At the coffee maker across from Eric's office, Paris was carefully pouring Dr. Reid's cup of coffee when Agent Morgan came over,

"Hey kid, that for Reid?" he asked, Paris looked back at Eric's office and nodded,

"Uh huh," he replied, Morgan grinned wide

"How much sugar did he tell you he takes?"

"A couple teaspoons," Paris replied "why?" Morgan's grin went even wider and he chuckled

"Kid, he was being discreet, he takes a lot more sugar than a couple teaspoons."

Now Paris began to grin as he poured himself a cup, Lori hated the idea that Eric let him drink coffee, but there wasn't much she could do about it and Eric didn't think it was a big deal, because it was only once in a great while that Paris actually drank the coffee. And as Eric constantly pointed out, it wasn't like he was drinking straight coffee anyways; Paris put so much sugar and milk into the coffee that Eric didn't even think it could still be called real coffee, more like sugared milk with a hint of coffee somewhere in the cup.

"How much then?" Paris ventured to ask, Morgan reached over to the sugar bowl, put the spoon on the tray, and simply dumped the bowl in, Paris watched in amazement as the sugar poured into the small cup, he blinked in shock.

"That should be enough, if it's not enough, tell him this coffee is from Agent Morgan, he'll get it." Paris nodded; he looked into the near empty sugar bowl and shook his head… slowly he reached for the spoon and dumped what was left of the sugar into his cup, before filling the remainder of the cup with milk. "Apparently Reid's not the only sugar addict around." Paris's ears went red and he laughed a little "you really drink coffee?"

Paris was about to answer when Eric came up behind him

"Yes he does and that actually isn't a lot of sugar by Paris standards, about a pound works for him." Eric finished peering into the now empty sugar bowl "Paris?"

"I know I know…" he reached under the cabinet and pulled out a bag of sugar and replenished the sugar bowl

"Thanks," Eric knelt down so he was eye level with Paris "Paris can I trust you to stay here for an hour or so and still be here when I get back?" Paris nodded

"Yes sir" he muttered

"And please don't harass Gage about his computer, it…it's becoming a touchy subject." Again the boy nodded, Eric patted his head as he stood up, he turned to leave, but looked back down at Paris "and pal? Answer whatever questions the agents have for you, but don't bug them ok? My office is yours until I gets back, but I expect you to do something productive. Got it?"

Without waiting for Paris's answer, Eric headed out, but not before Paris thought of something he had to ask.

"uncle Eric?" he called, the detective turned and faced his foster son

"What Paris?"

"Can I borrow your cell phone?" Eric raised his eyebrow, he had two cells, one was police issue and the other was his private phone, he usually kept both on him, but both numbers were known by close friends and family, Lori usually called his police issue first, better chance of getting a hold of him.

"Why?"

"I want to call Jess and thank her for getting my homework together,"

"Cant it wait until we get home?"

"It could, but it's not something I wanna put off, she took the time to get all my stuff together, the least I can do is call her and thank her. Plus you said that there was a good chance I was sleeping here tonight."

Eric sighed and unclipped his phone from his belt and handed it to Paris

"No long distance phone calls and no ordering a pizza got it?" now Paris rolled his eyes as he slipped the phone into his pocket, Eric turned again to leave, but looked back at Paris "you didn't have lunch did you?" he shook his head, Eric looked at his watch "it's 12:30 now, do you want a sandwich," Paris shrugged, Eric rubbed his chin "I'll call you when we get through, if you want something to eat, just let me know then what you want, ok?" now Eric headed towards the door, Morgan, giving him a half grin, followed Eric out of the station.

Paris quickly called Jess, of course she wasn't home from school yet, but her mother answered and promised to have her call Paris when she got home.

After hanging up and slipping the phone back into the pocket of his jeans, he carefully picked up the two coffee cups and started back towards the office, but the board with the pictures caught his eyes. He had been trying to see them, but now that he had the opportunity he was wary, after all the last photo of his best friend was on that board.

Despite what Paris did know about the case…how the kids were killed was the one part Eric had managed to keep from him. Taking a deep breath, Paris closed his eyes, and counted to ten slowly, trying to collect his thoughts as his heart began pounding loudly.

He opened his eyes and walked over to the board, even without his glasses, Paris could see everything in the photos very clearly.

Minus Grant, Paris didn't recognize any of the other kids, but all of them had the same thing in common, they all looked like they were asleep. Paris's eyes darted across the different photos, taking in each one of them into his memory, from the random photos of the kids being kids and their school photos, to the ones next to them, each one in a different place, but all "asleep".

When his eyes landed on Grant's picture, he winced, the photos they had of Grant made Paris's stomach drop; and he wondered if the cops had made the connection, he wondered if Eric had made the connection.

The first photo of Grant had been taken nearly four months earlier at Grand Gamers Domain. Eric and Grant's foster father Paul took the boys to the arcade during Christmas vacation.

Eric had taken the photo himself, Paris had ducked out of the photo just as the camera clicked, but Grant had just rolled his eyes at his friend and let Eric take his picture as he stood in front of 'Big Rig' a truck driving game that Paris had whooped him at.

The second photo, in which Grant was sitting on the floor of the arcade was also the GGD, Paris could see the skeet-ball machine that Grant had spent most of his tokens on; closing his eyes, Paris could picture the entire arcade; where Eric had taken Grant's picture was just ten feet away from the corner that the skeet-ball machine was situated.

