A/N: Hello again, everyone!
A shout-out to ahowell1993, tannerose5, Hippiechic81, Susan, Betty, Skylar for reviewing Chapter 10! As well as one to whiskyice80 for following and favoring the story.
Get ready because I hope you're all in the ride, especially in the upcoming chapters!
While Tara, Alvez, and Simmons hurried towards Prentiss and Rossi, Reid hurried past them and continued until he reached a corner of the bullpen, presumably still fuming; he had even remained silent throughout the car drive back to Quantico. They kept it that way because they figured at this point, just one word about Élise—good or bad—would set him off.
Again.
"My guess is he didn't take the news about Élise too well." Rossi rightly expected.
"What do you think?"
JJ was just walking down the hallway, doing some last-minute stuff for Garcia, who was looking after Anastasia, when she sees Reid entering another room. She takes a moment before seeing what he was doing but startled when she heard,
"Son of a…!"
She slightly jumped when she started to hear Reid curse up a storm. JJ was naturally concerned by his intense reaction and gave him a moment before finally deciding to go into the room, but not before hearing footsteps behind her,
It was the team, who must have overheard him.
"I got this."
The team jumped when they heard loud crashing. "Are you sure…?"
"You have to trust me. I'll handle this." The team agreed and left her with Reid.
JJ gave herself a moment, took a deep breath and finally walked into the room, where she first noticed the folding tables and chairs were flipped over, papers everywhere and Reid in a corner with his head down and his arms wrapped around his knees. She slowly walked to his side before joining him.
"Reid…"
Picking his head up, his face was streaming with fresh tears,
"I think I have really just reached my limit."
"Spence…"
Angrily wipes his tears away, "Jennifer, I mean it. I-I- I am just so tired of fearing…and losing more people in my life. And just when I thought I was about to get my life back together...it makes me wonder who's going to leave my life next? You? My mother? Anastasia? It's been months already. Months! And we still haven't gotten as much of a clue as to where she could be or who the Unsub is. Sometimes, I wonder if she's still alive. Like this is all some game to this unsub. A sick twisted game."
Joining him, "I know. I know you are. You've been through more changes, challenges, and difficulties than all of us. Especially with what you had to go through with..." Taking a moment to pause before continuing, "I will admit this to you: I still have the chills. And the nightmares from just thinking about what you went through in that prison. But it's how we handle what comes in our way; that is what makes us become better and stronger people who can take on anything that comes in our way without letting that fear control us. You, Dr. Spencer Reid, are one of the strongest, smartest, thoughtful and wonderful people I've met in my entire life. I just wanted you to know that. We are going to find Élise."
Turned his head, he rests his head on her shoulder, "Thank you, Jennifer. Will, Henry and Michael are incredibly lucky to have someone like you."
Wrapping her arms around him, "And your mother, Anastasia, Élise, and all of us, are incredibly lucky to have someone like you."
"Okay, pretty little lady," Garcia sets a plate of healthy snacks on the little table she had set up for Anastasia. "Here you go. Eat up and play with your alphabet abacus while I help your daddy find Élise and make the world a safer place." Garcia placed the noise canceling headphones over her ears for her before getting back to work.
"Hey, Garcia. Hi, Anastasia." He plants a kiss on Anastasia's head before walking over to Garcia.
"Hey, brain brother. You okay?"
"Yeah." Rubbing his eyes, "I'm okay now."
"I heard."
"About…?"
"Élise. And your…rant."
"Oh." Reid felt a bit embarrassed. "Sorry."
"No, it's okay. We all occasionally need one."
"Did you find anything yet?"
"Not yet."
Garcia noticed Reid was doing his Reid thing with the face. "Are you thinking of something?"
"Yeah," He started to feel a pit in his stomach, but he could sense his gut was trying to tell him something. "Check to see if there are any similar home invasion homicides and/or their MOs in the Mid-Atlantic states and the states surrounding Virginia, include DC in the search. And try going back six months at least maybe longer."
