Heurism | Spencer Reid¹

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: P911

TW// Discussions of pedophilia

—

"The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children."

     — Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

—

Four months have passed since our clash with Garner. There's this sense now that something changed in all of us. That feeling of security had faded a little more. I stand outside the building, working up the courage to go in. A part of me just wants to call it a day. Taking another drag from my cigarette, I let the faint buzz it provides take over my mind. The evening air is cool and crisp, the glow starting to fade from the dusk sky. I can't do this. Not today.

Once I've reached the end of the cigarette, I promise myself, I'll go inside. But it burns away and I remain.

The doors slide open and I look up, hastily discarding the butt when I see Hotch walking towards me. "Good morning," he says. His eyes scan me, noting my tensed frame and quiet demeanour. "Is everything all right?"

"What? Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

"I'm assuming you'd rather the team didn't know about today?"

My expression sours. "Yeah, if that could stay between us, I'd appreciate it."

The team means well, but their optimism and need for inclusion can be stifling. I also know that it will only be a matter of time before they start to ask questions. Anticipating this, he says, "You know, Garcia's been asking for a while. She sees it as some sort of rite of passage."

"Tell her I'm a Jehovah's Witness."

That earns a small chuckle from him. Seeing me start towards the doors, he comes to walk alongside me. "Anyway, I didn't just come out to talk about that. We have a new case."

I nod slowly, getting into the elevator with him. "Oh?"

"I got a call from SSA Cole."

My interest piqued, I glance over at him. "CACU Cole?"

"She said to tell you, 'Peter is back.'"

—

The briefing room is unusually quiet today. I stand by the board, arms crossed tightly and my glare fixed on the screen. The footage it shows is dark. A few lamps illuminate the narrow room. It's hard to see what's in there due to it being in black-and-white, but I recognise a small mattress in the corner with some untidy bedding.

My eyes follow the form of a little boy as he paces around the space. The tightness in my chest worsens at the sight of him, a lump forming in my throat. An auction countdown ticks away at the bottom of the screen — '17:28:33.' Gideon stands to my right, Hotch to my left. Seated behind us at the table, Reid speaks up, "40,000 images of child porn are posted every week on the Internet, along with the appearance of 20 new children. The appetite for babies as young as four months old has soared. Many of these children have been kidnapped and sold into paedophile rings."

Next to the footage, a photo for the auction pops up. It shows him in that same greyscale hue, his sweet face smiling back at me. He can't be older than seven by now. Blinking in an effort to clear my head, I say, "I've seen him before. A year ago, he appeared on several websites. We tried to find him. It was a big operation, took a month of searching. And then he was just... gone."

"Until tonight when SSA Cole telephoned us."

Having been completely silent since the briefing began, hunched over the coffee table in the corner of the room, Morgan looks up. "Katie Cole?"