Takedowns (3/3), Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior
Title: Takedowns
Fandom: Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior
Rating: PG-13 (violence, mature language)
Words: 7,589/24,442
See Part One for notes | Part Two
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior or its characters - those belong to CBS. I am merely playing and will put them back when I'm done.
Day Two - 9:45 pm
Coop's voice echoed against the surrounding buildings as he spoke through the megaphone. Mick stood beside his team leader, gun trained on the shop, while Beth monitored the thermal camera to track the unsub's movements.
"Scott. Scott Andrews. My name is Sam Cooper. I'm here to talk. I want to hear what you have to say."
There was no response - no movement, no sound. This attempt didn't seem to be going any better than the first two. Coop lowered the megaphone and sighed. He glanced down at the monitor. "I don't think we're going to get far with this. I need to get back to the search planning."
He raised the megaphone again. "Scott. You can talk to me at any time. If you pick up the phone, I'm here to listen."
Coop wound up his entreaty and moved behind the cover of the police cruiser, dropping to a crouch beside the telephone unit they'd brought out. If the unsub chose to pick up the phone in the shop, it would connect to this handset thanks to some Garcia magic Mick didn't understand.
"He's moving." Beth's voice broke the silence. "To your left three feet and turning. Possibly retreating into the store."
Mick adjusted his aim slightly to the left, taking a quick glance at the monitor to confirm his new target zone. Thanks to the scale that Beth had calculated and taped to the screen her directions were remarkably accurate, but Mick needed confirmation from his own eyes. The sun that had blinded him earlier had set behind the tree-line, but there was still enough glare on the windows from other light sources that Mick had to rely on the scope for any hint as to the unsub's location. It was deeply frustrating to be so close to a target and unable to see it. He took a slow breath in and released it through his mouth, relaxing his stance and slowing his heartbeat.
"Easy there, sniper-boy," Beth's quiet voice sounded amused. "Gina's on the phone getting the lights off as fast as possible." Even as she said it the street lights went dark. "There. Now we can see…"
"Shadows." Mick interrupted. "We can see shadows and he can see us clear as day." He glanced at the monitor again; the unsub hadn't moved in response to the light change. Odd.
"Feeling a little exposed out here on the front lines?" Beth asked. "Doesn't suit your need for distance from any and all situations?"
"Don't profile me, Beth," Mick snapped, trying to ignore the accuracy of her observations. "Makes you sound bitchy."
"I am bitchy," she responded. "I can't figure out why we haven't found our victim. We threw every bit of information possible into the geo-profile and the kid's nowhere in the area. I'd say the victim had done a runner, but the unsub was too calm this afternoon to have lost him in the woods."
Prophet walked over to their position, checking his gun. "I'm here to take a shift," he explained. "Rest your arms, get some water. This stance isn't easy on the shoulders."
He slid in next to Mick, braced his arms on the roof of the car, and used the frame to guard his neck. A dark helmet covered him down to his brow-ridge. Mick stepped across the monitor, allowing Prophet to take his exact position. Dropping to a crouch, he engaged the safety on his gun but kept it in a loose grip.
Beth and Prophet chatted back and forth briefly, establishing their spotter/shooter rapport. Mick half-listened as he let his head and arms hang limply, allowing his muscles to relax. The shooting stance was much less comfortable than his preferred positions and even if he'd never admit it to the team, his shoulders were going to get sore if he held it for more than a couple hours. He needed to go running to work off the tension and get the blood moving through his tight muscles. Of course, in these woods, running was a good way to get shot, mauled by an animal, or break a limb and die of exposure.
"Wait a second, Beth," he said. "What if the victim did do a runner? What if that's the point? We've been thinking that he tortures them in a cabin, but what if the torture is being lost and injured in the woods? All alone with no food or water or way to defend yourself."
"And the unsub tracks them to see how they do? Could be…" Beth paused in thought, then waved Coop over. Mick explained his theory to the senior profiler, who nodded.
"Yes, but if I'm Scott… I don't need to see them try to just survive, I need to see them survive what I survived. I need them to prove whether they can overcome what I've overcome, to prove themselves worthy like me."
Beth shook her head, disgust evident on her face. "So he injures them, lames them the way he was lamed, and then watches them fail. Which proves to him that he's a better survivor than they are."
"Scott was injured in a fall from a cliff," Prophet said. "What were those cliffs within range of the cabins? Were they between the cabins and the body sites?"
"Hart's Bluff. Possibly. It depends on the line of the cliffs, I suppose." Beth said. "I can check the maps." She shifted on her chair as if to stand, but Mick stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
"You stay. Prophet needs you to spot. I can grab the maps."
"Fine." She settled back down, but Mick thought he detected a hint of resentment. Beth didn't like to share her profiling specialty any more than Mick fancied someone touching his sniper's equipment. Which seemed a little extreme to Mick, since maps were just maps, but everyone had their obsessions.
Within minutes, he'd dug the right set of maps out of Beth's files - she was going to smack his fingers for the mess he'd made doing so - and returned to the team. The topographic map showed two sections of Hart's Bluff tall enough to stand in for the cliff that had caused the unsub's lameness. Coop eliminated one on the basis that it was too close to cabins and water sources. The unsub might believe that he was setting up a competition, but given his degree of resentment and self-involvement it was unlikely he'd set an achievable task for victims.
Mick conferred with one of the local deputies on weather and animal life, as well as available food sources. It was agreed that the previous two victims could have made it to their grave sites from the cliffs. Working out an estimated rate of travel, Mick, Coop, and Sheriff James created a possible search area originating from the cliffs rather than the cabins.
Beth took a few minutes away from the scope to check over their conclusions and deemed them 'acceptable.' Mick couldn't help scoffing a little at that word, but when she looked him in the eye, he saw the same 'smile and wink' frown she'd given him that afternoon. Amused, he quirked an eyebrow at her, which caused her to look away in an attempt to hide a grin.
Once the new search area was established, Mick returned to the shooter's position. Prophet was a better choice to lead the search, and if they found Matthew House, there'd be no more need to be delicate about taking the unsub down. Lack of delicacy was Mick's specialty. In his boredom, as the stand-off entered its fourth hour, he mentioned this fact to Beth. She laughed quietly, a low raspy chuckle that tickled up Mick's spine.
"I'm glad you're finally admitting your flaws," she said archly. "Not every man has the self-awareness to realize he'd got the grace and social skills of a drunk teenager."
Mick blinked a few times at that, realizing that Beth had completely misunderstood him. He quickly checked his stance and confirmed the target's position.
"What I meant was…" He used the slow patient voice of someone talking to a small child. "…that in a take-down, people with delicacy tend to over-think and aim to incapacitate. People who lack delicacy know that they may have to kill, they accept that and they don't risk useless shots. Me, I lack delicacy."
He took a breath. "Social skills, on the other hand, are a matter of finesse and I have finesse in spades. I can finesse with the best of them," he bragged, warming to the theme. "My finesse was legendary back in my unit."
He paused to check the target's position. Still hadn't moved. If the shape on the monitor weren't registering at body temperature, Mick would have thought the guy was dead.
"Oh, your finesse is legendary here, too." Beth laughed. "That's why most of the ladies in the gym won't go for drinks with you. You're a victim of your own reputation."
"But then there's you," he asked. "Are you brave enough to have drinks with me?"
He could hear her shifting on the low camp chair. He counted off the seconds until she responded. four one-thousand, five one-thousand, six one-thousand, seven one…
"We have drinks together all the time, Mick," she said eventually. "Team drinks. I know better than to mess with your style of finesse. I might like to keep things light and no-strings-attached, but your ability to avoid second dates truly is spectacular."
Mick winced slightly at that one. This conversation had taken a wrong turn somewhere - he was fairly sure that they'd been talking about killing people and all of the sudden he'd found himself asking Beth for a drink. He had meant it as a joke, but as he'd waited for her answer he had realized that he wanted very much for her to say yes. Her glib dismissal stung, but he couldn't let her know that.
"I have very high standards, I'll have you know," he bragged. "Second dates are reserved for women who meet a carefully considered set of qualifications."
Beth snorted. "I dread to think what that means."
Mick opened his mouth, but she cut him off.
"And please don't feel the need to share. I'm quite happy not knowing."
After that, a companionable silence fell between them. Mick tried to keep his mind focused on the target, but it kept drifting to the imaginary list of qualifications he'd mentioned. If he had to be honest, there was an unofficial list that ruled out most of the women he took out. Smart, brutally honest, compassionate, open-minded women whose interests aligned with his weren't exactly around every corner. And the few he had met, like Emily Prentiss, intimidated him a little. The more Mick thought about it, it was a damned catch-22: the women he would like to have real relationships with were so formidable and amazing that he was too cowardly to ask them out.
Beth was a perfect example, he realized. She was brilliant and fascinating, she loved her work and was intensely passionate on any number of topics. Mick found her energy and humour engaging, while her carefully hidden vulnerabilities always caught him square in the heart. He looked down and was caught by the sight of Beth's face in the monitor's light, her dark eyes glinting and her cheeks lit in sharp relief by the blue glow. Her skin looked ice white, otherworldly. For everything he admired about her mind and heart, he had to admit that Beth was also a good looking woman. And he doubted she'd consider dating him if he was the last straight man on earth.
