"Can you please leave us alone?!"
Unexpectedly, when the group followed Rossi to the door of a dilapidated old house, they were neither warmly welcod nor coldly rejected.
Instead, they were t with an emotionally charged question from the eldest daughter of the family.
"What did you say?" Rossi was sowhat taken aback.
"You have to stop all of this. We thought that if we deliberately didn't return your calls, you would give up and stop bothering us."
The eldest daughter, Connie, was extrely agitated. Although she didn't use harsh words, her attitude was very unfriendly. Jack, sowhat annoyed, wanted to step forward, but the perceptive JJ blocked him first, giving him a barely perceptible shake of her head.
Rossi tried to explain, "I know this is hurtful, but I just want soone to pay the price for your parents' deaths."
"We don't care about any of this anymore!" Connie scread almost hysterically.
"It's been 20 years. We need to forget about this and move on with our lives. Please, don't bother us anymore. Haven't we suffered enough?"
Perhaps hearing her voice, a young couple erged from the house—her brother and sister. Neither spoke, they simply stood behind their sister with their arms crossed, coldly observing the BAU mbers.
"I'm sorry, I won't bother you again." Seeing Connie on the verge of collapse, Rossi offered no further explanation and turned to leave.
Jack reopened the car door, ready to leave. In any case, they had achieved their goal. Although it had deeply hurt Rossi, at least it had freed him from the vortex of guilt.
"And don't send any more gifts every year." Connie's last words caused the BAU mbers to turn around in unison.
No one present was stupid. Rossi couldn't possibly send them gifts every year; that would be a terrible reminder, only provoking resentnt from the victims.
Rossi had even sponsored this family indirectly and privately before; she wouldn't make such a basic mistake.
Sure enough, Connie continued, "We don't need those gifts. They'll only remind us of the worst day of our lives."
"I've never given you any gifts," Rossi said, turning back to look at her in confusion. The others stopped getting into the car, a sudden glimr of hope rising in their hearts.
"Hello, I'm Jennifer Jareau, the liaison officer for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. These are my colleagues,"
JJ said quickly, walking up to the three bewildered individuals. "May I see the gifts you received?"
"We're here because of the murder of your parents twenty years ago. Agent Rossi has never forgotten this case and vowed to bring the killer to justice, but he's a seasoned agent with a deep understanding of psychology and a strong sense of compassion."
JJ paused, explaining in a low voice, "So, we suspect these gifts might co from..."
She didn't finish her sentence, but the three young people clearly understood her aning.
"Connie, please let them in. I think they're all good people," her second son, George, said, opening the door behind him.
"But..." Connie hesitated.
"Co on, we're fed up with you waking up in the middle of the night all the ti. If they really find the killer, at least we won't have to live in fear all the ti."
The younger sister, Alicia, dressed in gothic makeup, spoke bluntly, but her words revealed her concern for her older sister.
"Co in, everyone, let's go get the toys." The siblings readily invited everyone into the house, leaving the still sowhat bewildered older sister, Connie, to search the attic.
Soon, the large living room table was filled with various sizes of plush toys, numbering at least twenty or thirty.
"Is it all here?" Rossi picked one up and examined it carefully, while Emily took photos with her phone and sent them to Garcia.
"Sorry, this is all we could find. We threw away quite a lot," said Alicia, the younger sister.
"I really wish you had told this sooner."
Rossi's expression was a mix of laughter and tears. As he had said before, just one more clue might bring the answer closer.
But this crucial clue had been delayed for twenty years due to so small misunderstandings before he finally learned about it.
"We always thought it was you who sent it, because only you rembered us."
Connie's words were barely out of her mouth when tears welled up in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have treated you like that before."
Jack grinned. This was truly remarkable. These three children, orphaned at a young age, hadn't beco addicted to drugs or fallen into prostitution. Judging from their clothes and the furnishings of their house, their lives were quite impoverished, yet they still held onto certain principles.
Even their values hadn't been warped; they possessed considerable empathy. It was nothing short of a miracle. Jack thought of the grandmother Rossi had ntioned; she must have been a remarkable woman.
[A/n: Sorry to say this, but you just said that the eldest daughter beca a stripper. So, except for doing drugs, anything is fine?]
Emily, wearing gloves, carefully examined the plush toys. "They're all cheap dolls."
"How did these toys get to you?" Rossi asked.
"Usually they're left in the front hallway at night, around 'that ti of year,' but this ti I found them in my car."
Connie's expression beca sowhat unnatural. "My car was parked outside my workplace."
"So you were followed? Did you notice who it was?"
Rossi knew her profession as a stripper made her sowhat ashad to talk about, so he didn't ask for details.
"It was a pickup truck. I thought it was you. I was really out of my mind. I shouldn't have suspected you. The insomnia I've been experiencing lately has made very anxious. I haven't slept well for days."
Connie apologized to Rossi again.
Rossi didn't know how to comfort her. The last ti they t, the girl standing in front of him was only 10 years old; now she was a 30-year-old woman.
He could only force his attention back to the present situation.
"Can you try to recall the details? About the pickup truck."
Connie shook her head, her tone still tinged with apology. "It was probably an old Ford pickup, but its headlights were on, and I didn't even notice the color—uh, it was probably dark."
"Please give us a mont; I need to discuss it with my team."
With that, Rossi led the group away from the house in a hurry.
"Jack, tell you didn't forget your cigars this ti."
Rossi walked behind their Saab van, using its tall body to block the view from the house.
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