Hey all, here is the next chapter for this fic. I seriously pray that you like it, Darcy worked hard on this one. Also, a huge thank you to those people who have followed and/or favorited this story. I hope you enjoy and please remember to review. Happy reading. x
All rights go to the owners of Criminal Minds, except for my original character.
P.S. Happy New Year!
Not Like This
Chapter Twenty-six: Dumb Luck
February 5th, 2015
Jamie sighed while looking at all of their work from across the room by a window, "I don't get how this unsub can manage to just…kidnap someone in broad daylight when there is all of this going on," She held one arm out, gesturing to the large cityscape on the other side of the glass.
"You'd be surprised, Agent Carter," Emmison told her, "Guns go off here all the time, especially in the shitty neighborhoods. And whoever this person might be, he has enough nerve to execute his plans whenever he wants."
"He more than likely choses the alleyways due to their seclusion," Rossi included.
"Is it too careless to compare this unsub to a mugger?" Morgan wondered.
"A mugger who drugs people, kidnaps them and then tortures them for several days?" Jamie retired, eyebrows drawing together in confusion.
"He's not too far off," Emmison said. "Muggings happen all the time in this area, but this guy hasn't kidnapped anyone from this vicinity…yet." Emmison was at the whiteboard with the map, circling the area they were currently in, that included one of the city's biggest and busiest parks. "People are reported missing every day in the city, so when the cases come to us, we're never one-hundred percent sure if it's related to one of our open cases. We get a second body before the M.E. report comes back from the first victim."
"This guy is smart," JJ jumped in, "He has to be watching these people, picking them out before he acts. There's got to be something that he sees in these individuals, something that connects them to something we haven't caught onto yet."
"What if the victims are just random?" Emmison questioned.
"Not likely," Spencer said, "The unsub is messy, but he's also smart. He manages to grab these people without being seen, he drugs them, takes them to wherever he's hiding and tortures them. Nothing about his methods of torture says that he doesn't know what he's doing or he doesn't know what he wants to do to them."
"We've also developed that its personal," Hotch said, "He uses close contact."
"He wants to be the one to cause suffering."
"Okay, so the guy's a sadist." Morgan pointed out, with everyone else agreeing.
"I thought you all profiled that he wants something from these people," Emmison claimed. "He tortures them…but why?"
"We know that he believes the victims have information that he wants," Jamie began, rejoining the group by the table. She sat down in a chair and began thinking to herself, "…kind of like the CIA." she said, giving genuine consideration to the outrageous thought.
"The CIA?" Hotch and Emmison questioned at the same time.
"Uh, I was kidding."
"No, you weren't." Rossi declared, causing Jamie to glow red.
"Explain, Carter," Hotch told her.
Jamie shifted uncomfortably in her seat and looked at the others in the room. She met eyes with Spencer and she gave him a look, telling him to help her out, but he only gave her a slight shake of the head. "Okay…so, you know how the CIA is known for like, 'torturing' people for information?"
"What kind of claim are you trying to make?" Emmison questioned her, the tone in his voice not faltering.
"Someone's been watching too many movies." Morgan joked.
Jamie held up her hands in defense, "I'm not claiming anything, it's just a thought…a mere comparison."
"That's actually…" JJ began, but trailed off.
"Agent Jareau?" Emmison called, "Don't tell me you're on board with this."
"Think about it for a minute," she told him, letting it be heard by all, "When an enemy is captured in war by the opposing side, what happens to them?"
"The ones who captured them usually ask for information to get an upper hand." Rossi bit, but seeming a bit confused by the comparison.
"They're not asked, they're tortured." Spencer said, understanding where the girls were coming from. "What if this unsub thinks he's doing a job? That killing is something he has to do, because no one else will?"
"He'd be delusional," Emmison professed, "But someone who's suffering a psychotic break isn't going to be able to pull of a crime like this."
"That could explain the randomness of the victims," Morgan offered. "Not bad, Carter."
"Well, I did learn everything I know from the movies. I'm more than happy to let you borrow some just in case…you know, if you need to brush up." Jamie teased.
When the day drew to evening, Agent Emmison took out JJ and Morgan to scout the streets. The others were back at the field office, working on the geographical profile and continuing with trying to tie the victims together. The civilians were thinning out in the city, which caused Emmison to feel a tinge of hope that they would catch their unsub. He was becoming slightly agitated, with having waited around for a couple of hours. Roaming the streets seemed as good as a strategy as sitting around the office, piecing together what they had already put into place hours before.
Emmison was tapping the tip of his right shoe on the pavement, causing JJ and Morgan to take notice.
