Stand In The Rain

Fifty

Back in the command center, Penelope had been working feverishly to scour the security footage of the store where the unsub was camped out. She was desperate for a glimpse of him because just a glimpse was all she needed to run his face through Facial Recognition.

Finally—

"I got a hit! This guy's name is Caleb Rankin, and he's twenty-eight years old, and... oh, no."

"Talk to us." encouraged Strauss. "What is it?"

"This man has a serious ax to grind." Penelope reported as she scanned the screen in front of her. "Apparently, what's happening now is about a domestic fight with one of the store employees, one Trissa Halifax. The way the story goes is that Rankin and Halifax were married for almost two years until recently."

"What happened?" Hotch asked as he, Rossi, Derek, Strauss, and the two senior-most mobile station commanders, Murphy and Sedgewick, all gathered around Penelope. "Don't skimp on the details."

Penelope sighed. "Rankin lost his job as a night janitor at the Library Of Congress last year after one of his coworkers framed him for stealing. This happened at the same time that Halifax suffered a traumatic miscarriage."

Derek wrinkled his nose. "That's already enough of a trigger to make anyone lose their mind, but something else happened—what was it?"

Penelope continued to scan her screen for information, and as she did so, she found herself caressing her baby bump even more than she usually did. 

"Rankin was angry after he lost his job and then then turned abusive, eventually blaming his wife for losing their child. After that, she had enough and filed for a divorce and a restraining order."

"When did everything go into effect?" Spencer asked.

"According to what the information is telling me, last week Tuesday. It looks like Rankin couldn't take no for an answer, and now he's come after his ex-wife."

"And he enlisted 'help' from whoever started those brawls to draw attention away from the book store so he could go in without attracting too much attention."

Rossi turned his attention back to the screen when Penelope switched it back to the live feed of the security cameras from inside the bookstore. Something had caught his attention, and it was making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

"Sir?" Penelope questioned when she saw him grow quiet.

"Rankin has taken off his mask and rounded up three people in particular." he pointed to a specific part of the screen. "Can you enhance this?"

Penelope did as asked and then they all saw what Rossi was looking at.

"This must be Trissa Halifax," Rossi pointed a scared-looking twenty-something black woman sitting in the middle of the store, hugging her knees to her chest. "But who are these two?"

He pointed to an equally-scared but smartly-dressed Asian couple sitting next to Trissa Halifax.

Using the Facial Recognition software again, Penelope did some further investigating.

"Their names are Yuri and Saki Fujimoto, and they're divorce lawyers at the same firm in Judiciary Square. According to this," Penelope gestured towards the information she was currently speed-reading on the screen. "They settled Rankin and Halifax's divorce. But how did Rankin even know that they were there?"