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Disclaimer: I don't know them, I don't own them, I own only my plots and the characters I created…

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A Force of Nature

Chapter Two

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As he and Reid drove toward Georgetown Morgan commented, "You really have to wonder how a person can be so used to receiving unwanted contact that they would just file a death threat in a box like it was wasn't even important."

"Well, I suppose it may have just become a coping mechanism for him if it's gone on for a while."

"Maybe." Morgan turned the SUV down the street and pulled up in front of a small house with a patrol car parked in front of it. As he and Reid climbed out of the vehicle they were approached by two uniformed police officers. "Afternoon," Morgan called to them. "I'm SSA Derek Morgan, and this is Dr. Spencer Reid." Both men showed the officers their badges.

One of the officers nodded. "Yes, we were informed you were coming. You can go on up to the house. I know he's expecting you."

"What's this guy like?" Morgan asked as he tucked his badge into his pocket.

"He's pretty cool, actually. He had pizza delivered to us for lunch, and he had breakfast brought to the officers who followed him to the rink this morning. He was just out here bringing us some soda a few minutes ago."

"Beer too?" Morgan joked.

The officer laughed. "Yeah… We're hiding it in the trunk 'til we're off duty."

Morgan laughed himself as he and Reid started up the sidewalk to the house. When they were about halfway there the door opened and a dark-haired young man wearing faded blue jeans and a Vancouver 2010 tee shirt stepped out on to the porch. "You guys are the F.B.I. agents, I guess?"

"Mr. Meier?" Morgan asked. "You really should have let us come up to the door and show you our badges."

"What for? I just saw you show the cops your badges and they let you through."

"I understand that. I'm just saying that for extra security…"

"Maybe you'd like me to go back inside and shut the door so you can knock on it, then I can open it and look at your badges? Will that make you feel better?"

Morgan sighed. Meier's irritation was evident, and probably understandable. "No, that won't be necessary."

"Yeah, okay." Meier turned and Reid and Morgan followed him into the house. Once inside the three men stood facing each other.

"I think we got started on the wrong foot here. I'm SSA Derek Morgan, and this is SSA Dr. Spencer Reid. We're with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the F.B.I."

"Daniel Meier," he said, extending his hand to the two agents, who shook it. He gestured to some chairs around a kitchen table and the three men sat down. Looking from Morgan to Reid he commented, "Neither one of you looks like an F.B.I. agent."

Morgan chuckled. "What do we look like, Mr. Meier?"

"It's Daniel. I don't know. I can't say you don't look like profilers, because I don't know what a profiler looks like. I guess you look like law enforcement. You just don't look like the F.B.I. agents you see on TV." He looked over at Reid. "Hmm… You I don't know. If you were a little older I'd say you looked like a college professor or something. What are you a doctor of?"

"Uh, actually I have PhDs in Mathematics, Chemistry and Engineering; and I also have B.A.s in Psychology, Sociology and Philosophy."

"Uh, okay. So, what are you then, some kind of genius or something?"

"Although I don't believe intelligence can really be properly quantified, I do have an I.Q. of 187 and an eidetic memory, so…"

"Reid," Morgan sighed.

"Eidetic memory?"

"Uh, that means…"

"I know what it means," Daniel interrupted. "It's based on visual cues. You remember everything you read, as opposed to a photographic memory, which isn't solely based on visual cues."

"Uh, yes. That's about it," Reid said quietly.

Morgan stifled a chuckle. "Okay, Daniel. What we're trying to do is determine what it is you and fourteen other people have in common other than simply being in Bermuda at the same time."

"I can say I genuinely have no idea. I've gone over this again and again, and I just don't know."

"Have you been shown photos of any of the others?" Reid asked.

Daniel nodded. "Yes, the three that were killed."

"None of the others?"

"No, Agent Jareau said you would be showing me some more photos."

Reid pulled a folder out of his messenger bag and handed it to Morgan, who pulled a stack of photographs out of it. Both agents watched as Daniel looked through the photos three times shaking his head each time. "I just don't recognize any of these people." He looked up at Morgan in frustration. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I imagine this isn't exactly pleasant for you or the others." Leaning his arms on the table he continued, "JJ, excuse me, Agent Jareau, indicated you had an ongoing problem with a stalker?" At Daniel's nod he went on, "I was thinking, if you like, why not show us the mail you've received and we'll try to see if we notice anything that might be helpful in finding this person."

