EASY WAY OUT ¹ ➢ spencer reid

XIII

I drove Reid and I to the coroner's office once we landed in El Paso. The whole way there he stared out the window, his mind going into overdrive. Every so often I'd glance over, watching as the gears turned. At one point, I caught him mouthing something to himself, narrowing his eyes at the lights from oncoming traffic. When we arrived we rushed into the building, speaking with a woman at the front desk who sent us where we needed to go. We raced down a set of hallways, eventually falling into the office we needed.

"Ah, you must be the doctors Agent Hotchner sent over," an extremely tall man stood from his desk, reaching out his hand, "I'm Elliot Warren."

"Dr. Spencer Reid."

"Isla Rafferty." As I spoke, Elliot's hand moved to mine. He smiled as I took it, giving it a quick shake, before offering it to Reid who merely shook his head.

"Welcome, uh," he scanned the room quickly, looking slightly nervous as his eyes fell onto mine, "we can head out and take a look at the bodies." He brushed past Reid and I motioning us to follow. We did, watching as he quickly made his way to the examination room. When we arrived, he pushed open the door, propping it open with his back as Reid and I walked through. The room felt all too familiar, taking me back to when I did this for a living. I scanned the room, eyeing every nook and cranny, nodding my head. It was weird to be back.

"I, uh, had some notes," he rushed over to us, the door slowly closing as he left it, "there wasn't a whole lot that the older bodies could tell us, but I noticed they were missing-"

"Vertebra?" I finished. I walked over to his desk and grabbed two pairs of gloves. I handed a pair to Reid before pulling mine on.

He nodded. "Cs one through six are missing."

"We noticed that too." Reid threw on his gloves as well, adjusting them to his fingers as he walked up to the table where our newest body laid. He got pretty close, staring at her for a while.

"I also found scaring on her feet." Elliot stepped towards to the body, pointing to some very obvious puncture wounds that had been healing.

"She was an addict" I stated.

Elliot nodded, giving me a surprised look.

"She probably didn't want anyone to know, since feet are an easy place to conceal." Reid responded.

"So she was a probably someone who needed to keep her drug habit quiet." I sighed. "Did you find traces of what she took?"

Elliot shook his head.

"Any other markings?"

"Uh, no." he swallowed hard, staring in my direction.

Reid nodded his head as he gave the body one more look. Afterwards, he straightened up, giving Elliot a quick once over. "Can you show us the rest of the victims?"

"Y-yeah of course."

We saw the rest of the bodies, which proved to be less than helpful. We thanked Elliot for his time, saying we'd probably be in touch. He seemed on edge as we left, which seemed kind of weird, but nobody said anything. When we got back in the vehicle Reid turned to face me, chuckling slightly. "I think he liked you." He said.

My mouth dropped open. "What?"

"You didn't notice?"

"No," I retorted, "I was too busy looking at dead bodies like you were supposed to be."

He rolled his eyes. "I was."

I turned on the SUV and pulled out onto the street, griping the steering wheel tightly.