"I'm so glad that you were able to come..." A guy was heard saying to the girl he came to pick from the airport. The smile and his enthusiasm were easily contagious. The girl wasn't left behind either, holding the bouquet of flowers he had gotten her especially for this occasion.
"I'm glad I could come as well..." It was obvious she was excited as well, even with her poor accent. Tentatively, she reached up and kissed the guy's cheek, who was left blushing, but never losing his grip around her.
"C'mon, I'll take you to your hotel and then, we can start looking around..." He proposed to her, earning a enthusiastic nod from her. He took her to his rental car and put her luggage in the trunk, before opening the passenger's door for her, like a gentleman and getting inside. Before they could drive away, someone knocked on his window. "Yeah, can I help you?" He asked, lowering the window a little.
"Open the back door."
This may be the last time I see you, but if you keep me in your heart, together we shall be eternal; if you believe, we shall never part.356Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzNtIcUEjFY
– Ben Harper
Emily Prentiss walked through the hallways of the BAU office, in Quantico, looking a little lost. And his coworker, Tara Lewis, noticed.
"Everything OK?" Emily finally looked up from her phone, the one that was making her have that lost look, to face her partner. "You look with an internal debate..."
"No, I..." She stopped talking. Was a difficult situation? Or was simply a way of not letting go? She seemed to struggle with that, even if it was easy to take the decision at the beginning. She decided to shake her head and smile at Tara. "I'm OK, just... They don't seem to let me go yet..." She shows her phone, the blasting messages that kept coming. Tara recognized it and nodded.
"The Interpol is still bitter of losing one of their best?" The comment made Emily chuckle, but nodded.
"They can't seem to grasp the idea I'm the Unit Chief..."
"Well, if you ask me, I think long distance relationships like that never last..." Tara gave her opinion before walking into the meeting room, were everyone, minus Spencer Reid.
"Alright, Penelope... What do we have?"
"If you please, pay attention to the screen in front of you..." Penelope Garcia should be used to the sight of mutilated or dead bodies, along with bizarre crime scene photos, but it seems she's not used to it... yet. The screen showed a profile picture of a brunette woman in her early twenties, next to what it seems her body in a dead state, covered in blood, mainly on her face. "That what's left of Ellen Warthmor... 25. She was from Allentown, Pennsylvania. She was found last week near Philadelphia's airport with her face scratched, and her nose was cut off, along with her tongue and fingers.." Around the table, several faces of disgust were shown.
"Whoever did this had anger..." David Rossi was the first one to speak. "The cut of her tongue could mean she was a liar and, now, she cannot tell more lies..."
"So does the nose..." Luke Alvez pointed out. "Like Pinocchio, her nose will not grow when she lies..."
"The Allentown PD captured, convicted and deported this man." Penelope continued, showing the picture of a black-haired guy, also from the same age. "Samuel Throne, 24. From Australia."
"So, he came to visit and find out that Ellen was not what she said?" Tara wondered, not understanding why this case was assigned to them.
"That would be all, but this morning, the body of Warren Gregson, 23, was found near the same airport, and with the same signs of torture and maiming..." Penelope showed the pictures of a guy with blonde hair and small beard, along with the image of a girl with caramel skin and black eyes. "He was last seen at the airport, receiving this girl from Egypt, Nubia Masih..." That explanation was followed by the effusive greeting airport surveillance video.
"She was gonna be arrested as well, but the airport police recognized the patron, and that the original unsub was gone and called us..." Emily announced, closing the folder on her hand. "We leave in 30."
"I can understand the nose and the tongue... But why the fingers?" Jennifer 'JJ' Jareau asked, out loud. The team was on tehir flight to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
"And look at the scratch that's also on their right hand..." David pointed out, showing a picture of the body "It's the only other scratch outside the face... It's not random, means something..."
"The airport is a simple reason, they meet there... It seems logical that the unsub was sending a message..." Tara said.
"Yeah, but attacking one and let the other one live? Makes no sense..." Luke noticed.
"Penelope, I want you to see how the victims and the supposedly perpetrators knew each other." Emily began giving the orders. "Tara, take Luke to the morgue and where the body was found, we need to know how this people died. David, you and JJ go to the Philadelphia PD, to see what they have on Samuel Throne and if they are bringing him back. I'll talk to Nubia Masih."
Philadelphia PD, Pennsylvania
"I'm Special Agent Emily Prentiss, we talked on the phone..."
"I'm Detective Daniel Colchekv, you must be Special Agent Rossi..." A man on his late fifties introduced to Emily, David and JJ. He looked paled and tired. "Special Agent Jareau..." He shook both David and JJ's hands.
"Where's Nubia Masih?"
"In the interrogation room... She refused to leave the room." Emily nodded and headed that way, leaving David and JJ to be guide into a room. "Your tech specialist already gave us all the parameters for you to work... Anything you need..."
