Apprehended (Amber Alert Series Book 3) (3 page)

BOOK: Apprehended (Amber Alert Series Book 3)
7.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

 

"I don't understand why he chose these girls. They have nothing in common, and there are no similarities between them besides their looks," I stated as I slid another file off the pile and into my hands.

"Well it could be just as simple as their looks," Callum suggested. He lifted his head momentarily to look at me before he put his cheek back to his fist.

"A broad range of people fit this description, it could be anyone that's taken next," I said as I flipped open to the picture of Tegan. She had short blonde hair with blue eyes, and when compared to the other girls it was obvious that there wasn't a strict image of the type he wanted, but only a basic description. 

I could see why people thought it was a Steve Bennett copycat because Anna and Audrey looked similar to these girls, but then again all blondes kind of look alike if you look at enough of them. Sure the hair color could be a little different by a few shades, but they will always be about the same. Just because the girls were blonde and have similar age didn't mean anything. He could be using these girls for something other than Steve Bennett ever did.

That was clear from the fact that no more bodies had been found
yet
. Steve always got rid of one girl before getting another one. This guy was collecting them, but for what I wasn't sure. I was about to ask Callum what he thought of my theory, but I glanced up to see him asleep on the table. His head had been hanging dangerously low to the table for a while now, and it looked like sleep finally took over. We had been awake for almost twenty-three hours straight trying to find a break in the case.

Of course, we ran into more dead-ends than breakthroughs, but it was understandable. The team was sleeping in shifts so that we could have eyes going over everything we had around the clock. It wasn't hard since we didn't have a lot of information to go on. Callum had pulled reports of the girls that the copycat had killed when the team last called in for help. A chill raced up my spine at the thought.

What had made him suddenly kill all those girls? There were ten found in quick succession, all kidnapped prior, some for years, but now it made sense where they had gone. They didn't runaway or leave their families, they were taken. The answer still remained, why? Those girls he took earlier didn’t look anything like the girls he took now. Why did he take them, and what caused the change in his targets?

It had to be something small,
I decided as I tried to look over the files again.
The answer is in here somewhere, I just need to see it.
I wanted to find out why it was these girls so that we could prevent more being taken, but what could it be?

I was about to ask Callum if he thought the girls that were found dead were unrelated from the Bennett kidnappings, but when I saw him with his head on the desk I decided not to. Callum and I typically got the last shift for sleep. We were awake for twenty-three hours before getting to sleep for seven. It didn't seem like a fair trade off, but we had to do something.

Each shift meant that there were fresher eyes on the material and new ears to listen to the calls from the tip line. There was someone out there who had seen something, but didn't think it was important enough to report to us. There were known cases where a witness had cracked the case open. I recalled one from a case study from school, but before I could let the thought wander I suddenly realized
how
these girls were taken from all over the country, it wasn’t much, but maybe it could lead us somewhere.

"Callum, wake up," I said as I placed a hand on his shoulder to shake him awake. He quickly jumped out of his chair and away from the touch as if he thought I was going to hurt him. We stood there for a few moments after the initial shock before he ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it out.

"What did you find out?" he asked quickly before I could comment on his reaction to me touching him. I lifted an eyebrow curiously at him before I told him what I thought I knew.

"I was thinking that he could be a human trafficker? They have to move quickly and efficiently so that they can take girls, and get out before they are noticed or caught. They would take girls from all over the country so that they wouldn't attract any unwanted attention, along with other girls that wouldn't be missed such as runaways or foreigners that were in the U. S for travel."

"That's a good observation, but he wants to be noticed," Callum said, quickly sweeping my idea aside as if he had already thought of it and disregarded it. "When we called in for help he started dropping bodies. If he wanted to remain hidden then he wouldn't have killed those girls, and even if he had killed them then he would have buried them out of sight somewhere."

"He could still be a trafficker though, maybe he just had too many girls to move at one time."

"If he was a human trafficker he would need a wider verity of girls for the people he would deal with," Callum offered.

"Would it be totally unlikely for a majority of guys to prefer blondes with pretty eyes, if they are only buying for a good time?"

"Look, I get that you're trying Jessi, but you barely have the training for this. The team and I have already gone over a lot of your suggestions earlier in the case, and we have eliminated them. Just accept that you don't know everything from one class in Behavioral Analysis. You're here because of your expertise on kidnappings, specifically Steve Bennett's kidnappings, not because you passed an online class and watched YouTube videos on how to analyze behavior."

"Well maybe you should have told me everything your team already went over and threw away so that I wasn't going over everything you already eliminated. If you would communicate better then I wouldn't be bothering you with information you already know is wrong. I'm just trying to help like you asked me to do!"

