𝓼𝓪𝓯𝓮 ➣ 𝓼. 𝓻𝓮𝓲𝓭

𝓽𝔀𝓮𝓷𝓽𝔂-𝓯𝓲𝓿𝓮

On the way to the newest crime scene, Hotch calling them to explain that they'd found a list in Randy Slade's little brother's room.

"Chelsea Grant," Reid murmured, scanning down the picture of the list. "She's here."

Once they got there, Reid and Mara headed inside, greeting the local police. They profiling the crime scene, silence falling between them as they worked.

Reid found it amazing that she was the only person that he could just shut up and it wouldn't be weird at all. He didn't have that nervous tick of spewing facts and statistic to fill the awkward void.

"The UnSub crushed Chelsea's throat so she couldn't scream and he pulverized her ribs," Reid said, pulling his attention back to the crime scene. "Sending fragments of bone into her heart."

"Principal Givens was high-profile, Chelsea wasn't." Mara said, tucking her hands into her pockets.

"Right now the only thing connecting them is that they're both on the kill list." Reid replied, standing up straight and tossing his gloves into the trash.

"A list that Brandon Slade kept for ten years," Mara said. "But he was in custody when this happened. The question is, how did the UnSub get the exact same list?"

"Well, we ruled out a partner, but not conclusively," Reid answered. "Slade made every part of his plan public. It doesn't make sense that he would hide a partner. He didn't want to share the credit."

"This weekend is the partner's best chance to claim it." Mara sighed, nodding at the detectives as they headed back to the station.

"Partners of dominant psychopaths are usually submissive, but that doesn't mean that they can't be intelligent or that they're physically weak," Reid explained as they got into the truck. "This UnSub laid low after the bombing and successfully evaded police and FBI. We think he fits the loner profile Slade debunked."

"He grew up in an abusive home, which kept him from forming the normal social bonds in high school," Mara said. "Rossi and Hotch interviewed all the outcasts from back then. How did this guy slip through?"

Reid had dialed Rossi's number and the team was listening in. 

"Even outcasts eventually form friendships, but this UnSub was the outcast the outcasts rejected," Reid said. "He won't stand out in an capacity, and as a matter of fact, most of his fellow students probably won't even remember graduating with him."

"And that invisibility is what made him attractive to Slade," Rossi said through the phone. "This partner wouldn't steal the spotlight. Slade targeted the cafeteria because most the names on his list ate there together during fifth period."

"So his hatred festered when the names on the list emerged from the cafeteria as media heroes, so now he wants to finish the job that Randy started." JJ said.

"Emotionally, this weekend if more a high school reunion to him than a memorial," Rossi replied. "We got to reunions to show who we grew up to be. Often that means changing everything about who we were."

"Consciously or not, Randy Slade revealed clues as to his partner's identity when he detonated his bomb." Hotch said.

They gathered everyone that was in on the list, who all happened to be in town for the memorial. "Agent Tate will be conduction cognitive interviews to see what the survivors might remember."

"You want us to walk through what happened that day?" one of the survivors asked Hotch. "Didn't we do that when we were seniors?"

"Yes, but there may be some details that you didn't think were important at the time that could help us now, things that could help us learn about the partner." Hotch replied.

"Randy made us all lie facedown, I didn't see anything." Someone said.

"None of us did." Another said.

"Well, that's not true," a girl spoke up. "Jerry did. He's the guy Randy made lock the doors."

"Yeah," Jerry spoke quietly. "Yeah, I did."

"The interviews we're going to conduct won't focus on what you saw, but what you felt." Mara said to the group.

"You want me to tell you how I felt licking the tile in the cafeteria?" a girl scoffed and stood up, throwing her back over her shoulder. "Thanks, I do that in therapy twice a week. How about how I feel now, seeing my name on a list of people who should be dead?"

"The Boise police have offered everyone on this list a protective detail." Hotch rebutted to the girl.

"Like that would've done Chelsea any good," the girl replied. "She was killed in her hotel room. Jerry's not on the list. Let him help you. I'm out."

Meanwhile, Reid was putting the pictures of the ones on the list on the board, coming to a conclusion.

"So, as you can see from your board there, this kill list is weirdly similar to high school," Garcia explained to the group. "Group one is like the popular kids: prom court, football team, dean's list, the Heathers, if you will."

"Kids in Slade's social circle," Morgan nodded. "What about number two?"

"That would be the kids from the other side of the tracks, close to getting kicked out," Reid replied to him. "Stoners, burn-outs, mental cases."

Morgan furrowed his eyebrows at the final picture on the board. "Chelsea Grant is on this list."

Reid shrugged. "Maybe Slade targeted them because they disgusted him?"

"But they didn't threaten Slade's sense of superiority," Morgan argued. "He wouldn't have even cared about them."

"Maybe the partner's on the list," JJ added, bringing in coffees and setting them in front of the two men. "They'd be closer to his social status than Slade's."

"Why would the UnSub list kids that he fit in with?" Reid asked.

"Apparently, that's how this clique worked," JJ replied. "Kids in it were meaner to each other than kids on the outsode."

"Garcia, separate out all the kids who got into trouble regularly," Reid said. "Then eliminate the names that the partner put on this list."

They could hear her typing through the phone, eager fro her answer.

"Now, who's left that came to the memorial?"

"Right."

"Whoever made the list wouldn't put their name on it-"

"Lewis Ramsey."