According to Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner his subordinate Agent Derek Morgan was killed three days ago in a bomb attempt. The TV on the wall announced. Responsible for this murder is – according to the FBI – a stalker who has pursued Agent Morgan’s fiancée Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia for several weeks now. The stalker also drugged her coffee with a labor inducing agent which caused a premature birth. In consequence Agent Garcia lost her child. She is now being treated in the psychiatric ward after a nervous breakdown. Once again this story shows the devastating effects of the police’s passivity considering stalkers.
“You think he’ll believe this?” Derek asked and frowned a little.
Penelope’s fingers stopped for a moment flying across the keyboard of her personal laptop and she looked up at him. “Sounds pretty credible to me.” she shrugged. “So I hope he does.”
Derek snarled a little: “A stalker killed the fiancée and the unborn child of a young woman and she had a nervous breakdown… what a headline! No surprise the reporters leap at that like vultures.”
A small smiled crossed her face as she replied: “I’m just glad it’s a hoax. I wouldn’t survive if I really lost either of you.”
Derek sat down next to Penelope on the bed and put an arm around her shoulder. “As I said before you won’t get rid of me that easy.”
“I hope so.” she whispered and pressed a soft kiss on his lips.
“Did you find anything?” Derek wanted to know and pointed at the screen of her laptop.
“Sure” she nodded. “He used my computer to send the text messages. He even saved them probably in case I didn’t read them.”
“I’ll call Hotch and have them dust for fingerprints.” he stated and flipped his cell phone open.
“You’d better ask him if they already found a match.” Penelope replied.
Derek raised both his eyebrows.
Penelope smirked. Apparently after he’d known her for almost six years now she could still surprise him. “Honey, I called Hotch about three hours ago about dusting for fingerprints from all my keyboards.”
He frowned a little and gave her a suspicious look: “Then what are you doing there?”
“Do you really want to know?” she teased.
But Derek wasn’t in the mood for that now. This guy had already proven that he was really dangerous and his baby girl had better not try and mess with him. “Yes.” he simply answered.
Penelope sighed: “I’m hacking personal computers in the Bureau to see if anyone I know has the faked pictures on their computer. But I’ve found nothing so far. Maybe you can help me, profiling them by what I find on their computers.”
“I can try.” he agreed. “Did you check the files of that Peter?”
“Peter Bexter.” Penelope reminded him. “And yes, he was the first one I checked. His computer is clean.”
“He could have deleted the files.” Derek shrugged.
Penelope simply smiled and hit a few keystrokes: “Tell me, what you can make out of that.”
Derek frowned a little concentrating on what he saw on the screen. “Well, you’re the best one to judge his technical knowledge. But from what I see I’d say he’s rather self-confident and resolute. He knows exactly what he wants and usually he gets it. He is neat and organized, very disciplined.”
“Wow” she smiled at him. “You’re good.”
Derek chuckled a little: “Did you doubt that.”
“No.” she whispered and let her lips gently brush over his cheek. “What do you think? Could he be the stalker?”
“I think he has certain sociopathic tendencies.” Derek replied. “But this stalker has acted out of rage every single time. Once he realized one plan didn’t work he quickly came up with another one. That doesn’t fit Peter Bexter. He would act much more controlled and logical. A car bomb is not his style.”
“In my opinion his computer skills aren’t sufficient enough to manipulate the pictures.” Penelope added. “He doesn’t even have Photoshop.” She sighed a little discouraged. “That means we still don’t have anything. Damn!”
“What’s wrong?” Derek asked and watched her sucking one of her fingers.
“I ruined one of my nails.” she swore again. “Could you hand me a…” she smiled when she looked at the metal nail file he offered her. “Thanks.”
“Did you check Kevin Lynch?” he wanted to know.
Penelope grimaced and shook her head while. She put the file into the pocket of her slacks and started to type again. “Why are you so obsessed with Kevin? As I already told you he’s far from being organized or disciplined. You’ve seen my office after he’d had it for just a few days. It was a total mess. And moreover he’s not nearly as self-confident as…” her voice subsided and she went pale.
“What’s wrong?” Derek asked appalled.
She looked at him and pointed at the screen where Derek saw the pictures she had received on her cell phone a few days ago. “It’s him.”
