timeless, spencer reid [ 1 ]

026. conflicted

"Thank you." Spencer tells him.

"Can I ask you a question?" Adam asks Spencer.

"Yeah." Spencer says, staying back while the other two walk off.

+++

There's another body and they're at the scene.

"Your unsubs have changed hotels."

"What can you tell us?" Rossi asks.

"The vic's name is Carl Cade, another spring breaker."

"Any witnesses?" Derek asks.

"His friends saw him last night leave a party with a brunette in a green dress. Both had been drinking for most of the day, and he only caught a glimpse of the girl before they left the party. And he found the body posed just like the others."

The four go onto the patio.

"It sounds like our theory about the partners was right." Spencer says.

"Woman lures the victim back, she offers up a little kink, then ties him up." Derek says.

"Only this time the unsubs ventured outside of their comfort zone. They changed hotels." Bedelia says.

"Okay, so what's he doing, getting bolder or smarter?" Derek asks.

"Well, the local police are on alert, the FBI is here. They probably changed pattern to avoid getting caught." Spencer says.

"Or because they saw us at the other hotel. We need to go back to Hudson Street." Rossi says.

+++

They brought Adam in and Spencer is talking to him.

"He doesn't really look like the dominant partner type, does he?" Emily asks.

"No, he doesn't." Hotch says.

"He's our guy." Derek says.

"What makes you so sure?" Emily asks.

"It's a classic profile. He grows up with an abusive stepfather, somehow managed to escape, suddenly he finds himself back in the exact same area where his abuser lives. He's surrounded by nothing but a bunch of alpha males that mirror that type of behavior. He snaps."

"Did he have a problem with you as authority figures when you interviewed him?" Hotch asks.

"He backed away as if he was a little skittish." Derek says.

"He didn't really keep eye contact with us for very long." Bedelia says.

"And Reid?" Emily asks.

"Reid was a little less imposing and he opened up about his life." Derek says.

+++

They also brought Julie in and they gave both her and Adam lie detector tests which they both passed and have been let go.

"So... where are we?" Derek asks, sitting at the table with the others.

"Honestly? Nowhere. We just watched our two most viable suspects walk out the door." Rossi says.

"If Adam isn't our unsub, he has all the makings to become one someday." Emily says.

"Reid?" Hotch asks, the genius focused on the footage he's watching.

"Tell me the question that he spiked under in the polygraph." Spencer says.

"It was a control question to set the baseline." Derek says.

"It was a geometric equation?" Spencer asks.

"Reid, I really think he was just intimidated. He tried, he got it wrong, but he wasn't supposed to know the answer anyway." Derek says.