Spencer's Secret

Summary: When the team travels to Nevada for a case, Spencer's life changes. Could the killer be someone he cares about?

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds. It is property of CBS entertainment.

Chapter 1-Memories

1200 Hours

Pahrump, NV

Three weeks before

Lieutenant Detective Becky Peterson exited her police cruiser to find her partner, Steve Garofani, waiting for her. The crime scene was gruesome; a cleaning woman had been found by the woman who hired her. She'd been strangled and sexually assaulted. The crime scene techs had found a sponge saturated with cleaning chemicals shoved down her throat. Becky spoke to the older man.

"How's it look?" She raised her eyebrows

"It doesn't look good for the pool boy."

She grimaced at him. "I chase a ten-year-old around all day. I am in little danger of getting fat. Why the pool boy?" He pointed to a tallish, good looking Cuban man, and Becky sighed. "Well, he's good looking. Techs said the cleaning lady was young, do you think there was something going on with the two of them?"

Steve nodded, and took a step toward the crime scene. She shrugged, and followed him to where the pool boy was waiting to speak with police. Steve spoke as he walked. "Maybe, but it's suspicious that he was the only other one here, claims to know nothing, and that Ms. Gonzalez was married, with no enemies. Someone killed her."

Becky murmured in agreement, and they proceeded to process the scene. Halfway through a preliminary questioning of the pool boy, whom Becky discovered was called Hector, her cell rang. It is her boss, the Captain, telling her that they were needed back at the station. There had been another murder.

1600 Hours

FBI HQ

Quantico, VA

At his desk at the BAU, Spencer sighed, stretched and yawned. It had been a long day. They had arrived back at the office seventeen hours ago, and he had been writing after-action reports. All. Day. Long. He considered for a moment whether or not he was in his right mind for doing such a job, but after a momentary mental discussion, decided that yes, he was in his right mind, he just simply worked too much. He was lonely these days since things hadn't work out with that agent from LA and the girl in his building hadn't returned his call after she'd asked him to dinner last week, and so he found himself hating the world sometimes. His mother was doing okay; perhaps he should give her a call tonight. He clicked on his computer and tapped away at his calendar making a note to "Call Mom" and "Buy More Peanut Butter". The voice of his boss snapped him back to his office.

"Okay, everyone, thanks for your hard work today. Why don't you all head out early? I want you all rested for tomorrow. It's back to work then."

He rolled his eyes at Hotch, finished his emails, and clicked his computer off. When he stood to grab his coat and find his Metro pass, Prentiss and Morgan asked if he wanted to grab a drink with them. He declined and headed downstairs to begin the trek home.

Luckily, he'd figured out a long time ago that it didn't pay to drive your car to HQ. It was far too crowded in the parking lot and on the Beltway, and you spent more time looking for a place to park than you did actually driving. Besides, east coast drivers made him crazy. He caught the early train and was grateful that the bombardier car was fairly empty, allowing him time to organize his thoughts.

He made his way to the market on the corner near his building, and grabbed a jar of Jif, which would likely make the others cringe, but he liked it because it reminded him of his childhood and one summer when things were going well. His mom took him to a lake to fish and play, and they ate Jif sandwiches, grapes and juice. He also tossed some crackers into his basket along with a tub of butter and checked out.

He headed home, and put the food away. He set about tidying his kitchen, preparing a quick dinner of pasta and broccoli, and settling down to watch the news before he called his mom and went online. As he speared a piece of rigatoni, he frowned at the TV. Nevada police had serial killer on their hands, in a town outside of Vegas, and he sighed deeply. He had a feeling that he would soon find himself in that tiny town and, dejected , he flipped off the TV and ate in silence.

Later that evening, after he had cleaned up, called his mom, spent two hours on the Net playing games, and gotten his clothes ready for the next day, his work phone rang. He scowled at it, and in a rare moment of defiance, considered ignoring it. Instead, he sighed and answered.

"Reid." Surprisingly, it was not Hotch, but Rossi, who couldn't find a file. He directed his colleague to the manila folder on his desk, and wished the man a good evening. He turned in early, after securing the front door, double-checking that the appliances were off, and phoning the girl upstairs, who didn't answer.

1800 Hours

Pahrump, NV

Becky climbed into her car and began the five-minute drive to the tiny bungalow that she and her son called home. Her son was there already; since he was ten now, she let him spend one hour alone after Mrs. Gold left, and before she could get home to make dinner and check his homework. Having a ten year old boy who was smarter than his mama made raising a child all the more difficult, but then his father was smart, and he was a good boy, Becky reminded herself. She pulled into the driveway, and noted that Max has left the porch light on, good boy.

She parked, double-checked that the car was secure, and headed for the front door. She found it locked, thankful that her son was slightly OCD, and therefore, followed directions to a T. She unlocked the door, and let herself in to find her son sitting at the kitchen table, his head buried in his math workbook, chewing thoughtfully at a pencil eraser, looking every inch like his father. It made her heart ache for just a moment, but then Max looked up at her, and smiled broadly.

"Hi, Mom, Mrs. Gold left at 5:30, so I've only been here for a half-hour, so don't worry, okay?"