Day Two - 11:45 pm
Beth stifled a yawn and felt her jaw muscles strain. The coffee that the Sheriff's deputy had brought with the latest search team updates was now lukewarm. She checked her watch to discover that it had only been twenty minutes since the deputy's visit. The standoff was entering its sixth hour while the search had been underway for over ninety minutes.
Mick stood in the shooter's position again. He'd been there for most of the evening and Beth could only imagine how exhausted he was. Sheriff James himself had taken a shift so that Mick could use the bathroom and sit down for twenty minutes. She had offered him coffee, but he'd turned down the caffeine in favour of fruit juice and beef jerky. He'd said something about adrenal reserves that had made sense intellectually but hadn't really registered with Beth as she drank her tenth coffee of the day.
There had been a small moment of excitement at around half past eight when the unsub shifted positions, first kneeling and then climbing into a platform that Beth had identified on the ground plans as the cashier's counter. From the angle of the unsub's body, Mick had deduced that the man was probably sighting down a rifle. When Beth had questioned his use of the word probably, Mick had admitted that given the lack of detail on the heat scope, it was also possible that the unsub had climbed on to the counter for a nap.
Beth had hidden her amusement at Mick's obvious frustration with the situation. She understood that while it was quite possible the unsub was napping and presenting no threat, Mick had to assume there was a rifle pointed at the barricades for the sake of caution. When the time came to enter the shop and take the unsub, Mick would have to make the call as to whether to take the kill shot on a man who might be sound asleep.
"Do you think he'd the type to go out in blaze of glory?" Mick asked suddenly.
"Suicide by cop? I doubt it," Beth assured him. "He's so proud of his ability to survive, he doesn't want to die. Of course, he could have an invincibility conceit," she suggested. "Having convinced himself that he can survive more than the average person."
"If I've survived so far, survived more than what my victims could take, I'll survive a shoot-out?"
"Sure. He's not likely to surrender - too much ego for that. Giving himself up would go against what he's been trying to prove with these tests: that he's a superior sort of man."
She couldn't keep the sneer off her face as she described the unsub's philosophy. As much as she tried to reach Coop's level of objectivity about unsubs' psyches, Beth had never been very good at masking her feelings when dealing with the various levels of twisted and crazy they faced. Some days she admired how Mick's background allowed him to remain emotionally distanced from their cases. The reality was that Beth drew energy from her emotional connection to cases, even if it was from her disgust for a particularly despicable unsub.
This unsub, he was a nasty case. While his injuries made him a figure of pity, his actions horrified Beth. To send young men to their deaths as experiments - it was an anger-driven sadism that chilled Beth to the core. She found herself shivering at the thought and rubbed her hands up and down her arms in a futile attempt to ward off the chill.
Mick glanced down at her and then returned his gaze to the shop windows. Beth cursed herself silently for disrupting his concentration. Her job was to assist him, not distract him. She'd suppressed dozens of conjectures and questions over the course of the stakeout, not because she didn't want to talk to Mick but because she didn't want to take his attention away from where it belonged. And now she'd done it without even speaking. She shook her head in irritation as she watched him lower his left arm and make some sort of signally gesture.
Before she could ask if he'd been trying to communicate with her, a deputy hurried over.
"Something happening, sir?" The kid asked the question Beth was thinking.
"Just the temperature dropping like a stone," Mick replied as he reset his stance. "Could we get a couple of blankets or warmer jackets over here?"
"Sure thing, sir. The thermostat does go down pretty fast when the sun sets," the deputy observed, not moving.
"So I've noticed," Mick replied tightly. Given the level of tension in his voice, Beth was amazed that his back and neck looked so relaxed. "Which is why some blankets would be nice."
"Oh, right. Right away." The deputy bustled off.
Beth smiled at Mick's sigh of frustration. To distract him from his irritation, she asked "You cold?"
"Not really. I've got a jumper under this jacket. But you're just wearing an oxford, so you've got to be chilled," he pointed out. "And you've got too much of a stubborn martyr complex to ask for a blanket or find a warmer jacket."
Beth felt a mixture of irritation and affection: Mick had made arrangements to take care of her in one breath and insulted her in the next. Not that he wasn't right about the stubborn part, of course. And she had to admit that she hated having other people fuss over her, something she'd felt even more strongly since the incident with Rawlins. All the same, there was something about how Mick took care of her without fussing or expecting gratitude that was comfortable and warmed her more than blankets would.
Day Three - 12:30 am
Six and half hours into the standoff, Mick was starting to doubt that the unsub was awake. There had been no movement since the man had climbed onto the counter and no response to their attempts to establish communications. The search teams had covered more than half of the target areas, working out from the cliffs in a fan pattern. Fifteen minutes ago Prophet had reported that they might have found a trail, but that the thick underbrush was making the search slow going.
Mick was getting antsy. He had heard Coop talking to Sheriff James, planning the incursion should the victim be located. From what they had been saying, Mick got the feeling that taking the unsub alive wasn't a priority. While that made tactics easier, he assumed that it would probably fall to him to take the final solution if the situation unfolded poorly.
"Let me take a turn." Beth's voice was close to his ear. "You've got to be aching."
She was standing just behind him, to his right. Her eyes were still focused down on the monitor, but she was readying her side-arm. Mick rechecked his aim, and suddenly the tension in his arms and shoulders felt ten times worse. It couldn't hurt to take a quick break, although…
"Can you even see over the car?" he asked.
"Oh, ha, ha," Beth responded grouchily. "I'm not a midget."
She stepped up beside him and rested her arms on top of the cruiser. The angle looked awkward to Mick, but now that she'd planted the idea of discomfort in his mind, he was not going to turn down a short respite.
He crouched down, shook out his arms and stretched his neck. Popping the snap on his helmet's chinstrap, he freed his head. Cold night air hit his sweaty scalp and made him shiver. After a moment of blissful relaxation, he moved onto Beth's camp stool and checked the monitor.
"No change," he reported.
"Surprise." Beth responded with a snort. Mick grinned and glanced up at her to check her positioning. It all looked good - her stance, her aim - but something about the sight bothered him. Mick tried to sort out what was wrong, sweeping his gaze from Beth's feet to her head. Everything appeared fine. The only deviation from normal was that her hair was loose on her shoulders rather than tied up in the way she usually wore it for stand offs. Still, that wouldn't be a problem until it was time to move in on the unsub's position. Mick stared at the thick, dark hair resting against Beth's neck for a few more seconds before he realized what the problem was.
"You're not wearing a helmet!" He almost grabbed her to pull her down out of the range of fire.
"Christ, Beth, what are you thinking?" Even as he chastised her, Mick was picking up his own helmet and moving to crouch behind her. "Your head is the only target he has and you leave it unprotected?"
Mick's heart was going ridiculously fast. It wasn't like Beth didn't go into life-threatening situations all the time - hell, they'd almost lost her to an unsub just a few months ago - but usually the team was there, everyone watching each other's backs. But this time it was just Beth up there, and if the unsub had understood the difference in the silhouette, she could have been dead before Mick could have done anything.
"I'm going to put my helmet on you," he told Beth. "I'll tip it down until you say okay - that means your forehead is covered but you can still see."
"Got it." Beth's voice was tight. Either she was tense about the risk in her situation, or she didn't like Mick's plan. At least she wasn't arguing.
Mick raised the helmet and began to shift it over Beth's head. He was trying to stay low, to avoid attracting the unsub's attention with unusual movements. His face was pressed against Beth's shoulder blades as he tried to gauge the helmet's position. The tension in her back was at odds with the lightness in her voice as she griped at him.
"Do I really have to wear your sweaty helmet? I think a head wound might be preferable." Mick wanted to shake her for saying something so ridiculous, but he knew she was just trying to deflect the stressful situation with humour. "Well if I have to, I suppose… stop… back a touch… that's good."
"Good," Mick said, standing a little straighter. "I'll just fasten the strap and you're set."
He slipped his hands over her shoulders and reached for the strap. As he brushed her hair back from her face and over her shoulders, he felt her shiver.
"Ticklish," he teased.
"Apparently," she muttered. She raised her chin slightly as he eased the strap into place, adjusting the clasp to fit her. Her skin was smooth where his fingers slid along her cheeks and jaw to seat the strap, and he felt another small shudder go through her at the motion.
All of a sudden, he became extremely aware of how close he was to Beth. As he crouched behind her, his legs bracketed hers and his head was tucked into the space between her shoulder blades. Her hair, hanging loose, was long enough that the ends tickled against his face.
"I think I'm good, Rawson," Beth said. "You can let go now."
Mick realized that his wrists were still resting on her shoulders, his fingers lying against her jaw. Slowly, he shifted his hands back and down. On one level he knew he moving slowly meant the unsub wouldn't notice anything, but a guilty part of him was aware he was doing it to prolong contact. Mick found himself holding his breath. Beth's skin was warm under his fingers and she tensed as they dragged down her neck and over her shoulders. Mick pulled his hands away from her and leaned back. He dropped into a low crouch and moved to the right. Glancing up at Beth, he noticed that her shoulders were high.
