I walk out of the court room after a day full of testifying. I am hungry and both of the kids are kicking and I have intense heartburn and I am tired. I decide to run home I need to keep active I have gained the minimum weight but I still feel self-conscious. I get home and shower. I am about to get into bed when my phone rings. I go to pic up the phone. I am tired, I have not slept in days both the babies have a decided that they will only sleep when I am doing paperwork but not when I need to sleep. I pic up my phone and it is my brother tommy. "What's up Tommy?" I ask him leaning back
"Reese" I shoot up the way he said it the panic in his voice scares me .
"What's wrong Tommy." Suddenly I am 13 again. I have taken over the role of my mom.
"Annie is gone." I am standing now I have put him on speaker and I am getting dressed. I am now in agent mode.
"Where are you?" I ask him.
"Orange County I will text you the address I have told the cops." I spend a bit more time calming him down as I am packing a bag. I hang up and call Hightower. It rings twice before she picks up.
"My niece has gone missing I want to take on the case, we don't have any cases at the moment." I am talking fast, fucking hormones, hiding emotions is a lot harder.
"Lisbon take breath what department has the case I will call a favor." I thank her and start to call the team, as I drive to the office. Letting them each know what is going on and to pack a bag and meet me at the CBI. When I get there. I walk to Janes roof area and knock on his door. He opens it.
"Lisbon what's wrong?" I hate how he can read me so well.
"Annie is missing" I tell him. He comes out of his room.
"Lisbon we will find her I promise" I don't know if I believe him. Everyone else gets to the CBI and I decide to wait to fill them in until we get there. When we in the air, Jane is in the set next to me and I realize that I have not told any of my family I am pregnant.
"They don't know." I say.
"Your family doesn't know your pregnant?" he is judging me I can tell. I shoot him a strong stink eye. I can't deal with this. After a hour we are landing. I can tell that Jane already has 50 different plans in. We talked about everything and nothing. We get to the station and I take a deep breath knowing I get out that car and everything becomes a lot more real.
I get out the car, and I walk towards the station getting ready mentally to walk in. I get to the doorway it is a medium sized building it is a suburban looking building on the outside area of Newport beach, not the nicest area but not horrible I get ready and walk in. I walk in and I feel all the eyes on me. I know what they are thinking, 'she is taking over the investigation but she is pregnant' 'god this is not going to go well' and so on but I push the urge to put them all in there place, I am here to find Annie nothing else. I put my stuff down and call the team. "Annie was last seen leaving for school today at 7 am no one has seen her since then, she is 14 and very independent Van Pelt I want you tracking phones financials anything and everything. Cho, Rigsby I need you retracing her steps find witnesses some one had to have seen her since she left for school. Jane you and I are going to talk to my brother." I finish by giving telling them what she is wearing: a blue top with jeans and a red backpack. I get in the car with Jane and rush to my brother's house I have not talked to him in over a year. I don't know what he is doing for work or where he is living. We pull up to a small house with a van outside it I get out the van and walk in. I see my brother before he sees me. He has dark marks under his eyes it is 3 am and he clearly has not slept. I take another breath and walk into view of him. I see him take me in stopping at my belly, I walk towards him giving him a big hug and he for the first time talks to me.
"Your pregnant." I can see he is hurt I have not told him and he is shocked but I put that to the side it is not are biggest problem or deal right now.
"We will talk about it when we find Annie, I promise but right now we need to find her." My heart breaks. I feel guilty for not telling him. I push it aside and take another breath. We sit down and I start the questioning. "Walk me though this morning." I say. I know we are going to find her but I am still scared.
"Well, it was like any other morning, I wake up and start to get ready. She then gets up and goes into the bathroom. She has a shower and comes out. She made a joke about my outfit" He is scared I can tell. "She then has a cup of coffee and leaves for school at around 7:15." He says.
"Was anything off about her anything at all?"
"No she was all good."
"Ok what about her mom? Who could want to take her?" I can see the pain in his eyes.
"You know her mom never wanted anything to do with her. Everyone loves her no one would want to hurt her." I know this but I still need to ask. Jane pipes up.
"Who do you think took her, you have an idea of who took her." I look at Jane then at Tommy and I know he is keeping something from me.
"Tommy now is not the time to keep anything quite." I tell him
"Fine. Well our neighbor has always been fond of her. It is not that big a deal but he was always trying to talk to her." Alarm bells go off in my head. I look to my brother and I am just reading the script because I don't know what else to say.
"Thank you. You have been very helpful." I tell him very monotone. Me and Jane leave and go to speak to the neighbor. We knock on the door and don't get a reply we knock again I call out stating we are the CBI and we get nothing. I try the door and it is locked. I call Van Pelt give her the name of the neighbor and tell her to check him out. I call the sheriff and tell them to send out another amber alert and widen the search. I am going though all of the motions talking to the other neighbors no one has seen her since she turned the corner. My phone rings.
It is Van Pelt "Boss I think I have got something. The neighbor had been a witness to 3 other missing girl cases all 14, all have brown hair." I am now very nervous.
