“So should we just start calling you Mulder and Scully?” a condescending voice asked, the room filling with light chuckles and Knox rolled his eyes in a wide arch.
As soon as he and Jensen had started asking questions about a possible out of state abduction that could be linked to a series of murders along the eastern seaboard they had gotten a call from the FBI. The feds couldn’t understand why they hadn’t heard of anything of this before but were ready to take over the investigation.
That wasn’t going to fly for the two detectives though. Neither one of them was ready to pack up their files and pass it off to some rookie FBI Agent who would likely let the case drift to the backburner for a couple of years. They had put in a lot of hard hours on the case, so they made a desperate plea to their higher ups to stay on it even if they were just in a support role.
The Bureau was able to do one better. Given the current economy, and the fact that they thought Knox and Jensen’s hunches were a bit of a farce they were temporarily made special field agents. After all, they had an established relationship with the people involved and unless they had concrete evidence of Lauren’s absence being linked to the murders, the FBI was only moderately interested. They were ready to take over, if and when, the detectives were able to find some evidence. Knox knew that really they were just happy to have the free labour and not have to deal with the stigma that came with theories about Voodoo and killer powder made of rainforest animals. He knew that they would be staying a safe distance behind them, looking over their shoulders, waiting for them to screw up so they could swoop in and show how useless the police are.
Jensen couldn’t have been happier about the development. She wanted to be the one to finish the investigation, and being able to follow their leads to Atlanta to find Lauren. It didn’t matter to her that they had a fancy new badge or that they would have the opportunity to travel, she just wanted to be the one who got to say case closed at the end of it all. She was willing to deal with the light hearted ribbing from their coworkers because she knew they would win in the end.
“That’s Agent Scully to you!” she retorted sarcastically, handing her small overnight bag to Knox who was heading out to the car, “Catch you guys later.”
As soon as they had filled out a pile of paperwork they had been booked on the first flight down to Georgia. It was the last place that Lauren Kitt had been seen alive so it would be the first place they’d look. Local PD had already done a preliminary search at their request but they hadn’t turned anything up. In Jensen’s opinion they just didn’t know what they were looking for, but the more they thought about it they more they wondered whether they knew what they were looking for either.
They looked back through Melissa’s case file as they sat next to each other on the plane, going over the pictures and details even though they had seen them a million times before.
“There’s got to be something,” Jensen said, rubbing her temple in thought.
“No incisions, no scope marks, no motive, no evidence beyond a 50 year old dead end and some strange trace elements... this could very well be the perfect crime you know?” Knox suggested, letting out a frustrated sigh as he squirmed in the uncomfortable plane seat.
Jensen ignored his pessimism, leafing through the pages, looking for anything she hadn’t noticed before. She was certain at this point the killer was a male and she couldn’t help herself from trying to picture what he would look like. Was he average in appearance with a certain aura of trust about him or perhaps he was good looking enough that these young women went with him willingly? “There’s got to be something about the victims, why he chooses them, a pattern of some kind.”
Knox was a man who dealt in hard facts. He didn’t sit around imagining the face of the suspect because it just wasn’t one of his skills as an investigator. He was quick to organize, connect, shuffle and reorder the information that laid out in front of him but it was a challenge to accept the things that, some might say, he couldn’t see, “The only pattern I can see right now that would link these crimes together,” he motioned to the map that lay on the tray between them, “is based on location. The suspect must be travelling along the I-95; maybe he’s a trucker or a bus driver?”
“Bus driver...” Jensen repeated softly, her eyes running up and down the image of the coastal United States in blue and greens on the map, “Like someone driving a tour bus by chance?”
“Or someone on one.”
~*~
Brian could vividly remember the last time he had been to Lauren’s parent’s house. It was fourth of July and they were having their huge annual barbecue. He and his family had been in L.A. because of work and Nick had been nice enough to invite them to tag along to the soiree. They were wonderful people, the Kitts, and Brian found he got along particularly well with Lauren’s father Henry. They had a lot in common which they quickly found out after realizing their first connection was through the wonderful state of Georgia and Leighanne’s hometown of Atlanta. The family was originally from the south but had been transplanted to California in the 1980’s.
The Kitts were quite wealthy, sadly her money was one of the main reasons that Lauren had been so quickly embraced by their group of friends. It wasn’t as though they were so elitist as to only allow the rich into their circle but with everything Nick had been through over the years when they first found out that he was dating a girl that was ultimately unemployed they were sceptical. It wasn’t until they found out that she lived off a very abundant trust fund courtesy of her grandparents that they backed the dogs off. Despite the similarities in upbringing they couldn’t see this girl being another Paris Hilton. Brian sometimes felt that judgements like that made them shallow but in truth it was just a harsh reality they had faced time and again.