"Hey, you alright, man?" Morgan wondered.
Letting out a huff, Emmison rolled his eyes a little and turned to Morgan, "Fine. Just really want to catch this bastard."
"We all do." Morgan shared a glance with JJ, who looked a little weary.
"How long have you been in New York?" she asked, walking and talking with the two men.
"All my life," Emmison answered, not skipping a beat. "Born and raised. My ex-wife and I decided to stay in the city, raise the kids. Thought it would be great to raise them were we grew up."
"I didn't know you were married."
"Not a lot of people do," Emmison added, keeping his face forward and stoic.
"What about law enforcement? How'd you get started in that?" Morgan jumped into the conversation.
"What is this, an interrogation?"
"Just trying to make conversation. Nobody needs to stand around in an uncomfortable situation for two more hours."
Agent Emmison stopped and placed his hands on his hips. He turned to face the two BAU agents, running a hand down his face, "I'm sorry," he apologized, sincerely sincere, "I appreciate you trying to distract me, but…"
JJ looked cautious, "But what?"
"Nothing, just forget it," Emmison said, sighing. He started walking down the street again, passing a couple of civilians past an alleyway. Slowing down a step, he waited for JJ and Morgan to catch up beside him. "If you really want to know," he began, "My dad was with the NYPD for twenty-seven years, just retired a couple of years ago. I suppose I just wanted to be like him. I looked up to him as a kid, and I guess it just took me a little farther."
"I think that's nice," JJ said.
"Yeah, also helping those who can't help themselves keeps me kind of sane."
"Sane?" Morgan teased.
Emmison laughed a bit, "That's fair," he replied, turning his body as he was walking, facing the other two. "I wasn't always an ass, you know."
"You could probably scar someone for life with that attitude of yours."
"Well, I find that being…overly assertive and blunt causes people to do what you tell them to, with little mishap."
"Agent Cooper seems to like you," JJ said, wondering if there was more behind the scenes.
"Oh, I know," Emmison claimed, sounding a little full of himself, "She isn't very subtle in her…flirting, I guess." He laughed to himself, "I've known her since I started though, same class at Quantico."
The three of them were invested in their conversation, genuinely enjoying getting to know the coldest agent in the New York field office. What they failed to notice, was that the sky had gotten significantly darker, the streets were emptier, and their street became fairly narrow.
A scream rang throughout the city. A scream that came from the opposite direction they had come from.
Immediately without hesitation, all three agents had their guns drawn, running towards the cry.
Agent Emmison didn't wait for the others. Instead, he sprinted towards the scream, gun drawn into the air, full force ahead.
"Agent Emmison!" Morgan yelled, running after him, JJ right next to him. "You need to wait!"
All three of them ran towards the alleyway that they had passed minutes earlier.
When Morgan and JJ finally caught up to him inside the dark, damp alleyway, they were almost out of breath.
"Jesus, why didn't you wait?" Morgan asked, a bit of bite coming through.
"Agent Morgan, someone's life is at danger and I'm not about to send another body to the M.E.!"
The alley was empty as they looked around, not seeing the threat. Then, as JJ was facing the entry way, her eyes went wide and her instincts kicked in. "Put your hands up, now!"
There was a dark figure at the end, attempting to drag something along the ground. When he heard JJ yell, he straightened up and dropped the body's limbs, letting them drop to the ground.
"That's him!" Emmison growled, taking off towards the figure, causing him to run away.
"Son of a bitch…" Morgan muttered, looking back at JJ, "Stay here!" he told her, pointing to the body on the ground as he began running.
Morgan and Emmison followed to unsub down the street, meeting him at another alleyway. What they didn't expect, was that the unsub was packed and about to aim his gun at them. When he did, he didn't hesitate to fire four shots from his gun.
Morgan and Emmison went for cover, Emmison cursing loudly, because of the shots.
On the other end of the street, JJ rushed over to the body at the end of the alleyway, kneeling next to a woman and flinching when she heard multiple gunshots through the air.
She saw the woman was still conscious and brushed the hair away from her face, "Ma'am, I'm Agent Jareau. Can you tell me your name?" JJ's hands were shaking as she let her hands find the wound on the woman's chest. It was on the side were her heart was. She thought that maybe the unsub decided to just finish the job, since he was interrupted. Her eyes were bleary as she looked over the woman.
"An-Angela…" the woman spoke softly.
JJ nodded her head in understanding. She took her hands and firmly pressed them onto the woman's wound, hoping to influence the blood flow. "I promise you that help is on the way."
