[4.25; 4.26]

"i wanna lose and go bother hotch"

It was fairly early in the morning when JJ called everyone to the briefing room for a new case. She started off by showing them security tapes. The footage showed a man using his car to drive into the guard shack at the Canadian border crossing. When he got out of the car, they handcuffed him. Then he claimed to have killed ten people and instructed them to call the FBI.

"His name's William Hightower," JJ told them when the video ended. "He claims over the past month, he's picked ten people off the streets of Detroit, killed them, dumped their bodies across the border in Canada."

"Has he given up the dumpsite?" Prentiss asked.

"He said he'll only talk to the FBI," she said.

"Do we have confirmation these people are even missing?" Reid asked.

"Two were reported missing by family months ago, but they all appear to be transients," JJ explained. "We're having a hard time finding any information on them."

"Garcia? Florence?"

"Like a bloodhound, sir," Garcia said, getting up.

"Woof woof," Florence added before following her to their office.

"Please never bark at me ever again," Rossi called after her.

Florence and Garcia got to work, finding all they could about the ten victims — of which there wasn't much. Though the plot thickened when the team arrived and interviewed Hightower. According to him, he wasn't a murderer. Someone else was taking these people, including his sister who hadn't been on the initial victim list and killing them. He pulled his stunt at the border to get the FBI involved.

After that, Hotch had Florence and Garcia look into multiple border crossings as well as track where the last phone call from Hightower's sister had been called from — which had been in Canada. When they had their results, they called him back.

"Go ahead, Garcia," he said.

"Good news and bad news," she started off. "I've got IDs on multiple border crosses for the dates in question. Trouble is, I've got hundreds, and as far as I can tell, if your license doesn't ping for any prior felonies, you're pretty much gonna pass go and collect two-hundred Canadian dollars."

"She's right," Officer Bedwell said. "Busiest cross in North America. Lot of commercial traffic, trucks mostly. Stop and searches would cause too many delays."

"So he's got virtually free passage," Rossi said.

"And once he crosses, there's nothing but woods to hide whatever he's doing," Reid added.

William Hightower ended up being released into FBI custody in order to help with the investigation. While Garcia looked over more crime reports, Florence tried to help JJ with notifying the victim's families by actually finding the families. It proved to be very difficult though considering that she didn't even have last names for a lot of them. Thankfully though, Garcia was not as empty-handed on her end.

"Yeah, Garcia," Reid greeted when she called him.

"Sherlock, it's Watson. I think I've got something," she said.

"What do you have?"

"I checked Detroit crime reports over the last month because Derek and Emily astutely thought there might be some sorts of assaults or disturbances having to do with our unsub."

"And?"

"Well, it's tres weird, but on five of the abduction nights, Detroit PD reports a break-in or a robbery at some type of medical facility."

"What types of medical facility?" Rossi asked.

"We got a hospital, blood bank, medical supply company, the red cross—"

"What is he doing, stealing narcotics?" Reid interrupted to ask.

"That's just it. He isn't some drugstore cowboy. The stuff he took is, like, anesthesia and sterilizing equipment and syringes. Negative on the narcotic."

"Garcia, where were these places located?" Reid asked.

"Putnam Street, St. Antoine, East Hancock, Martin Luther King Boulevard."

"Those are all in the Cass Corridor," Reid said, referring to the homeless district.

"Do you have a list of what else he stole?" Rossi asked.

"Uh, IV tubing, infusion pump, units of o-negative blood, chest tubes, o-silk sutures, Elastoplast," she listed off.

"Garcia, thanks a lot," Reid said before hanging up.

After a little while longer, the team managed to figure out that welfare checks were somehow involved. With a new lead to follow, Garcia and Florence were able to find where Lee Hightower cashed her last welfare check. There were typically drug dealers who hung around, waiting to sell to people who had just cashed their checks. The team guessed that Lee got into a car with the unsub thinking that he was a dealer.

When they reached the motel that was cashing the checks, he told them about the car that all of the victims had gotten into. A young girl named Kelly Shane had cashed her check and gotten into the same car. When no car matching that description was caught crossing the border, Hightower guessed that the unsub was using the Underground Railroad from the Civil War to get across the border.

Hotch called Garcia and got her to cross-reference maps from the Civil War with Victorian homes near the river. They quickly found it and sent them a location. When they followed the coordinates, There they found the car, which was abandoned, and it was registered to a man named Mason Turner. After getting the address of his farm, they went to search it. They found Mason Turner, but the problem was that he was paralyzed from the neck down and couldn't even get out of bed.