"You think you're helping? You're not helping at all. If anything you've ruined the integrity of the case because you called a civilian and brought in your family and friends. You've caused more trouble in a matter of days than any other team member I've ever had. You don't know what it takes to be a part of this team; I mean you minored in Criminal Justice! I don't understand how you even got into the FBI with that and your attitude," Callum stated. "There should be no way you're even here."

"That's ignorant of you!" I spat. "Women can be a part of the FBI, and we can do it the same as men can. I can't believe you're still having this argument. I didn't need to have law enforcement or military background to apply, I had to be able to pass their tests and that's what got me in here. There is nothing wrong with what I studied at school or my attitude. I was patient with you, even when we first met and tried to play the tough guy card. Maybe it's you that has the attitude problem as well as an issue with women in the workplace!"

"I highly believe women can do whatever they set their mind to, but I find it hard to believe in you. You don't think of the team, you think only of yourself."

"I think of myself because that's how you get out of these situations," I said, meaning the kidnapping case not the co-worker argument we were having. "You have to think of yourself to escape and anyone you get out besides yourself is a bonus."

"Do you think that's how Anna felt when she saved you all those years ago?" Callum asked with a smirk. 

"No, it's just—”

"Do you think that's what Audrey was thinking when she saved her own mother from the same person that took her all those years ago?" Callum asked condescendingly as he interrupted my explanation.

"No, of course not," I stuttered before he interrupted me again.

"So is it really about being selfish and thinking about only yourself? I see it the other way around and it looks like Anna and Audrey would agree. They both put others before themselves so that the other could escape, sometimes while leaving themselves in harm's way. Audrey stayed with Steve for almost an extra week to let her mother escape, and Anna took you with her when you were six even though you would just slow her down. Now why would they do that if the only way to get out of that situation was to take care of themselves? Audrey would have needed to leave her own mother behind, and Anna would have had to leave a defenseless young girl behind. To me that looks more like a team mentality than a solo one."

I was about to speak up and defend myself when Jason raced into the room. His eyes were bulging out of his head as he raced into the room, and his breath was shallow as if he ran a marathon before coming in here.

"What's wrong, Jason? Are you okay?" 

"We've got a body," he blurted out before racing off again to get the rest of the team. Callum and I turned to each other before forcing ourselves out of our seats and following after Jason. Who was dead and how did she die? Did we somehow end up with a body count higher than the number of girls that had already been kidnapped?

I shivered. Things were escalating quicker than I was comfortable with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5

 

 

The team filed into one car and waited patiently, and wordlessly, as we traveled toward the airport. I wanted to break the silence, but the serious expressions on their faces told me that I was better off staying quiet. We had caught a flight to Colorado, the sight of the last kidnapping and where the body had been dumped. From the police reports it was the girl he had just taken from campus, but she was in a different girl's clothes.

I felt a shiver run up my spine as I remembered the photos. They were enough to make me sick, while Callum’s team seemed completely unaffected. They talked about them so easily, as if the photos were family pictures taken at a reunion. They didn't even stutter over the one that a cop had taken to show us the note left on her body. "I grabbed the wrong girl, but I will find her. There's nothing you can do about it." There wasn't a single moment of hesitation as they looked them over, or even a moment of silence.

"Looks like he dropped her off on a blind curve in the road," Jason stated as he looked at an aerial of the area Audrey Thompson had been disposed at.

"So that way no one could see him while he dropped her body off and to anyone who passed it would look like his car was just stuck or broken down," Callum added as he handed me the photo of the 'U' shaped turn. The turn was tight, it had to be taken at a slow speed, with a focused driver so that no one would get injured—it was one of those turns that caused young teens and adults alike to lose their lives.

It made me wonder, how many people passed by before someone noticed her body? How many people could have intervened or seen something that would have helped?

"Looks like he plans efficiently, he's probably pretty organized," Abby added as she looked over the aerial photo. "He picked a spot that few go to unless they have to and would be hard to be noticed at."

"He also knew that while few would pay attention to him, eventually someone would notice and call it in. He wanted us to see this, but not until he was out of the area," Kate stated as she handed the photo to Darrell.

"He would have to be organized and thoughtful in order to keep the girls under control," Darrell added. "He has at least twelve that we know of, if not more. He had older girls from past years and could’ve planned more efficiently for the next one."

"Or he's taking them and keeping them," I retorted, remembering Jason's suggestion back in Virginia.

"What makes you say that? Steve Bennett never kept the girls he took together," Callum challenged. I knew this was going to be coming eventually. He was going to test my knowledge to see if bringing me was what they actually needed. It made me wish that Anna and Audrey had said yes and then I wouldn't be here. There was no way that I could help out with this the way they wanted me to.

"Steve Bennett kept the girls he took various increments of time, he only got rid of them after they broke a rule, but you've said that our copycat never got rid of any of the girls he took until recently."

