Sin to Love 2 (Spencer Reid Love Story)

Chapter Thirty-Four

          Reid walked through the glass doors that lead inside the bullpen in a panic state. It was a Saturday night and he had gotten a text from Morgan to come to the bureau as soon as he could. Reid had been taking the time to review some case files before he organized his room, so he wouldn't have to do all that on Sunday when he and Carmen had planned to spend the day together. He wanted every second of her presence in his before she had to leave the Wednesday morning to Las Vegas to prove her worthiness of pursuing her dreams.

When he walked into the bullpen, he saw Garcia, Morgan and JJ crowded around his desk as if they were waiting for him to tell him some terrible news since they all posed in an uptight, stressed position. He hesitantly walked over to them, anticipating the worst to come out of their mouths. Like the good profilers they were, they turned around just as Reid made his way up to them, almost as if they could sense his nervous aura from a far.

"What's wrong? What happened? Where's Hotch? Why are you guys the only ones' here?" Reid frantically asked.

Morgan and JJ looked at Garcia to start talking, which guided Reid's attention to her too. She moved her eyes from Morgan to JJ and then to Reid, staring long and hard at him with disappointment in her eyes. He felt his heart pound rapidly as he saw how nervous and upset she looked and he waited impatiently for her to tell him what was happening.

"Well, Hotch knew that you gave me the locations Carmen had been to on those days when...you know and he asked me to get the surveillance footage of those places and I tried to protest, but he insisted because now Strauss is involved with this and she really wants to know if Carmen was at those specific locations because if she was than she wouldn't have to have a whole talk one on one with you about being in a relationship with a..." she trailed off.

"In a relationship with a what, Garcia?" Reid asked angrily, which shook her.

"A-a, um-a murderer," she continued.

Reid closed his eyes and took a deep breath because he didn't want to explode, especially in front of Garcia since she was already visibly upset about everything going on and already felt as if it was her fault. He opened up his eyes and calmly looked at her to continue.

"Well, anyway, I got a hold of the footage from her apartment and Hotch and I watched it and she left at the time you said she did, but she didn't come home until like 11 those nights. Then he made me locate some local restaurants around her and since I remember her telling me that she went vegan, I searched restaurants that serve mainly vegetarian and vegan food and she wasn't in any of the footage during the time she said she was," Garcia explained.

Reid felt his heart stop. "What do you mean she wasn't in any of the footage? She must have been. She told me that she was there,"

"JJ and Morgan even went all over town today to go ask every restaurant close to her if they had seen her there and they said no," Garcia explained further.

"Well, memory isn't a good recollection of events anyway. Did you check any other footage?" Reid asked.

Garcia nodded her head. "I searched everywhere you said she went and she was a no show on camera."

Morgan looked at him with sympathetic eyes, stifling back the question he was going to ask. He saw how distraught Reid was about everything crashing down at once, but curiosity took over the best of him.

"Kid, do you truly think she didn't do this?" Morgan asked.

Reid looked at one of his closest and dearest friends to him with utter disgust. He couldn't believe even Morgan, the person who accepted Carmen right off the bat, was asking him about his trust towards her. He felt as if he was standing by Carmen's side on a sinking ship while the rest of the team were the ones weighing the ship down with their heavy judgement.