His physical condition did nothing to throw suspicion off of him though because he had all the stolen medical items and a bin full of bloody shoes. They were now looking at over a hundred victims instead of ten. It was likely that their bodies were fed to the pigs on the farm for disposal.

When Hotch called, Garcia answered the phone in a rather good mood. It seemed as if the case was almost over — they had yet to be informed of Mason Turner's condition and assumed he had been arrested.

"BAU Tech Center, where you should definitely pay attention to the girl behind the curtain," Garcia greeted.

"Garcia, I need you and Florence in Ontario ASAP at the farmhouse that the unsub's car was registered to," Hotch ordered.

Florence sat straighter in her chair and shared a confused look with Garcia. "Yes, sir. What should I bring?"

"We need forensic recovery from a laptop. I'll tell you more when you get here. I don't want this over the phone," he said. "And the next flight, Garcia."

"Ok. On our way," she said, before hanging up. Then she turned to Florence. "Oh, my. Not over the phone. I don't think we're gonna be in Kansas anymore."

"No," Florence whined, leaning her head back. "I wanna stay in Kansas. You don't almost get blown up in Kansas."

Garcia rolled her eyes while getting everything ready. "I think your chances of getting blown up on this case are slim. And at least you have a go-bag this time."

|||

Garcia and Florence were in Canada by the next morning. The farm was crowded with police officers and people coming to identify the shoes of past victims. Rossi had called them after they landed and explained the shoes and Mason Turner's condition, along with his brother's roll in this case.

With everyone running around, Florence just stayed glued to Garcia's side and hugged her sweatshirt tighter. She knew that just around the corner were the shoes and the pigs, and she hoped they wouldn't have to go anywhere near them.

A police officer brought over a piece of paper to Officer Bedwell. "Got it. Your warrant."

"You can search all his files and hard drives," Bedwell told Hotch. "Let's go serve it."

"Great. Garcia, Florence, find me something," Hotch ordered.

"Yes, sir."

Florence followed Garcia into the farmhouse. Officer Bedwell accompanied them to show Turner the warrant. As he did so, Rossi nudged Florence's elbow and whispered in her ear.

"Feel free to be your typical annoying self around this guy. I'm not a fan."

She shared an amused smile with him. Then Rossi walked over to pick up Turner's laptop.

"That is my personal property," Turner said angrily.

"Not anymore," Florence said, grinning. Rossi handed her the computer. "Can't wait to see what kinds of fun things you keep on here."

"I showed you the warrant," Officer Bedwell reminded him.

"I have research on there. Proprietary research. Intellectual property," Turner argued as if that would help. Florence rolled her eyes and gave the laptop to Garcia. "I helped you. I told you everything I know."

"If what you've told me is your total involvement, there shouldn't be anything on this computer that you don't want us to see," Rossi told him.

"Do you need anything, Dave?" Bedwell asked, getting ready to go help outside.

"No," Rossi said, smirking. "Me and Mason are having a great time. Aren't we, Mason?"

"Once I saw my brother strangle a man so forcefully, blood dripped from his eye sockets," Turner told them, breathing heavily. "I'm not talking petechiae. Actual dripping blood. He can be very volatile... when things don't go his way."

"Are you trying to scare me?" Rossi asked.

"I'm just saying. You better hurry up and find that girl, or he's gonna tear her to pieces."

Garcia eyed Turner uncomfortably before moving into another room to get started on the computer. Florence leaned against the doorway and stared at him.

"You're kind of a dick," she said to him. Rossi held back a smile and he was glad Hotch wasn't in the room to stop her from talking to him. "I cannot wait until we find what you're hiding."

"I haven't done anything. Just look at me. You know I'm innocent."

"Actually, it'd be pretty ableist of me to think you weren't capable of being a narcissistic asshole just because you're disabled. I'm quite the progressive thinker," she said, grinning. Then she turned to Rossi. "I'll let you know when we're through his firewall."

"You won't be able to. You're a child."

Florence excitedly saw the opportunity and took it. "And you're an ugly, pickley, bitch."

She knew that eventually, Hotch would find out about it, but she didn't care as she spun on her heel and joined Garcia. Rossi kept a straight face, but so far she had done a wonderful job at annoying Turner.

Florence sat next to Garcia and watched as she began tearing down Turner's security system. It wasn't even that complex, and it was fairly easy for them to get in — Florence had planned to rub it in his face, but then she saw what was on his computer and was stunned. She and Garcia immediately went to Rossi to tell them what they'd found.