"Anything change?" she asked.
Mick blinked and turned his attention to the monitor. "No. No movement. Nothing new."
Just as he said it, there was a burst of noise and activity from behind them.
"Nothing new for us, at least," Beth said. "Want to find out what's going on there?"
"What about the monitor?" Mick asked.
"Like you said, no movement." Beth sighed. "Okay, I know you shouldn't leave, but at least call Coop. I want to know what's going on."
"Control freak," Mick teased.
"You know it," her voice was light. "Now find out what the hell's got them all excited."
Mick grumbled good-naturedly as he pulled out his phone. A few taps of the screen and he was connected to Coop.
"I've got you on speaker so Beth can hear," he said. "Anything we should know about."
"Yep," Coop's deep voice sounded tinny in the night air. "Search team found a trail. They're all converging on the area and it's looking good. Apparently the blood and the broken branches are fresh enough that they figure the victim was there less than eight hours ago."
"Was it near Hart's Bluff?" Beth asked.
"Yes, and based on the distance from the cliffs and the amount of broken undergrowth and blood, we're assuming he's quite badly injured. He can't be far from where they found the trail. They should find him soon."
Day Three - 1:15 am
A slideshow of photos of Matthew House was cycling on the monitor. Prophet had documented as many of Matthew's injuries as he could while the search team medics worked. Beth had to swallow hard so the fruit juice and power bar she'd eaten stayed in her stomach.
The injuries were gruesome: both legs and one arm broken, smashed ribs, a swelling head wound, not to mention scrapes and bruises on most of his exposed skin. It was amazing that the boy was alive.
A search team had located Matthew just before one a.m. and moved him to a clearing that could accommodate a medivac helicopter. The search's medical team met them there, and Prophet had joined them so he could report on Matthew's condition. He'd taken the photographs before reporting back to Coop.
"Kid's tough, guys," Prophet sounded impressed. "On top of everything you've seen, he's got a branch through his thigh. Only reason he's alive is that he had the smarts to break it off and leave it in there. He's lost a lot of blood, but if he'd taken that out, medics say he would have been dead in minutes."
"And sign of what caused the injuries?" Coop asked.
"I think I can explain that," Gina's voice echoed as she chimed into the conference call. "We've retraced his trail back to the cliffs and I'm seeing a pile of rocks with a lot of blood. They're disturbed, like he crawled over them. You'll have to give me a bit to figure out how to get to the top of this cliff, but I'll send you some pictures for now."
"Thanks, Gina," Coop said. "Prophet, you see any sign of restraints? Drug injection? Anything about his ritual that I can use?"
There was muffled conversation and then Prophet responded. "The medics checked the arms and neck - no needle marks they can see, but there's a lot of skin damage. The wrists are bruised and lightly chafed all the way around, like he was restrained but didn't fight much. There's also a smooth cut on inside of one wrist which could be from a knife cutting wrist restraints."
"So Scott could have drugged him," Beth said. "And he definitely controlled him with restraints. Which starts to explain how a crippled man kidnapped a healthy one."
"I'm going to che…" Prophet trailed off and strange noises could be heard through the speaker phone. "Guys, he's waking up. Hang on."
There was a long wait. Beth could hear snatches of Prophet's conversation and other male voices responding. It was impossible to tell if the voices were medics, officers, or their victim. Beth tapped her fingers against her side, impatient. Her irritation was broken by the familiar bleep of an incoming message.
She pulled out her phone; it was Gina's photos. They showed a rock fall at the base of a cliff, jagged stones surrounded by scrubby trees. To one side, the stones were smeared with blood and there were broken branches. Scraps of torn fabric dangled from a tree. Another pile of blood soaked flannel looked like a makeshift bandage pad. Matthew had apparently been coherent enough for rudimentary first aid.
"He's awake," Prophet spoke into the phone. In the background, Beth could hear the unmistakable sound of helicopter rotors. "We're going to get him into the chopper and then I'll patch into the radio so you can hear the interview."
"That's great news," Coop's voice was bright. "First-hand victim information will make it easier to provoke a response from Scott. I can use anything you can get me."
"Coop, I'm at the top of the cliff." Gina said. "I can see where he would have gone over."
"Any sign of a struggle?" Beth asked.
"Not much. There's a disturbance right at the edge of the cliff, where he fell." A pause, and the sound of rustling leaves. "Some badly concealed drag marks, heels mostly, although it's a wide trail so I bet he dragged him on his butt for while. And it leads to… ATV tracks. The front wheelbase is just over six feet. I think you'll find that that matches Scott's Kymco. I'll send photos of the tire treads to Garcia for comparison."
"Thanks, Gina," Beth smiled. Now they knew how the victims had ended up at the cliffs.
"I'm hanging up now," Coop announced to everyone on the line. "We're patching over to the chopper's radio."
Gina and Prophet signed off, and then there was a series of clicks and crackles.
"Coop, Beth, you there?" the connection was full of light static, but Prophet's voice came through over the sound of a helicopter in flight.
"Gotcha loud and clear-ish." Beth's sarcasm made Coop grin.
"Matthew wants to help us out," Prophet said. "But we can't talk long."
"Understood," Coop answered. "Matthew, we just need to know the essentials."
A faint voice croaked "Okay." Beth winced. Matthew sounded like he'd worn his throat raw. Probably by screaming, given his injuries.
Prophet spoke again. "Don't worry about details, remember?" There was a pause. "Do you remember who did this to you?"
"…yesss."
"Where did you meet the person who did this to you?"
"Hardware…"
"Was it the man who rented the cabin to you?"
A pause.
"He's shaking his head." Prophet reported. "Another man?... He's nodding. So you went back later?... Nodding yes. Why did you go back?
"Directions."
"And the man who did this gave you directions?... No?"
"A ride."
"He gave you a ride to the cabin?"
"Yess…"
"In an ATV? … He's nodding. So where did you leave your car?"
"Barn?"
Matthew sounded uncertain. Beth made a note to see what sort of outbuildings Scott Andrews had access to.
"Did he leave you at the cabin?... He's shaking… what's that?"
"Be…beers."
"You guys had a beer together?"
"Beersss."
"More than one. And then he left?"
"Doh… don't know."
"Did you black out?... He's nodding. And where did you wake up?"
"Cliff."
"At the top of the cliff?... Shaking his…"
"Bott.. um"
"At the bottom. God, man, I'm so sorry." Prophet's voice was full of sympathy. "And you know that the guy with the ATV did this?"
"Test… checks…checked… on me.."
"He said this was a test?"
"Yes… Test. Pass or duh…duh…"
"That's enough." A new voice cut in. "You're wearing him out. You can ask the rest of your questions at the hospital, once he's stable."
"Okay, fine," Prophet answered. Beth could almost see him using his favourite appeasing hand's-off gesture. "I just have one more? Please, it's important."
The medic sighed heavily enough that Beth heard it through the static. "Fine, one more."
"Matthew, just one more question," Prophet's voice was soothing. "Is this the man who did this to you?"
"Yesss!"
Day Three - 2:00 am
"Alright, Mick, if you have the solution, take it."
Mick nodded. He stepped away from the table and checked his equipment. In his peripheral vision, he could see the rest of the team doing the same. Coop holstered his gun and scooped up the megaphone. It was time for a last verbal approach.
"Ready?" Beth asked, snapping on her helmet.
"Always," Mick said with a faint smile.
"Maybe you won't have to." He could hear the lie in Beth's voice.
"Naw, Beth. The time for delicacy has passed," he explained, turning towards the barricade of cars. "I know my job."
"You do know your job, Mick," she said, following. "You're an excellent profiler, not a killer."
He winced, but kept walking. "Today I'm both." He lengthened his stride.
He could feel Beth struggling to keep up. It made him feel a little guilty, out-pacing her, but it stopped her from talking. When he reached the barricade, he crouched down behind the body of the car as Coop and Beth arrived.
"I'm going to try to talk him out," Coop said, "but we all know that probably won't do much good. The state police are setting up positions so that they can grab him if he goes out the back or side. The locals will be at the front."
"And if he doesn't move?" Beth asked.
"He'll move," Coop assured her. "He's going to give in to his ego and his anger at some point. We just have to give him the right push."
"And if he has weapons in there?" She just wouldn't let go. Mick let his head drop, willing relaxation through his muscles.
"If he tries for lethal force, we will respond with lethal force," Coop answered. "All the teams know that if he fires from inside the store, it's Mick's shot. If he gets outside, then they can take it on their own."
Mick nodded. It made sense. He checked the monitor to establish a position for the unsub. Standing, he chambered a round and eased into position. Beth slid into place beside him, her back to the shop, her eyes on the monitor. She held her gun in the Weaver grip.
"You planning to shoot over your shoulder?" he mocked, trying to break the tension between them.
Beth huffed a laugh. "No. But if I see him come to the door, I'll be ready for him."
