So since no school means nothing to do, I've decided to do the unthinkable. Post two chapters in a day! I'm really enjoying writing this and I hope you enjoy reading it too!
Cammi fidgeted nervously in her seat. She didn't want to remember these things. It was too difficult. And yet she knew it needed to be done. So many times she had failed her parents in one way or another. She wouldn't allow this to be just another one of those times. She had to be a good daughter.
So far she hadn't remembered anything much. Just a retelling of her original story. Emily had said anything helped, but she knew she wasn't providing much assistance. Fear had clouded her eyes back at the hospital, and it seemed as if she had already blocked the man's face from her memory.
"Anything you remember helps. If you can't remember what he looked like try something else. Do you remember a smell, maybe?" Rossi asked.
"Ummmm…no. But he had brown eyes," Cammi remembered suddenly. "And he looked like he hadn't shaved in awhile…That's how I remember him!" she said suddenly. At the questioning looks of the agents, she pressed on. "I was coming home from band practice on Tuesday last week and I saw this car parked at the end of the road. I figured he was just there to see the neighbors, they always have strange cars around, but I'd never seen this one."
"Can you remember what it looked like?" she heard Emily asked. But her eyes were closed as she tried to visualize the car.
"It was small. Gray. A car. Not a minivan or anything like you hear normal creepers have. I didn't think much of it. I guess I should've," she said bitterly.
"You can't blame yourself Cammi," Emily said softly.
Cammi shook her head. "No. Three nights ago, I couldn't sleep. I thought it was too cold in my room so I went to shut the window. And there he was, watching me. I thought it was a nightmare, because the car was gone the next morning. But I remember his eyes. I looked right in them."
That had to be why he'd come back, Emily figured. He needed to eliminate witnesses. And, since Cammi had hidden from him before, he had to find her and silence her for good.
"So he's organized," Rossi observed. "That proves these aren't random. He's meticulous about his crimes, making sure he doesn't get caught. And he watches the victims for a few days."
Cammi flinched, so he trailed off.
"This is all my fault," she whimpered.
"But he wasn't prepared to kill her in the hospital," Emily said.
Cammi nodded. "He used my pillow. He didn't bring a gun or anything."
What could that mean? Emily questioned.
"It means something about her unhinged him," Rossi said in the hallway a few minutes later. "We have to find out what importance she had to the whole thing."
"Maybe the unsub lost someone who looks like her?" Emily suggested. "A daughter, sister, something, and Cammi was just the replacement in his eyes."
"Sure, but then why doesn't he fixate on girls with Cammi's specific features?" Rossi asked astutely. "No, he's fixated on families, but Cammi has something to do with it too. Something he wasn't expecting."
Cammi watched them talk from the window. They'd obviously decided her reactions to what they said made it best for them to go out into the busy precinct. She didn't really mind, but she wanted to know what was going on.
Another need made itself apparent at that very moment. She was starving. The morning before her meet, she hadn't eaten breakfast, nerves dictated she skip lunch, and she hadn't brought money for dinner at the school where they competed. She had been planning on eating as soon as she walked in the door, but…suffice to say she had forgotten her hunger for the time being.
When Cammi was sick, she never felt like eating. This had to be a good sign, didn't it? She was beginning to feel better. Swinging her leg over the chair, she rose to find a doughnut or something. After all, this was a police station, wasn't it? She chided herself for thinking in stereotypes but went in search of food all the same.
As soon as she walked outside of the room, Emily handed her a doughnut wrapped in a paper bag.
"I thought you might be hungry, so I had one of the officers do a little hunting. You didn't eat lunch at the hospital."
"That's not food," Cammi informed her, taking a bite of the pastry. It was jelly filled, which she hated, but still, it was food.
Emily's spirits lifted hearing the girl crack a joke, as truthful as it was. She had to be regaining her sense of humor, at least a little bit.
"We have Garcia looking for any family members you might have," she said, hating to turn the conversation.
Cammi frowned. "Which one was Garcia?"
"Oh, you haven't met her yet," Rossi said quickly. "Which is probably a good thing."
"Well, there isn't anybody. Unless my parents have any long lost siblings, which I don't think they do."
Emily prayed they did. It would be a shame to see someone like Cammi enter the system. She was already so weak from what had happened. The wrong home might break her.
Someone handed Cammi a cup of hot chocolate, and she made her way back into the room that had been set aside for the BAU profilers. She noticed the map of her small town posted on the whiteboard, with different colored pins stuck every which way. Since she didn't have her iPod and there was nothing else to do, she stared at the map, trying to decipher the code.
Three of the pins were blue, and stuck to houses in different neighborhoods. She recognized one as her own.