Angela coughed, spitting up a bit of blood as she did. "He-he stabbed m-me…"
"I know, help is coming," JJ tried to assure her. She ignored the feeling of warm, wet blood slip through the gaps in her fingers. JJ noticed Angela's eyelids begin to flutter. "Hey, you need to stay with me, alright?"
Angela nodded, understanding what JJ was saying, but that didn't stop her eyes from closing.
Jamie was the first one to rush into the sliding hospital doors. Her eyes wandered rapidly around the first floor, finally seeing JJ standing by the entry doors to the emergency room. She ran over, taking in the sight of the scarlet blood on her white button up. "Oh my god, are you okay?"
JJ's eyes were down, her hands mindlessly scrubbing away at the blood on her hands, "I'm fine," she said, "It's not my blood. It's Angela's…" She stopped talking when she looked up and noticed the rest of the team arriving as well, along with Agent Emmison.
"How's the victim?" Emmison questioned, the softness in his demeanor from earlier was long gone.
"She's in surgery," JJ answered, "They think that when she was stabbed that her lung was punctured."
"Did you catch the unsub?" Hotch asked.
"No, we didn't," Morgan said, sounding bitter.
"Son of a bitch ran away," Emmison added, "We chased him for a couple of blocks, but…"
"Did the hospital call anyone for the victim?" Rossi wondered.
JJ nodded, crumpling up the wipes in her hands, "Yeah, they called her mother. They said she should be here before she gets out of surgery."
"Okay," Hotch began, "Let's get back to the office. Rossi and Morgan, stay here and try to talk to Angela when she wakes up. We need to finish this and you need to get cleaned up." he said, pointing at JJ.
"There has to be something we're missing here!" Emmison shouted, causing everyone to jump. He was pacing back and forth, hands kitted together on the back of his head. "I'm sick of letting this damn guy walk all over me!"
Jamie shared a look with Spencer, Hotch, and JJ. She wanted to open her mouth, say something witty and relax the environment; but then again, she had been warned before.
"Have we cross referenced these cases with others in the state? Like, across different police departments?" JJ questioned, standing in fresh clothing.
"Of course, we have," Emmison huffed, "There's nothing else like this in the state. Lucky us…"
"What about over stateliness?" Spencer said, earning mixed looks from the others. He gazed back, slightly confused, "What?"
"If something like this was or has happened in another state, don't you think we would've already known about it?"
"It's not a bad idea, though," Jamie defended. "If something else like this has happened before, it's bound to show up now."
"We've been so engulfed in trying to find a connection between the victims, we're practically sabotaging our own investigation," Hotch said, pulling out his phone.
"Calling Garcia?" JJ asked, already knowing the answer; but asking for Emmison's relief.
"Who's Garcia?" Agent Emmison questioned, still slightly pacing the room.
"Penelope Garcia is out technical analyst back in Quantico. She basically a magician." Jamie joked, but not giving away any humor in her own face or voice.
"Speak and be spoken to!" Garcia answered over Hotch's speaker phone.
"Garcia, we need you to cross reference any cases over the New York state lines where random victims were drugged, tortured, and stabbed. The same M.O."
"Uh, jeez, okay…" she said, her fingers already typing away on her keyboard. "Wait, did you want a nation-wide search?"
"Yes," Hotch answered, "Please hurry."
"I'm working, I'm working…"
A few moments of silence in the room felt excruciating, for everyone involved.
"Oh-oh god," Penelope sounded from the other end of the receiver.
"What is it, Garcia?" Spencer asked, standing next to Hotch.
"If this is the same unsub you're looking for, then there's a little problem. I put the parameters in and cross referenced the M.O. that you asked for, and the first one that matches was in Atlanta in nineteen-ninety-eight. One man, Harvey Wilkerson and one woman, Mandy Johnson; both found beaten, bloody, and stabbed behind a dumpster. Then, again in two-thousand, four people in Boston, found in the same condition. Two-thousand-and-three, six people in Philadelphia, Two-thousand-and-five, seven-"
"Okay, Garcia, I need you to send that information over to us as soon as you can." Hotch told her.
"Already done, sir."
"Thanks…"
"Jesus Christ, how the hell did we miss this?!" Emmison roared, sounding angrier than ever.
"From what Garcia told us right now and what we already know, that's at least twenty victims." JJ claimed, looking shocked.
"Crossing states lines…that's smart." Jamie chimed in, crossing her arms. "He puts time in between his killings, lets the attention of the crimes go down. Then, he starts back up again and increases his body count in a new city."
"This bastard is delusional." Emmison declared.