Mick smiled. Just like Beth, planning for as many outcomes as possible. He settled against the car as Coop began to speak through the megaphone.
"Scott. Scott Andrews. This is Sam Cooper. I told you earlier that I am here to listen. I am here to listen. You can pick up the phone on the counter at any time and we can talk. But until you do, I have a few things I want to tell you."
Coop paused and took a deep breath.
"I want to tell you about Matthew House. Matthew is twenty-three years old. He's an architect's draughtsman. He graduated top of his class and is supposed to start a new job soon. He has parents who love him - James and Trish. They are so close to their son that they reported him missing after less than a day."
As Coop continued, Mick quietly asked Beth "anything?"
"Nope. No movement," she answered. "But Coop's pushing his buttons - parents, success. It'll happen soon."
Mick nodded his agreement and returned his attention to Coop.
"Matthew is at the hospital right now, Scott. The doctors say he will survive." Coop paused, a grimace on his face. "Matthew fought hard and he succeeded. The doctors say he will heal, that he will walk again."
Coop was trying to goad the unsub into moving out of the building. The reality was that they couldn't safely infiltrate the hardware store - there were almost as many flammable and explosive chemicals as in a meth lab. And Scott Andrews appeared confident in his ability to survive whatever life threw at him, perhaps to the point of delusion. It was safe to assume that he wouldn't hesitate before shooting at anyone who entered the shop.
"Scott, Matthew told us what you did you him." Mick could hear the anger in Coop's voice. "How you took him out to the cabin, how you shared a couple beers. You drugged his beer. He woke up at the bottom of a cliff.
"You had pushed him over the cliff onto a rock fall, Scott. Not onto brush, like where you fell. Onto jagged rocks. But he fought. He dragged himself free, and when he could, he started to crawl."
Beside Mick, Beth shuddered. He gently bumped his hip against hers in reassurance.
"Anything?" he asked.
"Not yet." Her voice was subdued.
"And he fought, Scott. He crawled, he ate moss, he ate berries, he fought. He lasted for more than thirty-six hours and he was still fighting when we found him. Thirty-six hours. It took you twenty-one hours to find help, didn't it?
"Matthew was alone in unfamiliar woods. You were in forest you know like the back of your hand. And he lasted fifteen hours longer than you did. Do you know what that makes me think? It makes me think he passed your test. But you couldn't let someone pass your test, so you changed the rules. You cheated. You left him there to die."
Beth hissed. "Movement. Movement. He's off the counter. Your right, five feet."
"And that tells me that you don't do this as some kind of test. You didn't do this to prove a point."
"He's still moving, your right, two feet." Beth announced. "Keep going with that line. It's really getting him."
"You did this because you suffered horribly and now something inside you enjoys the suffering of others. You did this because your body isn't the only thing that's broken."
A howl rose from the store. It made the hair on the back of Mick's neck stand up. Before he could ask Beth for a position, he heard the crack of rifle shot and shattering glass. As the shop window fell, Mick was able to make out the shadowy figure of a man with a gun. Without thinking, he adjusted him aim and returned fire. He emptied six of his fifteen rounds in a controlled grid and saw the figure fall to the ground.
There was no return fire. Silence dragged on for long seconds, until Coop ordered the Sheriff to take his men into the store. They managed a reasonably tidy entry and called the all-clear. Mick sagged down behind the car and turned to check on Beth.
"Alright, there, Griffiths?"
"Alright, Rawson. Good shooting." Beth's voice sounded tired.
"Thanks," Mick dropped the magazine out of his gun, and popped out the chambered round. "I'm going to hand off all this and then go crawl into bed."
"Right there with you," Beth sighed and stood. His eyebrows shot up, but she wasn't even looking at him when she added. "Not like that, you idiot. You know what I meant. Get your mind out of the gutter."
Mick laughed long and hard as he followed her away from the barricades.
Day Three - 9:15 am
Beth handed Mick a cup of coffee from the plane's kitchenette and sank into her seat. He nodded his thanks but his attention was focused on Coop. The team leader was standing in the aisle, reading from Sheriff James's report on the contents of Scott Andrews's apartment. After the post-takedown debriefing, James's deputies had cleared the scene in the store and searched the apartment. The Red Cell team had returned to the motel to rest before their flight home. Beth hadn't got much sleep, though, thanks to images of the victims interrupting her dreams. She sipped her coffee and focused her mind on what Coop was saying.
"… none of which was unusual. The interesting find was in the gun safe: over a dozen notebooks, the first one is more than three years old. It's full of research: cases of men who survived falls, potential locations, drugs."
"And does he give any indication of his motivation?" Gina asked.
"Nothing definitive yet. James has his people scanning and transcribing. I've got the first six notebooks here." Coop handed his tablet to Gina. "If you look in numbers four and five, you'll see that Scott recorded his 'test' of Travis Martin in detail."
Gina nodded absently, her attention already on the screen. Coop smiled and looked at the others. "They'll have the rest of the notebooks ready for us when we get back. I think we'll have a lot to do while we wait for the next case."
Beth felt Mick lean against her shoulder. "The unsub that just keeps giving," he muttered sarcastically. She could feel his breath against her ear. It reminded her of how his fingers had felt dragging along her neck the night before and she had to suppress a shiver.
"I've had a message from the deputy at the hospital," Prophet said, holding up his phone. "Matthew made it through surgery and is off the critical list. Turns out you weren't lying to Scott: the doctors didn't have to remove Matthew's legs. He will have a long, hard fight but he should walk again."
"A hard fight, like Scott Andrews," Beth said.
"Yes, like Scott," Coop agreed. "But at the same time, not. Matthew has a better support system, a different background and psychology. Everyone reacts to adversity differently." A beep interrupted him and he pulled out his phone.
Beth turned away, looking down at her coffee. It was cooling rapidly in the air-conditioned cabin. She gulped down the last of the liquid and turned to Mick. He was staring at his hands, lost in his thoughts. He'd been quiet all morning, at breakfast, on the ride to the airport.
"Refill?" she asked. Mick glanced up and she could see shadows under his eyes. His hair was damp on his forehead and she could still smell chlorine from the motel pool. She had come across him there before breakfast. They had swum in silence, passing each other in the lanes.
"Please," Mick answered, passing over his cup. "Cream and…"
"Three sugars," Beth finished. "I know. Some day all those calories are going to catch up to you."
Mick flashed her a quick grin. "Will you still love me when I'm old and podgy, Beth?"
"What makes you think I love you now?" she tossed over her shoulder as she made her way to the coffee pot. Mick's laugh made her smile. Whatever was on his mind couldn't be bothering him too much if he was flirting.
When she returned with the coffee, he was flipping through a file on his tablet. Beth placed their cups on the table and leaned over to read the screen. It was the background information on Scott Andrews. She sighed lightly - apparently Mick wasn't done brooding. At the sound, he looked up. She raised an eyebrow. He narrowed his eyes. She raised her other eyebrow. He stared for another moment and then rolled his eyes in surrender.
"I sometimes wonder, y'know," he explained. "The killers we see..."
Beth nodded. They had danced around this question before. "Where the difference comes from?"
"Well, yeah. I know that it's all kinds of factors, I know that. But still. Some days… the difference between killing a person and being a killer. It's not easy."
Beth reached out and pulled the tablet from Mick's hands. She closed the file and pulled up the photo gallery. Scrolling through, she found a picture Matthew House from the night before.
"This is the difference," she said, turning the screen towards Mick. "This is what a killer does, because they have lost their humanity. You haven't. When you shoot someone it's to end or prevent something like this." She shook the tablet slightly.
Mick stared down at the image for a long moment and then took the tablet from her. He exited the photo app, returning to the home screen. As he closed the cover, Beth caught a glimpse of his wallpaper. It was photo of the team: the five of them crowded on the office stairs, laughing together.
"Only you, Beth, would use a gruesome picture of a bleeding victim to comfort someone," Mick grinned at her.
"Part of my charm," she smiled over at him. "It's why you lo…" a yawn crept up on her, making her eyes water.
"Sleepy there?" he asked, shifting so he could raise the armrest between their seats. "C'mon, we're at least twenty minutes out. Pull your feet up and have a nap." He patted his shoulder.
Beth couldn't stop herself from glancing around; Mick's idea was pushing the boundaries of workplace casual. Then she saw that Coop had nodded off with his feet in the opposite seat, and Gina was curled up against Prophet, who was stroking her hair as she slept. When it came to casual, as in everything, their Red Cell played by its own rules.
Beth pulled her legs up onto the seat, pleased with her lack of height for once. Mick raised his left arm so she could lean on him. With her head resting against his shoulder, Beth could feel Mick's breathing and hear his steady heartbeat. She glanced up as his arm settled around her shoulders. He was staring out the window at the sunlit clouds.
As she relaxed against Mick, Beth smiled to herself. The last thirty six hours had been crazy but satisfying. They'd stopped the killer and rescued the victim alive. She thought Matthew House's parents reaction when they'd heard their son was alive. Sure, this case had been hard work, but every minute had been worth it.
