His Secret (Sequel to Fibonacci)

Chapter 3 -- Deciphered

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No One's POV

Ever since their return to the BAU offices, the team has been in deep discussion at the infamous round table, secluded in the conference room with the door shut, trying to figure out how to move forward, specifically trying to determine the possible identity of Jay's new accomplice. All accept for Spencer Reid. He, instead, had spent the last hour scribbling all over one of the available white boards, occasionally stopping to survey his chicken scratch whilst nibbling on the end of the blue dry-erase marker in his hand. 

As the conversing slowly came to a halt, Spencer finally figured out Jay's true message and got the attention of his stressed out coworkers, "Guys! I think I have something here." He did in fact have something, he knew he had the answer. 

"What have you got?" Hotch asked, ready to hear what the young genius had come up with. 

Spencer quickly scanned the white board before stepping aside and explaining, often gesturing to the words on the board that everyone else could barely read, "Jay was trying to send us a message...," Spencer paused, already beginning to desire just meeting Jay alone, keeping his team safe, "If we take each of the statements from each inmate proceeding by floor chronologically, so floor 1, then 2, and finally 3, we get: 'You meet with me soon, this all ends at once. At Mallows I come soon, not all alone. Alone or a team of failures, someone dies.' I figured that these statements have some sort of secret message hidden among them, but the question then becomes which words make up the message...then I remembered.......I told Jay..when he had me....that my favorite Fibonacci sequence was the one beginning with 2,2,4...stay with me here, if you assign each word in each sentence a number, starting over after reaching each number of the Fibonacci sequence sequentially, you'll find the words." 

After meeting a sea of blank stares and the occasional look of utter confusion, Spencer expanded, "Take the first sentence, 'You meet with me soon, this all ends at once'. If you number the words like I said, you would get 'you' as 1, 'meet' as 2 which is one of the numbers in the Fibonacci sequence so we start over when we move on to 'with' as 1, 'me' as 2 which is the second number in the sequence thus starting us over again to 'soon' as 1, 'this' as 2, 'ends' as 3, and finally 'at' as 4 which is the next number in the sequence; of course, 'once' doesn't count as anything in our riddle because it would be number 1 which is not in the Fibonacci sequence. We do that with the other two sentences we were given, and take the words that were numbers 2,2,4 respectfully, and we get the words of our final message. From the first sentence we get the words 'meet', 'me', and 'at' as 2,2, and 4, you see? Our final message, with all the words that coordinate with the first three numbers of the Fibonacci sequence, will end up being: 'meet me at Mallows come alone or team dies.'" Spencer then pauses, taking in a deep breath. 

"How on earth did you figure that out? I still don't get it completely, but...wow." Emily responded, dumbfounded.

Morgan grins and adds, "Your brain never ceases to amaze me, pretty boy." Spencer's cheeks flushed red at Morgan's compliment before returning as much of his focus as he could muster back onto the situation at hand.

Hotch nodded a silent agreement before reasoning, "Well, we can safely assume that this message was meant specifically for you, Reid; I know none of us could've figured this out...but what does this accomplish exactly?"

Rossi added, "Right, now all we know is that Jay wants to meet somewhere at some time that we don't know." Spencer knew. Ever since he heard the word 'Mallows' today, Spencer knew that Mallows Bay would be a significant location for this case; he concluded that 'Mallows' must indicate Mallows Bay as Spencer could not remember any other significant meanings associated with the word 'Mallows' except for the mallow family of flowering hibiscus plants...and Spencer remembers most of everything. The question then became whether or not Spencer would tell his team this information. If he did, they would all end up heading to Mallows Bay, probably scaring Jay off or initiating something worse; Jay did say in his message that team or no team someone would die, and Spencer refused to let one of his teammates, one of the members of his family, die over something that is all his fault. If he chose to keep this information to himself, he could go to Mallows Bay alone, thus eliminating the possibility of putting his teammates directly into harms way while also keeping Jay calm by giving him what he wants...'come alone'. 

"I'll go talk to Garcia and see if she can help figure out what 'Mallows' could mean, maybe find a possible location. Everyone, just try to stay focused on finding out the identity of this new unsub Jay brought with him." Hotch instructed. 

Shortly after their boss exited the room, Spencer made to do the same, not before being stopped by the words of none other than Derek Morgan, "And where do you think you're headed, boy genius? Don't you think it might be a bit dangerous for you to be out and about by yourself?" 

Spencer turned back around in the doorway of the conference room and responded, "I'm just getting a breath of fresh air. I can grab coffees, does anyone want one?" 

Morgan crossed his arms as he stood up from his seat at the round table and answered, "Yeah, I'd love a cup...but I better tag along. You see, my order is a bit complicated, and I want to make sure they get it right." 

As Morgan headed towards Spencer and the doorway, Spencer replied, "I think I can manage remembering your order, Derek. What is it?" 

Morgan stopped, right in front of Spencer, threatening to cause the young profiler to blush furiously at any moment, "Trust me, it's a really hard one...come on." With that, Morgan moved Spencer out of the doorway gently with his hand upon the younger man's chest as he made his way out to one of the SUVs, jumping into the driver's seat, Spencer not far behind. As Spencer climbed into the passenger seat, he silently wondered if he made his feelings towards Derek obvious to the rest of the team. He had surely blushed when Derek approached him back there. Did anyone notice? Would anyone care? 

After driving around for a while, it was clear that Morgan had no intention of arriving at any coffee shop. His death-grip on the poor steering wheel and the way his jaw clenched every moment or so signaled to Spencer that his best friend had something on his mind, and it was not his 'complicated coffee order'.