"What makes you say that?" Spencer asked.
Agent Emmison raised his eyebrows at the younger agent, "Well, for starters Dr. Reid, he's going city to city and torturing people! His reality is distorted, no doubt!"
"Okay, maybe you should go get some air." Hotch told him, starting to stand in front of this agents.
Emmison stood in front of them, hands on his hips. He raised his hands in surrender, "Maybe I should…" He walked out, not bothering to look back.
"I'm going to go talk to him," Hotch said, walking away towards the door.
"Are you sure that-" JJ began to asked, but stopped since Hotch apparently didn't hear her.
"Excuse my language, but holy shit…" Jamie breathed out, sitting herself down in a chair.
As she did, Charlotte knocked on the door to the conference room. She poked her head in, "Pardon me, but I need to talk to you," she said, pointing at JJ.
"What for?" JJ questioned.
"About what happened out in the alleyway. We have paper work to get done, honey."
"Right," JJ whispered to herself, exiting with room and following Charlotte.
Jamie watched as JJ walked out, leaving her with Spencer. "And then there were two…"
Spencer gave a light laugh and sat down in a chair next to her, "Seems to happen a lot, doesn't it?"
"Oh yeah," Jamie agreed. "The universe works in mysterious ways."
"You know, there's just something I don't understand about what happened out on the street…" Spencer said after a few minutes.
"What's that?"
"We never profiled that this unsub carries a gun around."
"Yeah, you're right…"
"It just doesn't make sense."
Jamie shrugged, "We can't always be one-hundred percent. Maybe by being chased, he got scared off."
"Maybe he got scared off and he's already on his way to a new city."
"Okay, Negative Nancy."
"I'm just saying-"
"No, no, I know what you mean…" Jamie swerved in her chair, "Do you think we'll catch him?"
"I hope so," Spencer told her, looking at Jamie with genuine eyes.
Jamie stared back, feeling weird tension in the contact. She smiled a bit and quickly looked down, tucking some hair behind her right ear. "We should get started with that information Garcia sent us."
"Oh, right," Spencer said, grabbing a tablet and opening it to gather the information and place it on the boards. He stood from his seat, grabbing a marker to being writing everything down and then, it was like something wired together in his brain…or his heart. "Hey, Jamie?"
"Hmm?" she hummed, eyes focused on the reading in front of her.
Spencer cleared his throat, "I-I know this probably isn't the best time to do this, but do you want to…"
Jamie didn't need to hear anymore. Her head snapped up, any faster and she would've sprained herself. Her eyes locked on Spencer, who was red and sounded like he was struggling to breath.
"Do you think that maybe you'd want to-"
"Spencer Reid," Jamie said, a big smile on her face. She stood from her seat, setting down the tablet on the table top and walking over to his side, "Are you asking me on a date?"
"Uh, trying to..."
Jamie couldn't force her smile to go away herself, there was no use. Though, when she heard two gun shots, clear as day outside the building, her smile melted away instantly.
"Everyone is trying their best, you know," Agent Hotchner claimed, walking towards Agent Emmison, who was leaning against the side of the brick building.
"I called in the best, so would expect so." The air sent a chill through Emmison, a different vibe than what he was getting from the case. He shook his head, bemused, "This is…this is without a doubt the most prolific serial killer I've personally dealt with. This bastard manages to go state to state in the past what, fifteen years? Goes around killing people for kicks I bet…"
"We're not going to let the body count go any higher," Hotch told him, shoving his hands into his pants pockets.
"He has to be looking for another victim," Emmison declared. "Especially, since we stopped him from taking Angela."
"He's bound to become sloppy. Hopefully he'll be more noticeable now."
"How do you do it?" Emmison wondered, looking at Hotch.
Hotch knit his eyebrows together, "What do you mean?"
"How do you deal with the ones you can't stop?"
Hotch shook his head, "We are going to stop this one."
The foot steps behind them caused both agents to face the sound. When they did, their hands went to their guns without hesitation, pulling their weapons on a man.
The man was older, in a dark sweatshirt, a gun at his side.
"Don't move!" and "Stop right there!" rang through the night, as Emmison and Hotch yelled at the same time.
"Sinners…" the man mumbled.
"Excuse me?" Emmison asked, voice on edge.
"They're sinners…and you're trying to stop God's work."
"You think that God wants you to kill people?"
"He told me himself…"
"Maybe you should think about going to a different Sunday service."
"He told me you're the devil, too. Both of you…all of you!" The man began to raise his voice and started to raise his gun.
