[4.19]

"this is why you have a teenage girl on your team"

Florence didn't know if it was considered incredibly late or incredibly early when she got called to come in for a case. She was half asleep as she skated to the building. She ended up being one of the first to arrive, so she made her way to the break room and fixed a ziplock bag full of ice. Once back in the briefing room, she leaned back and put it on her nose, which had been hurting since she woke up.

"How's the nose, kiddo?" Rossi asked, sipping on his coffee.

"I got to take the gauze out of my nostrils," she mumbled tiredly. "And my friend Julie drew little hearts on the bandage, so at least it's cute."

None of them made a comment about her mentioning a friend — something she had never done before. They were a bit too tired to care, but they'd think about it later. Eventually, everyone mosied into the briefing room with their coffee and wearing their comfy clothes. However, Florence was the only one in her pajamas, which had little pink cows on them. JJ quickly started their briefing by playing footage of a theater burning down.

"This is news footage from a movie theater in Royal, Indiana. Population two thousand. Earlier tonight nineteen people were killed."

"And they're sure it's arson?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah. Two days ago the same thing happened at the local recreation center," JJ said. "Twelve victims, no survivors."

"I heard about that," Prentiss said.

"Yeah, it was all over the news," Morgan added.

"There were some details that didn't make the news," JJ told them. "A week and a half earlier there were some fires at a convenience store, a local restaurant. Luckily, it was after hours and no one was hurt."

"So whoever set these went from no victims to thirty-one in two weeks. That's a hell of an escalation," Rossi noted.

"Why didn't they call us in sooner?" Prentiss asked.

"The local police and fire department knew they were dealing with an arsonist, but they had no idea he'd become a killer."

"Most arsonists don't," Reid said. "They just like setting fires. Any deaths that occur are almost always accidental."

"Thirty-one victims is not an accident," Morgan said.

"The Police Chief knows he made a mistake," Hotch said. "And he learned the hard way that even though not all arsonists are killers, they do have one thing in common — once they start, they can't stop."

|||

Once the team was in the air, they video-called Garcia and Florence to go over the case some more. Florence was wrapped up in her blanket from Hotch and curled up in her chair. For a brief moment, she considered drinking coffee instead of her Capri Sun, but she quickly shook the thought away.

"Based on the limited population of Royal, the unsub is most likely a local male between the ages of seventeen and thirty," Reid informed them.

"What, arson is a sexist industry?" Garcia asked.

"For the most part, yeah. Only twelve percent of arsonists are female," he said.

"Apparently women just aren't inclined to burn things," Prentiss said.

"Let's go with the numbers," Hotch said. "Focus on males."

"Well, we can scratch hero complex off the list. He hasn't left anyone to save," Morgan said.

"Yeah, but we can't rule out firefighters and other first responders," Prentiss said.

"How's about we do a background check on all local firefighters and EMTs?" Garcia asked.

"And flag anyone with a history of being first on the scene," Hotch said.

"Or anyone with a juvenile record that includes vandalism or small nuisance fires," Rossi added.

"I will look at everything from firebug to flamethrower."

"Did you check out the news footage?" Hotch asked JJ. "I want the word out that we'd like to see any personal videos or photos of the fire. Arsonists like to watch, and if our unsub stuck around, maybe somebody will recognize him."

"I'm on it."

"Locals find anything in their call logs that resemble the unsub's MO?" Morgan asked. "I mean, he may have staged practice runs."

"According to the Fire Chief's report, there was nothing similar in the past year," Rossi told him.

"Garcia, extend your search statewide," Hotch ordered. "The unsub may have done his practicing far enough away so as not to arouse suspicion."

"I will cast a wide net, Sir."

"Thank you."

"I grew up in a small town," JJ reminded them. "People are gonna assume anyone we question is guilty."

"The last thing we want is for this to turn into a witch hunt," Rossi said.

"It's exactly what this is. We're just gonna have to keep the locals from realizing it. Garcia, I want you and Florence to find out everything that you can about the thirty-one victims, and I don't mean just their paper trail. I need to know everyone related to them, everybody they owed money to, everybody they had an argument with," Hotch told them.

Florence perked up in her seat while Garcia frowned. "Sir, if I'm hearing you right, you're saying I'm the witch hunter."

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

Florence jumped out of her chair, suddenly very awake. "I'm gonna need six different colors of post-it notes, some thread, some thumb-tacks, and bitchin' spreadsheet."

