Tequila || Spencer Reid

Spencer

Spencer sat at his desk with a stack of reports in front of him, but the words had started to blur long before the case came in. The bullpen carried its usual rhythm: phones, footsteps, quiet conversations, but his attention snapped to the doors the moment Matthew Montgomery walked through them. Matty's face gave nothing away to anyone else. To Spencer, the small, discreet shake of his head said enough.

Matty had enlisted Penelope Garcia's help not long after he transferred to the BAU. Together, they had searched every database they could reach, every traceable transaction, every digital shadow that might lead them back to Skye. So far, nothing. No hits. No trail. No proof that she was alive except for Matty's unshakable certainty and Spencer's refusal to let grief become acceptance.

JJ walked into the room, the change in her expression enough to quiet the bullpen before she spoke. "Guys, we've got a case, and it's pretty bad." Within minutes, they were gathered in the briefing room. Garcia stood beside JJ, the screen glowing behind them like a wall of evidence. "Las Vegas, Nevada." JJ clicked the remote, and the first images appeared on-screen. "they've found three bodies all in shallow graves within two miles of each other...vics have been identified as Tracy Clarke, Megan Peters, and Kayla Tanner... the backgrounds show zero overlap in their daily lives they didn't know each and came from different backgrounds and social circles, but they were all killed in the same way, only similarity was their looks." Garcia clicked a button, and three faces filled the screen. "all three had shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes."

For one fraction of a second, Matty stopped breathing. The resemblance was not exact, but it was close enough to turn the blood in his veins cold. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. The same delicate shape that, in the wrong light, could become his sister. He schooled his expression before anyone could see the crack. Almost anyone. Spencer noticed. Of course Spencer noticed.

Derek leaned forward, already turning the similarities into behavior. "So these women must remind our unsub of someone who has power over him; he can't hurt that one person, so he finds surrogates to take his anger out on."

Hotch let the room sit with the information for a beat, long enough for the pattern to settle in everyone's mind. Then he nodded after they discussed a few more things, "Wheels up in thirty." The command cut through the silence like a gavel. Whatever this was, whoever was hunting these women, the clock had already started.

Matty was first out of the room, his chair scraping back before anyone else had fully stood. Being closest to the door gave him an easy exit, but Spencer saw the real reason in the set of his shoulders. He followed him into the hall, lowering his voice once they were clear of the team. "are you good, Matty?"

Matty nodded too quickly, the answer more reflex than truth. "Yeah, just a little unnerved."

Spencer studied him for a second, seeing the same calculation he had felt in his own chest. "You noticed it too..." Spencer trailed off, because saying Skye's name in connection with those photographs felt like tempting fate. He had not reacted in the briefing room. He had trained himself not to. But he had seen it. The resemblance was there, and now it sat between them like evidence neither of them wanted to label.

Matty's eyes shifted down the hall, then back to Spencer. "Yeah... I have a feeling that we may find her soon..." It was not optimism in his voice. It was instinct. The kind that came from four years of chasing nothing and suddenly recognizing the shape of a door beginning to open.

The two walked down the hall without saying anything else. Spencer wanted Matty to be right with a desperation that made his chest ache. It had officially been four years since Skye disappeared. Four years of unanswered calls, dead leads, searched databases, and nights when Spencer replayed her letter until the words no longer felt like language. Anyone else would have declared her dead. Matty had not. His parents had not. Spencer had not. Hope, by then, had stopped feeling gentle. It had become a discipline.