Elle and Morgan met them in the lobby.
"The body has been taken away," Elle said, "And everything has been photographed and collected. They are doing the fine-combing now. We'll get the preliminary reports and copies of all photos in a couple of hours."
Hotchner opened his mouth, but Morgan anticipated the question.
"The envelope is their first priority."
"I'm going to go to the personnel office to find out more about those newly hired," Elle said.
"I'll help," Reid offered.
"Okay," Hotchner said. "Morgan, go talk to security and make sure we get all security tapes from when the victim checked in until the body was discovered."
"You got it."
"All right, Gideon and I'll go interview the maid who found her. We'll meet back here in an hour."
Jenny promised to show Morgan to the head of security after making sure that Reid remembered where to go. He and Elle found the personnel office without problem, and after explaining who they were, why they were there and waited while the clerk called for confirmation, they were shown to a computer where they could search the employee database. Elle let Reid do the typing. When his hands danced on the keyboard and his eyes were transfixed on the screen she casually asked,
"So, how did things go with your step-dad?"
Reid looked at her.
"My what?"
"I thought you said your mum was seeing Lohan when you were a kid."
"She was, but I never thought of him as my step-dad. He wasn't really a family man, and he made that clear right from the beginning."
"He didn't like you?" she asked incredulously, upset on her friend's behalf.
"No, he liked me just fine, he just didn't want to be my dad. That was fine, really, I didn't want to be his son either."
"How long where they together?"
Reid turned back to the computer, talking and typing simultaneously.
"A couple of years."
"And you lived here?"
"No, they never lived together, but we spent a lot of time here. I used to love it. Geoffrey gave me the run of the entire casino… except for the bars and the actual casino of course, for legal reasons. I was never much for after-school activities, and didn't really have any friends my own age, so I'd go here instead. There were a lot of people here who liked me and I could get away with almost anything. I had my first driving lesson in the parking garage here, with one of the valets in a guest's 1969 Ford Thunderbird when I was ten. The security detail back then was mostly ex-military and they could fill me up with bullshit stories for hours. There was even this great magician, who trained me to be his assistant for a while."
"Oh," Elle said, "That's where you learned that disappearing coin act."
"Right." He smiled as a memory made its way to the front of his mind. "There were three restaurants here then, I think there are more now, but their kitchens didn't talk much amongst themselves, so they didn't know if or what I had eaten at the others. One summer I ate nothing but ice cream for three weeks before they caught on to me."
Elle smiled. It was rare to get Reid to talk about himself and she was soaking it up. It was also nice to think of him as a little kid who let the complicated math problems rest in order to concentrate on how to get his hands on as much ice cream as possible.
"So…what happened?"
"My mom got sick. The day she got her diagnosis, Geoffrey cut us loose."
"What a jerk!" Elle was horrified.
"He's a busy man. He had no time for a sick girlfriend, just like he never had time to raise a kid."
"But…"
"I know. I was very disappointed in him for a long time and very mad. I had trusted him with my mother, and now he abandoned her, when she needed support the most. Only…"
"Only?"
"Only, he didn't, not completely. He paid for everything, still does. The sanatorium, the specialist doctors, the medication. She's getting much better care than I could ever provide for her and for that I have to be grateful. He never said anything, we never talked about it, he just makes sure all the bills are sent to him."
"What about you? What happened to you?"
"I was going off to collage that fall anyway," he shrugged.
"Did he pay for that?"
"He didn't have to. I had scholarships lined up around the corner. But every now and then money would mysteriously show up on my checking account, until I was 18, so I guess he kept tabs on me."
"But…" Elle was still upset over the man's callousness, but Reid interrupted her.
"I think these are all the matches we'll get. I have found twenty-two male employees that started in the last three weeks."
"Twenty-two? Isn't that quite a lot?"
"It's Christmas season. Lots of extra work."
He printed out hardcopies of all files, as well as making an electronic copy and sending it to himself as well as his teammates and Garcia, with a message asking her to do a background check.
Back in the lobby the others were waiting, Morgan with several DVDs of security tapes in his hands.
