-Chapter Ten-
Prentiss strode into the Hospital's main entrance and made her way over to the nurse's station. She stood and waited for a moment whilst the nurse on the desk finished checking over a chart for what Emily supposed was a trainee nurse.
The nurse smiled at her and, once she had finished with the chart and trainee nurse, came over to Prentiss and said politely, her voice sounding soft and tinted with an Irish accent, "Hello, how can I help you?"
Prentiss smiled at her and said, straight to the point, "I'm here to see Spencer Reid. He was brought in earlier today with a suspected broken ankle."
The nurse nodded and looked through the computer database saying to Emily, "I have to ask, are you family or-"
"I'm a colleague. I work with him," Prentiss cut in, "I need to speak with him about the work we're currently doing," she pulled out her federal ID and watched as the nurse took one look at it before nodding and searching for Reid's room – which she found.
"He's up on the fourth floor, room 231," the nurse smiled at her as Prentiss nodded to her in thanks and made her way up to Reid's room – with the notes and photographs she'd taken at the scene. She desperately hoped that Reid could make sense of them, she really did.
-CoaK-CM-CoaK-CM-CoaK-
"Spence.... what are you doing?" JJ asked as she re-entered Reid's room carrying a tray of 'real' food from the fast food place on the street corner. She placed the tray down on the bedside-table and looked at Reid with a single raised eyebrow.
"I'm... I'm..." Reid floundered for words to explain what he was doing, "I'm trying.... I was... I mean I... I was trying to... to... to read..." he looked lamely.
She smiled at him and said, "You were reading, without a book and with a big dreamy smile on your face while House Wife's is on the TV in the corner of the room? Alright..." her smile widened even more when Reid turned a cute shade of embarrassed red and looked at everything except her and the TV.
"I... It was... I was... I was watching it purely... to... to...try and u-understand the reasoning behind... spouses cheating and... and... and-" he said indignantly, trying desperately to find a good excuse.
"Because you are addicted to it?" JJ added with a mischievous glint in her eyes and a Cheshire-cat grin on her face.
Reid didn't answer, he merely found great interest in the white wash walls around him. JJ shook her head in amusement and silently unpacked the grand feast for the two of them; each of them had a cheeseburger and fries and a large cup of strong coffee.
Just as she and Reid were about to dig into their food Prentiss walked into the room carrying a small wad of papers that caught Reid's attention immediately.
"Emily!" Reid exclaimed with a smile, "What's that?", straight to business. He was sat on his bed with a large cast around his foot; which already had some interesting markings on it. Prentiss smiled at him and came over to the bed.
"Hey JJ, Reid," she greeted the pair of them and placed the papers on the table next to Reid's cheeseburger, "These are just some notes I made on the wall and a couple of photographs of it. You can look at them after you've eaten Reid. You need your strength otherwise your big old brain won't be working at the top of its game."
Reid looked at her, pouting, and Prentiss had to stem a giggle; he truly did look cute when he did that, but she wasn't going to let him sway her judgement. He ate his food first, then he could play 'boy genius'.
-CoaK-CM-CoaK-CM-CoaK-
Rossi stood up fully, no longer leaning against the desk, and walked slowly over to the door of the Mayor's office, his eyes scanning over everything; the carpet, the door frame, the lights, the walls themselves and the people still milling around in the room. He slipped through the door, over the threshold, and out into the long corridor. He looked at each side of it – the left hand side and the right hand side – trying to see where the CCTV cameras were. He spotted one on the left side of the corridor, it was facing towards the right leaving half of the left hand side corridor blind – that's not very good security. He looked again at the right hand side of the corridor and spied where a camera would normally be, he frowned at it and walked over, stopping directly underneath the camera base-frame. He looked down at the other camera and noticed that it moved in an automated pattern – it panned from the far right hand side of the corridor over to the split in the corridor; where another corridor was, before panning back around to the right side.
Rossi looked at it for a moment longer before realising that this was how the Unsub had got onto this floor. He set off for the security office down on the second floor where Hotch had gone to earlier, he needed to tell Hotch what he'd found out.
-CoaK-CM-CoaK-CM-CoaK-
"Okay, I've eaten my food, the TV is now off and I'm really, really desperate for something to do!" Reid exclaimed, he looked at Prentiss who looked at JJ and the two girls both silently agreed to let Reid look at what Prentiss had bought.
"Alright Reid. Here are some small sketches and possible notes I made when I was at the scene and a couple of photographs of the wall. As you can see it's full of archaic symbols and random letters," Prentiss said as she passed the papers over, which Reid promptly snatched off her and scanned through, "I think some of the symbols mean 'water' or 'river' and some of the others-"
"No, no, no... those symbols are just there to distract you.... it's pretty easy... the sheer quantity of shapes and symbols on the wall are designed to make your brain more active, as it has to analyse all of these symbols simultaneously... ingenious really," Reid said, his speech's tempo increasing and he free hand waving about as he explained, his eyes still focused intently on the photographs, "Do you have a pen?"
"Err... yeah," Prentiss handed Reid a ball-point, black-ink pen. Reid nodded his head in thanks to her before picking up the pad of paper and drawing a large X and a noughts-and-crosses-box."What are you doing Reid?"
He was silent for a moment as he wrote the letters of the alphabet down; from A to B, underneath the shapes he'd drawn, "I'm doing a Masonic Cipher," he answered, as though that would explain everything.
"What?" JJ said, she looked at him with a confused look which Prentiss mirrored; they had no idea what a Masonic Cipher was.
"Oh. It's a type of code that was used by the Mason's. The way it works is this; you have a keyword that you place in the boxes on the three-by-three grid – with two letters per box. You then add the rest of the alphabet; in alphabetical order, excluding the letters you've already put in for the entire grid and for the X too. Each letter corresponds to the outline of the box it is put in, the second letter however is the outline of the box it is put in including a dot in that outline. Once you've done that you can decode any message that's given to you in the Masonic Cipher." Reid answered as he looked at the photographs trying to find out what the keyword could be.
"Oh." Prentiss said, she was pretty surprised at that, this Unsub was using codes and ciphers that only Reid really had any hope of breaking; she hadn't even heard of a Masonic Cipher, she'd never be able to break one! "So, do you know what the keyword is?"
"I don't...." Reid broke off as he looked at a full length photograph of the wall and noticed that in the top, right-hand corner of the wall itself were three tiny letters, he looked at JJ and Prentiss and said hurriedly, "Do either of you have something that I can use to magnify this with?"
Prentiss checked in her pockets but didn't find anything whilst JJ looked around the room and spotted the glass of water – still half full. She smiled and picked it up, "Would this do?" she asked Reid innocently.
"Yes! JJ... you're an Angel!" Reid smiled at her as she passed him the glass which he then used to magnify the section of the photograph and was rewarded with the needed keyword. "I've got it."
"Brilliant!" Prentiss said, "What is it?"
"It's 'B.A.U'," Reid answered looking at her with a raised eyebrow. He then looked back at his notes and pencilled in the keyword and the rest of the alphabet. He then could finally start to decode the message given to them by the Unsub. "Tell Hotch that I'll have this decoded in a little while." he said to JJ who nodded and turned, left the room; pulling out her cellphone as she did.