Tying away as fast as she could,
"Whoa."
"Whoa, what?"
"I see similar home invasion homicides, just like you suggested, but also within the last year alone and not just in Virginia and DC, but also in North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia; they are also similar ones in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey and New York."
"If he's crossing states lines, he would have made his crimes appear to be one-offs."
"And according to the crime reports, a reveler was used for all crime scenes on all of the victims; all belonged to the homeowners and their prints were on them."
"Experienced. The unsub didn't want to leave shell casings behind as evidence as well as prints; could be wearing gloves."
"And…in some of the cases, there was either a homicide or a home invasion of a family within wealthy suburbs, especially in Virginia and DC." Still typing, she got something, "Huh. Now, this is getting interesting. The revolver used in the home invasion homicide is traced back to this dealer here in DC. From what I could tell, he's local, no record, and by-the-book."
"Hmm," The gun dealer said as he examined the photograph Tara and Simmons had just given him. "I think I remember this piece. You don't see someone buying a revolver like that every day," Walking over to his books, pulls out and goes through the pages, "Ah. Here we go."
"Did the homeowner bought the gun?"
"No, sir," Setting the book down on the glass counter. "This is the guy who bought the gun," He points out a license photo picture.
Tara pulls out her phone, "Garcia? Run a name for us. Richard Griffin."
"Come on now," Garcia said as she was typing as fast as she did and as fast as her computers were searching. She got a ping. "I got something now."
Her computer pinged again. And again. And again. Pinging several times before stopping. "Oh. Oh!" She rushed into the meeting room, where the team was, minus Reid.
"Guys. Guys-guys-guys! I got something! I got something! Sorry if it took a while."
"Why, what happened?"
"The name, Richard Griffin. There isn't much on him per say, but what I can tell you this. His name is not actually Richard Griffin. Or Ricard Grifin. Or Griffith Rikard. Or even Griffin Ritchard or Grifin Riccards."
She pulls up the various mugshots under his aliases on the screen.
"His actual name is Griffin Nicholas Richards. He was born and raised in Douglas County, Colorado on June 14th, 1982 to a Julius and Phoebe Richards. From what I found, his parents were wealthy, I mean, filthy stinking smelly rich."
"Were?" Rossi noticed she said 'had' past tense.
"Yeah, the parents died in a deadly car accident when he was ten and soon he was formally adopted by the equally-wealthy Victors; they both also died in a deadly car accident when he was eighteen and left him with their money. After that, he just went completely off the grid."
"What else do you have on this son-of-a-bitch?"
"He has a history of behavioral problems. And this was before the death of his biological parents, starting from when he was even in pre-school until twelfth grade. I mean, almost every year, he would be expelled from his prep schools; some were boarding schools, even if his biological and adoptive parents made hefty and expensive financial donations. He even had a history of stalking and harassing random people he met when he was in his teens."
"What else do you have on his aliases?"
"Under the name Ricard Grifin in Kansas City, he was the main suspect in the abduction and torture of a prostitute until she committed suicide; she was said to have been a known drug user of heroin and cocaine. He was also suspected of raping, torturing, and murdering of three elderly women, but since the cops didn't have enough evidence, he was let go and the charges were dropped against him. Under the name, Griffith Rikard in Mississippi, he was charged for abducting, raping, and torturing two college-freshman-aged roommates for a week until they escape, but since they didn't want to testify against the piece of filth, he got off again. Under the name, Griffin Ritchard in Delaware, he was suspected off raping, torturing and murdering his defense attorney who represented him when he was equally suspected of raping and torturing a single mother in front of her elementary-school-aged children. Soon afterward, the mother and children all died in a suspicious gas leak after moving away; he was the main suspect but claimed to have a strong alibi and since there was not enough physical evidence against him, they were forced to let him go."
"Damn," Rossi said. "Just the thought of Élise being held captive by this bastard for…" He had to stop himself from finishing that sentence.
