The rest of the team clamored into their workroom. Montoya was talking loudly about how boring her morning had been to the captive audience of Isabelle Platt. Who Patric noticed was carrying a bag of some kind of nuts. Every few seconds she'd reach her hand into the bag and pop a few more into her mouth.

No sooner had they taken their seats at the table than Jason strode into the room looking confident and in far better spirit than he had been in a while. Patric had a feeling his dark mood was largely because of a new resident in his home.

Looking around Jason clapped his hands together and addressed the room. "Alright ladies," here Montoya cleared her throat and, none too discreetly, motioned to Patric, "and criminal," Jason amended, "hope you brought your popcorn, because we're gonna be listening to those wonderful call-ins again."

"Aww, why're you doing this to me boss?" Montoya whined. "They were hard enough to get through the first time."

"Shut up you," Jay said, not unkindly, "Or resident Sherlock has yet to hear them." That is if he wasn't the one to make them, Jay tacked on in his head.

There was some fiddling around with a laptop on Sophie's end and then she pronounced them ready to go.

Patric waited, scarcely breathing, to hear the voice on the recordings. The voice of a killer. "It's 3:09 am. Tell your boys to go to the park. I've left them a little present alone in the dark."

Patric waited for more. When nothing else was said for a couple of seconds he looked around the table to see all eyes focused on him. "Was that it?"

Sophie sighed as everyone just looked at one another, apparently nobody would actually talk to Patric but her. "That was it for the first one."

"Zabien?" Patric questioned.

Sophie just nodded.

"Can I hear the next one?"

Without a word Sophie started the next recording.

"It's 1:01 am. You'll find body number two not far from the first. Find the link between Fitzgerald and Benet. Do your worst."

At the name drop Patric sat up straighter in his seat, "He just admitted they're linked?"

Sophie shook her head.

"Wait, I'm the link, aren't I?" Patric realized voice going flat.

To his surprise Montoya answered, "Gee, and here I thought you were stupid or something. Good job putting that together," her sarcasm was so thick Patric recoiled afraid it would smother him.

Sophie hit play.

"It's 1:13am. Body number three is waiting by the fence and the cherry trees."

That was Abby. Patric just sat in his chair listening to the words spoken right after his friends' deaths. It was jarring. The man was there, probably right next to them, when he made these calls. Fresh after killing them. It almost seemed like he was bragging about the crimes. How could a human being act like this after killing another human being?

Seeing his distress Sophie asked as gently as she could, "Do you want to stop."

He immediately shook his head. If he agreed to stop, he'd never want to listen to the last two recordings. But Patric also knew that the two victims left would be harder to stomach, even, than the first three. He and Nico had a romantic relationship and Mrs. Johnson. God, he had loved that woman. She was everything he wanted in a parental figure. Kind but stern an avid story teller and a good listener and now, he'd never get to hear one of her stories again. Never see her smiling face as she laughed at some clumsy thing he did. In a small voice he requested, "Please play the last two."

Sophie looked like she thought it was a bad idea but did as he asked. She watched him carefully as he listened to the recording about Nico Garcia.

"Sizzle, sizzle little prick," here Patric adopted a look of confusion but whether it was because of the use of the childlike song to recite this crime or something else, she didn't know. "Shouldn't have thought with just his dick," It looked like there might be tears in his eyes. And also like he might vomit. He looked shaky and pale. Sophie must not have been the only one who noticed this because there was a waste basket shoved roughly into his lap in case he decided to blow. "Fucked the wrong guy and now he's dead, sizzling and smoldering in the flower bed. This murder happened at two-one nine. At the rater you're solving them I'll be just fine."

Jason watched the kid for his reaction kind of hoping he'd hurl. He was a little disappointed when Patric took a deep breath and seemed to collect himself. "There were so many things wrong with that, I don't even know where to begin," the boy finally spoke.

Jay gave him a sharp look, not expecting those words, especially because his team hadn't found it anymore relevant than the rest of the recorded evidence. Crap, he was going to have to have a conversation with this kid. "I don't care where the fuck you begin as long as you start talking."

Patric just stared at the man slack-jawed for a minute, shocked that Jason had spoken a full sentence to him. "I-I guess I'll start from the beginning," he took a few minutes to collect himself then began his explanation. "Nico wasn't Hispanic," he began addressing the derogatory first line of the call. Four sets of eyes were immediately hanging off of his every word.

