MASTERMIND | spencer reid

006: questions for the doctor.

"Nothing." "Nothing" Emily and Derek spoke in unison, and Spencer turned to Lucy for answers, given that she generally filled him in when he arrived late to a conversation (usually, Derek withheld information to irk him, and Lucy told him to irk Derek back). Today, she seemed. . .preoccupied.

Spencer scratched behind his ear in thought. "Okay, well, now I feel left out," he slumped down in his desk chair.

Lucy finally flicked her gaze to him for a mere second. "Don't. It's just humour at my expense. Nothing you haven't heard before," she assured him, but still he wasn't convinced. Nevertheless, he dropped it. Then, Lucy flipped the file in front of her shut and made a motion to stand, "I'm gonna get a coffee."

Spencer stood before she could. "I'll get it for you. I was just gonna make some for myself."

Normally, Lucy would object. She can't have him doing stuff for her, that was usually the general principle. Today, she only sat again, and said, "okay, thanks." Feeling eyes on her as Spencer sauntered past, her eyes met Emily's, who looked nothing less of curious and, unsurprisingly, suspicious.

Just then, JJ waltzed by them with a case file held tightly in her arms. Lucy's head rose above her desk like a rabbit poking its head from its burrow. "Where we headed?" She asked.

"Chula Vista, California," JJ answered, "we'll debrief on the jet."

And that they did. Two girls, best friends Katie and Lindsay, had gone missing 18 hours prior to a body being found. That body being labelled a body was much due to the fact that ID-ing was difficult, as the face and hands had been completely obliterated. Those with weaker stomachs would have puked at the sight.

"I got to be honest, guys. I'm glad you're all here because I have never seen anything like that." Sheriff Payton had said when the team had first been shown the body.

With the knowledge that one of the girls were still out there, they swiftly got to work. JJ and Morgan found themselves talking with the parents of the two girls — a teary husband and wife (Katie's parents) and a stony man, a Jack Vaughan (Lindsay's father). Whilst they asked some questions, the rest of the team stood around the dead body.

"Developed bruises, cuts. Layer upon layer," Emily observed as she and Spencer studied the body closer, hands clad in blue gloves. Lucy hung back with the Sheriff, Rossi and Hitch, her hands on her hips.

"Bindings cut deep into her flesh," Spencer pointed out.

Emily added, "around her neck, there's heavy bruising. She was strangled to death."

Spencer agreed with a small nod. "A belt was used. You can see the indentation marks of a buckle."

The sheriff then asked the question Lucy herself had been pondering at. "But why destroy her hands and face?" Lucy, having a hypothesis on her own mind, went to speak, only for Hotch to beat her to it.

"It indicates she knew the attacker," he said.

"By destroying the ID, it delays you making a connection between the victim and the unsub," Lucy added on her two pence. "It gives him some time to get away. Maybe figure out his next steps."

"Do you think the other girls still alive?" Payton asked.

Rossi shrugged, ever the most nonchalant. "Until we find her body, we have to assume she is."

Hotch then added, "one things for sure, this is only the dump site. We need to figure out where she was killed." As he said this, a figure moved on the hill above them, and then Jack Vaughan's features became clearer. Lucy had always been told not to judge a book by its cover — a logic she had always found to be preposterous— but Jack Vaughan had a glint of something in his eye, something dark.