Criminal Minds Series Rewrite: Season Two

Distress: Final Part

The group disbands and heads to do their own thing, leaving you and Spencer alone in the room together. He is working on creating a grid search that would work best for the team, and you're just watching him with sad eyes.

"Reid, what are you working on?" Hotch asks, popping his head into the room.

"Three days ago, the police shut down the freeway at five pm for ten minutes. Cars were stalled and Roy must have tried to exit on the surface streets. Sadly, he ended up in an unfamiliar area with a flat tire. He was changing that tire when an eight story building on Market Street imploded five blocks away. He heard the explosion and reacted like a mortar bomb had landed nearby. This explosion is what triggered his dissociation. Since then, he's been stuck in that state. Running when he needed to, sleeping when he could, camouflaging himself into his surroundings, and hiding from his perceived enemies."

"He's relieving the worst moment of his life. He's gotta be terrified," you say.

The phone on the table rings, and you press the speakerphone button so that Penelope can be heard by all. You know it's her since she's the only one who would call this desk phone.

"So, I finally got through all those recent police reports Derek asked me to check, which, by the way, was no hopscotch through the park. That precinct you're at is kind of tragically behind on their paperwork."

"Yeah, they're undermanned," you state.

"Oh, jeez, really? I can't imagine what that feels like. Oh, no, wait. Yes, I can, 'cause--"

"Garcia, do you have anything for me?" Spencer cuts her off impatiently.

"Well, he told me to look for anything unusual, and it's all usual. Minor break ins and apartment burglaries--televisions, stereos, car thefts, and smash and grabs. Common stuff in the world of burgling."

"Nothing a guy lost in the streets might use for survival?"

"No, nothing reported. Like I said, it's all petty. There's some vandalism at construction sites with one of them missing their communications radio."

"Wait, did you say radio?"

"Yeah. The construction foreman reported that one of their trucks had been broken into and a handheld radio was stolen."

Spencer immediately hangs up on Penelope as she is still talking, and you gasp at his behavior. He truly doesn't have any patience for anything anymore.

"Spencer!"

You get up and follow him out of the room to where the bosses are. They are handing out pictures of Roy to everyone so they know who to look out for.

"This is Roy Woodridge, 6'1", 195 pounds, forty-four years old. Brown hair, and former army ranger."

"It's imperative you don't try to apprehend him alone. He won't understand what's happening. He may try to defend himself. He's armed, and he's an excellent marksman," Gideon warns.

"He may have a stolen radio," Spencer says. "A walkie talkie."

"We were right. He had a nest of sorts right near every murder scene. There was a burglary of a two-way radio from a construction site recently."

"That could be Roy," Max says. "We only used UHF back then."

"He's looking for help, and he'll keep trying to contact the operations command."

"Detective, can we get a dozen UHF radios set up in this room, and each of them tuned to each of the preset channel frequencies?" Hotch asks.

"Right away," Detective Fuller nods.