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"In the end, I just write about violent crime. The real heroes are the people here beside me. Now, give a warm welcome to our next speaker, Dr. Spencer Reid of the BAU." Patricia Cornwell said, Mara not even looking at him.
"Thank you," Reid spoke into the mic. "Ms. Cornwell will be signing books at the end of the session. I am here today to talk to you about, uh, paraphilias and their relation to violent crime."
Mara glanced down at her feet, swallowing the laugh in her throat at his awkwardness. "Does anybody know what dendrophilia is? Yes, a fetish for trees."
She listened to his long speech. His long, awkward speech. She couldn't help but think about last night. She loved Reid, of course she did, but was she in love with him?
While Mara was answered all the questions the members of the audience had, Reid disappeared into the hallway.
When Mara finally found him, some guy had just handed him a card, and his eyes met hers. Reid rolled his slightly and started to turn away.
"Reid, wait, please." Mara said to him.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him around, struggling to meet his eyes. "Look, about last night, I'm sorry. There's a lot of things going on in my head and I'm having a lot to figure out. I can't promise you something right now."
"You couldn't even say it back." He mumbled back.
"Reid, you know I love you, you know that," she said. "I wish things were easier, but they're not. We can't be together right now. Not right now."
"Not right now, not before, not later, not ever, right?" He snapped.
Mara's eyes filled with tears. "Spencer, please, you're my best friend. You're my only friend. We're friends."
"Friend's don't..." he stopped, exhaling in frustration. "Friends don't feel the way I feel about you."
He turned around and headed towards the elevator.
"Reid!"
He ignored her and she followed him, not getting to the elevator in time. She grunted and took the stairs, heaving once she got to the top floor. Reid had just stepped into his room and locked the door.
She knocked on, her forehead resting against it. "Spence, please."
He ignored him, brushing the tears from his face as he packed up his stuff and planned on taking an early flight home.
Mara opened her mouth to say something but her phone started ringing in her pocket. She answered Garcia's call, her back pressing against Reid's door.
"My sweetness, what's wrong?" Garcia asked her.
"Nothing, P, I'm fine," she replied. "Just tired."
"Start drinking tea before bed and not coffee," she recommended. "Anyways, the team has a case in San Francisco. They're expecting you."
"We'll be there."
"You two having fun?" Garcia said and Mara rolled her eyes. "I heard about the booked dinner at-"
"I gotta go."
She hung up and knocked on the door one last time. "We have a case. Wheels up in thirty."
She packed up her stuff and headed to the air strip, Reid arriving at the last minute. He sat as far away from her as he possibly could, burrowing his head in a book.
She read out the case to him, knowing it was time to be professional and not fighting over their relationship.
"David Atley and Nicole Puli, both twenty-four, both grad students at Berkely. Shot multiple times in their vehicle."
Reid looked over the crime scene photos on the tablet before furrowing his eyebrows. "The Zodiac?"
"It's the same MO, same victimology, same geography, and two souvenirs were left at the crime scene."
"The photo is Marcia Miller, she was found near Napa in nineteen seventy-one," Reid said. "Strongly suspected that she was a victim of the Zodiac, but police never confirmed it, and they didn't publicize the case."
"So, the Zodiac took the photo after killing her and then saved it all these years?" Mara asked, trying to meet his eyes.
"The Zodiac's last confirmed victims was the cabdriver Paul Stine, he mailed pieces of Stine's bloody shirt along with his letters to prove it was him," Reid replied. "This photo could prove he's back."
"Bloody shirt?" Garcia popped up on the screen, scaring Mara. "That was the second souvenir that was left at the crime scene. Preliminary tests say that the blood type is O-negative."
"Same blood type as the cabdriver." Reid nodded.
Garcia wasn't a profiler of any sort but he could see the tension between the two. Something happened and Garcia would love to find out but neither of the two liked their lives being pried in to and Garcia was relentless. So, she just stood by and waited to do anything they needed.
"How old would Zodiac be by now?" Mara asked Reid. "The murders took place in the late sixties."
"Yeah, uh, December twentieth, nineteen sixty-eight to October eleventh, nineteen sixty-nine, to be exact," Reid said. "But he was suspected of other crimes, and he sent letters and codes to newspapers until nineteen seventy-four. He would be around sixty by now."
"Yeah, but it doesn't take a lot of strength to pull a trigger."
"No, but it takes a lot of skill not to get caught for forty years."
Garcia hung up and the two went back to their own thing, Mara trying to think of something she could say to Reid to make up for what happened.
She could tell he was quietly seething right now, so she planned to talk to him when he calmed down.
