and she is also taking me, me, to the cleaners. My girlfriend kicked me out of my house and took my daughter away. And, I lost my job. Thanks to your big mouth I lost everything."
Ricky stared Andrew in the eyes. "So, are you going to kill me?"
"I want to. And I will. But, I need to hold off for a little while. I am gonna have some fun with you though. Has your Uncle Aaron ever told you about his scars?" Ricky shivered when Andrew produced a scalpel.
/
Alex paced the room, glancing at the board. "We have nothing yet. How can we have nothing!"
"Calm down Blake. We need to remain calm." Spencer nervously played with a pen. "Lynch and Penelope will come up with something soon."
As if on cue Penelope burst into the war room. "Ok, we found out that Andrew had a flight into Washington DC and rented a car. From that we have no other transactions but we hacked into footage from traffic lights and found a picture of his rental car in Quantico.
He is here. But, I can not... I can not find where he is..." Penelope began to break down. "I can find out that he is here, that he is somewhere in this damn city. But, I can not find out where he is.
"Calm down Penelope." Aaron grasped her shoulders. "You do yourself no favours by stressing yourself out."
She looked up into his dark brown eyes. "Aaron, when him and Gracie were young I had tracking devices implanted in their shoulders... Ricky's isn't working... the last signal was outside of the football game..." She began to sob. "I can't find him. I can't find my baby."
"Shh..." Aaron moved his hands from her shoulders and wrapped his arms around her. "We will find him together. Now, take a moment to compose yourself and I want you to go back to work. Hear me?"
She sniffed. "Yes."
"Good, now go."
Penelope turned around and left. Leaving the rest of the room dripping with hope. "Ok, team, let's get back to work."
He opened the new file that Penelope and Kevin had send him and put the information up on the screen.
"Alright, what does this new information tell us?"
Spencer looked up at the screen. "That the man who took Ricky knew about the chip and has the skills to remove it."
"Like a doctor that is close to the team..." Alex slumped over. "This is all my fault..."
"No Blake." Aaron slammed a hand down in front of her. "It is NOT your fault. Now, we are going to find this kid even if-"
"Dad?"
Aaron turned around to see Jack. He rushed over and hugged his son. "Thank god you're alright."
"I came right over when my plane landed. What is going on?"
"Here, sit." Aaron directed Jack to a spare chair. "Ricky was kidnapped four hours ago. I had you come home because we do not know if this is an isolated incident or if all the BAU children are targets."
Jack clenched his jaw. "What can I do?"
"Go to Aunt Penelope's and stay there. And help Will and Anna look after the younger ones."
/
Grace curled up on her bed. She had wanted some alone time from the group outside her door. In Grace's hands she held a picture of her and Ricky. In her mind she recalled every fight, every bad word between them, and every argument.
It was hard not to let the guilt flow freely through her body. She promised over and over again that if... when, Ricky came home, she would never say a bad word to or about her brother ever again.
"Come home... please, just come home..."
A knock on her door broke Grace's thoughts. "Coming." She hauled herself off her bed. Grace opened the door and gasped when she saw who it was.
She flung herself into Jack's arms and sighed when she felt his arms wrap around her. He had always been like a big brother to her and seeing him here, made her feel as if everything would be alright in the end.
"Jack..." She allowed herself to release the tears that had been building up.
"I'm here." He rubbed her back. "Everything is going to be alright Grace." He stepped inside her room and brought Grace with him. Using his foot he closed the door. Jack knew how Grace liked to come across as strong, and how it would hurt her to have people see her cry. "Shh..."
He led her to the bed and sat her down. "Just let it all out."
It broke Jack's heart to see a young woman he knew to be so strong of a person, breaking down in his arms. He knew his dad would bring Ricky home. His dad was the best, the hero that trumped all the comic book or movie superheros. But seeing Grace like this, made him doubt the outcome a little, just a little.
He let Grace cry in his arms until her eyes were dry. She pulled away and dried her eyes with her sleeve. "I miss him... we have been together our entire lives Jack. I can't even being to imagine not having him down the hall from me..." She played with the ring that hung on a chain around her neck. "I just want my brother home."
"I know Gracie, I know. And he will be coming home."
/
Andrew wiped the blood off the scalpel and smiled. "Too bad you aren't getting out of here alive kid. The chicks would really dig those scars."
"When they find you, and they will, you will be a dead man." Ricky groaned. "They will get you."
"Oh no they won't." Andrew laughed as he leaned against the wall. "Not before you die." His phone rang. "Sorry kiddo, but I have to get this."
"Big Daddy here."
"How is the torture coming along?"
"Good, I think that little bastard is about to meet his end though."
"No, you can not kill him. Not yet."
"Why? What the hell are you waiting for Cybertron?"
"For the right moment. And if you kill him before I give you the ok to do so, I will make sure you are the one this will be pinned on. And believe me, Penelope is not a woman you want to see angry."