Daniel looked at him, then after a few minutes he stood up. "Okay, I'll go get the box."

"Morgan, what are you doing? We're not here about a stalker!"

"I know kid. But we're here so why not take a look?"

Daniel returned with a cardboard file box which he placed in the middle of the kitchen table. "This is full. Next one I get is starting a new box."

"Maybe there won't be a next one?" Reid said hopefully.

Daniel looked at him. "There will be a next one. There always is. They arrive an average of once every ten days, sometimes less often; but usually every seven to ten days."

"Did you know one in twenty-two adults in the United States have been stalked at some point in their lives? That's nearly 3.4 million people at any given time. Stalking victims are more likely to be white, and women are more likely than men to be stalked. Also, approximately 46% of victims report being contacted at least once per week; and 11 % of victims report being stalked for five years or longer. Less than fifteen percent of stalking victims are celebrities, though certainly being in the public eye…" Reid's voice trailed off when he noticed the look on Morgan's face. Daniel just stared at him.

"How long as this been going on?" Morgan asked.

"Since 2004. I've got them all filed by month and year received. And it follows me everywhere I go. I moved out of my parents' house and the letters turned up at my apartment, my home rink, competitions, the Olympics, now this house… I used to just throw them out until my father told me I shouldn't."

"Okay Reid, get going. Start reading through these and separate them into any pile you think they fit into."

Reid nodded and pulled a stack of paper out of the box. "These are pretty well organized, Daniel. You have each letter attached to the envelope it came in, and the date received written on the envelope." He began reading and quickly started first one pile, and then another. Morgan started asking Daniel questions regarding what he'd done while in Bermuda, and Reid's two piles were getting stacked higher and higher.

After running through everything he'd done in Bermuda nearly hour by hour, Daniel looked over at Reid and finally asked, "What are you doing? Are you actually reading all of those?"

"Yes," Reid replied without hesitation. "I can read 20,000 words per minute."

"You can read what?"

"Why two piles?" Morgan asked.

Reid looked up. "Because, based on the language patterns and tone, there are two separate people contacting Daniel. Hence, two different piles."

"I have two stalkers contacting me?"

"At least two. But, I'm not done yet." Reid went back to reading the letters.

Daniel sighed. "You know, every chance I get I tell my fans they're the best fans in the world, because to me, they are. I love my fans. It's not easy to be close to the people who support you the most outside of your family when you don't know which one of them it is that might be threatening you. So basically what you end up doing is distancing yourself from people who only want to show you they care about you. And, of course, the fans don't understand how frightening it all is, or why it isn't safe for you to eat the cookies or the brownies they made for you, or why you don't stop and talk to them as much as you used to, when all they were trying to do was be nice to you."

"I'm sorry," Morgan said.

"Believe me, so am I!"

"Okay, I'm finished," Reid announced.

"With all of them?" Daniel asked in amazement.

"Yes. Like I said, I can read 20,000 words per minute..."

"I see three piles. Why three?" Morgan interrupted.

"This first pile? All of these seem to have been written by the same person, based on the language used, tone, and the degree of sophistication the vocabulary shows. I would say this particular person might be classified as a stalker; but based on the content of the messages they basically seem to have been written by an overzealous fan with no intent to cause any real harm." Reid straightened the pile and placed it back into the file box. "This second pile is written by an entirely different person; and, again based on language, tone and vocabulary this person is definitely obsessive. This one definitely thinks you have a personal relationship with them. Classic stalker behavior, no doubt about it. Again, based purely on tone and vocabulary I would say they were all written by the same person, most likely a female." Reid straightened the second pile, then pulled a large manila envelope out of his bag and placed the pile inside it. He then placed the envelope back into the file box. "You really need to keep the letters from each person separate."

"What's the third pile then?" Daniel asked.

Reid hesitated. "Have you read all of this yourself?"

"Of course."

Reid looked uncomfortable. "These are definite physical threats. They do everything to insinuate physical danger short of putting the specific words down on paper."

Daniel paled a little. "I didn't think they were really threats. I just thought the person who sent them was a little loopy or something."

"Why weren't you more concerned about the actual death threat then?" Morgan asked. "The threat is a little vague, but the language is pretty specific in that one."