"We have identified twenty-two employees who started in the last three weeks," Elle told them.
"All right, I'll call Wentworth. His men can pick them up for questioning." Hotchner said pulling out his phone, but Reid stopped him.
"Wait, I have an idea. We are pretty sure he smokes, right?"
"Yes, there has been cigarette ashes in every room, and according to the analyses, it's the same brand." Elle said.
"Okay, I think I know a way to narrow them down. Follow me. Can you call ahead to let us in backstage?" he asked Jenny, who had followed Morgan back.
"Sure." She stood up on her toes, and pressed a chaste kiss on Reid's lips. "Don't let it be three more years before I see you again, you hear?"
"It won't, I promise."
She punched in a speed dial on her cell and waved as Reid led the team away, with Hotchner right on his heels.
"Where are we going?"
"Out back."
"Why?"
"You'll see."
Reid led them down through a sea of slot machines and turned into a well-hidden hallway. Nearing another door that called for a key card, they were met by a security guard.
"Spencer Reid?"
Reid nodded and showed his ID and the guard opened the door. They entered a brightly lit hallway, with dressing rooms on both sides. Not all doors were closed and Morgan perked right up. He passed Hotchner to sling an arm around Reid's shoulders as they walked past an open door where several scantily dressed show girls were changing costumes.
"So you grew up here, huh? That must have been fun."
"I was just a little kid, Morgan. And they were my mother's friends."
"But still, what a start in life! Your friends must have loved you."
"What friends?"
Realizing his blunder, Morgan's arm slid off his shoulders and his grin faded. "Sorry," he mumbled.
Taking a right they ended up at a heavy door with an emergency exit sign. Reid pushed it open and led the team out, down a steep metal stair, into a wide alley.
"Where are we?" Hotchner asked.
"Behind the hotel," Reid said. "The door we just came through leads backstage, that's were the show girls and other artists are. On the far left," he pointed out towards the street, "is the loading dock for the kitchens, that's were all the food is delivered and where the kitchen personnel come in. The loading dock in the middle is for maintenance, laundry transports etcetera. It's also where the locker rooms for the maids, bell boys, croupiers and so on are located."
"And…" Hotchner still didn't understand.
"And, this is where they all come to smoke. There's no smoking allowed inside, except for some special areas for the guests."
Morgan frowned. "Are we supposed to just stand here and wait for the unsub to come out?"
"No," Reid said, scanning the alley. "It's also the home of Uncle Joel."
"Uncle Joel?" Morgan sounded disbelieving.
"He's not my biological uncle," Reid said, as if that would explain everything. "Give me all your quarters."
Gideon immediately opened up his wallet, searching through the coin compartment, but the others needed more persuasion.
"Why?" Morgan wanted to know.
"Because he doesn't like bills, he likes money with weight."
"And nickels and dimes won't do?"
"They take too long to count."
"Just do what he asks," Gideon said, handing over seven quarters, making the others search through pockets, wallets and, in Elle's case, her purse.
Reid took all the money and the personnel files and made his way over to what Morgan had thought was just a pile of garbage bags. He squatted down and carefully shook an arm sticking out of the pile.
"Uncle Joel," he called. "It's me, Spencer. Remember me?"
A face materialized, two squinting eyes on a bearded face, hidden beneath a knitted cap.
"Spency?" The voice was raspy. "Is that you?"
"It's me, Uncle Joel."
"Hot damn." Two grubby hands caught his face in a death grip and pulled him forward, making him unbalance and he had to put his hands down on the ground to keep from crashing into Joel. A very sloppy kiss was planted on his cheek, before he was released.
"My little boy. You come back now?"
"Just for a visit."
"Did ya… did you bring a little something for your dear old Uncle?"
"I didn't have time to go shopping, but I have this." He disposed the coins in Joel's outreached palms and he grunted in satisfaction at the reassuring weight.
"You always was such a good boy, Spency. Always thought of your fellow man. Bless you, boy."
"Uncle Joel, I have something to ask you."
"Hmm…"
"I'm looking for a newbie. Can you look at some pictures and tell me who you've seen?"
"You can show 'em. You can show me anything."
