Dean walked into the precinct with a slight swagger, feeling more comfortable than he had for a while. He was rocking on the balls of his feet, waiting for the elevator. When the doors open, he saw Charlie standing there reading something on her laptop.
"Heya, Red," he announced to the omega with a dopey smile on his face.
Charlie looked up at him with an unimpressed look. "Finally back after playing hooky for a week. You're lucky I like Cas, or I would have shown up at your house to harass you. So much happened since you left. Makes my head hurt, honestly."
Remembering what he was working on when he left, Dean lost the smile. "What did I miss?" he asked as the doors closed.
"First, a bunch of evidence came from some of the cases that I suspected connected to our murder case and thus the trafficking ring. Lucifer has been coordinating with a bunch of crime labs, trying to see if there are any consistencies. Other than the obvious increasing anger as the killing spree continues, a couple of pieces of physical evidence are consistent. There is carpeting that is consistent with car carpeting. We can't 'get a lockdown on it, but it's the same on every single victim, and no, it doesn't match that van our would-be kidnappers had. So far, all it's giving us is a minimum age of the vehicle. Also, bullets are consistent with a 0.9mm but have been used in cases that have nothing to do with our case. Possible that it's a gun that is used for several operations. It's a mess, honestly.
"Donna and Benny have been working on identifying the victims, and it's not pretty."
"What have they found?" Dean asked as the elevator doors opened, holding the door open so Charlie could exit first.
"Well, they've figured out how they're choosing victims. After Jones, the first couple of victims were all omegas that had recently aged out of the foster care system, specifically in Utah."
"No one to report them missing, and it's not out of the norm for them to disappear off the face of the earth. Why were they found all over the place?"
"Forensic countermeasure?" Charlie speculated. "Most people aren't going to look out of state for the identity of their victim. Also ensures that no one connects those cases. With the pattern found, Donna and Benny are trying to get foster care records, specifically of people who aged out of the system in every state part of the continental US. They figure that trafficking via plane and boat is a bit too obvious. But, even with the FBI breathing down their throats, it's taking a while."
"What about our two perps? They've talked yet."
"If they have, I don't know. Amara and Donna suggested keeping the two investigations separate if Momma and Dad Novak decided to look into what happened to their people. It won't do much good having them connected to murder cases. Also, in case they get a call about the info, there's no reason for them to be killed."
"You think they'll be killed?"
"I was looking back into Jones' background. It seemed that he was being investigated for not keeping squeaky clean. Kill him before he can say anything sounds par for the course."
"And you? What have you been doing?"
"Going into the entire background of the Novak family. I have every piece of financials, communications, whatever I can find them from when they got married. Nothing to suggest this goes earlier, but it's a start. Every movement they have made and will make, I'll know about it."
"And how legal is this?" Dean asked her.
"It's either publically accessible information or information the FBI has collected over time that didn't necessarily connect to anything. If we want those bastards to rot in prison, this needs to be well above board. I'm not going to risk a single thing."
Dean and Charlie had turned the corner to their usual work area before noticing that no one was there before dropping his stuff.
"Hey, Deano," a voice called from behind them. A tired Donna with bags under her eyes walked toward them with a large container of coffee and a box of donuts. "Did Charlie catch you up? We've been busy."
"Yeah, she did. Where is everyone?"
"We've moved to one of the conference rooms. It's our new headquarters for everything having to do with this case."
"It's a mess, but we have a murder board and yarn connecting everything," Charlie mentioned. "Looks like a TV set, if we're honest."
The trio continued getting to the conference room filled with papers on the tables and walls. Benny and Lucifer looked up at the door opening and gave a slight wave before going back to whatever they were doing.
"Alright," Dean started after making himself a space in the chaos. "What is there for me to do?"
"We need something that links everything together," Donna mentioned. "Lucifer is working on definitively linking all of the murder to the same person or group. Of those murders that have been definitively linked, Benny and I have been trying to identify victims. Charlie is getting every piece of information on the Novaks she can possibly find. What we need to now to definitively link to the Novaks and their associates with the murder victims. That's the one thing we haven't had the manpower here to do.
"If you can find something, I can get warrants for more information. We'll wait for arrest warrants until we have everything air-tight, so they don't go into hiding with some of their networks. Amara is keeping her cover right now, so they still believe they're in business. There have been some whispers since our two friends downstairs were arrested. She's going to keep her ears open for them."
"Alright, let's do this," Dean said, cracking his neck before booting up his computer before reaching for the first victim's folder.