Fandom: Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior
Rating: PG-13 (violence, mature language)
Words: 7,589/24,442
See Part One for notes | Part Two
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior or its characters - those belong to CBS. I am merely playing and will put them back when I'm done.
Day Two - 9:45 pm
Coop's voice echoed against the surrounding buildings as he spoke through the megaphone. Mick stood beside his team leader, gun trained on the shop, while Beth monitored the thermal camera to track the unsub's movements.
"Scott. Scott Andrews. My name is Sam Cooper. I'm here to talk. I want to hear what you have to say."
There was no response - no movement, no sound. This attempt didn't seem to be going any better than the first two. Coop lowered the megaphone and sighed. He glanced down at the monitor. "I don't think we're going to get far with this. I need to get back to the search planning."
He raised the megaphone again. "Scott. You can talk to me at any time. If you pick up the phone, I'm here to listen."
Coop wound up his entreaty and moved behind the cover of the police cruiser, dropping to a crouch beside the telephone unit they'd brought out. If the unsub chose to pick up the phone in the shop, it would connect to this handset thanks to some Garcia magic Mick didn't understand.
"He's moving." Beth's voice broke the silence. "To your left three feet and turning. Possibly retreating into the store."
Mick adjusted his aim slightly to the left, taking a quick glance at the monitor to confirm his new target zone. Thanks to the scale that Beth had calculated and taped to the screen her directions were remarkably accurate, but Mick needed confirmation from his own eyes. The sun that had blinded him earlier had set behind the tree-line, but there was still enough glare on the windows from other light sources that Mick had to rely on the scope for any hint as to the unsub's location. It was deeply frustrating to be so close to a target and unable to see it. He took a slow breath in and released it through his mouth, relaxing his stance and slowing his heartbeat.
"Easy there, sniper-boy," Beth's quiet voice sounded amused. "Gina's on the phone getting the lights off as fast as possible." Even as she said it the street lights went dark. "There. Now we can see…"
"Shadows." Mick interrupted. "We can see shadows and he can see us clear as day." He glanced at the monitor again; the unsub hadn't moved in response to the light change. Odd.
"Feeling a little exposed out here on the front lines?" Beth asked. "Doesn't suit your need for distance from any and all situations?"
"Don't profile me, Beth," Mick snapped, trying to ignore the accuracy of her observations. "Makes you sound bitchy."
"I am bitchy," she responded. "I can't figure out why we haven't found our victim. We threw every bit of information possible into the geo-profile and the kid's nowhere in the area. I'd say the victim had done a runner, but the unsub was too calm this afternoon to have lost him in the woods."
Prophet walked over to their position, checking his gun. "I'm here to take a shift," he explained. "Rest your arms, get some water. This stance isn't easy on the shoulders."
He slid in next to Mick, braced his arms on the roof of the car, and used the frame to guard his neck. A dark helmet covered him down to his brow-ridge. Mick stepped across the monitor, allowing Prophet to take his exact position. Dropping to a crouch, he engaged the safety on his gun but kept it in a loose grip.
Beth and Prophet chatted back and forth briefly, establishing their spotter/shooter rapport. Mick half-listened as he let his head and arms hang limply, allowing his muscles to relax. The shooting stance was much less comfortable than his preferred positions and even if he'd never admit it to the team, his shoulders were going to get sore if he held it for more than a couple hours. He needed to go running to work off the tension and get the blood moving through his tight muscles. Of course, in these woods, running was a good way to get shot, mauled by an animal, or break a limb and die of exposure.
"Wait a second, Beth," he said. "What if the victim did do a runner? What if that's the point? We've been thinking that he tortures them in a cabin, but what if the torture is being lost and injured in the woods? All alone with no food or water or way to defend yourself."
"And the unsub tracks them to see how they do? Could be…" Beth paused in thought, then waved Coop over. Mick explained his theory to the senior profiler, who nodded.
"Yes, but if I'm Scott… I don't need to see them try to just survive, I need to see them survive what I survived. I need them to prove whether they can overcome what I've overcome, to prove themselves worthy like me."
Beth shook her head, disgust evident on her face. "So he injures them, lames them the way he was lamed, and then watches them fail. Which proves to him that he's a better survivor than they are."
"Scott was injured in a fall from a cliff," Prophet said. "What were those cliffs within range of the cabins? Were they between the cabins and the body sites?"
"Hart's Bluff. Possibly. It depends on the line of the cliffs, I suppose." Beth said. "I can check the maps." She shifted on her chair as if to stand, but Mick stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
"You stay. Prophet needs you to spot. I can grab the maps."
"Fine." She settled back down, but Mick thought he detected a hint of resentment. Beth didn't like to share her profiling specialty any more than Mick fancied someone touching his sniper's equipment. Which seemed a little extreme to Mick, since maps were just maps, but everyone had their obsessions.
Within minutes, he'd dug the right set of maps out of Beth's files - she was going to smack his fingers for the mess he'd made doing so - and returned to the team. The topographic map showed two sections of Hart's Bluff tall enough to stand in for the cliff that had caused the unsub's lameness. Coop eliminated one on the basis that it was too close to cabins and water sources. The unsub might believe that he was setting up a competition, but given his degree of resentment and self-involvement it was unlikely he'd set an achievable task for victims.
Mick conferred with one of the local deputies on weather and animal life, as well as available food sources. It was agreed that the previous two victims could have made it to their grave sites from the cliffs. Working out an estimated rate of travel, Mick, Coop, and Sheriff James created a possible search area originating from the cliffs rather than the cabins.
Beth took a few minutes away from the scope to check over their conclusions and deemed them 'acceptable.' Mick couldn't help scoffing a little at that word, but when she looked him in the eye, he saw the same 'smile and wink' frown she'd given him that afternoon. Amused, he quirked an eyebrow at her, which caused her to look away in an attempt to hide a grin.
Once the new search area was established, Mick returned to the shooter's position. Prophet was a better choice to lead the search, and if they found Matthew House, there'd be no more need to be delicate about taking the unsub down. Lack of delicacy was Mick's specialty. In his boredom, as the stand-off entered its fourth hour, he mentioned this fact to Beth. She laughed quietly, a low raspy chuckle that tickled up Mick's spine.
"I'm glad you're finally admitting your flaws," she said archly. "Not every man has the self-awareness to realize he'd got the grace and social skills of a drunk teenager."
Mick blinked a few times at that, realizing that Beth had completely misunderstood him. He quickly checked his stance and confirmed the target's position.
"What I meant was…" He used the slow patient voice of someone talking to a small child. "…that in a take-down, people with delicacy tend to over-think and aim to incapacitate. People who lack delicacy know that they may have to kill, they accept that and they don't risk useless shots. Me, I lack delicacy."
He took a breath. "Social skills, on the other hand, are a matter of finesse and I have finesse in spades. I can finesse with the best of them," he bragged, warming to the theme. "My finesse was legendary back in my unit."
He paused to check the target's position. Still hadn't moved. If the shape on the monitor weren't registering at body temperature, Mick would have thought the guy was dead.
"Oh, your finesse is legendary here, too." Beth laughed. "That's why most of the ladies in the gym won't go for drinks with you. You're a victim of your own reputation."
"But then there's you," he asked. "Are you brave enough to have drinks with me?"
He could hear her shifting on the low camp chair. He counted off the seconds until she responded. four one-thousand, five one-thousand, six one-thousand, seven one…
"We have drinks together all the time, Mick," she said eventually. "Team drinks. I know better than to mess with your style of finesse. I might like to keep things light and no-strings-attached, but your ability to avoid second dates truly is spectacular."
Mick winced slightly at that one. This conversation had taken a wrong turn somewhere - he was fairly sure that they'd been talking about killing people and all of the sudden he'd found himself asking Beth for a drink. He had meant it as a joke, but as he'd waited for her answer he had realized that he wanted very much for her to say yes. Her glib dismissal stung, but he couldn't let her know that.
"I have very high standards, I'll have you know," he bragged. "Second dates are reserved for women who meet a carefully considered set of qualifications."
Beth snorted. "I dread to think what that means."
Mick opened his mouth, but she cut him off.
"And please don't feel the need to share. I'm quite happy not knowing."
After that, a companionable silence fell between them. Mick tried to keep his mind focused on the target, but it kept drifting to the imaginary list of qualifications he'd mentioned. If he had to be honest, there was an unofficial list that ruled out most of the women he took out. Smart, brutally honest, compassionate, open-minded women whose interests aligned with his weren't exactly around every corner. And the few he had met, like Emily Prentiss, intimidated him a little. The more Mick thought about it, it was a damned catch-22: the women he would like to have real relationships with were so formidable and amazing that he was too cowardly to ask them out.
Beth was a perfect example, he realized. She was brilliant and fascinating, she loved her work and was intensely passionate on any number of topics. Mick found her energy and humour engaging, while her carefully hidden vulnerabilities always caught him square in the heart. He looked down and was caught by the sight of Beth's face in the monitor's light, her dark eyes glinting and her cheeks lit in sharp relief by the blue glow. Her skin looked ice white, otherworldly. For everything he admired about her mind and heart, he had to admit that Beth was also a good looking woman. And he doubted she'd consider dating him if he was the last straight man on earth.