Derek’s phone rang and he flipped it open. Listening to the caller he frowned even more. Then he hung up and turned to Penelope: “They found a match for the fingerprints on your keyboards that were not yours: Kevin Lynch. They covered your fingerprints, which means he used the keyboards after you did.”
Penelope still stared at the pictures on the screen and whispered: “I can’t believe this.”
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“Hey.” Kevin greeted as he entered her room.
Penelope didn’t react, partly because she wanted to pretend being under the influence of strong tranquilizers and partly because she didn’t dare.
“I… um… brought you some flowers.” an insecure smile flashed over his face as he placed the vase on the table next to her bed. Then he sat down on a nearby chair and sighed. “I… want you to know that I’m really sorry about all this. Okay, I admit when you blew me off I was… disappointed but… you really deserved to be happy. I’m sorry that you lost your child and Agent Morgan.”
Penelope raised her head and looked into his eyes trying to find an answer. But she couldn’t. He looked as innocent as he pretended to be.
“I… I know it’s hard.” he continued. But then he laughed at himself and shook his head. “No, I don’t. I don’t know what you’re feeling but I… I wish I could do something to help, something to take your mind off things. I know that this is not the right time to say something like that but… you really mean a lot to me and I swear if I could undo what happened to you…”
“Really?” she asked in a low voice. Was he scoffing at her? Could he really be that cruel? She’d thought he was one of the good guys and not a twisted stalker and killer.
“Yeah.” he shrugged. “You know, I was… I don’t know. Somehow I thought I could ask you out one day. You’re the coolest girl I ever met. And I admit I was… a bit jealous when I heard about you and Agent Morgan. But… well, I never wanted it to turn out like this.”
A tear ran down Penelope’s cheek and she whispered: “Why did you do this to me?”
Kevin gave her a puzzled look. “What… are you talking about?”
“This.” she hissed and held out a picture to him. JJ had taken it some days before Kevin had drugged her coffee and she’d almost lost Eliana.
Kevin took the photo and looked at it. Penelope was grinning from ear to ear and Derek was standing behind her with his arms wrapped around her and had both his hands resting gently over her already visible belly while he obviously nuzzled her neck.
“We were happy.” Penelope whispered. “What on earth gave you the right to try and take that away from me? You said I mean a lot to you? Then why did you do all this to me? How could you?” She knew it wasn’t smart to get in his face like that but she wanted him to understand what he’d done to her and her family – and more than that she wanted an answer.
“Penelope, I…” he stuttered. “I… swear I don’t know what…”
He was interrupted by Derek, Emily and Hotch bursting into the room. Hotch grabbed Kevin’s shoulders and pulled him up, out of the chair. He slammed him against the wall and Mirandized him while he handcuffed him.
“What’s going on?” Kevin shrieked. “What did I do? The doctors said it was okay to visit her. Why are you arresting me?”
Derek sat down next to Penelope on the bed and asked: “Are you okay?”
She just nodded, her eyes fixed on Kevin. She still couldn’t believe it had been him all this time. He’d always been so polite to her and after she’d blown him off and told him that she was taken he’d looked rather hurt and disappointed than upset.
“What’s wrong?” Derek wanted to know and cupped her chin with one hand to make her turn to him.
“I don’t know.” Penelope whispered. “I just… I still can’t believe it was him. He seemed so… nice and… I don’t know.”
“It’s over, baby girl.” he smiled. “And in a few days we’ll hopefully be allowed to take our little girl home and then we will finally get married.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.” she smiled back at him.
“Come on” Derek stood up and gently patted her shoulder. “Let’s go back to our little girl!”
“First I want to change my clothes.” she smiled pointing at the hospital dress she was wearing.
“Sure” Derek smiled. “I’ll go back to Eliana and tell mom that we arrested this sleaze. Hurry up, Eliana, mom and I will be waiting for you.” Blowing her a kiss he left and closed the door.
Penelope got out of the bed and grabbed her blouse from the nearby wardrobe. She got rid of the hospital dress and put her blouse back on. When she’d almost fastened all the buttons she suddenly felt cold metal pressing against her temple. The next thing she felt was hot breath against her face as a voice whispered: “Make a sound and you’re dead.”