Reid held the photos up one by one, and Joel grunted yes or no to each. In the end there were five in the yes-pile.
"Most of my newbies has been from over there. Tha's good. Much more Christmas cheer over there." He nodded across the alley where the Mastriano hotel had its loading docks.
"Thanks, Uncle Joel."
"Ya leaving again?"
"Sorry, but I have to go. Take care of yourself, you hear. Don't stay out too long." Reid unwound the scarf around his neck and hung it around Joel's neck. Then he bent forward and softly kissed the man on the forehead. "Merry Christmas."
"Always such a good boy."
His team stood waiting for him, feeling like they had just intruded on a very private moment. Reid waved at them to follow him out of the alley. He handed Hotchner the files.
"These five are the only ones who smoke," he said.
"Are you sure?"
"There's no one sharper than Uncle Joel, he just likes to keep a low profile. If he says so, it's so." He sounded so sure, that Hotchner relented. Getting his cell phone out, he called Wentworth and asked him to have the five men picked up for questioning.
Hotchner and Gideon came back into their office after having interviewed one of the suspects. They found Elle putting a butterfly bandage on a small cut on Morgan's cheek.
"What happened?" Hotchner demanded.
"Our suspect…" he hissed and Elle pressed down on the edges, "Our suspect apparently has a problem with the establishment, as he so colorfully put it."
"Don't be such a baby," Elle chided him, then patted him on the arm. "All done."
Reid came into the room with a coffee cup in one hand, an icepack and a water bottle in his other. Morgan immediately reached for the coffee, but Reid deftly held it out of his reach and pressed the water bottle in his hand instead. He gave him the ice pack too, and then dug out two aspirins from his pocket and placed them in Morgan's other hand.
"Are you okay?" Hotchner asked him as he took a sip of his coffee. Reid had been Morgan's interview partner.
"I'm fine," Reid said, silently wondering just how often he had been asked that question lately, and why it was always Hotchner asking him.
"What about your suspect?" Gideon wanted to know.
Reid shook his head. "No go. He has got a perfect alibi for last night. Apparently he was the keynote speaker at some anti-war/government/authorities/something-or-other pep rally last night. What about your guy?"
"Same thing," Gideon said. "Perfect alibi." He sighed. All five suspects had now been questioned and none had been a valid candidate.
"I'll have Wentworth and his guys check on the alibis of the other seventeen employees as well, just in case," Hotchner said.
Reid frowned, but he knew they had to cover all their bases. But he also knew their unsub would not be found amongst them.
An agent stuck his head in. "CSI sent this over," she said, waving a file at them.
"Great." Morgan took the file and sat down at the table. The others gathered around him. "Okay, let's see," he said, opening the file. On top was a sheet of paper describing what had been done to the envelope. Morgan read it out loud.
"There were no fingerprints on the envelope or the note. It had been closed with water and not saliva, so no DNA. Paper is standard computer paper, can be found anywhere. Same with the envelope. The note was written in Times New Roman 12, printed on a laser printer, no distinguishing marks, no surprises."
It was basically what the team had expected to hear.
"What about the note? What does it say?" Elle asked.
Morgan turned the page and gaped. "You have got to be kidding me!"
"What?"
"This makes no sense, it's just gibberish!"
He put the note on the table for all to see.
MU MT MU TE ML EL LL LM
TM ML ET TL MT TT ML MU MT MU TE ML EE LL TT ML UE TE LL EM ML EL ML ML UT TM LL UE MU UE UT EE LE MT UT UM MT LM EL LM MU EL ML LL TM LL TU ML UE MU MU LL LT ML UU LL EE ML UT UE LM UU MU MT LE UE UT UL LL EE ML UT UE LM UU
ME UE ET TM ML TT ML ML MU LL EE LL UE UT
TL LL ML UL TM LL ET ET LL
"It's not gibberish," Reid said. "It's a cipher."
"A cipher?"
"Yep, from the looks of it, it's a simple substitution cipher."
"Well," Morgan said, "If it's simple, then you can solve it, right?"
"That's not what simple means in this case. It just means that it's a monoalphabetic cipher, rather than a polyalphabetic cipher." Reid said.
