"Do you know where Alex went on March ninth?" Reid asked.
"I have no clue. All I know is that he went out for some fresh air," Olivia said.
Reid wrote what she said down in his notepad. He even took into account the way she said it. She sounded as if she had some idea as to where he went, but at the same time had on a look that reflected unclarity of his exact whereabouts. He stopped jotting down notes to look at her as she was intensely looking at him, waiting for any other question he had conjured up in his brain.
"Mhm, well, Alex's body was found in some bushes behind an abandoned parking lot, and his car wasn't found," Reid said.
Olivia had a puzzled face on. "Why would they dump him in a bush in the parking lot?"
Her demeanor actually showed that she was confused as to where Alex was found. She looked for an answer to come from him, but he just simply shrugged in response. He didn't want to give away any important details only the unsub would know. She looked at his satchel where a file was sticking out. She looked back at him to see he had turned his head down to continue jotting notes.
"Can I see the photos you took of him?" Olivia asked.
Reid looked up from his notepad in disapproval. "I don't think you want to see them."
"Just show me," she insisted.
Reid sighed as he pulled out the case file from his satchel and pulled out the photos. He laid five photos out on the coffee table. Olivia closed her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath before she looked at them. She stared at each photo for a long while, almost as if she was analyzing them one by one. Reid looked at the photos and then looked at her.
'Wonder what's going through her head,' he thought.
Tears started to overflow from Olivias' eyes and Reid immediately noticed. He swiftly collected each photo off the table. He felt horrible. He knew he should have been more strict about withholding the crime scene photos from her but he couldn't overlook the need for closure in her eyes.
"I think that's enough photos for one day," he said.
She looked at the table still as if she was in a trance. As if she couldn't believe her once alive fiancé was now a victim to a mass murderer. Her whole mannerism was concerning to him since she didn't blink or move her face once.
"Olivia, are you okay?" He asked.
She turned her attention from the coffee table to Reid without turning her head completely, just her eyes. Reid was a bit startled by her sudden movement but didn't react to it negatively. He wasn't startled by her jerky look, but by the pain he saw deep within her hit him more than any other look he's ever seen.
"Umm, do you want to continue or do you want me to leave?" he asked.
"No, don't leave, please," she said as she turned towards Reid on the couch.
"Don't worry, I won't," Reid assured her with a quick smile.
She smiled back as she wiped away her tears with her hand. He took out a photo line-up of Kelly, Ryan, David, and Zack to show Olivia. He hoped she had some information on any of these victims to help with their investigation.
"Do you know any of these victims?" Reid asked.
Olivia took the photos from Reid and looked at each one of them carefully. She nodded her head. He looked at her surprised she knew all of them. He found it a strange coincidence how she knew all of them considering Alex was a part of the victim list. He started to wonder if they all hung in the same circle.
"Yes, I do know them. Not personally, but I've seen them around," Olivia said.
Reid took the photos from her and looked at them himself. He then turned it around and pointed at the picture of Ryan. He was curious about where she had seen each of them and if there was any connection.
"Where have you seen Ryan?" He asked.
"At a bar," she replied.
"David?"
"Bar,"
"Zack and Kelly?"
"At the bar as well."
Reid put away the photos. He was intrigued by how all four victims went to the same bar and coincidentally Olivia knew all of them by name. It was one thing to recognize a face but by name was more personal. Unless she heard it one time and remembered it, he felt as if she had talked to them more than once.
"You go to the bar with your friends?" He asked.
"Not exactly, I work there," she said.
"So, how long have they've been visiting this bar exactly?" Reid asked.
Olivia pondered for a second. "For a while, I think."
Reid wrote it down. "Have you ever talked to them?"
"A couple of times,"
"What exactly do you do at the bar? Bartender? Owner?"
"I sing there," she said.
Reid stopped writing and looked up at her. He goofily smirked at her. For some reason, he didn't see her as someone with powerful vocals. She seemed so soft-spoken and too humble to express herself in front of a crowd. The more he thought about it though, the more and more he could imagine it.
"You sing? Never would have guessed," Reid said.
"You wouldn't know a lot of things if I never told you, doctor," Olivia said with a smile.
"That's where you're wrong Ms. Startford. From what I can tell, you were a competitive gymnast, you treasure your biological parents more than your foster parents, and you're also originally from Las Vegas," Reid explained.
Olivia looked at him stunned. "How did you figure?"
"Well, not to sound creepy or anything, but I was looking around your living room and I noticed you have 13 years' worth of gymnastic medals. I also noticed you don't have any pictures of your foster parents anywhere and I know you're from Vegas 'cause I'm from Vegas and I know how Vegas people are," he explained with a smirk.
Olivia eased back and looked at Reid, amused. She then smiled. She took the time to look around her living room to see all the places he had spotted her past around. Even though she had left him alone for a few minutes, he learned some things about her no one knew about for the longest time. To her, it seemed as if he could figure out what was troubling her deeply.
"Great work, doctor, you found out the minor things," she said while getting up from the couch.
"What do you mean the minor things?" Reid asked.
"You know, the obvious," she explained.
"I care to differ, I am a doctor in-"
"Do you want something to drink?" Olivia said cutting him off.
"Umm, yeah, some water would be nice. Thanks," he said.
Olivia smiled at him and then walked her way to the kitchen. When she was gone, Reid stood up from the couch and walked around the room to observe even more. Out of curiosity, of course. What could he possibly not have noticed? He leaned in closer to her medals. Gymnast, ribbon dancer, and a competitive swimmer.
'Am I missing that?' He thought to himself.
