when you gotta add one last happy chapter before foyet shows back up
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[5.7]
"we are having a ren and reid book club as soon as you get back, mister"
"Why do you have a drumstick shoved in your cast?" Reid asked when Florence took her seat in the briefing room. JJ had just called them in for a case, and they were some of the first ones there. Florence had had her cast on for about a month, and it was covered in signatures and drawings from everyone she knew.
"Oh, uh, Reggie stole it from Alex and gave it to me to use as an itching stick," she explained. "I really appreciate it. I was using a pencil, but I lost it. This thing is way too big to lose."
"You... lost it?" he asked, tilting his head.
"I mean, it's not lost. It's in there somewhere," she said, shaking her arm. "Guess I'll get it back when they cut this bad boy off in a few weeks."
"Is the pencil the only thing you've lost down there?" Hotch asked, glancing at it.
"Um, there's at least a nickel and coffee stirrer in here. There's a tube of chapstick in there too, but that's on purpose. I keep it where I can reach it for whenever I need it."
He made a face, thinking about how gross it probably was. Hotch refrained from asking more questions as everyone filed in the briefing room. Once everyone had a seat, JJ got started, going over the specifics of the case.
"The latest victim is Tara Farris, twenty," she said while passing out the files. "She's the third victim in two weeks. All found on freeway off-ramps by commuters."
"Well, he's not hiding them," Hotch noted.
"An LA freeway during morning rush hour? He wants them found," Rossi said.
"Quickly."
"Well, they're still dressed. That minimizes the shock value," Prentiss said.
"Maybe he's concerned for them. Think he wants them taken care of?" Reid asked.
"No signs of sexual assault on any of the victims," JJ told them.
"Look how pale she is," Rossi observed.
"I mean, she is goth," Florence muttered. Though it likely wasn't just makeup making her look that shade.
"All of them were severely hypovolemic. Tara had less than a pint of blood in her," JJ said.
"Look at this," Reid said, looking at the file. "The first two had more than three pints each. If exsanguination is the goal, the unsub is definitely becoming more proficient."
"This is new. Tara's the only victim to have a written message," JJ said. She clicked her remote and the screen showed a picture of Tara's arm, which had "The Liar" written in blood.
"The liar," Hotch read aloud.
"The liar. That's strange, isn't it?" Prentiss asked. "Not a liar or just liar."
"So what did you lie about, Tara?" Morgan asked.
"All of the victims appear to have been strangled and then bled out through identical wounds in the throat," JJ said. Florence leaned forward excitedly when she saw the pictures.
"Wait — seriously, are those supposed to be fang marks?" Prentiss asked, scoffing.
"All of the wounds on the victims were covered in saliva," JJ told them. "Human saliva, as though—"
"Someone drank their blood," Reid realized.
Hotch sighed. "Florence, don't—"
"Vampire! Vampire unsub. It's about time the government investigated them," she said, practically bouncing in her chair. "Pack it up, Edward Cullen. You're being replaced."
"She's gonna be like this the whole case, isn't she?" Rossi asked the others.
"My money is on a werewolf plot twist that completely changes the details of the case at the most crucial moment."
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Once the team was on the plane, they called Garcia and Florence to continue going over the case.
"So they've already set up a task force in Los Angeles," JJ told them after getting off the phone.
"This isn't their first serial case," Rossi said.
"You remember Detective Owen Kim?"
"From the stalker case," Hotch responded to JJ.
"You remember that case, don't you, Spence?" she asked in a teasing tone. Florence looked away from her keyboard and towards the others.
"I do remember that case," Reid stated.
"Yeah, you ever talk to, um, Lila anymore?"
"Ooh, who's Lila?" Florence asked, grinned into the camera.
Reid awkwardly cleared his throat. "You know, I think we should probably focus on this case right now. It's a little more pertinent."
There was a short, uncomfortable pause, which piqued Florence's curiosity even more. "Fine, I'll find her myself," she muttered, pausing her routine background search to instead find out who this Lila was.
"All right, so tell us about blood-drinkers, Reid," Morgan said.
"Human blood consumption, or clinical vampirism, is known as Renfield's Syndrome, named after the insect-eating character in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula," he replied.
"Are they sadists?" Prentiss asked.
"Not necessarily. Pain to the victim is usually only a byproduct. Blood is the focus. Renfield's syndrome is usually accompanied by varying levels of schizophrenia and occasionally more classic cannibalism If the condition evolves," Reid explained.
"Classic cannibalism," Rossi repeated. "Lovely job we have."
"I will say this, true cases are exceedingly rare," Reid told them.