"Yeah, how did you know that Samuel Throne was responsible for Ellen Warthmor's murder?" David asked, serious. You don't reach that conclusion, unless...
"Because he said he was there..."
"The COD was a gunshot to the forehead, close range. .45, according by the size." The coroner informed Tara and Luke, when they visited the morgue. "The scratches were so many I almost missed it..."
"You mean to say that the unsub scratched Warren first before shooting him?" Tara checked, frowning.
"And that's not all..." The coroner showed the victim's right hand. A long scratch was there. "This scratch, whatever it means, was made before the scratches on the face."
"Any evidence of sexual attack?" The coroner shook her head, serious. "So, the killer abducted him, scratched his hand, his face in an almost animalistic way, shoots him, cuts off his nose and tongue, before leaving him next to the airport for everyone to see, but lets go a witness?" Luke recounted, serious and sharing a look with Tara.
"How can you assume so easily than a witness was the unsub?" David asked loudly, not necessarily to JJ, though she provided an answer.
"Well, they said Samuel was watching the whole thing... And he also gave them a pair of glove, saying that the unsub's fingerprints were on it..." JJ reread the report, before closing it. "But, only Samuel's fingerprints were found..."
"Hey, guys..." Emily came back, looking a little spooked.
"You look like you've seen a ghost..." David pointed out.
"Nubia sure did... She is so frighten that she only speaks arabic... She said that a man demanded to open Warren's car door at gun point..." She began to retell the story to David and JJ. "That he was wearing a mask and a hood, so she cannot describe him, but she heard his voice... He made them drive around for hours before stopping. He took them to a room, where he forced Nubia to tied Warren to a chair, before she was taken away and tied to another chair, in another room. He gagged her and sat her in front of a screen and made her watch through the screen what was going on with Warren..."
"Which is why Samuel could also describe the crime perfectly... He was also watching the whole time..." David connected the dots.
"Did she mentioned any gloves?" JJ wondered, surprising Emily.
"Yeah, she said the unsub made her wear his gloves, before covering her face and dragging her away... She didn't know how long they were held there..." Emily finished, nodding. In that moment, the phone rang. "Penelope, you're on speaker."
"OK! Open you minds, my friends!" Penelope's perky voice came through the phone. "I had to navigate through the poor and unorganized records of Egypt and Australia to investigate the possible suspects. The four people had no records of anything, not even a parking ticket, they're examples! But... Their web activities are huge! Apparently, Ellen and Samuel were in a long distance relationship for 5 months, or that's what they claimed to be... This was gonna be their first time meeting each other..."
"What about, Warren and Nubia?" JJ questioned.
"Yep. They were close to the year... Nubia was denied the VISA twice before finally getting it and she pronounced happily through the web that she was finally meeting Warren... And Warren shared her enthusiasm all over it..."
"Probably our unsub suffered from the same, someone who fooled him to come here, lied to him..."
"There are many like that, and that's only in Pennsylvania!" Penelope's fingers flying through the keyboard were heard. "And! I was able to find some clarity on the scratch on the hand, thanks to Luke's comment about Pinocchio... Turns out that spot is also the spot where a famous wizard is forced to write the sentence, 'I must not tell lies'... How do they write that stuff for kids??"
"OK, thanks Penelope..." Emily cut the call. "If the unsub thinks this people were lying about their relationships, maybe that's the trigger for him..."
"And the alive one is to avoid them to come back to our country or even have a relationship through tech medias...?"
"I think is time we give the profile..."
International flights, Philadelphia's airport, Pennsylvania.
A guy was standing by the gate, with a sign on his hand and a bouquet on his other hand. He was checking the flights constantly, not wanting to miss it's arrival. Soon, the people started to pour out like ants from their nest, with luggages and presents for their families. But the person he was waiting for was soon seen.
"Eiji!!" The guy screamed, surprising a few people near him, but the guy didn't care. Nor the guy who came from the New York flight, who jumped him like there was no tomorrow.
"The unsub we're looking for is a male that was born in the tech era, which gives us an approximate between 20 and 30 years..." David was the first one from the group speaking towards the Philadelphia PD.
"He was victim of a long distance relationship that ended being a lie, which was what trigged him..." Luke continued.
"He seems to find his victims at the airport, specifically at the International arrival section..." JJ made emphasis on that. "We cannot cancel all the flights that come day after day, some even can come through stopovers, which is why closing the airport can cause him go rampage..."
"Why doe he leaves one of the couple alive? Mainly, the foreign?" Detective Colchekv asked, frowning.
"We believe he leaves them alive so that they can feel his pain, but it can also be so that they are not allowed to step on American soil again..." Tara explained. "That way, he can continue without interruption..."
"If that's true, that means he's methodical and he's armed, which makes his dangerous as well." Emily finished, serious. "Help the Airport security, check everything, even locals watching the planes arrive or workers at the shops. Thank you." Everyone scrambled around, except Detective Colchekv, who was handed a phone and was answering quickly.