"Garcia?" Rossi questioned when he saw tears in her eyes.

"They were doing experiments," she said slowly.

"Experiments?"

"Unsuccessful ones," Turner muttered.

"He tried to fix himself," Garcia said, looking at him accusingly.

"Would it be better if it was all for nothing?" Turner asked as if that excused the murder.

"They were human beings," Rossi said.

"They were transients and drug users and prostitutes. They were useless to society. I gave them the chance to be part of a cure. To be of use."

"But that's—"

"That's science," Turner cut her off.

"No, it isn't," Rossi told him.

"So you got some information off my laptop. So what? What jury's gonna believe I had the power to kill anyone? I haven't been able to move from the neck down for seven years. Even if you could convict me of something, what punishment could be worse than the life I already lead? Find my idiot brother. Exact your pound of flesh and leave me the hell alone."

Rossi shared a look with Garcia and Florence, one that told him he might be right. Turner could possibly get away with all of this. Rossi excused himself to go tell Hotch about what they found, and Garcia went back to search his computer for more information. Before Florence joined her, she glared at Turner.

"You know, there's a lot of people on this planet who would say you're useless to society too because of your condition. How would you feel if they cut you up and fed you to pigs?"

Turner didn't say anything to her, which she didn't mind. Florence scoffed and went back to his computer. They tried to find all they could on Lucas Turner, but very little came up. There was almost no information about him out there.

"Anything else?" Rossi asked, poking his head in the room.

"Nothing that'll help find his brother," Florence muttered.

"There's a cell phone he calls dozens of times a day, but that appears to be off," Garcia added. "And I tried to activate the GPS locator on it, but I think it's an old phone, so that's not gonna work either."

"Will you know if it comes on?"

"I hope so."

"Keep at it."

"Yes, Sir."

Once he left, they went back to going through the computer. Other than tons of disturbing documents of the experimentation, there wasn't much.

"You know, I probably could've stayed in Quantico," Florence said, leaning her head against the wall. "I haven't done much other than calling Turner an ugly bitch."

"Ah, an ugly pickley bitch," Garcia corrected, not taking her eyes off the screens. "And Hotch didn't know if it would be difficult to get into Turner's hard drives. It's better to have you and not need you rather than the other way around."

"I still don't think my chances of getting blown up are zero percent," she muttered.

Soon, JJ came to check on them. She had a cup of coffee for Garcia and a Capri Sun for Florence that she got from her go-bag. Florence happily made grab-hands until JJ handed it over.

"Hey, how's it going?" JJ asked them.

"Just waiting for—" When Garcia cut herself off, Florence looked at the screen to see that the phone had activated. "Oh, my god. The phone just turned back on."

Seconds later, there was an incoming call from the number.

"Rossi! The phone is calling in!" Florence shouted while Garcia answered the call and Rossi ran in the room.

"Hello? Hello?" They heard a scared voice say over the line. "My name is Kelly."

"Kelly, this is Penelope Garcia. I'm with the FBI," Garcia told her.

"Oh, my god, you have to help me," Kelly whispered. "I'm somewhere in the woods being held by a man named Lucas, and he—"

"Kelly?" someone called in the background. The rest of the team came into the room.

"And he's — oh, my god! Help me!"

"That's mine!"

"Oh, my god! Please—" After sounds of struggle, the line disconnected.

"The phone's disconnected," Garcia told them.

"Garcia, can you find the signal?" Hotch asked.

"No, I - wait. Yes," she said and began typing furiously. "I'm hooked into the system. I should be able to — Got it. It's just west of here, less than half a mile."

"That's all you can tell?" Rossi asked.

"It's in the woods. There aren't any reference points," Florence reminded them.

"Get the coordinates to my GPS and let Morgan and Prentiss know in the field," Hotch ordered.

The team ran off to save Kelly. They got the dogs and went to the coordinates. Lucas was holding Kelly in an underground cellar. JJ stayed back with Florence and Garcia. They listened over the radio and heard that they had found Kelly. Florence sighed in relief and walked away from the computer. She froze when she saw into the other room. Hightower was holding up a rifle and pointing it at Mason Turner.

"JJ," she called, taking several steps back.

JJ ran into the room with her gun raised. She ordered Hightower to stand down, but he pulled the trigger. As soon as he did, he dropped the weapon and put his hands over his head. As JJ rushed to get a pair of handcuffs on him, Garcia and Florence backed into the room, not wanting to see Turner's dead body.

