The Female Unsub

Chapter Twenty-Two: Spencer's POV

She was supposed to be released at 7 am sharp but when I glance down at my watch I see that it's almost 8:30 am. I fidget anxiously next to my car, I hate it when things don't happen on time. I check my watch for the fifteenth time and when I look up, I see her.

She's wearing a loose pair of jeans and a plain, white t-shirt. Her hair is up in a messy ponytail and she's holding a small cardboard box that is filled with the items she's collected while incarcerated.

She's smiling as she approaches me and once she's only a few steps away, she drops the box and wraps her arms around me in a tight embrace. I hesitate for a moment, quickly wrapping my mind around what's happening, before I hug her back. I take this moment to glance in the box that's by her feet. I immediately see a journal, some children's drawings, and a photo of me. My stomach drops, how did she get that picture?

She releases me and looks up smiling, "I didn't know if you'd actually be here."

"Of course," I say, putting my hands in my pockets and creating a little bit of distance,
"I promised you I would be, and I always keep my promises." She nods, still smiling, and picks up her box of belongings before sliding into my passenger seat.

After asking where she wants to go, she gives me the directions to her house that's about an hour away from the facility. I'm not exactly sure what I expected, but I'm surprised that she's having me go to her home. Since none of the crimes were committed in Arizona and she's still not an official suspect, a search of her home was never authorized. I mean, I know where it's at since I was surveilling her, but I was never permitted inside of the gated community. But now she is willingly giving me access to it. Maybe this trip won't be a bust afterall.

"Do you mind?" her question pulls me out of my head. I glance over and see that she's holding up her phone and has the AUX cord in her hand.

"Go ahead," I tell her, giving her a small smile.

She plugs in her phone and begins playing music I haven't heard before, but that isn't surprising since I don't really listen to anything other than classical. However, what she plays does surprise me; I look at the screen in the rental car to see it's a song called 'Cough Syrup' but Young the Giant. I pictured her as a lover of bubblegum pop music, not indie or alternative. But now that the music is filling the car, and I look over to see her mouthing the words, I can tell that I was wrong about that.

The drive goes by relatively fast, the music stays mostly within the indie/alternative genre but the occasional pop song that I've heard while hanging out with Penelope comes on. Before I know it, Sloane is directing me into a gated community filled with upscale townhomes. We take a few turns before pulling into the driveway of her home.

She takes a deep breath and I look over to see her face is full of relief. She steps out of the car and quickly leads me to the front door through the small gated courtyard. She unlocks it and walks inside. I follow her, trying to memorize every detail about the space in case, by some miracle, she left something out that may incriminate her. But as expected, nothing looked out of the ordinary. Despite her being loosely linked to a string of murders and being incarcerated for nearly 5 months, her house doesn't look like it. Her home is filled with bohemian decor, photos of friends and family, and live plants making the home feel lived in and warm.

"You can make yourself comfortable," she says, bringing my attention back to her, "I'm just going to take a quick shower to get this prison funk off me."

She says it with a laugh, clearly relieved to be home. She flashes me a smile before making her way upstairs to where I'm assuming her bedroom is.

This is a different side to her that I haven't seen before. In almost all of our interactions previous to this, she's been cold and calculated with her words. She's always had the upper hand and been able to keep us all guessing on if she was being honest. Except when she would talk about her past trauma, then we saw the more vulnerable side of her. The part of her that was still scared by what these men did / attempted to do to her and couldn't get through the story without crying. But this side, the happy, go with the flow kind of girl, the version she is with her family, friends and clients; I get the appeal.