Chapter Text
They find Dean and Cassie in the living room. Apparently finished with their profiling session, they’re sorting through some of the papers in the file. Cassie looks up when they enter. “Where’d you guys go?” she asks.
“Basement,” Michael says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “We were talking dads.”
Cassie nods knowingly. “Any conclusions?”
“Well, none of us are profilers, so we can’t exactly come up with much unless we actually talk to them,” Lia says matter-of-factly. “What now?”
“Sterling wants us at the latest crime scene,” Dean says.
“St. Augustine, Florida,” Sloane fills in.
Dean nods. “Apparently, one of the victims put up more of a fight.”
“That’s all I need to hear,” Lia replies. “When do we leave?”
It takes them four hours to get onto the plane and to St. Augustine, Florida. Cassie rereads the case file over a dozen times. Lia beats Michael in Uno every time they play. Sloane keeps squirming in her seat, which Lia takes to mean the blonde is either still hung up on the phone call she told Lia about or just generally spooked by this case.
Finally, they land. Veronica is waiting for them. She falls into agent mode instantly. “I want the six of you to take a look at one of our victim’s houses,” she explains.
“There’s signs of a struggle,” Dean fills in.
Veronica nods. “You might be able to notice something we didn’t.”
The house Veronica takes them to is very old. “If I were a ghost, I’d probably haunt this house,” Lia notes as they follow Veronica up a staircase and down the hallway into a bedroom.
The first thing Lia notices is the glass, all over the floor.
“Why is the window broken?” Sloane asks, curiously stepping closer.
Cassie frowns, scrunching her face up in thought. “Breaking the window doesn’t make sense,” she says. “It would have made too much noise.”
“Maybe nobody else was home,” Michael suggests.
Veronica shoots that down. “Both parents were home. Down the hall.”
“Did they hear the window breaking?” Dean asks.
“I would imagine,” Lia comments.
Sloane nods in agreement. “This is thick glass,” she notes. “It would take a lot to break it. How was it broken?”
Veronica chooses her words carefully. “According to the parents, it sounded like an explosion.”
“Well, that’s just stupid,” Michael says. “Listen, if I’m the killer-kidnapper-whatever and the only way to get to this kid is exploding the freaking window, I’m just giving up.”
“Maybe there was a reason they really wanted this specific kid,” Cassie suggests. “Maybe the kid saw something. Or knew something.”
“Maybe they wanted the parents to notice,” Lia says.
“Maybe they wanted the FBI here specifically,” Dean adds slowly.
“Like a distraction?” Celine says, raising her eyebrows.
Dean shrugs. “Could be.”
“Anything could be,” Veronica reminds them.
Sloane frowns, her hands on her hips as she surveys the room. “The only actual signs of a struggle is the glass,” she points out. “Everything else is normal levels of disorganization.”
“That further supports the distraction theory,” Dean says, latching onto that.
“Normal levels of disorganization,” Veronica repeats. “Are you sure?”
Sloane nods.
“She’s right,” an unfamiliar feminine voice chimes in from the doorway. Everyone turns in unison.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” the speaker apologizes, smoothing her hands down the front of her shirt. She’s a middle-aged woman, with light brown hair and pale skin. “I heard voices, so…”
Lia takes a wild guess that this must be this kid’s mother.
“You said she’s right?” Veronica repeats. “The only thing different about this room is the broken window?”
The woman nods.
Definitely the kid’s mom.
“I don’t think we’ve met,” Veronica says, holding her hand out. “Special Agent Veronica Sterling.”
“Claire Hart,” the woman replies, taking Veronica’s proffered hand. “Connor’s mother.”
Connor must be the kid that’s vanished. Not that he’s special. Literally over a hundred kids have vanished in the past few days.
Claire’s eyebrows raise slightly at the sight of six teenagers standing in her missing son’s room. Which is fair, to be honest. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but… aren’t the six of you a little young to be FBI?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Michael replies. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Ignore him,” Veronica advises. “Why don’t we talk downstairs?”
As soon as they’re gone, Lia rolls her eyes. “They should have invited me. Rude.”
“Oh, relax,” Michael says. “I’m sure we’ll get a tape or something. Or it won’t be important enough for us.”
“So, Sloane,” Dean interrupts. “You said the only sign of a struggle is the broken glass.”
Sloane nods. “Technically, that doesn’t have to mean a struggle. It could just be entry and/or exit.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Dean says.
“It still doesn’t make sense, though,” Sloane continues. She gestures vaguely at the broken window. “This would be very risky.”
“I like Dean’s theory,” Cassie chimes in. “About using this to distract us.” She shrugs. “You’re right, though, it would still be risky.”
“It sounded like an explosion,” Michael recalls. He raises his eyebrows. “Maybe our guy figured the parents would assume it to be fireworks or a gunshot or something very ordinary in America?”
“It’s possible,” Cassie says doubtfully, chewing on her bottom lip. “But I don’t think it’s likely. That’s leaving a lot up to chance.”
“Maybe he’s a guy who likes living life on the edge,” Lia suggests.
Michael snorts. “Yeah, and that’s why he’s kidnapping all these kids.”
Lia smiles sweetly at him. “Can’t rule anything out yet.”
“It’s plausible,” Dean agrees. “But we don’t know enough right now.”
“We need suspects,” Lia says firmly. “Then we can really work our magic.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have any,” Cassie points out.
“Yeah, so I’m saying we need some.”
“The areas are too spread out,” Sloane interjects. “The only way we could come up with some suspects is if we were assuming there were different people taking these kids in each area.”
“That could make sense,” Cassie agrees slowly. “It would explain how they all happened in such rapid succession.”
“So what I’m hearing,” Lia says, “is that we get to go check out the other supposedly haunted areas.”