Autopsy of a Mind

"Are you kidding me?" I hissed, running my hand through my hair.

Nash shook his head stiffly. "No, they can't find her. They came out right after they read the message but they couldn't see her anywhere," he said. There was no calmness in his voice. I peered deeply into his eyes and saw that he was being truthful. 

Which meant, Evie really was missing. 

I pulled out my cellphone and checked through my messages before calling.

Nothing. It didn't even go to her voice mail. I waited as the phone beeped until it cut off, no monotonous voice telling me that the user was busy or out of range. The call just didn't connect. 

I looked around the room helplessly and found all the analysts staring at me. They peered out of their little cubicles and only then did I understand that I had been chanting under my breath this whole time. 

"Sebastian, let's go. Let's try to find her, okay?" he said softly. He placed his hand on my shoulder and I shrugged it off. 

I turned to look at the people in the room. "Who can track the last location of a phone?" I asked. "I am not asking for Find my Phone sort of location, I am asking for where the nearest tower was and what happened to her number."

There was silence. My heart dropped. "Who knows?" I yelled. 

From the corner of my eyes, I could see someone raise their hand. I turned to them quickly.

"Take her number," I prompted quickly, hovering over him and looking at his computer screen. I heard footsteps approach me followed by a sigh. 

"Sebastian, they are checking the location where she was and the footage from the car to see where she went. Don't worry, we will find her. Maybe she followed the man to the actual place," Nash assured in a soothing voice. 

"Don't try to influence me. Those tricks don't work on me," I growled. 

Nash blinked and stepped back. "I am just…" his phone rang. He picked it up and pulled it to his ears without haste. And I knew it was about Evie. 

"What did they say?" I asked frantically. 

"They found her phone smashed. It was a few meters from the police car she rode in. It's an old neighborhood so there were no cameras on the streets either."

"And the black box in the car?" I asked. There was still hope.

"Showed an older-looking man walking up and then nothing. They are bringing the files over to analyze right now."

I looked at my watch and frowned. "We need to find her by the end of the night. If it is the perpetrator…" I didn't even want to think about it. 

"Stop!" Nash gritted out through his teeth. "You still need to solve your case," he emphasized. 

I looked at him suspiciously. "I can find her sitting here," I bit out. 

I went back to the original analyst and saw him hyperventilating. "What's wrong with you?" I asked. 

"Uh… they kidnapped an officer?" he whispered. He looked thoroughly scared. 

"You're safe inside the station." What else could I say? Should I tell him that the guy could be in the same room and we wouldn't have a clue? "And someone else took Evie. It's not that guy," I grunted. 

And then the notion seeped into my bones.

The timing… it was strange. 

It was not unusual for so many cases to be thrown at us at the same time. But when the accomplice was involved, coincidences should have been sparse.

He told Evie that they would meet soon.

Evie started a kidnapping case and found the solution easily… as she should. She went to apprehend the criminal without Nash… the first time it had happened and she disappeared. 

On the other hand, Nash was called in to help me. He knew nothing about the case but he was the one who had been called first.

What was more important? Saving a kidnapped child or look at an abandoned bag? The priorities were wrong in this case. 

And they knew that I would be called when BTS was involved. Like they wanted me preoccupied. But they also wanted me distracted by the pressure. 

Why? 

Which was the real case and how was it all connected? 

I looked toward the analyst.

"Get the geographical location quickly. I'll look at the footage when it arrives," I whispered. I sprinted to Nash's office, him hot on my heels. 

"Don't you think it's strange?" I asked as I threw the door open. 

I opened Evie's computer and clicked on the link to the website. The live-stream was still on, but something was strange. 

I dragged the cursor over the previous minutes and finally understood what was happening.

"Evie was right to keep looking," I whispered. 

"What are you talking about?" Nash claimed, his voice raised. 

"It's a replay," I claimed. "Watch." I dragged the cursor over the minutes and showed him the changes. 

"Damn it!" Nash swore. "And they knew the VPN or whatever they were using to change their address would lead us to that location." His eyes widened. "You think it was a set-up, don't you?" he asked. 

"Why would they repeat the stream?" I asked. "You watched the videos, too, right?" I asked. 

Nash nodded. "But not as close as Evie." His eyes fell on her notepad and he flipped it open. He read through the notes and realization dawned. 

"The method of abduction!" he exclaimed. 

"What about it?" I asked quietly. 

"This serial rapist has a method of abducting his victims. He stalks some of them and the daughter brings them in… or he picks up stranded or women who are vulnerable on a whim," he said.

I shook my head. "He was hanging around his residence."

Nash nodded. "He was waiting for the police to search for his house. He couldn't have known Evie would be there, right?"

"He shouldn't have known the police would be there in the first place. He cleared everything out of his house and waited outside to see what would happen when the police found the house empty. It was a game… but he knew the police would come…" I trailed off. 

"You think it was a trap? It can't be!" he said quietly. 

"I have a feeling that it is the accomplice. When the case was assigned to Evie, he got wind that she was working on a kidnapping case," I tried to paint the story. "He found the person out and approached the perpetrator and helped me move bases. That's why the house was empty and clean. He wanted Evie outside…"

"But he couldn't have known Evie would be vulnerable. I would have—" and Nash paused. "That's why I was assigned to the bag…" he trailed off. "Which also means that they were ready to kill or maim all the officers to take Evie, right?"

I nodded. "He was sure he could take them down. An old man, no matter how evil can't take down a woman as strong as Evie. She's not a sixteen-year-old scared girl anymore. She has on-field training. There were multiple people helping out… that is why the stream is reloading." I pointed to the screen. "The female usually tortures the victims even when the male is not in the room, right? So, she was there."

"And they had drugs with them. That is the MO, right?" Nash ended my stream of thought. "It also means the accomplice was in the vicinity, waiting to back up."

"And he was not afraid to kill the officers to get his hands on Evie."

Nash sank down on the floor and I watched. "When is the black box footage arriving?" I asked harshly. 

"In a few minutes," Nash claimed. 

I looked at the board at the corner of the room, all the speculations and profiling information right there on the board. What did I know about this guy? 

Calm.

God-complex.

Likes to influence others. 

He got crazy when he found out we had visited Alicia and he wanted to take Evie before people found him. He wanted to move her to a secure and secret location until Stockholm syndrome set in. He wasn't above killing people anymore. 

That was how desperate he was. 

That was why he made mistakes. 

But how did he muster up so much information about the BTS Killer? 

I stared at the board until I was sure a hole would appear on it. 

"The footage is here," Nash whispered, pulling me out of my thoughts. I jerked towards him and nodded numbly. 

"You need to snap out of it," Nash hissed. "Stop freaking out, Sebastian. Stop freaking out and think, damnit!"

I am sure my blood boiled at that moment and I turned to glare at him. "What are you doing, sitting there and sulking? You haven't helped in the least? I left her in your care and you couldn't even keep her safe!"

Nash's eyes widened and I saw a flash of guilt in his eyes. I should have felt guilt for talking to him that way, but I felt nothing. I felt empty… 

Like an empty can that rattled without emotion. 

The fear had permeated through my body completely. 

He wouldn't kill her, right? No, he wouldn't kill her. 

But he would do unspeakable things to her to break her mind and cave in. 

I had to find her before that. 

But how.

How?

An officer entered the office timidly, his eyes flashing towards me. I leaped towards him and snatched the card from him and gripped it in my hand. 

I wasted no time to slide it into the machine and watch it. What I saw was purely horrifying and not alarming at the same time.

And I didn't know what to think about it.