My anticipated comatose state didn't last long, however, because my phone went off at--I squinted at the lit up screen--12:03. I grabbed it off the table and unlocked it, a text from Garcia displayed on the blue screen.
BAU ASAP. Child abduction.
I sighed and rolled over onto my back, blinking away the starbursts dancing across my black ceiling from staring at the bright phone screen. Twenty-four hours was our time frame if we wanted to get a victim of child abduction back alive, so I sat up rubbing my eyes before climbing out of my warm bed and hurriedly getting dressed.
I tried my best to not go too far over the speed limit on my way in and before I even entered the conference room I had a Coke in hand. I needed the caffeine, not the sugar, but I suppose the sugar couldn't hurt.
A boy from a family in WITSEC had been abducted, suspectedly by the mafia family they were in protection from though a ransom demand had yet to be made.
"I'm already going through all the contacts the Heather's family had before they went into Witness Protection, and the limited list of those they have contact with now," Garcia told us.
"All right. The rest of us will head to Alabama. JJ and Rossi, go to the boy's school, Morgan and Reid, set up at the station, and Prentiss and McDowell, you're with me to interview the family," Hotch said, followed by a, "Wheels up in twenty," as we all gathered up our stuff.
One thing I had never admitted to the team was that I hated interviewing the family. I know it was a necessary part of the job and I would have no idea what it felt like to be them, missing a child or a daughter or a husband, but part of this job meant you were good at compartmentalizing. So good in fact that facing crying mothers, angry fathers, and silent siblings every day didn't affect me, at least not until the case was over and solved, and by then there was another case you needed to be clear-headed for, so it was rare I felt anything. Not that I minded, I had always been good at compartmentalizing and if that's what it took to save lives, I was all for it.
Through tears from the mother and short, stoic answers from the father, they explained that a few years back the father's brother had gotten involved with a mafia group and came to him when he needed help paying off debts so he could get out, but a shoot out ensued and the brother was killed, a price put on the heads of the Heather's once a couple of the mafia members were tossed in jail because of Mr. Heather's brother's involvement.
Garcia confirmed that their records checked out, and one of the aforementioned mafia members had just gotten released from prison which means we had our unsub. The problem remained to find him before he hurt the boy within our quickly diminishing time limit.
While we informed the public--with our profile and an appeal to the unsub from the boy's parents--Garcia was busy searching the vast database of the internet for whatever she could dig up for Wylie Fransuto.
Apparently the Heather's appeal worked, because minutes after we had all returned to the police station, a restricted number called.
"Keep the focus on your son," Prentiss said before letting them answer it. Rossi had Garcia trace the call.
"Hello?" Mrs. Heather asked in a wavering voice.
We all heard the deep voice on the other end reply, "Two-hundred thousand. By two o'clock."
"Is Daniel okay?" she asked.
"You won't get a cent until you prove he's okay," Mr. Heather challenged.
We were met by silence on the other end, but then a faint crackling ensued and a timid voice asked, "Mom? Dad?"
Mrs. Heather gasped and pressed a hand over her mouth to keep from breaking down in tears and Mr. Heather sighed in relief, a hand on his wife's shoulder as he answered, "Daniel, I promise you'll be okay soon, all right, bud?"
"Dad--" the boy said through the phone, but his words were cut off by a sharp, "Shut up! Two-hundred thousand. You have one hour," from Wylie Fransuto and then a click and we were left with the dial tone ringing through the room.
"Garcia, did you get anything?" Rossi asked her.
"I couldn't triangulate it because he hung up too soon, but it pinged off of two towers nearby. I'm sending you the coordinates now," she said.
"We don't have two-hundred thousand dollars," Mr. Heather's insisted. "We put everything we had into our new house so cash has been sparse for a few months," he explained.
"We shouldn't need it, there's only a few possible locations he could be keeping him within the radius of the two towers, but see what you can come up with just in case," Morgan suggested, and I headed out with him and everyone else, leaving only JJ behind with the Heather's in case our unsub tried to call again.