Their house was fairly typical for a modern California family; Spanish style with white stucco walls, big windows, and a tiny front yard adorned with ornamental trees. Brian recognized it immediately as soon as he pulled his car up next to it. It was if he had driven there blind, not knowing where he was really going until he got there. His first instinct was to just put the car in reverse and drive away but something deep down was telling him he needed to go inside. Soon he found himself leaning through the car window to push the buzzer on a small intercom just outside the gated driveway.
“Hello?” a friendly voice answered and Brian recognized it as Lauren’s sister, Emily.
“Hey,” he replied, not really sure what he should say, “It’s uh Brian... Littrell.”
“Brian?” she asked curiously but none the less he heard the buzzer sound and the wrought iron gate began to slowly open.
He pulled his car around the circular drive and cut the engine just as the large mahogany door swung open to reveal Henry standing just inside the house. Taking a deep breath Brian stepped out of the car, his nerves getting the best of him as he struggled to shove his car keys in his pocket.
“I have to admit this is a surprise,” the older man said to him as he approached. He had a smile on his face but Brian could see that it was weary, “a pleasant surprise but a surprise none the less. What brings you here?”
“Would you believe I was in the neighbourhood?” Brian chuckled and followed Henry into the house.
While both Lauren and her sister bore a family resemblance it was clear that Emily took after their mother while Lauren was the spitting image of her father. He was tall, and broad shouldered, with strong features and a full head of dark hair that was only now beginning to grey with age.
“No,” Henry answered honestly, motioning Brian into a comfortable looking arm chair once they entered a large living room, “if I had to guess I’d say you’re here about Lauren.”
Brian couldn’t help but let a guilty look spread across his face and he nodded, “I just feel so terrible. I didn’t mean to worry you when I called...”
“Don’t stress about it,” Henry cut him off, “the police had already been calling us asking questions about Lauren and about our family’s history.”
“Family history?” the younger man wondered aloud, raising an eyebrow curiously. It was the first he’d heard of it and he wondered what Detective Knox hadn’t told him when they’d chatted about Lauren.
“I figured you would already know,” Henry said, taking a seat on the couch across from Brian, “Admittedly I had forgotten all about it, it happened so long ago. I didn’t even know that my mother’s will forwarded all the contact information to me,” he cleared his throat, “sorry let me start from the beginning. When I was just a baby my mother’s eldest sister was murdered, quite violently. My mother practically went vigilante, trying to hunt down this murderer herself because she was sure this guy, my aunt’s boyfriend at the time, was the one who did it. Eventually the police did pick him up and question him but they had no evidence so they let him go. My mother didn’t let it go though. My whole life I remember her sneaking away to do more research, hiring private detectives to try and track down this guy, this Gabriel O’Dell. She really had it out for him.”
Brian was confused, he wasn’t seeing the connection between this story and the situation they were in now beyond the fact that someone had been killed, “Sorry but I guess I don’t get it. What does that have to do with Lauren?”
Henry let out a short scoff, “I don’t know how but... the police have connected this O’Dell guy to the girl who was murdered outside your concert. They suggested that Lauren may have been the actual target and that he was following you on tour.”
“Wouldn’t this guy be ancient?” Brian asked, feeling particularly sceptical of the other man’s story. It just seemed completely illogical that an old man could be the police’s prime suspect. It also made him feel a little silly that he had been so suspicious of Nick for weeks when all along he had been telling the truth. It seemed at first glance that it was Lauren that had brought the bad luck upon them.
“Look, Brian,” Henry sighed heavily, looking away momentarily as if to calm his emotions, “I don’t know the details. I was hoping that you came here to tell them to me. My daughter is missing and my family is a complete mess right now. Emily is terrified to leave the house thinking that whoever took Lauren might be after her too. I’m not sure why you’re here when we haven’t seen Nick at all. I’ve been checking to see where you guys are so it wasn’t like I didn’t know you were in Los Angeles. We thought we would see him but he’s notably missing. Instead, you show up. Maybe you should just go...”
Brian knew where he wasn’t welcome and quickly stood up, reaching out to shake the older man’s hand quickly, “I’m sorry... I hope they find Lauren soon. I’m praying for you.”
As he left the house he couldn’t help but think about the fact that Henry said they hadn’t seen Nick. Even though the police had evidence that someone else had been involved in the murder of the girl outside the venue, and possibly Lauren’s disappearance Brian couldn’t help but still find it suspect. Nick had told him he had heard from Lauren herself. Surely he would have passed that information along to her family considering the circumstances but when he had talked to Emily she knew nothing about it. Now they were back in Los Angeles, with his girlfriend missing, he hadn’t even visited a family that he supposedly considered to be his own? He couldn’t figure out why his friend would lie. One thing was for certain; as soon as the tour wrapped up that night after the L.A. show he would be taking a page out of the late-Mrs. Kitt’s book and looking a little deeper on his own terms.