"Say what?" Morgan asked, eyebrows furrowed.
"It means that every symbol in the cipher represents a letter and not a word and that every symbol has one and only one counterpart in the alphabet. Only, since the letters in the cipher come in pairs it's probably a kind of diagrapic cipher, but considering that there seem to be a limited numbers of symbols, I'd still call it a substitution cipher."
"Yes," Gideon said. "But can you solve it?"
"I don't know. Ciphers are made to keep secrets, meaning that only those who are privy to the key can solve it, and he didn't provide a key, so I'm going to have to figure it out on my own. I have no idea if I can or how long it might take."
"All right," Hotchner said. "Just do your best. What else's in the file?"
"Preliminary reports," Morgan said and started reading the highlights. "Cause of death was a cut to the throat that severed both arteries as well as the trachea. Death would have been immediate. They have found no unknown hairs, fibers or fingerprints, but the rooms are reported to be exceptionally clean. Do you think he travels with his own vacuum cleaner or something?"
"Just read the text," Hotchner said.
"Signs of sexual activity, but no semen. No trace evidence found that could contain DNA. The writing on the wall is consistent with that on the other crime scenes, and the footprints match also. So it's definitely the same guy. There is nothing different from the other crime scenes. The only thing that stood out was the note. They will most likely not be able to provide us with anything new, but they will keep processing everything they gathered and come back to us with their finding."
They hadn't really expected anything else, but they were still disappointed. They needed an edge, and they needed it fast.
The rest of their stay in Las Vegas did not turn up anything new. Having gathered all evidence and information they deemed possible, they decided to head back home. For, as Morgan put it,
"The unsub will already have left."
They had spent the last morning in the office, making sure they had covered every angle, and said good bye to Wentworth, who seemed glad to see them go. Now they were headed back to their hotel to eat lunch and pack. They were walking from the parking garage, Hotchner on his cell phone, talking to their pilot.
Half a block from the hotel they met a mother with two small children, a girl and a boy, in tow. Unfortunately, and rather incomprehensibly, since it was late December, the children were eating ice cream cones. The woman let go of the little girl's hand to wave at a man on the other side of the street, calling to get his attention. The girl also saw the man.
"Daddy!" she squealed and took off.
"Andrea, no!" the mother shouted, but before the child could run out into the street, Reid intercepted her, lifting her right off her feet, and was rewarded with a high-pitched frightened scream, as well as a shirtfront covered with cold, half-melted ice cream.
The mother was of course both apologetic and very grateful, but Reid shrugged off all thank you's in his usual unassuming way. But that didn't keep his team from congratulating him on his quick reaction.
"Okay, thank you." Hotchner pushed the off button on his cell phone as the team walked into the hotel lobby. Addressing the team he said, "The plane will be ready at nine tonight. So, let's get some lunch in the hotel's restaurant and see what else we can do this afternoon."
"You guys go ahead," Reid said. "I'll just go change my shirt, then I'll catch up with you."
He broke loose from the group and headed for the elevator, which took him to the right floor. He opened the door to his room and unbuttoned his shirt. Looking at the stain he grimaced, and then he tried to roll the shirt so that the ice cream would not transfer to the rest of the clothes in his duffel bag. Looking at his chest he noticed that it gone right through. He went into the bathroom and found a washcloth and washed it off.
When he walked back into the room, Gideon was sitting on his bed. Surprise made him halt for a second, before he went to the bag to find a clean shirt.
"What are you doing here?" he asked with his back to the older man, fearing he already knew the reason.
"It's our last day in Las Vegas. We're leaving tonight."
"I know. I was there when Hotch told us, remember?"
"I thought maybe you would like the afternoon off."
Reid's shoulders sagged. "And why would I want that?"
"I just thought you might want to go see your mother. You don't get to see her very often, do you?"
"No, I don't."
"Have you been back since Fairmount?"
"No."
"And you haven't told her anything about it?"
"Of course not, what would be the point of that?"
"The point would be that she is your mother and she loves you."
"She's sick, Gideon, you can't just tell her things."
