Chapter 14
Of course Robbie was right. The poor girl had to be somewhere and her time was running out. At a maximum without food and water, she had three days. If he left her wherever he'd been leaving the other girls, she had considerably less time. The temperatures outside were ranging from just above freezing to just below. She could freeze to death in a matter of hours.
"What are our options? Robbie isn't going to give it up," Munch pointed out.
"He won't. He's enjoying watching us running around looking for her," Olivia shook her head.
"Where would he go? TARU hasn't found any locations of large freezers with high electric bills. They even canvassed places that only have one or two freezers running and have others that are not and nothing hit," Cragen said.
"We're missing something. This guy may be smart but there is no way he's smarter than we are," Fin gave them a look.
"Captain! Captain!" Briscoe had come running from the squad room and into his office where they had all gathered.
"What?" Cragen demanded.
"The green Toyota was found burned out not far from Michelle Han's place by the Jersey police," the younger detective said.
"No evidence but maybe that's the key," Huang frowned as he headed back out of the office and toward the large board where all the evidence had been gathered. The detectives followed him.
"What are you getting at Doc?" Elliot wanted to know.
"He steals the plates off of Mrs. Tina Scarlotti's green Toyota and puts them on another green Toyota but his does this where?" Huang asked.
"A few blocks from NYU," Munch says.
"Then he jumps across the river, burns the car, and the plates which are now useless. He attacks Michelle who probably happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He takes the car and heads back into the city. Now he manages to stumble onto Elizabeth in his usual trawling place," Fin said.
"Happy coincidences?" Olivia raised an eyebrow.
"The Jersey police are digging into Michelle to see if she knew Robbie," Cragen said.
"She had to have known him. He calls her, tells her that his car is toast, literally. She picks him up and drives him back to her place. He does whatever he does to her and then takes the car," Elliot figured.
"So this case will technically belong to the FBI as he crossed state borders to do all of this," Huang pointed out.
"More of a manhunt, more of a thrill?" Oliva posited.
"Oh I believe so. Heading back to his trawling grounds, he finds Elizabeth, which is a happy accident," Huang said.
"He hasn't been using freezers for his weird fetish so that means he has some other way of cooling his victims to frostbite," Munch told them.
"He's leaving them in the trunk of the car," Olivia said.
"It would be cold there in no time and he could pull them out of there at any time," Fin nodded.
"But he still needs somewhere private to do what he does," Cragen shook his head.
"Private unconditioned storage!" Elliot shouted and went to his computer.
"How many places close to his apartment?" Olivia asked.
"Five," his shoulders slumped.
"Get on the phone with the owners. I'll get on the phone to Casey," Cragen said.
To Be Continued…