Becky smiled, nodded, and kissed his head. They decided to heat a pizza for dinner, and Becky put together a quick salad, poured a glass of wine for herself and milk for Max. They ate and talked together, as had been their practice since Max was very little. Becky loved the hour that she spent alone with her son before bedtime, and before she spent the evening working on case files. Her son was young and naive, although fiercely intelligent, and she tried to always encourage him to finish school before having a family. She never regretted her son. She just wished she'd been smarter when she was young.

Max's father had been a high school friend. Actually, his mother had been a friend first. Becky let her mind wander as Max finished his dinner and rinsed his plate. She thought back to the first time she'd met Mrs. Reid, and it made her smile. Becky remembered that her and her father had moved to the small neighborhood in a poorer part of Vegas to take a job as a trash collector for the City. Her mother had died in childbirth, and it had been hard on her father, raising a child on his own with only a high school education.

Becky was lucky to have been born pretty, so childhood had been kind to her, and she'd thrived until middle school, when her female genes began to accelerate and she grew breasts and a whole foot taller than all the kids, even the boys. Her father, by then, had turned to the bottle to help him ease the transition between Becky's girlhood and womanhood, and Becky found herself raising herself mostly alone. He had a series of girlfriends, each one prettier than the last, and each one a worse mother figure than her predecessor. So when they arrived on the same street, literally next door to Diana Reid, Becky braced herself for yet another female figure to float in and out of her life.

But Becky quickly figured out that the nice lady next door was slightly off. Her son was incredibly smart; Becky's age, and already away at college in California, and she noticed that the older woman had few friends, but was wildly funny. So Becky found herself a fixture at Diana Reid's home most days after school, and a friendship blossomed.

Becky had quickly realized that Diana's oddness was attributed to a mental illness, though she didn't realize the extent of the issue at that time.

As she began to wash the dishes and Max took a bath, she remembered more. Her mind pictured the day that she'd first met Spencer Reid. It had been a warm Spring day, and she had a school holiday, and her father had left for the day. She packed a picnic lunch, dressed in a pretty sundress, and prepared herself to take Diana to the park nearby for girl talk and lunch, as they sometimes did when the older woman was feeling well. Becky was surprised when she knocked on the door, and instead of Diana's smiling face, she found Spencer's scowling one staring back at her. Becky, being almost a woman and well-educated on the manners that might one day fetch her a nice husband and a much-needed escape from her father, simply smiled and asked if she could come in.

Once Spencer had let her in, she'd introduced herself and told him all about her and Diana's adventures together. He had seemed oddly bothered by her revelations, although now she realized that his mother was suffering, and that her presence had been a hindrance instead of the help she'd imagined. Anyway, she'd learned that Spencer was home for the summer, with the intent of putting his mother into Bennington Sanitarium, which he did by the end of the summer. She had found herself attracted to the boy, but more than that, she had felt a kindred with him-he was as motherless as she was, though he had his mother in flesh and blood, he didn't have the connection that most children had. His father was also absent, and so they could connect on that end, too.

The summer had culminated in a few sweet kisses at the fair, all of them initiated by her, and the day before he'd left to return to California, they'd gone to see his mother and then she invited him to her house for dinner. Of course, her father wasn't around, as usual, so the two teenagers found themselves alone in a big empty house in the dead heat of a desert summer, and pulled out a tub of ice cream to cool off. Becky was fairly certain that it had been Spencer's idea-but now it appeared to be hers-to run through the sprinkler in her back yard. They soon found themselves laughing, wet, and happy, and she'd kissed him again. As dusk fell, their kisses became deeper and more serious, and their touches became less clumsy and more decided, and before she knew what had happened, she woke up next to him in her bed. He woke up not long after, swore that he'd love her forever, and left to return to college. She went on to UNLV herself, and moved in with her aunt, who lived nearby.

It was just a few weeks after school had started that she realized she was pregnant, and luckily, her aunt was understanding. She knew instantly that a child would be too much for Spencer to handle; he'd almost had a heart attack whenever she'd kissed him. So she never breathed a word to Spencer, nor to Max. In fact, the only person who knew was her father, and he was now dead, so she felt confident that Spencer Reid would never, ever know, and neither would Max. It was becoming harder with Max, though, as he'd recently been persistently pressing her about his father, and she knew that she might soon have to tell him the story of the woman who had lived next door, and the summer that her life had changed forever.

But now, Max appeared in front of her, dressed for bed, and as she slid the last of the forks into the drying rack and rinsed her hands, she smiled at him.

"Sweetheart, are you ready for bed?" He nodded, and she followed him down the hallway where they read The Chronicles of Narnia before he fell asleep. After she tucked him in, she kisses him goodnight, and began to read over her case file before turning early, the thoughts of Spencer now dimmed again in the back of her memory.

The second murder had her shaken; this one was a woman her age, another mom she knew, and was found drowned in the local watering hole on the outskirts of town. She was noticing a pattern to the murders, the most obvious of which was that both of the victims were good-looking females under the age of thirty. Ms. Gonzales was Hispanic, but had blonde hair, and this new victim, whom her partner had dubbed, "The Blonde in the Pond," was also blonde. She highlighted and notated for the next hour, then turned in early, grateful that it was Wednesday, and would be a fairly quiet night. Fridays were always busy, but Tuesdays and Wednesdays could generally find her getting a full eight hours of sleep.