The Shadows We Dance With

Ch27: Caught on Film

The tension in the conference room was palpable as the team scrambled to find any clue that might lead them to Spencer Reid. Every second felt like an eternity, the weight of what they had discovered about his past hanging over them like a storm cloud. They had already seen too much, and the fear of what might be happening to Spencer at that very moment drove them to work with a fevered intensity.

Penelope Garcia was at the center of it all, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she dug deeper into the newly decrypted files. The room was filled with the soft hum of computer fans and the occasional murmur of conversation as the team tried to piece together the puzzle of Spencer's past and how it connected to his current situation.

Garcia's mind was racing as she sifted through the data, her heart aching with every new revelation. The files on Pride were extensive, and now that they had access to them, the information was flowing in faster than she could process it. But she knew that somewhere in this digital mountain of evidence, there was something that would lead them to Spencer.

She focused on the mystery man who had been with Spencer the night he came to the police—the man who had helped him escape Valentino Marino's clutches. The name that kept coming up in the financial records of Pride was Harrison Montgomery. Garcia cross-referenced the payments from the club's account to Montgomery with the surveillance footage from inside the club. As she combed through hours of footage, comparing faces, she finally found what she was looking for.

"There!" she exclaimed, her voice sharp with excitement. "I've got something."

The rest of the team crowded around her as she brought up a series of videos. The footage showed a young Spencer Reid on stage, dressed in one of the provocative outfits they had seen earlier, performing for the club's patrons. But it was the man in the background that caught their attention—a man who was clearly watching over Spencer, his eyes scanning the crowd, always on alert.

"That's Harrison Montgomery," Garcia said, pointing to the man in the video. "He was a bodyguard at Pride. His job was to keep unpaying customers away from Spencer."

They watched as the man—Harry, as Spencer had probably known him—stepped in multiple times, putting himself between Spencer and various club-goers who got too close, too handsy. It was clear that he was protecting Spencer, but there was something more to his demeanor that caught the team's attention.

"In the earlier videos, he looks annoyed," Prentiss observed, her brow furrowed. "Like he's just tolerating Spencer."

"But look at the later ones," Rossi said, leaning closer to the screen. "They're different. He's... protective. Almost like he cares about Spencer."

Garcia nodded, pulling up more footage. "There's a shift in their relationship. At first, he's just doing his job, but later... later, they seem much closer. Friends, maybe even more than that."

Hotch's expression was thoughtful as he watched the interaction between Spencer and Harry in the videos. It was subtle, but the change in their dynamic was undeniable. In the earlier footage, Harry was distant, professional. But in the later videos, there was a softness in his eyes when he looked at Spencer, a gentleness in the way he guided him off the stage, away from the leering eyes of the patrons.

"Harry didn't know the truth at first," Hotch said, more to himself than anyone else. "But he must have found out. He saw what was happening to Spencer and decided to help him."

"That would explain why he was with Spencer when he came to the police," JJ added. "He wasn't just a bodyguard—he was a friend. Maybe even a protector."