Chapter 37

Pandora's Box

The phone rang with a shrill tone calling everyone's attention in the silence. A few terse words and the dark haired man nodded.

"We got another one," he said in his clipped Virginian accent.

A tall African American cursed under his breath, "C'mon, Hotch, Don't these guys ever take a break?"

"You know they don't, Morgan." He addressed the whole group. "Wheels up in half an hour."

The assembly, elite agents of the Behavioral Agency Unit, gathered together assessing the unknown subject, or unsub, in their swiftly moving jet.

"The girl was on the internet. It was the first time her family let her on unsupervised. Next thing you know the unsub is claiming he left his wallet in his apartment, and gives her a soft drink while she listens to his hip cd track."

He air quoted the word hip to show his distaste in the man's methods. "The girl was found the next day, raped, and killed. She was so drugged out, she didn't even fight back. The fool didn't even have the mind to bury the body, just dumped her across state lines."

"And that's where we come in," JJ answered with her long blonde hair pulled away from her slim face.

Landing quickly and after contacting the local police station, the group met with the victim's family. They interviewed the weeping mother and father, who not understanding how they, an unassuming family could have this tragedy happen to them. Didn't they instill in their daughter about stranger danger?

Apparently no one was a stranger on the internet.

With Garcia's help, the team pulled the information from the computer's memory. The internet browser had been used every day after school using a common Web chat server. Luckily this company had been cooperative with police before. Others cited privacy and first amendment rights, thus hampering their investigation.

The unsub had stated he was a young male, approximately 16 years old, an appealing image to a shy, naive 14 year old. The girl told her mother she'd be meeting friends at the mall, a common occurrence. Little did she know after she dropped her daughter off that would be the last she would see of her child. The father raged, the mother wept. The victim's younger siblings looked confused. The unsub's profile was generic, and most definitely all lies. The picture he probably stole from the yearbook found in any local library. It would take a miracle to find him now.

"What!?" Rossi exclaimed as he turned to take a phone call. "You're joking."

Prentiss glanced over at Reid but the genius was as lost as she. Their leader hung up his cell shaking his head in disbelief. "The local authorities just picked up a man who they said just confessed to trying to coerce a minor in his apartment. They think he's the unsub."

"You're kidding. The guys in blue just got handed a gift wrapped present dropped in their lap?" Morgan's opinion of the local authorities was not very high. They in turn scoffed at the profilers' wild assumptions.

"It's a lead so let's check it out before he calls for a lawyer."

The others followed Hotch as he strode out the door.

They observed the man through a two way mirror. The suspect held his head in his hands looking haggard.

"Has he said anything?" Reid asked the precinct captain.

"Just that he confessed to trying to abduct a girl, killing 2 others and had been stealing cable for the past year."

The group took a slow blink processing all of the information.

"Is he legit or just some loony trying to take credit?"

The chief hesitated. Haltingly he said, "We don't have anything on record for this guy, he seems like your average Joe Schmo, but..."

"Yes?" Hotch prompted the man, impatient about why he just didn't spit it out.

"He said he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for the angel."

Morgan let out a low whistle, "Better get out the straight jacket."

Hotch shook off the statement. "I'd like to hear it myself." He matched through the door with the man's file in hand, followed closely by Morgan. Reid and JJ decided to watch with the chief from the observation room.

Hotchner flipped open the front of the file decisively, "38, never married, no children, no prior arrests until the police showed up at your door this afternoon." The team was right, no one would turn an eye towards this ordinary man if he was walking down the street.

"A search of your apartment yielded a very beaten up computer and a spilled glass of roofied soda with yours and the girl's fingerprints on it."

Luckily Garcia had been able to pull the intact hard drive from the computer's guts, the only item remarkably unscathed from the carnage. Another unlooked for blessing.

The man before him shook his head in his hands like he had seen a ghost.

"I knew what I was doing was wrong, that I was going to hell, but I didn't expect…"

Morgan leaned down close to the nearly sobbing man's face. There was no reason to play good cop, bad cop with this suspect, the man was already broken. "You didn't expect what?"

The man turned dark eyes up to meet the profiler's face. "I didn't expect anyone to stop me. It was so easy to lure the girls in. This one was taking the bait from my hands, much quicker than the first two, but the door just burst open and a man came down on me like the wrath of God."

The two members of the BAU gave each other a disbelieving look. "Well, her father would be justifiably angry. If I was him, I would have beaten you to an inch of your life," Morgan hazarded.

Shaking his head, the arrested man could only deny their assumption. "No! Her father was holding her in the back of the room. This guy, he was like an avenging angel with no mercy in his eyes. I swung a baseball bat at him, but he blocked it like it was nothing."

"Was he the one who destroyed the computer?" Hotchner asked.

The perpetrator nodded.

The arresting officer had noted in the arresting report that a blonde man had been with the frightened daughter and angry father, but after the unsub had been handcuffed and shoved into the back of a cruiser only the father and child remained.

Strange.

The pair obtained a signed confession from the guilty man and caught up to JJ who was wrapping up her questions with the family. The girl, Sarah Radcliff, looked shaken but answered all the questions asked of her truthfully.

"I was stupid. I knew it was a bad idea to meet with him alone in the first place but I did it anyway."

JJ knelt down to the girl's level, giving her a comforting smile. "And you didn't feel anything strange about the guy, even though you could tell he wasn't 16?"

Sarah scowled at her gullibility. "He said he was really sorry about lying to me and kept saying to see beyond people's looks and just think about their true selves inside but..." It was all a con to get her to trust him. The young girl bit her bottom lip, all of her makeup wiped away at this point. She looked off into the distance.

All JJ could think was that she looked very young. She frowned. The girl would be affected by this for the rest of her life. "What is it Sarah?"

The girl looked back from her wayward thoughts. "I just… I just remember before I left with him hearing something. I thought it was my parents for a moment, but now that I think about it, it was a still, small voice inside of me, saying not to go with him, that it was wrong."

The blonde woman smiled at her as she straightened up, "That's your instincts telling you to run. It's good to listen to."

As they were briefed by JJ on a local counselor for the whole family, and their expectations of a trial against the offender, the daughter and grateful parents could only give each other a knowing glance. The voice might have been the girl's instincts, but the presence of three angels proved that it was much more than that.

It was heaven sent.

This was an interesting combination to write. I'm glad the internet wasn't so easy to access when I was growing up. Andrew was awesome in this episode.

Grignard