Everyone on the plane looked to the computer screen, confused at her enthusiasm. Garcia warily started searching for those things while glancing at her every now and then.

"This is it. This is why you have a teenage girl on your team. You think I did a good job of snooping on the Reaper case, then just you wait."

"I see someone is gonna have fun on this case," Rossi mumbled with wide eyes.

|||

When the team called Florence and Garcia back to check-in, the background checks were all finished. She barely listened as Garcia went over what she had found with them. Florence was too busy compiling all her information. The wonderful but horrible thing about connecting thirty-one people in a small town was that the crossover was almost limitless.

"Florence, what about the victims?" Hotch asked her.

"I've only scratched the surface, Sir," she said, walking over and squatting to look in the camera. "It's a random mix of ages and genders. Almost everyone is local, other than like a cousin visiting."

"Is there any crossover between the victims and the two towns?" he asked.

Florence put her hands up in defense. "Bear with me. I know we're on a time constraint. And there's nothing but crossover. It's going to take some time to actually dig up the juicy stuff. Alex Nagel, who died in the rec center, was an upstanding member of the local church. He owned a lot of the real estate in Royal, including the theater. Windy Kennedy was killed at the theater and volunteered at the rec center. I've got a teacher, third cousins, and three potential affairs, but I know it's not the stuff you're looking for. It takes time to pick apart the lives of thirty-one dead people."

"You're right. Third cousins and religious affiliations are probably not gonna help us. I need to know who had enemies, who had secrets, who was a target. Garcia can help now that she's finished the background checks."

"Oh, with all due respect, Sir, my brain muscles are comfortable with being intuitive with information, not people. I get that Ren is a nosy and judgy little teenager, but looking at people like that is not part of my job description. I'm not a profiler.

"Well, you're gonna have to be," Hotch told her firmly. "We don't have much time. You two look into the nuisance fires. Garcia, stay on the radio."

Once Hotch was gone, Florence gave Garcia a sympathetic look. "He's just still tense from Foyet escaping. Now, wanna see my system?"

"Let's see the system," Garcia said, sighing.

"Okay, first, I've been keeping track of it all and adding it to my spreadsheet when I find something new. I've got everyone's picture taped up on the walls. Now we have the sticky note system. Green means that they are on good terms and are friends. Nothing suspicious going on. Pink notes indicate that they are married or dating someone. Now yellow is for messy breakups and affairs. Blue is for if they are related, no matter how distant. Then red is for people that are enemies or suspicious activity or general bad blood. I have some orange ones set aside for if we need to add a new category. Make sense?"

Garcia looked at her with an open mouth while looking around at the thirty-one faces. "I already miss my computer."

"Let's dive in," Florence said with a mischievous smile.

|||

It was several hours later and the walls of their office were covered with all colors of sticky notes. They received a call from Morgan, which Garcia rushed to answer while Florence kept making connections.

"Hello?" she answered, sounded distressed.

"Hey, how's Miss smart and sexy doing today?" Morgan greeted.

"Fair warning, cupcake. As much as I love you and our witty banter, I am all out of witty and banter and am struggling with love," she replied.

"What's wrong, baby?"

"I am standing at the crossroads of thirty-one lives and what I see is a train wreck. You want a little tour? This is what I mean. Here we go," Garcia said, running around the room to check notes. "Flip Phillips. He beat his wife. It went on for years. Although you wouldn't know it if you looked at the police reports, because that's one of the perks of being the Mayor. David Alexander. He sued his boss for five million dollars over something totally lame. And what makes it even more erotic is he was sleeping with the boss' daughter. And then there is — Where is she?"

Florence points off towards the woman she assumed Garcia was looking for. "Thanks, Ren. One of the town councilwomen, now, she had a terminally ill husband and also three boyfriends under the age of twenty. I want to believe that the world is just teeming with awesome people, but all of this is giving me great pause. I want to go back to cyberspace."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, not yet," Morgan told her gently. "I got a few more names for you."

Garcia sighed and took a seat at her desk. "Ok. Just, um... please tell me they're still alive."

"I wish I could do that, Garcia."

"I can take them," Florence offered, knowing how distraught Garcia was over this case. "Go ahead, Morgan."

|||

Once they had enough time to dig up info on the new victims, the team got together to go over everything.

"So tell us about the bar victims," Prentiss said.

"All right," Spencer said. "Hilda and Roger Drake. She was a teacher, he sold insurance."

"Friends, enemies?" Prentiss asked.

"Oh, no, nothing like that. They seemed sweet. Their biggest problem was finding baby names. Hilda was pregnant."

