Criminal Minds: Paralysing Anger

Chapter Six

Police station.

When the group arrived at the station, Detective McDowd welcomed them with sadness.

"We heard about your young Doctor, is he alright?" he asked.

Rossi explained their night to the detective whilst the others gathered all the information they had produced the previous day. With JJ and Officer Matthew's statement, they had slightly more to go on, but they needed to dwindle it down even further.

Morgan wasted no time in phoning his computer genius.

"Garcia." She sounded low.

"It's me, how's our boy?"

Garcia was quiet.

"Mama? What's up? Talk to me."

"He's not good. The doctors did their initial reflex tests and..." Garcia trailed off quietly, "nothing. Yet! But he's not taking it well at all. He thinks this is it."

"Damn. I wish I could be there to talk some sense into our genius. Baby, I need you to be strong for him, throw some of that Penelope positivity we all adore his way. We'll try to get down there soon as we can, but I'm not sure how soon that will be, we're getting nowhere fast."

"I'll try my best. I take it that's the reason for your call, not just to hear my lovely voice."

"Oh, you know me too well. I need those magic fingers of yours to do their thing. We need to dwindle the numbers. Can you work your magic? We have a rough description of our Unsub." Derek read off the Unsub's attributes- Caucasian male, aged mid to late teens to early twenties, as he heard Penelope tapping away on her laptops and lightning speed.

"Sweetness, New York City is home to a little over 8 million people. Of that, approximately 45% are Caucasian. Between the ages of 15-24, there are approximately 1.2 million so make that about 555000 Caucasian youths, going on the assertion that 47% are male that leaves us with roughly quarter of a million male Caucasians between the ages of 15-24. So I'm going to need some more parameters if you want me to shrink that number down people." Garcia rambled off.

Her bubbly demeanour might be taking a day off today, but the fingers of fury were working to their normal levels of excellence.

"Baby girl that almost sounded like Reid-type levels of numerical genius," Derek said almost chuckling.

"I must be channelling his genuineness from down the hall whilst he sleeps. So anything else you can give me?"

"Nothing else tangible, can you check for criminal records, juvenile records, gun licences. Have you managed to get anything that might give us any clues from the earlier victims?"

"Okay yeah, I was in the middle of looking into victim number 4 - Dustin Long yesterday when you phoned to tell me about Spence. Em, where was I..." She said, typing furiously into her records. "That was it, yeah Long was recently on trial for his participation in numerous drive-by shootings last year. His guilt was definitive; there were eyewitness accounts that proved he was the one holding the gun, and gun casings that matched a gun found in his possession. Still, the case fell apart when it was discovered that a cop had mishandled and contaminated evidence and had bribed a witness into coming forward out of hiding. The judge threw out the case, and Long walked free."

"Baby girl was there anyone particularly angry by this outcome, victims of the shootings or victim family members that might have gone after Long and other fellow gang members in retaliation?"

"Only one person was seriously injured, it seems like Long didn't have perfect aim. The final drive-by shooting before he was caught, a teen girl was caught in the crossfire. Danielle Hope."

"Did she survive?"

"One second.....she did but..."

"... But what, Baby girl?"

Garcia let out a sigh of inevitability "Danielle was left paraplegic when the bullet severed her spine. That sounds not-so-coincidentally familiar."

"Garcia, I swear you need to change your name to Google, 'cause Baby Girl you have always got everything I'm searching for. What more can you tell me about her? Does she have anyone close that fits the Unsub's description."

"I'll look into it and get back to you quick as a flash."

Garcia hung up, and Derek raced over to the group who were looking more diminished at the lack of progress.

"So I have good news and less than good news. The good news is Garcia has worked her magic and pulled a lead out of a hat.

"You know who the Unsub is?" Hotch asked with a raised eyebrow and a look of hope.

"Not quite, but we've got the biggest lead yet." Morgan went on to tell the group about the Danielle Hope lead finishing up with "Garcia's looking into any young male friends or family members that might be out for revenge."

"It makes sense that the Unsub would go after people he felt responsible for the shooting, and going after police since it was a police officer that caused the case to fall through. Doesn't explain Mark Donaldson's attack; Perhaps he was just an innocent bystander, wrong place wrong time." Blake deduced.

"What's the less than good news?" JJ asked warily.

Morgan looked dejected. "The doctors checked Reid's reflexes this morning and got no result. Now we know the doctor said that this was likely and that we won't know for sure until the inflammation dies down, but Spence isn't taking it well. Garcia's trying to keep him positive, but she said he's talking about selling his apartment and car."

The group didn't like to think about the possibility of Spencer being wheelchair-bound; they were more determined than ever to catch this guy before he could strike again.

By the time the group had looked out Danielle's address and were planning on visiting, Garcia was back on the phone. Derek put her on loudspeaker so that everyone could hear.

"Go ahead, Garcia, you have your audience." Morgan introduced.

"Okay, my lovelies. I looked into the life of 18-year-old Danielle Hope. So Danielle has one sibling, a six-year-old sister. No brothers, no Father in the picture, as far as I can tell no young male relatives. So I chose to have a look at her Facebook page. Up until nine months ago, Danielle seems to be your average teenage girl. She was on the honour roll, taking multiple AP classes; she's very social, loads of status updates looks like she was a ballet dancer. In fact, the day before the shooting, she received a full dance scholarship to Columbia University to study law. Anyway since the shooting, there's an undeniable change in tone; very dark. Anyway, I'm getting off-topic. There is a young Caucasian male that features a very prominent role in a lot of her earlier photos tagged only as Smith. There is a profile for "Smith", but its privacy settings are pretty tight. I can't see anything. I've tried running the photos through facial recognition but nothing. If he's a juvenile or never been in the system, I might not get anything, but I will keep on trying. Sorry guys. I'm emailing you all photos of the Unsub to your cells."

"Thank you, Garcia," Hotch replied.

"Yeah, thanks, Baby girl," Morgan added.

"No problemo, you know where I am, Garcia out." With that, she was gone.

"Okay, so maybe our best bet is to visit Danielle. See if she knows where "Smith" might be." Hotch said. "JJ, you and Morgan visit Danielle.