"But you can go and see her, right?"
Reid sighed, and turned around, facing the other man as he buttoned the last button in his shirt.
"No, I can't. You can't just visit mom. It takes preparation. You have to tell the staff in advance so that they can prepare her and hope she's having a good day. And…"
"And…" Gideon prompted.
"And I need to prepare. Mentally. Do you think I enjoy seeing my mother like that? In that environment? Knowing that there is nothing I can do to change anything. I'll never get used to that. And right now, I'm too distracted."
"It's almost Christmas."
"I know. I'll fly back soon, but I can't do it right now."
"Are you sure you're not just running away from the problem?"
"So what if I am? Is that the end of the world? Look, I don't mean to be rude, but this isn't any of your business. I will visit my mom when the timing is better. Can't we just go to lunch now, please?"
Gideon gave him a half-nod. "Okay. Let me know if you change your mind."
"I won't."
Reid waited for Gideon to walk out the door and then followed him, locking the door. The whole time he had a searing burn in his gut. Disappointment in himself.
The plane was quiet as most of the team slept. Only Hotchner and Gideon were awake, sitting opposite each other at a small table. Hotchner had several papers spread out before him, but he seemed distracted. Gideon observed him for a few minutes, noticing that the page was never turned, and Hotchner's eyes didn't move.
"What's troubling you, Aaron?" he asked, keeping his voice low.
Hotchner looked up at him and answered in the same manner.
"Do you think he was right?"
"Who?"
"Geoffrey Lohan. Remember in his office, when he greeted Reid? He said that it was disappointing that he was only an FBI agent, when he could be so much more."
"And you think he was right?"
"No… yes…maybe?"
Gideon sat quiet, waiting for Hotchner to continue.
"Maybe he is… maybe we are wasting his talents. He could be so much more."
"Such as?"
"He could discover the cure for cancer, put a man on Mars, become a brain surgeon, win a Nobel Prize… anything. Was there ever anyone who truly could become anything he wanted, it's him."
"And you don't think he wants to be a profiler?"
"He probably does, but he's so young. How can he really know what he wants? I just don't know. Maybe we have been wrong this whole time… maybe Reid doesn't belong with us. And he has changed so much. Did you see how he took charge at Lohan's? He dragged us around, without telling us where we were going."
"We were in his back-yard, so to speak. He knew things we didn't. The information he gathered for us is invaluable."
"I know, but it was the way he did it. It wasn't the normal Reid."
"So? He's gained some confidence."
"You know, someone once said to me that confidence is just the feeling you get before you properly understand the situation."
"That seems like a rather bleak outlook on life."
"I don't know. Sometimes I think it's rather accurate. I just hope he knows what he's doing."
"Have some faith, he might just surprise you."
"I sure hope so."
Reid woke up suddenly. Had someone said his name? He was lying on a short sofa in the back of the plane, with his legs hanging off. One hand rested on his stomach, the other under his head and he had a fad, cottony sensation in his mouth, meaning he couldn't have been asleep long. He kept his eyes closed, but focused his hearing. He could hear Hotchner speaking, quiet words drifting over to him, sometimes hard to hear.
"…maybe Reid doesn't belong with us… has changed so much… how he took charge… he dragged us around, without telling us where… going."
Gideon's answer was too soft to hear properly. "…speak…knew… we didn't… information…"
"I know, but… he did it… not… normal Reid."
"… confidence."
"…confidence is just the feeling… get before… understand the situation."
"…rather bleak…"
"I don't know… rather accurate… hope he knows what he's doing."
"…surprise you."
"I sure hope so."
Reid lay absolutely still, his insides cold as ice, but they were quiet for a long time before Hotchner asked Gideon something about a quarterly report that was due, and then he stopped listening.
His heart was thumping wildly in his chest. They didn't want him anymore! Suddenly he remembered the butterflies in his stomach his first day back. He now knew what they were for. He had been unsure of his welcome. Now the butterflies were back, with a vengeance.
Deep down he had always harbored a secret fear that his time with the BAU would be limited to however long the team's patience with him would hold up, but he had never really believed it. Until now…
TBC
