nina cried power [SPENCER REID]

twelve.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
INTRUDER ALERT

❖ ❖ ❖

"I've got something!"

Emily practically explodes out of the interrogation room, bursting into the bullpen and making all the heads turn, including Spencer's, his heart soaring.

But she doesn't look at them, or at anyone, and with her files in one hand and her black hair billowing our behind her, she hurries across the room and takes the stairs two at a time, calling out for Garcia.

Hands on Spencer make him jump, and he's already half falling out of his chair when he realises it's JJ, her hand firm around his arm and pulling. Managing barely to get his feet under him, he lets her drag him toward Garcia's office; when they reach it, Emily's already bent over next to Garcia's chair, the many screens illuminating their closely pressed faces.

"Emily, what's going on?" JJ demands, hurrying forward.

"She's transient, he says," she explains in a rush, glancing hurriedly between Garcia, was typing, and the confused faces of her team in the doorway. "She travels, a lot. She never stays in one place for longer than a month. So he couldn't give us an address -- but he could give us --"

"Her bank details," Garcia cuts in, just as her computer dings. She swizzles in her chair, grinning so wide that her gums show, and splays her hands up and out in victory. "Speaking of which, I just froze her accounts."

Spencer brushes forward, past all three women, and squinting he looks at the computer -- and, oh, jeez. His mouth drops open.

"If I saw that number in my account, I think I'd kill for it, too," remarks Garcia behind him, which pretty much sums up exactly what he's thinking. Swooshing across on her wheel chair, she starts to scroll, looking through the recent transactions. "The girl has taste. Boutiques, hair salons, hotels, plane tickets. She's really living the ideal life."

"She's a murderer, Garcia."

"Aside from that part."

"She's not gonna be happy you froze her assets," Spencer mumbles. "All that luxury, suddenly gone? She's not gonna be happy at all."

❖ ❖ ❖

But the rest of the team is happy. Even Hotch cracks a smile. It's similar to the joy when they close a case, sunshine filling the air and smiles wide as they gather things and cut idly in the elevator all the way down to the ground floor.

As usual, Hotch remains behind, and Spencer watches him from down the hallway as he steps into the interrogation room with Huxley, just before the elevator doors ding open and he's bustled inside with the others. Spencer already knows, without knowing how he knows, that will never find out what is done with Huxley -- although, if he has to guess, Hotch probably gave him a hard warning, and let him out into the world to suffer the consequences by his own boss for his indiscretion. Suffering at the hands of a man like Edelstein seems worse than the prison system, from what he's seen of the man so far.