Chapter 10

Reid wore his battered Converse as he trekked up a particularly steep area of the forest. He looked ahead to where Scarlett had scrambled up a rock face as if she was out on an easy walk. He shook his head, wondering if he'd ever know all of her facets. As his legs burned from the abuse, he cursed at himself for insisting on seeing the sites first hand.

Scarlett had stopped at the top of the ridge, just below the first dump site. She looked back at Spencer picking his way through the incline and grinned.

"C'mon, city boy... haul your pretty ass up here," she teased, her smile teasing him.

"Pretty boy, Farm boy, City boy..." he muttered as he slid a little in the loose dirt. "Can't you just call me by my name?" he groused, finally catching up to her.

"Spencer," she called sweetly in a sing song voice. He rolled his eyes and she laughed.

"C'mon babe," Scarlett snagged his hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. "It's just you and me, on a beautiful morning in a gorgeous forest... Why are you so grumpy?"

"A mile up a hill, to more than a dozen graves... Why would you be so happy?" he shot back.

"Oh geesh, you are grumpy," she scowled, shaking her head at him. "Doom and gloom." Scarlett shifted her pack from her back and pulled out a thermos.

"Be nice to me or I won't share my coffee, Dr. Reid," she ordered and poured him some into the lid.

Spencer grabbed the coffee like a man dying of thirst. After he drank down two cups, he managed a sheepish grin.

"Sorry..." he apologized.

"Um-hmm." Scarlett smiled. "Since I'm the reason you only had about two hours of sleep last night, I'll give you a pass, Dr. Reid," she teased him.

"Ninety minutes," he told her as he handed back the lid for another shot of caffeine. "I'm not complaining..."

"Neither am I," she grinned, taking a sip from the mug before handing it back to him.

He sighed and pulled her into his arms. "It is nice up here, I guess. Especially, the just you and me part..." Spencer lowered his lips to hers, tasting her flavor along with the coffee and a hint of cherry ChapStick.

Scarlett lay her head against his chest for a moment while he finished off the coffee. She listened to his heart beating under her ear and the sounds of the forest around them coming alive in the early morning hours.

"The CSI team cleared out the five about a mile south of here, after we left yesterday," she told him, speaking of the matters at hand, despite the peaceful scenery. "Site two is closer to here, less than a quarter mile west," she told him, pulling up the map in her mind.

"They brought them in late. Rossi checked in with the ME, last night..." he responded.

"When we get back, I want to set the area up on a map, so I can see it more clearly," Reid told her. "There may be a pattern to it, something I can't see this way."

"If there is, I'm missing it," Scarlett stated absently as she closed her eyes and pulled the picture up in her mind. "I'm getting nothing..."

Reid watched her face, saw as her eyes tracked under her lids scanning the map she was seeing in her mind's eye.

"I can't see it either," he told her. "That's why sometimes it helps to lay it out physically in front of me." He tipped her face up towards him and dropped a kiss to her lips.

"I love you, Katy..." he told her softly.

"I love you too, Spence," she smiled. "Even when you are being grumpy..."

"Yeah, but..." he stopped dead and grabbed her closer.

When she looked at his face and saw him look over her shoulder she turned slowly.

"Shh, don't make a sound," he warned, moving her behind him as he cleared his weapon from its holster.

Scarlett pulled hers also, as a large bear moved through the forest not fifty yards away from them.

"It's downwind. I don't think it scents us," he whispered.

"Good, because I don't really want to shoot. We are the intruders here..." she said just as quietly. Willing the animal to move along, she stayed as still as a tree, watching and waiting until the bear moved off deeper into the woods.

After another few minutes, Reid finally let out his breath.

"Jesus, that was close," he stammered, turning around to face Scarlett again.

"Yeah, and we've set up shop in his backyard," she managed to joke. "I guess we shouldn't forget that fact."

"Right," he agreed, looking around the woods again. "Let's get a look at the site and get back," he told her, still feeling a little shaky.

Scarlett took his hand and headed in the direction of the shallow grave. When they came up to the yellow tape strung between the trees, she showed him the marks she'd noticed.

"And the fifth site only had five marks?" Reid was asking her as he walked along the perimeter, studying the other trees and the area in general.

"Yes. So if the unsub has a sixteenth victim, he's either broken pattern, or hasn't buried him yet. There will be another mark once he's started the sixth site."

"Not anymore. His graveyard has been uncovered. His pattern has been disrupted. If he has a sixteenth victim, he'll have to find a new way to mark the site."

Scarlett shaded her eyes and looked up at the trees again.

"You think he'd come back here, restart from the center point..." she stated, her voice level in understanding, not in question.

"It would make sense," Spencer agreed.

"I don't see any marks. Nothing fresh. The first vic was dated as being here approximately eighteen months. Penelope hasn't gotten any hits on missing persons from the area or that time frame..."

She moved around Reid, looking closer at the shallow grave. As she studied the dirt, the symmetry of the grave itself, something about the lines nudged at her.

"We're going to have to tell Penny to go back further. This is too clean. Too patient... too something..." she said in frustration.

"I agree," Spencer watched a Scarlett looked around again. "The first body had injuries that showed a rage in the murder. The graves show calm planning, it doesn't fit..."

"A cooling off period?" she asked.

"Maybe... Maybe he spends time with the bodies afterwards. It may even be out of necessity," he looked around. "It wouldn't be easy to dig symmetrical graves in the winter up here."

"So our dates on the bodies may be skewed also," she sighed. "If the bodies were frozen..."

"They weren't embalmed. We would have found traces of the chemicals," he stated. "But they may have been frozen. Until he was able to come up here for the interment," Reid pushed his hair back, more out of habit than anything.

"Looks like we are going to have to look closer into the bodies. They are going to be the key. There's nothing here..." Scarlett looked to him for confirmation.

"There's nothing here..." he agreed. "Let's head back," he said, taking her hand once again.