Trials and Tribulations

Chapter 9

Hotchner entered the room and sat down where he previously had been, joining the team at the round table. He had a frown on his face.

"What did Strauss want?" Rossi asked.

"Nothing" Hotch replied.

The room was silent and everyone stared at Hotch. He sighed.

"She wants me to evaluate everyone. Including myself. I told her it's a waste of time." He finally spoke.

"And i'm guessing she didn't like that." Morgan added.

Hotch nodded.

"Are you gonna do it?" JJ asked.

"Would you?" Hotch replied.

Nobody responded. They all understood.

The gentle rain patting on the windows was the only sound for a moment. Soon everyone was startled when a cellphone rang. It was Hotchs. He glanced at the screen then instantly answered.

"Yeah" He said, followed by "okay" then he hung up. He was on his feet instantly after.

"Garcia might have something. Come on" He said, and then turned and left.
The team quickly stood up too and followed Hotch. They all entered Garcia's lair and gathered around her main monitors.

"Okay guys. The FBI gets a surprising amount of letters and messages from crazy wackos and people who think they can run the world. Actually this one time I-"

Hotch cut her off.
"Garcia, the point?".

"Right sorry sir. The FBI, particularly the BAU has received a string of angry ranting letters from the same anonymous source. 13 in total." She told us as she typed fast as lightning.

"Now i'm pulling up samples of each letter. take a look." she spoke again.

Little snippets of hand written letters popped up on all her monitors.

"You will all know my name." Hotchner read aloud.

"Fear me." JJ read off her screen.

"I am not to be messed with." Morgan read.

"You will never find me." Rossi read.

"I will have my prize" Reid read.

The team kept reading and tried to decipher anything specific between all the foul language and threats. The tension in the room was thick.

"All of these letters match the ones that we have received here" Garcia spoke. She sounded a little sad.

Hotch looked away from the monitors and straightened out his tie.

"Reid and JJ I want you two to stay in here and analyze these with Garcia." He said.

Both of them nodded in response.

"I'm going down to speak to whose in charge of the mail" He stated.

"Morgan and Rossi keep working the profile." He added before turning to leave.
From there Hotch walked down to Erin Strauss' office. He knocked and got the okay so he entered.
"What can I do for you?" She asked him, not looking up from the paperwork she was working on.

"Who is in charge of the mail?" I ask her.

"There's a team here that carefully screens and sorts it, they're very good." she said "but if you want to know anything useful go here." She added while scribbling something on the back of a business card. Hotch thanked her and stepped out of the office. Flipping the card over he saw a room number on a different floor and a name. He felt that he needed to try everything so he headed down there to speak to this person.

"Reid how much time is left?" JJ asked without moving her eyes from a monitor.

"Fifteen hours and two minutes" He replied.

"There's no way to ID this guy. They tried when these letters first started showing up but there's nothing specific enough to place a writer. I've run the handwriting through every database possible. I'm so frustrated i'm go-" Garcia chattered quickly before JJ cut her off.

"hey it's okay. we're all doing our best. take a deep breath, okay?"

Garcia nodded and slowly drew in a breathe and released it, then took a gulp of coffee.

"Guys. Hotch just texted. Meet up at the round table." Reid read aloud from his cell phone.

The three of them headed out of Garcia's office and into the conference room. Morgan and Rossi were already in there and they saw Hotch making his way over from his office. Everyone had a seat and Hotch spoke.

"Okay guys. What have we go so far?" He said.

Nobody said anything so Reid cleared his throat.
"Okay I actually might have found something just before you called us in here. The unsub says the phrase I will take her to my dungeon in one of his letters. I think he means it literally. I think we're looking for a big warehouse, underground shelter, abandoned factory or something along those lines." He spoke.

Hotch nodded and scribbled in his notebook.

"Morgan and I had a less than pleasant conversation about how if he plans to keep Emily for so long then there is a good chance torture or sexual assault is involved." Rossi said.

The room was silent. As if right on cue the phone in the center of the table rang.

"Are we expecting a call?" Hotch asked.

Everyone shook their heads and said no.

Hotch pressed the accept button then the speaker button.

"Are you ready to play my game now?"