puzzles of a heart | spencer reid ✓

prologue

Her nose tickled from the pungent smell of the room.

The soggy sandwich Valeria Quinton's mother packed for the plane ride rested uncomfortably against her stomach. She should've thrown it out at the airport or left it on the overpriced and bumpy taxi to New Haven, Connecticut but instead, had spent the past hour seated on a couch in the reception's waiting room, her heels tapping rhythmically against the tiled floor and nails being chewed to its beds. If anyone was staring, they would meet the gaze of a girl's hollow eyes resulting from the absence of sleep, tense figure and the dreadful posture.

Make sure you're there at noon.

Valeria's fingers hovered over the recent message from mom and bit the insides of her cheek. Not a word of encouragement but instead, a few blunt and short words strung painfully together to make a straightforward sentence. She debated her reply, retyping several times before swiping out of the conversation, completely disregarding her message. It was almost a test to see if she cared or not, but Valeria was not betting.

The Neighbourhood played in her ears as she traced over the suitcase beside her feet, occasionally nudging it with the heels and receiving a tiny amount of serotonin from the way it wobbled. She flipped over her phone: nothing. Her mother probably took Beth to cheer practice and had no connection. It doesn't surprise her when she almost missed her name; her face an unmistakable shade of red when she approached room three and knocked twice on the door.

It swung open on cue. "Hello. I'm Professor Elliot Howard, how do you do?"

"Valeria Quinton. You would've spoken to my mother on the phone." She took his hand.

He beckoned her in, and she followed suit, nudging the suitcase beside the door and taking a seat in the chair facing him. She examined him while he typed furiously on his computer; he couldn't have topped thirty-five. He was clean-shaven and his teeth were straight when he smiled. She wasn't testing her luck when she guessed he probably has a young daughter named Emma or Olivia from the ages six to eight. A blonde, young trophy wife sitting at home with a white BMW parked in his two-story house's garage.

"How was your flight?" Howard broke the uncomfortable silence and Valeria knew he caught her staring.

"Long. And boring," she said bluntly but remembered her mom's efforts to get her here. "The world looks better through a plane window."

Howard tilted his head, his blue eyes leaving the screen to search her face for a second. "Why's that?"

"Everything seems so insignificant and small. It's like nothing matters, you know? Like freedom. It's freeing." Valeria elaborated for the sole purpose that he'll take a liking to her and won't decide that she was a lost cause within the first five minutes of the interview.

He doesn't reply to her dull thoughts but instead, turned his chair towards her and rested his hands under his chin. "You know why you're here, so why don't you try to impress me?"

She thought about the mushy sandwich inside her jacket pocket. It was made almost ten hours ago.

Howard continued despite the silence. "You graduated top of your class at Yale?"

"Yes." Its getting thrown out the moment she leaves this place.

"Tell me about yourself."

Valeria's focus drifted back to the professor's clear eyes training on her's and he seemed to be awaiting an answer or a statement or perhaps even a 'fuck off'. "What do you want me to say? You know everything about me."

Howard laughed, but it sounded forced. "Is this a tactic you're using to land you this internship?"

"I'm an adult who's pulling all-nighters almost every week and I'm even not in grad school, please, I wish I had the brain capabilities to make smart choices."

"You don't seem to realise how prestigious and unique this position is."

"A senator mother who works in Congress with intimate relations with the FBI director can get you anything."

He rubbed his eyes, ignoring her arbitrary statement and proceeded to fire off the mental list of questions he had in his head. "What inspired you to pursue political science and law?"

"You know, I wanted to be an astronaut growing up." She had crossed her legs gingerly and was digging her fingers into her palms out of habit. "Yeah, I was fucking basic."