"Don't move the gun!" Hotch shouted, tightening his grip on his gun.
"I have to get rid of you…"
"Nobody else is dying. This is it for you."
No explanation, just the swift motion of the unsub's gun rising and one released shot.
The gunshot from Agent Emmison's hit the unsub right in the heart. "Serves him right…" he thought to himself. He lowered his gun and slowly approached the dead body on the ground. He knelt down next to it, placing his cold fingers on the unsub's neck, internally praying for no pulse.
There wasn't one.
He let out a sigh of relief and tucked his gun away. Emmison ran back to Hotch, staring at the blood that was blooming through his shirt and jacket.
"It just grazed," Hotch informed him, looking down at his wound.
"I'm calling an ambulance," Emmison stated, pulling out his phone. As he did, several agents from the building came out of the doors.
Jamie, Spencer, and JJ came out in front, eyes wide at the sight before them.
"What the hell happened?!" Jamie exclaimed, not knowing where to look. There was a dead body on the ground and her boss was bleeding.
"Unsub…" Emmison said calmly, nodding his head towards the dead body. "He took a shot…and so did I."
"He just…what exactly happened?" JJ questioned, arms covering herself.
"We were out here talking and he came up behind us," Hotch explained. "He said that he was doing God's work, cleaning up the sinners."
"So, there's a religious aspect that we didn't even catch onto?" Spencer asked.
"Guess so," Emmison answered, shrugging. He looked down at his phone when he saw other agents in the background on their cell phones. "Someone already called this in, huh?"
Jamie nodded, "More than a few."
"Hotch, are you okay? You're bleeding!" JJ told him, unaware that he already knew.
"I know, it's just a graze though."
The sirens could be heard before anyone could see their flashing colors. Red and blue flashed into the dark of night. A couple of ambulances and the local police arrived on scene, taking to Hotch and the unsub's dead body right away.
Emmison insisted on riding to the hospital with Hotch. Even though he would never admit it to anyone, he felt a little guilty for him being shot at; especially, since it could've ended up a lot worse.
February 6th, 2015
The unsub's name was Charles Bradbury.
According to his grandmother, Charles had been very religious his whole life, thanks to his mother. She had brainwashed him into thinking that those who lived a lifestyle that wasn't like theirs, deserved to go to hell and that's where Charles thought he was sending his victims.
His last victim, Angela, had survived and was recovering from her surgery in the hospital.
"I want to thank all of you," Agent Taylor Emmison said out loud into the room. He stood in front of the BAU agents, eyes down, hands in pockets, but sincere gratitude running through his mind. "With your help…and the stupidity of the unsub, we were able to stop another serial killer from roaming the streets; from crossing into another city and adding to his body count."
Emmison walked over to Hotch and shook his hand, his grip firm. He shook hands with all of the agents, sharing their sense of relief.
"If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask," Hotch told Emmison, who smiled as he watched the best of the best, exit his field office.
The plane ride out of New York was quiet.
Everyone did their own thing as usual, reading, listening to music, sleeping, or absent mindedly staring out the window.
Considering that the case was over, Jamie couldn't help but think about Spencer and his adorable attempt to ask her out; and she realized that she never gave the guy an answer. She looked over the seats in the plane from hers in the back and saw him, sitting next to Morgan, reading a book she knew he had read some thousand-and-one times before. Smiling to herself, she whispered, "Spencer…" When that didn't work, she grimaced a little, but tried again, a little louder this time, "Yoo-hoo, Spencer..."
That sing-song voice caught his attention…and the attention of a couple other. Jamie flashed red for a moment, but when she looked back at Spencer, he looked at her with curious eyes. She motioned with one finger, signaling for him to come and meet her in the back, in the seat across from her.
He did just that, with his book in hand of course. Arriving at the seats, he grinned at Jamie and sat down in the seat. "Need something?"
Jamie laughed a little, nerves flowing throughout. She licked her lips and moved her eyes to the window, seeing the city lights from below. "I know this probably isn't the best time," she dragged out, "But does your offer still stand?"
Spencer brightened, closing the book in his hands, "Of course, it does."
Jamie bit her lip, an attempt to hold back an eager smile. "Good, that's good," she said, feeling her heart racing.
"So, I'll pick you up tomorrow night?"
"What?" the question caught her a little of guard. They had just finished a case.
"Well, we have the weekend off-hopefully. So, I thought we could rest up, then go out later tomorrow evening?"
Jamie nodded, not even bothering to hide her happiness. She shrugged her shoulders, "You know where to find me."
Thanks for reading and please remember to review. I would really appreciate it.