Day Two - 11:45 pm
Beth stifled a yawn and felt her jaw muscles strain. The coffee that the Sheriff's deputy had brought with the latest search team updates was now lukewarm. She checked her watch to discover that it had only been twenty minutes since the deputy's visit. The standoff was entering its sixth hour while the search had been underway for over ninety minutes.
Mick stood in the shooter's position again. He'd been there for most of the evening and Beth could only imagine how exhausted he was. Sheriff James himself had taken a shift so that Mick could use the bathroom and sit down for twenty minutes. She had offered him coffee, but he'd turned down the caffeine in favour of fruit juice and beef jerky. He'd said something about adrenal reserves that had made sense intellectually but hadn't really registered with Beth as she drank her tenth coffee of the day.
There had been a small moment of excitement at around half past eight when the unsub shifted positions, first kneeling and then climbing into a platform that Beth had identified on the ground plans as the cashier's counter. From the angle of the unsub's body, Mick had deduced that the man was probably sighting down a rifle. When Beth had questioned his use of the word probably, Mick had admitted that given the lack of detail on the heat scope, it was also possible that the unsub had climbed on to the counter for a nap.
Beth had hidden her amusement at Mick's obvious frustration with the situation. She understood that while it was quite possible the unsub was napping and presenting no threat, Mick had to assume there was a rifle pointed at the barricades for the sake of caution. When the time came to enter the shop and take the unsub, Mick would have to make the call as to whether to take the kill shot on a man who might be sound asleep.
"Do you think he'd the type to go out in blaze of glory?" Mick asked suddenly.
"Suicide by cop? I doubt it," Beth assured him. "He's so proud of his ability to survive, he doesn't want to die. Of course, he could have an invincibility conceit," she suggested. "Having convinced himself that he can survive more than the average person."
"If I've survived so far, survived more than what my victims could take, I'll survive a shoot-out?"
"Sure. He's not likely to surrender - too much ego for that. Giving himself up would go against what he's been trying to prove with these tests: that he's a superior sort of man."
She couldn't keep the sneer off her face as she described the unsub's philosophy. As much as she tried to reach Coop's level of objectivity about unsubs' psyches, Beth had never been very good at masking her feelings when dealing with the various levels of twisted and crazy they faced. Some days she admired how Mick's background allowed him to remain emotionally distanced from their cases. The reality was that Beth drew energy from her emotional connection to cases, even if it was from her disgust for a particularly despicable unsub.
This unsub, he was a nasty case. While his injuries made him a figure of pity, his actions horrified Beth. To send young men to their deaths as experiments - it was an anger-driven sadism that chilled Beth to the core. She found herself shivering at the thought and rubbed her hands up and down her arms in a futile attempt to ward off the chill.
Mick glanced down at her and then returned his gaze to the shop windows. Beth cursed herself silently for disrupting his concentration. Her job was to assist him, not distract him. She'd suppressed dozens of conjectures and questions over the course of the stakeout, not because she didn't want to talk to Mick but because she didn't want to take his attention away from where it belonged. And now she'd done it without even speaking. She shook her head in irritation as she watched him lower his left arm and make some sort of signally gesture.
Before she could ask if he'd been trying to communicate with her, a deputy hurried over.
"Something happening, sir?" The kid asked the question Beth was thinking.
"Just the temperature dropping like a stone," Mick replied as he reset his stance. "Could we get a couple of blankets or warmer jackets over here?"
"Sure thing, sir. The thermostat does go down pretty fast when the sun sets," the deputy observed, not moving.
"So I've noticed," Mick replied tightly. Given the level of tension in his voice, Beth was amazed that his back and neck looked so relaxed. "Which is why some blankets would be nice."
"Oh, right. Right away." The deputy bustled off.
Beth smiled at Mick's sigh of frustration. To distract him from his irritation, she asked "You cold?"
"Not really. I've got a jumper under this jacket. But you're just wearing an oxford, so you've got to be chilled," he pointed out. "And you've got too much of a stubborn martyr complex to ask for a blanket or find a warmer jacket."
Beth felt a mixture of irritation and affection: Mick had made arrangements to take care of her in one breath and insulted her in the next. Not that he wasn't right about the stubborn part, of course. And she had to admit that she hated having other people fuss over her, something she'd felt even more strongly since the incident with Rawlins. All the same, there was something about how Mick took care of her without fussing or expecting gratitude that was comfortable and warmed her more than blankets would.
Day Three - 12:30 am
Six and half hours into the standoff, Mick was starting to doubt that the unsub was awake. There had been no movement since the man had climbed onto the counter and no response to their attempts to establish communications. The search teams had covered more than half of the target areas, working out from the cliffs in a fan pattern. Fifteen minutes ago Prophet had reported that they might have found a trail, but that the thick underbrush was making the search slow going.
Mick was getting antsy. He had heard Coop talking to Sheriff James, planning the incursion should the victim be located. From what they had been saying, Mick got the feeling that taking the unsub alive wasn't a priority. While that made tactics easier, he assumed that it would probably fall to him to take the final solution if the situation unfolded poorly.
"Let me take a turn." Beth's voice was close to his ear. "You've got to be aching."
She was standing just behind him, to his right. Her eyes were still focused down on the monitor, but she was readying her side-arm. Mick rechecked his aim, and suddenly the tension in his arms and shoulders felt ten times worse. It couldn't hurt to take a quick break, although…
"Can you even see over the car?" he asked.
"Oh, ha, ha," Beth responded grouchily. "I'm not a midget."
She stepped up beside him and rested her arms on top of the cruiser. The angle looked awkward to Mick, but now that she'd planted the idea of discomfort in his mind, he was not going to turn down a short respite.
He crouched down, shook out his arms and stretched his neck. Popping the snap on his helmet's chinstrap, he freed his head. Cold night air hit his sweaty scalp and made him shiver. After a moment of blissful relaxation, he moved onto Beth's camp stool and checked the monitor.
"No change," he reported.
"Surprise." Beth responded with a snort. Mick grinned and glanced up at her to check her positioning. It all looked good - her stance, her aim - but something about the sight bothered him. Mick tried to sort out what was wrong, sweeping his gaze from Beth's feet to her head. Everything appeared fine. The only deviation from normal was that her hair was loose on her shoulders rather than tied up in the way she usually wore it for stand offs. Still, that wouldn't be a problem until it was time to move in on the unsub's position. Mick stared at the thick, dark hair resting against Beth's neck for a few more seconds before he realized what the problem was.
"You're not wearing a helmet!" He almost grabbed her to pull her down out of the range of fire.
"Christ, Beth, what are you thinking?" Even as he chastised her, Mick was picking up his own helmet and moving to crouch behind her. "Your head is the only target he has and you leave it unprotected?"
Mick's heart was going ridiculously fast. It wasn't like Beth didn't go into life-threatening situations all the time - hell, they'd almost lost her to an unsub just a few months ago - but usually the team was there, everyone watching each other's backs. But this time it was just Beth up there, and if the unsub had understood the difference in the silhouette, she could have been dead before Mick could have done anything.
"I'm going to put my helmet on you," he told Beth. "I'll tip it down until you say okay - that means your forehead is covered but you can still see."
"Got it." Beth's voice was tight. Either she was tense about the risk in her situation, or she didn't like Mick's plan. At least she wasn't arguing.
Mick raised the helmet and began to shift it over Beth's head. He was trying to stay low, to avoid attracting the unsub's attention with unusual movements. His face was pressed against Beth's shoulder blades as he tried to gauge the helmet's position. The tension in her back was at odds with the lightness in her voice as she griped at him.
"Do I really have to wear your sweaty helmet? I think a head wound might be preferable." Mick wanted to shake her for saying something so ridiculous, but he knew she was just trying to deflect the stressful situation with humour. "Well if I have to, I suppose… stop… back a touch… that's good."
"Good," Mick said, standing a little straighter. "I'll just fasten the strap and you're set."
He slipped his hands over her shoulders and reached for the strap. As he brushed her hair back from her face and over her shoulders, he felt her shiver.
"Ticklish," he teased.
"Apparently," she muttered. She raised her chin slightly as he eased the strap into place, adjusting the clasp to fit her. Her skin was smooth where his fingers slid along her cheeks and jaw to seat the strap, and he felt another small shudder go through her at the motion.
All of a sudden, he became extremely aware of how close he was to Beth. As he crouched behind her, his legs bracketed hers and his head was tucked into the space between her shoulder blades. Her hair, hanging loose, was long enough that the ends tickled against his face.
"I think I'm good, Rawson," Beth said. "You can let go now."
Mick realized that his wrists were still resting on her shoulders, his fingers lying against her jaw. Slowly, he shifted his hands back and down. On one level he knew he moving slowly meant the unsub wouldn't notice anything, but a guilty part of him was aware he was doing it to prolong contact. Mick found himself holding his breath. Beth's skin was warm under his fingers and she tensed as they dragged down her neck and over her shoulders. Mick pulled his hands away from her and leaned back. He dropped into a low crouch and moved to the right. Glancing up at Beth, he noticed that her shoulders were high.
