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Reid and Emily hurried into the conference room after a police officer that Captain Brass trusted had been posted in the ICU to make sure no harm came to William Reid. "What is it Reid?" Hotch asked as the two entered the room, the map that had been on the white board flailing about in Reid's hand.

"I think I may know what they're doing, or more to the point, where they're doing it." He replied as he tacked the map on the white board. Hotch looked at Prentiss who merely shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "I never thought of it until Prentiss started her lecture, my third one this day, I might add."

"Reid, I never…" Emily began only to be cut off by Reid.

"Anyway, Emily started talking and I was telling her how I was having trouble trusting anyone after what happened and that none of the people I knew were who I thought they were all these years and that she was just a ghost of the woman I'd known, or thought I'd known."

"Reid!" JJ said indignantly, "How could you say such a thing?"

The young profiler went on as if he hadn't heard JJ and couldn't see the hurt expressions on his teammates' faces. "When I mentioned ghosts, it got me to thinking. There are a bunch of ghost towns in this area," he pointed to an area in California desert, just over the borders of Nevada and Arizona, "remnants of the gold rush days. I was wondering if that's where they could be running their operation. They'd need a generator, a satellite and a bunch of computer equipment, but if Tobias Hankel could set something up in that little shack in the woods, I'm sure these people could do that in a ghost town. There'd be no one around them to cause them any trouble. They could go about their 'business,'" he made quotation marks with his fingers, "virtually unhindered."

Rossi watched the young man pace in front of the map, his hands moving as he spoke, occasionally pointing to this and that on the map. It was like he was teaching in front of a classroom. At first he had found Reid's proclivity for rambling on about any subject at the slightest provocation somewhat unnerving. But now that he'd gotten to know him, he knew Spencer Reid was never as joyous as when he was sharing his knowledge with another. He was never arrogant about it. It wasn't like he was showing off how much he knew. To him, he was simply giving you information that he knew so that when he was finished you would know more. He imagined that hadn't gone over so well when Reid had been a young boy in school, or a young boy in university for that matter. He was sure that Reid had always spent much of his time alone, reading books, trying to quench the thirst of a brain that was insatiable. Things to do with his mind and logic he'd always excelled at, but matters of the heart had escaped him. So, now that he'd finally found a group of people that accepted him for who and what he was and whom he trusted and loved like family, this had happened. It suddenly seemed like all of them, himself included, was almost blaming Reid for not shrugging it off in thirty seconds. He shook himself out of his reverie and concentrated on what Reid was saying.

"Some of them weren't much more than train depots where the trains in those days had to stop for water. Once railroad transportation improved, and they weren't needed, many of them just closed down after the gold rush ended."

"So, how many ghost towns we talkin' about Reid?" Morgan asked as he stood, his arms crossed across his chest.

"There are quite a few. Not all of them are closed down. Some have been refurbished and used for tourists, so I think we can eliminate those. Now CSI Hodges said the guy that attacked my dad had sand on his shoe that was found in the area around the Kelso sand dunes. It's got a pinky tinge due to the high quartz content and the granitics. I think it's best to concentrate on towns in that area. It's also the area where that little girl's body was found."

"We'll get Garcia on it." Hotch said.

"I already looked them up on my laptop," Reid interjected. "I think our best bet is Cima." He pointed to a spot on the map. "There's nothing there but some abandoned wooden buildings and a rail yard. It's not far from Kelso so the sand on the shoes would fit and the road that leads from Cima to Kelso takes you to the highway that leads to Barstow where the little girl whose body they found was from."

"Reid," Hotch began, "this theory does seem a little over the top. You expect us all to go to some ghost town in California when there's no evidence that there's anything going on there."

"There's evidence from the shoe Hotch." Reid reminded him.

"That's the only evidence and you must admit, it's pretty small to build a raid on Reid," Morgan agreed.

Reid nodded to himself. So this was how it was going to be, he thought. He'd made no secret of his distrust of his teammates, so this was what he was to get in return. How were they ever going to solve cases like this?

"What about Menendez? We're supposed to be tracking him aren't we?" JJ added.

They were obviously going to make this as hard on him as possible. Okay, he could take it, he told himself. He'd taken worse. "Garcia is monitoring him electronically; Brass' men are keeping their eyes out for him on the street. Detective Vartann and some men are going door to door canvassing the Dinsdale's neighborhood. The LVPD are doing what they can. They can't go to California; we can."

"I thought you didn't trust us," Emily said.

Reid grit his teeth. "How I feel about what was done to me personally and this is different. You may not like the fact that after what happened I didn't just shrug it off by saying shucks, holding hands and joining in a chorus of Kumbaya. I get that. I can't help the way I feel. One thing I do believe is that none of you would ever let your personal feelings get in the way of doing what was right for them." He pointed to Lou-Anne, Rachael and his father.

"Reid's right," Rossi said. "We haven't got any other clues here. Even if it doesn't pan out, we can't lose by going Cima."

There seemed to be a repeat of the day before when Hotch had removed Reid from the case and the pair had stared each other down. Hotch's scowl seemed to be even more stern than usual and his dark eyes looked almost black as their steely glare bore into Reid. Reid's puppy dog eyes had disappeared and they too seemed a darker brown as they looked back at Hotch, refusing this time to be the one that blinked.

"Alright," Hotch said at last. "I'll fill Brass in. Let's get a warrant and then we'll head for Cima, wheels up in thirty." He finished before turning and striding from the room.