"Hey, you ok?" Paris looked behind him, it was Reid,

"Y…yeah…sorry," he handed the agent his coffee, he took a sip of his own and made a face as the hot liquid burned his tongue, apparently the milk hadn't cooled the coffee down enough, maybe sticking it in the fridge or in front of the AC would do it. Reid took a sip of his own coffee and also made a face, as he looked down at Paris, not with an angry face like Paris expected, but one of confusion "um…yeah Agent Morgan said you were being discreet with two teaspoons, he poured almost half the sugar bowl in there and said to tell you that the coffee was from him," Reid gave a short laugh and shook his head "sorry," Paris said looking down at his feet

"Don't worry about it," Reid peered over Paris's shoulders "coffee?" he asked, a hint of surprise in his voice, Paris nodded before looking back at the pictures. "What is it?"

"Might be nothing…" Paris started to say, he put his cup down on the nearest desk and moved closer to the board "but you guys know that these are the same places right?"

Reid joined Paris at the board, looking to where the 10 year old was pointing.

"Same arcade?"

Paris nodded

"Christmas break, uncle Eric and Mr. Kilbourn took me an' Grant to the Grand Gamers Domain," Paris tapped the picture "Uncle Eric took that picture," now Paris's eyes along with his finger moved to the other picture "that picture? That's also the GGD…just a different part, actually that's the skeet-ball machine, it's about ten, maybe twenty feet to the left…it's…it was Grant's favorite game, he loved technical games, but he was a master at skeet-ball." Paris paused "you know how at arcades you get tickets with certain games depending on your score?"

Reid nodded

"Sure,"

"Well, you know how some of the prizes, especially the really good ones are worth like 500, maybe even 50,000 tickets sometimes more than that? Well, the day that this picture was taken? Grant won a portable DVD player he got that many tickets."

"Did Grant ever go to the Game-Works arcade?"

Paris nodded

"Twice, I've never been." Paris paused again "but Grant wasn't all that thrilled with it, he said it's got a great game selection, but the skeet-ball was a big disappointment."

Reid grinned a little

"Did he say why?"

Paris returned the grin

"Grant may have loved technical things, but when they spilled into his skeet-ball he got annoyed, apparently Game-Works was trying a new version of skeet-ball, it registers the movement of a person-"

"and accurately displays it on the screen?"

"Yeah…some kinda virtual reality thing, I heard Nintendo is in the works for a new system exactly like that and the rumor is that it's being tested at different large arcades around the world, including Game Works, but no ones supposed to know that it's for Nintendo. For anything else Grant would've been thrilled, but not that, nothin' messed with his skeet-ball."

Paris laughed a little, then stopped quickly, here he was staring at images of his best friend next to the word 'victim five' and he was laughing about a stupid game. Paris felt his heart pick up speed and he started to feel a little queasy, what was wrong with him? What kind of friend was he…he hadn't felt any kind of emotion since Grant had gone missing and had barley a flicker of emotion when he had learned that his best friend had been found dead.

"Paris? You all right?" Reid asked

"Ye…Ye…yeah…didn't have lunch and didn't have much breakfast…so I'm gettin' kinda woozy. Um…I'm gonna run to the vending machine in the hall, k?"

Reid nodded and watched Paris jog not towards the hall, but to the bathroom, he sighed and looked back at the photos. Paris was trying to tell him something about his friend, without betraying him.

Why had the UnSub picked Gamers and not Game-Works, Game-Works was a newer arcade, it was larger in square footage than GGD, which meant more people and more people meant an easier time blending in.

Not to mention, from what Reid had read, it had a lot more games than the older GGD arcade, both arcades were easily a kids paradise, but something had made the UnSub pick the GGD as opposed to Game-Works.

Reid was still staring at the photos intently thinking this over when Paris came out of the restroom. He looked less pale than before, but still looked really shaky. When Reid turned to face him, Paris gave a kind of half grin as he returned to his coffee.

"Paris, you said that Grant liked GGD because it hadn't tried to computerize skeet-ball?" Paris shrugged

"Yeah. So?"

"You wouldn't have an idea who else knew that?"

"I guess some people did, not sure how many 'xactly or who for that matter, aside from his foster parents and my aunt and uncle." Paris put his hands on the desk behind him and lifted himself up onto it, looking at Reid with almost a sad look in his eyes; he really didn't feel comfortable talking about Grant like this.

It was like their friendship had been nothing more than a psychological observation, just waiting for his death so he could give that observation to someone to study.

"Paris?"

"Look Dr. Reid, Grant didn't talk to many people; at school, around, he didn't like to talk to people and not many people liked to talk to him." Reid leaned against the opposite desk and nodded, encouraging Paris on "he didn't talk to his classmates 'cause none of them cared to find out what he had to say, maybe he had some people he hung out with at school, but friendships were a tough commodity with Grant. His file probably already told you that though, his guidance councilor was really meticulous when it came to his students…especially Grant. He liked what he calls special cases."

Now Reid's curiosity was really peaked

"Special cases?"

"Yeah, Grant told me that he was helping him with an application to a private high school in Boulder City. He's a nice guy, goes out of his way to help kids…especially kids like Grant and me." Reid stared at Paris for a second or two Paris raised his eyebrow and gave Reid the same look he was getting "what?"

"You've met Grant's guidance councilor?" Paris nodded

"Yeah, he came to my school a couple times to talk to my grade…y'know helping us get ready to go to middle school next year" Paris put his hands up grinning and made quote signs "the big 'transition' from elementary school to middle school." Paris paused "he's a nice guy, Eric probably already talked to him about Grant, but might be worth talkin' to him again, if anyone knew Grant better than me it was Mr. Cramer. Grant was in his office pretty much every day, just venting or recovering from the daily fights he got into…."