"Well," Garcia said in a shaky tone. "At least you didn't get blown up."

|||

The plane ride back to Quantico was a somber one. Both unsubs had been needlessly killed, which only added to the ridiculously high body count. The team was having a rough time, so Florence did her best to cheer them up.

She asked Reid to show her how to play poker just to give him something to do. Morgan, Rossi, and Prentiss joined in the game for something to do. However, they didn't play with real money since she had never played before. Florence offered up her bag of Cheerios that was in her go-bag as make-shift chips — JJ asked why Florence thought that Cheerios was a necessary item for her go-bag, but Florence waved her off.

It turned out that playing poker with Florence was difficult. She had no clue what a good hand was, so the others had no idea if she was bluffing because she didn't even know if she was bluffing. Each round, she'd just pick a random number of Cheerios to put in the pool. There were several times where she had nothing, but she had managed to win one round early on with a pair of nines and a pair of sevens.

After half an hour, Florence started to get bored with poker, so she impulsively shoved all her cheerios in the center of the table.

"Ren, you haven't even looked at your cards yet," Prentiss said, scoffing.

"I'm bored," she whined. "I wanna lose and go bother Hotch."

"Please don't come bother me," he called from the other side of the plane, not even looking up from his paperwork.

After a few more minutes, everyone made their bets. While Morgan and Prentiss checked, Rossi put a few Cheerios in and Reid put in half of his already large pile. As soon as Florence put her cards down, Reid went pale. Rossi scoffed and shook his head.

"No way," Morgan said, chuckling.

"You wanted to lose and then played that hand?" Prentiss asked, smirking.

"Yeah. Is this better than Ro-Ro and Spence's hands?" she asked, yawning tiredly. "I just know it's what Hallie had in the Parent Trap."

"Better than — yes, it's better than our hands," Reid said, frowning. "A royal flush is the best hand in poker that you can get. The odds of you getting that are six hundred forty-nine thousand seven hundred thirty-nine to one. H - how did you even get that? I - what?"

"You broke him," Prentiss said.

Florence shrugged and grabbed a handful of Cheerios and shoved them in her mouth. "Sorry, Spence. I still quit though. You can have the rest of my Cheerios if you want."

"No way," Morgan protested. "If you're leaving, you split them evenly between us. Pretty Boy already has his card counting advantage."

"Hold on," Reid said, smiling softly. He slowly began to move Florence's Cheerios towards his pile. "If she wants to give me all her Cheerios, then I think we should honor her wishes."

Florence grinned and left them arguing over who got her Cheerios. It had gotten their minds off the case, which was what she wanted. She threw herself down on the couch next to Hotch.

"Ya did good today, Hopscotch."

Hotch didn't say what he wanted to, which was that they could've done better. "You did as well. Garcia told me you spent a lot of time worrying that it would be similar to what happened in New York though."

"Yeah," she said, shrugging. "Not a fan of the whole leaving the office thing. Almost got blown up, a serial killer approached us, and now I've seen someone get shot. The office is nice and safe."

"You also can't call an unsub, what was it? Ah, an ugly pickley bitch," Hotch said, fighting back a smile.

Florence cursed under her breath. "Who snitched."

"It was unprofessional," he said, not giving away who told him. Considering that Rossi was the one who told her to be mean to Turner, so it was likely Garcia. "And if it had been to an unsub that wasn't paralyzed, he could've hurt you. Don't do something like that again."

"Okay," she said, sighing as if it was an inconvenience. "I know you guys are upset about how the case went, but at least you saved Kelly. I mean, she's close to my age and almost got murdered. Because of you, she gets to go home to her family."

"Unfortunately, a lot of our victims are close to your age," Hotch muttered, frowning.

"Can you promise me something, Hopscotch?"

"Whatever you need," he said, looking away from his paperwork and at her.

"If I ever get murdered—"

"Florence," Hotch said, not wanting to think about her dying anymore.

She covered his mouth with her hand childishly, which made him roll his eyes. "Please. If I ever get murdered, will you promise to use my body in a Weekend at Bernie's bit?"

Hotch closed his eyes and let out a very long sigh. "That sounds like something Rossi and Morgan would be interested in. Why don't you go bother them about the logistics of it."

"Oh, they agreed to the plan months ago. It'd just mean a lot to me if you were in on it too."

"If I say yes, can this conversation end?"

"Sure."

"Then yes."

"Pinky swear?"

"Are you serious?"

"Serious as a heart attack. And remember, if you break it, my ghost will appear and cut off your pinky."

"Why would I bother missing my three-year-old when you're right here with me?"

"Hotch, focus up. Pinky promise?"

"Pinky promise."