"Good work. Look into his financials. Me and Jane will head back to the station." I call to Jane and then I realize that I can't find him we are standing outside the neighbors house once again. I see that the door is cracked open. God why did he have to break in. "Jane" I walk into the house and I am overwhelmed by how empty the house is. There is no art on the walls no rugs or decorations. There is a plain black leather love seat facing a tiny tv. The rest of the house is also eerily empty. I find Jane standing in the backyard. "We need to find this guy." I say. But I don't know how to go about that we do not have enough for a warrant the man has done nothing wrong. Me and Jane drive back to the station. I am tired and I want to put my feet up, my back hurts from walking around all day. When we get to the station one of the officers from the local force is sitting at my desk. The room is small and the desks are close together, mine is next to Van Pelts so I can sit and talk to her at the same time thankfully. I walk up to him and give him a look. He is out my seat so fast. I look to Van Pelt. "What else do we know about the neighbor"
"Well he is 38 single. He moves a lot but stays in California. He works for a realter downtown. He is a janitor. " she tells me. We talk for a bit more and I know we need a warrant for his financials. I decide to call up the judge. She is hesitant but after a few minutes agrees. I send Rigsby and Cho to his work, Jane goes with them. I am tired I have not slept in over 24 hours and I want coffee so bad. But I keep working I have paperwork to do and so I work on that until Van Pelt comes up to me. "Boss, I think I have got something, every month he takes out 2k in cash. His rent is only 500. Also at the times of each of kidnappings he would buy tape, rope, and tarp." I look at her.
"Find out where that money is going. We need to find what that money is being used for." I tell her. I keep working until Cho calls me.
"Cho?"
"Jack has not been in work today he also was not at work during the times the other girls went missing." He tells me. We need to find this man. I tell him to come back. I look at Jane and fill him in. I call on the chief of the local department to get me everything about the two other missing girls. He does. Amber alerts go out every hour though out the night. I have the local officers on stakeout at Jakes house. I stay up all night reading the files on the other girls. Jane stays up with me. The rest of the unit went back to there rooms at the local motel at 2 am. I am so tired. I have not sleep for over 48 hours and I can barely process things. I look at the clock and it is 3 am. I decide that I am going to take a nap. I have rented a motel room. So I get settled in my chair.
"Lisbon." I look up Jane is talking to me. "look at this." I am shocked. Jane letting me in on a thought prosses and plan. I want to make a joke but decide not to. I get orientated and go over to him. All of the desks in the office are covered in papers, maps, statement, and files. Me and Jane talk and he points out that in both of Jacks statements in the other cases he is called in and it takes him exactly 43 minutes to get to the station from then. I put it together.
"So he is keeping the girls about 40 minutes away from here give or take." I say to him grabbing a map. I look at the clock it is 6:15 the rest of the unit should be coming in soon. I stare at the map. My stomach rumbles and I get up and get a apple. Me and Jane look at the map some more but neither of us know the area, so the map does not help at all. I hear the door open and I see Van Pelt walking in with doughnuts. I want to go and hug her, but I don't. I fill her in as Cho and Rigsby enter. Then after about 30 more minutes Cho speaks.
"I think I found it." he says. He points to a collection of warehouses. Van Pelt sits down and five minutes later she has found it
"I looked at the owners of the warehouses. All but one of them are owned by large companies. The other one is own by a untraceable company." I am already walking to get my bullet proof vest that I sowed together out of a few old ones. I am giving instructions to the rest of the unit we head to the wear house and one of the officers from the local unit sends in the distraction smoke bomb. I barge in and it all happens so fast we have Jack in handcuffs so fast. I look around and see 3 girls in a room it looks like a TV set a big glass wall separating it from the rest of the place. I imagine him sitting there watching the girls. I rush over all of the girls are in fatal positions balled up in the corner of the room I see Annie's hear and I am in the room I call out her name. I see her look up. The relief in her eyes and then the shock as she notices my belly. The other girls look up. I run over to her. I give her a hug and then I comfort the other girls. Each of them is barely wearing anything. the other two girls are toothpick thin I can see they are hungry, and I am even more thankful we found her. One of the girls is so thin and starving that she can't walk me, and Annie help her up. On one shoulder I have the first girl leaning on me and on my other shoulder the other girl is leaning on me. I help them all out of the building and give my jacket to the thinnest girl when she starts shivering as we leave the building. I ride with Annie on the way back to the station just hugging her. I can see that she is broken. I take her to the station where Tommy meets us. I leave them as I give the rest of team instructions. Then I sit her down.
"I know this is going to be hard, but can you tell me what happened." Then for the next hour she tells me how she left the house, and he offers her a ride to school. How she denied him, but he insisted. How he then shoved her in the car and takes her to the warehouse. She tells me how he then held her at gun point and forced her to take her clothes off. How he then raped her and then watched though the glass as she meets the other two girls. How he smiled as the other girls comforted her. How he just watched the girls until 12 and then raped each girl again.
The story hurts to hear. When Annie finishes the story.
"Now it is your turn. What's up with the baby?" she asks me and I smile. It pleases me to know that she is still herself. I then tell her and my brother the story. I then drive them both home and feed them and let them both rest as I finish paperwork. I sleep on my brother's sofa that night. It feels ironic. I then email my other brothers filling them in on all of the events. I give my family final hugs and head back to Sacramento. During the flight, my brother's words echo in my head. "You're going to be a great mom Reese" I question myself am I? When we get to Sacramento instead of going home, I head to the CBI. Jane come with me. I sit down on my couch in my office and Jane sits next to me and then before I know it, I have fallen asleep on Janes shoulder.