"That's comforting. Sort of," JJ murmured.
"Holy shit, Lila Archer is hot," Florence muttered, leaning on her elbow and staring at her screen. "Sorry, uh, keep going. Keep going. But also, way to go, Boy Genius."
Reid blushed and then Garcia pulled them back towards the case. "Renfield's may be rare, but vampires are anything but. And there's a huge subculture in Los Angeles of the red-drinking undead."
"Why is that not a surprise?" Rossi asked.
"Garcia, all these people drink blood?" Morgan asked.
"Au contraire. they mostly just dress up like Prentiss did in high school and they make-believe," she said, making Florence giggle. "It's all kinds of delicious."
"It's not the same thing at all. As a matter of fact, we should refer to this unsub as a vampirist, not a vampire," Reid said. "And they would be attracted to the subculture merely for its professed worship of blood."
"Ok, I'm going to continue spelunking through the various online sites. See if anything jumps up and bites me," Garcia said.
"Thanks, Baby G—" Morgan stopped himself from calling her the nickname, something that had been deemed "inappropriate" since he took the position of acting Unit Chief. "Thanks, Penelope. Stay close."
"Yes, sir," she said, grinning. "Garcia out."
"Hey, wait," Florence said, shoving her face close to the camera. "If you guys meet a small-town cop who looks like Charlie Swan, tell him to call me."
"What about Reggie?" Prentiss asked, grinning.
"Oh, he's very aware that I'd leave him immediately at the chance to be with Charlie Swan and he completely understands."
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Once the team got to LA, they split up. Rossi and Prentiss went to Tara's apartment to try and see if there were any clues. They did find her laptop and immediately got Florence and Garcia on the phone. The laptop was taken back to the precinct, where they got remote access to it so that they could search it.
"I always feel skeevy going through someone's life like this," Garcia muttered.
"I don't," Florence said, making grab hands for the keyboard. Garcia playfully rolled her eyes and passed it to her, which she then used to type in the password.
"Ok, so everything looks like it's password-protected, so you might not even be able to—" JJ cut herself off, seeing the desktop appear. "You're in already, aren't you?"
"The password was Cullen," Florence said. Garcia chuckled and leaned back to watch.
"Of course," JJ said, smiling.
"Colon?" Reid asked, looking away from the whiteboard.
"Cullen," JJ corrected. "The vampire family from Twilight."
"What's Twilight?"
"Oh my god," Florence muttered, looking at him in shock.
"Do you ever read anything other than technical books?" JJ asked him.
"Not much in English," he said.
"We are having a Ren and Reid book club as soon as you get back, mister," Florence said extra loudly into the microphone. Garcia then pulled her back in her seat.
"Okay, We'll see what we can dredge," Garcia told them. "My love is strong."
"Okay, thanks," JJ said before hanging up.
Garcia and Florence quickly got to work digging through Tara's website. They also finished looking into the loves of the other two victims. It ended up not taking too long to find out how they were all connected. With that, Florence started her digging on the singer. Before they could dial Prentiss to tell her, she called them.
"Speak to me, vision," she greeted.
"Garcia, give me everything you've got on a singer named Dante," Prentiss said.
"Dante, the vampire guy?" Garcia asked. "I was just about to call you."
"You know him?" Morgan asked.
"Uh, he's the one thing that all of our victims have in common."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"They have cyber shrines set up for this guy. They worship him. They're obsessed with his music," Garcia explained.
"Well, his new album comes out today and it's called The Liar," Prentiss told them.
"We know," Florence said, frowning as she looked over the fan sites. "And that was what was written on them."
"Ok, uh, all of our victims, including the first two, were diehard fans," Garcia said. "Tara and Gina — that's Tara's friend — they were practically running his fan club."
"What about Erin Hickman, our latest victim?" Prentiss asked.
"We've not seen that name," Florence told them.
"Ok, we need to talk to this Dante guy," Morgan said.
"Florence, can you get us an address?" Prentiss asked.
"That's gonna take a little while," Detective Kim stated. "These celebrities are protected by layers of privacy—"
"22423 Greenvale Circle, Holmby Hills," Florence interrupted him. "GPS coordinates are uploading to you now. And his name is Paul Davies, by the way. Which like, no wonder he changed it to Dante."
"Run him for a criminal record, too," Prentiss added.
"You got it," Garcia said.
"Thanks, PG, Ren."
Once they got to the address, Prentiss called, asking them to run a license plate through the system. It ended up belonging to Erin Hickman, the latest victim. They brought Dante in for questioning. After that, Garcia called to let Prentiss know she had found past domestic violence charges for him, though they were expunged. While Prentiss interrogated him, JJ went to check on Tina's friend, Gina.
