After the USPS creates a penpal pairing program, Elizabeth Mills is encouraged by her friends to sign up and talk to someone new. Spencer Reid, bored with only getting bills and advertisements in his mailbox signs up for a penpal.
The two get paire...
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"Reid, you can't come."
The words coming from Hotch's lips had him standing in shock. They had the address, the phone call, everything to confirm where Elizabeth was being held. They'd even gotten the warrant.
"What? Why?"
"You're too close to this case. You could be a liability, the profile, while accurate based on what we know, could be wrong. If it's an obsessional delusion, and he see's how much you care, he could lash out. Spencer, we can't take any risks on this. We all want her back alive."
"Hotch, please. Please, I'll wait outside, just let me come, let me make sure she's okay."
"Reid, I can't do that. You're a liability."
"Alright Hotch, he gets it." Derek interrupted, no longer able to stand by. "Just let the kid wait in the car. He knows Elizabeth more than we do, I'm sure that once we have the unsub in custody, she'll appreciate seeing his face much more than ours."
"Morgan, this isn't your decision to make."
"No Hotch, it's not, but he'll worry the whole time we're out there. He cares about this girl, and out of all of us he gets what she's going through the most. Just let him stay outside until we radio him to come in once we've arrested the dude. There's no harm in it."
Spencer could see Hotch mulling over the choice in his head, he knew there were more cons than pros for him being at the scene, especially with him being so emotionally involved.
"Fine, as long as Spencer stays in the car until we call him in, he can join us."
"I'll stay in the car."
Hotch hated briefings, especially ones like this. Garcia had dug further into Connor Stone's past to help them with a negotiation strategy, and the information they'd gotten was disturbing to say the least.
Connor had grown up with a single father, after his mother left shortly after giving birth to his younger sister, Cassie. Then, just as Connor began college, studying medicine, Cassie was diagnosed with cancer, leukaemia, stage 3 and developing rapidly. At the time, most of the money that he seemed to make working two part time jobs went back home, and then his dad got fired.
Then, Connor seemed to have been expelled from college. Apparently this was the first time he was actually disciplined for harassing women. He moved back home, picked up several jobs to support his sister's treatments, but it wasn't enough.
Cassie died, and Connor's father blamed him. That weekend Connor's father drank himself to death, leaving the man with two funerals to plan and millions in medical and student debt.
Honestly, it seemed like life had not been on this mans side, however Hotch lacked sympathy. No matter the amount of trauma, rejection was no reason to hurt so many more people. He'd murdered women so brutally they never stood a chance, and he was now holding another woman hostage. Only God knew what he was doing to her at that moment.
