The buttery, sweet smell of fresh pastries filled the room, floating through the air like a secret between the night bakers and the few souls awake at such an early hour. If he didn't like to sleep so much, Spencer might have found a great deal of satisfaction in the still quiet of teh street and the glimmer of the last few raindrops on the aged red awning. Instead, he ruefully stifled a yarn as he waited for the coffee to finish brewing. His vision blurred as he struggled to keep his eyes open. The cashier emerged from the kitchen, carrying a samovar of fresh coffee.
"Made it strong." He assure the agent, who nodded blearily and mumbled his thanks.
"Excuse me," a feminine voice, soft but assertive, caught Spencer's attention. He turned to see a woman standing near his left elbow. Her green eyes smiled at him admiringly from behind black square-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses. Spencer blinked, unsure if he was seeing things or if the mope of hair sweeping over her forehead was actually cotton candy pink.
"Are you Doctor Spencer Reid?" The woman asked.
"I - uh - " Spencer replied, uncomfortable with the idea of being recognized by a complete stranger. "I am, yeah."
"I thought I recognized you." The woman smiled broadly. "You guest lectured for one of my classes when I was in grad school."
"Oh!" Spencer nodded, understanding. "Which class?"
"Criminal Deviance and the American Justice System." She replied, shaking her head. "You wouldn't remember. It was... gosh... eight years ago? Nine, now?"
"But you remember me?" Spencer arched an eyebrow, impressed. He had never been under the impression his lectures were terribly memorable.
"Remember the lecture and remember your face." She confessed. "I had help with the name." The woman gestured with the book in her hand, a still-glossy hard cover with a rather boring cover.
"Is that-" Spencer began.
"The Advancement of Criminal Psychology in the Twenty-First Century." She finished, flipping a few pages in and holding the book up for him to see. "I believe you wrote the forward."
Spencer blushed as he took the book, looking at the miniature bio of himself which accompanied the forward, complete with black and white miniature portrait of his early days at the Bureau.
"Wow..." He laughed self-consciously "that is... that is a really terrible photo."
The woman laughed, and he couldn't help but smile.
"So, you work in criminology?" He asked politely, handing the book back.
She rocked her head back and forth non-commitally "No. Life took me in... a bit of an alternate direction." She shrugged. "But your lecture was still one of the best."
"Thanks." Spencer said, taking a drag from his coffee cup.
The woman motioned suddenly to the cup in his hand. "Have you paid? Can I get that for you?"
"Oh, no." Spencer shook his head in protest. "No, I got it. But thanks. Actually, I've got to get going."
"Yeah, of course." The woman nodded, stepping aside absentmindedly as though she had been standing in his way.
"It was nice to meet you." He said, adding as an afterthought, "Hey, where'd you get that? I haven't gotten a copy yet."
"Oh, uh," She glanced at the book. "Cloak and Dagger. Down off of 7th Street."
"Thanks." He nodded, backing out of the doorway and into the still sleeping streets.
The doctor was only marginally more awake by the time he reached the crime scene. The body of a man, starved thin and prematurely aged, lay curled next to a dumpster in an out of the way alley.
"Another one." Agent Hotchner informed him.
"Male, this time." Reid replied pensively, adding it to the mental list he kept of the victims in the ongoing case.
"No I.D." J.J. said disappointedly. "Same as all the others."
"He'll likely turn up a John Doe, too." Hotch nodded.
It had been one of the longest ongoing cases the team had worked, spanning years and crossing state lines. The victims shared nothing but their anonymity and the fact they had been starved and likely held for some time.
Reid frowned. Without a name, it was difficult to discern motive, impossible to narrow down suspects, and unlikely the case would ever be solved. Being a man of order, what he found most frustrating was the paradox of a string of patternless victims that had somehow been meticulously chosen for the fact they were functionally untraceable.
"C.S.I. will get what they can from the scene." Hotchner looked around at the narrow alley. "We can canvas some local businesses... might not be a wasted trip."
Reid nodded, trying to keep his hopes up that Hotchner would be right, though inside he felt heavy. He turned from the alley, his mood as grey as the low clouds rolling in, obscuring the sun. The air felt close around him; hot and stifling. It made the skin under his collar itch.
"Looks like we're in for another hot one." Rossi remarked as he joined the young doctor in canvassing the north side of the street. "You know you're in trouble when the heat index is up before the sun."
"Mm." Reid absently acknowledged. "You know... we get more bodies around these temperature extremes." A thought formed slowly and incompletely. "We know they've been starved. "He continued, more to himself than Rossi. "maybe the deaths are more incidental than intentional."
"So it's not the murder he gets off on." Rossi tossed the idea around in his head.
"Or he keeps them alive because he uses them for something..." Reid said. "Needs them..."
"It's as good as anything else we've got right now." Dave Rossi agreed.