When the Levee Breaks

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.

Wilson Mizner

EIGHT

By some strange coincidence, the team found themselves converging at the police station at around noon. Each of them had something new to contribute. Morgan stood at the whiteboard with a pen, ready to make the appropriate additions and changes.

'He's definitely escalating,' began Hotch, and Rossi nodded in agreement. 'He took a risk with this victim, and the victimology is evolving. Instead of targeting specific figures of authority that made him feel inferior, he's moved on to targeting those who he feels treat him with disrespect.'

'That is, of course, if it's the same guy,' said Morgan. 'Everyone I talked to said Steven Carmichael was a great guy – no enemies, no significant altercations.'

'It doesn't have to be significant,' countered Emily. 'This unsub is probably narcissistic enough to think that not making eye contact is a sign of disrespect.' She was over-exaggerating, and they all knew it.

'That still doesn't prove he was taken by our unsub. It could be completely unrelated,' argued Morgan.

'He's still missing, regardless of who took him.' Emily responded with a little more harshness than she'd intended. She gave Morgan an apologetic look before continuing. 'Even if this guy wasn't taken by our unsub, we still have a responsibility to make sure he doesn't end up dead.'

They all took that in for a moment.

Rossi turned to Morgan. 'You said no serious altercations. Were there any minor ones? Knocking over trash cans, and the like.'

Morgan grimaced. 'You wouldn't believe how many people throw a tiff over how someone collects their garbage. People complaining that their bins were scratched. Unbelievable. The problem is, there's so many, they only remember the really crazy ones. I don't think our unsub is the kind of guy to make that much of a fuss then and there, but he would get his revenge later.'

'Alright,' nodded Hotch. 'So we'll assume that Steven Carmichael was abducted by the unsub for now. I spoke to the security company that were responsible for the system in Carmichael's apartment building. They said that a man was supposed to be coming out on Friday to see what needed to be fixed. Assuming our unsub knew that the system was down, that gives him a plausible connection to the security company.

Morgan added the name of the security company to the list of places their victims had worked. Another pin was added to the map.

Rossi had gleaned nothing of importance from Carmichael's neighbours, except, it transpired, a recipe for peanut-butter and banana brownies. This was not added to the whiteboard.

Then, it was Emily's turn to reveal her own findings. 'I had Garcia do a search for any unsolved kidnapping cases. Four hits, one revealed to be a frat prank gone wrong, but three of which may have been kidnapped by our unsub. They have no significant memories of the incident, except for two of the victims, who reported feeling exceedingly cold. A freezer, or air conditioning, maybe. Of the tortured victims who we could get to speak, two of them spoke of it being cold, and another longed for the fiery embrace of hell, which could be taken to mean that he was feeling the cold as well.'

Morgan added the data to the board, but was still hung up on the notion of previous victims. 'Are we thinking that there was maybe some kind of stressor that set this guy off? Two stressors, even. One for when he starts torturing, the other for when he changes the victimology. If he changed the victimology,' he added.

'I can see a pretty obvious one,' commented Rossi. 'Steven Carmichael goes missing the day after the FBI shows up to work on the case. For an unsub with control and authority issues, that's a big stressor.'

JJ starting flicking through the files in front of her, obviously looking for something significant. She had added to her pile, the three extra files that Emily had printed off. 'There was only a two day reprieve between the last kidnapping and the first torture,' she announced. 'If the local police were looking into the kidnapping, and they interviewed the unsub...'

'It could have been the first stressor,' finished Morgan, nodding.

'Where's Detective Walters?' asked Hotch.

'Break room, I think,' replied Rossi, who had been the last person to see the detective.

'We need a list of all the people that were questioned in association with the last kidnapping victim. Cross reference them with those associated with the other victims. Focus on colleagues, or employees. Morgan, get the list, and you, JJ and Prentiss go through it. Rossi, talk to Detective Walters, find out everything you can about this investigation that isn't in the files. I've got a feeling we're missing something.'

'What're you going to do?' asked Morgan.

'I need to go explain to the Mayor why someone else went missing.'

Though they were doing what amounted to grunt work, none of the team envied Hotch.

A/N: Okay, there's a longer chapter for you. I know it's been slow, and with mostly human drama, but I promise, there'll be some real action soon, and even more human drama. Take that as you will. I'll try and get Reid in soon – it'll be a bit after the "real action" starts. Another reason I'm hesitating bringing him in is that, not being a genius, am uncertain of my ability to get his character right. We will see. Don't forget to review. Cheers, tfm.