nina cried power [SPENCER REID]

three.

CHAPTER THREE:
SNAPSHOTS FROM SEEING THE WORLD

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"Do you remember this woman's face?"

Adjusting her glasses on the pointed slope of her nose, the elderly blonde lady on reception reviews the picture Spencer has slid across the marble reception desk, then shakes her head. Spencer wonders if that movement alone might snap her spindly neck, where the skin is loose and wrinkle and hangs from her pointed jaw. She's in a red uniform, like every other worker in the hotel, but a small little card pinned to her lapel reveals her to be the reception manager.

Another man is manning the desk and deals with the growing pile of guests behind them, irritated about them holding up the queue, despite the badges and guns on show. It's midday, check-in just opened, and they've been here five minutes and have achieved nothing except getting in everyone's way in the cramped, carpeted lobby of the hotel.

The hotel. Bless it's heart (and it's mahogany furniture and marble hearth). Despite its miniature size, is trying its best to be luxurious; it's surprising to him that a Russian diplomat stayed here, but then he guesses the visit was probably kept mostly under wraps.

"It was two months ago. The night of Lebenov's murder, I'm sure you remember," Reid reminds.

"I remember the night of the murder, but only in parts," the lady says, her voice hoarse from a lifetime of cigarette smoke. Her accent is somewhat French, and she eyes the two of them with some wariness. "I don't know her. I've never seen her before." She glances between them, paling slightly. Her loose neck bobs as she swallows. "How come nobody's asked about this before you?"

"It was two months ago, Reid," Prentiss says, ignoring the lady's question. She steps up, leaning both arms on the high marble counter and sliding back the photograph to pocket it. "Can we speak to your staff?"

She nods.

"Okay. Thank you," Emily says, and Spencer nods curtly in appreciate. "Before we go. Is there any way of getting to the upstairs rooms without being seen by cameras? The footage shows this woman coming down afterward, but no sign of her going up."

"No," the woman says, shaking her head. "All stairways and elevators have cameras . . . I suppose, there's the fire escape."

Sighing, Reid shakes his head, mostly to himself. They'd already covered that in the briefing -- not on that side of the building. Besides, scaling a fire-escape, smashing a window, clambering in, maybe falling on her ass... It doesn't seem very her.

He realises after a moment that his internal monologue is almost defensive of her, as if the fire-escape theory offends him. But he's not offended. That's not why he 'defends' her -- no, he defends her because he just knows that she won't do that. The wink, the confidence, the posture, the red lip and shine of her hair and glamour in her clothes. A woman like that wouldn't stoop to clambering through a smashed window after scaling a rickety ladder.