Of course, it ended up that Gina was the unsub, and was being manipulated by Dante's manager. It was all to produce album sales. Once they were both apprehended, the team go on the plane and headed back.
"It never ceases to amaze me how dark obsession can get," Prentiss muttered, taking her seat.
"And with a pop star," Rossi said, scoffing. "I mean, I was obsessed with the Rat Pack, but I wouldn't have killed for Frank or Dean."
"No, you just drank whiskey and smoked cigars," Hotch said, smirking.
"This from the man who's favorite record Is the Beatles' white album," Rossi teased.
"Just because Manson hijacked it doesn't have to ruin it for the rest of us," Hotch told him.
"Speaking of pop stars, did you guys know that Florence once tackled a man in a mall that she thought was Niall Horan?" JJ asked, grinning.
"No she didn't," Prentiss said, grinning.
JJ nodded. "She saw him and got so excited, so she ran to hug him. Except she ran into him so hard that they fell over, and that was when she realized it wasn't him."
"She told me about that," Reid said, smiling. "She's apparently banned from a mall in Seattle because of it."
"The fact that that story is believable is very telling of her personality," Rossi said, chuckling.
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"Do you know what kind of car you're looking for?" the salesman asked.
After Florence had passed her driver's exam — by the literal skin of her teeth — Hotch and Rossi agreed to take her car shopping. Reggie tagged along for moral support, and he was currently walking by her side, swinging their intertwined hands back and forth as they walked through the dealership.
"I mean, maybe it's because we just finished the vampire case, but I'm kinda wanting the red Emmett Cullen Jeep," she stated, eying said car which was in a spot a few yards away.
"You're not buying any of the twilight cars," Rossi said, rolling his eyes.
"Also, Jeeps are known to be quite unreliable and unsafe due to how easy it is to roll them," Hotch added.
"I think green cars are fun," Reggie spoke up, grinning.
Hotch was there to make sure she made a safe choice, Rossi was there to make sure she made a classy choice, and Reggie was just there to hold her hand and pick out the neat cars.
"Do you have any Honda CR-Vs we could test drive?" Hotch asked the salesman, whose name was Dennis.
"That's a mom car," Florence whined. "What about, just, like, a stupid big truck?"
"A Prius, perhaps?" Hotch asked, completely ignoring Florence. "We'd like something reliable and with lots of safety features. Definitely the safety features."
Dennis thought for a moment. "Now, we don't have any cars that are both safe and green, but I do have a Toyota Camry in yellow. The new model comes out next month, so I could get you a good deal."
"Don't buy a yellow car, Florence," Rossi said, frowning. "Please."
"What are the specs?" Hotch asked Dennis, ignoring the others as they had a side argument about what colors were good or not. He did pull Florence out of it and made her listen though.
"It's the latest model. It has a rearview camera, which is standard in cars today, along with lane departure warning, hands-free Bluetooth for taking calls, forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, pedestrian detection, blind-spot monitoring, and a driver alert monitoring system. Of course, it'd be better to showcase all those features in a test drive."
"Does it have heated seats?" Florence asked, rocking back and forth on her feet. Hotch wanted to bring up the fact that that shouldn't matter, but he reminded himself that it would be Florence's car.
"Ooh, and a rockin' sound system," Reggie said, throwing an arm around Florence's shoulder. She nodded in agreement.
"He's right. Gotta be able to blast my Sunset Curve CD," she said, grinning.
Reggie smiled and kissed the top of her head. Rossi and Hotch wouldn't admit it out loud, but the young couple was a little cute.
They did end up taking the Camry on a test drive — Florence and Reggie had absolutely loved the canary yellow color. No one wanted to stay behind, so Rossi, Hotch, and Reggie had all climbed in the back seat to ride along.
The safety features did prove to be nice. One of the features made a loud beeping noise if she changed lanes without using her blinker, something that Hotch loved about the car. While the exterior was in his opinion tacky, Rossi had to admit that the leather interior was nice. And Reggie had pulled his band's demo CD, which he always carried with him, and got Dennis to play it for them.
Florence liked the car a whole lot, and that was the one she ended up going home with. She had made her very first big adult purchase, which was nice to say. And now the team wouldn't have to worry about her skateboarding past any more murderers on the way home from work every day.
"Now I can order a license plate that says SCRAPPY-DOO," she said, swinging her new set of keys around her finger.
"That's too many letters," Hotch told her.
"I'll cut some out and make it work."