It took a week.
Only a week for Mitchell Diaz's life to go down the drain.
It started out with the murders of two strangers in a city miles away. But once the BAU show up after the third murder occurs in her city, everything gets put together.
She...
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CHAPTER 36: VITAL
MITCHELL WAS FRUSTRATED.
The only connection Alice Emerson had to any of the victims from the gas station shooting was to Rebecca Schroeder. And the only thing they had in common was age range, race, and gender.
It wasn't enough.
She could ask Garcia for help, but she knew the blonde was busy trying to get to Alice's texts and emails.
Mitchell looked over at her bag that was sitting on the floor by the couch. She looked through the doors to see Rossi and Hotch speaking by the coffee station. Mitchell stood up and went over to her bag, grabbing the letter.
She was going to open it. What's the worst that could happen?
Making sure no one was walking towards the conference room, Mitchell ripped open the envelope and unfolded the notebook paper inside.
'Happy birthday, Mitchie.'
'You coming to visit any time soon?'
'Congrats on the new job, by the way.'
Mitchell rolled her eyes before shoving the paper back in her bag. But one thing still worried here.
How did Camille know that she worked for the FBI?
Soon the other's filed in from their trips to interview Alice's husband and boss and began to share their findings,
"Alice Emerson's husband said they live a quiet life. But this morning before the shooting, she was acting preoccupied. When he asked her what was bothering her, she said it was something at work." Morgan told the group,
"Yet her boss claims she was worried about a medical procedure her mom was having." Spencer said from his spot on the counter,
Hotch's phone began to ring and everyone turned their attention towards it, "Go ahead, Garcia." Hotch said as he answered and put it on speaker,
"I am loathe to admit this, but I'm having a hard time recovering all of Alice Emerson's texts and emails. That company that runs chat alert is damn good at scrambling their data. And although I am as fast as hot lightning, my server is not because it needs updating, so if someone with great hair and a tie could approve the funding to update such server, we could get this show on the road and I could-"
"Put in a requisition, Garcia." Hotch stated,
"Thank you, sir. Filing form 9093B now. I am familiar with it and the void it disappears into. Ok. I did manage to piece together Alice's last text. It was sent at 11:40, which is less than an hour before the shooting. It's a doozy. It was sent to a prepaid cell phone and it is this: 'Rebecca Schroeder'." Garcia told them and Mitchell sat up,
JJ's eyebrows furrowed, "You lost me. We're talking about Alice Emerson."
"I know. And that's the text she sent, that name, Rebecca Schroeder. "
Mitchell turned to look at the evidence board, "She's the second shooting victim at the gas station."
"Yeah. Rebecca is an Econ professor at East Texas College. She's 50, never married and no kids, although she does have a sister who lives in Austin with 5 kids, that she's close to. She has season tickets to the opera. Beside that, she lives like a monk. According to her credit card record, she doesn't even own a pet." Garcia informed the team,
"Any idea where Alice and Rebecca's paths might have crossed?" Hotch asked,
"No. I ran a cursory search and I've come up with nada." Garcia answered,
"What if Rebecca Schroeder was a community angel?" JJ asked, looking over at Spencer,
"If she was part of the network that shelters abused women, the unsub could be looking for someone they both helped." Spencer stated,
"Alice was the first contact for an abused woman, but the unsub needed to know who the woman was handed off to. In this case it was Rebecca." Morgan suggested and put the photo of Rebecca next to Alice's,
"He may have threatened to kill them or a loved one if they didn't give him the information that he wanted. After they did, he killed them anyway to bury the evidence and cut off the trail. It's probably why he shot at Rebecca's phone." Mitchell said as she opened her file and grabbed the trim scene photo of Rebecca's phone with a bullet whole through it to show to the group,
"If Alice gave up Rebecca's name, Rebecca may have also given up something vital to the unsub. Thanks, Garcia."