"Anything change?" she asked.
Mick blinked and turned his attention to the monitor. "No. No movement. Nothing new."
Just as he said it, there was a burst of noise and activity from behind them.
"Nothing new for us, at least," Beth said. "Want to find out what's going on there?"
"What about the monitor?" Mick asked.
"Like you said, no movement." Beth sighed. "Okay, I know you shouldn't leave, but at least call Coop. I want to know what's going on."
"Control freak," Mick teased.
"You know it," her voice was light. "Now find out what the hell's got them all excited."
Mick grumbled good-naturedly as he pulled out his phone. A few taps of the screen and he was connected to Coop.
"I've got you on speaker so Beth can hear," he said. "Anything we should know about."
"Yep," Coop's deep voice sounded tinny in the night air. "Search team found a trail. They're all converging on the area and it's looking good. Apparently the blood and the broken branches are fresh enough that they figure the victim was there less than eight hours ago."
"Was it near Hart's Bluff?" Beth asked.
"Yes, and based on the distance from the cliffs and the amount of broken undergrowth and blood, we're assuming he's quite badly injured. He can't be far from where they found the trail. They should find him soon."
Day Three - 1:15 am
A slideshow of photos of Matthew House was cycling on the monitor. Prophet had documented as many of Matthew's injuries as he could while the search team medics worked. Beth had to swallow hard so the fruit juice and power bar she'd eaten stayed in her stomach.
The injuries were gruesome: both legs and one arm broken, smashed ribs, a swelling head wound, not to mention scrapes and bruises on most of his exposed skin. It was amazing that the boy was alive.
A search team had located Matthew just before one a.m. and moved him to a clearing that could accommodate a medivac helicopter. The search's medical team met them there, and Prophet had joined them so he could report on Matthew's condition. He'd taken the photographs before reporting back to Coop.
"Kid's tough, guys," Prophet sounded impressed. "On top of everything you've seen, he's got a branch through his thigh. Only reason he's alive is that he had the smarts to break it off and leave it in there. He's lost a lot of blood, but if he'd taken that out, medics say he would have been dead in minutes."
"And sign of what caused the injuries?" Coop asked.
"I think I can explain that," Gina's voice echoed as she chimed into the conference call. "We've retraced his trail back to the cliffs and I'm seeing a pile of rocks with a lot of blood. They're disturbed, like he crawled over them. You'll have to give me a bit to figure out how to get to the top of this cliff, but I'll send you some pictures for now."
"Thanks, Gina," Coop said. "Prophet, you see any sign of restraints? Drug injection? Anything about his ritual that I can use?"
There was muffled conversation and then Prophet responded. "The medics checked the arms and neck - no needle marks they can see, but there's a lot of skin damage. The wrists are bruised and lightly chafed all the way around, like he was restrained but didn't fight much. There's also a smooth cut on inside of one wrist which could be from a knife cutting wrist restraints."
"So Scott could have drugged him," Beth said. "And he definitely controlled him with restraints. Which starts to explain how a crippled man kidnapped a healthy one."
"I'm going to che…" Prophet trailed off and strange noises could be heard through the speaker phone. "Guys, he's waking up. Hang on."
There was a long wait. Beth could hear snatches of Prophet's conversation and other male voices responding. It was impossible to tell if the voices were medics, officers, or their victim. Beth tapped her fingers against her side, impatient. Her irritation was broken by the familiar bleep of an incoming message.
She pulled out her phone; it was Gina's photos. They showed a rock fall at the base of a cliff, jagged stones surrounded by scrubby trees. To one side, the stones were smeared with blood and there were broken branches. Scraps of torn fabric dangled from a tree. Another pile of blood soaked flannel looked like a makeshift bandage pad. Matthew had apparently been coherent enough for rudimentary first aid.
"He's awake," Prophet spoke into the phone. In the background, Beth could hear the unmistakable sound of helicopter rotors. "We're going to get him into the chopper and then I'll patch into the radio so you can hear the interview."
"That's great news," Coop's voice was bright. "First-hand victim information will make it easier to provoke a response from Scott. I can use anything you can get me."
"Coop, I'm at the top of the cliff." Gina said. "I can see where he would have gone over."
"Any sign of a struggle?" Beth asked.
"Not much. There's a disturbance right at the edge of the cliff, where he fell." A pause, and the sound of rustling leaves. "Some badly concealed drag marks, heels mostly, although it's a wide trail so I bet he dragged him on his butt for while. And it leads to… ATV tracks. The front wheelbase is just over six feet. I think you'll find that that matches Scott's Kymco. I'll send photos of the tire treads to Garcia for comparison."
"Thanks, Gina," Beth smiled. Now they knew how the victims had ended up at the cliffs.
"I'm hanging up now," Coop announced to everyone on the line. "We're patching over to the chopper's radio."
Gina and Prophet signed off, and then there was a series of clicks and crackles.
"Coop, Beth, you there?" the connection was full of light static, but Prophet's voice came through over the sound of a helicopter in flight.
"Gotcha loud and clear-ish." Beth's sarcasm made Coop grin.
"Matthew wants to help us out," Prophet said. "But we can't talk long."
"Understood," Coop answered. "Matthew, we just need to know the essentials."
A faint voice croaked "Okay." Beth winced. Matthew sounded like he'd worn his throat raw. Probably by screaming, given his injuries.
Prophet spoke again. "Don't worry about details, remember?" There was a pause. "Do you remember who did this to you?"
"…yesss."
"Where did you meet the person who did this to you?"
"Hardware…"
"Was it the man who rented the cabin to you?"
A pause.
"He's shaking his head." Prophet reported. "Another man?... He's nodding. So you went back later?... Nodding yes. Why did you go back?
"Directions."
"And the man who did this gave you directions?... No?"
"A ride."
"He gave you a ride to the cabin?"
"Yess…"
"In an ATV? … He's nodding. So where did you leave your car?"
"Barn?"
Matthew sounded uncertain. Beth made a note to see what sort of outbuildings Scott Andrews had access to.
"Did he leave you at the cabin?... He's shaking… what's that?"
"Be…beers."
"You guys had a beer together?"
"Beersss."
"More than one. And then he left?"
"Doh… don't know."
"Did you black out?... He's nodding. And where did you wake up?"
"Cliff."
"At the top of the cliff?... Shaking his…"
"Bott.. um"
"At the bottom. God, man, I'm so sorry." Prophet's voice was full of sympathy. "And you know that the guy with the ATV did this?"
"Test… checks…checked… on me.."
"He said this was a test?"
"Yes… Test. Pass or duh…duh…"
"That's enough." A new voice cut in. "You're wearing him out. You can ask the rest of your questions at the hospital, once he's stable."
"Okay, fine," Prophet answered. Beth could almost see him using his favourite appeasing hand's-off gesture. "I just have one more? Please, it's important."
The medic sighed heavily enough that Beth heard it through the static. "Fine, one more."
"Matthew, just one more question," Prophet's voice was soothing. "Is this the man who did this to you?"
"Yesss!"
Day Three - 2:00 am
"Alright, Mick, if you have the solution, take it."
Mick nodded. He stepped away from the table and checked his equipment. In his peripheral vision, he could see the rest of the team doing the same. Coop holstered his gun and scooped up the megaphone. It was time for a last verbal approach.
"Ready?" Beth asked, snapping on her helmet.
"Always," Mick said with a faint smile.
"Maybe you won't have to." He could hear the lie in Beth's voice.
"Naw, Beth. The time for delicacy has passed," he explained, turning towards the barricade of cars. "I know my job."
"You do know your job, Mick," she said, following. "You're an excellent profiler, not a killer."
He winced, but kept walking. "Today I'm both." He lengthened his stride.
He could feel Beth struggling to keep up. It made him feel a little guilty, out-pacing her, but it stopped her from talking. When he reached the barricade, he crouched down behind the body of the car as Coop and Beth arrived.
"I'm going to try to talk him out," Coop said, "but we all know that probably won't do much good. The state police are setting up positions so that they can grab him if he goes out the back or side. The locals will be at the front."
"And if he doesn't move?" Beth asked.
"He'll move," Coop assured her. "He's going to give in to his ego and his anger at some point. We just have to give him the right push."
"And if he has weapons in there?" She just wouldn't let go. Mick let his head drop, willing relaxation through his muscles.
"If he tries for lethal force, we will respond with lethal force," Coop answered. "All the teams know that if he fires from inside the store, it's Mick's shot. If he gets outside, then they can take it on their own."
Mick nodded. It made sense. He checked the monitor to establish a position for the unsub. Standing, he chambered a round and eased into position. Beth slid into place beside him, her back to the shop, her eyes on the monitor. She held her gun in the Weaver grip.
"You planning to shoot over your shoulder?" he mocked, trying to break the tension between them.
Beth huffed a laugh. "No. But if I see him come to the door, I'll be ready for him."