So these are the houses of the victims, she thought, fighting back tears. She had babysat for the Sanchez family once. They had a little girl, Alyssa, who by now she figured was in first grade, and her two-year-old brother Juan. She didn't really know the other family, the Jones'. Crystal, her best friend, had known them though. Their neighborhoods were close enough. They had a boy and girl also. Dustin, who was Alyssa's age, and Nicole, a fifth grader. She supposed they were all bright, wonderful children like Tommy, who didn't deserve the short lives they had received.
She hadn't determined the other pins yet. She was fixated on those three blue dots on the map of her town. Three families broken forever. Seemingly no pattern except the type of families he picked. That wouldn't be much help, she mused. In Sunset Falls, plenty of families were like that.
The man…the unsub…he could've easily walked between their houses. Sunset Falls wasn't a large town. There were plenty of places he could work. She figured he wouldn't work nights.
That's primo stalking time, she thought bitterly. No, he probably had a normal 9 to 5 job. It was difficult to imagine him as anything more than a monster, but the cold truth had hit Cammi today. He was human, at least in outward appearance.
Questioning the guidance counselor had not gone well. He didn't match the profile. Just as Cammi had suspected, he was getting old, and no longer had the strength to pull of such complicated murders. She watched the team come back in, and took her seat in the corner while they discussed the next course of action.
"Well, the man was helpful at least," Morgan said. "He'd been there a long time so he gave us a list of past students who could fit our profile today. I don't think this guy has gone far. Something's keeping him here. I think he was born here."
Hotch nodded. "If we could figure out what that was…"
"Wait!" Emily said. "What if that's Cammi? Or whoever he's fixated on that looks like her. Whatever that was, it could've happened here, in this town."
At that moment, a woman appeared on the screen. Her bright red hair spoke volumes about her bubbly personality, as well as her colorful makeup. Cammi suspected this was the Garcia they had been talking about.
"Hello my superheroes!" she chirped. "I've found something really weird. Wait, who's that?"
Emily looked back at Cammi. "This is Cammi Carroway."
"Good, you found her! But that's kinda what I wanted to talk about."
Cammi slipped out of the room. She had a feeling she didn't need to hear this.
"So I went digging through deaths going back twenty years, looking for his trigger, and I found this." Garcia pulled up a picture of a smiling brunette who looked strikingly similar to Cammi. "So get this, about twenty years ago on the outskirts of that charming little town, a thirteen year old girl turned up dead. Official report says it was an accident. Girl slipped in the bathtub and drowned, but it looks very fishy. The house had been brought up on domestic abuse charges before, but nothing really stuck."
"What was the name Baby Girl?" Morgan asked.
"Wilson. The girl's name was Christie, and they had a son too, named Marcus."
"Any address on Marcus Wilson?"
"Nope. That's the other weird part. None at all. No credit card, job, anything." Maybe she was cocky, but she was surprised someone could disappear so well that she couldn't find them, especially in a small town.
"You'll find him," Morgan assured her.
Cammi couldn't help but overhear most of the conversation, even though she'd tried to avoid it. So some sicko's sister had died and now he was taking it out on innocent families? She couldn't fathom a psychosis that ran that deep.
What could she do? She couldn't just sit back and watch them search for this guy. She had to remember what he looked like. Closing her eyes, she took a sip of hot chocolate and willed herself back to that moment.
His eyes were brown, cold. But she'd known that. Look somewhere else. Okay, a jagged scar ran from the corner of his eye to his cheekbone. That helped. He was tanned from outdoor work. Okay, you're on a roll Cammi. He had been wearing work boots. Jeans. A white T-shirt with greasy gray stains on them, like the kind you get after you've been working on your bike for awhile. Maybe he was a mechanic?
"Are you okay?"
Cammi gasped, snapping out of her mental recollection when a hand fell onto her shoulder. She looked up into the warm gaze of Agent Jareau. No, JJ, she reminded herself.
"I…I think so," she sputtered, downing the rest of her hot chocolate in one gulp. Instantly, she felt a little better.
"Did you remember something?"
"Carl," she said. "The mechanic. This kid from school tells me he pays under the table sometimes. He probably wouldn't enter his employees in a computer, would he?"
JJ seemed unable to follow her train of thought.
"So," Cammi continued. "He pays in cash. No paper trail. Someone could disappear, theoretically."
"They figured out who the unsub was?" JJ had been out corralling the media, which hadn't been an easy task. They were jumping all over the story, like dogs over a piece of juicy meat. And they wanted an exclusive with the girl sitting beside her, piecing things together.
"His name was Marcus Wilson. I heard them talking and…" she trailed off.
"You couldn't help trying to remember more," JJ finished. "Well, why don't you go in with me and we'll see if Marcus is our killer."
Cammi nodded. A picture of him had already been displayed on the computer. One glance was all it took.
"That's him," Cammi said, her voice cracking.
Okay, that wasn't my best, but I don't think it was bad either. I guess I've decided to wrap the case part up a little faster than I thought I would, so we can get to what happens to Cammi. I'm still planning a few twists though.
Reviews would be welcome!