"I know," JJ agreed before taking a moment to pause. "So…who's going to tell Reid?"
Everyone just looked at each other, waiting to see who would be the braving one who gets to tell Reid.
"I'll tell him." Alvez rose up from his seat and went to tell him.
"How do you think he'll react?" Simmons asked.
"Does anyone have an extra set of headphones? Or an umbrella in case we have another curse storm?" Rossi asked.
"So, this is who has Élise?" Reid asked as he looked over the file.
"Looks that way. He's been evading from the law for years now. His name and face have just been released to the media already."
Reid thought about what the last survivor said, He had…these eyes. They were cold. And I can never forget them.
"He's cunning," Reid began to rant as he was profiling. "A shallow narcissist, but he is disciplined and focused. Stalking Élise, he would need to know almost everything about her before making his move as well as his previous victims. He kills for a sense of power and control. He feeds off his victims' fear; it pleasures him. He wants his victims at their lowest scared and terrified point before he does what he does with them. He kills for pleasure, without remorse, guilt, or pity; he hurts because he wants to hurt, he kills because he wants to kill as the thrill of it makes him feel alive, worthy. He wants to live his victims with a lasting scar. Violence is a sexual acting pleasure. It is possible that he is charming, manipulative, he can appear as non-threatening. Also, you want to know what I'm thinking?" Reid had his thoughts interrupted when,
"We just received a 911 call at a hardware store nearby identifying his description."
"Let's get moving," Alvez suggested.
"Right. Garcia…"
"I'll take care of your little girl, home genius."
As Spencer and Alvez headed towards the location; Reid was driving, although he himself rarely drives.
"You okay, man?"
Reid remained silent. Alvez just left it at that as he turned on the police sirens,
"There he is."
"Oh, I see him, alright."
When they finally reached the location, they see a lone black luxury car in the parking lot with someone in it. Stopping the car as other police cars surrounded the lot, Reid immediately removes his revolver from his holster; Alvez followed suit,
"Get out of the car and put your hands where I can see them!"
Without resistance, Griffin did what Reid told him to do,
"Put your hands behind your head and get on your knees," Alvez ordered.
As Alvez continued to have his weapon aimed at Griffin, Reid checked out the trunk before the backseat of the car.
"Is there a problem, sir?" Griffin asked Alvez.
"What do you got, Reid?"
"Nothing." Reid wanted to kick himself.
"What do you mean, nothing?" Reid directly aimed his revolver at Griffin again, ignoring Alvez' question.
"Car's empty."
"Reid?" Griffin instantly started to grin like a Cheshire cat. "Dr. Spencer Reid?" Chuckling to himself. "Ha, ha, ha. Well, well, well."
"Where is she?" He asked him.
"Where is who?" He innocently yet tauntingly asked Reid back.
Reid felt the rage boiling inside his body, taking his gun off of safe mode and points it directly in his face between his eyes.
He wanted Griffin to know he really met business. "Where...is...she?"
Griffin continued to grin; taking pleasure in this. Alvez notice this; he felt that Reid was about to pull the trigger at any second now. "Spencer." Luke did not want Reid to risk everything by killing him in front of everybody, especially with what he went through the previous year. He calmly lowers the gun for him. Eventually, Reid came to his senses and placed his gun back in his revolver.
"Get up."
"Excuse me?"
"I said…get your ass off from the ground, turn the hell around and face the god-damn car!" As Alvez pointed his gun at Griffin, Reid violently grabbed him by his shoulder and roughly placed the handcuffs behind his back as tightly as he could.
"Officers." Reid handed the officers Griffin, who led him into the backseat before Reid and Alvez watched police drive him back to headquarters. He did not want to ride back with him; he would have killed him.
He meant what he told Alvez.
He's going to kill him.
As I said in the beginning, get ready because I hope you're all in the ride, especially in the upcoming chapters! I'm always up for new ideas!