"Are you sure?" JJ asked, surprised. "The M.E. Hasn't even started yet."

"No, people in Royal take out ads. Lordy, Lordy, look who's forty. Ask Jane what she was doing at the American Legion on Friday night," Garcia read off from the newspaper.

"That's just wrong," Prentiss muttered.

"That's small-town life for you. Your business is everybody's business," JJ said.

"There was a belly watch on Hilda," Garcia added.

"Uh, what about Eric Gall?" JJ asked.

Garcia smiled a little, finding his backstory amusing. "Oh, Eric. He was a boozer. He spent most of his time at Pop's place. I've got a few drunk and disorderlies, but he seems harmless. And given the amount of rounds he bought, it's safe to say the whole town loved him."

Morgan took a call from Hotch that only lasted a few moments. "Ok, well, they managed to speak to the bartender. According to her, there was a guy there before the fire. He didn't speak to anybody and he kept switching seats. She didn't seem to recognize him."

"Ok. Wait. So she knew the owner and the boozer, and the husband wouldn't have gotten up and changed seats," Prentiss said.

"If the bartender didn't recognize him, maybe he's just not from Royal," JJ guessed.

"That's not necessarily true," Reid responded. "What if she knew him and she just didn't realize it?"

"What, like a disguise?" JJ asked.

"The fire captain said the unsub knew the layout of the movie theater. He used that knowledge to light the fire. But at the bar, the unsub kept changing his seats."

"Which would give him a better view of the entrances and exits," Prentiss realized.

"So he was studying the layout. He wasn't familiar with the area," Morgan said.

"What if he grew up in Royal and he moved away? Garcia, what year was that bar built?"

"Uh, the bar was built five... six years ago."

"And what about the movie theater?" Prentiss asked.

"The movie theater was built in the forties," she replied. "It was a single screen, they divided it two years ago. Rec center was built in the late seventies."

"I'm gonna call Hotch," Morgan said, already calling him up.

After a bit more snooping and input from the profilers, they managed to narrow their search down to Tina Wheeler. She was an EMT and had married the owner of the bar two days ago.

"Guess how Tina's parents died when she was five years old?" Florence asked while chewing on a Capri Sun straw. "Yup. A fire."

"After they died, her and her brother Tommy were sent to live with their grandparents in Royal," Garcia added.

"Send us everything you have on them," Hotch said.

"Well, that's just it. I got... I got plenty on Tina, but I can't really find anything on her brother. I've got Florence working on it, but so far, nothing. Tina, she, uh, she lived in Royal. She went to a community college a few towns over. Got a degree, took a job, worked hard, married Jason. But Tommy, it's like... he just disappeared."

"Find him, Florence."

"Doing my best, Hopscotch," she muttered while continuing to scour the internet.

It took them quite a bit longer to piece everything together. They went through countless files, records, and phone calls. But once they had everything, it was certainly something. Garcia immediately called Hotch to let them know. Once everyone and the Chief of Police and town doctor were gathered, they began to go over it all.

"We believe Jason Elliot may have been the target," Hotch said.

"The bartender said that Jason stopped by the bar at the same time each day to pick up the cash and take it to the bank," Rossi said.

"Which would have made him an easy target for anyone who knew his schedule," Prentiss added.

"I don't get all this," Chief Carlson said. "Jason was a good man. It may sound corny to you, but everybody loved him."

"Two days ago, Jason Elliot married Tina Wheeler," Spencer revealed.

"She told me about it yesterday," Doctor Rawlings said. "All the tragedies made them not want to wait. It's a damn shame."

"What can you tell us about Tina's brother Tommy?" Hotch asked.

"Tommy?" Rawlings asked, surprised.

"Uh, nobody's seen him around here in more than ten years," Carlson told them.

"Uh, we actually think they may have. They just might not recognize him," Reid told them.

"How is that possible?"

"Well, he's aged ten years, and he'd make sure to go unnoticed," Reid explained.

"Garcia?" Hotch called.

"Tommy Wheeler," she said, holding the folder she had compiled on him. "Little Tommy Wheeler. You remember him? He and his sister Tina moved to royal when he was five. Doc Rawlings was his pediatrician. Apparently, early medical records indicated Tommy may have been emotionally unbalanced."

"Tommy was a little unstable," Rawlings agreed. "His parents dying brought that out."

"Granted, I don't have a medical degree, but my guess is, watching his parents die in a fire didn't help Tommy's emotional well-being," Garcia muttered. Florence kept an eye on her, knowing that this case was pushing her limit.

