"This is the fastest way we can think of, but whatever choice you make, we will not give up finding your daughter." Rossi's tone was sincere, his voice steady and powerful.
"I'm sorry, I can't do it, I'm sorry, Bruce, I can't do it," Mrs. Owen struggled to leave her husband's embrace and staggered out of the room.
Jack gave Hannah a look at the door, and she imdiately followed.
No matter how heartbroken both sets of parents appeared, before the truth was revealed, the parents were also suspects, and self-directed kidnappings also accounted for a significant proportion.
Having Hannah follow Mrs. Owen was both to prevent any accidents from happening to her and a form of indirect surveillance.
"Keeson, I don't think this is a good idea."
Pat Mannan, a middle-aged, overweight man claiming to be a friend of Keeson Vaughn, kept muttering in his ear, but Keeson Vaughn remained cold and didn't respond.
Jack glanced at the man, a hint of curiosity about his identity. It seed Keeson Vaughn didn't like this guy much; did he really have such a friend? This guy seed a bit too enthusiastic.
"Alright, let's begin."
Seeing that the two fathers didn't object, everyone gathered around the computer, and Hotchner clicked on the audio file Garcia had sent.
["Stop...please stop, please stop, Daddy, Daddy, help!"]
["Don't resist!"]
["Oh God...stop, help, stop!"]
["Don't let them know you're scared!"]
["Let go...don't do this to ...stop, Daddy, help , Daddy, save ! Daddy, save !"]
As Jack listened to the recording, his eyes never left the two fathers. Pain, relief, sympathy, worry—these were the expressions that appeared one after another on Keeson Vaughn's face.
Disbelief, sadness, pain, heartbreak, doubt—this was Bruce Owen.
"Play it again." After listening to the recording, Bruce Owen was already in tears.
At this point, there was no need to say anything more; everyone in the BAU knew the answer.
"Mr. Owen" Hotchner whispered, wanting to say sothing.
"That's not Katie, I know her voice, this isn't Katie, play it again, please, play it again."
Bruce Owen shook his head repeatedly, trying to deny what he was hearing.
Mrs. Owen, supported by Hannah, reappeared in the doorway, sobbing uncontrollably.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Owen." Emily went to the door, wanting to comfort her, but didn't know how to begin.
"No, darling, it's alright, that's not her, I can recognize her voice, that's not her, believe ."
Seeing Bruce Owen on the verge of collapse, Keeson Vaughn rushed forward and hugged him tightly.
"Bruce…"
"Keeson, that's not Katie, right? You know… Keeson, that's not Katie's voice."
Bruce Owen's voice was half pleading, half wailing, until he finally broke down in tears.
"That's Katie." Keeson Vaughn's words finally shattered his last shred of hope.
"No!!! My Katie!!!" Bruce Owen roared like a wounded beast, a painful and desperate scream.
"Let's go out. Co on, follow ." Keeson Vaughn wasn't tall, but he was quite strong, and he helped the distraught adult man out of the office with almost no effort.
After seeing both families out, Hotchner turned to Hannah, who was assisting with the work, and gave her orders.
"Imdiately release photos of the other girl, Lindsay. I want her picture in every corner of the city before dawn, and in tomorrow's newspapers and morning news."
"No problem." Hannah nodded.
"Let's go together. I have so business cards from the dia." JJ proactively took her arm.
The two pretty girls left the office together like close friends.
Rossi's gaze refocused on the evidence board. "They humiliated and tortured Katie for a long ti, very cruelly and violently, and the phone recording tells us that the girl was screaming the whole ti."
"But they didn't disturb the neighbors. Why?"
"I checked the 911 calls during that ti, and there were no relevant records." Emily said, showing the docunts in her hand.
"The basent?" Jack imdiately dismissed his own guess.
Due to California's sandy soil, basents are typically expensive to build. Given the low land costs, few people bother digging basents, especially in the relatively inexpensive southern Los Angeles.
"I'm done." Reid, who had been quietly working in the corner, tossed aside his marker and stretched.
The transparent map was covered with dense symbols and lines.
"The girls were abducted on the southern edge of the city, near the suburbs, about 9 miles from where the body was dumped. I suspect the murder scene is sowhere between those two points,"
Reid said, pointing to a large circle on the map.
"The area is large, but if we consider concealed and controllable environnts, we can narrow it down to forests, industrial areas, and abandoned houses,"
he said, marking so of the defined areas with crosses.
Although the remaining area was still large, it had been reduced by more than half.
Seeing Rossi and Hotchner looking at him, Jack, a forr LAPD mber, imdiately understood.
"Understood, I'll coordinate. The Southeast Precinct is definitely short-handed. I'll contact the Wilshire Precinct and borrow so manpower."
The FBI could, of course, communicate directly with higher-ups or simply assign a search mission for the Southeast Precinct to handle.
But in terms of execution and search efficiency, it certainly wouldn't be as effective as Jack contacting his friends directly—that's the advantage of having local connections.
Hotchner raised his wrist and glanced at the ti on his watch. "Tomorrow morning, Rossi, you take Reid and Jack to Keeson Vaughn's house to investigate."
"Emily, you and I go to the movie theater where the two girls went missing."
The process of contacting the Grey went smoothly, probably because a drug cartel's yacht had almost been sent into near-Earth orbit by an unknown good Samaritan, and life at the Wilshire Police Departnt had been relatively easy lately.
Although as street patrol officers, they always had endless work, the old guys were very accommodating, with everyone present, Tim personally leading the team.
After greeting Tim and John, Jack went ho to rest after assigning search duties. It was already midnight when he got ho. He slept for four hours before getting up and getting busy.
At 6 a.m., Jack, the deliveryman, delivered more than ten steaming orders of chestnut cakes, donuts, and large cups of coffee to the LAPD officers who had been working all night.
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