The Ghost of Princeton ||Spencer Reid||

pull the thread

CRESSIDA

"I don't understand why Tara gets to do it and not me." I said, sitting in Emily's office. Over the last two weeks I had visited Spence more days than I hadn't, had still checked on his mother everyday and spent every spare hour I could scouring for some kind of information or evidence that might be able to help him.

What happened the day before yesterday, however, had thrown off my plan entirely. My hours had been spent worrying and wondering if he was okay. Millburn had been placed on lockdown, which meant I couldn't go and see him. Apparently there was a poisoning which resulted in five inmates being affected.

I couldn't help but wonder if that was Spencer, if that was his way of upholding his promise, because Frazier had been one of those poisonings. It was why I wanted to go there, to talk to him about it and know for sure if that was what happened.

"Tara has a doctorate-"

"So do I." I cut her off, and I was starting to see why they had chosen for Tara to do it instead of me.

"Cressida, the person who does his psych eval needs to be level headed and know who he is in order to get the best outcome possible for him. You know him well, I'm not arguing that, nor am I saying you don't care about him because it's obvious that you do." She told me, and I kept quiet. "Tell me, do you think that if you were sent to do it instead, that you would have a balanced outcome?"

"Are you trying to say I'm too close?" I asked, my voice immediately quieter than it was before.

"No, I'm trying to say that I don't think you doing his eval is a good idea. You've been to see him how many times over the last few weeks?" I know she didn't really want an answer, but I knew I had been to see him nine days out of the last fourteen. "I think it's best that, to Spencer, you stay a friend. While he might open up to you easier, I don't want him to associate you with those memories."

"So you're looking after the relationship between us, without consulting either of us about it." I asked, trying to hold in the tears that were stinging my eyes.

"Why do you want to do his eval? Would you be able to do it without your emotions getting in the way?" She asked, I shook my head and wiped away the tear that was falling down my cheek.

"I want to do it so I know it's done carefully, and..." I am fucking jealous of anyone who gets close to him. Emily was right. I wouldn't be able to do it without my emotions getting in the way, and that was of no benefit to Spencer. "I want to do it because I need to know he's okay. It's bad enough he's in there for something he didn't do, and now the place is on fucking lockdown and I can't stand not having him here with... us."

I made sure to not say 'me', because if I did then that would definitely give away everything, although guessing from her expression I assumed I already had. Maybe I should have stayed in Cyber, where no one can make deductions on how I'm feeling because we were so isolated. There was no profiling for a living, it was just computers and limited human interaction.

"I need to know he's okay because I should have worked everything out by now and had him back home."

She began shaking her head, letting out a sigh as she looked to the closed door to her office, as if checking it was closed before she spoke.

"This isn't your fault, it's on Scratch. He made it hard for us to prove that Spencer was framed, he is just as intelligent as you are in the same area as you. It will take a bit longer to solve this than it would a normal case, we just have to find the loose thread. Spencer doesn't expect us to solve this overnight, he expects us to take our time and make sure we can get him out by proving he's innocent." Emily said, her eyes once again flicking to the door. "And I thought you had a theory, which is more than what any of us have at the moment."

"I don't have a theory, I need more information before I can make that jump." I told her, she nodded.

"It's still better than nothing, which is what the rest of us have. Do you need to bounce ideas-"

"No, I just need to find a connection." I was still hesitant to share the inkling of an idea that I had, because I didn't want it to be wrong. If I was wrong then I would feel so fucking stupid and I hated feeling that way. Emily's eyes were pressing me for more information, so I figured I could at least tell her. With the door closed it was unlikely that anyone else would be able to hear, so we could keep it between ourselves. "It's probably very far-fetched, but one of the officers at Millburn... something feels wrong about him."

"You have good intuition, so it doesn't sound far-fetched. If you think there's something off then we trust you."

"I don't have him connected to anything else though. There's nothing that brings him back to Scratch, not a single fucking thread to pull on." I told her, bringing back her analogy from before.

"Why do you think he's the key to this?"

"His actions, what he's done to Spencer and what he's said."

"Like what?"

I froze, because I wasn't sure if Spencer would want me to share the information. If he would want me to bring it up.

"It's okay, don't tell me if you think that's best." She said, as if she could read my mind. "Again, I trust you. If you think he's off, and that he is part of what's going on then keep digging. If there's nothing that ties him to Scratch, look for a different connection, there is a chance that Scratch had nothing to do with this, even if he is the most likely option."

"But that is where everyone's focus is-"

"Exactly, we can focus on Scratch. If your lead is pulling you in a different direction, follow it. The rest of us have Scratch covered, do what you need to so we can get Spencer out, pull on the thread and find where it leads, no matter who it is you find at the end of it." She said, and I nodded. "What are you waiting for? Go." She told me so I immediately stood up from the chair.

"What about Spence in the meantime?" I asked before I turned to the door.

"Tara should be done with the first visit today, you can ask her when she comes back if he's okay. She might need a second opinion on what happened anyway, and you are the other person with a psychiatry doctorate." She said, so I took a shaky breath and wiped away the remnants of tears that were still sitting in my eyes.

"Okay." I walked out of her office then, before I could break down crying, and went to my desk and woke up my computer.

Officer Lionel Wilkins.

His name was all over my screen in all the documents I had open. There had to be something here that could help Spencer. So I took a deep breath, and started working, pulling on the one thread any of us had.