Criminal Minds: Paralysing Anger

Chapter Seven

Danielle Hope's Residence

"Danielle Hope, FBI. We need to talk to you!" Morgan called out as he knocked on the front door.

A couple of moments later, the door swung open to reveal a pretty young girl with long brown hair and hazel eyes sat in a rather tired-looking wheelchair. She was definitely the girl from the social media pages, but she was a shell of the happy and joyous young girl from the social media photos.

"Danielle Hope? My name is Derek Morgan, and this is Jennifer Jareau. We are from the FBI. Would you mind if we ask you a couple of questions regarding a case we are working on?"

"Yeah, I guess. Come in." Danielle answered monotonously.

Her hallway was cramped and narrow, and she couldn't turn her wheelchair so had to reverse back down the corridor into the kitchen. She wheeled up to the kitchen table and pointed at the two seats opposite.

Morgan and JJ sat down.

"Danielle, we are working a case here in the city at the moment, and we believe you might have some crucial information that might help us," JJ spoke softly and kindly, she noticed that.

Danielle has substantial scarring on her wrists and forearms, some relatively recent-looking, a strong indication of self-harm.

"I haven't left the house in nearly six months; I don't know how I can have any information that can help unless it happened on daytime TV." She replied, scoffing slightly.

"We need to ask you about somebody named Smith?" JJ asked, looking for any subtle signs that Danielle knew anything about Smith's actions.

"Smith?! Why do you need to know about him?"

"Listen, Danielle; we need to be straight with you. We are investigating shootings that have all been designed to paralyse the victims. There have been eight victims so far. Two fatal, the most recent victim was our close friend and colleague; he's in hospital, he might never walk again...."

"So what has this got to do with Smith? There are millions of people in the city, why do you think it is him?"

"Our fourth victim, Dustin Long, the first of the victims to be left quadriplegic; we know he is the reason you are in that chair. We have a strong belief that Smith may be looking to seek revenge."

It was clear to both JJ and Morgan that Danielle knew nothing of this.

Danielle was dumbfounded. She couldn't believe Smith would do something like that. He had been her rock since the accident; well accident wasn't the right word, assault perhaps more befitting.

"It can't be. He wouldn't do that. He's been so good to me since this. He's round here all the time looking after me. He loves me, despite all this." she said, indicating the chair and her arms.

"It's important we speak to him. If he's our Unsub, then he's clearly angry, and his revenge pattern is escalating. We need to find him and stop him before he hurts anyone else or gets himself killed." Morgan said determinedly.

"Wh... What do you need to know?" Danielle asked in barely a whisper.

"Full name and address, for starters," JJ replied.

"Smith Weston, 564 West-Portland Street." Looking terrified, she continued "Please don't hurt him."

Smith Weston's Residence

"Smith Weston?! FBI, Open Up!" Hotch commanded at the front door of the property, knocking firmly to no response. "JJ, Morgan, round the back, Alex, Rossi with me."

The team split up. Morgan and JJ jogged round to the back of the property down an alleyway.

"We are in position Hotch," JJ spoke quietly into the comms system.

"Go, Go, Go!" Hotch's acknowledgement came in response.

JJ and Morgan entered the property through the back door, hearing the multiple shouts of "Clear" as rooms were checked. Suddenly there was a noise from upstairs and the sound of someone scrambling through an upstairs window onto the fire escape outside.

JJ and Morgan about-turned and ran back out the door they had just entered. Looking up, they saw a young Caucasian male climbing down the fire escape at speed. He reached the bottom before JJ and Morgan caught up, and sped off down the alley, Morgan, slightly faster than JJ, immediately gave chase. JJ informed the others via the comms and set off running down a parallel alleyway with the hope of cutting the Smith off.

Four blocks over, Morgan turned a corner to find a dead-end- a tall 8ft fence blocked the alley. Smith, attempting to scale the barrier was struggling, giving Morgan the chance to catch up. Reaching up, he grabbed the boy, yanking him to the ground by his t-shirt. He resisted and fought.

"Calm down! You need to CALM the hell down! Stop fighting! I don't want to have to use unnecessary force; I don't want to have to hurt you. We just want to talk. Get up!" Morgan spoke, yanking him up and handcuffing him. "We're taking you to the station to answer some questions."

JJ caught up to them. The boy looked just that. A boy. He looked young and scared, nothing like the murderous killer that shot eight people in cold blood. Rossi pulled up at the entrance to the alley in a black SUV, their ride back to the precinct.