We split up and searched all of the warehouses and abandoned buildings in the area Garcia had given us as possible locations. I had just entered an office building, abandoned because it was slated for destruction in two weeks, with Prentiss--our third stop--when her phone went off. Rossi and Morgan thought they had Wylie, they had spotted movement in a newly constructed law firm across town from where we were but they were waiting for back-up.
"Let's go," she said, and I grabbed the keys. Rumor had it I was almost as crazy a driver as Morgan, and our allotted hour was quickly winding down.
In under ten minutes, we were all armed and vested and we split up, the six doors leading outside covered among us and the local PD. I took a side door with Prentiss, coming in right behind Wylie Fransuto.
He had Daniel's hands and feet bound in duct tape, the child cowering at his feet. Wylie had a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, and he was clearly a desperate man. Why else would he have gotten out of prison and immediately gone after the kid to get ransom money?
"Put your weapons down," Morgan barked, his gun trained on the man's chest. The unsub's attention was focused on Morgan and Hotch in front of him, but he was oblivious to Prentiss and I behind him and Reid and Rossi closing in from the opposite side.
"Where's my money?!" he demanded.
"Let the boy go and we'll give you the money. You don't need him anymore," Morgan said, his voice calm but stern.
"No. Where is it?" he snapped, crouching down and pressing the knife to the boy's throat, the gun held loosely in his other hand but in a position that would make it very easy to level it at Morgan if he needed to.
"We're not giving you the money until you give up the boy!" Morgan shouted, taking a step closer, his gun clutched firmly in his hands and pointing right at the unsub's forehead. I knew it was just a power play, though. There was no way he could risk shooting Wylie Fransuto without hitting the boy.
I raised my gun, my finger curled on the trigger. He shook his head and shifted his arm with the knife in it, and at the slight movement, my finger twitched on the trigger, sending a bullet exploding from the barrel of my pistol, a crack echoing through the room before his body crumpled to the floor with a dull thud. Blood rapidly darkened his hair and Morgan advanced and kicked the knife and gun away from Wylie Fransuto's lifeless body before peeling the duct tape away from the boys ankles and hands and helping him to his feet.
I holstered my gun and Morgan remarked, "Nice shot, McDowell."
I nodded in acknowledgement, glancing at the body on the floor. I had killed him. I hadn't even hesitated when I shot him, and I'd never shot to kill before, unless paper targets at the firing range counted.
On the flight home, I was busy filling out paperwork so I wouldn't have to do it later even though I was practically falling asleep doing it.
JJ was sleeping across two seats, Morgan was asleep with headphones over his ears, Prentiss next to him glancing over a file, and Reid curled up on the couch with his arm serving as a pillow under his head. Even though I was technically the youngest member of the BAU, he still looked like a little kid sleeping like that. Hotch was focused on work, as always, in the seat directly across the aisle from me, and Rossi was coming back down the aisle carrying a Styrofoam cup of coffee. He sat down in the vacant seat in front of me instead of where he'd been sitting before.
"What's up?" I asked him casually.
"Are you okay?" he asked me.
"Aside from being a zombie walking, yeah," I answered sarcastically even though I knew what he was talking about.
"You killed a person today," he stated, ignoring my sarcasm.
I paused a beat before saying, "I didn't kill someone. I saved a life."
Rossi smiled and leaned back in his chair, and I could tell he silently approved of my answer as he took a sip of his coffee, and I returned to my paperwork.
I got back to my apartment at eight, and I took a shower only because I knew I wouldn't be able to get up in time tomorrow morning to take one before work considering how tired I was now. I had just climbed in bed when the tranquil wandering of my mind right before sleep decided to remind me that my rent and my electricity bill were due before midnight tonight.
Damn it, I thought as I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled around my apartment in the dark for a few minutes before locating my laptop on the kitchen counter. I powered it up and turned down the brightness so the screen wouldn't blind me in the dark--I was too lazy to turn the lights on and I had an easier time falling asleep afterwards if I didn't--and then opened my email. I had set up reminders for online bills in my account, and after I had paid them electronically, I decided I might as well clean out the rest of my inbox. It was then that I noticed I had another email from the 'Unknown' address.
I saw the news. You've been busy . Congratulations, you saved the last girl and the boy.
I was too tired to bother attempting a reply, and only later did I discover that I had inadvertently saved it with the first one.