"Unless we didn't know, the last time we had help bodies of young girls started to pile up," Darrell stated. "We don't know if they were taken by him or just killed. We only really know of a few girls that were taken by him. The girls we found were all high risk individuals."

I must have made a very confused expression because Jason quickly answered my unasked question, "a high risk individual is a person that's susceptible to becoming a victim of a crime. Think of a prostitute, due to their profession they are constantly exposed to a large number of strangers, are out late at night and sometimes alone, could have contact with drugs or drug users, and would be a low priority to police if they were attacked or killed. Meaning that they will usually not be missed until long after the attack, because no one is going to notice if a prostitute goes missing because a week later there will just be another one there. There is at times no report of the attack or killing and so there is no way to keep track of them. Whereas, a low risk victim may be someone with a steady job, friends and family that would notice if they went missing, and they may have a home with security. Since the low risk victim is more likely to be noticed, attackers will typically go after high risk individuals instead, unless they are after something."

I stared at him dumbfounded for a moment. He had said that at a lightning-fast pace with very few breaths in between.  It was as if the information streamed into his head and he had to say it as fast as he could so that he wouldn't lose the words. He was rather smart, but it was off-putting to be next to him because it was scary at how much he could know. He studied behavior and could know more about any person within a few minutes than I would know in months. He could know anything about anyone, and they would never know.

"Right," I said hesitantly as I turned back to the rest of the team. "If the girls he originally took were high risk then he was practicing. Steve had always said that all the girls leading up to Anna were practice, and that she was the 'one'. That's why he was so focused on her, so maybe this guy is looking for one particular girl who represents everything he desires. He only wants her and all these others could have been just practice."

"That's a great theory, but we can't be sure yet. What we do know is that he knows what Audrey looked like, but didn't get the name right. He dumped the other girl, telling us that he figured out that he grabbed the wrong one and will likely try again. Until we are sure on the rest of it you are going to be with Audrey and Damien. Since she seems to be the one he was after, don't give too much away." Callum got out of his seat after the plane came to a stop. His team got up and followed after him as the plane door was opened allowing them out. I didn't move until I heard the police sirens, my curiosity got the better of me as I stepped off the plane to see Audrey and Damien pulled out of the cop car. 

As I stepped off the plane Audrey ran to me without a second thought. "What are you doing here?" she asked as she swung her arms around my neck in a hug. 

"I'm here to see you," I stated vaguely as I hugged her back and glanced toward Damien, who was giving me a knowing look. He knew there was more to this story, and wanted to know what it was. I had never come to visit them since they moved to Colorado and with the panicked phone call a few days ago Damien knew that my visit wasn't for a reunion.

"I'm glad to see you, Jessi, but seriously, why are you here? It can't be just to see us, since you haven't come for the last two years I've been here," Audrey said, clearly picking up on what Damien had been about to ask.

"We think this copycat, or unknown subject as they call him," I stated, gesturing to Callum’s team behind me. "Is after you. For some reason he wants you and we haven't figured out why yet. We aren't sure what he's planning or doing to these girls, but there's a note he left that points to you as the next victim. We're here to make sure that nothing happens to you."

"Aw, man. Not again," Audrey whined as she turned to glare at Damien. "I honestly blame you."

"How can you blame me?" he asked with shock in his voice as he furrowed his eyebrows in complete disbelief.

"If you hadn't dragged me into the last round of Steve Bennett’s crazy plan then this copycat wouldn't be after me. I never would have had to meet that awful man, and my mother wouldn't have had to be in the same room with him again. Let's not forget that you left me with him when you escaped, and I almost died. Now it's happening all over again."

"That's ridiculous, Audrey." Damien shook his head and rolled his eyes at her comment. He couldn't believe that she was trying to find a way to blame him for this instead of the man that actually caused it—Steve Bennett.

"It's not ridiculous, and now it's happening again. I don't know if I can go through that again," she said honestly. There was a fear in her voice that made my stomach clench. She had done this once before, Anna had been through it twice, and now it was up to me to keep them from reliving it again. This time it was my turn, and it was my job to keep them safe. I just wasn't sure if I was able to do it or not, but I had to try.

"Don't worry, Audrey, this time I'm in the game and this is something I'm good at," I said with a smile trying to sound confident. "This time you and your mom won't be a part of this, I promise." I should have known that promise would be impossible to keep, but I meant it, and now we would all suffer for it. 

 

BOOK: Apprehended (Amber Alert Series Book 3)
7.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Snowbound and Eclipse by Richard S. Wheeler
Seduction at the Lake by Misty Carrera
Demand by Lisa Renee Jones
The Martini Shot by George Pelecanos
Hacedor de estrellas by Olaf Stapledon
Cowboy Heat by Delilah Devlin
Unto a Good Land by Vilhelm Moberg