"Nico Garcia wasn't Hispanic?" Montoya asked.

"Nope," Patric answered popping his P. "He was one hundred percent Syrian."

"Then how'd he get a last name like Garcia?" Isabelle asked around a mouthful of nuts.

Montoya muttered under her breath, "How'd you get the last name of Platt?" causing Isabelle to throw some of her nuts at her.

Completely ignoring the childish display Patric explained, "He moved here with his mother when he was eight after the death of his biological father, Here, his mom married a man with the last name Garcia and they agrees that Nico should take on his last name."

"Ohh," Montoya was the first to recover after that explanation.

"That also means it was someone who only paid attention to his name. Also 'fucked the wrong guy,'" Patric spat angrily. "I don't know how the killer knew that."

"What do you mean?" Sophie asked slowly.

"I broke up with Nick because he couldn't be monogamous."

"Huh?" Montoya piped in.

"Monogamous, dummy," Platt snapped, "Nico was cheating on him."

Montoya rounded on her, "I know what fucking monogamous means. I mean," she looked at Patric almost apologetically, "I just always heard you two were fuck buddies."

"Why do people always say that?" Patric groaned embarrassed. Jason noticed his cheeks had heated to a nice shade of pink. "I've never had a fuck buddy in my life."

"Now that I don't believe," Jay spoke.

"Good thing I don't care what you think then, huh?" Patric shot back quickly.

"Patric," Sophie interjected hoping to get this conversation back on track, "did you notice anything else different about this call?"

Smiling gratefully at Sophie's none too subtle subject change Patric said, "Yeah, just a slight difference. Is this the only one out of the five calls that didn't start with the time?"

As soon as Patric asked that Jason realized that it was the only one that didn't start with the time. But he didn't think it was something that was necessarily significant and he said as much to the boy. "We'll make note of it, but if I had a guess, the guy just changed the order around so it worked better with the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

Patric nodded, that made sense to him. Just about as much as anything else about the serial killer made sense.

There was only one more recording to go and it was Mrs. Johnson's. He wasn't sure if he could handle listening to what the killer said about her. Before he could chicken out Sophie pressed play. The voice of the killer was once again filling the room, "It's 4:09 pm. I've gone to her house to pass the time. Mrs. Johnson's old, it was a mercy crime."

At that Patric jumped up sending the trash can clattering to the ground. He was so angry. How could anyone say that about Mrs. Johnson? How could anyone do that to her?

He swore.

Jason raised an eyebrow. He was pretty sure the kid just spoke in another language, either that or he sneezed. But, then again, didn't rich kids usually know several languages? He didn't know. He wasn't some privileged white boy.

Said privileged white boy looked like he wanted to break something. He settled for kicking the trash can across the room with more force than Jason thought he had. It hit the wall with a clang. Jason saw instantly that his poor can was damaged beyond repair.

"Oi! What did my trash can ever do to you?"

"The trash can? Nothing. You? You let the real killer get away with murdering five people and only have me to show for it," Patric hissed madder than Jason had ever seen him.

"According to our evidence, you're pretty much a shoe in for the roll of the murderer," Jay reminded the furious blond curtly.

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. "Fuck your evidence. It's not worth shit."

"And by the end of this week you'll have proved that," Sophie reminded the boy sweetly.

That little bit of kindness directed at him was enough to send Patric over the edge emotionally. He collapsed into his chair in a boneless heap and sobbed.

                                                             ~GP~

An hour later Jason walked back into his team's office. He had taken Patric back to his house after the pussy had calmed down a little bit. Now it was just him and his three favorite girls, excluding his mother, of course. He sat down roughly at the table with the rest of his team. "So, what do you think?" He looked at each in turn, for their reaction on the events of the afternoon.

Montoya was the first to answer, albeit, rather reluctantly, "Boss, hate to say it, but I don't think he's the killer."

"Too green," Isabelle agreed.

Sophie just nodded her head. Finally they agreed with what she had thought all along.