Daniel looked at him. "I didn't read it because at the time I hadn't felt like dealing with it. I read the first line 'I know what you saw'; and I thought to myself, 'Okay, whatever'. I didn't even look at the rest of the letter until after my mom told me about the Crime Stoppers thing she saw. I didn't know it was a death threat until then because I hadn't read it."

"Reid, when did the ones you think are physical threats come?"

Reid looked at the dates on the envelopes. "All within the last four months."

"Daniel, I don't suppose you have a fax machine?"

"Actually, yes. I have one of those all in one scanner, copier, and fax printers."

Morgan stood up. "Unless you have some objection, I'm going to fax those threats to us at the BAU so we can look at them more closely later."

"Why?"

"Just thought I'd help you out a little," Morgan shrugged.

Daniel looked at Morgan with a quizzical look on his face as he started to use his fax. He turned to Reid. "How can you possibly get all the facts out of what you're looking at if you read as fast as you do?"

"I just do."

"Where do you put everything? I mean, if you really remember everything you read, where do you put it all?"

"In my head," Reid said, looking puzzled by the question.

"Well, I would think at some point your brain would be full. Sooner or later something must start falling out the back end while new stuff is coming in the front end."

"That's impossible."

"I didn't mean it literally, Dr. Reid."

"Oh, I see. You were kidding, then? Okay. Because the human brain only uses a fraction of its real capacity anyway. Therefore it would be difficult to completely fill it to a capacity where no further knowledge could be imparted into it."

"Difficult, but not impossible. So, you read all this stuff, but how much of it do you experience?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if you read a play, do you ever see it performed live? If you read a book, do you stop and imagine what the characters actually look like? You've got all these facts inside your head, so what do you do with them?"

Reid looked at him, remembering a Sheriff during a case in Alaska who had said almost exactly the same thing to him. "Forgive me if this offends you Agent Reid; but I so see myself in you! You can probably quote Shakespeare word for word, however you can't fully experience Shakespeare unless you see a play live. You think a Springsteen concert isn't better than just listening to a CD? You watch 'Star Trek'; do you think it would be the same if you had just read a book about it? You like Beethoven? How many symphony performances have you been to? One. You are going through life collecting facts, not experiences. You need to concentrate a little more on the experience and a little less on the facts themselves."

"Did I hear you ask Reid what he does with all those facts?" Morgan asked. "I'll tell you what he does; he spouts facts and statistics at a breakneck pace at practically any opportunity."

"Oh, I see. I guess that's how some of the knowledge comes out the other end and his brain doesn't get overloaded." Morgan laughed while Reid just looked annoyed.

"I think we have everything we need for now. What we'll do from here is compare notes from the interviews with the others, and try to determine if you have anything in common you haven't realized yet. We'll be back in touch with you if we need anything else."

Daniel nodded. "Okay."

"Uh, Daniel…" Reid began. "We have this co-worker back at the BAU, our team's technical analyst, who is a fan of yours. She even tried to get us to bring her along so she could meet you. So basically we were wondering, well I was wondering, if you wouldn't mind signing something for her?"

"I have fans at the F.B.I.? Cool!"

Morgan laughed. "You haven't met Penelope Garcia yet."

"What do you mean?"

Reid made a face. "Garcia is someone we all love, but she can be a little, well, overwhelming at times. But when she likes you, she likes you and no one better mess with you or there's hell to pay."

"I think she sounds cool."

A few minutes later Morgan and Reid were climbing back into the SUV with their notes and an autographed picture for Garcia. Morgan ignored Reid's assertion he wanted to drive and got behind the wheel. "You never let me drive," Reid complained. Once Morgan started the car he continued, "What's with all this stuff about the stalker? It's not our case."

"I know Reid. But having you look at the letters while I talked to him seemed to draw more out of him. He still didn't think he knew anything, but I did get a lot of details that may or may not mean something. He's a little scared, even if he doesn't admit it. And the stalker would be an F.B.I. case because of the crossing of state lines. It won't hurt to take a look, because he could be in genuine danger." Reid nodded his agreement as Morgan pulled the vehicle out on to the street.

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I'm a little concerned Daniel is not coming across the way I want/need him too. These things write themselves so much easier and quicker in my head. Consequently, this might be a little lame.

Places to go for crime statistics (to make sure Spencer is spouting the right numbers, lol): . ; .gov/ ; ./ ; .org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States , and I'm sure there are others as well. The one statistic I was looking for but could not find was the percentage of average people versus celebrities that are stalked. Therefore, that one I made up!

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