"Yeah, thank you..." He hung up, looking at the team. "Again. And he left the half the airport as witnesses..."
"Eiji Parker is the survivor..." JJ came back, after talking to the paramedic that was with the poor trembling guy. "He's an american citizence, he was coming back from Japan from an intership... The victim, Edward McVally, was his boyfriend of three years..."
"What went wrong here?" Luke looked around, the blood on the floor and the witnesses still watching.
"He lost control..." David guessed. "He probably didn't expect that one of them fight back..."
"Eiji said that he was trying to defend Edward... The unsub shot without warning..."
"One of the witnesses said the unsub ran away after the shot..." Tara came back from the PD line. "Another one, the one with the hands covered in blood, was trying to give him RCP."
"He made a mistake." Emily pointed out. "He killed an American, and will be looking to fix his mistake."
"This is your fountain of knowledge, Penelope Garcia, how can I help you?"
"Penelope, I need you run a search through the cities near Philadelphia, with anyone with permission to carry a .45 gun." Emily started, hearing Penelope typing. "Never mind their age, if Dad has one, probably the son grabbed it..."
"Tell me more, there are 328 around dear old Philly."
"One of them has to have a son, around twenty or twenty five, that spends too much online and had recently been on a long distance relationship." David added, thinking.
"That's one hell of reduction, 59. More!"
"The relationship must have been with someone foreign that was in a real relationship and that the online was a lie..."
"I only have one name left, you guys are geniuses! Matthew Morrinson, 24. Was in an online relationship with a Russian girl... Urgh, some of their texts were too explicit... She asked him to go to Russia, but he refused, which made her more and more distant from him... Turns out, she is a married housewife with two kids... It's obvious that Matthew searched for her Facebook account... The messages left there are very explicit..."
"Which explains his anger..." Tara nodded, listening to Penelope's retell of events. "He poured his soul to a person he though he knew to find out she didn't care and it was a game for her...
"Garcia, are there any flights that have stopovers around the country, but come from a foreign country?" Luke wondered, thinking fast.
"There's only one passenger from an Orlando flight, she made a stopover from... Argentina. The flight arrived 10 minutes ago."
"Send us the names, we're on our way!"
"So, what do you plan to do here...?"
"I thought my plans were ovbvious!" A girl replied to the guy's questions, smiling. "See your town and, maybe, spending time with you..."
"Wouldn't have it another way..." The guy smirked back and leans down to kiss her cheek, before being bumped with someone. "Sorry, man-"
"If you don't want you little foreign FedEx bride to suffer anything, you two will walk with me..." A manly voice whispered angrily at them, but it was the gun's barrel hitting the girl's side which convinced them. Both watched a hooded man, with an almost invisible mask. The three walked in silence, serious.
"Chocolates!" The girl suddenly screamed, surprising everyone. All eyes were on her, and that's what she wanted. "Babe, I can't get to your house empty handed... I need to buy some chocolates for them!"
"What the heck are you talking about?" The hooded guy hissed at her, angry and gripping her arm tighter. But, in his attempt to keep her quiet, he stopped pressuring the gun on her, which was the time to nudge him on the stomach, making him stumble down.
"Run!" The girl shouted, grabbing the guy's hand and running away together, but they couldn't get away that far, as the hooded guy snatched the girl's ankle and dragged her back. "Joe!!!" She fought back, kicking the guy's face. The guy was immediately going to her, but it was in that moment when the calvary arrived.
"Matthew Morrinson!! FBI!!" The confusion was enough for the hooded guy, aka, Matthew Morrinson, to grab the girl by the neck and pointed her gun at her cheek. "Drop the gun, now!"
"She's a liar!!" Morrinson shouted, making the girl squirm in fear on his hold. "She probably has a nice little family that he doesn't know about, do you, uh?!"
"Please, don't..." The girl sobbed, making Morrinson to hold on tighter to her.
"Shut up, you liar!!"
"Matthew, put down the gun." Emily ordered him, her own gun still pointed at him. "She's not Irina, she hasn't done anything to you..."
"But she will!!" Morrinson continued, making the girl cry even harder. "You will, won't you? You will make promises and do some favors, but you'll break his heart!!"
"What about Edward, the guy you killed this morning? What about Eiji? He was from here and had a life together..." Tara tried, while Luke was coming from behind, all of them with their gun up and pointing at Morrinson.
"It makes not difference..." Morrinson began, but he was soon hold at gunpoint, just like he was holding the girl.
"Drop the gun and let the girl go. You're under arrest-" Luke couldn't finish his statement, when Morrinson turned around and began struggling with him. Luckily, Luke struck him first and pushed him to the floor. JJ moved fast and pulled the crying girl away from the scene. "I said, you're under arrest!"
"Joe!!" The girl run directly towards the guy she was with before, both trapping each other in a hug that didn't seem to end.
The Pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.356Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1NZvp4p86u
-Charles Dickens
