Criminal History.

Chapter Twenty-Two.

Once the lid was off, I looked inside to see a huge tarantula in the bottom of the box.

I jumped as far away from the box as possible as the tarantula began jumping around. I few screams escaped me every now and again, and I found myself shaking. A few moments later someone came in to remove the monster and I began to calm down a little. I walked back to the box and looked inside again to see loads of photos of me and Jamie. In every one you could see bruises and forced smiles.

I began just moving them to the side before I reached the bottom of the box to see a photo frame at the bottom. I picked the frame up and stared at it for a little while before the image really sunk in. it was a collage of people I was close to, my parents were there, Spencer and the rest of the team, Steve and Toby all with red sharpie marks around their necks. ‘told you it wouldn’t last.’ Was scrawled across the pictures.

I piled everything back in the box and cut myself on something as I pulled my hand back out. Throwing the lid back on I picked the box up and carried it out of the conference room before dumping it in the trash. I walked back inside the conference room and sat back down to lots of confused stares.

“so what are the many things that the last riddle could be?” I asked trying to get back on topic.

“Are you ok?” JJ asked worriedly.

“I’m fine… let’s just get back to the case yea?” I grabbed a notepad and pen that I took inside the conference room with me and began jotting down possible answers to the question. One disturbed me more than the others. Don’t parties just burn you up’ it was a joke that used to go around more than a riddle but it would fit. “Penelope, do you know if there has been a fire at a party today?” I wondered aloud still looking at the iPad.

“There have been three.”

“Has anyone gone missing around the buildings?” I looked at Penelope as everyone kept a wary eye on me.

“one person was taken a block away from one party venue. They’ve been missing twenty four hours.”

“I reckon that there is going to be someone there when we get there.” I looked to the team. “my father used to say a really bad joke at birthday parties ‘what did the candle say to the other candle? Don’t parties burn you up.’ I’m guessing that once that club burns out, they’ll be someone who was in there when it went up with another note attached to them.”

“Looks like that is where we’re heading. Let’s split up, Morgan; you, me and Jones go to the club, Reid and Rossi will go to the first victim’s house, Blake and JJ go and see the parents. Let’s go.” Hotch split us up and we all stood. We filed out of the conference room and gathered our things before walking down to the garage to pile into our separate SUVs.

We only drove for 5 minutes before the inevitable topic came up. “What was that all about in there?” Derek asked, carefully.

“I have arachnophobia is all, and that monster of a thing startled me first thing in the morning.” I shrugged nonchalantly as I continued to look forward.