Blood and Battle | Criminal Minds (gxg)

Chapter 28

I enter the conference room to find a familiar face on the screen. "Scrawny?"

"What?" Morgan eyes me strangely.

"Um, never mind. Who is that guy?" I quickly change the subject. Everyone's here already.

"Our third victim."

My mouth opens in shock. "Wait, he's dead?"

"Do you know him?" Hotch questions.

"Well, no, not really..." I approach the table. "But his friend tried to pick me up at a bar about an hour ago," I explain, "and then called me a bitch when I rejected him."

"Which one?" JJ  displays a picture of each of the three other boys from the bar.

I glance towards the screen. "Middle one."

"You turned him down?" JJ seems surprised.

"The bartender was way cuter," I smirk.

JJ raises an eyebrow. "He was?"

I smile as I take my seat. "She."

"She was?" Morgan chimes in.

I laugh as Hotch shakes his head. 

Elle sits silently in her chair.

"Alright," JJ starts. "Three serial victims, bludgeoned to death."

"With what?" Elle asks.

"We're not sure yet–"

"Hammer," I interrupt. "The angle of the swing matches the weight, he used the dull side to crack their skulls and the other side to cut into them."

They all glance at me sideways. I raise an eyebrow in response.

"Okay, so a hammer. Anyways, they didn't find the weapon," JJ continues, "and all three of our victims were killed in a three block radius."

"Does he leave the bodies?" Reid keeps his gaze on the photos in front of him.

"In the allies he kills them in."

"Carli, you said Tyler was at a bar earlier?" Hotch directs his question to me.

Scrawny. "Yeah, him and a few other guys."

"Was he acting strange? Did anything happen that would separate him from his friends?"

"They left together, if that's what you're asking. But to be honest, Hotch, I was focused on something else," I point out with a slight smirk.

Morgan chuckles again, and in my peripheral vision I see Elle roll her eyes.

"Okay. Reid, Gideon, go to the crime scene. We talked to the victim's friends and they agreed to meet back at Shooters, the bar they were last seen at. Someone should go talk to them and whoever was working at the time."

"I'll go," I offer, a little too quickly.

"I figured. Take Morgan and Elle," Hotch orders as he leaves the room, not giving me or Elle a chance to object.

I glance at each of them. "Alright, let's go."

"This will be fun," I mutter as I leave the room.

---

I step out of the backseat of the SUV, my blazer unbuttoned and exposing my gun. Morgan comes around from the driver's side to me and Elle.

"There they are," Morgan gestures in the direction of the friends of the victim.

I follow his gaze and watch Frat Boy do a double take as he sees me. I turn back to Elle and Morgan. "You guys got this, right?"

"Somewhere to be?" Elle accuses.

"Just a certain bartender to interview," I smirk, already walking away.

Riley stands outside the entrance, talking to a police officer.

"I already told you everything I–Carli?" She stops when she sees me.

I speak to the officer as I approach. "I'll take it from here."

He walks away and Riley looks me up and down, her eyes stopping on the gun and badge at my waist. "Is this what you usually look like?" she jokes with a smile.

I smile back. I'm wearing the same black jeans from earlier, now with a black blazer over a white button-up shirt. "Only when I'm working."

"So all the time, apparently."

I sigh. "Look, I know you've already done this, but I need to ask you a few questions." 

She nods, gesturing for me to continue. 

"You were watching those guys at the bar, right? Was Scrawny–I mean, Tyler–acting weird at all? What was his reaction when his friend came up to me?"

"Um, annoyed, I think. At least he looked like it." She glances towards the other guys talking to Elle and Morgan. "And as soon as you rejected Frat Boy, he got them to leave pretty quickly."

"Was he checking his watch constantly, acting fidgety?"

"Yeah, now that I think about it. He kept looking at his watch and the clock behind the bar." She frowns. "Is that important?"

I take a deep breath, speaking as I exhale. "It might be. Thank you."

"D'angelo!"Elle calls me from across the parking lot. Part of my brain registers that she used my last name.

"I have to go. Thanks for your help, Riley," I say with a small smile.

"Anytime."

I walk away with a smile on my face and head towards Elle. Morgan talks to some officers a few feet away. "How's your bartender?" Elle's voice betrays her sarcasm.

"Her name's Riley, and she's not mine. But she gave us something." 

Elle meets my eyes, curiosity replacing the annoyance. 

"She said Tyler was constantly checking the time, rushed his friends out."

"Like he had somewhere to be?"

"Or someone to meet."

We're facing each other now. The streetlights light up half of her face, the other side in shadow.

I want to ask her what's going on, why she's acting so strangely, but I already know. She's jealous. But she shouldn't be. She has no reason to be.

We don't work. She knows that. We both do.

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a/n
what do you guys think of Riley??
:)