"Ok Cybertron, and by the way that is a stupid name."
"And Big Daddy isn't a ridiculous name?"
"Point taken. Anyways, just keep in mind the longer you prevent me from killing this freak, the more pain I will put him through."
"You say that like it is a bad thing. Cut away my friend."
And with that the mysterious man hung up. Leaving Andrew to focus his attention once again on Ricky.
/
In the office Kevin was still searching for a link.
"Do you have anything?" Penelope asked.
"No Garcia. Nothing. No, wait."
Penelope flung herself over to his side of the room. "What? What do you have?"
"About half an hour ago someone registered a noise complaint at an apartment building on Purvis Dr... more accurately at your old apartment. They reported hearing..." Kevin swallowed hard. "screams. The local police answered and recorded a false claim..."
She wrote down the address. "I'm giving this to the team." She ran out and towards the war room where Spencer, Emily and Alex were still going over evidence.
"Kevin found an address. Here it is, it is my old apartment."
Alex took the paper and entered it into her phone. "And what makes him thing this might be the place?"
"There was a disturbance reported about half an hour ago where the person next door heard screams. We need to go and at least check it out."
"I'll call Hotch and J.J." Spencer pulled together his files and shoved them into his messenger bag. "We'll call you if we find anything." The team began to walk out but were stopped by Penelope.
"I'm coming."
"No Garcia, it might be too dangerous." Emily tried to move Penelope aside. "Let us go. Like Reid said we will call you."
Penelope stared down the people in front of her. "No, it is MY son in trouble. I am going to come. Now, you can either let me go willingly or you can drag me out of the SUV."
Alex sighed. "Let her come. If Ricky is there, it might do him good to see his mother."
"Alright Garcia." Spencer looked hard at Penelope. "You can come but you MUST do as we say. If you do not I will have you removed from the scene."
/
Andrew had just finished carving a new scar into Ricky's arm when his phone rang again. "Hmm... I wonder who that is." He smiled as he answered the call.
"Big Daddy."
"It is time. Do it."
"Will do." He hung up and turned to Ricky. An evil grin spread across his face. "Now the real fun begins. Tell me Ricky, how would you like to die? Would you like to bleed to death? How about electrocution? Poison? Or how about a good old bullet to the head?
Come on kid, I am letting you pick your end. You should thank me."
Ricky spat on the purple rug. "Thank you? You are a sick bastard. I will not give you the satisfaction."
"So... what you are saying is that you want me to chose. Let's see... if I want to exact the most pain, draining the blood from your body would be the best bet. But, if I want quick, I would chose the bullet. Oh my, what a choice." He walked over to the table and took a large, scarp, obsidian blade from the table.
"I think I will chose the blood letting."
Andrew stalked over to the chair and ran the flat edge of the blade along Ricky's cheek. "Get ready to meet your Daddy. Say hi to him for me. Please? And you can tell him that your sister will be joining the both of you when this is over."
Ricky growled at the mention of Grace. "If you lay one hand on her I will kill you." He struggled against the restrains on his wrists. "I will KILL YOU!"
"Hahaha, Ricky, you have no choice in the matter."
/
Penelope ran up the stairs ahead of her team. They had tried to get her to stay outside but with no success. She raced towards the door and banged against it. "FBI, open up. Open up Andrew!"
She could hear a struggle and her son screaming in pain. Penelope stepped back and with all her strength kicked the door. Her foot sent the door flying open.
"Andrew, put down the knife."
"And why should I? You can not shoot me. You never carry a gun. You can not do anything to me." He burst out laughing and drew the knife back for the final assault on Ricky.
Penelope could hear her team behind her but she knew they would not get here in time. Without thinking she flung herself at Andrew and knocked him down. "You bastard." She drew back her fist and landed a blow on Andrew's cheek.
"How dare you blame my son for your mistakes." She readied herself to hit him again but was flung onto her back.
"Oh Penny. I was gonna kill him but killing you would be soo much better. Then your son can live with the fact that his actions led to your death. And my boss will like it." Andrew brought the knife down and plunged it into her torso.
He smiled when she yelped in pain. "Do you like that you bitch? Huh? How about another one." Andrew drew back his bloodied knife and prepared for another assault.
Penelope closed her eyes and braced for the blow. But it never came. Instead a gunshot rang through the room and she felt a weight drop on top of her. Her gut wretched at the feeling of warm blood flowing across her face.
The next moment Aaron was lifting the new corpse off of her. "Penelope! J.J., give me your jacket to stop the bleeding and call for two ambulances. Penelope, can you hear me?"
She groaned. "Yes Aaron. Go check on Ricky. Make sure he is ok."
"Reid is taking care of Ricky." Aaron used the cuff of his sleeve to wipe away as much blood as possible. "He's alive and he will be fine." He shot a look to Spencer to stay quiet. "But Penelope, you need to hold on for him. Ok? You need to stay with me."
"I'll try..."