He leaned away from the medals. He went over to the pictures. There was nothing there he hadn't already seen. Before he walked away from the table where the photos were, he looked at the photo of Olivia when she was around six years -old. Long, curly, light brown hair with bright blue eyes and rosy cheeks.
'She looks exactly the same,' Reid thought.
He heard someone clear their throat. He quickly looked up and saw Olivia holding a glass of water behind him. Reid looked at her and then back at the picture again.
"Well, this is awkward," Reid pointed out.
Olivia smiled and handed him the glass of water. "Don't worry, looking at a picture of me isn't awkward at all. That's why they're here, right?"
"You're right, thank you," Reid said as he took the water from her.
----------
"Do you know who Zack hung out with on the weekends?" Morgan asked Zacks' mom.
"I have no clue, he would never hang out with a bad crowd anymore, though," Mrs. Parie said through tears.
Morgan took out the pictures of Zack from his case file, but he was hesitant to show her. He didn't want these images to be the last images she remembered her son going to. However, her eyes naturally gravitated towards the file in his hands.
"What's that?" She asked.
"Well, they're pictures of the place Zack was found and I want you to tell me if any of these places mean any significance to Zack," Morgan said.
He pulled out the photos from the case file and showed Mrs. Parie the photos. The photos were taken at a nearby gas station where Zacks' body was found in a couple of bushes. Her eyes instantly widened as if she recalled something horrible from her past.
"Yes, this is where he and his dad took their last photo together," Ms. Parie through tears.
"Last photo together? May I ask what happened to his father?" Morgan asked.
Ms. Parie sniffled and wiped away a few tears. "John was driving home one night from work and a truck came out of nowhere and hit the driver's side of his car. It was hard for me but especially hard for Zack. He got off the wrong path sometimes after his father's death but he was a good boy. He was such a good boy," she said as she started to bawl.
Morgan stood up from his seat. "Thank you, ma'am, I'm sorry for both your losses."
Ms. Parie looked up at him. "Zackary was all I had left."
"What do you mean? He was an only child?" He asked.
She nodded. Morgan thought for a bit, but then it clicked to him. Their unsub might have a specific type of victim than they originally thought.
----------
"All the victims are only children," Morgan said to Reid.
They sat on opposite sides of each other at the conference table at the police department. Reid looked over the files of Kelly and David. He looked up at Morgan puzzled by his finding.
"I thought Kelly and David had siblings," Reid said.
"Step siblings," Morgan explained.
Reid thought about if Olivia had mentioned anything about Alex having any siblings. She hadn't. Morgan's hypothesis started to make more sense the more he thought about it. Reid took out his cellphone and called Hotch.
"Olivia didn't mention Alex having siblings either," Reid said.
He placed his phone to his ear to wait for Hotch to pick up his call. If Morgan was right, Hotch would also confirm Ryan was an only child. It didn't take too long for him to pick up his call.
"Reid," Hotch said.
"Hotch, I think Morgan and I made a connection between the victims other than the X on their chest," Reid explained.
"And what would that be?" Hotch asked.
"By any chance, was Ryan an only child?" Reid asked.
"Yes, he was," Hotch said.
"There's our connection, every victim is an only child," Reid explained to Hotch.
"Didn't Kelly and David have siblings?" He asked.
"I said the same thing too, but they're step-siblings, which indicates to me our unsub is after men who are their parent's only child," Reid explained.
"Great start. Try to find other connections with the victims because I'm guessing there has to be more than one reason for these victims to be connected," Hotch ordered and then hung up.
Reid looked over at Morgan, who looked back at him with a quizzical look of uncertainty. It looked as if he was trying to piece together why the unsub would target these men for such a specific reason. Reid had the same puzzled look as well.
"So, we know that the unsub is targeting only children, but we don't know why," Morgan asked.
"Maybe to express the fact that men aren't all that powerful if they're alone," Reid explained.
Morgan seemed to still be confused with Reid's theory, but he understood where Reid was going with his idea. He stood up and walked over to the board with all the victim's pictures, dumpsites, and autopsy photos. He looked at them carefully as he determined a possibility they looked over at the beginning of their investigation.
"So, the unsub wants to dominate men, which points to our unsub as being a woman, not a man as we originally guessed based off of disposal sights," he said.
"Exactly, but our unsub doesn't just kill any random family with an only child, but a family that is broken up. If you notice, the unsub killed Alex Waltserd, who is an only child, and leaves behind his widow, Olivia" Reid explained.
"And the unsub kills Zack Parie and leaves behind his widowed mother, taking away the only important thing to her," Morgan added.
For a while, Reid and Morgan were thinking about connections between the victims. Their ideas added to the theory started to develop a full picture, but Reid's thought process was cut short when his phone rang. He picked it up and a small, awkward smile appeared on his face before he answered it.
"Hello? Oh, hey, Olivia. No, I wasn't doing anything important right now," Reid said.
Morgan looked at him a look as if to say 'are you joking me right now?'. Reid mouthed sorry to him and continued his conversation. There were a lot of 'uh-huh's' and soft chuckled from Reid's end which made Morgan curious as to what he was discussing with Olivia.
"Yeah, I bet they would be glad to. Alright, bye," He said and then hung up.
"What was that?" Morgan asked.
"What was what?" Reid asked back.
"Did you just make another date with your girlfriend?" Morgan asked.
Reid looked at Morgan sternly. "How many times do I have to say that she's not my girlfriend for you to believe it?"
"As many times as you blink," Morgan said.
Reid looked at him funny. "But that's an infinite number of blinks."
Morgan walked towards Reid. "Exactly."
He scuffed up Reid's hair, which oddly made Reid chuckle in amusement.
"Hey, if I was Hotch that wouldn't be a problem. He rarely blinks," Reid said jokingly.