The Ghost of Princeton ||Spencer Reid||

be objective

CRESSIDA

My head was in my hands, the words from my phone call with Cooper echoing over and over as I sat in the conference room. I had to stop panicking, I had to focus so we could catch Cooper and stop him before he...

"So that phone was a burner. It was turned off the second after the phone call to Cress and likely disposed of. It was the first thing I checked," Penelope said. My eyes opened and I looked at the tablet in front of me. Harrison Cooper's file was open on the screen, and all I was trying to do was find anything that could help me. "Spencer's phone is also turned off, but I have everything set up so the second it turns on it will start tracking."

"If it turns on." I corrected her, lifting my head out of my hands so I could look her in the eyes. "It won't turn on, Cooper knows better than that. It's probably already in a bin so it will be useless to us."

"So what can we use? There has to be something. You can't just pull an FBI agent off the street without a trail," Tara said.

"Yes you can, quite easily. It's the same as taking anyone off the street and not leaving a trace, it happens every day." I corrected her too, aware that they were only trying to help but needing some competence from those around me.

"Cress does have a point," Luke said.

"We only have a few days to figure this out, or Reid won't survive. We need a single lead to help us, one piece of information-"

"Cooper said they were in a van." I cut Emily off, realising what had stuck out about the conversation with Cooper. It was that he'd handed me that piece of information without thinking. "He said me asking Spence where they were was stupid because all Spence could see was the inside of a van." That was after Spence plead for me not to go after him. After he begged me to stay away.

Did he really think I would do that?

"We need a bit more information. Vans aren't uncommon enough for that to-"

"When Spencer leaves to get us breakfast he always leaves at seven-forty. He walks to the bakery that's seven minutes up the street, gets our food and coffee and walks back. That way he walks through the front door at the same time as my eight o'clock alarm." I ignored the strange looks from everyone in the room, well everyone except for Rossi. Instead of indulging everyone with personal information I kept going with what I had and what it meant.

"He left to get breakfast this morning, but he never made it to the bakery. That means Cooper took him between seven-forty and seven-forty-seven, before he called me at eight-seventeen. That's thirty to thirty-seven minutes of potential travel time and a specific window for you to find a van on surveillance footage in our area, Garcia." I said, she nodded slowly, her eyes wide.

"Okay, so we have the how and the when, but what about why. Why didn't he take you?" Matt asked, and I knew the question was going to come at some point. "It's obvious there's something going on between you and Reid, but what exactly is it?"

"Spencer and I..." I trailed off, trying to figure out how much information I wanted to give them. Maybe not everything, but enough. "Spence and I have been together since our mandated break after Cat." I explained, unable to look anyone in the eye.

"You've been together for six and a half months and didn't tell any of us?" Penelope asked, and I had to stop myself from snapping. This wasn't what we needed to focus on right now, we needed to focus on finding him.

"We were seeing how long it would take for someone to ask." I said, closing my eyes as they began to sting. "We were playing a game, to see if we could hide it and..." I couldn't get the rest of the sentence out as I dropped my face into my hands. As I forced myself to breathe slowly and hold in the tears that wanted to fall from my eyes.