"Hello, Mr. Oka," Joey greeted him. "These men are trying to find Christina. She has been kidnapped."
"And why are you here?"
"Sir, I'm Sergeant Harrelson, this is Sergeant Kay. Mrs Brown was kidnapped from the bus at the corner of 5th and Pacific. We're pretty sure the kidnapper has a car and ran down the back alley that leads to this house. Thanks to Mr. Sanchez, we have a picture of the kidnapper and hope to find a reference to the car here."
"Has the kidnapper already made demands?" Asked Oka, without making a move to turn to his PC.
"Sir, this is no kidnapping for ransom. The man has already tortured and killed three women in the last three years, we want to find him before he does the same with Christina Brown."
Oka looked at him in silence for a moment. Then he turned to the computer screens. "What time?"
"They got off at 7:38 a.m. So between seven and eight fifteen. "
The man typed and the image changed on several of the monitors. They stepped closer to the screens.
"That's the alley," Joey pointed to one.
Oka typed and the picture changed again. They watched several delivery vans and a woman at the wheel of a rental car leaving the alley.
Then came a dirty black impala. There was no license plate on the front of the car, the driver wore a baseball cap pulled down over his face and could not be recognized. But the t-shirt color was right. There was nothing to be seen in the car except him.
"It has to be him. Can you follow the car, see if it has a license plate on the back? "Hondo asked.
Oka grunted something incomprehensible and went back to his keyboard. They saw the car from several perspectives, there was actually a license plate on the rear, but completely encrusted with dirt so it was absolutely illegible. Hondo photographed the pictures. The clock on the edge showed 7:55.
When he had sent the pictures, his cell phone rang.
"Not here," Oka growled shortly.
Hondo kept the cell in hand. "Okay. Thank you. That helped us a bit."
Joey thanked him too and they left. When Deacon was about to say something in front of the garden door, Sanchez raised his hand and pointed to the house. "I'll walk home. If there is anything else we can do, please contact us."
"Thank you."
He gave hand signals to his colleagues to follow him. One block down they drove into the empty parking lot of a school, as he got out he dialed Luca's number.
"Here's Hondo, we hear you all. What do you have?"
"The car is a joke. But the surveillance images from the supermarket are awesome. The man's name is Orlando East, 26, and he's never had a real job in his life. Got expelled at sixteen, after various incidents, and has kept afloat with odd jobs ever since. Seems strange, but he doesn't have a criminal record, just a couple of parking tickets. But they don't match the car he's driving in the other picture."
"That name had to get him a lot of friends at school. Check if there are cars registered to him and whether there are still the license plates for which he got the parking tickets. Find something. He's had her for nine hours, each one more is one too many! "
"Got it, boss," Luca replied and hung up.
"We're going back," Hondo ordered and got into his car.

In the operations center, they met the rest of the team. The screens on the wall still showed the women's driver's licenses. Opposite was now the picture of the suspect.
"Doesn't look like a serial killer at all," Chris etched.
"Just like someone who can't get it up without torturing women," replied Luca. "We have two license plates assigned to him, but none of them belong to the Impala in the photo."
"Could you find the car anywhere after you had the direction?"
"No. He has apparently sneaked through back streets. No cameras."
Hondo felt the expectant looks of his colleagues as he sorted himself for a moment.
Then he knew what he was going to do.
"Luca, go to Hicks. Ask if we can call in Rose of RHD again. Their license plate recognition software could help us. "
"And what are you doing? Shouldn't you try Deac's angelic tongues?"
"I need him for something else. Try your best. You keep looking. Deac."
He could still hear Luca grumbling behind him: "This is a pretty damn thing for him," then his colleague followed him outside. Without a word, he got into his car and just as silently they drove off. Hondo saw Deacon raise his eyebrows as he turned into the coroner's yard.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Asked his colleague when he switched off the engine.
"About what?"
"Why you took me here with you. Or why Christina Brown is getting to you so much. Do you know her? "
"No."
"What is it then? Because she served? "
"More likely. She spent over ten years in the Navy. Her husband still does. Now she works at the hospital. And if your husband's radar works, she's pregnant too. And now this guy has her. This whole thing makes me sick. "
"Believe me, not just you. I know, you..."
"If you think it might help, pray as much as you can."
Deac nodded. "I will. But now I still don't know what we're doing here."
"The coroner who handled the second and third victim is still working here. I'm not giving up hope that we will find her alive. But depending on where he has hidden her, it may take a while until we have an ambulance on site. We are trained for gunshot wounds, gas and that sort of thing ... "
"You want to know if we can help her in any other way."
"Exactly."
He left the car. They asked the man at the gate about Dr. Woodrow, the guard briefly explained the way to an office on the second floor. Hondo heard Deacon mutter.
"Let me guess, you're glad he didn't send us down to basement?"
"Mhm."
They waited outside the door for a few minutes, then a man in his fifties came up to them.