Criminal History.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

I stepped back after scrawling all over the wall and wiped the small bit of sweat that was forming on my brow. ‘I'm not a pool, a tree, a slave, a website, or a shirt.’ “what the hell does that mean?” Derek asked as I stood back and took photos with my phone.

“I don’t know. Maybe Reid or Garcia would know?” I sent a picture of the images to Penelope, David and Alex. “The fact they’ve left the riddle, it’s definitely the same person. I’m guessing that the UnSub wrote the note before the place went up in flames and left the body at the same time, Hence the darker colourisation.” I folded my arms across my chest as I looked at the writing on the wall, trying to figure out the riddle. “the question is, why are these happening? There seems to be no correlation between victims. The only similarity between murders is that there is a note left and the body had been bound.”

“Maybe the UnSub has a compulsion with riddles and not the murder itself.” Derek inquired and I began to giggle. “What’s so funny.”

“Can’t anyone see the similarities?” I asked as I walked around to face Hotch and Derek. “The Riddler from Batman. The UnSub thinks he is Edward Nigma from the DC universe.” Hotch and Derek looked at me with blank expressions. I pulled my phone out and called Rossi, he’d know.

“Rossi.” He answered.

“Hey, I have a theory. Who do you know who are obsessed with riddles? Someone who places a riddle for a certain important person to discover?”

“The riddler from batman?”

“Exactly. It’s the same MO.”

“good spot Jones. How are we going to lure him out? If he is like the Riddler, he’ll have hideouts all across Virginia.”

“That’s true, maybe I should ask Garcia if anyone has any deeds or properties in any of Nigma’s alias’?” I looked to Hotch and Derek who I think were following my train of thought. “Lucky for us, I happen to know someone who knows a lot about Batman and in particular Riddler.” I smiled widely as Rossi talked to someone on the other side of the phone.

“Don’t you think this could be about you?” Spencer spoke over the speaker.

I sighed heavily as I rolled my eyes “Why do you think that?”

“the birthday riddle, your birthday coincides…”

“It’s called a coincidence… you shouldn’t read too much into things you know.”

“I’m just saying, keep an eye out.” Spencer sighed.

“Ok, I’ll call Garcia now.” I ended the call and looked to Hotch. “Rossi agrees with the theory, the person is obviously mentally damaged somehow, he believes that he is Edward Nigma.”

“what does that mean exactly?” Derek asked as he walked to me.

“well it means that this guy will attack at nearly the exact same time on each day. Everything with this person must be exact but it won’t be easy to find him, he is very clever and feels the need to prove his superiority regularly. The murders will continue until someone matches his knowledge.” I began texting Garcia furiously, texting her aliases of Nigma, possible hideouts etc for her to work her magic on. “the bad thing however, is that he will have insane attention to detail. He will look over everything with a fine toothcomb, wipe down every surface and he is a wiz with technology. He will be close to impossible to arrest or even find, we’ll need to wait until he slips up. It may not be the best play… but we will need to wait until he makes a mistake or until he gets bored.”

“that doesn’t sound good.” Derek spoke.

“You’re right, it’s not good.” I sighed heavily before I began smiling. “Luckily for us, the Riddler is my specialty, I know nearly everything about the guy, let’s just see how close our lovely imitator is.”

“So what’s the plan?” Derek asked as I looked to Hotch for the answer.

“Let’s continue with our usual process, we will follow everything we usually do to catch the UnSub, we’ll visit the sites, see if anything has been missed.” Hotch spoke simply and I nodded in response.

I looked around the scene, looking for anything that may have been left by the UnSub. As I thought, the scene was completely empty, but something felt wrong, something felt as if I was missing something.

I continued to look for another hour double checking everything before we left. We were in the car heading to another scene before it hit me. I immediately pulled out my phone and called Penelope. “Hey P. could you check through the video footage of the club for a face of the UnSub?”

“I haven’t been given any, surveillance was being updated so there were no cameras there.” Penelope spoke slightly confused.

“I saw a camera in the club, it was only small, humor me for a minute, have a look to see if there is a signal being sent from the scene?”

“give me a minute to work my magic.” She began typing furiously on her keyboard “There is a signal being transmitted.”

“Where is it being sent to?”

“I don’t know, the signal is bouncing from three different hotspots and the signal is changing every two minutes.” She sounded a little annoyed but she continued to type.

“Well hello Mister Nigma.” I mused. “The UnSub has had a camera set up for the last few weeks, hence how he knew the venue would be empty. Could you try and track it, you are the Black Queen after all. If anyone can do it, you can!”

“And don’t you forget it, Queenie out.” With Penelope’s happy voice, a small click sounded before the line went dead.

We investigated the other Virginia scene and we had pictures sent to us of the other, each scene had a small webcam hidden from obvious view. This posed more questions, the UnSub must have been somehow related to each scene to be able to enter the premises and install these wireless cameras. The cameras themselves were all placed in strategic locations to ensure there isn’t a blindspot in the room, meaning the UnSub must have been very aware of the location at hand.

“The only question I have is how’d he know the insides of each building? There aren’t any blueprints available to the public are there?” I wondered aloud.

“No, there are no copies.” Derek spoke from beside me as we walked around the park where the first body was found. “This guy must be gutsy to attack such an open area.”

“That’s the thing, I think there is someone else.” I voiced my thought aloud grabbing Hotch’s attention.

“Why do you think that?”

“The Riddler, he very rarely ventured outside of his hideout, he had someone else to do his work for him, also, the cameras are set up so specifically that there must be someone watching the screen while the camera is being placed. This is not a one man job.” I justified my thoughts with my observations and my knowledge on Riddler. “This guy is bugging me a little though, by now, a ransom or a price would have been given, we haven’t heard anything. I mean, it’s obvious that he’s the Riddler, but, there is no other information it’s almost as if he hasn’t taken responsibility.”

“Maybe it’s not him.” Derek spoke up and an idea popped into my head.

I walked around slightly so that I would be visible to the camera before I spoke carefully. “Maybe you are right, The real Riddler would never make such an idiotic error.”

I counted to five on my fingers before I began to smile as a phone call came through to Mine, Derek and Hotch’s phones at the exact same time.

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