Mick smiled. Just like Beth, planning for as many outcomes as possible. He settled against the car as Coop began to speak through the megaphone.
"Scott. Scott Andrews. This is Sam Cooper. I told you earlier that I am here to listen. I am here to listen. You can pick up the phone on the counter at any time and we can talk. But until you do, I have a few things I want to tell you."
Coop paused and took a deep breath.
"I want to tell you about Matthew House. Matthew is twenty-three years old. He's an architect's draughtsman. He graduated top of his class and is supposed to start a new job soon. He has parents who love him - James and Trish. They are so close to their son that they reported him missing after less than a day."
As Coop continued, Mick quietly asked Beth "anything?"
"Nope. No movement," she answered. "But Coop's pushing his buttons - parents, success. It'll happen soon."
Mick nodded his agreement and returned his attention to Coop.
"Matthew is at the hospital right now, Scott. The doctors say he will survive." Coop paused, a grimace on his face. "Matthew fought hard and he succeeded. The doctors say he will heal, that he will walk again."
Coop was trying to goad the unsub into moving out of the building. The reality was that they couldn't safely infiltrate the hardware store - there were almost as many flammable and explosive chemicals as in a meth lab. And Scott Andrews appeared confident in his ability to survive whatever life threw at him, perhaps to the point of delusion. It was safe to assume that he wouldn't hesitate before shooting at anyone who entered the shop.
"Scott, Matthew told us what you did you him." Mick could hear the anger in Coop's voice. "How you took him out to the cabin, how you shared a couple beers. You drugged his beer. He woke up at the bottom of a cliff.
"You had pushed him over the cliff onto a rock fall, Scott. Not onto brush, like where you fell. Onto jagged rocks. But he fought. He dragged himself free, and when he could, he started to crawl."
Beside Mick, Beth shuddered. He gently bumped his hip against hers in reassurance.
"Anything?" he asked.
"Not yet." Her voice was subdued.
"And he fought, Scott. He crawled, he ate moss, he ate berries, he fought. He lasted for more than thirty-six hours and he was still fighting when we found him. Thirty-six hours. It took you twenty-one hours to find help, didn't it?
"Matthew was alone in unfamiliar woods. You were in forest you know like the back of your hand. And he lasted fifteen hours longer than you did. Do you know what that makes me think? It makes me think he passed your test. But you couldn't let someone pass your test, so you changed the rules. You cheated. You left him there to die."
Beth hissed. "Movement. Movement. He's off the counter. Your right, five feet."
"And that tells me that you don't do this as some kind of test. You didn't do this to prove a point."
"He's still moving, your right, two feet." Beth announced. "Keep going with that line. It's really getting him."
"You did this because you suffered horribly and now something inside you enjoys the suffering of others. You did this because your body isn't the only thing that's broken."
A howl rose from the store. It made the hair on the back of Mick's neck stand up. Before he could ask Beth for a position, he heard the crack of rifle shot and shattering glass. As the shop window fell, Mick was able to make out the shadowy figure of a man with a gun. Without thinking, he adjusted him aim and returned fire. He emptied six of his fifteen rounds in a controlled grid and saw the figure fall to the ground.
There was no return fire. Silence dragged on for long seconds, until Coop ordered the Sheriff to take his men into the store. They managed a reasonably tidy entry and called the all-clear. Mick sagged down behind the car and turned to check on Beth.
"Alright, there, Griffiths?"
"Alright, Rawson. Good shooting." Beth's voice sounded tired.
"Thanks," Mick dropped the magazine out of his gun, and popped out the chambered round. "I'm going to hand off all this and then go crawl into bed."
"Right there with you," Beth sighed and stood. His eyebrows shot up, but she wasn't even looking at him when she added. "Not like that, you idiot. You know what I meant. Get your mind out of the gutter."
Mick laughed long and hard as he followed her away from the barricades.
Day Three - 9:15 am
Beth handed Mick a cup of coffee from the plane's kitchenette and sank into her seat. He nodded his thanks but his attention was focused on Coop. The team leader was standing in the aisle, reading from Sheriff James's report on the contents of Scott Andrews's apartment. After the post-takedown debriefing, James's deputies had cleared the scene in the store and searched the apartment. The Red Cell team had returned to the motel to rest before their flight home. Beth hadn't got much sleep, though, thanks to images of the victims interrupting her dreams. She sipped her coffee and focused her mind on what Coop was saying.
"… none of which was unusual. The interesting find was in the gun safe: over a dozen notebooks, the first one is more than three years old. It's full of research: cases of men who survived falls, potential locations, drugs."
"And does he give any indication of his motivation?" Gina asked.
"Nothing definitive yet. James has his people scanning and transcribing. I've got the first six notebooks here." Coop handed his tablet to Gina. "If you look in numbers four and five, you'll see that Scott recorded his 'test' of Travis Martin in detail."
Gina nodded absently, her attention already on the screen. Coop smiled and looked at the others. "They'll have the rest of the notebooks ready for us when we get back. I think we'll have a lot to do while we wait for the next case."
Beth felt Mick lean against her shoulder. "The unsub that just keeps giving," he muttered sarcastically. She could feel his breath against her ear. It reminded her of how his fingers had felt dragging along her neck the night before and she had to suppress a shiver.
"I've had a message from the deputy at the hospital," Prophet said, holding up his phone. "Matthew made it through surgery and is off the critical list. Turns out you weren't lying to Scott: the doctors didn't have to remove Matthew's legs. He will have a long, hard fight but he should walk again."
"A hard fight, like Scott Andrews," Beth said.
"Yes, like Scott," Coop agreed. "But at the same time, not. Matthew has a better support system, a different background and psychology. Everyone reacts to adversity differently." A beep interrupted him and he pulled out his phone.
Beth turned away, looking down at her coffee. It was cooling rapidly in the air-conditioned cabin. She gulped down the last of the liquid and turned to Mick. He was staring at his hands, lost in his thoughts. He'd been quiet all morning, at breakfast, on the ride to the airport.
"Refill?" she asked. Mick glanced up and she could see shadows under his eyes. His hair was damp on his forehead and she could still smell chlorine from the motel pool. She had come across him there before breakfast. They had swum in silence, passing each other in the lanes.
"Please," Mick answered, passing over his cup. "Cream and…"
"Three sugars," Beth finished. "I know. Some day all those calories are going to catch up to you."
Mick flashed her a quick grin. "Will you still love me when I'm old and podgy, Beth?"
"What makes you think I love you now?" she tossed over her shoulder as she made her way to the coffee pot. Mick's laugh made her smile. Whatever was on his mind couldn't be bothering him too much if he was flirting.
When she returned with the coffee, he was flipping through a file on his tablet. Beth placed their cups on the table and leaned over to read the screen. It was the background information on Scott Andrews. She sighed lightly - apparently Mick wasn't done brooding. At the sound, he looked up. She raised an eyebrow. He narrowed his eyes. She raised her other eyebrow. He stared for another moment and then rolled his eyes in surrender.
"I sometimes wonder, y'know," he explained. "The killers we see..."
Beth nodded. They had danced around this question before. "Where the difference comes from?"
"Well, yeah. I know that it's all kinds of factors, I know that. But still. Some days… the difference between killing a person and being a killer. It's not easy."
Beth reached out and pulled the tablet from Mick's hands. She closed the file and pulled up the photo gallery. Scrolling through, she found a picture Matthew House from the night before.
"This is the difference," she said, turning the screen towards Mick. "This is what a killer does, because they have lost their humanity. You haven't. When you shoot someone it's to end or prevent something like this." She shook the tablet slightly.
Mick stared down at the image for a long moment and then took the tablet from her. He exited the photo app, returning to the home screen. As he closed the cover, Beth caught a glimpse of his wallpaper. It was photo of the team: the five of them crowded on the office stairs, laughing together.
"Only you, Beth, would use a gruesome picture of a bleeding victim to comfort someone," Mick grinned at her.
"Part of my charm," she smiled over at him. "It's why you lo…" a yawn crept up on her, making her eyes water.
"Sleepy there?" he asked, shifting so he could raise the armrest between their seats. "C'mon, we're at least twenty minutes out. Pull your feet up and have a nap." He patted his shoulder.
Beth couldn't stop herself from glancing around; Mick's idea was pushing the boundaries of workplace casual. Then she saw that Coop had nodded off with his feet in the opposite seat, and Gina was curled up against Prophet, who was stroking her hair as she slept. When it came to casual, as in everything, their Red Cell played by its own rules.
Beth pulled her legs up onto the seat, pleased with her lack of height for once. Mick raised his left arm so she could lean on him. With her head resting against his shoulder, Beth could feel Mick's breathing and hear his steady heartbeat. She glanced up as his arm settled around her shoulders. He was staring out the window at the sunlit clouds.
As she relaxed against Mick, Beth smiled to herself. The last thirty six hours had been crazy but satisfying. They'd stopped the killer and rescued the victim alive. She thought Matthew House's parents reaction when they'd heard their son was alive. Sure, this case had been hard work, but every minute had been worth it.