The Female Unsub

Chapter Six: Spencer's POV

I storm out of the room, slamming the door and walk right past my team. I go into the mens bathroom and grip the sides of the sink so tight, I swear I might break it. She's pushing my buttons and I'm letting her do it. I have a gut feeling that she is responsible for these missing men, but that feeling means nothing without physical evidence.

"You okay, Reid?" I turn and see Morgan leaning against the wall.

"No," I say harshly, "She's doing something with these men, I just know it."

"Hey," Morgan puts his hand on my shoulder, "we're going to figure this out, man. She's smart, but we've been doing this a long time and have put away smarter unsubs."

I sigh, I know he's right but I hate feeling inferior. "We need to find her client list."

"Garcia already," Morgan starts but I interrupt.

"She said her full list isn't on her phone, but that means that part of it is."

--

"Mi amor, I told you, I've run her contact list against all of the business accounts that have paid for her travels and the list I compiled of missing and dead men who fit our victimology and I've come up empty," Garcia says, sitting in front of her wall of monitors, showing me all of the databases she's used.

"Can I see her phone?" I ask.

Penelope hands it to me and I scroll through the contact list. There has to be some way she keeps track of her clients when she's on the road.

"What if," I start but stop myself.

She could put her clients name in some sort of code, but what would it be? I stare at the names, none of them seem odd or spelt in a unique way and without us knowing who any of her clients are other than the ones that are missing, there's no way of proving this theory.

I rub my eyes, trying to get my mind to slow down and focus on this one thing. I stop, suddenly realizing that we were looking so closely at one aspect of this case, but not the whole picture. "Garcia, if you were Sloane, would you fly across the country and only see one client?"

Garcia sits back in her chair, smiling at me, "no, I would want to make the most out of my trip and collect as much revenue as possible."

"So, we know she arrived mid-day on Friday. After she checks into her hotel, does she go anywhere?"

Penelope starts typing away and pulls up video footage of Sloane arriving at her hotel at 3:29 pm. She fast forwards the tape a bit, both of us searching for her.

"There," she says pausing the video. The time stamp says it is 7:41 pm as we see our suspect walk out of the hotel wearing a short black dress and heels and climbs into a black SUV.

"Garcia, who," I start to say but she has already zoomed in on the license plate of the car and is searching it in a database.

"The car is registered to a private car service company and was last used to transport," Garcia says as her fingers furiously fly across her keyboard. She stops and her eyes go wide. The screen shows that the car was ordered by the law firm that our latest victim worked for.

"Do we know where the car took her?" I ask Garcia, silently hoping that this will be the piece we were missing the whole time.

Garcia shakes her head, "I can try following them on street cameras, but since the SUV looks like the other hundred on the road, I doubt I'll be able to keep track of hers."

"What about her phone?"

Garcia shakes her head again, "Based on her location, she must have left her phone at the hotel."

"Son of a bitch!" I exclaim and slam my hands down on Penelope's desk. She jumps and stares at me, in the twelve years we've worked together, I don't think I've ever been this frustrated around her.

"I'm sorry," I mutter and lean against the table she has in her office.

"It's okay," she says standing up and placing her hand on my shoulder, "we're going to get her, okay?"

I nod but don't say anything else. I don't know what it is about Sloane that irritates me so much, but it's not fair to Penelope to take it out on her. I take a few deep breaths and try to calm myself down.

"Hey Penelope?" I ask after a minute.

"Yeah?"

"She knew she was leaving the hotel, why would she leave her phone?" Garica shrugs, clearly not sure where I'm going with this. A smile creeps on to my face and I look at her, "because she didn't want anyone to know where she was. Think about it; she literally has an airtight alibi for Saturday night, including her cell phone location to track her movements. Why would she go out on Friday night and not bring her phone?"

Penelope's eyes go wide, "because that is when she was actually meeting with the victim."

I nod, "his wife did say that she hasn't seen him since Friday evening. What if they were together both Friday and Saturday night? That would explain the $3,000 in her safe. Then when they went to dinner on Saturday, she had a partner take care of him so she could have an alibi."

I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. Is this the information I've been waiting to get to rattle her?

"Garcia, can you print off the screen grab of her getting into the SUV for me? I need to go back in there."