Sighing, Jason spoke, choosing his words carefully, "I get the feeling he's a good actor," at the outrages looks on his girls' faces he could tell they thought Jason was going to say he didn't believe Patric's little spectacle earlier apparently he had the three women completely believing his innocent act. And Jay had to admit, he was pretty close to believing it too. "But I don't think he's that good at acting."

"So what do we do?" Sophie asked grinning now that she knew the man believed Patric at least somewhat.

"We let him have his week to prove he's innocent," Jason stated as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

A heavy silence followed his words until Platt asked the question on everyone's mind. "What if he can't?"

"Hopefully he finds something. If not, Patric Riot's going to trial for crimes he didn't commit."

                                                           ~GP~

Patric woke up to his Phone ringing. He immediately realized several things. He was laying on Jason's couch covered with a blanket. His head was absolutely killing him from that horrid display of emotion earlier and his phone was ringing. His phone, which meant that Jason had gotten his stuff from the precinct for him.

Scrambling for the annoying ringing electronic, Patric quickly answered it so it would stop its shrill noise.

"Hello," he greeted flatly. He really didn't feel much like talking to anyone right now. Probably shouldn't have answered.

"Patric! How comes you're not coming to help me anymore?" the accusatory voice of Russell whined through the speaker.

Wincing, Patric pulled the phone away from his ear and decided it would hurt him a lot less if he put the thing on speaker. "I can't, Russell, not for this week," Patric explained.

"Oh?" Russell questioned. "Why not?"

"I'm" Patric paused trying to think of something he could tell the man that wasn't a lie but wasn't the whole truth either. He settled for, "I'm helping the police with their latest case."

"The police? Really?" Russell's disgust was evident. "What have the police ever done for you? Did they come when your daddy was beating the shit out of you and your sister? No!"

And Patric couldn't even refute his words. Because everything Russell said was true.

Even so, Jason and his team weren't there when Patric's problems were occurring, so he saw no reason to show them any hostility. Instead of further fueling Russell's rant Patric decided to change the subject to the only one he knew would get Russell to stop.

"How's Miranda doing?"

Russell moaned in despair, "Not good, Patric, she misses you something awful. I don't know how she's gonna take it if you don't come back all week." Miranda was one of the regulars at the soup kitchen. She had been homeless for many years and turned to dark ways to make money. Ever since Patric started helping her she had been doing better. Russell had a huge crush on the girl. But Miranda seemed to only have eyes for Patric.

"Don't tell her," normally Patric would never say anything like that but with Miranda's past she had some abandonment issues and it was better for her not to know. He'd come back next week and she'd be none the wiser.

"Oh no, Patric," Russell whispered, "I have to tell her."

"Fine Russell," he wasn't going to argue with the man, "Just don't tell her I'll be gone for a whole week. Tell her I'll be back soon."

"Alright, I'll see you soon Patric," Russell chirped.

"Yeah, see you next week," Patric smiled gently hanging up the phone.

Today ad been exhausting. He shut his phone off and snuggled into the warmth of the blanket feeling safe and comfortable for the first time in a long time laying on the couch of the police officer who was probably going to arrest him.

                                                             ~GP~

Jason and Sophie were walking out of the precinct together. Montoya and Platt had left earlier and Jason had a suspicion that they were going on a date. Sophie looked at him, her usually gentle gaze hard as steel, "What's this I hear about you not feeding your guest?"

"What!" Jason had no idea where this was coming from.

"Patric... today at lunch I gave him food and commented on him eating so fast and you know what he told me?"

Jay just waited for her to answer the question she asked. It sounded more rhetorical anyway.

"He told me he hadn't eaten in days," She glared at him and smacked him on the shoulder, "days Jay! Just because you don't like him very much doesn't give you the right to starve him."

"I didn't," he tapered off when her glare intensified, "fuck."

"Fix it," she ordered firmly before walking to her car to go home.

How was Jason supposed to know the dumb fuck wasn't eating? Really, was he supposed to watch the guy twenty-four/seven? Maybe he should watch him in the bathroom to make sure he wiped his ass too. But... he really didn't know Patric wasn't eating. He'd just assumed... well, you know what they say about assumptions.

Jason was getting this sinking feeling that Patric Riot's life hadn't been as charmed as he had been led to believe. He was still a vandalizing graffiti punk, but maybe there were reasons for his actions. Fuck, Jay'd probably have to start being nicer to him now.