"What about Tina? How did the fires affect her?" Morgan asked.

"Uh... Tina wasn't as damaged by it as he was. She adjusted more quickly."

"She was Tommy's lifeline," Carlson added.

"She was more than that," Reid stated. "In a situation like this — No parents, new environment, and grandparents probably too old to take care of them. Tina became Tommy's whole world."

"Sister, mother, family," Rossi listed off.

"They were very close," Rawlings admitted.

"Close enough that Tina distorted Tommy's love map," Rossi said.

"The way an individual gives or receives love — their love map — is established by the age of six. With the death of the parents, Tommy's love map revolved exclusively around Tina," Reid explained.

"Yeah, it was like they were in their own little world," Carlson told them. "By the time they were eight, they even had their own language. It was a bit disturbing."

"But understandable. Perfectly understandable," Garcia said defensively.

"Maybe."

"So what happened?" Hotch asked, rubbing his eyes.

"What do you think happened? People talked. It's the only real occupation in Royal," Garcia snapped.

"There were rumors," Carlson admitted. "It was that Tommy and Tina were too close. Nothing was ever confirmed, though."

"No, it wasn't. But, then, the truth didn't matter."

"After the rumors started, things got ugly. People pointed fingers. Tommy got expelled from school—"

"Based on nothing but hearsay," Garcia interrupted.

"Not true. The school had cause."

"No, they didn't—"

"Garcia," Hotch said in a warning tone.

"I spoke to his teacher. She told me how the whole school and the whole town turned against him, based on nothing but a rumor. She also told me another rumor.

"Garcia—"

"In this one, fourteen-year-old Tommy was beaten within an inch of his life by adults. Grown men."

"I didn't hear about it until after the fact," Carlson said in his defense. "There was nothing I could do."

"Broken bones, punctured lung, all because of a rumor."

"I couldn't go after anyone based on only my suspicions," Carlson said. "Nobody was talking about it, Not even Tommy. I spoke to his grandparents and told them what to do."

"Yeah. So they moved Tommy to a Colorado boarding school, and they cut off all ties between him and his sister," Garcia said. "It was as if Tommy never even existed."

"It was for the best. They would have killed him."

"If what Garcia said is true, then this town's actions went a long way towards making Tommy who he is," Reid said.

"We need to talk to Tina," Rossi decided.

Garcia ended up having a mild anxiety attack about her actions. She was freaking out about how she had done just what the townspeople of Royal had done. Despite the fact that Tommy was the one setting these fires, she still didn't think she had a right to accuse him of a felony without any evidence. Florence had managed to calm her down and told her to take a break. Florence quickly told the team everything else about Tommy once he left juvie. There were records of him buying lots of gasoline recently in a town a few hundred miles out of Royal.

There had been a statewide alert put out for him. Tommy had taken Tina, but eventually, they tracked him down. They found him at the same place that he had taken Tina to the Spring Formal. Thankfully, they got him in custody without him burning down the building and all the agents in it.

While snooping and tying everyone's lives together had been amusing for Florence, it had been way too stressful for Garcia. She was more than happy to start taking everything off the walls once the case was closed. That was how Hotch found them, taking down all the post-it notes.

"You guys choose this," Garcia said, glancing at him. Florence slowly took a seat to see how it would go. "Turning people over like rocks and looking at all their creepy-crawly things underneath. And I get it. I do. It's the only way to catch them. But, I want to see the good in people. I choose to see the good in people. And getting into someone's mind and trying to find the god-awful thing that happened to them that made them do the god-awful thing to somebody else has seriously impaired my ability to giggle. And it makes my brain all wonky, and I don't like it."

"Garcia," Hotch said, in a surprisingly gentle tone.

"Yes, sir."

"I just wanted to thank you for your excellent work on this case. And I understand that what you did was for you very difficult. But your contributions are essential to the success of this team," he said.

"Thank you, sir."

"I know you see the good in people, Penelope. Always, and I would never want you to change that."

There was a nice moment of silence before Florence sniffed, drawing attention to her. "Sorry. That was just really cute and sweet." She wiped under her nose but immediately regretted it. She hunched over and groaned, holding her nose. "Oh shit. Fuck, I forgot my nose was broken. I've ruined the mood. But it hurts so much. Shit."

Garcia couldn't help but laugh, despite feeling bad for her pain. "There's my ability to giggle."

Hotch sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I'll go get some ice."