Clever girl. But do you think I don't know where you live? I'm still planning to see you in a few weeks.
He knew where I lived. Deleting my email hadn't done anything, now he was sending me cryptic letters via snail mail. If he knew where I lived...
There was no guarantee it was the same guy, though. This letter could have come from a different man entirely, despite how unlikely Reid's statistics would tell me it is. I powered up my computer and then found the saved emails--screenshots since I had deleted the account--and compared the text.
Three sentences, focus on himself, 'you' and 'I' but no names. I'm pretty sure it was the same guy, so I added it to my collection and resolved to brush up on general profiles of obsessive stalkers. It clearly was no longer a prank, but more cases like this than you would expect are just empty threats in an attempt to coerce money out of those they're 'stalking', and since I knew that, obviously it wouldn't work.
Maybe I could get something out of analyzing his handwriting, but I'd have to check online since I couldn't really ask Reid for help. Well, I could ask him, but I wasn't going to. I was perfectly capable of handling it myself.
And though the logical part of me believed that, the illogical part kept prodding me awake with worry every time I started drifting off, and it took two hours before I finally fell asleep.
I ran out the door, my gun clutched in one hand as I quickly rounded the corner of the building, peering through the dark for the boy. He hadn't been with the unsub when we'd confronted him, but this unsub killed with homemade poison that caused his victims a grueling amount of pain, lasting hours, before they died. We could only assume he'd used it on the boy, and the minute we saw the kid wasn't with the unsub, I took off to look for him, despite Hotch's direct orders.
A rustling sounded from the bushes surrounding the building, and I levelled my gun at the waving leaves, stepping closer.
If it was the kid, yelling 'FBI' wouldn't do anything but scare him, and if it wasn't the kid, whoever else would be out here this time at night definitely wouldn't be up to something good, so if I surprised them without announcing my presence, I'd have a better chance of catching them.
More rustling as the vegetation brushed against the building, but I thought I detected a moan and labored breathing that was not my own. I took another step, and between the leaves, crouched in a ball on the ground with his knees pulled to his chest, was the boy. Dirt covered his face, two lighter trails running vertically from his squinted eyes the remains of tears, his hair was full of twigs and dead grass, the original color of his clothes was unidentifiable, and he was rocking back and forth, whimpering in pain.
I holstered my gun and was about to approach him when Hotch and Rossi showed up behind me.
"McDowell, what the hell were you thinking?" Hotch chided, but I cut him off with an even, "I got the kid," gesturing at the bushes where he was hiding.
I crouched down right in front of him and said softly, "Come here."
The boy sniffled and looked up at me, but then his gaze flitted over my shoulder and he screamed, "No!" and started sobbing.
I looked behind me, Hotch was there.
"It's okay," I beckoned, holding a hand out to the boy, but he shook his head and pressed himself against the wall of the building at his back.
"Aaron, back up," Rossi commanded, and I kept my eyes trained on the little boy's terrified ones as Hotch stepped back.
"Farther," I said when he had stopped six or so feet behind me, and only when he had gone back another two yards did the boy cautiously emerge from the bushes. I straightened up, regarding him carefully.
He took a few tentative steps and then ran right at me, attacking me with a hug, his fragile arms not even going all the way around my waist. Instead he clutched a fist into the fabric of my shirt at my hip. I wrapped my arms around him, trying to ignore how uncomfortable a hug, even from a traumatized little kid, was for me as his small frame shook with sobs.
I led him over to a waiting SUV--the ambulances weren't on the scene yet, otherwise we would have had him whisked off to the hospital right away--and told him I'd be right back, and he gave a feeble nod and curled up in a ball again. I shut the door and turned back to the rest of the team.
"We'll talk about this later," Hotch told me sternly, but then said, "Ride to the hospital with him. Reid, you're driving. I remind the kid too much of the unsub," and he tossed the keys to Reid, who fumbled but caught them.
I must be suffering from self-fulfilling prophecy myself, it seemed like I was always stuck with Reid when we split up to work on a case, but there wasn't time to worry about that now. I had to keep the kid conscious for the ride to the hospital, because the unsub had most definitely poisoned him like he had the other victims, it was just a matter of when and how long the boy had left.
"Am I--" he hiccupped, "am I under arrested?" he asked as his tears slowly subsided, though a whimper escaped his lips every now and again.
"No, of course not. We're going to take you to the hospital so the doctor's can make sure you're okay, and then you can go back to Mrs. Phyllis's," I said. He had been kidnapped from his group home in New Jersey two days ago, and it'd been a race against the clock to find him in time.
"Okay. Will the doctor's make my tummy stop hurting?" he asked me.
"Yeah, that's their job," I told him.
I glanced up and met Reid's gaze in the rearview mirror. I had never dealt with kids before, but I'm assuming I was either doing okay or Reid had never dealt with four-year-olds either because he didn't say anything.
"What's your name?" the boy asked me.
I was about to answer McDowell, that's what everyone called me, but I caught myself and replied, "Charlie."
A small smile inched across his dirty face and he giggled, "But that's a boy's name."
"Well actually," I said, lowering my voice to a whisper, "My name's Charlotte, but don't tell anyone," I teased, and he glanced at the back of Reid's seat but then nodded.
Reid and I were sitting around in the waiting room--waiting, obviously--to hear how the kid was.
"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Reid asked me suddenly, breaking the silence present in a hospital waiting room at eleven at night.
"Why?" I asked, surprised.
"Well most females have an inborn maternal instinct to care for others, but it often comes with experience, and obviously you don't have any children, so I was wondering if it was a younger sibling," he explained.
"Who says I don't have any kids?" I asked, mocking offense.
He stared, mouth open in surprise, and stammered to find words to correct himself, but the look of shock and embarrassment on his face was enough to make me smile, breaking my serious joke.
"Kidding," I answered, and he recovered with a simple, "Oh."
He paused for a second and then asked again, "So do you? Have any brothers or sisters, I mean."
I grinned and teased, "Maybe." I wasn't going to tell Morgan where I grew up, so I wasn't going to tell Reid if I had any siblings, either. I didn't, but if they really wanted to know they'd find out somehow. Besides, every once in a while someone needed to test their profiling skills, right? Well, at least someone who wasn't a psychopath.
Ten minutes later, a doctor came out and reported that they'd pumped the boy's stomach and he was recovering well. He said he was sleeping now, but tomorrow social services would take him back to his group home in New Jersey.
"There was one other thing," the doctor said as he turned a page on his clipboard. He sighed and then said gravely, "There were clear signs of sexual assault."
Immediately my stomach clenched in a hunk of revulsion and anger. That monster...how could he do something like that to a child? I almost wished we had shot him, my only consolation was that child molesters didn't last long in state prisons.
"Are you sure?" Reid asked. I knew what he was thinking, there were no signs of sexual assault on the other victims, but those had been grown men, not a kid.
The doctor nodded, and I muttered a, "Thank you, anyways," and then turned to leave.
To make matters worse, I had another letter when we got home. It'd been a whole week since the first one arrived in the mail, but this one was different. It was more than just three vague sentences, it had details.
You were too late, his innocence is gone. But not late enough, the boy lived. When we see each other again, you won't have to suffer the same fate.
He was right. My innocence was gone, but I wasn't going to be too late. I would catch this unknown man before he had a chance to kill me.