Hotch's Niece | Criminal Minds

Annie

"Hello, my little munchkins!" Garcia greets JJ and I with a smile. The video camera is slightly low quality on the computer that we're using to video chat with Garcia, and her image is crackly and kind of fuzzy at times. We didn't want to use our tablets so that they were open for us to receive files from Garcia.

I open my mouth to speak, but Garcia cuts me off once she notices Izzie playing with a doll on my lap. "WHO is that ADORABLE child?!" Garcia screams.

I smile. "This is Izzie, she's a victim's kid. She's... an orphan now," I murmur, and little Izzie, bless her heart, didn't even look up. She used one little chubby hand to tuck a dark red curl behind her ear and continues playing with her little Raggedy Anne.

Izzie had the prettiest hair I'd ever seen - she had deep dark curls that fell to just around her chin. The color was gorgeous, it was the kind of red velvet cupcake red that everyone adored. The curls were bouncy and never flat, and God, was I jealous.

"Aww, hello Izzie!" Garcia cooes.

Now Izzie looks up, smiles, and then giggles and waves at the camera, and Garcia, JJ, and I make a little noise that basically screamed "How cute is this adorable toddler?".

JJ laughs. "As cute as Izzie is, we do have to actually get real work done, ladies. We need to narrow down a list of possible suspects, and it isn't going to be easy, she's homeless, so she has so few records, we'll have hardly anything to go on. But something has happened to this woman, something happened to make her a killer, and I'd bet that it's also what made her homeless, or at least set her on this path."

I nod, now with a grim, set face.

"Okay, what do you guys want me to do?" Garcia asks, also with her game face on.

"She was born here, in Kentucky. Probably in this very town," I think out loud, and JJ gives me a look of confusion. "If she wanted to rid the world of a certain type of being, where would she start?" I ask.

"The first place she'd try to save would be the one she loves most," JJ breathes. I nod. "And we estimated she's what, late twenties to early thirties?" JJ continues my train of thought.

"Look for police reports from twenty to thirty years ago, in which the assailant was a middle-class, middle-age woman. Rule out any minor discrepancies, bar fights, car accidents. This was big. Someone was killed. Rule out cases where neither the assailant nor the victim had children. " I say, and hear nothing on the other end save for the sound of the clicks of keys on a keyboard.

"Mmm..." Garcia hums as she works, scrolling rapidly through report after report. "Got something! Jane and Michael Anderson. Lower-middle class family, but Jane was described as always wanting to be picture-perfect. She spent money they didn't have on designer bags and clothes, and Michael and Jane frequently fought over her spending. Well, that's what close family and friends said. On October 13th, 1995, they had a particularly nasty fight, which ended with Jane hitting Michael in the head with a fire poker, effectively killing him. She admitted that she did it completely on purpose, and  was ruled insane when she, at a later date, admitted that she wanted to kill him so badly that she didn't even care that... oh dear Lord, she said she didn't even care that she killed Michael in front of their six year old daughter, Annie, who was born right here in good old Radcliff."

"That's our girl, Garcia, great work," I say.

JJ grins. "Great work to you to, rookie,"

"Wait," I frown. "That all checks out, and gives our girl motive, I mean, the woman killed Annie's father right before her, but the real question is, why now? Why did she start killing now, instead of five years ago, or ten?" Garcia quickly begins typing again. I think for a second. "I also want to know what got Annie out on the streets in the first place."

Silence falls over us for a few moments, until Garcia finds something. "I have something, my doves. Three weeks ago, just before Annie's first murder, her mother was released from prison. It made headlines all over the state, so even a homeless person like Annie would have access to news like that. And as to how she got homeless -- no one took her in after the killing of her father, so she was passed around from foster home to foster home, until finally she ran away from a particularly nasty home. It turned out the dad was abusive, and eleven malnourished children were removed from the household. Annie got in with a crowd of homeless kids, and I guess she finally found somewhere she fit in, as she never really made any attempt to get out of the transient lifestyle. That's all I can do with my computers, now it's time for you two lovely ladies to reign in the strength of our boys, along with Emily, and catch this poor girl-turned-psychopath," Garcia says, smiling sadly.

JJ and I thank her, and even Izzie looks up from her doll to wave bye-bye to the nice lady on the computer screen.

I turn to JJ. "So, what do we do now?"

"We tell the team,"

Short chapter, but I've been so busy lately, it's a miracle I got a chapter up at all.

A question for you to answer in the comments: Who is your favorite character, either from the show or from my book? Let me know!